A Strange Encounter at the Airport

I was on my way to the bus stop at Changi Airport basement car park when a lady stopped me. She was lost and trying to ask for direction in a very poor English. Lucky I caught a glimpse of her passport, which told me that she's Indonesian. Quickly I told her to speak to me in Indonesian so I can help her.  

Her friends left her behind when she was caught up at the immigration line. She passed me her passport for me to check. From her passport I gathered that she arrived in Singapore from Jakarta and was going to Qatar next. She didn't know where to go since the officer at the check in gate refused to let her in. From her look, I assumed that she's a domestic helper being sent to Qatar for work.  

She passed me her passport twice. Without a tiniest doubt. That's when I decided that she wasn't a con woman. Besides, her face looked really worried.  

"My group leader told me to just show this piece of paper to the officer when I want to check in. I showed it to the officer, but he just waved me away. I wonder what's wrong and my friends are not with me. Can you please tell me where I should go?". The piece of paper she talked about was a document in Arabic letters which of course I can't read. But I got a feeling that it was just a visa document for her to be allowed entry to the country. 

I thought she just merely didn't know where the departure area and the gates are. She looked really lost when I told her it's at Level 1, so I decided to just accompany her there.

On the way, I asked where her ticket to Qatar was, so that I know which airline and which gate that airline was at.

"The officer also asked me the same thing, but I don't have it. It's with the group leader and I don't know where he is." 

...  

Christmas with Matthew

This is my first Christmas I spent at home in 4 years. And my first with Matthew hehehe..

Look at him, looks all grown up now and handsome. And talkative. Only a 1.5 years old toddler though. And he wanna say Merry Christmas to all of you out there.

Have a blessed Christmas everyone!

Weekend getaway in April

On 20th-22nd of April, my sis and I had a short trip back to Surabaya to attend my cousin's wedding reception. We were asked to be the receptionist.  We agreed to help to show our gratitude, because her family helped us when my eldest sis got married. Family have to help each other, indeed.

We arrived in Surabaya around an hour past noon time. We were almost stranded at the airport! My bro almost didn't pick us up at the airport because everyone thought our arrival was at 330pm, the airline's usual arrival schedule a few years back. Luckily, my uncle, the bride's father, informed my mom and bro that the airline schedule was different from the previous, haha.

We had a scrumptious lunch at Ikan Bakar Cianjur;  we ordered 2 gurame fish (!), tahu goreng and mixed veggie sour soup (sayur asem). And my drink was coconut with orange juice. It was like heaven..eating good food everyday..

2013 CNY trip to home! - part 2

So, after our short trip from Sarangan, mainly my sister and I were just relaxing at home, playing with my beloved nephew, Matthew...

For the remaining five days, we had a routine with Matthew. Her mom (my eldest sis) is taking Master Degree currently, so she has to ask for help to take care of Matthew. Some days, Matthew will be at our house, other days, he will be at her in-law's. Lucky us, Matthew was at our house during our stay, hehehe...

he looks just like me, doesn't he? hehe..

Everyday, he came around 6.00-7.00 a.m. to our house. Then, we would play with him for awhile before his milk time. He only drinks milk when he's dozing off to sleep. It's quite difficult job to make him goes to sleep. He loves playing, but he's sleepy, but he doesn't want to sleep, so he's cranky, hahaha.. Every morning my mom had to soothe him to sleep, usually with the help of "Twinkle twinkle little star" lullaby in the background.

sleeping peacefully in the morning..

Then, he slept for 1.5 hours before waking up, had his fruit time and play time with his aunties! hehehehe.. Usually, around 10.30 a.m. we went shopping (without buying anything) and sometimes we would bring him along, especially to malls with good air-con. He sweats easily. For such a small body, I was surprised to see him sweating so profusely. Even with the air-con on sometimes.

happily eating

He's quite an impatient baby. If he knows he's going out soon, he will be very excited and shout at us, like telling us, "Quick, I want to go already!". Hahahah.. Love him soooo muchhh!!

ready to go to the mall

After his lunch (various mixtures of veggie and meat and some carbs blended into soft (yucky) porridge), usually he would nap again and wake up to have his fruits and to take a bath. He's fond of water, so during bath time, he would splash around the water, hahaha.. Because he's very excited, he often accidentally kicked his nanny during the process. He surely has a strong kick. ouch. And, usually around this time his mom came to pick him up. And time for us to say bye-bye. boohoo ㅠ.ㅠ

He's a smart baby. He can recognize his mom, dad and himself in a picture at only 8 months old. He can wave bye-bye and shake his head when I sang "nang ning, ning nang ning nung", until his mom scolded me because he shook his head too excitedly hahaha..

Hiks.. 5 days with him was not enough.. The last time I saw him was when he's a newborn baby, only a few days old. I missed a lot of moments of him growing up ㅠ.ㅠ

...coming up next, my short week-end trip to Surabaya for my cousin's wedding. another meet up with Matthew, hehehe

2013 CNY trip to home! - part 1

Haha, I should have posted this months ago but was too tired (read: lazy) to write and update my blog.

Ever since I entered workforce, it's been a custom for me to go back to my hometown to celebrate CNY (Chinese New Year) with my family. We don't really celebrate it like Chinese in China do, but we still have mini-reunion now and then with our extended family, usually with my extended family from my mother's side. Usually, I just visit our great grandmother (yeah, my great grandmother still lives! and she is 97 years old! long live great grandma!) in Madiun and pay respect to her, to my uncles and aunties from my mother's side; catch up with my cousins, nieces and nephews; and eat! Of course, I also pay respect to my uncles and aunties from my father's side too; but ever since my grandpa and grandma from my father's side passed away, we hardly ever have any reunion. My father's side's extended family is really huge anyway; it's very difficult to arrange reunion with all of them hahahaha..

and here is when I suddenly thought about how taxing it is for Chinese to explain their extended family (;ㅡ.ㅡ) see this funny video showing how Chinese are supposed to call their extended family members! I think I can never do that without a really, really, really great effort and love to Chinese tradition :)

Anyway, this year my family didn't just visit our great grandma, but also visited Sarangan, our beloved holiday spot ever since I was a kid until just before I moved to Singapore to study. It was located at the foot of Mount Lawu. We visited her almost every school holiday that time for one, okay, two particular reasons: it is so near to Madiun and it has a great, clean air to refresh our body and mind (muahhaha.. okay, a bit of exaggeration here, but the air is really clean and refreshing!). The decision came partly because of me :p My mom asked me and my sister where we wanted to go. She's afraid that we'd get bored only staying in Surabaya during our one-week break, so I just anyhow said, "I miss Sarangan, let's go there! I wanna ride a horse again!". Yeah, we rode horses too in Sarangan; it's one of the only 3 activities you can do there: riding a boat circling the small lake Sarangan, riding a horse circling the path around the lake Sarangan, or just relaxing in hotel room and eating satay.

Lake Sarangan at daylight. taken from: kerasatamagetan.blogspot.com

This year CNY was pretty interesting, because it's my first time flew and arrived in Surabaya in the middle of the night, and directly travel to Madiun the next morning to visit my great grandma. Felt a little bit like living "Running Man" with their crazy travelling schedule :P which now I know is not good for me because I turned cranky the next day, not enough sleep :( We flew to Surabaya on Friday night, arrived in Surabaya at 12++ a.m. local time and traveled to Madiun the following morning at 9 a.m. Along the road trip, we made some stops to pay respect to my father's side relatives. I was very tired, so I slept for the most of the road trip.

And...when we reached Madiun around 2 p.m., things started to get..frightful. Well, the weather was. I became very alert because the sky was very dark all of a sudden when we stopped there for awhile to change driver. My brother took the wheel and drove us up to Sarangan; it was his first time driving up to Sarangan. And then... it started raining. And it became heavier as we approached the dangerous, sloping, winding road going up to Sarangan. Scenes from "Final Destination" started popping out in my head; mind you, it was my bro's first time driving up to Sarangan. The rain was very heavy to the point that you couldn't see past 2 m from the windshield. With my mom whispered prayers continuously beside me and my sis became very quiet all of a sudden, I could only think of the worst in that moment. Carry Underwood's "Jesus take the wheel" started playing in my ear. Then, suddenly my mom teased me, "Now you woke up, worried your bro will crash the car, huh?". Err... *knockwood three times after hearing that*

As swiftly as the flash, the weather turned beautiful. The air became clear and fresh as we went up the mountain. We arrived safely in Sarangan, checked-in to the hotel, rested for awhile, ate satay and then around 6 p.m. we went down to Madiun to have a feast (and collect hong bao haha. i think i'm getting too old for that..)! Yeahhhh!!! Slurp! Too bad I forgot to take pictures of the food because I was busy eating hahaha. I love Indo. I love the food. haha.. We also celebrated my niece's birthday there. Took some pictures with my long-never-see nieces and nephew.

my pretty nieces.. on the right is the b'day gal

On the following Sunday, my dad was scheduled to preach at the local church in Plaosan. It's a 20-minutes drive down from Sarangan. The praise and worship session was in Javanese. I was dumbfounded for awhile, then took that chance to challenge my Javanese, which vocabulary already lost here and there from my brain. We were then served lunch by the home Pastor family. As always, Indonesian food is yummyyy!! hehehehe..

Lake Sarangan at night. Took it from hotel when there was a local rain, only on the lake, but can't see clearly at night with my phone cam :(

After the Sunday service, we went back up to Sarangan, lazying in the hotel room and taking a walk around the lake.We ate at our beloved Miroso diner for dinner. Almost everytime we go to Sarangan, we go to Miroso to eat. I'm not a gourmet, so I don't really know what the actual standard of deliciousness Miroso has. But to me, it serves the most delicious food in Sarangan hahaha..

We didn't do much after that, just eating and relaxing more before our trip back to Surabaya the next day, Monday. And up until that moment, I hadn't met my nephew, Matthew. I missed him so much that I actually wanted to see him right after we arrived in Surabaya, but everybody was so tired from the road trip that we decided to just wait and see him on Tuesday.

And story with Matthew will be continued on PART 2 :P

Toba trip!

yeah, on 8-11 Dec we went to lake toba for a short getaway. and an additional agenda: celebrating my birthday.

it was a great one, i received 3 cakes! by far, it's the most cakes i received on my birthday. hahaha

i love the view at samosir island, it's so greeennnn and soooooo tranquil. feels like in LOTR set. hahaha. it turns out i don't need to go to new zealand to get "almost the same" view in LOTR :p here are some of the snapshots

The lake is sooo huge, i think it's normal for ppl long ago to misunderstand it as a sea. it's pretty clean, considering the standard of cleanliness in indo haha.. at least at the samosir side. from the parapat side, it's not so clean after all.

because we passed by sunday during our trip, we went to HKBP church, per my friend's suggestion. the sermon was conducted all in Batak language, from the start to the end. i can guess some of it, luckily hahaa. and the church member made an effort to read Bible passage in English for us, thinking we can't speak Indo :p appreciate the effort though hehe.

oh! and because it's near christmas, they started to have some choir performances. Batak ppl are famous for their nice voice, and turns out it's true! too bad the video i recorded was not so good in quality, so i won't upload it haha.

 and here are more views on beautiful lake toba! and samosir island!

King Sidabutar was one of the famous three Kings in Samosir island. other than that, i don't really know the history of King Sidabutar, because there is no local tour guide to give us a bit of historic explanation about him :(

nah, this one is a picture of a "round table" where the past ruler (one of the three famous Kings, i forgot his name..) and his advisers judged a criminal. the house in the backgournd is the traditional Batak house. only the house of the Ruler has a bull's head hanging on the door frame. underneath the porch, there's a prison where the criminal was jailed for one week. on the left of the so called "round table" was a huge tree where they consulted with the spirits.

during that time, only 3 crimes were considered worthy of prison sentence.

1. sex offenders (rape, etc)
2. murders
3. false testimonies

the sentence for petty crimes such as thefts were not so severe, the criminal would only be subjected to slavery for a certain period of time. whereas those who committed the 3 above crimes would be jailed for one week and executed. usually, the criminals had supernatural abilities which would make them difficult to be killed, BUT on certain day they were weak. for that reason they were jailed for one week to let the rulers know which day was his weakness day. after consulting with the spirits and reached an agreement, they would execute the criminal on the day when he's weak.

throughout the prison sentence until the execution, the criminals were treated like animals. the location of the prison was on the same level as the shed for flocks, which was underneath the main house.

on the execution day, the criminal was laid on his back on a stone. then the executioner/priest will cut his skin to test whether his supernatural power was still there or not. after they're sure his power was no longer present, the executioner beheaded him. after beheading him, the criminal's heart and liver were taken and eaten, just like they ate animals'. according to the tour guide, they no longer viewed it as cannibalism, because they had treated the criminal just like animals because of his crime. the criminal's body would be thrown to the lake and his head would be thrown to the forest. for one week, the villagers were not allowed to fish on the lake to avoid contamination by the criminal's remaining black magic / supernatural abilities.

the execution MUST succeed. failure would lead to the execution of the executioner, by beheading him. that's why it's important to make sure the criminal's power was no longer there to protect him from death.

this was practiced until Nomensen came. when he came, no black magic worked on him. because of that, Batak ppl were saved and since then on they worshiped God. great is our God!

okay, that's a bit of history on the 2nd King we visit. i found it pretty interesting haha. i'm looking forward to our next getaway!!!! i'm bored of singapore  ㅠ.ㅠ

holiday trip :p

on end of july, we went on a cruise with mom n dad! yeaayyy.. it was a good one, bcos that's my first time on a cruise. the room all so tiny and compact, but the service is good hehe.. and the scenery from the boat is nice too! here are some photos when we're on the boat and when we went to KL for 1.5 hrs.

night view from the ship and the majestic horses in the lobby

we eat and eat and eat on the ship haha

KL gallery

before we went on a cruise, we went to gardens by the bay at night. not much to see there at night, very dark. and ticketing is closed at 8pm, so we couldn't go up to OCBC bridge nor to the domes :( but we had fun and tired haha

Gardens by the Bay

it's the newest garden in the city! haha.. very near to Marina Bay Sands, but have to walk quite a bit. i've been there once at night with my parents and my sis, but didn't manage to go into the domes since we came too late at night. today i went again w/ my eldest sis n bro in law. this time i managed to go into the domes. hoho..

the domes are cold inside! but the plants are prettyyyy.. the man made waterfall is amazing as well. but it was quite a speedy tour around the garden today because we need to rush to airport right after that. here are some photos i took using my iPhone and added a bit of effect using Line Camera apps haha.. the night views are all blurry :(

all kinds of cactus in baobab garden (flower dome)

tress w/ diff trunk sizes. they look so funny haha (flower dome)

the man made waterfall (cloud dome)

lost world (cloud dome)

secret garden. yeah. secret garden hahaha (cloud dome)

bunga sepatuu!! segede muka orang (flower dome)

night view from the dragonfly bridge 

MBS from dragonfly bridge

the supertree groove at night