Today is Indonesia’s Independence Day. But it has nothing to do with the story, anyway. Just happened to see something not so ordinary on my bus trip to Orchard Road.
After finished working in the office, I went to Orchard Road to buy some personal stuffs, riding bus N° 14 sitting on the upper deck. In the first few minutes of the trip, I heard several times banging noises as the lower part of the bus seemed to hit the road. And when it stopped several people at the bus stop were seen looking at that lower part, like something is wrong.
Few stops later, the bus stopped completely and I heard from below the sound of the machines beeping as people tapping out. Few people who were sitting at the upper deck started to come down, but I kept waiting as it was only 1 stop ahead to my destination. After few minutes, the waiting time for people to alight didn’t seem to be normal anymore and I decided to come down too.
Below, turned out that the driver was asking people to tap out at the machine that reads “Vehicle malfunction, free ride” and giving a receipt. I gladly tapped out to cancel my earlier payment and retrieve the receipt. However, what I first thought as a receipt turned out to be a complimentary additional bus trip. I then used it to take the connecting bus to my destination. It may be a waste since I only used it for 1 stop ride. But turned out the driver didn’t take the receipt from me, so I am entitled to at least one more complimentary trip, I guess… đ
And please forgive me for lack of posts, I just injured my knee I couldn’t go out too much recently.
After 2.5 years of part time study in NUS, I have finally got the right to retrieve my master degree and participated in the graduation ceremony. The ceremony, or “commencement”, is one thing, but it was the time where people who are close to me came to Singapore to celebrate with me. And this serious business turned into an exciting plan when I found out that the room rate for a hotel in Sentosa Island is not much different than the ones in city. And so I booked the hotel at Sentosa for 4 days of fun, and only 2 hours of commencement (wait, you said 8 days? well, keep reading…).
My parents, brother, and our girlfriends arrived at Singapore on Sunday afternoon after a 1.5 hours of flight from Jakarta. Carrying big bags with us including myself, we took a maxi cab straight to the hotel to check in. We stayed at Siloso Beach Resort, just next to the Wave House Sentosa. It’s would be a perfect place (it’s a stone throw away to the beach), if only there are no tankers resting at the sea, practically covering most part of the horizon. The rest of the day was spent walking around the beach, followed by shopping at the Chinatown area. In the evening, we went to my landlord’s house, who was very kind to invite us for a home-cooked dinner at her house. Few hours later, we left her house with the hope to catch the 9 PM Crane Dance attraction. Unfortunately, the machine was down for maintenance on that day, leaving us only to watch the Lake of Dreams at 9.20 PM. It was okay.
The next day, four of us went to the Universal Studios Singapore, while my parents preferred to go shopping as they have been there before and a second visit is not that interesting anymore. I didn’t expect to be that crowded inside the theme park on Monday. But it was. Except for the Spielberg’s effect showcase, Shrek 4D and Water World, it took about and hour to wait in the queue (and less than 10 minutes in the ride itself). The most exciting attraction was, as before, the Mummy’s roller coaster. At the end of the day, we didn’t ride the infamous Battlestar Galactica, cowardly backing off when we saw that the estimated waiting time is at least 1.5 hour. In the evening, we headed to nearby Vivo City mall to buy some souvenirs, as well as to have dinner at the Food Republic on the top floor. I always like to dine here for its oldies-themed interior design. We then met my parents who were there since afternoon and went back to the hotel to finish the day.
Trip to Universal Studios Singapore
The third day was the commencement day. Since it was held in the afternoon, I spent the lazy morning swimming at the hotel’s swimming pool. There was a man made waterfall beside the swimming pool, giving a natural feeling, although a bit awkward. After a late breakfast, we walked at the beach, again lazily enjoying the scenery and the breeze before we had to go for the commencement. About 12 noon, we went to NUS to have dinner at a cafe in Mochtar Riady building. This is a new building owned by the Business School (while they gave their older COM2 building to School of Computing). Then, shortly before 2 PM we took internal shuttle buses to go to the venue at University Cultural Center.
The commencement itself was good and well managed. But perhaps it was too formal to me. It’s more difficult to wear the gown, compared to what I wore in my undergraduate commencement. The seats were arranged in a somewhat random manner, hence I didn’t know the guys who sat next to me. While this is quite normal given the large number of students, it just gave me an idea of a facebook app that retrieves the friend connections from facebook (with student’s consent, of course) and tries to group students with their friends as close as possible. Anyway.., the current seating arrangement turned out to be not so random for some people. The guy who sat on my left turned out to be a good friend of the guy on my right, hence they spent most of the time chatting with each other with me in the middle. After sometime I politely asked one of them to switch place with me, to allow them chat easier and give a relieve for me for not being a man-in-the-middle. The best part of the commencement was, of course when it ended and I had the chance to meet and greet each other and took pictures with fellow graduates I knew. It was such an exciting experience, realizing what we have been through together and finally got the fruit of our labor.
The night was again spent by lazily enjoying the beach, as this was the last night in Singapore. At the next day, most of us went back to Jakarta, but me and my girlfriend took a separate flight to Bandung. Yes, I indeed took the flight to Indonesia! I actually decided to take more leave and spent the whole week for vacation instead of just watching them gone and spend the rest of the week at the office cube. And then the next 4 days of adventure begins! (to be continued…)
Just after my visit to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum, I went to a nearby museum namely the Red Dot Design Museum. It exhibits various award-winning industrial designs, as well as sell them in the museum shop. There’s not much to tell here, just the fact that the museum was relatively small, but contain a lot of interesting stuffs inside. And when you see the ideas, most will make you think “why nobody thought of it before!”. I share some of the ideas here, so enjoy! (if the slideshow is too fast, you can pause it with the button)
My favorite is KeepIt. What’s yours?
Red Dot Museum is located at N° 28 Maxwell Road, Singapore 069120. It is reachable by Tanjong Pagar MRT.
Buddhists celebration day Vesak is observed as public holiday in Singapore. This year Vesak Day fell on Tuesday, making the day-off a bit awkward. It was just a one day holiday, so I couldn’t go too far (like, going back home to Indonesia), but spending the day at home was just plain stupid. I was in the condition of what Indonesians call “style-death” (mati gaya): I really didn’t know what to do for several hours in the morning.
Well, the answer turned out to be actually simple: it’s a Buddhist day, so the best place to go is, the temple! There is a temple in Chinatown open for public, namely the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum (even from the name you know it’s way more than just a temple). This temple is 4 storeys high, plus a rooftop structure; and anyone regardless of religion can enter, as long as you wear decent clothes.
The first storey is where I started. Many devotees came to pray, therefore it was quite crowded inside the building. There were some rituals can be done inside the temple. Some devotees queued to get a chance to “bath the Buddha statue”, which merely to pour fresh water into a small statue (my landlord told me about this earlier in the morning, so it’s nice to get a first view look). There was another interesting ritual, which was to put 100 coins into 100 bowls, placed contiguously next to the walls. It seemed that each bowl represent one god, as there were many god-like statues behind the bowls. That interested me to give it a try, by exchanging $10 notes with a hundred 10 cents coins. However, somehow I ran out of coins before I could put into the last four bowls; I must have mistakenly put more than a coin in the bowl before. Judging from the number of coins inside the last few bowls, seems that other people made the same mistake, anyway. Pity those poor last gods..
Then I went to the 4th floor, which where the tooh relic was located. The place was more sacred, so we had to take off our shoes before entering the room, and we were not allowed to take photograph. Another devotees and some monks were praying in front of the tooth relic, separated by a huge glass wall. By now you should’ve suspect that there is something special about the relic. Well, aside from being sacred, it’s made from 320 kg of pure gold! (clink clink..). In this floor, people could also pour some water to the statue there.
Next stop is the rooftop. Remember there were 100 bowls in the first floor? I imagined the people working in the temple was very persistent having to maintain those 100 bowls… until I saw the 100,000 Buddhas pavilion! There were actually 100,000 small statues inside the pavilion, each individually numbered. There were also a giant cyclinder rolling inside the pavilion. Devotees could hold on to the cyclinder while walking around the pavilion.
On the third floor there was a museum, showing yet another statues. And another devotees pouring water into the Buddha statue. But this time there was a printed description about the “Bathing the Buddha” ritual (finally, an explanation!). It originated from a story of 9 nagas spraying purified water into a newborn Buddha. Since then, devotees do this kind of ritual every 8th day of 4th lunar month anually.
There was not much to see in 2nd floor, so it concluded my visit to the temple. Although I’m not a Buddhist, it was quite an interesting experience, especially to understand how people from different religion pay homage to the Gods.
Buddha Tooth Rellic Temple and Museum is located at N° 288 South Bridge Road and accessible from either Chinatown or Tanjong Pagar MRT.
Biennale is Italian for “every other year”. In Singapore, the word is taken to name a bi-yearly art event that is held in various places. When I said various places, it did really vary. In this year biennale, it took place at a museum, abandoned airport, as well as the merlion statue near Esplanade Theater (which many people have mistaken it as reparation work).
I’ve been to the 2009 Biennale with my friends, and I didn’t want to miss the 2011 one. This time, I also went with my friends, but we only went to the exhibits which are free of charge. We started around 10.30 in the morning by visiting the Old Kallang Airport. Some of us came early, while the rest were slightly late. While waiting the others, we walked around the grassfield in front of the building. It was interesting, because what I thought earlier as thrashes were acually artworks. There were opened briefcases with pots and plants inside it, or a glass box containing textbooks from the olden days.
Inside the building, there were even weirder exhibitions. In one big room, there was a giant mock up of a fabric factory, with the resulting giant fabrics all around, made of papers and wires. In another half-painted room, there were furnitures from Ikea. The room that interested me the most was a simple dark room, with only neon lamps bent and placed to represent the phrase “Don’t Worry”. It was very simple, yet very subtle. Another interesting exhibition is, well, not the exhibition itself, but a sign that said something like this: “On 13 March 2011, a cleaner accidentally removed some stuffs, which he didn’t know they are part of the artwork”. Well, you never know how an artwork can transform to something else more interesting.
Nearing lunchtime, we were starting to get hungry, and there was only a small coffee shop there in Old Kallang Airport, so we decided to move to another exhibition, Hotel Merlion, because it’s closer  to various restaurants in the city. This is the exhibit most visible to tourists, as it is located at the center of the city, and without the makeover itself, Merlion has already been a tourist destination. From outside, it looked like just a red box covering the Merlion statue.
We had to wait in line to get into the room, and there were about 50 persons in the line. However, the organizer has managed it nicely so that people won’t have to wait so long, as well as having ample time inside to enjoy the room. As usual, there was an annoying behavior from  some people, trying to have 2-3 people in the queue, then “smuggling” another 4 to join them by cutting the line, after their turn to enter the exhibit was about to come. I was standing in front of them, so it didn’t make our turn slower. But it did affect our experience inside the hotel, since the organizer has limited the number of persons inside the room to avoid overcrowding.
After few minutes of sightseeing and photo taking, the organizer asked us to leave the room to give chance to another eager tourists. And that marked the end of our tour to the Biennale. Quite a short trip, but it was interesting.
Trivia: The Merlion Hotel did serve as a real hotel room at night, for few months. People can check in the late evening, and have to check out in the morning. Booking was made through phone call to a certain phone number served by a single operatory only. It was fully booked just an hour after the line was opened [1].
The past week has been quite exhausting, so I switched back to mother nature for a weekend refreshment. This time, it’s the Singapore Botanical Garden. I’ve been here before (the post here and here), and many time I went through some part of the garden when I jog. Anyhow, it’s still interesting to visit, and this time I visited also the National Orchid Garden, for a student entrance fee of $1 (public is $5).
I don’t have enough time to write now, so I just share some pictures here. Click on the pictures to see the larger version, or click here to see the track that I walked through.
Last weekend, I stumbled upon an article about Southern Islands in the Singapore Tourism Board’s website. Shortly after reading and googling several other sites, I said to myself “I have to go there!”. These islands are located south of Singapore, and relatively untouched by civilization, even compared to Pulau Ubin.
This Saturday, I have collected 8 persons including me, to go to some of the islands, namely St. John, Lazarus and Kusu island. Interestingly enough, Google Maps has very limited information about these islands. The islands do not have a shape information in roadmap view, and in satellite view the non-updated labels are only available in Malay language.
On Saturdays, there are only three ferry round trips to this island, having the interval of 3 hours. That was why during our trip, we really had to come to the pier on time at 9 in the morning. Unfortunately, two of us were late by few minutes, hence they couldn’t board the morning ferry. Waiting another 3 hours was not a very good option for them, therefore leaving only six of us continuing the journey. One of those six came in last minute in a rush, and we gave him claps cheers when he arrived.
St. John
After about 20 minutes journey, we arrived at the St. John island, a.k.a. Pulau Sakijang Bendera. Just as “advertised”, the island was quite quiet, with the exception of one worker fixing the concrete pathway. And if you have the same question as me, “whether I can get a GSM signal there?”, the answer is yes. Even better, you can also get Indonesian GSM signals too, probably from Batam. The next ferry will be at 12.45, so we had about 3 hours to spend in this island. So we walked, and after few meters, we arrived at the swimming lagoon, a relatively clean man made shore. We just played at the water and sat at the shelter nearby.
We continued walking to the camp area, which has several “barracks” that can accommodate 60 persons each. This area is fenced, and there were several guard towers to watch the fences. At one gate, there is a sign “Out of Bound to non-campers”. But we didn’t care. Who cares? However after few steps walking inside, there were already a lady approaching us, saying that they are having private events in which they had booked the whole camp. Therefore we quit the area and walked to the other entrance that led to the camp office. I and David gave it a visit to check on the details of these.
Card games at St. John Island
Afterwards, we walked again towards the Marine Aquaculture Centre. Unfortunately, this place was closed for public and visitor must request a permit from another building not so close from there, so we skipped this. We walked again to the beach, but then we spent sometime on the benches playing cards. A regular card games, but this time we played far away from the concrete jungle, so you can see in the picture our very happy faces, far from city life stresses.
Lazarus
After few minutes playing, we walked again to Lazarus island, a.k.a. Pulau Sakijang Pelepah. It is accessible from Lazarus island through a man made land forming a bridge connecting those two bigger islands. As the sign read, public are “discouraged” to enter this area since it had yet to be developed, but again, why bother to care? It has another beautiful (well, compared to other Singapore’s beaches) but silent beaches. There too was a group of people taking photo shoots of a girl dressed in gown, probably for a magazine cover or something.
Lazarus Island beach
It was almost 12.45, so we headed back to the jetty. We still had some time near the jetty, so some of us had our lunch there. Then we boarded the ferry. It was a different ferry from previous one, and this one was better. There were the regular passenger cabin, the open space upper deck, and a VIP room. It was too comfortable in the VIP room that we stayed there for the journey. Fortunately, nobody asked us to leave that room.
Kusu
The last stop was Kusu Island, a.k.a. Pulau Tembakul. In some other months, this turtle-themed island is visited by pilgrims. But it was not that month when we went there, so the island was very quiet. Upon reaching the jetty, we were greeted by a lady who counted the number of people entering the island, as well as reminding us the time of last ferry, 4.30 PM. We fist visited the shore and stayed there for some time, enjoying the nature with background music from Buena Vista Social Club.
Kusu Island beach
Then we headed to the small temple there. There were some statues, and interestingly enough a sign describing about 5 different versions of tale on how this island was made. Inside the temple, there were real turtles who were taken care by the temple maintainer.
There was also a wishing well, in which you need to throw a coin inside it after making a wish. But there were 3 bells inside the well that you need to hit one of them. I managed to hit 2 out of 3 times with 20 cents coins. But the best was thrown by Hafidh who made the bell rang sharply.
There was not much to do left in this tiny island. So we just sat at a bench and chatted for half an hour while waiting for the next boat to depart at 2.30 PM.
Just as we left Kusu island, it started to rain. We were considered very lucky, that the weather was just perfect when we were there: not to hot, but also not raining. About 20 minutes later, we were back at the mainland.
Conclusion
These southern islands are best if you want to rest and unwind, away from the busy civilization (turn off your data connection for best result). However, if you look for attractions, you may not find many of them here. This place, especially St. John, may be at is best if you have a gathering with your friends, as there were also barbeque pits and a bungalow that can accommodate 10 persons. Just be prepared with occasional noise like the pathway fixing we met upon arriving, or several fighter jets that were having some exercises there.
St. John, Lazarus and Kusu Island is accessible by taking a ferry (provided by Island Cruise) from Marina South Pier. Only several trips per day, costing $15 for round trip to all the three islands. Marina South Pier is located at N° 31 Marina Coastal Drive, Singapore 018988.
If you saw a crazy guy in full sport attire running around Sentosa beach last Saturday, well that’s me. While waiting for the Dinner and Dance to start later that evening, I spent few hours in Sentosa for sightseeing and jogging for exercise. It is one way to allow myself indulge with the food provided at the party. The Sentosa management may claim that it’s the Asia’s favorite playground, but personally I don’t really like Sentosa; with the artificial beaches and many constructions going on to replace old, non-money-making attractions. However, it is still an okay spot for relaxing.
Where were we? Oh, right. In fact I went to Sentosa to attend the company’s annual Dinner and Dance which was held at the Resort World’s convention center. It was a costume party with a “movie character” theme. I didn’t wear any costume since I assumed many people in my department would not wear one too. I’m in R&D, by the way. It’s a decision I slightly regretted, since though not many, some people really wore costumes. It’s a once in a year experience to act crazy.
The event was started by the company’s Asia president entering the venue, dressed as a Hongkong mafia, complete with 2 bodyguards that in fact are our own employees. As well said by the host Daniel Ong, it’s one chance that you see upper management people act funny. He talked about the company achievements in 2010, but I believe nobody really listened as we were already in party mode. The host on the other hand had successfully liven up the atmosphere with his witty jokes. One of my favorite was when a girl made mistake on her English grammar, he replied with “You speak bad England, huh?”
There were some attractions, but for me the most interesting was the flashmob, where suddenly out of nowhere some people come to the front to dance together with the same pattern. We only realized that one person on our table was missing when we saw him in front joining the dance.
In this event, I also spent some time taking pictures with some characters, such as Nobita, Tinkerbell, Queen Amigdala and Robin Hood. Seemed that the weirder the costume a person wore, more people coming to them for taking pictures.
The Dinner and Dance closed around 23.30 with the final draw for the 1st door prize, a travel package worth S$2,000 which I didn’t win. Afterwards, the dance floor was opened, but unfortunately my friends chose to go home since transport will be difficult after midnight. Therefore I decided to go with them since I didn’t want to go back alone.
All in all, it was an exciting experience to have an annual party with colleagues, after what we have done together for the whole year. Looking forward for another great year! and party!
As a bonus, here is a picture of Sentosa beach in panoramic mode (click the picture for more):
After giving up persuading my friend to go to CSI Exhibition ($20 for geek stuff, too expensive!), I finally decided to go to NUS (National University of Singapore) Museum instead, alone. It’s funny that I have been taking the master course for 2 years here in NUS, but only recently I visited the museum.
The museum is located next to the University Cultural Center, another building which is normally visited by the lovely PM Lee at least once a year. The museum has 3 levels, and the main entrance leads you to the 2nd level. Nobody was there except the receptionist when I entered the museum. She reminded me to not using flash while taking photographs, answered with a short confirmation from me.
The 2nd level exhibits fossils and artifacts from the past, as well as their sculptures and paintings. There was one room also showing pictures and stories of mystical rituals in Singapore. From the past. There is no more ghost now in Singapore.
I then walked down the stairs to the 1st level. There was only 2 persons there, a security guard and another receptionist. The guard kept looking at me while I was walking towards the exhibition room, and even when I browsed inside. It’s a pity for him, there’s nobody else he can watch to fulfill his duty. The receptionist looked as bored as the guard, constantly looking at the LCD monitor she had. And when I walked past her, I could see her playing the Solitaire game. Pity her, too.
Oh, the exhibition. At the 1st level, there were 2 rooms. One room displayed ancient Chinese ceramics, while the other exhibited paint themed work of modern artists, in collaboration with a paint company. There I found another visitor, at last. I just smiled at her and spoke no more. While looking at the works, my head hit a signboard hanged to the ceiling, and made it swing lightly. The sign read “I would tell the truth”. Well, I tell you the truth that I did hit that signboard.
Then I moved to the 3rd floor, where artistic but freaky sculptures are exhibited. Some of them showed nudity, but not in pornographic style.
This 3rd floor finalized my visit to the museum. Pretty exciting visit, though very quiet inside.
NUS Museum is located at N° 50 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119279. Admission is free.
Today is Indonesia’s Independence Day. But it has nothing to do with the story, anyway. Just happened to see something not so ordinary on my bus trip to Orchard Road.
