cuti - cuti malaysia

I can't wait for cuti next week.. Oh yea, I'll be in KL next week for a little getaway.. I have no specific agenda - except gonna take the time to eat ikea meatball and makan2 time. So, who's free to meet next week????

On another note, I thought working out is gonna make me fit and healthy.. tapi.... i end up with sore bodies afterward most after training. If this week was sore arms+back next week would be sore quads, and now..... it's super sore calves. I can't even stand straight which leaves me walking tip-toe everywhere. So, no gym this week as I neeeeed to rest and heal. hehehehe.. excuses.. excuses..

Maliau Basin

coming sooonnnn.....

away again

I am away from home for two weeks... I'm kinda glad this is happening at the right time. I guess I'm one of those people who got itchy staying at one place for too long. Somehow being at different places at different time makes you like that... It's such a fun thing to explore different cities where nobody really knows you. You could never bother sitting alone at a coffee shop alone or watching movies by yourselves. Erk, I don't know whether that was sad or it just says that you're comfortable being alone (not lonely yea). Also, where else can you have some vacation fling kan? Because when you're actually gonna be at one place for a short period of time, and somebody actually asked for your number and you actually give it, I think that only means one thing: vacation-fling! Of course what happened when you're away stays there... on this topic, i'm not gonna elaborate more.. hehehehehe...

I'm bringing Twilight, New Moon for my trip. Since our hotel doesn't have entertainment beside star movies, I can always turn to my book for pleasure. I also toss in Emotional Intelligence book, this one so that I can deal with whatever people behavior out there, as well as for my own personal drama.

In less than month, I'll be adding a +1 to my age, but.... I think I make a lousy adult. I still can't keep up with the pay-the-bills at at the end of every month, I still can't handle office politics, I still can't be as assertive as I want to be at this age, I triple think whatever I want to say in a meeting (so that I won't look stupid) and I still don't know if I can pass for handling personal issues of my own. Heck, I mean I don't even know what emotional maturity means...

Oklah... it's almost end of my training ....

will be writing soon...

Singapore Trip

Singapore Trip

Last month, out of the blue, Mel called me up and asked me whether I wanna join her to Singapore! Without hesitation, I said yes!!! It's time for the travel buddies to be reunited. Hehehe.... So flight was booked, the vacation started on Friday until Monday... Lucky for me, I got super-cheapo flight ticket from Air Asia (KK-Changi) while Mel flew via JetStar from KLIA.

I got to S'pore at 9pm, and about the same time as Mel arrived at Changi as well...

Second day (Saturday), me and Mel spent the day shopping and exploring the endless shops at Orchard Road... But with our currency at RM2.41 for $1 - erk, I guess shop till you drop is out of question...

Saturday night, went to Clarke Quay where people dine, wine and having a good time ...
On our third day, we went to explore the city... Do what tourists do, bringing huge dslr camera and started snapping...

At Sentosa IslandEr, this is supposed to be an artsy shot ... hehehehe

Sentosa Island - Song of the Sea

Going home.... Garden at Changi Airport... ooh yea, shopping at Changi Airport is heavenly...


No big shopping this time around, I only bought two C&K sandals and my favorite chocolate, Lindt (this satisfied my craving)....

Good trip, good company for good time...

Until next trip okay?

i'm back

Just got back from a wonderful Singapore trip... I so deserved that vacation, of course... after days of working late and working on weekends??

Anyway, pictures and updates coming up soon... Now I gotta relax my aching feet from too much walking...

ohhh yummmm

After awhile of using personal laptop for work. I've finally gotten my work laptop last week. It's Dell XPS M1330 in midnight blue. I'm not so fond of the blue color- blue was never my favourite color. Initially I wanted Red (super-hot) or pink (super-cute and sweet), but they don't have it in stock unfortunately. Okay, I'm not supposed to get excited over it ( since it's for work anyway, and when does work=fun?), but it does kinda cool since it has 2mp camera (for webcam-ing) and DVD writer
( i think im gonna test-try this)...

So, maybe I can take the opportunity to do ehemmmm *not* do backup files on DVDs while I still got the chance. So, first thing first, I've got to burn that 17Gb of picture files. Sayang lah these pictures, memories fade but.. pictures stay clear ( i hope!). Years ago, me and friends were soooo rajin to print out our pictures, not one copy but TWO copies of each roll of film. Printing pictures costs about $3.99 per roll, and to print double copy we only had to add $1, so apa lagi everybody printed two copies. So, what to do with the extra extra copies of pictures? In the end, we toss 'em out by the time we had to move out in May . hehehhe...

Soooo... I was doing some photo organizing (it's by year, btw)... Then I saw my travel pictures... (gazillion years ago) and at that time I was still using 2mp digital camera (hey, at that time 2mp is considered very cangggihhh one and other people were still using manual ones).

***for my travel buddies...

It's me, con and mel's trip in dec 2003 (5 yrs ago!)... This trip is surely a memorable one... To save cost, we had booked 1 occupancy room in hoping to squeeze the 3 (small) of us in the room. Unfortunately, we couldn't do that... Even though we tried to use the excuse "ooh, we're just gonna chit chatting, or come up for a bit", but the guy still said "no, you can't come up to the room" in his accent. Hehehehe... Only I could stay, while mel and con had to find another hotel room. It was a day before new year's eve, and most of the hotels were fully booked. Gettting around was hard enough in the city, and we had to find hotels? Good thing we found a hotelroom just nice for 2..

having breakfast in mel and con's room while con was getting ready... (this was us saving cost by bringing bekal to travel)


new year's eve and we did stay until midnight to welcome 2004... we left the place early to avoid cramped Vaporetti, but... we mistakenly rode one which went to the opposite way, in the end that vaporetti went back to the same place we came from and the crowd came in and filled the ferry anyway...


filling film on a manual SLR camera...that time bawa film sampai 7-8 rolls... hehehhe... after develop, took hoursss to sort out pictures...me and con... in that big bag was a big(quite heavy) tripod so that we could take picture like below =)

we took out tripod even in the middle of places.. hehehe... until other person realized and said "look at them, they have a tripod and everything"

okaaay.. enough with the travel pictures... i must say it's kinda therapeutic to look at old pictures... nowwww, i'm itching for a getaway....

until next update....

Shopaholic in Bandung day 3

Third day... Our day trip to Ciwidey! Okay, at first I pronounced it "Cidiwey" and another supir corrected me. Hehehe.. They sounded alike, don't they???

We were supposed to start our journey at 8.30 am, my aunt at first even insisted Pak Tedy to come at 7.30 (like we could wake up that early!), but since 7ish is macet time, we followed his advice to start our journey at 8.30am.

BUT... read the title above! It's shopaholic in bandung. So it implies that the day didn't start without some shopping. The girls sempat borong souvenirs stuff like t-shirts, keychains, bags in front of the hotel! Hehehe, we're all girls, and without guys who can stop us? Heheheh...

Start our journey around 9am from city of bandung heading south to the town of Ciwidey... Yeay, white crater (Kawah Putih) here we come! We had to go through some kg road, like below to get there... It was an opportunity to see the other side of Bandung rather than the ol' shops.

We even passed few horse carriages along the way... Didn't get the chance to ride them tho...

Stadion Jalak Harupat (below)

Passed by beautiful view of paddy field... They're really utilizing their lands!

Finally after 2 hours plus in the car, we got to the entrance of the famous White Crater. The Wisata Kawah Putih.

When we got out of our car, it was coooold, and I forgot to bring my jacket even! I think it must've been around 15 degrees over there. They have stalls selling belerang (eh, what's that in english?), hats, scarfs and jackets. It was misty and the environment looks very serene...

We had to walk about 100 meters down to see this beautiful view... Don't you think it's kinda mystique?

View from the stairs

Jagung Bakar

Around 1 pm, we went off to our next destionation, strawberry farm. The strawberries are red ripe and big too. Also, they are very very cheap! You can get 1 kg of strawberries for the price of RP35,000 which is equivalent to RM12. Ain't that cheap???

Our picking for the day

Me and my sis with our empty basket

Lots of strawberry plants

Plantation view. Beautiful...

After paying for our strawberries, we headed to the city specifically Ciba Duyut for some 'tas dan sepatu' equals to 'more handbags & shoes'! We also took the time to buy some kerepek locally made, and good thing was I can try the kerepek before buying them... They sell the famous pisang salai, kerepek tempe, dodol, and also oncom which is made from ground nuts (kacang tanah) mixed with other stuff. If you're here, don't forget to try my favorite the popiah goreng. It's small popiah wraps with dried prawn fillings (they taste a bit sweet- and yummy)... No, we didn't go buy any tas nor sepatu (surprising!!!). The choices were quite limited, plus we were surrounded by locals trying to sell us MORE souvenirs. Even some tried to get us buying a Sumpit and a small Gendang (sorry didn't know the exact name). Hmmmm... And why would I need that???

Went to get "forgotten items" at pasar baru again but only for an hour (or was it two?)! Actually me and sis getting some gifts for future kenduri bergunting of a niece. This time, my millions of rupiah had finished- all magically disappeared in exchange for a FULL bag.

Dinner at Restorant Ayam Goreng Suharti. Very exclusive place yet with reasonable price.... This time Pak Tedy joined me and the girls for dinner unlike previous meals (I wonder doesn't he feel hungry from all that waiting while us shopping?)
One favorite dish of the night. It was actually ayam kampung goreng. BUT... it was steamed for FOUR hours first to make its meat tender... After that, it was fried with flour+egg. I just realized that ayam kampung doesn't have that "chicken smell" after being told by Pak Tedy. Ehemm, Pak Tedy shared his recipe of ayam goreng complete with the instructions ;) One fine day when I'm rajin enough, maybe I can cook this sundanese dish...

Shopping finale. Last night in Bandung :)

Shopaholic in Bandung day 2

Second day... I woke up the 'late-st' among all the girls in the room. I was on vacation, of course I wanted to sleep in as long as possible. We went down for breakfast at the hotel lobby. Ehemmm... But the hotel is only two floors, so basically we went downstairs to have breakfast. The breakfast wasn't anything fancy, it was just simple nasi kuning+egg, mee hoon, and bread accompanied with super-strong indonesian coffee and (chrysanthemum scented) tea.

While waiting for our supir, we were ambushed by all the sellers trying to get us buying souvenirs ranged from keychains, t-shirts, bags, pens and other stuff. If you DON'T want to buy from them, DO NOT TOUCH any of the items. They will follow you everywhere until you buy from them.

Second day itinerary was supposed to go to Ciwidey where the kawah putih is located. But.... there was an election held that day, so we might encounter the famous indonesian 'macet'/jammed on the way. So, we figured we might as well postpone Ciwidey plan to 3rd day.

So the plan was to go back to pasar baru to get whatever we "forgot" last time...

Inside pasar baru

Blouses - I got mom's blouse here

Lunch at Pak Chi Met - Ikan Bakar Gurame set with rice

Kebaya Sulam... pretty sulam, i bought the purple-type only brown-ish color.

After lunch, we decided to 'recharge' at the hotel, bringing back again pleeeeeenty of shopping bags. It's more than the first day!

(below) Half day of shopping.. hmmm.. shopaholic? guilty as charged =D

We asked the nice supir to come and pick us up 2 hours after he dropped us off. We ended up taking nap and waking up at 4.30-ish. Then 5 o'clock went straight to jalan alun-alun where the king's mall is located. Our supir warned us to be careful with our belonging as there might be 'pencopet'/pickpocket along there. After that I was holding on to my millions of rupiah in my bag!

Some of the shops were closing when we got there, but still... we got to grab few stuff, some cottons,chiffons, pants, tops and flower girl dresses while we were there... Gesek(swipe)... gesek all we can... hehehehe...

We promised each other we'd meet at the front of the mall around 8pm before heading to dinner. When we wanted to drop off our shopping bags in the car, we saw Pak Tedy was checking out clothes in front of an FO. I didn't even get to see name of the FO. Apparently he was checking out the kids clothes. We took the chance to buy some also. Since I was still holding my shopping bags at that time, browsing was not easy, but Pak Tedy nicely offered to take the bags to the car. Heheh, how nice of him. Only then, browsing/shopping became easy...

After a tiring day of shopping, we were brought to Restoran Simpang Raya to have a feast of the famous indonesian nasi padang. We were served many dishes of nasi padang: meat, fish, begedil, veges, chicken and some I can't remember. It was already 8.30ish when we had dinner, I think we were feeling full from all of our shopping. So, some of the dishes were not even touched, but personally for me, i prefer the sundanese meal rather than nasi padang (is this jawa?). Few dishes were prepared with coconut milk (santan) which made it too heavy. The price for second day dinner was quite reasonable, if I can remember correctly it was about RP160k ~rm56 (including juices) for 6 persons :)

Nasi padang for dinner @ Restoran Simpang Raya

After dinner, went back to the h0tel. Before sleeping, compare barang-barang (in case if anything left off somewhere..heheheh).. then went off to bed because we had Ciwidey waiting the next day :)

Shopaholic in Bandung Day 1

Woke up crankily at 6 am in the morning because we need to check in for our early flight to bandung at 7am. 6am in peninsular time is super-early ok, it's like 5am in kk, it was still dark when we left the house. But I was surprised when I saw plenty of cars already on the road at 6.30 in the morning! Talk about traffic jam.

Flight to bandung takes about 2 hours, and the time difference is an hour. We got there around 10.00am local time which was 11am Malaysian time. My neck was already felt a-bit-strained after sitting on the-very-straight-not-posturepedic-seats of AA. After getting our (almost empty) luggage, I went out and saw a man holding a paper with my name on it. Luckily I wasn't called 'Ibu Rozaidah'. Hahahaha... We were brought to our hotel which is a renovated guest house named Petradissa Hotel. The hotel actually looks like a guest house rather than a hotel, it's quite small, but the inside is pretty nice and the room is quite clean too and not forgetting price is reasonable.

Our supir(driver) is Pak Tedy, a gentle man who's driving an Avanza, just nice to fit the 6 of us. We were informed that our hotel was still not ready then, but we decided to just leave our luggage at the lobby and head straight to the famous Bandung pasar baru.

Pasar Baru

The pasar baru is a 8 floors pasar (6 'lantai'/floors and 'dasar 1'/basement 1 and 'dasar 2'/basement 2) full with everything-you-need-inside. From telekong, women blouse to kiddie clothes to kain kebaya sulam, kain lace, kad kawin. I even got the time to peek at the folders of kad kawin, pretty-pretty designs... Ehemmmm... brides of 2009, please take note.

Pretty laces ehemmm especially for future brides ;)

We spent mostly on first and second floor women blouses/textile shop, even checking out the pretty laces, which I even persuaded to get a pink lace for 2 metres. Now where am I gonna wear my pink lace? Too over for raya? But the collections of lace memang soooooo pretty, I think if I'm a bride, I would want to have 10 pasangs of baju sanding after seeing all those lace. Not that I know the exact-price, but after having experience accompanying mom to maya textile in kl, I must say that the lace are sold cheaper too.

overly sulam telekung

Some of the women blouses also sold in pasar baru too, BUT they're not all the boring mommy style. Some are pretty fashionable for young people and good thing about it is you can bargain the price down. Although, I must say that Indonesian women are quite small in size, if you're wearing malaysian medium-size, you might found out that you fit into their large/x-large size. So, now resolution must be, have to be skinny to fit into small-indonesian size.

tudung shop in pasar baru

Oooh, and another thing, don't worry about having to climb 8 floors of shops. They have escalators and elevator here. But note of advice, please take the elevator if you want to go straight to lantai 6 where the foodcourt was. In our experience, we took the escalator to go to 6th floor, and we stopped for at least half an hour every floor just to check out the shops that we saw! Also, good news for smokers/bapa-bapa who are waiting for their wives but not-so-good-news for me and others, you can smoke in pasar baru. Imagine in a crowded arcade shops full with people, then got people smoking while you imagining your wedding dress in your head, added with weird-smell-of-air-freshener . Hmmm... Not a good combination. But maybe you'll forget about all those while shopping eh?

Handbag shop in pasar baru

Finally stopped for lunch and we were already too hungry from all the shopping cardio. We went to a recommended stall, Pak Chi Met which is famous for its ikan bakar. I like the ikan bakar, it's a bit sweet and crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside. I think it's called ikan gurame? But this is just for me, since sis didn't think the fish suitable for her throat.

RP60,000 for lunch: ikan bakar, ayam goreng, sotong bakar, and udang bakar for 4 persons approximately rm21

After lunch, we went back to our shopping in pasar baru until it closed at 5-ish....

Our avanza was already full with our stuff at the back. Imagine 6 girls shopping in 8 floors of pasar baru. Crazy i tell you... Even after spending about 5 hours in pasar baru, we still feel we didn't get all the stuff we wanted. That was why we intended to go again the second day:) - "banyak barang tertinggal" was our excuse ... hehehehe

***Sorry I didn't take a lot of pictures in pasar baru, too lazy to take out my super-bulky d70 from my backpack. And for FOs, cannot take pictures inside :

Happening Factory Outlet

After getting out from pasar baru, our supir brought us to another place which bandung is famous for, its Factory Outlets. We went to Happening, Summit and Terminal Tas. They have all the branded items at discounted price. But the kiddies clothes, sooooo cute and cheap.... Lana, you gotta go to happening & summit, they have cute tops for little seth! I didn't get many things in the FOs since they already turned off the aircond (maybe because they were closing?). It was hot and stuffy, so I just got cute little tops for little kiddies.

Factory Outlet, nice huh?

Initially our supir wanted to take us to a restaurant, but when we got there it was already closing. All of us decided to go western and went for mcDonalds . We were walkingshopping the whole day, we deserve some big Macs!

Went back to hotel at 10 (11 malaysia), I was already sleepy/headach-y/nauseated by then... But do check out our shopping, it took away my nauseousness.. hahahah...

first day of shopping! Crazy kan? it's like we were deprived from shopping for a year!