MUET - Surprisingly scary?

I guess some of you are actually wondering just why on earth did i signed up for MUET?

(MUET = Malaysian University English Test)

KPI dalam Blog.BLeh?

So okay.
Hoooray today i manage to drag myself and drove to work. It's friday 23rd and Division meeting was scheduled today.by me.
After MC on mon,tue and Thurs due to fever, it felt like ive left office for 3 weeks.

anywau. Like ppl say. Ada hikmah disebaliknya. kena buat Appraisal for fy11/12. and i need to appraise like 7 orang! aiyorrrkkkkl....its 2.25pm and submission is at 3pm. blank.

whatever its worth. Kak Kim,its waaaayyyy from boring. Please keep writing.

and Ila.you too.

and the rest.join me. boleh komen mengomen.ok?

Seductively Pinky ^_^

As it happened: Israel-Gaza violence

Oh yes...it is very seductive indeed. While browsing the net early Saturday morning, i stumbled upon a photo of Pink colored lake.

At first thought "ok,this lake must have a lot of something in it that induces such color which will be colorless when we put the water someplace else". I nearly move on to another article when i saw "The colour is permanent, as it does not alter when the water is taken in a container" from wikipedia.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/african-lake-turned-pink-by-high-862150

DAY 5 & 6 - Tangkuban Perahu-Bandung City-Jakarta Raya

Day 5: 23rd October 2012

Tangkuban Perahu - Bandung City-Jakarta Raya

We had a good night sleep in the home stay. Thanks to the hospitality of Pak Zainal & Wife.

We left at about 8 am. I noticed that Indonesians in general have a high patriotism spirit! It's a good thing.

One can be seen as below photo in which even the trunk of the trees in this housing area in Jalan Samiaji are painted with Indonesian flag colors.

I was a victim of snatch thief!

so, Okay. This is a typical HP notebook charger.

In average, the price in the net can fetch between RM50-RM80.

A new one that is.

I didn't manage to study the price in the entire cyber world though.

What i really wish to express here is i a snatch victim. damn.

Day 4: Bogor-Puncak-Taman Bunga Nusantara-Bandung

Day 4: 22nd October 2012

Bogor-Puncak-Taman Bunga Nusantara-Bandung

Taking the lead from the net, we left Jakarta at 6am for Bandung on monday to avoid the traffic jam.

Damn we were right. No jam, just the usual traffic. Within 2 hours, we have reached Taman Safari. 

Morning traffic towards Jakarta city

JKT-BDO OCT 2012 : Day 3 - Taman Mini Indonesia Indah & Jakarta Raya

Day 3: 21 Oct 2012. Sunday

I actually forgotten what time we left for TMII but we always leave before 8am everyday.

(Day 4: left at 6am!!)

TMII stands for Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. I won't story-mory long2 here about TMII as bersepah information pasal TMII. Google je.

Nak mudah? nah:

Sample Itinerary: Jakarta - Bandung

Saja je letak itinerary kami ...

Ingat senang ke nak wat itinerary.. yang buat booking lagi tensen..hahah

Our group strength is 13 pax and on 4 different flights.

I also paste the flight details and ETD/ETA where applicable to ensure everyone is aware of each other's flight.

and oh, one thing...it is also quite useful to include phone numbers of each group members.

Just note that itinerary is just a plan. what's gonna happen depends on the situation as well. For instance, we plan to visit Kartika's sari outlet in Bandung but we ended up buying thw brownies (Amanda's) at Pasar Baru and Pisang Molen at Solaria RnR on the way to Jakarta.

On 3rd day, we planned to leave TC at 6pm. We left at 9pm.

see?

ITINERARY: JAKARTA-BANDUNG (OCT 19^TH ~ 25^TH)

‎19/10 - FRIDAY
0805am - Airport Jakarta to shopping complex (sumiko, mom n vijay)

 0630pm - Airport Jakarta to Homestay/Dinner (nana n sal)

1130pm - Airport Jakarta to Homestay.(ira, umi, yun n abe)

20/10 - SATURDAY
0800am - Tanah Abang/Jakarta city
0700pm - Airport (beb's family)/Dinner/Homestay.

21/10 - SUNDAY
0700am - Taman Mini Indonesia/ Jakarta city
1100am - Lunch
0100pm - Mangga Dua/ Thamrin City/Jakarta City
0600pm - Dinner/Homestay

22/10 - MONDAY
0600am - Jakarta/Bogor/Puncak/Bandung.
Late afternoon - kalau masih sempat. Ke mana2 outlet.
Evening - Dinner/Homestay

23/10-TUESDAY
0700am - Tangkuban Perahu 
Afternoon - Lunch- Bandung's Outlet2/kartika sari
Evening - Going back Jakarta.

24/10-WEDNESDAY

5.00am - Airport Jakarta (sumiko, mom n vijay)

0800am - Jakarta City.

1000am - Airport Jakarta (ira, yun, umi n abe)
0500pm - Airport Jakarta (sal & Nana)

 25/10-THURSDAY

0500pm - Airport Jakarta (Family Beb)

JKT-BDO OCT 2012 : Day 2 - Jakarta Raya

Day 2: October 20th 2012

Mission: Tanah Abang & Around Jakarta Raya

While waiting for the last group to reach Jakarta in the evening, the group has decided to pay Pusat Grosir Tanah Abang a visit.

There are many theories of shopping in Tanah Abang including: 

(Warning: Read somewhere in the net but not necessarily true)

1. Tanah Abang is the centre of distribution of clothing. hence, the price is abit lower than others including the infamous Pasar Baru in Bandung

2. Block B shops sell their goods a bit cheaper than Block A

Well, i found No 1 is not entirely true but somehow, after being lost for few times, alone, i do find No 2 is , well, live up to its reputation.

Why?

Block A: New shoplots maybe. More organised and neat

Block B: Typical shoplots in textile centres perhaps

By the way, there's a building named Metro which is also a prt of Pasar Tanah Abang.

Did i go there? Seriously, i have no idea. It is a big place.

We started the day quite early and the idea was to stay in Jakarta city for the weekends and head for Bandung on weekdays to beat the traffic.

This tip is very useful and i personally advise you guys to actually note this...

again, somewhere in the net, Jakarta dwellers will reduce to about 5M people in the weekends compared to 15M during the weekdays. Usually, the city peeps will head to out of Jakarta places for liburan.

This is also backed up by our Supir Pak Dedy.

Early traffic

Jakarta Central.Bulatan Randy (Pangalila) - according to me.
the Red lines mark the busway.

It took us about 45 minutes to reach Tanah Abang from Tebet, Jakarta Selatan.

Our minds were fixed at-kain, kain,kain- for i have plans to sell some of em back in kantor. 

This is where we get off and the entrance is at SLG level.

...and was greeted by:

mau tak gila tengok kain cantek2.

tapi den tak berani [yet] nak pakai kebaya kat belakang yang penuh dengan sulaman tuh.

overall, kain yang cantek2 average harga is RM50 (RP150K). Ada jugak yang cheaper.

but this time, Sulam Timbul (From Bukit Tinggi??) was hot seller.

(TW update: habis dengan budak office je)

One of the main objectives was to but lace, and textile for Yun's wedding.

It was supposed to be cheaper here in Tanah Abang.

and i guess it was indeed. The winning point is always that they have the latest and chic and pretty designs.

aaaa..one of the ready made set on sale and surely, i grabbed one (the above to be exact). Chantek kan?

Hungry? no worries. There's a foodcourt on level 8. This one is way better than the foodcourt in Pasar Baru.

No one will actually bugs you trying to get you to order form them.

Here, as any other foodcourt, we shall order at the counter.

(actually, in Pasar Baru, there are biiiiiiiiiggggggggg reminders to the patrons to order direct at the counter to avoid others to mark-up on top of the actual food price).

well, as usual, food that can be found here are Nasi Timbel, Nasi Uduk, Ayam penyet, Sup Buntut, etc etc. For muslims, please look into the menu carefully as some kiosks maybe selling pork.

There is a shop, i think it was CFC, which has a special menu - Menu Astaga. If not mistaken it was supposed to be super spicy chickens. urrghh...i forgot to try it...heheh

At the end of the day, voila..my 45+10l backpack is full to the brim with?

here it is...

and some other stuffs not pictured here...

anyway. a reminder to all eager shoppers.

see below sample?

i thought i was getting the exact one.

naaayyyy..i got similar. without the bottom flowers..

so, next time, a reminder for me as well, check EACH AND EVERY package. i even got 2 which are stained but luckily managed to get it clean easily.

after some rest at our homestay after nearly 10 hours at Tanah Abang alone, we proceed to pick-up the last group to reach Jakarta Raya.

At Bandara, there was one peculiar man who wanted to get onto our bus.

Luckily, our group is not that huge to not notice this man.

He tried to get onboard by opening the door few times which scared some of us.

We managed to get away safely.

Nevertheless, hopefully the man will be just fine. maybe he just wanted a ride to jakarta city but sorry, u just scared all of us.

anyway, we proceeded with dinner at one of the resto - seafood i guess. When we reached, it was on last orders. Hey, did the resto here actually closed at 9pm?

hmm...anyway, i do notice that it is much easier to get food and resto in Bandung.

Before we head back to our bunk, we stopped by Monas and i am quite impressed by the view.

There were patrol cars around and according to our supir, sometimes, there are demonstrations here and also at the Bulatan Randy (ehem) as per above pictures.

hence, there were on standby in case those get worse.

Istana President

All in all, 2nd day experience do enlighten my view of liburan or weekend.
we can just hang out pretty much anywhere permitted.
It does not mean that we need to be at pay-to-use areas just to have a chat.
i wouldn't know where and what for you, but for me..
we have many parks, lakes around.
Bulatan Randy (refer above roundabout) can be accessed and people can hangout on the curb at night.
but i don't think ours are accessible.

there's always the first to everything.
why don't we give it a try (grin)

JKT-BDO OCT 2012 : Day 1 -Jakarta Raya

For the second time, i was about to set foot in Indonesian Soil on Oct 19th 2012.

i took the Airbus from KL Sentral to LCCT which cost me RM8.00/way.

Boleh, kene tanya concierge kat mana stesen .yela before this i naik kat depan entrance..rupanya kalau siang ambil kat bawah nu haaa..

Don't ask me why. I simply love Bandung..Jakarta? not so but we have decided to land in JKT so we could say "been there already whaaattt"..hahahahhaha 

There were 13 of us in 4 different flight sechedule.

Mine was on Oct 19th, 3pm++ via LCCT (Air asia kot). The delay was only for about 15 minutes in boarding hall but darn.., i spent about 30 in the belly of the big bird.

Good. Time to catch-up with some sleep since i was alone (by preference) and i didn't get much sleep the night before.

TA-DAAAAA....the airport or Bandara in indonesian language.

Rupanya, Leena & mom and Mr VJ waited for me..they reached at 9am local time and manage to jalan2 a bit...then we waited for another 1hour for Cik Sal..spending time at the shop selling prepaid card or kartu panggilan  convenience store, basically ukur the Bandara which contain JCO donut shop and some cafes as well. However, how did i not go up one level to towards the departure hall?

They had nicer cafes and starbuck up there...

this i only realised upon departing from the same airport on Oct 24th...demmmm..

by the way, i have made the same mistake...again..i bought the simpati prepaid card in the airpirt vicinity and costed me RP50K with RP2500 credit.

It will only cost about RP15K outside...

demm...but at least i don't have to buy some more for my Dec 2012 Bandung trip.

This Bandara for Air asia is at Terminal 3 which also caters for Pilgrims of Hajj. T3 was only alive during this time but after Air asia and some other domestics flights were re-based here, it has been breathing steadily since then..

We left the airport after Sal has landed and started enjoying the night view of Jakarta Raya.

This is the Anggrek Mall which claims to be the largest LED illuminated facade in the world.

I couldn't argue with that. we had none in Malaysia (penting ke pun??)

tapi cantek uolsss....gambar pun bley tukar2 tau..

After dinner by the roadside, we hopped into one of the local convenience store.Circle-K which can be found all over Jakarta, if not the whole Indonesia.

Voila! Heaven for me! Varieties of Nescafe...darn i forgot to snap the counter which holds the caramel, vanilla, mocha sauce which shall complement your hot coffee of your choice..in good condition. I think, it will not last long back in our beloved soil..the bottles that is...hahahahha...

But, my problem while in Indonesia is, the Nescafe didn't meet my daily caffeine requirement which is a no-no for  me laaaa...nasib baik den bawak Nescafe Gold 3-in-1 from home..phewww...

Bottled Frappuccino by Starbuck.

My first sight of em.

(Oct 31st - a friend confirmed that these can be found in Cold Storage Wangsamaju)

But, again, to my disappointment, i didn't try even one...sad..

and check out these super cute cereals packed in plastic containers..

 Selepas berpeleseran di Circle-K for 1 hour, we decided to head to the homestay which is located in Tebet Barat Dalam, Jakarta Selatan.

There was a moderate sized mall nearby. Or was it a 7-eleven supermart?

anyway, i've noticed (but didn't go) that there are 2 massage centres nearby..

again, why didn't i???

The homestay actually belongs to..Puan Es or something, the sister of Pak Zainal, owner of Samiaji homestay in Bandung. 

Cool. There's wi-fi, air-cond in each room, ready hot & cold drink water and breakfast of ayam kampung.

yes, the next day, we had chicken soup+rice and fried mee for breakfast.

So not my taste. But it was ok to fill-in empty stomach.

No chilli kan..so..faham2 je la..yang penting , Nescafe ku ada...

Jakarta's hot.Humid. Dusty. so, water heater not really a necessity. For me laaa...

Luckily, the traffic for that night was okay with minimum macet.

maybe dah malam kot...

The homestay is actually a 3 storey house with about 12 rooms.

There's a washing machine s well at the top floor.

and this scary tangga..

It actually leads to another room beside mine but the entrance is via this stair which is only reachable via 2nd floor. hmmm...on the right hand side, is the glass window of my room.

yes, we locked those away...ngeeeeeeeee

Our Supir or driver , Pak Dedy, went to pick-up the 3rd group of the day of my nieces, nephew and sista.

and the group is getting bigger. and louder...

Luckily, our Supir Pak Dedy is very understanding. Having stayed in Jakarta for more than 10 years and currently resides in Bandung, he knows both city in and out.

so, he was the perfect supir for us and was also highly recommended by our dear cousin.

So, in case you're looking for a good, reliable, friendly, happy supir, Pak Dedy is the best so far.

and one hell of a driver as well.

i know. i sat at the front seat of our 14-seater minibus throughout the journey.

His contact: 

Facebook

email : Dedy Supriady [dedydtrans@yahoo.co.id]

i don't know if this would help you but try mentioning my name [Nana] or Atun [my cousin]

maybe, just maybe, you'll get a good price.

end of Day 1..good night sleep. for tomorrow's Day 2 bargain hunting...