Summer in SG pt 1: Delicacies!

Finally another post!
Yeah I just got back to Cupertino two days ago. So friggin jetlag, even till now. I only slept for 5 hours last night. Anyway, I'm here back to my slowly-awakening story telling mode, after a long time of being laconic. Well, let's just get started.

After spending nearly one and half month in Jakarta, I finally got to spend my last weekend in Asia not in Indonesia, but I picked a destination slightly further from the capital and out of the country border. Yup, Singapore is the one!! I haven't been there for years so it's really a thrill to finally pay our neighboring country a visit, especially I feel like Singapore is my third home (with Cupertino being the first and, Jakarta the second).

Spending one and a half month in Jakarta when you're on holiday - by any means, not doing anything in weekdays when your friends attend classes in their unis - can be hella boring. So going to Singapore is pretty much like giving me fresh air after being stuck in the messy capital city for a quite long time.

My parents and I booked the ticket exactly a week before departure. We first thought of going there on Lebaran week, but considering that there would be an explosion of people going out of town for vacation, chances to get tickets would lessen as well. So a week after Lebaran would be great cos tickets would be easier to find.

Anyway, my dad and I departed on Friday, September 16, 2011 on 9:30 am by Sriwijaya Air. Mom would catch up in the evening since she couldn't miss a day of work. There's actually a quite surprising moment on the plane. In an hour-long flight, I reckoned there wouldn't be any meals served, but apparently, there was. And even better, it's a HEAVY meal.

A slice of cake, some grapes, and the entree, traditional fried rice with sunnyside egg and spicy fried potatoes.

Sriwijaya Air I think I'm in love with you.
Nuff said.

We arrived at Changi at around 12-ish and decided to take a ride to the hotel by MRT. Oh how I miss this transportation. But since all MRT stops were nowhere really close to the hotel, we needed to stop at the closest stop (that's even quite far from the hotel) and take a taxi to the hotel. We picked Bugis to be our stop and hailed a taxi from there to the hotel.

Our hotel was located at the riverside, near Clarke Quay to be exact. Clarke Quay is a tourist attraction with many unique-themed restaurants. But if you want to dine there, you need to consider your budget cos the place is constantly dominated by foreign tourists, which means....

Anyway, I checked in with my dad at around 1.30 pm. The room was nice and all, but I was panicking over my phone which apparently didn't work in Singapore. But that wasn't just the problem. I had an appointment with my friends in an hour and I needed to get in contact with them. My phone received no signal. So I decided to swap with my dad's temporarily.

At around 2.30 pm, I went straight to Orchard Road to meet up with Eileena and Bella at Lucky Plaza, while my dad was still figuring out how to get my phone works. I give him credit for that...

Gong Cha bubble tea somewhere in Orchard Road.
Soooo darn delicious!

Then we went to Cineleisure and found a purikura booth. We decided to give it a try.
The result wasn't so bad. I kinda like how it turns out cos it automatically gives the effect of brighter skin and bolder, larger eyes, like the ones you see on cute Japanese girls (after all Purikura comes from Japan). Well, in short, it's cute! And we even got the chance to decorate each pics. The two below are randomly chosen.

From Cineleisure, we strolled down to another mall connected to Cineleisure. I don't know the name. Seriously, after landing in Singapore and getting to look around, I think the label "the city with most malls" should go to Singapore instead of Jakarta. I mean, Orchard Road is literally a road with rows of malls lining on its sides!

Oh and yes we spotted Mr Jung Yong Hwa aka the famous singer of CN Blue.
Looking good as always. I forgot what ad this is.

It was approaching 5.00 pm and we thought of having afternoon snacks. So we stopped by at a nearly crowded food court, found ourselves some seats and tried on this carrot cake. Nom nom.

The meeting ended up short cos Bella had a dinner plan with her family, and I had an appointment with my cousin coming up on 7. So I needed to rush to Bugis Junction to meet up with her. Beforehand, Eileena and I took Bella to her hotel where her family had already waited for her at the lobby. Then I was off to see my dad in front of 313 mall who was ready to take me to Bugis Junction by MRT.

And...I finally got to meet Monika, my cousin, at Bugis Junction, while my dad was leaving to pick up my mom somewhere (since she would be arriving in Singapore around late afternoon) Monika and I haven't met for nearly 8 months and she's currently studying dance in a prestigious art academy in Singapore. Look she's getting taller!
It's really sweet to finally meet her after 8 months. We're really close so you can imagine what it's like to finally reunite after a long time. Such an overwhelming feeling. Talking about sisterhood. Yeah I love her SOOOO much.

We basically just sat at the foodcourt while having dinner. I finally fulfilled one of my wishes that I hoped I could do in Singapore, which is to have a bite of its special fishball noodle soup!

Woops. Spotted: a receipt at the right hand corner of the pic :p

We spent the rest of the night just hanging out in Bugis Junction and Bugis Street, a row of shops located just Bugis Junction (The Junction's more like a mall, while the Street takes form of a marketplace selling items in lower price). I went crazy over the relatively cheap and clothes with good styles! It was unbelievable to see Monika - who lives nearby - did the same thing too. I ended up buying a nice $7 striped top and Monika got herself a different top with the same price and a wallet...WITH THE SAME PRICE!

I'm loving Singapore even more, especially I haven't explored Bugis Street before. So this place's kinda new to me.

The night was young but the half of the stores was already closed by the time we reached the Junction, leaving some restaurants opened till - maybe - midnight. I didn't know they close early at Singapore, unlike some places, which stay open till dawn especially on the weekend. I took a taxi back to the hotel, bidding Monika goodbye. We need to wait for another year to meet since we couldn't possibly meet the other day (she was so occupied with the whole Dance symposium she was participating that weekend, she even - I guess - sneaked out to see me. Love her even more).

Once I got back to the hotel, I was sooooo surprised to see my hotel room empty. My parents weren't there. Apparently my mom's flight happened to be delayed and I had to wait for them till around 11. When they reached my hotel room, my mom decided to get some rest while...my appetite suddenly kicked in. *horror music on*
My dad - who was also hungry all of a sudden - decided that we should look for something to eat that late evening. AMEN, it's not just me!!!!

We strolled around the famous riverside that we could access through the hotel's restaurant's door to see if there were some restaurants open. Across the river was a sophisticated looking German cafe - Bacchus - that provides beer and liquors with subtle, somehow exclusive vibe. I could see some young adults were sipping on their beer taken from a giant pitcher, and some couples had a warm talk with their wines before them on the table.

At first I was tempted to dine in since they had this bunch selection of fine, imported white wines, but since it lacks of family-friendly atmosphere, we decided to skip it.

Some part of the German cafe I talked about

Since no more restaurants were spotted around, we decided to go back to the hotel and had our midnight snack at the hotel's restaurant. I had cream soup for the appetizer then, my dad and I shared a super giant spaghetti! I mean, the size was totally ridiculous it even exceeded the space in the plate. I remembered mentioning the word "shared" to the maître d’ in hopes the spaghetti would come in a standard one portion. But apparently the maître d’ mistook the word "shared" and possibly interpreted it as in "two portions of spaghetti in a plate". Gee. No wonder.

Forgive my expressionless face.
I didn't know my dad was taking a picture of moi while waiting for our order.

Then I wrapped the night by watching The Haunting in my hotel's room. Can't wait for the other day to come! Another adventure in Singapore awaited!

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Total Food consumed that day:
- Sriwijaya Air meal
- Macaroon
- Gong Cha Bubble Tea
- Carrot Cake
- Fishball noodle soup
- Cream soup
- Spaghetti

Wow, Singapore, seriously, do you put some sort of enchantment on your visitors to become big eaters?

-To be continued-

Jakarta Pt 6: Bring the noise!

Following my internship and some random activities during my 1 1/2 month of summer vacation in Indonesia, I've got a special project (not really) to work on. Actually it's my dad's but I'm there to aid him or in short, be some kind of his assistant. Besides, it's not just any project. Remember the previous post? It has something to do with this post's topic.

Sooo basically my dad helped this freshly established music club grow, along with my former homeroom teacher - Mr B - as the advisor. Thus dad constantly comes to coach every Wednesday during after school time. I was fortunate to attend the club meetings and witness all the fun to kill my boring afternoon.

Mr B and dad arranged the accompaniment using guitar


Rani the main vocalist


Tabitha had fun with the cajon


The multitalented Ambar demonstrated her ability on piano

I honestly felt so lame seeing these girls rocking the music. They've got some serious talents there for the world to see. When I visited them (as seen from the pictures), they were rehearsing for the upcoming school anniversary event. My dad and I helped them picking the suitable songs that we believed not just students, but teachers, adults, and other guests as well would enjoy.

The decision settled on doing the acoustic cover on Katy Perry's Firework and Ello's Buka Semangat Baru for the performance. Those songs coincidentally deliver similar message which is to cheer someone up.

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On Saturday the same week, I came to school right after attending a club reunion to observe the final rehearsal before the D-day.

Too bad I missed the rehearsal (cos I was late for an hour or so) but the gathering wasn't over not till we munched on the JCO donuts I brought for the girls and Mr B. Anyway the pictures above were taken by my dad who had been at school since the beginning of the rehearsal. I asked for the girls' progress and seemed everyone was ready for the D-day! Good to hear!

Recess time people!
To be honest I love these pictures below. They strongly show the hardwork expressed from the faces of these girls and how they finally got some time to relax. Even though I might not participate much and I was merely an audience, I truly appreciate the effort they've put for the performance. They deserve thumbs up for that!

Right after the recess, we all decided to go home since it was already dark. But we couldn't miss any single moment to take some more pictures!





This additional picture features Pak Pendi and Pak Aji who are also school staff, who apparently happened to be at school as well during that time :)



Sadly, I didn't get to meet the girls after this meeting. Last time I heard from Mr B that the girls were doing a great job on the school anniversary as expected, drawing the attention of not just school staff but the foundation members as well.

This means a bright future awaits for these talented girls!
Wishing all the best for the music club!

Stay tuned for the next post, cos I'm going to cover my Singapore vacay!

Jakarta Pt 5: School visit

Heya!!!
Finally I get to post something daily-related.
It's been a pain uploading all the pics, but it wasn't till I realized all the pics I've been uploading are HQ, forcing me to compress all files into smaller sizes.

On Friday a few weeks ago, I went to school to meet up with my dad who has an appointment with my former homeroom teacher - Mr B regarding the development of a new music club at school (too bad they established it right after I graduated).

Beforehand, my friend - Widya - and I did a little strolling around school grounds and reminisce our times. Pretty much like this. the school's been temporarily moved to a new location, since the old one where I used to attend was under reconstruction. But despite all of that, the whole school atmosphere still felt very familiar to me!

P.S: You might not find any pictures with me in it due to some bad-hair-day issue, except the last picture cos it looks much better than the rest.

Cafeteria. Barely changes.


The Locker remains the same. Unlike lockers in American school, my school's lockers are categorized into classes and teachers like to place exam results and graded assignments in there.


Some girls spotted doing some kind of after school activity.


MY. CLASS!
Too bad I couldn't get in. It's locked.


All classrooms are now unexceptionally equipped with an operating computer and infocus.
How awesome is that?


Widya poses as a civic education teacher. Yeah right.

Last but not least, I met up with my dad who was jamming with Mr B and some other teachers, like Mr Jemmy (who's singing below). Another friend of mine, Carmen, caught up with me and Widya and we all ended up singing to random songs that day! I was completely unprepared with the whole spontaneous jam session. I don't memorize most song lyrics and they only instinctively popped out of jam session. So I ended up looking up on my mobile's internet for lyrics. It loads darn slow. -_-

After the jam was over, my dad dropped me, Carmen, and Widya at PIM, where we strolled for a while before settling in Area 51 food court to have dinner.
So I decided to help myself with a bowl of Yoshinoya. It's quite a surprise itself that I finally got to taste this in Indonesia. I've always been wondering why Indonesians bother to form a really long line just to munch on this small-portioned beef bowl. It tastes good but it's not really my most favorite. I first recognized Yoshinoya back in US and the restaurant - I hate to say this - is only filled with a few people. Maybe that's because I live in a relatively small town with most people who are not fans of rice dishes.

(Image from http://sendokgarpu.com)

I gotta say this: Yoshinoya in Indonesia is darn good! It's actually as good as the one in US. Even better, Yoshinoya here has much cheaper price at the same portion as in US.
Before leaving, we took pictures using Carmen's iPad at...the toilet -_-

Oh dear chubby cheeks, please be thinner.
I'm going to love you even more if you do that ^^

Counting down the days

HI GUYS
It's been over a month since my stay in Indonesia.

I'll be going back on the 23rd of September, which is...next week.

Happy? sad? Well, I'm in between. Happy cos...
I MISS USA.
That's true!
Here: Crossing the road is INSANE, nobody seems to care when someone you hold the door to let them to pass by, no staying up late at friends', no FREAKING FREE MINERAL WATER

But on the other hand, I know I'm going to miss a lot of things I'd encounter in Indonesia, something that even a country as great as US could never replace.

1. ~za FOOD
   Indonesian authentic food is definitely irreplaceable. There's actually an Indonesian restaurant where I live, but the price is ridiculous. But that's one thing I can tolerate cos I understand it must be hard to get those one-and-only Indonesian spices.
   
   
2. ~za RAIN
   Yeah I'm a rain person. The sound of heavy rain, the smell of acid rain (not good though), being in the car and look through the window where water's dripping down while listening to the music, and umbrellas. No matter how you think how terrible these things are, but still, nothing's going to replace rain in Indonesia
   
   
3. ~za TV
   It's a personal issue. I don't watch TV there.
   
   
4. ~za CLIMATE
   I guess now I get why Americans love going to Indonesia: cos it's a place where you don't need to bother yourself by wearing layers of outfit! Or think about what to wear on spring!
   
   
5. ~za HOUSE
   You know that song from Bolt? There is no home like the one you've got, cos that home belongs to you *tears* Quite explains everything. Last but not least...
   
   
6. ~za ROOM
   I must say I love my bed there rather than here. The blanket I have in Cupertino is totally comforting and it can even make me sleep for hours! But well, there are no rooms in the world - even though, say, I get offered a room to stay at a palace in England - that are going to replace my one and only bedroom.
   

I'm pretty sure there must be lots more than just 6 irreplaceable things.
Anyway, *laconic mode on* I'm off to Singapore tomorrow. I'll be back on Sunday evening and hopefully I'll get to post some more interesting stories before I go back to the US on Friday next week.

gonna miss my desk...

Room sweet room.
Take care of yourself room and the other 5 irreplaceable things. See you next year!

Yeah I'm going back to Indonesia next year.

Corner for Designers

Hi all, how's your week?

I know I made an entry not so long ago. I just wanted to share what I've been up to lately. Remember I mentioned something about getting a part-time job the other day? Yep, I'm going to reveal it this time. My cousin is currently working on an online company that provides crowdsource design. It's the first in Indonesia! So it really is a hit cos my cousin gets to introduce it to Indonesian community!

Click on Sibby - Le Mascotte - above to have her take you to Sribu.com
I didn't know she was a girl till today
Sibby is designed by Renata


Flyer designed by Renata

Sribu.com (Sribu literally means "a thousand") is targeted towards companies/individuals and independent graphic designers. It works where a company or an individual acts like a client places a graphic design request in the website. Then bunch of graphic designers would submit a design according to the request in a competition format. Eventually the client gets to choose which design pleases him or her the most. The chosen design is selected as the winner of the contest and the graphic designer gets rewarded with an amount of money! Sribu pretty much acts as a mediator that connects in-needs-of-design clients and freelance designers.

Just today, I started to get active in the office. We launched the site's blog that basically provides extensive info you need in everything graphic design and decided an official name for Sribu.com fans and followers: Sribuddy. I'm honored to work as the blog's daily contributor and I'm also responsible for the blog's customization and layout.

Make sure you guys check out both Sribu.com to see what service we're offering you and Sribu's Corner to stay updated with our latest posts!

Korean Indulgence

It's been a while since I haven't tweeted anything about Kpop or Kdrama!
I'm planning to see this in the future, maybe when I get back to the US since streaming in Indonesia would be such a pain (talking about the slow connection and all).


Heartstring (Korean title: You've Fallen for me) follows the lives of two university students who major in different music genre. Their lives got intertwined in a concert. The drama stars Jung Yong Hwa and Park Shin Hye, marking the second time of their collaboration since You're Beautiful.

Yong Hwa and Shin Hye in the same project together, again, you know what that means????
Uber awesomeness... ^^

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I've been listening to some cool, new Kpop songs these days, and some of them got stuck in my mind for days.

MBLAQ - Monalisa

The guitar in the background music just...rules!
And can I just kidnap Thunder?

2PM - Hands up

Taecyeon. Nichkhun. Period...
*brb spazzing*

T-ara - Roly Poly

Here's what I like about T-ara. Their concept might be a girly but there's something that distinguishes them from SNSD. T-ara has more diverse concept in each song they have, making their song and style memorable. Last time in "Yayaya", T-ara came up with a Native American concept, and Bo Peep's theme is somehow feline-ish, cat-ish (with the whole cat dance). This time - despite the utterly long MV - T-ara emerges with a Grease-like 70s theme.

2NE1 - I am the Best

CL's "Naega jeil jal naga" lyric and her unique tone are really catchy to my ears I even instinctively sing it at some points.
Before this song, I was never a big fan of 2NE1. Thanks to I am the Best, I started to listen to all of their songs.

Last but not least....

Super Junior - Mr Simple

Gee, I'm biased, aren't I?
I know that.

Jakarta Pt 4: Evening Snack

The second weekend wasn't as busy as last week. I hung out with Eileena, Bella, and Nancy to Grand Indonesia. We pretty much just walked around like most teenage girls would do in the mall, stopped by at some shops whose items caught our attention even though we ended up not buying anything.

However, the highlight of the event itself lies on the early dinner we had. Considering it was fasting month and my friends kindly intended to dine by the time I broke my fasting, we decided to have early dinner at around break fasting time.

Waraku is the restaurant we picked, which is popular with its large size of noodle served in an enormous bowl. We were quite in the mood to have some Japanese dining so Waraku would be the best choice as it's hardly in any other malls in Jakarta.
It was weird how I wasn't so hungry that day. I even skipped a few minutes late for the break fasting moments. Here's what I had.

Picture credit to: http://www.koprol.com/places/16751

The picture doesn't show the exact food that I had, but I just wanted to give you the idea on how big the bowl really was. It was literally big. The biggest bowl you might ever see lying there on your dining table. Probably as big as a sink. The portion itself isn't as big as I thought it'd be. But the size of the bowl is extremely overwhelming.

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On Saturday still on the same week, in the morning, I had a staff meeting at Sarinah with fellow coworkers from a crowd-source online company I'm working in. The meeting ended later than expected, while I was having only two hours to rest before taking off to Taman Anggrek to meet up with Thalia and Lala. It marks the second time of my visit to the mall since last week with Eileena and Bella.

There were originally going to be three more people to join the day with Thalia, Lala, and me, but unfortunately they couldn't make it there.
Lala, Thalia, and I were planning to ice-skate, but it was closed due to cleaning before we could even reach there. The cleaning process took more than an hour meanwhile we were supposed to be having dinner an hour later.

Then, there seemed to be a problem with Thalia that we needed to help her solving it. It was actually easy, but the whole procedure made it more complicated. Thank goodness we were able to finish everything off before dinner time.

Doesn't the sushi tempt you?
Lala had it for her dinner, and she said the sushi was the best in the mall. I got to try that next time.

We couldn't hang out any longer since we needed to go. It might be a short hang-out but fun enough! I'm really sad Lala couldn't manage to meet me and Thalia anymore, since she had flown back to Beijing :(. We were planning to meet up again on Eid holiday, but seems family plans on holiday had kept us all from getting together. Schedule was pretty tough! ><

That's it I got for today. It might be a considerably short post with many pictures, but I'm going to keep posting some more soon!

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I'm currently customizing the blog and focusing particularly on the blogroll list. Since the link list keeps expanding, I'm planning to replace the blogroll format more with a link list to make it look less cluttered. Hope it'll be done pretty soon!

If you haven't noticed, I added a feature for you site owners and bloggers to plug your site to my blog. It's pretty easy, cos all you need to do is just fill out the form. Then I'll be more than glad to put up your link!