Category: Travel

  • Die Hard

    Went to a mall in Manila with Ike last Saturday (damn, i forget the name of the mall), having a dinner at Ten Titas. We had lug-lug noodle, yakitori, mango-shake, and cosmopolitan. More like a light dinner. Nothing very very heavy for a 8pm meal.

    Later, went to cinema around the mall, just looking at something worth watching, which were none. But, something catch my eyes. DIE HARD 4.0! John McClane is BACK!
    Can not wait, man! This world needs you, John! I can not imagine, if there are several John McClanes, Jack Bauers, working together to save the world :p

    Anyway, the trip to Manila was easy. Taking AirAsia to Batam, BatamFast ferry to Singapore, cousin’s Civic to ChoaChuKang, Civic again to Changi BT, TigerAirways to Clark, Philtranco bus to Manila, and terrible taxi to Sampaloc (with my lovely girl-friend). I’ll write more about the trip later.

    Today, doing nothing! She’s doing some residency stuff in Jose Reyes Hospital, and I’m blogging and flickr’ing at her place.

  • Flight Attendant

    “According to civil aviation regulation, bla bla bla bla…., enjoy your flight!”

    We hear that everytime we’re flying with commercial airline, i never pay any attention to the stewardess, it’s kinda boring and they’re not really trying to do something for you, they’re not teaching or educate you about how to use the emergency equipments, the only reason they do the point this point that is only requirements.

    Do they ever ask us, “so,..do you understand?”, or “do you want us to repeat this?”. No! They talk, show, but assume all the ‘audience’ understand.

    And, on my last month flight from Jakarta to Surabaya, after the plane had landed smoothly, the flight attendants said “Para penumpang yang terhormat, kita telah mendarat di Bandara Internasional Juanda, dimohon untuk tetap duduk, sekali lagi dimohon untuk tetap duduk, hingga pesawat benar-benar berhenti dengan sempurna dan lampu bla bla…”.

    Normal? Later, they continued with English version “Ladies and gentlements, we’ve just landed in Juanda International Airport, please remain seated until the plane bla bla..”

    See? Why they have to repeat the ‘remain-seated’ part in Bahasa Indonesia, but none in English. Is that Indonesian so stupid that can not understand that they need to remain seated? I asked my self. They must not do the discrimination, indonesian will also understand to remain seated without the words being emphasized!

    I was wrong, and the flight attendants was right. Even, they have asked twice, all the passengers still unbuckle their seatbelt and reach their luggage, whilethe plane’s still moving… Sad but true, most of us not ‘clever’ enough.

  • Closer in Orchard

    It was the best thing I would like to do more and more…

    Warm night.
    Orchard Road.
    iPod’s singing Closer from The Wallflower.
    The beat gone by my walk.
    The crowd’s ignoring me, and I ignored’em…
    The people’s singing their own tune, as I sang mine. I forgot the time, and it forgot about me.

    The best walk I’ve ever had recently. It was 10pm, and I had to meet some crazy friends Robin, Erny, Tony asked me to go to Orchard for a quick hang out. Had Elephancino in NYDC that night.

    Great experience.

  • Bontang

    Its been a while since my last post. Been in Bontang (300 km from Balikpapan) last week. The 1st time I’m in Bontang, they told me “when you drink the water from the land of Bontang, you will keep coming back”, I laughed. Bull Shit! (Jack Welch would have called it BS, for bull-shit).

    It was July 2004. And one-and-half year ahead since then, there’s been those 5 more trips to this oil and gas town, and made me nod my head and said “Damn! They’re right!”… Know what, next week, I’ll be visiting Bontang again for another trip to another client. A marine constructor. I can say that there’s nothing in Bontang. What I do everyday : wake up, breakfast and a cup of hot coffee, 5 minutes drive to job-site, conducting audit/consultancy/training, go back to hotel, watch one hour of TV, dinner with client, back to room, typing/reading/or another TV hour, and sleep. Tomorrow? The same thing!

    Ah, tired? Yes yes yes… but must put in mind and soul, that these trips were just several good experiences and many to come, these are learning experiences, where we can also learn about life. Learn yours too! 😉