Sydney

To see the temperature was 14'C when I landed Sydney this morning at 5.40am by SQ 221, made me realize that I am in other continent already.

To see Vicky and Mia faces when they picked me up in airport, made me realize that I have some good friends here.

To see the apartment is clean, tidy and Surya put some fresh pretty flowers include in my bathroom, made me realize that I am ALREADY back at home.

Mia, vicky and surya - thank you for your usual warm welcome. Even without some balinese dance in arrival gate to welcome me as recommended by Surya hahahaha.... :))

Good morning Singapore

Another record of sleeping hahaha.. I slept 10hours last nite, may be becoz' I was too tired. The view from my room says "Good morning and you have missed your breakfast!"

Walked to orchard to have lunch, I ate char siew w.rice (very standard sporean meal)and chrysan tea.

Sitting alone in front of forum shopping centre remind me of 1995 where I lived here. I normally waited for Ade and Liya bibir went back work from Boulevard hotel to go to Brannigan's or HRC. Nothing has changed in here, the building and the shopping centres are remain the same; only no more smile and nonsenses jokes after finished work from all my Enhaii friends.


Good morning Singapore


Orchard Rd


Forum shopping centre

Voice in my ear says "Bed, I am drunk, can you drop me in Upper Thompson? or can I stay in your apartment in Bugis?" - good memory.


Photo taken from enhaii museum - isetan orchard 1995 :D

Singapore 3rd time this month

I finally landed again in Singapore today at 17.55hrs local time. Too hungry and too tired to go out the hotel. Just stay in the room, having rest and ordered wanton noodles.

getting around hanoi

Finished work and try to be away from my compie at 1.30pm today. I was hungry and I think it's the time to go around. First had lunch in Emperor. Very nice place and very good food. The lemon grass chicken is great.


Emperor restaurant - Le Thanh Tong Street


The mouth-watering lemon grass chicken

Thereafter I went to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum for a quick look, too bad it's only opened in the morning. Only took photo in front of it. And walk to one pillar pagoda, was there 5 minutes only.


Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum


The one pillar pagoda

I went to temple of literature, a well-preserved traditional Vietnamese architecture, the first university in Vietnam - I overlisten to somebody else's tour guide hihi :P


Temple of literature


Me and surya in water puppetry hahaha :D

Time is running, I went to Army museum for 30 minutes. To me, this is a must place to see, after I have seen war museum in HCMC last 3 years ago. Located on Dien Bien Phu street, I saw a lot of soviet and chinese weaponary suplied to the North. At the center of the museum, there's US F 111 and B52 wreckage, a success symbol of Vietnamese won the war from America. Located next to the Museum, there was a hexagonal flag tower, which has become one the symbols in Hanoi.


The Jet that shooted more than 10 US Jet


The wreckage


Flag tower

My trip end with riding a cyclo from Sofitel back to Hilton. The cyclo driver looks like Andy Lau hahaha.. he's 20 yo. I don't know wether it's real look like Andy Lau, or I got brain disorder due to too much work with papers since yesterday hahaha :D

3 hours away and met "Andy Lau" has refreshed me.

Hanoi

I can't open my eyes this morning but I have to, I need to catch my flight to Hanoi. Had my coffee, prepare my stuff and check out from Shang and arrived changi at 09.00hrs. Boarding at 09.35, horay - still have 30 minutes to explore the duty free hahaha..

Thanks to Pro Tennis games in my PSP, three and half hours flight does not seems very long anymore.

After checking few documents for meeting, finally I landed in Hanoi at 12.30hrs.

Traffic drives on the right, motorbikes is overcrowded, horn sound in every interjunction, truly a hair-raising experience but those experiences say welcome back to me.

Finished work at 8pm and went dinner at white lotus. Nice ambience restaurant serves good vietnamese cuisine. Spicy seafood and green mango salad, deep fried spring roll and braised fish in ginger sauce. Oh, yum!


Street crowd in Hanoi


So many brand identity in the room

Singapore 2nd time this month

Arrived at 7.40pm local time - Singapore called me again to work. Hotel is full, and the reception upgrade me. Nice room but not much point coz' I only need it for sleeping, coz' the rest of time is working. Ups forget one thing, it's a very nice place to write this blog. Haha :D

Bandung

Last Weekend break with my family was a good one. We went to Bandung, I drove there from jakarta, and it took only 2 hours. Stayed in Hyatt. Nothing much we did in Bandung; my sister, my cousin and my aunt went for swimming and shopping, meanwhile me and my brother just stayed in the room and made our "lazy" day (sleeping, eating, watching takeshi castle in TV):P. We met in PVJ ( paris van java ) for lunch and back again to hotel.

A good time in a happy family, that's something that money can't buy.


View from the room


PVJ

Hapus aku

Nidji - Hapus Aku

Kutuliskan kesedihan

Semua tak bisa kau ungkapkan

Dan kita kan bicara dengan hatiku

Buang semua puisi

Antara kita berdua

Kau bunuh dia sesuatu

Yang kusebut itu cinta

Reff:

Yakinkan aku Tuhan

Dia bukan milikku

Biarkan waktu waktu

Hapus aku…

Sadarkan aku Tuhan

Dia bukan milikku

Biarkan waktu waktu

Hapus aku…

Bandar Jakarta

I went to Ancol after work around 9pm last night\:D/

So happy, coz' it's been a while I have never been to Ancol, heaps of changes there; but most important is I went there with Will, which is been a while too that we never have good time or dinner together.

Place is good, we can choose and pick the seafood we want, like in supermarket, and tell them what do you want the seafood to be cooked.

I choose oyster sauce crab, deep fried squid, steam prawn, and grilled fish to be our dinner.

Talking about our life, future, work never been so good with the yummy seafood and fresh sea breeze.


View from our table with awful camera phone

Lunch

What a great lunch today. A lot of people in the office love me :D

First I got lontong sayur with perkedel and telur puyuh. Then mba oeke gave me nasi gudeg jogja complete with telur and krecek, after that Mas Naryo gave me ketoprak with heaps of kerupuk merah, and Pak Bambang gave me rujak buah that have some mangga muda.

Guess what? I have finished all of them. Slurp ! Hahaha...

SMS

message details:
+61413******>
subject: I'm doing fine...
date: 19/04/2007
time: 03.20
type: text message

I am sad, but at least I am happy with the answer of 1st, 2nd and 3rd questions. No 4th question anymore.

Stopped by the police

A funny evening with nci lia.

We wanted to go to kelapa gading for my gurame goreng kering ( hmm food again haha ), I drove her car.

In rawamangun intersection, the traffic light was red and I stopped. Finally the green light took its time to be on, car moved, I turned right - car sound system played padi's "menanti sebuah jawaban", we sang loud (jeritan hati) and suddenly the bus was stuck in front of me, can't enter next road due to traffic -the worst case is I was stuck in the middle of intersection until the car from other side moved. I made the other side traffic can't move.

Thereafter, a police came and stopped us. He pull me aside. He asked my Driving license and Car registration and said that I cross the red light. I told him that I didn't, I was in the middle coz' of the bus was stuck; 2 minutes explanation still end up with go to court on 27 April. I told him I can't make it since I need to go to Australia while showing my Aussie ID. At the end, he ask me how to "settle" now. And what happened was I only have Rp 70.000,- in my wallet since I just arrived from Singapore last nite while he asked more than that. Talk and talk and finally the police agree with Rp 70.000,-

To me, I still didn't cross the red traffic light, but the other lesson tonight is not only I am good in business bargain but also to bargain the police :D

15 minutes later, when we entered the restaurant door - we forgot already that we just have been stopped by a police. The sambal mangga was so damn good.

Nasi goreng kebon sirih

Matthew, my brother, picked me up last night from Jakarta Airport. On the way home, we decided to have dinner at nasi goreng kebon sirih. Ate nasi goreng, sate kambing and teh botol made me feel at home. Ah.. Jakarta welcome me back again.

Ritual

Dinner at Coca - takashimaya

In singapore, I am back to my old ritual in life. Sleeping, working and eating.

Sample for today :
Sleeping : 01.00-08.15
Working : 10.00-14.00
Lunch : 14.00-15.00
Working again : 15.00-19.00
Dinner : 20.45-22.00
Working and preparing tomorrow work in my room : 22.00-00.20
Sleeping: 01.00-07.00

Mr. Prata

Thank Shafik for kidnapping me for dinner. Finished work today at 9.30pm, so hungry but don't want to eat the hotel food again. The cheese - egg prata, plain prata and nasi goreng ikan bilis are more than enough to satiate my very very hungry stomach.

The devil wear prada - the angel eat prata. Halah !! Hahaha :D

Singapore

Morning traffic in Jakarta from home to airport does not stop me to arrive on time in Singapore for today afternoon meeting. Just finished checking the letter of agreement; and time to sleep now, almost 1am - another 2 meetings tomorrow. Need to work harder to get an Iphone :D

Friends

Charlie's Angels

12.19
I called Dede to his line.
"Ceu, kita jadi makan bareng ga?"
"Ayo."
"Sip, laper banget neh. Gue turun sekarang."
"Ya udah ketemu di bawah"
"Ajak Dicky ya, biar tambah seru"

Charlie's angels are back. Dede, dicky and me had lunch together, talked nonsense, starting from our "story" until new places in Jakarta. We had lunch in Warmo. Great food in very warm place. Sweat does not stop me to eat the nasi paru goreng, bakwan udang, telor asin, tahu kecap and 2 teh botol, even at the end we had teri kacang and peyek udang as dessert. Hehe. Great food, great story with great friends.

Enci Lia

17.21
Enci Lia called me.
"Darling, dimana?"
"Baru keluar kantor, lagi nyetir, mau ke gramed cari buku reference. Kenapa dear?"
"Nongkrong yuks. Makan kali ya, gue baru selesai kelas."
"Ayo aja - ketemu di tebet aja. Satu mobil aja, lo taro mobil, naek taxi ke tebet ntar gue jemput."
"Ok."

18.15
I called Enci Lia
"Sinting, macet banget."
"Terus?"
"Lo dah sampe mana? Gue jemput di Gelael Sahardjo aja deh."
"Ok - gue bilang ke supir taxi."



TIS Square - Tebet

Bakmi toko tiga

I had dinner with Enci Lia in bakmi toko tiga TIS square. Never-ending conversation since we met in Bangkok for 2007 new year party. Talk and talk and talk, until we moved for cuppa in Starbucks. After cuppa, we end up with 1 hours pool game in Gedung Film. Great time, great games with great friend.

Wawan

22.24
Driving home and front of my house I met Wawan, my neighbour.
"Woi, kapan balik dari Aussie?"
"Udah semingguan. Apa kabar?"
"Baik2. Gue mau ke Shanghai minggu depan."
"Oh ya, ngapain?"
"Ada kerjaan, gue mesti...."

I end up had conversation with Wawan in his place after park the car in my house. Conversation about retail investment in Indonesia, jakarta working culture, foreign investment, accountant training until I realize that tonight is school night and I need to go to work in the morning. Great conversation, great knowledge and great friend.

23.37
Thanks God for today. You have shown me that I got heaps of great friends in my life.

Jakarta

Quite an effective day today, I went to the bank this morning, had 3 meetings, arranged few things, and had a dinner with Ade. It sounds not too much things have been done, but in the busy and traffic city like Jakarta especially when it's raining hard ( traffic is worse ) - it's a thumb up. Even though I need to spend 2 hours driving to go back home from Kuningan. Oh, great day.

home

My everyday view from my room in Sydney



I miss my Bali house

Last Monday, I went to organize the Permanent Resident and now in Jakarta, just landed last night after Singapore. I keep thinking about the word of home now, where is my home? May be Jakarta, Sydney, Singapore, Melbourne, Bali, Bangkok, or any other places on this earth.

To me now, home is the place where you can feel the real love where you live in. In this case I must say agree to Mr. Robbie William.