Wonders of Google+ Photos

I just recently turned on auto back-up to Google+ for the photos stored in my phone. Then, this is what I found when I browsed my photos through the web version of the Google+:

I think Google has announced this feature during Google I/O 2013 but I forgot. Anyway, what it does is compiling at least 5 consecutive photos taken and making it into short .gif animation. The feature is called "Auto Awesome". Awesome indeed, haha.

Here is another one:

Never cease to be amazed by how cute my nephew is :)

joke of the day

#1
Bro: (pointing at a "Buy 1 Get 1" banner) "Look at that promotion banner. See something wrong?"
Me: "Nope. What's wrong with it?"
Bro: "Well, of course if you buy one, you'll get one. Don't you think so? If you get two, the shop won't survive."
Me: "..."

#2
(in front of "Leftfoot" store)
Bro: "Why the name?"
Me: "Because it only sells the left shoes."
Bro: "..."
Me: "Really! That's why they always put that "Buy 1 Get 1 FREE" poster, so you can get a pair."
Bro: "............."

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!

New obsession: PUZZLE!

Yeah, my sis and I now have found our newest passion: PUZZLES.

I thought that playing puzzle was tedious and boring. How that view changed after I helped my sunday school student complete some of her 1000 puzzle pieces we bought for her birthday present. I couldn't stop, neither could my sis. Unanimously, we decided to buy ourselves a 1000-piece puzzle.

We bought a panoramic Mickey and Minnie Mouse puzzle at Toys 'R Us for $28.90. Thank God it's not so expensive. There's a store in Plaza Singapura, exclusively selling puzzles, and they sell pretty expensive. Maybe because they sell high-quality puzzles and a lot of varieties.

We completed the puzzle in 4 days. I forgot to take picture on Day 1. Not much was done on the first day though.

We almost lost one puzzle piece. Thankfully it's just slipping underneath the almost-complete-set.

In the middle of working on the puzzle, a thought crossed my mind: how to carry the completed puzzle to a shop to frame it nicely? It shouldn't be a problem in Indo; we can use car. In Singapore? Taxi? Forget about how to deliver it to the shop. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CARRY IT OUT OF MY ROOM, DOWNSTAIRS, THEN OUT OF THE HOUSE?!

Answer: I just divide it nicely to parts, put them on top of A4 papers and keep them inside the box. Then carry it wherever I want to. And assemble back in the frame shop if we ever want to frame it. Voila.

I promised myself, that if I can finish this 1000-piece puzzle, I will buy a more challenging puzzle, like this one. Or I will buy another 1000-piece puzzle and complete it myself.

Please sis, buy me one for my birthday :) or high heels. Thank you in advance!!!

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

hehe.. this is matthew, when he was just a few days old. i finally managed to edit and upload the photos :p now he's 3 months old and has a lot of expression! heheeh.. my cute nephewww

ooppss.. been a long time since i last posted :p padahal ga ada kerjaan T.T arggghhhhh...

job oh job.. when will you come to me?? hiksuuu T.T (desperate mode: on)

btw, hehehehe... my nephew was born on 2nd June 2012! welcome to the world babyyyy :p another dragon kid, yeaaaahhhhhh.. he's a super cute one. 3 days old, and he can smile already. smiley baby hohohoho.. he gained weight v fast. now he's almost 5 kg!

here's the scrapbook i made for him haha.. not so good i think..

the left most photo was taken when he's only 3 days old. and smiling. hahaha... arrrgggghhhhh wanna pinch his cheekssssssssss.. miss you matthewwwwww... ah yah, btw his name is Matthew Alexander Goenawan.

and yeah, that's about it haha.. hope can see you again soon matthewwww

been in mellow mode since my eldest sis' wedding..

realized that a lot of things have changed in the past 10 years..

my surabaya home neighbourhood has changed a lot since our family moved there..

no more green field near my school.. remembered that time i was wondering, who would be rich enough to buy such a huge piece of land and to build house on it. now, it's a shop houses area.

there used to be no traffic lights near my junior high school. that little roundabout has gone missing, changed with traffic lights as the cars are getting more and more.

the road in front of my house used to be just normal asphalt, with a lot of ditches here and there. then since.. i think 8 years ago?.. it was changed to pavements.

my room.. now becomes my bro's room.. and now after my sis is married, he will move to her room. and he will be the only one left to live with my parents now. and that won't be for long i believe.

one by one, my parents' children are leaving the house..

we are getting older huh..

wished i can stop the time, when we were the happiest.. i think that was before my 2nd sis went to singapore for further study, when all of us were still in that house, full of laughter and happiness (not everyday though, but we were happy for sure)..

sighh..

my mom is here until thursday hahaha...

felt bad at her cos i can't accompany her going around singapore except on weekends.

anyway, happy that she managed to go to plaza singapura herself and had fun today hehe..

i'm taking a day off on thurs to accompany her to airport, yeeeahhh!!!

-

headache headache.. why do u love me? i don't love you at all!! (at certain times yes tho, hwahhaha.. so that i can have valid reason to skip? ehehheheeh..)

i dunno what cause my headache. especially this one i'm experiencing now. it made me feel like puking... don't dare to move my head so much.. made me unable to concentrate at work also..

ah ya.. i still need to send something.. later lahhh :P

-

okayy.. got one of my colleagues confessed to me, again.. this person is different from the previous guy. wah, sound so many ahh... i'm popular!! (blarrghhh..)

honestly.. i dunno what makes he liked me. i don't even expect him to have feeling for me, cos no clue at all hahaha..

anyway, i rejected him, and i didn't think very long when i rejected him. which i think hurt him so much (cos i heard from another colleague of mine hahaa). well.. he said (not the one confessed) it's better to be clear rather than be ambiguous. but.. at that time, i felt bad cos i hurt him. well.. better hurt now than hurt more later. let's think it that way.

Humphhhh!!!! A very big ulcer in my mouttthhhh... so damn annoyinnggg!!! Go go away ulcer!! Don't make me unable to enjoy my nice sinful food!! hahahah.. (or maybe this is a sign to stop eating unhealthy food? hahaha)

anyway, had a nice lunch today.. i treated my sis for her birhtday cos up 'til now i still dunno what to buy her for her present T.T it can be even a nicer lunch if a certain someone did not just join in hahahaha.. but nvm.. whether he's there or not, both are fine with us :P

the lunch was so nice and i think i ate too much until i didn't feel hungry for my dinner.. there goes my dinner.. but i have a mountain of snacks (chitato, etc etc) on my dining table :D :D :D so no need to worry what to eat wahahaahhaha..





i really have to stop eating unhealthy foodd!!!! remember that u can get canceerrr!!!