JAKARTA/BANDUNG TRIP 15 - 19 MAY 2009 - PART 1

This trip was planned a few months back....By March, A and I had booked the flight return tickets to Jakarta. Later, my office mate, Ajib and his friend wanted to join in. Due to some matters with the Immigration Dept, Ajib's friend cannot get the passport ready in time and decided not to go. Then, three days before we were to depart, Ajib's father had a heart attack and was admitted to ICU, GH. Fearing the worst, Ajib decided not to go too. The next day, Ajib's father regain consciousness and was transferred to the normal ward. With his blessing, Ajib then decided to join us back.

So this was our story of our trip to Jakarta & Bandung...

Day One - 15 May 2009 (Friday)

At 4.00 am, A and I took a cab from our house to KL Sentral and proceeded to LCCT via Sky Bus. Ajib was already there and after we had done checking-in, we went to Chocolate for breakfast

With Ajib at Chocolate, having our set continental breakfast

At 7.00 am, we flew to Soekarno- Hatta International Airport, Jakarta, arriving at 10.30 am (Indonesian time). I saw this interesting add at the airport and had to take a picture of it.

Do you think its necessary to put the animal pic? Pity Mexico too, hehe

We then took a Blue Bird cab (the only reliable cab in Indonesia) to our hotel, Ibis Arcadia.

Our room in Ibis Arcadia

After check-in, we walked to the nearest nasi padang restaurant for lunch. Here, they served us with many plates of foods. What we choose will be counted and be paid for. The 'ayam dendeng', 'nangka masak lemak' were among my favourites. It tasted good but it will taste better if the food is being served warm. Being hungry we did not care much and its served our purpose to eat fast so that we can have more time to roam. We then walked to Monumen Nasional (MONAS) nearby which is actually the National Monument tower (137 meter high). We bought tickets and took the elevator up to the upper platform to view Medan Merdeka Park, Istiqlal Mosque and the city view.

A, with MONAS at the background

Ajib & A, below the tower.

To enter inside MONAS, you need to use
the tunnel from the park

The view from the Tower

Another view from the Tower,
Istiqlal Mosque, one of the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia.
I read somewhere, President Soekarno choose a Christian architect to built it.

Afterward, the three of us took a ride in a 'Bajaj', a three-wheeled motorised rickshaw to Tanah Abang Market (somewhat like a high rise Wisma Yakin market area but much much more hustling and bustling) where we did a 'little' bit of shopping. Using bajaj is not only cheaper but also faster considering the horrible traffic jam or 'macet' as it is said in Indonesian. But you have to endure the smell of gas, the heat and the fear for your dear life while the driver did the "rempit" action to reach its destination...

The road behind Tanah Abang Market
(14 or so storey building - the green in colour)

We then took another Bajaj and headed back to our hotel. Afterward, we took a cab and went to Grand Indo, a huge and the most exclusive mall in Indonesia. Indeed, the word 'grand' is not an exaggeration. Nothing in KL can compare this richly taste and beautiful mall. The security is also quite tight..not only you will be screened before entering the mall but any vehicles will have to undergo the same inspection. There, I entered a shop selling original CDs and bought an album CD recommended to me by a courteous worker in the shop. The artiste is Joeniar Arief and I love his songs instantly when that guy played it for me during testing. Fall in love with the track 'Rapuh' as you can feel a snappy similar beat of 'Bleeding Love' by Leona Lewis in that song but much much better...a superb album..

One of the many attractive places in the Mall (the Arabian street)

We then had our dinner at the modern and beautiful food court. My only concern in the food court was that the stalls there do not differentiate a halal or non halal section. (Even MBK Mall in Bangkok has a section for muslim food!!!)....There are stalls putting a '100% halal' sign at their premises but his neighbouring stall clearly and proudly stated 'pork' in the menus.

Another one of the mall's magnificent place

Afterward, we took a cab and went to Sarinah Mall, a walking distance to our hotel. There, we went to Inul Vista, a karaoke place owned by Inul Daratista, the same kind of place I went while I was in Bali last year. Not only its was cheap, but the ambiance was nice and the sound system was superb. We then walked back to our hotel to rest.

End of day one - the next post will be day two of our trip which include our journey from Jakarta to Bandung via train.

MOTHER'S DAY 2009

I can't remember when my family first started to celebrate Mother's Day. It was never heard off until the last few years and by then, I was left only with my mother. My father passed away 10 years ago. At that time, all of us i.e my two older brothers, my sister (the eldest) and myself were worried sick that my mother might not take the burden of being alone. The two of them had never been separated for a long time, albeit being the likes of Mr and Mrs Smith, throwing daggers and bullets at each other while my father was still alive. Irregardless, their love life is a story by itself, spanning more than four decades of sharing their life together come what may.......

Surprisingly, my mother is a strong woman and lead her life alone until last year when my brother insisted for her to stay with him and his family in Shah Alam. She is now 74 years old if I calculated her age in my birth certificate but she always said that she was borne much much earlier than that. Those early years, your father will not rush to the registry office to register your birth, the day you were born. Whatever it is, our family has been celebrating mother's day since a few years ago...sometimes in a big scale and sometimes small, but to us that is not important as long as we can get together as one family.

This year, all of us celebrated Mother's Day with a lunch at the Kelab Golf Perkhidmatan Awam (KGPA) in Damansara. After that, my sister with her family, my mother, A and myself went to IKEA. We then had our early dinner at a small Modesto and had our pizzas and pastas there. One thing I like about my mother is that, at her age, she is not choosy when it comes to food. She does not mind walking to a burger stall and ordered one if she feels like it... The other best part about her was that, she insisted in paying half or all of the bill when its that time to pay (well, not all the time we decline her offer anyway).. anytime, anywhere even though at Mother's Day....who could ask for more, the best mum ever......muah....

My smiling mum with her Mother Day's card

BIRTHDAY DINNER & STAR TREK

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

As mentioned from my previous post, I have intended to bring A to dinner for his birthday. I also mentioned that it will be a secret place unknown to him. Actually I did not hide anything, I told him the name of the place outright already....the place I meant was Rahsia Bistro & Bar (here) at Jalan Damai.

First impression of the place has been impressive. As mentioned in the website, it is a 60's bungalow surrounded by greens with chic decoration. You can either dine in open air garden area, 1st floor or 2nd floor terrace, ( outdoors) or the living halls, private rooms or patio (indoors). Such a serene place with nice ambiance indeed. We choose the 1st floor terrace, a compromise between an open air and a full blast fan to cool ourselves from the hot nite.

The garden area

The menu is a mixture of Asian and western food. As stated in the website it is an eclectic mix of contemporary Asian and Nouveau International cuisine...whatever that means...

For starters we ordered, Tomato Soup, Rojak Buah, and Top Hats. We drank Rahsia's speciality drinks i.e "Asmara" by A, a mixed of mango and orange plus soda. I ordered "Cinta", a concoctions comprising of watermelon, lime, mint, soda and other ingredients I can't remember. I was then told by the waitress "Cinta" was invented by the owner of Rahsia himself.

"Asmara", A's drink
"Cinta", my drink

A non pretentious tomato soup, simple and yummy

I love these Pie Tee, its not crispy
but it tastes good nonetheless

For the main course, A ordered Mushroom Fish and I ordered Chicken Roulade. As for dessert, I ordered Black Sweet which was actually a Malay bubur pulut hitam with banana slices and vanilla ice-cream, served in a hot wine glass . A ordered bread butter pudding instead. The restaurant also served us with the traditional malay sago pudding together with coconut gravy and red sugar, complimentary from the chef.

Mushroom Fish, served with onion rings

My chicken roulade, served with mashed potatoes and asparagus

A's dessert, bread butter pudding with a scoop of ice-cream

My dessert

All in all, we really enjoyed the dinner. The food prices are nett i.e. with no service charge and no GST. With a very reasonable price, great ambiance and soft background music, it was a pleasant surprised for me to listen to one of my favourite singer, Brenda Russell belted her distinguished songs such as "Le Restaurant" and "Get Here" (made famous again by Oleta Adam) . These two beautiful songs introduced me to appreciate contemporary jazz singers years ago such as Sheila Majid, Vina Panduwinata, Jerry Butler, Sade and Anita Baker to name a few.

Birthday boy ...

Smiling after a full stomach......

Thursday, 7 May 2009.

I have already booked 2 tickets to watch "Star Trek" at IOI Mall at 9.25 p.m. earlier in the morning. The journey from our house to IOI Mall will normally be not more than 15 minutes but we were shocked to be confronted with a massive traffic jam entering IOI Mall (we have forgotten about Jusco's mega sale on the same day). To find a car park was horrendous and I managed to park at a very dangerous place. We reached the cinema at 9.00 pm. Luckily the seats for the movie were still available. After buying the tickets, we then rushed to the A & W's nearby and grabbed our burgers for a quick bite. The movie had already started by the time we were in.

Having watched a few failed Star Trek movies before, my only hope was that this will be a different movie from its predecessors. Why? Because it is in the hand of J.J Abrams, the same director who gave us the unforgettable "Armageddon", "Mission Impossible", "Cloverfield" and lots of TV series. Again, he did not disappoint. For me, he has done a splendid job of reviving the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members in a much much grandeur scale. As expected in a Star Trek movie, the story of the future co-exist in the present and vice versa was apparent here..confusing? don't bother, you are watching a movie where earth only existed maybe 10 minutes out of this 126 minutes movie. Also, its kinda funny to watch Zachary Quinto as the good old Mr Spock after seeing him as the evil Sylar in Heroes. Whatever it is, go watch and enjoy the movie.

To end this, I quote Mr Spock famous phrase......Live long, and Prosper. ( with the imaginary "V" hand sign.......).

JUST A FEW UPDATES

It has been quite awhile since I wrote my last post. Why? I can simply say that I am busy like everyone else and its an absolute truth but how busy can someone be? Surely the creature named 'lazy' play a part in it too.... whatever it is I pray to God for giving me still the wisdom to savor happiness, a loose term but joyful nonetheless... but off course for every journey or voyage, the sea is not always calm, the stormy sea did rock the ship to the brink of its demise time and time again ..but as long as the captain has a strong will to see his ship to reside or to berth at her designated place, then come what may, the journey in itself will be worthwhile...


Enough about that, let us come back to the solid ground. Just like AF7 which talks about transformation (not that I take heed about it anymore unlike those glorious AF year i.e. during Zahid's) my small house has also being transformed. Many many thanks to A, for his non sabbatical leave from work for about 4 weeks has given him ample time and ideas to decorate our house..a little bit of painting here and a little bit of drilling there and adding with all new lighting's and carpet plus the new "toys" has given our living room an uplifting place to be...yet there are still few things to be done but with no budget, the rest are to be put on hold.

When I said, sabbatical leave it does not mean that A was fired or retrenched. He left his old company for a long needed break and do things... other things he wanted to do for a while before embarking on a new working journey again...well yesterday was A's first day working in a new place ..... so just expect him to eventually revive his blogs soon.

As for our weekend activities nothing much to note except the following in no chronologically order.

- Watched theater called "Patung Kertas 2" at MATIC. I must say its quite fascinating to watch Datuk Jalaluddin Hassan and Ashraf Muslim and few others as drag queens. However, the "antics" in this theater were much much less provocative to compare with "Air-Cond" that we watched last year.

- Attended AIM in PWTC with Ajib, A and Omar, A's best friend. Love Adibah's ranting with the audience in between commercial breaks for she prayed not to make anymore bloopers which she did during their opening act with Afdlin and Bob Lokman.

- The next day, A, Omar and myself had our lunch at the new Papa John in IOI Mall, Puchong. I always like Papa John's pizzas, second best only after Modesto's. (Domino's still OK, Pizza Hut a big no no............) Nonetheless I keep wondering why many of the Papa John's waiters in here are chubby guys.....ermmm I received the answer via SMS from Panzer concurring with my thought....he simply put it...it shows good food ermmm Fat people = Good food? ermmm I guess so hehehe..... good marketing strategies nonetheless.....

- Made a complaint at Johnny's (Steamboat) in Berjaya Times Square. Why? The infamous dip sauce is no longer thick as usual albeit the same taste. Being Johnny's ardent customer (one or twice a month), the manager helplessly told us that the sauce was supplied by one company and not being made by the restaurant itself....sigh...

- Had dinner at The Loaf in Pavilion and out of curiosity we tried its Japanese fusion set dinner named the Ojyu Plus One which have four type of set menus. I took the Murasala and A's took the Tsubaki. Out came 2 small trays and in it an even smaller or tiny cups of assorted fusion Japanese delicacies. The Japanese really know how to make us not to dislike the food. In each tiny cups or in a spoon, the food tasted yummy but because of its small quantities we appreciated it more after it enters into our mouth, wanting more of it but no longer there.... Funny that both of us swear to go to mamak stall afterwards...

A' s Tsubaki

My Murasala

Complimentary Bread

- The Drinks

On the same nite at Pavilion, we watched a Thai's movie called "Queen Of Langkasuka". On the way out of the cinema afterward, I kept wandering how our neighbouring country can produced such a high quality movie such as this. How so very far backward is our movie industry. It is beyond comparison. Such a shame.......

That is about all for now. We tried to keep a tight budget this month (to no avail, off course) to prepare ourselves for our upcoming trip to Jakarta/Bandung next Friday. Nonetheless , tonite, I will buy A's dinner at a secret place unknown to him to celebrate his birthday today...ermmmmmm

MY ACTIVITIES FROM MARCH 14 TO APRIL 5, 2009

Some recollection of my activities for the past month to date.

14 March 2009 (Saturday) - My Grandnephew Got Married

Yeah it can get complicated if the situation was like this. When my mum was born, her older sisters had already a few siblings of their own which means my mum have nieces and nephews older than herself. (There was nothing peculiar if at one time a daughter and her mother were pregnant during those old days, I guess). Because of that too, that is why I had a few nephews and nieces older than me, so to attend your grandnephew or grandniece wedding means nothing new to me. And to make a long story short, A and me and the whole of my family attended one of my grandnephew's wedding dinner on the above date at Putrajaya.

Here comes the married couple.

My grandnephew looked so young and
I felt ermm...not so young

21 March 2003 (Saturday) - Hot Air Balloon Festival (Putrajaya)

On the way to Putrajaya, A and me stopped at Nasi Beryani Putrajaya right after the Kajang toll house. We ate the herbal chicken beryani. Its was just OK by me but A did not like it much because of the herbs. Reached Putrajaya afterward. Our ambitious intention was not only to watch the hot air balloons but also take a ride in one of it. With no knowledge of the festival activities, obviously we did not know the scheduled planned. And because of that it was unfortunate that we arrived too early only to find out that the balloons were still deflated and there will be no open ride on that day....Darn. To make matter worse, it was too many people and the heat was unbearable. We only managed to watch the airshow and decided to leave before the balloons were up.

A managed to catch this on his camera

28 March 2009 (Saturday - Earth Hour Campaign)

Such a historical night. Where is the best place to view KL in its darkness if not the highest place possible, right? Taking a cue from Is, A and me went to KL Tower and again thanks to Is, with the help of his friend who works there, the ticket to the Observation Deck was only RM5.00 per person instead of the normal RM38.00.

Now you see it ....

Now you don't...

Most of the people at the Observation Deck were foreigners. There was an exultant feeling when people cheered each time they saw one after another buildings lights in KL were turn off starting from 8.30pm. The loudest cheers came when KLCC's lights were turn off level by level just in front of our eyes...awesome sight. With no lights for one hours, I don't know what my fellow Malaysian were doing at that time. My wise brother has a prediction on this. He said to wait for another 9 months to see miracle happens i.e the maternity wards in Malaysia will be full with new born babies....wink wink...(not applicable to certain kind of people for sure, the unmarried one, I meant)...

Wonder what was A's looking at, ermm skodeng yek..

The lights on the Observation Deck were closed too.

Nothing to do in the darkness so we
took pictures of ourselves. Boleh?

Left KL Tower at 9.20pm and it was still in the dark.

Afterward, together with Wan, Panzer and Faiz, we went to E-box Karoke in Endah Parade until 2.45 am and then had our drinks at Mirasaa Seri Petaling. Went home at 3.30 am.


29 March 2009 (Sunday) - Third Birthday Celebration

I have posted my first birthday celebration before here. After that, there was one more small celebration with my sister's family in which I am close with. I brought them to dinner at Papa John, Berjaya Times Square. Then on 29 March 2009, in conjunction with my elder brother's birthday, my sister in-law decided to make it a double celebration together with mine. I considered it to be my third birthday celebration. So this below pictures were taken at their house in Shah Alam.

Nice surprise, instead of 1 cake we had 4
(3 from Secret Recipe and 1 from dunno where).

these lovely cupcakes were too beautiful to eat

One of my cute niece gave me this..

This is not one of the gifts ..yeah blame it on me
I envied my schoolmates who rode mini coopers back then in the 70's...

4 April 2009 (Saturday)

After A's finished his classes, we went to IKEA to buy a few small unimportant things. We then shopped at DIY (Ikano) before having our dinner at Penang Village next door. I like the comfy place and the food was quite good too.

For starters we had Pie Tees and Rojak Buah
(The Rojak Buah was not in the picture, already finished..)

A ate Pineapple rice. I normally am not fond of it,
but this rice is exceptionally good and aplenty too.

I ate Langkawi Rice. Why the name I dunno.
The taste was just OK but I like the chicken and the acar.

The Inchi Kabin Chicken, if i am not mistaken...sedapppppp!!!!

The drinks were nice too. I drank Ribena Syrup and A had Air Cendol. Overall a nice dinner.


5 April 2009 (Sunday)

I received an invitation from ZainJB at 2.00am for an outing at Congkak River that afternoon but I had to declined since I got prior engagement. My brother has been asking for one of A's cat for quite sometime so on this kinda sad day, A and me sent Intan (its a male by the way) to my brother's house in Subang Jaya. After making sure that he was OK we left and headed to Subang Parade looking for a place for our late lunch. There, we saw Swensen's and decided to give it a try.

What was left of a tomato soup, A's starter for lunch

A nice and simple Onion Soup for me. Actually this soup comes with
the main course but I liked it so much and ordered one more

A ordered Chicken Burger

I ordered Ratatouille Chicken - a new speciality dish

We end up sharing this Coit Tower for dessert.

Afterward we went window shopping in Subang Parade....I am impressed with the new building face lift albeit this is considered one of the oldest big building in Subang Jaya... We then went to a big electrical shops in Taipan with the intention to buy an Air Purifier, and being me with the uncontrolled impulsive buying and with short amnesia on our poor economic climate instead of buying just Air Purifier I ended up buying "things" worth more than RM6K...my wallet koyak again...gulp...

I was eaten, he is next....huhu

SO VERY TRUE IN LIFE

I have a lot on my mind of things to post but unfortunately due to time constraint I have to KIV it and wait for a suitable time instead. Nonetheless, today, my office mate sent this email to me which I found worth posting. It simply shows us the reality of life as brilliantly illustrated below...

Sometimes you can reach too far! And when you find yourself over-extended and you're stuck in a situation that you can't get out of, there is one thing you should always remember.........

Not everyone who shows up......

....is there to help you.....

ermm funny but its true...the person that you think you can trust to help you in your worse condition may turn around and take advantage of your condition to his/her own use. So be careful on who you call for help and how sincere they are or else you may end up like in the same position above...get screw up.......yulp....

SMOKING : PART 2

As an addition to the the previous post, I only like to add one more image in which I found in the net quite sometime ago. My deepest apology if this image or picture may be offensive to those heavy smokers out there. I am sure most of you have already seen much more gruesome pictures in the newspaper (on the cigarette pack if you are in Thailand) on the effect of smoking but I guess nothing should have said more than what has been mentioned in the previous post.