Malacca on the Weekend

The informal invitation is just coming at the right time. March 7 2011- I was on my busiest day preparing tenders to be submitted

Maika tweeted “18 19 mau kemana, malaka nyok”

Meimei tweeted “19-20 aja gimana”

*thinking that I will be free after I submitted all the tender replies on the 17,

I replied “ikutaan, naik apa kesana?” And from there the story goes…

Maika and I are the ignorant, unorganized type of people that take every plan to the last minute. Lucky we met Meimei the opposite of the two of us, who is preparing all the trip details including hostel booking, coach booking, the local currency and recreational area in Malacca and lastly our breakfast before we got into the bus heading to Malacca.

On April 19th Morning 2011, everything were all set. I woke up early 6 am, received a morning call from Meimei. Maika was taking a trip back to her apt to get her forgotten passport (who else in the world doesn’t bring passport on their overseas trip, again thanks to Meimei to remind her). I took a shower and ready to go.

Meimei arrived first at the bus terminal, not a shocked really, she ordered us 2 a breakfast at Mc D. Still with the mouth full stuffed with fillet burger I got into the bus. The bus was spacious, the minor was just a incense smell and Indian songs played loud in the full 3.5 hours trip, lucky I was so sleepy and sleep all the way until we arrived at the destination terminal.

3 and a half hour later, finally we’re in Malacca! Take time to stretch the stiff muscle, Meimei was taking care our return ticket. Additionally she guided French tourists to their hotel that is not far from our hostel. 5 of us take City bus to the old town. There were small incident of some guy took my seat when I was asking for the dropping location to the driver, shameful. And that will not be happened in Jakarta.

Food.. we need it. 3 pair of eyes looked into the nyonya restaurant just across the river; Taragon is the name of the place where we had our lunch. The old town Malacca was just beautiful, it’s historical, original, and the building is well taken care of. We couldn’t resist to take some picture on our way to lunch. 3 of us had quite a big lunch with sambal prawn, bake eggplant, pork soup, pork chop and capcay, cendol for them and Vanilla ice cream for my dessert.

Tummy fully stuffed with the food, I again felt sleepy… we walked back to the hostel and take a nap. It was raining for 2.5 hours while 2 of us taking nap, and Meimei played with her phone. We woke up at 5 just in time the rain stopped pouring and continue to explore the old town Malacca. We walked out just to see a long queue to get a seat in sate celup restaurant at the corner, Maika wanted to queue, we decided to go to famosa and let’s see later, it’s just across the hostel anyway.

The whole afternoon 3 girls spend to buy some souvenirs in the Dutch circle, took many pictures one by one, 2 together and 3 together. We went up walk through Cheng Ho museum up to Famosa, again took many pictures, down to the big ship and return to Jonker Street by trishaw rides.

It was raining when we were about to explore the Jonker street, and we were exhausted and we really want a cup of warm oldtown milk tea. We came into one of the guesthouse that looks really nice, not the waitress though. She was so rude and make us felt uncomfortable, so then we decided to walk off and do a little shopping. When the rain stopped, we explore the night market and find Malacca street food such as the chicken rice ball, durian pancake, fresh fried chips, Chinese candy, jonker fruittea and so much more. The shop sells many things we can’t find in Singapore such as home made soap, cute aprons, Malaysian snacks, vintage clothes and bags, cute carved wood chair, flowery hair accessories, tribal designed rings, cute designed umbrellas all in half of the Singapore goods’ price.

In the middle of shopping, when our feet felt numb and the palm hurts, we sat down and enjoy the Malaccan three layered milk tea while listening to live performance from the other beer-house. When the time pass 11.30 we were about to reach the end of Jonker street, and there was a nice thai spa with a good deal. Sadly we couldn’t enjoy the spa coz I still got my purchased need to be picked up. So with the reminder energy left, we walked back to the hostel to find that the sate celup restaurant was still open and queued.

Meimei and I was so tired, I can’t feel my hand’s finger and my feet’s palm. Its all numb and pain. All we want were to soak our feet into the warm water, lie in bed and place cucumber to our eyes. But Maika still won’t give up the jumbo prawn. She was insisted. We were queuing for nearly 1 hours just to eat the jumbo prawn and squids paid with our last money. We don’t have any ringgit left. Around 1.30 am we walk back to the hostel, took a warm shower and sleep.

We woke up around 6.30/7 a.m, took bath and packed our stuff. We change some ringgit with Tony to take our breakfast in the coffeeshop that we saw the previous day to have the milk tea that we’ve been dreaming to have it since we departed to Malacca. It still closed; It will open at 10 am! Our trip back is scheduled at 11 am! We were exhausted, hungry! Sad, we took breakfast at Portuguese coffeshop, today special is Nasi lemak, so we took it. We sat down 9 am, we waited 1 hour to get our breakfast with no meat at all. Hix.. lucky I love the sambal, it was nice. We ate it all in less than 10 minutes and rush to get into the taxi to the bus station.

Our return trip was riding a 48 seater bus, so a little bit tight. But overall trip was awesome! Another amazing experience with my gals!

Need Holiday

I think i really really need holiday!
Who want to join?

Moving

Another turning point in my life, i have to choose so many awesome opportunity!
it's hard indeed, but decision has been made, just go on never look back.

put my hand together and pray, hopefully i make a wise decision,
for me, and for the people that i love most.


moving from here:

to here:

or maybe later to the place that i always keen to go to. Wish me luck!

Family night out

*our chillax time

This picture was taken when my lil' brother on vacation in Jakarta August 2009

boring walking from mall to mall, we went to Ancol for a little snacks.

we ordered dimsums and 1 coconut fried rice for the 3 of us. Yums!

I took several shoots to get this picture. It's a combination of 2 pictures together.
I took the background photo using the panorama night mode shoot and the close up using the double-flashs night shoot.
Cut the close-up on photoshop, stick it on the other picture and...
I really like the result<3 and our family night out!

Orchid

tien soeharto's orchid
close up tien soeharto
purple orchid
rainforest light purple orchid

tiny yellow orchid
kantong semar
hill top rainforest stripped purple orchid
white orchid inside the pot
dotted purple orchid
lots varieties of orchid
bright purple orchid
black orchid
pink orchid
orange orchid

just some pictures i took on this morning @ Singapore National Orchid Garden

March 2009

Just feel like writing,
so many things happen, suddenly i have to say goodbye to grandma,
time ticking fast, still fresh in my memory I said goodbye to her in the hospital, not forever no no...
i said i am going to work tomorrow, i will visit on Sunday..

And that was the last time i saw her speak to me, wave her hand as it would be okay.
and now she sleep forever, in peace...

so much think to learn, to adjust, to adapt, new environment, new living habit.
and now the pressure is on, to live my life to the fullest, to cherish every single moment and use it wisely, to reach all my dreams with all my best.

Love you..

Escape to Phi-Phi Island

* Phi Phi Island
The boat was packed with the tourists. There were no more seats available on the top deck, so we walked down to the lower deck. The room was humid, and packed. We were exhausted dragging our bags, so when we saw a pile of luggages on the way down, we put it there and go find our seats.
We didn't think that it would give us a hard time just to find our bags on the way out...
As soon as the boat moved, it started to rain.
2 hours later, we arrived at the pier. The rain already stopped, but it still wet all over the place.
From the pier to the hotel is about 15-20 minutes walking, bellboy from our hotel helped us carted our luggage to the hotel. There's no motorbikes, cars, in the island.

The island was exotic, along the way we passed clothes shops, small cafes and bars, little convenient store, tattoo parlor, massage and spas, bookstores, and tour agent that also sells postcards. Peoples were walking in their bikinis and shorts, beach clothes, slippers, some of them walking barefoot. Once we arrived, we could feel the fun, relax, holiday atmosphere. In some place, peoples are rebuilding their shops that was ruined by Tsunami.
This place is like a place that you could visit over and over again on holidays, perfect escape!

After we checked in, we went for dinner, walked around the island, booked a tour for tomorrow, and went sleep. 12 a.m Mira and I woke up, we wanted to go to the beach party. This night, Ibiza bar was more crowded, they performed fire show and played games with the customers. Mira and I was sit on the front seat watching, about 15 minutes we felt sleepy and went back to sleep.

The next day, we woke up late, we went to eat brunch, back to the hotel to get ready, and stand by at the place where the tour guide will pick us up.
We took a lot of pictures, silly pictures, sweet pictures, crazy pictures, beautiful views pictures.
There's about 20-30 persons joined us.

First destination : Monkey beach

Our boat stopped about 100 meters from the beach, we could swim to the beach or take small long tail boat that has been prepared by them. We decided to take boat, and will swim nearby the beach. We could see small fishes in groups swimming back and forth below our boat.
Clean water, white sands, clear sky, coral mountain in the background is the preserved habitant of the monkeys.
They prepared bananas to feed the monkeys. We just hav 20 minutes time before they called us back to the boat.

2nd Destination : Viking Cave

We didn't swim nor kayaking in this place, we just passed by and the guide told us that it's a bird nest's farm. During harvest seasons, some people stayed in the cave to collect the bird nest, brought it to the island and sell it to mainland China.

3rd Destination : Kayaking

We stopped on shark point to go kayaking and snorkeling. I was sit in the middle, Maika on the front, Mira behind me. They rowed the kayak while I enjoying the views. But the kayak won't move to the right way, it's like circle-ing in the same spot and some others already go far around the island. 15-20 minutes we moved like 50 meters from the boat, and we bumped our kayak to other people's kayak. We were like frustrated and can't stop laughing at ourselves. Then, the guy came at us and ask if we need any help, and we said yes, so he pulled our kayak back to the boat, and we started to snorkel.
What an experience! This was my first time snorkeling, and i thought this is the most beautiful spot to snorkel. I saw a rainbow colored slender fish swimming next to me, when i tried to reach, the fish shocked and run away, and I can't help not to open my mouth and laugh, and water come in my mouth, so i have to swim to the surface and breath. I can't see much, but what i see was so wonderful.
Then it's time to go..

4th and Last destination : Maya beach
Most popular beach, it was the shooting scene for "The Beach". It's similar to monkey beach but bigger, more pretty, the beach surrounded by rocky mountains, the beach is wider than monkey beach, groups of fishes swimming back and forth and it's twilight already, we went inside the corn fields and took a silly pictures acting like somebody chases us. And took another pictures by the beach, and took another kung fu fighting pictures, it was so fun! This place just great to take pictures, every angles was so beautiful. Loves it!

And finally we back to the boat, they've prepared fried rice for us to eat, although the taste was not so great, so even i was so hungry, i just ate a little. The sunset was so beautiful, sun hiding behind the cloud and the sky color turn to dark red with blue shadows, so pretty.

On the boat Mira fell in love with Mati's tatoo, a little star shape and decided to get 1 on her hips. Then after we took shower, we went to Tattoo parlor, I almost get 1 too, but i have no idea what shape and where to put it. Mira said it didn't hurt at all, so maybe I'll get 1 another chance! :D
Then, we ate our dinner! Tom Yum Seafood soup.. my favorite, my second favorite is Thai Banana Pancake on Phi Phi island, Yummy!

* Ibiza Bar

We were so tired, so after dinner, we went sleep! 1 a.m we woke up, Just Mira and I actually, we tried to wake Maika, but she was sleeping like a pig, and shoo us away! Fine.. we just wanted to cherish every moment, tonight is our last night! So, Go Crazy! We went to Apache bar and dance, until abang2 ruined our moment, oh gosh! Luckily, Maika came to save our night! It was fun and ended we chat with fella tourists by the beach, and it almost dawn. 4.30 maybe 5.00 a.m. 3 hungry girls decided to eat another Banana Pancake and chat in the hotel Lobby.
1 by 1 we get ready, 8.00 a.m we left this island to Phuket International Airport.
although we had a little incident with the hotel receptionist, in the end it went well, just because we were so exhausted, we were easily get angry at each other, haha!
so, watched out Taxi driver who tried to fool us... you are in trouble!

It's another 1 and half hours journey to Phuket, we were fell into sleep as soon as we found our seats, so, can't tell much about the views and weather. We woke up 5 minutes before the boat arrived at the Phuket pier!
We were so don't want to leave the island, it still has so much place to explore and see, on the boat, we missed it already!


***