Pekanbaru Trip

 Baros united <3

Right so yup, I went to Pekanbaru, which is located in Riau on Sumatra for my cousin's wedding from Saturday - Monday last week! It was my first time stepping my feet on Sumatra so it was an achievement unlocked for me haha. We headed for Pekanbaru on Saturday morning and stayed till Monday afternoon. There was flooding in Jakarta so we were worried about getting stuck in traffic. Left my hometown really early and reached early too, but we had plenty of time to chill so it was cool.

 Padang lunch

I was expecting the weather in Pekanbaru (PKU) to be blistering hot like Singapore, but my cousin's husband says it is the rainy season now so it was pretty cooling. Thanks for that. We checked in the hotel and went for lunch at a local Padang restaurant beside our hotel. It tastes different from what we have here in my hometown. Perhaps the fact that we are eating it in Sumatra counts for that.

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the hotel area. Most of us slept very little the night before so we got knocked out in the afternoon, waking up in the evening for dinner. Went to a nearby mall for dinner and I had this Kaledo soup which is a soup consisting of beef tendons and meat. Pretty okay, not salty enough for me hahaha (my tongue has a salt bias). And yup that was all for day one. Pretty chill day for us, great time for me to soak up the PKU atmosphere.

Kedai Kopi Sin Ki

Sunday morning started with breakfast. And then I joined my uncle and aunts for a roasted pork hunt haha. We were looking for a stall along this road and we found it. Pretty nice sio-bak! And apparently the stall was selling Singapore food like Bakut Teh and so on. We rushed back to the hotel as we gotta go to my cousin's husband house for a lunch with his family. And wow the food cooked by his family is really yummy! Especially love the pork dish which is tender and yummy.

 Our table

We went back to the hotel and it was raining in the afternoon and hence didn't get to travel around much. We were just waiting for time to pass by for the ladies to get their hair and makeup done. It was early evening and we were preparing for the wedding dinner which is located in the ballroom of the hotel. A pretty nice ballroom! Wedding traditions there are very unique... For example the guests are welcomed to karaoke on the stage, and they're given hongbao! Man if I had the guts I would sing there haha. Seeing all the ladies and gentlemen (from the groom's side) singing and dancing on stage makes me really wonder if this is the secret to eternal youth haha.

With the pretty bride of the night!

Anyway it was a pretty touching moment to be in my cousin's wedding. She's one of the people who grew up together with me when we were young, as she lives near me and went to the same primary school as me. So I wish her all the best for this new chapter of her life ahead!

Which also makes me realise how much my cousins and I have all grown up. Seeing all of us, nicely suited and dressed up as adults is pretty cool. We're no longer that kids running around in our short pants and T-shirt like maniacs hah. I wonder whose wedding we'll go to next!

My teh susu

After the wedding banquet the boys (and one girl) headed out for supper. We went to this roadside stall opposite our hotel selling Nasi Uduk, typical Indonesian rice dish served with fried chicken and stuff. I was feeling quite full so I shared a plate with my cousin and drank a nice teh susu AKA milk tea. And yup, that was all for Sunday night. Time seemed to fly so quickly there!

The next day we just had breakfast and we did our packing. We left the hotel for the airport at 1030 AM as our flight was at 1 PM. Thankfully the distance between the hotel and the airport isn't far. And yup, this is our adventure in PKU. It was a wonderful weekend and we were kinda hesitant to go back haha. But we're all working adults now (except for a handful of students hah) so yep. We gotta go back.

 PKU

Going to PKU makes me really determined to go and travel around Indonesia! You know I once heard a saying that you don't have to travel around the world - just travel around Indonesia! Indonesia has such a diverse culture that... Going to different places is a whole new experience everytime. Well, I haven't been to a lot of places in Indonesia. Time to go and explore more! :)

Happy Birthday Dearest Nephew!

Birthday boy and his parents

Hello again, so sorry for not blogging for the past one week! Well I just got back from Pekanbaru after attending my cousin's wedding two nights ago. Was so tired that I got knocked out, and then last night I was rushing to make my nephew's birthday present (whose birthday is today!) so yeah didn't manage to blog as well. But here I am now! Well today's my nephew's fist birthday so happy birthday Widi AKA Cung-cung! I hope you'll grow to become a healthy and wise kid! :)

 The great-grandma and her great-grandson

So we had a celebration for him today, where we have a cake and some food along to eat as well. My cousins and aunts came for this celebration, and also my grandma! It feels warm inside to see the great-grandma and great-grandson interacting together haha. Which also makes me realise that well time flies pretty quickly huh. My grandma is now a great-grandma.

 It's been a tradition for the grandparents to give necklaces here

I was the photographer for the day so I took a bit of photo here and there. But I had to leave halfway cause there was delivery to be settled. But I managed to stay for most of the celebration anyway so no worries. Whew, my nephew is so big now! To think that he was just a tiny little baby a year ago is pretty awesome. The wonders and greatness of the human body. Life's greatest and most beautiful mystery aye. Can't wait for him to grow into a kid and we can play together :P

Alright anyway I will blog about my trip to Pekanbaru tomorrow cause it's a pretty long post so I'll blog separately haha. See you tomorrow then! :)

Attachment

Today is the last new moon of the Chinese lunar year. So as usual I went to the temple for the usual new moon service and there were a Bhante (monk) and Bhikku (nun) leading the prayers. After the prayers, the Bhante told us a story about attachment. About how this wife was given a pretty diamond necklace by her husband. And she fell in love with it so much she couldn't sleep, and that the next day when she was wearing it to go out, the necklace was the only thing she can think about.

And she ended up getting robbed.

The moral of the story is not to attach us to anything, especially materialistic things that this world will never run out of. I've learned from Buddhism that attachment is really the root to our sufferings. So I've learned not to attach myself to anything. Though I'm so far from being successful. I have learned though, to let go of things that are beyond my control. I have learned to worry less, although the paranoid me still looms towards the worrying side. But I'm coping well I suppose.

I do still have a question though, about attachment. If attachment is the root to our sufferings, does it mean that we cannot attach ourselves  to our dreams and goals? Well maybe we shouldn't solely attach ourselves to our dreams. So much so that our dreams are the only things that we think of. It's kind of painful to realise that you've been attaching yourself to your dreams, only to realise, or feel, that you are nowhere near them. Sometimes I blame myself, for not working hard enough to achieve them. But in my case, it is the things that happened around me that sort of make it difficult to achieve them. Like I once said the thing that lie between me and my dreams is my heart. 

So well, I learned to let go of things that are beyond my control. I may not achieve my dreams now, but I know I still have to live my life to the fullest. I have to do things that I love. I need to keep that fire of passion burning inside me. Because to me life without passion is pretty meaningless.

So yep, don't attach yourself to things so hard. You will leave this life of yours so... Attach yourself to the correct things. And don't attach too hardly to these things.

Memory Lane

Today I passed by my primary school here again. And realised that it's been 13 years since I left it before I went over to Singapore and study. So many things have changed, but the building remains kind of the same over the years. I went over to the bakso seller opposite of the school. Same old man who's selling it, but now his son took over the business and he already went home when I was there just now.

Being at this place again reminds me a lot about the past. The good old days played in my head like a video player. The things that happened, the things that I went through while I was still a student there, all play in my head. I could still remember those days "jajan-ing" (buying snacks) outside of the school. And how ironically at the same time my teacher was telling us not to buy food from these sellers due to hygiene concerns. But we never care anyway. If it's good, we'll eat it.

There are days when I question, what if, I didn't go to Singapore to study. Will I be a happier person? Well I do know I'll have more friends here I suppose? My friends here are now either in or out of town working. I haven't met them for 2 years already (the last time we had a gathering was in 2012). And some of them thought I have forgotten how to speak Indonesian. No no no, I can speak Indon fine. I just blog and write my FB/Twitter/Instagram posts in English. Cause well, most of my friends in these social media platforms can't speak Indonesian hah.

Sometimes I miss my primary school days a lot. It's the days where I still have no idea what life is. I'm just living my life day by day. Doing things I love and try to avoid doing things I hate. Which is practically how we should all live our lives. Yet weirdly enough, we are not doing it when we grow up

We can't wait to grow up when we're kids. But long to return to these days we miss a lot when we grow up. Oh the irony we are living in.

Another Day

Another day in paradise

There was a beautiful sunset today. And well, it's been quite long since I see one. It's been raining almost everyday here, but thankfully the skies were clear most of the days for this week, and they cleared up in the late afternoons most of the time. Which means that great sunsets can make their way in the evening. I love taking photos of sunsets. They are a beautiful reminder of impermanence. They are a beautiful reminder for me to always smile for tomorrow as a day come to a close.

Anyway I'm going to start a new project this year. Since I took a photo everyday for last year, this time round I'm going to write one hundred stories, from photos that I took throughout the year! This project is called "Seratus Stories" which literally means one hundred stories. The problem is, I'm not sure if I should start a new blog (most probably tumblr) for this project, or should I just write it here and tag it inside so that I can find it easily. Both has a plus and minus point I suppose.

My tumblr is practically dead. Although I do occasionally surf through tumblr. I rarely do it now though. Managing a blog is already kinda difficult, now I have to manage two!

Alright this is my first story out of hundred. Stay tuned for more :)

Back in Singapore

 

 Changi Airport, 2 days ago

It's been long since I blogged cause well lots of things happened! I just got back from Singapore last Saturday and I didn't get to blog while I was there. It was a great trip back to the currently-not-so-sunny-island (since it was raining for the 2 days when I was there), reuniting with my friends whom I've never meet in a year/months. And also meeting with my lecturers and also teachers made this trip back such a special one. I'll blog about my trip in this post! :)

So I left for Singapore on Thursday morning, and reached Changi at 11:30 AM. It was quite a smooth ride with no delay, so thankful for that. I quickly went to my hotel in Chinatown. Checked-in, dropped my luggage, and then went to SP after that to meet Syazwani, Joanne and Huijun! We decided to go back to SP for this meet-up. Co-incidentally it was open house so it was pretty easy to meet up with our lecturers, whom we thankfully met almost everyone :D

And also we decided to try the famous and recently opened llao-llao in FC3. Which to our expectations... Turn out to be alright. Well I wouldn't say it's horrible but I don't understand the hype for it. Anyway after our llao-llao and catch-up session, we walked around SP and met our lecturers! So great to see them again. I really miss them and it definitely feels good to see them again.

 Dr Simon Tan and I! :)

I was supposed to give Dr Simon Tan a surprise cause I didn't tell him that I'm going back to SP. But her appeared behind us while queueing for llao llao and (with a judging look) said: "You all came back to SP just for this?" Hahaha. Oh man his sense of humour is still there. He's my favourite lecturer in SP, someone whom I'm thankful to cross-path with and to be under the guidance of (during FYP). But as he was in a rush, we didn't get to talk for a long time. Nevertheless, it's good to see him again!

 Thanks for the llao-llao and catch up session!

While Huijun left as she needs to go, Syaz, Joanne and I walked around the open house for a while. And then the three of us bid farewell while I made my way to meet with Jesslyn and Kwok! Another two people whom I've been wanting to meet. It's great to see them again after such a long long time. Even though it was just for a short while :) 

 My first escargot, and a very yummy one too!

(Didn't take a photo together with Annabel and Cheryl :/)

I then made my way to Bugis to have dinner with Annabel and Cheryl! Can't believe it's been almost 2 years since the three of us met (back in 2013 February). We had dinner at Ma Maison, which is a super cosy and awesome French-Japanese restaurant. It is definitely one of the best dinners I've ever had in a long time. And we had some dessert after that. Chatting with them made me realise how much we've all grown up. We were once secondary school mates and they are both university students. The topics we talked about evolved, but the memories and our characters are still there. Though times have changed, some things remained the same. It was a great dinner and catch-up session, ladies! :) 

 Monks praying in front of Avalokitesvara

That's all for day 1. The next day I went to visit the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple near my hotel. Pretty awed by the interior of the temple. So beautiful and majestic! I prayed there first before I made my way to town to do a whole lot of shopping. I had lots of things to buy for my parents and sister haha. Managed to get all of them within three hours! Dropped them off back at my hotel and I made my way to Vithya's house cause I wanna meet her cute nephew! And yes, he is very cute and active haha. Man, can't imagine how active my nephew will be when he's of the same age as Vithya's nephew!

After that we both went to catch The Hobbit at Lido. And... We were both kinda underwhelmed by the movie. I mean it's a great movie but it doesn't give me enough "ooomph!" for an epilogue to the trilogy. But anyway I enjoyed the movie all in all. And it feels kind of sad that it's over, from LOTR to The Hobbit. I hope Peter Jackson will release a new story-movie from LOTR hah. 

 #sglyfe foreva!

We then went to Holland to meet Candy and Kai to have dinner at Cha Cha Cha. Oh gosh I miss Holland so much! And yes it's been one year since the 4 of us gathered together again and I miss all of them so much :( and being back in Holland really reminds me of our poly days where we'll go for a drink after exams/to celebrate birthdays and so on. We were just sharing our stories from universities and so on. Although we have all ventured on our own paths, it feels great to know we can still connect with each other. Thank you for the great night! And thanks Candy for the wine you got us!

And my day 2 ended. The last day started early with my meeting LTY for breakfast in Bukit Batok! We had an awesome prata and we were just talking about our travels in the US. God knows when was the last time we both met! It's good to see you again LTY, hope we can meet again in the future (recommend me more nice food!). I then made my way to Gombak to meet Jolene, Sharon and Weilun. It was Jolene's birthday 2 days before so Weilun and I went ahead first to prepare for our prata-cake surprise. And this time round it's a success! Hahaha. Unlike 2 years' ago when it kinda failed :P

 Cheers to the prata gang!

The last time we met was last year January before Jolene returned to Australia. This time round she has graduated and is back in Singapore for good! Meeting with them made me miss those days in SP where we used to study together in school, and then eat prata for dinner after that. We have all grown up I suppose. We were discussing about Singapore's education system and about tourism after lunch hah. Well, it was a wonderful time meeting all of you again. Lets make this an annual affair! :)

I made my way to Jurong next to meet Tacy over coffee. We went to this cafe called Crema and had an okaaay Earl Grey Teh-peng (inside joke) haha. Thanks Tacy for accompanying me to do some last minute shopping, and to hunt for curry powder HAHAHA. It was so funny, to realise that I went all the way to Singapore to get myself some curry powder. But anyway, it was a great time meeting with you again, and once again thank you for accompanying me to do all these shoppings haha. Sadly we didn't take a photo together, I'll just tag her with the curry powder photo hah.

 Ever changing landscape of Jurong

Anyway I was feeling pretty shocked to see how much Jurong has changed in the past 7 months, which was the last time I visited this place. Well Singapore always surprises me whenever I return to this sunny island. Ever changing, but the memories I have of the places I've been to never change.

And yes, that's all for my Singapore adventure. I went back to my hotel to get my luggage and made my way straight to Changi via MRT. It seems like a pretty hectic 3 days, but I'm glad to have made full use of it. Meeting with old friends, lecturers, and revisiting old places. I miss Singapore. Although I went back at the end of November last year, it wasn't a "proper" visit. 2 day is never enough for a proper visit!

I'm not sure when will I visit Singapore again. But I'm always looking forward to my next visit!

Alright that's all for now. I'll talk with you soon!

Great music of December

Okay I know it's January now and I forgot to do this in December! I was having too much fun reminiscing I guess. But anyway, not many songs discovered in December! Just these three:

Great Music of December
 - The Nights by Avicii
- The Days by Avicii
- Home by Simply Red

The Nights and The Days is an EP by Avicii and I discovered them through the radio here while driving! I love both songs but I love The Nights more hah cause of the awesome lyrics. Live a life you will remember! Cause when you grow older your wild heart will live for younger days!

Home by Simply Red is not a song I recently discovered but I actually discovered it like umm 7 years ago? While listening to Gold 90.5 FM back in Singapore. Not sure why but I was suddenly reminded by this song, by the melody and well I just fell in love with it again :)

Alright these are the great music of December! No frets, I'm gonna continue this habit throughout the year again. It was a pleasure discovering new songs in 2014!

Here's to more awesome music in 2015 :D

Project365 - 2014

Right I was supposed to blog about this like 2 days ago but umm I fell asleep. And yesterday the internet was being a bitch so I couldn't blog. But anyway yes, I finished this project of mine which I started last year (feels weird talking last year when 2014 was just 5 days ago! Haha). Basically I take a photo every day across 2014 and this is how my year (literally) looks like:

Project365 2014 done!

Well I actually feel quite proud of myself for finishing this project. To be honest it's quite challenging to think of new interesting photos to take everyday. And some photos here don't even deserve to be called a photograph. But anyway, to me this project is not solely a "photography" project but also my visual diary. A diary that keeps track of my days throughout the year. Feels kinda awesome to look at a photo and remember what happened on that day, or the significance of that photo.

There are a few lessons I learned from this project.

Firstly I learned to see beauty in everything. Confucius once said "Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it". This is the biggest lesson I learned in this project - to see beauty in everything. But as the saying "another man's meat is another man's poison", what I perceive as beauty may not be perceived to others as beauty. But well I suppose this project is a depiction how my eyes see the "beauty" in everything around me. The sky, food containers, food, animals, roads, random objects etc.

Secondly, I started this project because I want to continue doing what I love throughout the year, although I don't do it for a living. And I actually feel happy to do this! At the end of this project I am happy that I managed to stick to this project till the end, and that I managed to accomplish my resolution of continuing to do what I love. But of course I won't stop doing what I love in this new year. Just that I won't do this project again. I have a new one which I'll tell you soon.

Thirdly, this project is also a platform to keep my creative juice flowing. I am definitely not an artistic person, and my job here doesn't involve arts at all. But I do enjoy being amalgamated inside the "arts" and I want myself to be so, till I die hopefully. Photography to me is a platform to express my thoughts and feelings. It's just like writing, but we don't write with words, and we use photographs instead. And like the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words. So yup, the project definitely kept my creative juices flowing throughout the year. I have to say it's quite challengingly satisfying.

The first 100 days of the project actually went like a breeze... I felt like "oh I've done this for a hundred days, I'm pretty sure I can do this for another 265". But in reality, it gets tougher! Okay I mean I can cheat and just take photos of skies in 3 consecutive days but I tried my best to take a different object every day. But of course you will spot like a handful photos of skies in that collage. But hey I love skies anyway so yup. At least I don't take a week's worth of skies photos haha.

Well yup, these are my thoughts to this project I did. I recommend everyone to try it. It's pretty convenient now that you can do this because of the awesomeness of smartphones. I mean most of my photos (like 95%) were also taken with my trusty S4. Remember it's not the camera but the photographer! No matter what camera you use, you're still the person that composes the photograph.

Alright, thanks to those who followed my journey in this year-long project of mine. I challenge you to try and do it too! Kinda enlightening once you finished it :)

Happy New Year 2015!

It's the first day of 2015 so wishing you a happy new year! This will be our 7th year together, how awesome is that! But well not really a great start for me. Spent my first day of the year being bed-ridden because I was suffering from a stupid gastric. My stomach felt bloated, pain and I felt so nauseatic. And well this happened like throughout the day. It only got better at night.

I hope it's not a bad omen or something, I'll take it as a good omen that I survived the first day battling through pain haha. Feeling much better now though.

Anyway so yup, 2014 is gone in a blink. I really wonder what's in store for 2015! To be honest this year is a total blank page for me. I don't have much plans for this year. Unlike in 2014 I was so determined to make my Iceland trip a success so I had something in mind as I stepped into it. Now... Not much, but I'm just hopeful that it's gonna be an awesome year!

I have not even planned out my resolutions. I have some in mind, and I have a couple of mini projects for this year (nope not another Project365 hah) and I'm excited to make it happen. Anyway, how do we measure how awesome a year is? Is it by the amount of planned things that we accomplished? Is it the amount of success we "get" in a year? Maybe by the amount of help we give to others?

I suppose there are many different types of people in this world. Some measure success by the amount of money they get. Some, by the amount of things they create, be it physical things, businesses or ideas. Some people measure happiness by how many dreams they managed to turn into realities. And so on. I'm not really sure how one should measure how good a year is.

But as long as I went through a year in health and safety and peace, it's pretty much a good year. A year in which I accomplished what I set out to do is also a great year.

As of now 2015 is still a big blank page for me to write on. Along the way, I'm sure I'll know what and how I want the page is going to be filled. So here's me wishing you an awesome year ahead! Make 2015 so awesome, 2014 will be so jealous. Happy new year!