Bangkok (and Pattaya), 3 October 2014

Everything we had had planned for this day could not be cancelled, as our group had two big visit that cost a lot (compared to others) with exact date.
1. Madame Tussauds Bangkok
2. Tiffany Shows in Pattaya

Here we go....

Friday, 3 October 2014
We bought ticket for Madame Tussauds Bangkok online in its website. By arriving before 1200, we could get 40% discount (okay the promotion may be varied through the time). The museum was located in Siam Discovery Shopping Centre, only one BTS station far from Ratchathewi BTS Station.

Bangkok, 2 October 2014

A good trip always needs a good commitment, especially on what time we start moving. And during this trip, we decided to move at 8 every morning. Did not get any free hotel breakfast (oh yeah, we took the cheapest room), we bought meals on the way.

I have no clue on what is written but I think she sells tomyum soup.
I did not buy it.

Bangkok, 1 October 2014

This post maybe a bit too late, but I still believe it's better than never. Lol.

I went to Bangkok with three of my friends, Novia, Arini and Risa on 1-5 October 2015. Actually it was only three of us without Risa that planned to go buy buying (as usual) promo ticket from AirA*ia, but later Risa joined us on the trip. So here is my trip diary.....

Okay at first, here we are on our last trip meeting.
From left: Novia, me, Risa, Arini

Wednesday, 1 October 2014
We departed from Soekarno-Hatta airport to Kuala Lumpur with 0825 flight and arrived at 1130, maybe. I forgot actually. We spent time until next flight on 1625 by looking around enjoying new KLIA2 airport. It was a huge airport with futuristic design and of course, big investment. I wonder whether this kind of investment will give any profit one day.

I do not have any picture of the airport.

Holiday with Love #HWL

Keybeesee presents Holiday with Love

PK 22 LPDP: Sedya Sena Sura

Sebagai salah satu penerima Beasiswa Pendidikan Indonesia LPDP, pada seminggu antara 16 – 22 November 2014 kemarin saya berkesempatan mengikuti kegiatan Persiapan Keberangkatan angkatan 22 (PK 22) di Wisma Hijau, Cimanggis, Depok. Selama seminggu, saya bertemu dengan 124 penerima beasiswa lainnya dan juga para pembicara yang sangat inspiratif.

Kuala Lumpur, 15 - 17 August 2014

Such a short trip! I arrived in KL at 13.00 on 15 August and left 48 hours after. I had no intention to come when suddenly my aunt asked me to accompany her. Let's see what I got from there.

1. Accommodation
My hotel is in KL Sentral area (the name is Prescott Hotel KL Sentral) that is highly populated by Indian. There is bus station that connects directly to/from airport (I flew with Air Asia, thus the airport is KLIA2) in this area, and this is the main reason why I chose KL Sentral to stay. If I am not mistakes, there is two bus providers for route KLIA2 - KL Sentral: Sky Bus (owned by Air Asia) and the other one I forget the name hahaha. The ticket price is RM 10 per person.

Talking About Superpower: Teleport and Self-Division

I have always been wanting to have superpower annnnnndd it is teleport! This superpower is really useful. Say, you have a tight meeting schedule in different places, you can just finish one light heartedly before easily presenting yourself in other meeting! Especially in Jakarta (with traffic everywhere), this superpower is really really really suitable!

Or suppose you are a lazy person, waking up right before the time you set to see other people. With teleport, you can just get ready 5 minutes before and blarr!! You arrive.

Or suppose you have an appointment in one place, but due to force majeur conditions, you can not go from your current place (say, damaging demonstration -- yeah it happened to me), use your power and ta dahhh you arrive.

In fact, I am a slow moving person with sometimes hostile schedule that I need this power to help me manage everything (halhah). But there comes another problem: how if your schedule exactly in the same time??? Teleport can not solve it, then you need what so called self-division!

Personally, this superpower does not attract me like teleport, but somehow it helps you to allow yourself being in two different places at the same time. I have one big question related to this: are my divided self sharing one mind? I mean, suppose half of me is in office and the other half is in client, each experiences different activities, are they connected? If yes, how it could be? One mind can not share two different things at the same time! But if they don't, then how to reconcile it??

Suppose you have to work but you are still sleepy, and you need an hour to get into workplace, divide yourself would not help, because half of your mind is working while the other one still sleeping.

The difference is clear, right? Overall, teleport talks about being in same place (because it reduces space between places into zero) at different time, while self-division talks about being in different places at the same time.

If it is possible to have both of them, your life will be much much much easier. But for me personally, I will be glad to have teleport power hahahahha. I don't know who am I begging on. Oh God, You know that it is You!

A Tale of My Little Girl 6

The red stone may not be shining, but its existence darkened others around it.

The world was still the one before my little girl knew the stone. But now she had owned it for a moment and suddenly it was gone, she saw this world differently. Running out her tears, all she did was just sitting in the riverbank with her blank eyes, blank mind, missing what she had lost.

Practically, she was just starting life all over and she had a choice to pretend that the stone had never been hers before. Morning still gave its freshness and sun was still hot at noon. But the stone had once shone its light directly to her eyes, and just like any event of this, once it disappeared, she was temporary blind. The light in her mind was the stone that currently was somewhere out of her reach. The rest was only darkness.

This night when she closed her eyes, forcing herself to sleep, she saw the stone in her imagination. It was still shining, exactly like the girl had ever remembered. Finding her lovely stone in her memories, she chose to live it, not to open her eyes again.

A Tale of My Little Girl 5

This man held a little boy's hand. They came one morning, standing in front of my little girl's door right before she left the hut. After a long pause between three of them, together they walked to the riverbank and sat. My girl saw that even in when they are sitting, the man didn't release his hand from the boy's hand.

I don't really know how they communicated. The girl had never seen people until some times ago. Thus I believe that she also had no skill to talk to other people. But hey, they did communicate.

A Tale of My Little Girl 4

Days passed fast. Since the time my little girl found the red stone, it had been becoming the centre of her life. She put it in her pocket and carried it everywhere. Each about half an hour, she took the stone from its place just to see the sunshine it reflected. So this obsession had placed its root so deep in this girl's mind. Maybe for her, the stone itself had become a part of herself. She was really happy about her life and not a single thought crossed her mind that something could change.

Then everything started to change when that man came into her life.

A Tale of My Little Girl 3

She had never felt lonely. In fact, she didn't know the existence of the feeling. But today, as the sun rose and woke her up, she had this. This feeling of comparing her solitude with other's togetherness struck her. It was like magnetic force attracting her to the community she saw yesterday. Her brain worked so fast calling back everything has happened and without another minute to wait, she ran towards the place where people had been gathering.

The whole group was interesting. She sat and watched from far. When the sun was right above her head, she moved to hide under a group of trees, looking for a shade. There was someone different among all, she realised. While everyone was living in a tent with each others, this middle-aged woman lived alone in her tent. She also dressed differently, with more fur and accessorise than others in the group. After all, the woman possessed something that others didn't, let say, a beauty.

A Tale of My Little Girl 2

I knew this little girl, living in a small hut by the edge of a river. She knew neither why nor how she could be there. One thing she knew, her hut and the river was all she had in her life.

She lived alone, literally. In the world we live today, alone is merely described as being alone within a hustle bustle city. But in this little girl's world, alone means alone. She didn't meet people, no one had ever been seen around her.

One night she found herself hardly sleeping. The moon was wide awaken, hanging like an eye overseeing earth from the sky. Lying anxiously on her bed, she saw the moon through a crack in the wooden wall of the hut. She kept her eyes on it, but her mind wandered far away in the universe.

A Tale of My Little Girl 1

There are times when life offers us only darkness. Once a while, it can densely fill our surrounding that no one has a capability to stand from. So they shut their eyes. Tight. Unexpectedly, behind those lids are light. A miracle we never think about. This is a resort, much better from one they have to see if they dare opening those eyes. And so they decide to live the light, not to open their eyes again.

But For Now

Sure I know you'd like to have me
Talk about my future
And in a million words or so to fill you in about my past
Have I sisters or a brother
When's my birthday, how's my mother
Well my dear in time I'll answer all those things you asked

But for now I'll just say I love you
Nothing more seems important somehow
And tomorrow can wait come whatever
Let me love you forever but right now
Right now

Some fine day when we go walking
We'll take time for idle talking
Sharing every feeling as we watch each other smile
I'll hold your hand you'll hold my hand
We'll say things we've never had planned
Then we'll get to know each other for a little while

But for now let me say I love you
Later on there'll be time for so much more
But for now meaning now and forever
Let me kiss you my darling then once more
Once more

But for now let me say I love you
Later on I must know much more of you
but for now here and now how I love you
as you are in my arms, I love you
I love you
I love you

By Jamie Cullum

Lemon Honey Ginger Chicken with Seared String Beans

This morning when I woke up, I decided to cook for my dinner. After an extensive recipe research (ceilah) in google, I came to decision on making this simple yet pretty dish: Lemon Honey Ginger Chicken with Seared String Beans.

Lemon Honey Ginger Chicken with Seared String Beans

Mentok

I went to Bangka on 23-28 March 2014 in a duty travel from my firm. Here I was responsible to do stock taking for one of our client, PT Timah Tbk. I went to its smelter called Unit Metalurgi PT Timah Tbk in Mentok, west coast of Bangka. This place is actually very beautiful, unfortunately I hardly found a time to do local travel.

Mentok is the closest place to Palembang from Bangka.
Those who travel from Palembang-Bangka using ferry will anchor in Mentok.

Singapore, 17-19 April 2014

For the first time in foreverrr
I got a chance to go abroad!!

During 2014 Easter holiday, I went to Singapore with Samit, Sekar, Chika and Budiya -- we often call ourselves Keybisi. We had planned this trip months before. Actually we wanted to go to Hanoi in late May's block leave, but some of us couldn't take leave from their office. Soooo we chose Easter long weekend and picked Singapore as it's closer from Indonesia and small that we could take a satisfying trip in only 2 nights!!

Why Singapore's MRT is different with DKI Jakarta's KRL

I love train.

I used to think that our trains are cool hehhehe. Even I could enjoy economy class Kereta Rel Listrik (KRL) during busy working hours in Jakarta and I thought KRL is the best public transportation for the town: traffic free (although there are traffics in central stations), fast (compared to those busses, cars, motorcycles) cheap (subsidised), reaches far areas, bears so many people inside (but still not enough for all the commuting people).

So, when I first heard local DKI government planned to build Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), I wondered:

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXISTED KRL WITH THIS MRT-TO-BE???

KRL is fast, cheap, commuting so much people. KRL is rapidly transiting mass. Same concept HAHAHA.

Sincere

I'm in the middle of working and I'm stuck on it when undesirably a strange thought comes into my mind.

It's easy saying ikhlas, or sincerity, in daily life. But unfortunately, acting as a mukhlis, or person with sincerity, is really hard. One of the hardest, maybe.

I said I'm sincere, I let it go.
But I kept hatred to things where it went to.
And sincerity is never coming together with hatred, curses, nor bad wishes.
So I lied when I was saying I'm sincere.
In other words, I wasn't sincere.
Why should I imprecate on things happened as His will?
I was afraid of losing. I was afraid to get nothing as a return.
But even an absence is a presence. So why should I bother? It was an instant exchange.
I, unconsciously, cursed God by my insincerity.
I, superciliously, thought that what I thought would be better than what He thought.
I put myself above the one whom I said I surrender myself to, God.
This only has a meaning.
I didn't have a faith in God.
Insincerity is the absence of faith in God.

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

NORWEGIAN WOOD
By Haruki Murakami (1987)
Translated by Jay Rubin
Published by Vintage in 2003
386 pages

This is the first book written in english I've ever read completely and as this book is a good read, I will write my review here. Okay this is also my first book review ever.

The story was about Toru Watanabe, a young Japanese boy who fell in love to Naoko, his dead-bestfriend's girl. Naoko's boyfriend, Kizuki, killed himself once he was 17 years old. Since that time, Naoko and Toru had never seen each other for about two years, and they met again accidentally in Tokyo where both of them studied in university.

Lost in Sulawesi - Day 2: Toraja, the Land of Deads (Part 2)

Dari post sebelumnya:

Gue, Dara, dan Dana terbang ke Makassar dan langsung pergi ke Tana Toraja. Kami bermalam di rumah teman gue, Anggi, yang asli orang Toraja. Pagi ini kami pergi ke lokasi pemakaman pertama di Rante Lemo.

Menjelang siang, perjalanan kami lanjutkan ke Londa, di mana orang daerah tersebut memakamkan keluarganya di gua yang terletak di sana.

Kerbau aduan di pintu masuk Londa

Kami menyewa sebuah lampu gas seharga Rp30,000 untuk membantu penerangan selama berada di dalam gua, serta seorang pemandu (dengan bayaran seikhlasnya yang biasanya, katanya, sebesar Rp20,000). Menurut pemandu tersebut, makam di Londa ini khusus diperuntukkan bagi anggota marga Tolengke.