Friday, May 24, 2013
I forget to add this bit of unfortunate thing that befell me. On my first evening in Japan, as I sat down and wrote, I realized that I lost my return Narita Express ticket. Narita Express (N'EX) is an express train that would take you from Narita to Tokyo. It would stop at some of the big stations like Tokyo, Shinjuku, and Shinagawa. When I arrived, I got the package of 2 returns N'EX tickets and a suica card which can be used on the subway / metro of Tokyo and on trains line operated by JR (Japan Railway) in Tokyo, Kyoto, Sapporo and perhaps many other cities. Coming on to Kyoto, my first ride was the Narita Express from Narita to Shinagawa. I got the return ticket because my leg 2 is in Sapporo and I had to go from Kyoto to Shinagawa and then take the Narita Express to Narita for my flight. So I looked and looked among my papers and I just couldn't find the ticket. I'm still not sure what happened. My guess was, since the ticket was important, I put it inside my passport since it's also as important. I think it must have fallen when I handed my passport at the hotel when I checked in. So the morning after, the day of the Kyoto - Nara trip, I asked the receptionist about it. I kinda confused one of the girls. She had difficulty understanding me and asked me to speak slowly. Her english wasn't good and her other colleague with slightly better english tried to help us. She then told me that they would call me when they find that small ticket. I had high hope, but up until I left, there wasn't any news :( I was feeling very very bad because it felt like failure for me. How could I be so careless :( Of course I texted mom and she said it's okay. Of course it's okay, it's not a major thing, the new ticket cost below S$40, even in Indonesian rupiah the lost is not that bad. Still, I am me, when bad things happened to me, I couldn't just give it 10 minutes or so to grieve. It takes me a long long time to get over it.However I was in Japan. Alone. With lotsa plan. So I did have to shut down those thoughts of wondering where I did wrong and I should just move on. Day 3 in Japan, Monday, was kinda my last day in Kyoto because the next day I would be moving on to Sapporo. The plan was to start early, visit Fushimi Inari which is famous for the many torii, then I would go back to Kyoto station, find the bicycle rental shop and cycle my way to the things on my list. That was very ambitious. Before coming to Kyoto, I imagined I would toughen myself up and just do it. Arriving in Kyoto, I was quite intimidated with the fact that Kyoto is actually pretty big and it's pretty much a modern city with big streets and many cars. However, that day I thought that I couldn't chicken out, I should do what I said I would do. So the morning started, not as early as I told myself to, but I was on a holiday. I was sick when I came, so I needed the rest, and so I wasn't rushing at all. Had breakfast at Mister Donut again. 2 donuts this time around, I guess appetite was coming back. Then I tried to find the train platform. I knew which train to take but somehow standing there at the station looking at the train direction, I couldn't really quite get it. The impatient me straight away just asked the nearby staff. I asked which train to go to Fushimi Inari which of course is famous that everyone would know where it is. For the record though, Fushimi Inari-Taisha is the name of the shrine. Inari is the name of the area and so the train station is called Inari. The staff told me the platform number and the direction for it. When I reached the platform, I confirmed it again with the staff there. It was a really short ride to Inari, just a few stations away, and exiting the station, the shrine is just across the street. So it was truly painless reaching the shrine :) The shrine has a very big compound and everything is painted orange. Going towards the back, you could easily find the double torii path. It's that place where so many pictures have been taken in. However, with the so many tourists, it's rather impossible to take pictures without anyone in it. I tried to wait it out, but it didn't happen. People were passing by. When I thought no more people would be going in, there would be some people going back. So yeah, I don't have any picture of the double path :( In fact, I actually do not have many pictures of the torii.
Why did I go on then? I don't know. I didn't even know what I wanted to reach. I didn't know what the goal was. The path never stops and I just kept on walking. Never once did I think if I would have the energy to make it down. Sometime in my hike when there weren't many tourists anymore, there was this Japanese older man who in Singapore we would address as uncle. I think he may do this often, as a form of exercise. So at some point, there would be just me and him. We didn't talk at all or even greeted each other, but for some reason, I saw him as that person who's there for me and who's doing this with me. It's like as long as he's walking, I could make it too. Sometime he would pass me and at other times I would pass him, but we would always kinda near each other. Then we reached level 6 and I just straight away sat down at the bench. At that point, I was thinking I had done it long enough that I should most probably go back. There's a map and after looking at all the clues, I found out that I was at level 6 and the top was around 15 minutes away! Did I go to the top? I didn't. I thought it didn't matter if I reached the top or not. 15 minutes is perhaps the time it will take if you're all fresh, but at my state, my heart was beating faster and by the time I sat at the bench, I was trying to get my breathing into normal speed. Also came was a dad with his boys. He also sat down and the boys wanted to keep going it seemed that the dad had to say over and over to wait :P That's what I think he said in Japanese :P So I decided not to go to the top and to go back. The uncle also didn't continue to the top, he decided to go the other way which by looking at it seemed like the way down. Now, a smart person would go back the way she came, however I decided to take the other way down which the uncle also took. I have no explanation why I did this. Perhaps because the uncle took that path. Perhaps because of the subliminal desire of wanting to keep on exploring different things. If the path is going down, I would eventually reach the base right? Right?!? I should have turned back when I was walking a path without any torii, when the path was getting really narrow, when there wasn't any human being, when I was wondering if I did the right thing. I should have. I didn't. Can't explain why. Maybe again it's because the path hasn't ended, so I kept on walking and walking. It was all green with plants, sometime there's a little stream. I thought maybe a bear would come out of the green, but then I thought bears don't live in this kinda place. I thought maybe I'll see a fox, which would be awesome since there are many fox statues in Fushimi Inari. Of course I also understood the likelihood of it was non-existent. The thought that never came was that a really bad person would do really bad things to me. Maybe I should be more cautious, but somehow when I travel, I never think that really really bad things can happen to me.
As I walked, thinking I may have made a big mistake, I did think of how strange that moment also was. I couldn't remember much about the view now which is kinda sad because I thought I would remember that moment of me walking alone, in a middle of a forest (if I can so) without anyone at all (the uncle disappeared). It's like a real moment of solitude that God put me in and truth be told I couldn't understand why he did that to me. If there's a reason for anything, I'm not sure what the goal of this was. It wasn't bad actually but I just asked myself over and over why I was doing this. Maybe whatever lesson I had to learn with the walk, I haven't learned it at all. Maybe when I remembered that I should just enjoy that moment, rather than trying to understand why I was doing it or was put to do it, I took this picture of this pretty orchid like flower.
I think it took me around 3 hours from when I started hiking from Fushimi Inari into when I reached back there. The hiking down and the lost part may take close to 2 hours, it felt really really long. Since I was thankful that I found my way back, I finally decided that I wanted to pray at the shrine to say thank you. I found out from Mariko the day before that Shinto is more like believing there's spirit in everything and in praying to those spirits for gratitude and protection. Knowing that, I was like, well that's cool, I mean my family pretty much follow the same principle, so there shouldn't be a problem in me praying in a shrine. I still however wasn't sure if I should because I didn't want to do it wrong and be seen as disrespectful. However since I was (am) truly truly thankful that I made it back, I really really want to pray. So I watched some people until I was sure I got the whole steps. I did forget about the whole water purification part so I didn't do that. I'm sorry. The shrine in Fushimi Inari is actually kinda cool because they have these large bells that you try your best to ring as loud as you can before you start praying. I didn't remember seeing bells in any other shrine I visited. So I put some coins into the box, rang the bell, clapped twice, prayed, and clapped again, and bowed - something like that. I really felt thankful for the chance of visiting the temple as well as getting through that challenging situation safe and sound.
After this, I went back to Kyoto station. It was already like 12. I was tired and hungry and so my first stop was getting a hearty lunch. I settled for a tonkatsu set and boy how that day's experience made tonkatsu my Japanese comfort food. I ate it each in Sapporo and Tokyo too. The set I chose usually came with 2 prawns tempura, 2 smaller pork cutlets filled with something, chawanmushi, miso soup with tiny clams in it, rice, lotsa shredded cabbages, and a small teapot of Japanese tea. This first tonkatsu set I had was the best one I had. The small pork cutlets each came with cheese and asparagus filling. Eating cheese with rice is weird for me (I don't enjoy arancini), but I had burnt a lot of calories that morning, so that meal was amazing for me either way. Lunch done and I had to figure out what's next. Only half a day left and I was already pretty tired by the morning activity, so I decided to scrap the bicycle plan thing. It did seem like I got an easy way out to cover me getting chicken out trying to cycle my way in Kyoto, but hey, taking the sightseeing bus would totally help me a lot in getting to places. So I went to the visitor center, got Kyoto Sightseeing Card for 1200 yen which allowed me unlimited bus and subway rides for a day. The buses which go to the touristic areas are clearly marked with signs in english and staffs who understand english a bit. I didn't really read much about the must see things in Kyoto. I had bigger plan for the things to see, but I had to simplify things and decided to settle on Sanjusangendo, Heian Shrine, Ginkakuji, Kiyomizudera. I got on the bus, not sure about how to use the card. Went straight to the bus driver to ask if I had to insert my card now. The bus driver didn't really speak english. A older japanese lady was sitting at the front and tried to help me, but she thought I was asking if I was in the correct bus so she asked where I was going. She didn't speak english well but I had a feeling she wanted to practice or tried to be helpful. Anyway we confirmed I was on the right bus and I should just insert the card when I was going down. She asked me where I'm from and I asked her if she lives there (in Kyoto). She said she's from Osaka. I think she was travelling with her husband who just watched her talk. Her being so nice made me feel so good :P The bus has announcements to tell passengers what the next stop is, both in Japanese, English, and I think also Chinese (can't really remember it). So I knew when I had to get down, but the lady was also reminding me when my stop came.
I didn't know much about Sanjusangendo so I didn't know what to expect. One must take off their shoes entering it and there was sign for people to be observant and be quiet in the temple. When I entered and realized what this temple is, I was just in awe. It's basically a long wide hall and inside it, there are many statues of the thousand-arms Kannon and they took my breath away. I gasped. I was in awe. I was perhaps in a state of disbelief. It was unbelievable. You see rows and rows of them fill that long hall. Each of them perhaps one of its own kinds, but I couldn't be sure. It is interesting to note that the gold colours made you think that perhaps they are made of metals or something like that, but they're actually made of wood. In fact, I am often in awe that many statues in Japan are actually made of wood. Then I remember that Indonesia also has good carving skills, like the artists in Bali. I digress. Anyway there are also statues of the guardian deities at the front, like the God of thunder, wind, etc. Then as you go along the hall, right in the middle is a bigger, not in gold, statue of Kannon (Goddess of mercy). Then I realized that the other smaller but also big (because they're human size actually) statues are there to accompany this main statue. There's an altar there for people to pray and so I prayed. To say I shed some tears was an understatement. I think I actually cried. The tears were falling pretty quickly. I realized I may alarm the other tourists or the people who work there, so I had to just put the joss stick (again the joss without the stick) and kinda moved away to blow my nose and wiped the tears and yet they're still coming. I just got so emotional. I felt overwhelmed seeing such sights, felt touched and blessed that I was there, and felt like all my prayers to ask for things is pale in comparison to asking to be an actual good person and to be forgiven of all my sins. Perhaps it's the effect of religious places that they make you want to be all good and yet after you get out, you kinda forget all about being a good person, but at that time it was really what I felt. I took me some time to stop the tears. They just kept coming. I wasn't sure why I was that emotional. It was really an amazing place. Once you complete the hall, you go round the other side and there are explanation about the temple. It should be really interesting, but I didn't read much of the information. Since one cannot take pictures inside the hall, I got myself a collection of postcards from the shop. This is not a very good picture of how long or wide the hall is.
I got out from the subway station, saw the bus stop, but couldn't understand the sign. Crossed the street and saw another bus stop thinking that's the correct direction to take. Mulled over the map again and realized perhaps I was wrong and I decided to go back to the other side of the street. I was convinced that I was in the correct bus stop and the bus I needed to take would be there. There was an information panel, but it was in Japanese. Sigh. A Japanese lady actually came and kinda greeted me but of course I couldn't understand her and I couldn't ask her anything and she said something which of course I couldn't understand. I assumed she meant the bus would take a long time to arrive and so she kinda said goodbye and started walking away. The bus I wanted never came and I waited pretty long and so I just took the next bus that came which I was sure going to take me to Kyoto station. It did and by that time it was pretty late and I wouldn't have enough time to make it to Kiyomizudera and so I didn't :( I was (am still) disappointed about it. In between being lost twice in the day and having to walk a lot and not being able to do everything I planned, this failure as usual was kinda ruining my mood :( It's like I forgot about the fact that I saw awesome things in Sanjusangendo. Anyway I tried to comfort myself with the fact that parts of Kiyomizudera is under renovation. It's perhaps an amazing place to visit, but perhaps my time for it would be when the renovation is more completed. Also in retrospect, it's a good thing that I didn't attempt to explore the city on a bicycle, because if I got lost really far and I was really tired, I couldn't just got on a subway or bus to make my way back. So perhaps God has arranged it as such for me. Anyway, here's hoping for a next time and so I conclude this Kyoto part of my trip. For pictures from Kyoto, you can go here. I love Kyoto a lot. I like the fact that it has many temples and gardens. It's pretty much my favorite leg in this trip :)
:) eKa @ 11:23:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
On my day 2 in Japan, I woke up feeling not so bad. Did have to let out some mucus out and it was still the brownish yellowish kind with a tinge of blood. Was slightly worried, but I had to get on with the day. For this day, I decided to take a day tour which would explore Kyoto and Nara. Generally I think taking a day tour in a city which you use as your base is not beneficial. Most often than not you can explore the city on your own. Of course if you're unsure about the transportation and what with the language barrier and you just don't want to deal with the hassle, you can do so, like I did in Istanbul. Also there are cases where the city tour can help you jump through hoops and queue. For example a half a day or day tour in Milan will be so worth it because most of it will take you to see The Last Supper and if you try to book the entry yourself, it's almost impossible to get. It's always full and even if a slot exists, the timing may not be that convenient. So anyway, I chose this day tour because I wanted to visit Nara and it's a different city altogether. So it would be great to not have to bother about transportation. It's like even if going from Kyoto to Nara is easy enough, arriving in Nara and getting to the places where I want to go may not be that straightforward. So I just didn't want to deal with the trouble. To be honest, I didn't know much about Japan before getting there. Like I didn't know that there are friendly deers roaming around in Nara. Casryn was telling me about that when she asked me if I was going there. I found out about it when I was reading about the tour and also about the fact that we're going to see a giant Buddha, the biggest one in Japan.So anyways, the tour started late at 9 am. I only had to be at the meeting place at around 8.45 am. That's good because I didn't have to rush in the morning. I went out and had breakfast at Mister Donut in Kyoto Station. The Mister Donut in Kyoto station is rather strange. It doesn't sell drink and I was pointed to the cafe next door when I asked for tea. So I got one donut from them and hot tea from the cafe next door. I love Mister Donut but I think I wouldn't ever find a donut shop that I don't love. After that I headed to the hotel where the meeting place is. I didn't print out the map for it, I don't know why I have a tendency to not do important thing like this. I just kinda remember the location and direction of it in relation to my hotel. So I started to walk, walked out of the station, was rather confused that it's not obvious that the hotel was there. Tried to ask a japanese lady in suit, thinking she dressed so nicely so she must have some English skill. She didn't and didn't really help me. So I kept on walking in the direction which I think was correct and yay I found it. So that wasn't so bad. Found the tour counter and then it's a short wait before we were told to get into the bus. The Japanese are so organized that they actually assigned seat number for each people! Lucky for me, noone sat next to me.
The guide was this plump short Japanese grandmother, named Mariko. She's rather cute. First stop was Nijō Castle. Mariko having to do her job, gave a lot of information, which obviously I couldn't retain. I think it's a Shogun residence. One thing that I remember from what Mariko said, also the thing she said that if we should forget everything else, we should remember this analogy about the relationship between the emperor and the shogun. The emperor is like the husband in a family and the shogun is the wife. When the emperor wants to make important decision on something, he has to consult the shogun and often time just like in a marriage the wife (shogun) will have a bigger say on whether certain things are to be carried out or not :D Nijo Castle itself is pretty interesting. You have to take off your shoes to explore and it and no photos are allowed :( So I have no pictures from inside it. There's basically a route that you have to follow to explore it and it made it difficult for me to follow how one building is connected to the other and what's the whole layout looks like. There are meanings in almost everything. Meanings in the paintings on the walls for example. Then there's a section with a floor which they call the nightingale floor. Basically it's designed as such that if you walk on it, there will be sound coming out it, supposedly like the sound of nightingales. After hearing the collective sound from so many people walking on it, I think they sounded like mice instead. Although as we went along, I did think it's like a combination between the sound of mice and birds. The purpose of it is of course to know when there's someone coming. So it's all around the important area of the castle.
The compound of Kitano Tenmangu Shrine is pretty big. There are many little houses with different Gods, to whom people can pray to depending on their wishes or request. One interesting part was this section where people who wants to have their car blessed, usually new car owners, can park their car and the Shinto priests can do the blessing ceremony. Mariko said the blessing will cover the car for 1 year, so the next year they should come back :D I asked Mariko what's the difference between the wooden tablet (which now I found out is called ema after I googled it) and the papers being tied all over. I thought the papers were wishes as well. Mariko explained that ema does contain wishes, the papers though are fortune papers. Visitors can randomly get a fortune paper after donating some money. If what's written is good luck, they can bring it home. If it's bad, they can tie it at the shrine and the priest will burn them (I suppose periodically) so that the Gods will take care of this bad luck. Glad to be learning something there. This shrine has a lot of plum trees all around it. I read that during flowering season, it's very pretty. When I was there, there were just a lot of little green plums. Also glad that I finally found out what fruits they were.
Now I got a bulky American guy sitting next to me :( Didn't enjoy having to sit with someone, but at least I got window seat. The guide was still Mariko, yay! I think it's a more than 1 hour drive to Nara from Kyoto. We had to go through some express way and I remembered her saying that the bus can only go 60 kmh max and I thought that was rather slow. She was explaining things throughout the journey, but I actually drifted in and out and slept a bit. Seriously, this is so not me. I guess I really didn't have much energy because of the flu. First stop was Todaiji Temple where the giant Buddha is. There were many tourists and the Buddha is inside the temple. There were some other statues of what I believe are the guardians around the main Buddha statue. It is very very big. There's one pillar inside the temple with a hole underneath it. It is said that the hole is as big as the Buddha statue's nostril and if you are below 180 cm and 80 kg, you can join the queue to see if you can go pass it and if you can pass it, you'll be very blessed. There was a queue for it. Children can crawl in and out easily. I think I can. I wonder if anyone ever got stuck :D We were given some free time on our own. I felt very blessed to be given the chance to visit this temple and so I decided to pray and put the prayer joss stick at the bowl which strangely is located some distance away from the temple. Also strange, so far all the joss stick I found in Japan are just joss without the stick. So they're pretty short and it made it rather hard to stick it in the bowl if the bowl is rather full and now that I think of it, wouldn't this make the joss to not be able to burn in its entirety? Weird. But also in Japan, the joss comes in many different colours, like purple, green, orange, yellow, pink! Anyway I could only say a little prayer in the direction of the Buddha because there were many people.
:) eKa @ 10:44:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Hello guys, so I'm back. Landed back in Singapore and the land of english and also chinese Tuesday evening. It was good to be able to understand things and say things in a language that people can understand me. I said it's also the land of the chinese because it is. My head almost got knocked by the taxi's trunk when the taxi driver was opening it and he asked me in chinese if I didn't see it coming. It surprised me that I could understand him, all these years really make an impact on me.Anyway, all that is not interesting right. Will my story of the trip be? Let's begin from where I last left you. I was leaving Friday night. Lo and behold, just my luck, I had a bit of a flu starting Friday morning. I do often sneeze and get runny nose in the morning, but usually they will go away. That day, it didn't. Went through the morning, then I proceeded with my ritual of praying before a trip. Didn't complete the need for Indonesian food because I just didn't have much energy and I was thinking that seeing the doctor was necessary. So I had chicken soup from Soup Spoon for lunch. I love them. It wasn't that filling though. Went to see my usual doctor who finally found out that I moved. I last saw them in September. I didn't tell her I was leaving for Japan though, too tired and annoyed with the illness to be chatty. She said it wasn't so bad so she didn't give me antibiotics. Only the flu med and lotsa vitamin C. Maybe she's right, I mean if I wasn't supposed to fly in a few hours, I would just carry on as usual. It seemed like one of those things like a lot of rest could fix and under normal circumstances, there's the weekend to rest. However, since I was flying and with the fear of flu in this side of the world, I needed to make sure that I'm not having suspicious runny nose when I walk in Narita airport. I don't want them to suspect me of carrying any deadly disease which I believe I didn't since there's no deadly flu virus outbreak in Singapore and as much as I ate a lot of chicken, all the ones I ate were cooked well. So I took the medicine immediately when I reached my room. Tried to take a nap, but couldn't really. I got up sometime around 6 pm. Still wasn't feeling well. The runny nose wasn't totally gone and my energy level was so low :( Called mom, posted that last post on the blog. Forgotten about my laundry and Jenny took them down for me. Tidied up my things and off I went to the airport. The plane was delayed, well it's departing later than what my ticket showed me. Got quite annoyed with it. Felt hungry because I didn't have dinner and at that point, I needed something healthy. Changi airport close to midnight is not really that bustling, there weren't many donuts left in Dunkin Donuts so I opted for tea and a chocolate muffin at Cedele. Took my flu med again since I was still feeling bad and the energy level just kept on dropping and I felt sleepier. Finally got into the plane. Didn't even bother to plug the earphone and watch things on the tv. I ended up drifting in and out for most of the flight. Only got fully awake when there's around 2-3 hours left in the flight, just in time for breakfast and that's when I decided to watch something. Settled on Quartet. Did a body check on myself, temperature seemed okay. No runny nose but I knew there's mucus in there.
Landed safely. Walked through the part where you can see monitors checking passengers' temperature. All went well. Didn't get stopped, thank God. Went to the immigration. They took a picture of you and fingerprinted your 2 index fingers. All went well. Got my luggage. Got stopped at the custom check and the girl asked me to open the suitcase. Sigh. Panicked when she asked me for the key because I wondered if I brought the key with me. I did. Was pretty embarrassed when she opened my suitcase, but she gotta do what she had to do and I was the unfortunate random one that morning. Proceeded to go to the train counter. Found it easily enough. Got my tickets. Decided to get the package of Suica Card and Narita Express. I already researched all about this and was able to tell the girl at the counter that I needed the next narita express train to Shinagawa and I needed a nozomi train from Shinagawa to Kyoto. The nozomi train is the fastest train to Kyoto from Tokyo and it does cost more. I already knew the time, just needed her to confirmed it. Decided to take the second nozomi train in Shinagawa from my arrival time, since it's my first time and although I had studied the station layout and read all I could find about it, I wasn't sure I wouldn't get lost. You know, I'm directionally challenged and with really low level of alertness and energy level, I needed to be more careful. I think it's really helpful for all parties if you really know what you want. This will not confuse the people at the counter and of course you can get things done fast to get on with the train. The lady at the counter asked if I wanted window seat, that was nice of her. By the time I was done, I think it's only 15 minutes before the train departed. Saw a group of Indonesians but too tired to say, "Hi". Asked the staff there, if it's the correct train. The fellow looked at my train ticket and told me it's correct and pointed me to the door. Got in, sat down, looked at the ticket and something was just telling me it's not quite right. At that time I didn't really listen to the announcement clearly, but something about it didn't feel that right to me. The thing is I felt that I was in the wrong car and since I didn't listen to the announcement from the beginning, I wasn't quite sure, but it seemed that the train would split out and you need to make sure you're in the correct car so that you get to your destination. Asked a Japanese lady who like most Japanese don't really speak English well, but somehow we confirmed I was in the wrong car. I was like oh God, seriously?!? Panic was rising. I was in car 5 and needed to be in 9 I think so I started to walk. I wasn't sure if I was going in the right direction or if the whole thing is right. What got me concerned because the connection between cars is weird sometime, but I guess it's because they made room for toilets, but things like that made me wondered if all the cars are really connected. Can I really get through? Stopped for awhile and was thinking if I should get off to the platform, maybe it would be clearer to me, but I wasn't sure and luckily I didn't. I walked again, found a staff and she confirmed that I should walk on and thank God it's all correct because the train started moving. It was scary indeed that I could have missed the train. Found my car and sat down and thank God. Saw the view as we went along. Tokyo sky tree was the first thing I identified when we entered Tokyo.
Arrived in Shinagawa without much problem. Bought my first meal, a bento box. Took it and went to my shinkansen platform. Found it easy enough and I had to wait for sometime. The train arrived and I got into the correct car. Wasn't sure about where I should put my luggage. The bottom compartment in the luggage area was already full and I sure hell wouldn't haul my luggage to the upper compartment, so I decided to bring it with me and I was worried if there's space. Yes there are. The seats are very spacious. You can fit your luggage but of course you sacrifice you leg space but hey, noone was taking the seat next to me. As the train moved along, I had my bento lunch. It wasn't bad, I just wasn't feeling well so appetite was low and I just don't like food which is not warm. When I bought it, I didn't think about asking if it could be heated up. Ate as much as I could and I took my flu med again. Then I began to feel sleepy and again I drifted in and out. This is out of character for me. I don't normally sleep on places other than the bed, but this time around in this trip, I slept often during the travel. So with that, I didn't see much of the view. Anyways, arrived safely. By the way, everytime I got out of the ticket gate, for some reason the barrier didn't open and the staff had to check my tickets and take it. I'm not sure why. Anyway, got out from the barrier. Got confused with direction. Asked a policeman I found walking there the direction for my hotel. He gave me direction in english, but can I reiterate again on how I tired and how low my energy level was and so I couldn't really register that instruction that came in a few steps. So after some walking which was still inside the station, I asked an information counter. Then I was told the direction again and as I got out from the station, I knew where my hotel is since I was staying at Kyoto Tower Hotel and there's a tower on the hotel building. It's not really pretty, but you can't miss it. Why I chose that one, well there wasn't many hotel rooms left near the station during the period of my stay which was at the end of Japan's golden week.
Couldn't check into the room yet, so I left my luggage there and proceeded to the planned destination, Arashiyama. Found the train easy enough and arrived. By this time, it was sometime before 3. I had a packed plan for this which included visiting Otagi Nenbutsu-ji, which is quite far. Got into the taxi stand but there wasn't any taxi. Went to the other exit, did see 1 taxi and I stood there thinking and decided, no, I was just to weak to hustle. So I decided to just visit Tenryū-ji temple, the nearest temple to the station. As I walked, there's direction to walk there. Now, I would like to urge you to not rely so much when you read information about it takes x minutes to walk somewhere in Japan. I now believe, the Japanese just walk faster than the common people of this world. This is coming from me who live in Singapore who unconsciously have acquired quite a stamina and speed in walking. I mean, I think I can walk as fast as the Japanese, but the predicted time differed with how long I took. I think I read it takes 10-15 minutes to reach the temple from the station, I felt like I took longer and I wasn't even lost. Anyway, got in there. Bought the ticket, decided to not buy the ticket for the building.
For more pictures of it, you can go here. I have to tell you something though. I don't think I'm that good in taking pictures, but for some reason the pictures from this trip are not amazing. It's not a good representation of how things really are. So don't take my pictures into account much. So, I went back. Had my first ramen for dinner. It was at the underground mall in between the station and the hotel, called Porta. Chose the mall, just because I understood what the name means in Italian, it means door. Arrived back in the hotel. The staff had kindly placed my luggage in my room. Showered, sat down and write while drinking hot water to help my body. Let out an ugly yellowish mucus. I know this is too much information, but I just want to say that it did mean that I was rather sick. Took my med and just kinda collapsed in bed, it was the best sleep I had in Japan. I felt better the next day but that story is for another day. Hope I'm not so lazy and I can write it soon.
:) eKa @ 11:49:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, May 03, 2013
When my cousins and aunt came some weeks ago, our conversation touched on the topic of me traveling alone. My first time in a plane alone was actually also my first trip oversea, which was when I went to Singapore in 2000. You see, I didn't have the luxury of parents to accompany me. So my parents and dear friends drove me off to the airport and mom accompanied me during check in and we had to part ways when I needed to go to the immigration counter. There were tears and I don't really like to recall that time. It's never a good time when you and your parents cry together and if that happens, the situation is definitely extraordinary, right? I mean unless you and your parents are such crybaby who like to cry during movies. Anyways, so parents decided to put me on the plane alone because I pretty much only had to endure the circa 1 hour 40 minutes flight and then my cousin would pick me up in Changi airport. He used to recall that time as me looking pretty horrified standing waiting for him. He was running slightly late and it hit me I was alone there, not knowing what to do, and when you are the typical 18 year old, your life experience out in the big world is not really that much, so yeah I had worry in me. So cousin picked me out and the next day his younger brother, whom I will forever be indebted to, took me to NUS and made sure I got my room in the hostel and waited for me while I went through the matriculation process. It must have been pretty boring for him waiting because it took quite some time, but he was there when I was done and I am (still am) really touched by his kindness because all those new things were overwhelming and it's so comforting to have someone there for you. Hence why I am really am forever indebted to him (so bro, if you happen to read this, email me or something and we can hang out).So that was my first flight ever alone. 9 years later, I had my first real trip alone. I was 27 then. I cannot remember now what prompted me to just do it. I know I didn't enjoy life then (still don't now), but I can't remember what made me to just take the plunge. Maybe I wrote it in my diary. So I decided to fulfill that dream and just go to Italy. Whatever the many reasons that spurred me at that moment, I think I can summarize the big ones into the following list below. These are my reasons and unlike any other writings about this subject that try to encourage people to travel, I am not trying to encourage you to do so. If any, I think this can serve as some sort of templated response that I just want to throw at people who ask why I travel alone and why I am willing to part with the money. Obviously people don't really read my blog, so I will still have to simplify these thoughts into arguments that don't seem radical or morbid or crazy or plain weird to give to them in person. I feel people who question me in the first place don't get it and hence it's actually rather pointless trying to justify something to people who's not in the same wavelength as yours. That being said, maybe this will help a little, here you go in point form.
1) I just want to see the world. There's so many things that I want to see. When I was young, I read books with stories like Marco Polo's voyage and the Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House by the Prairie. At one point when I was young, I even secretly wanted to be an astronaut and work in NASA. These things interest me. It's inherent in me since I was young. So it's not something that change or grow in me since I moved to Singapore. If any, this desire to see the world is perhaps what drove me in the first place to try to get into NUS so that I can get out of Indonesia. I understand that such desire are not in everyone's mind and heart. I believe there are people who live their lives in a landlocked area and never see the sea in their whole entire life and never been intrigued by it. There are people who are just contented with their life and their surroundings. I get that. I'm just not one of those people. This is something that I want and though I don't do it as much as I want to, I owe it to myself, my past and future self, to try.
2) Astley's death. When Astley died, there are just millions thoughts running through my head. One of it is about if I am to die young too. I think Astley was not even 35 yet when he died. Other than him, there are a few other people that I've known who died so suddenly and in such a young age. One of them was a primary school friend, who was quite friendly and funny, who shared the same birthday month as me. He died just a few weeks before his birthday and I remembered thinking he didn't even make it to 30. I don't know what will happen that moment when you know you're going to die. They say your whole life pass before your eyes. I don't know, maybe I'll be like repeating over and over, "please God, let everything be alright" as I do almost every morning or I'll be like "darn, will my brother knows what to do with my stuff, why don't I prepare some sort of instruction?!? and please let my insurance guy be as honorable as I always think he is.". I don't know about these last thoughts, but what I do know was that I think if I had to die so suddenly as Astley at that time, I would be so disappointed because I haven't done many things that I want to do. So I cannot let myself die with nothing. I don't want my last thought to be of regret of the things that I could have done and didn't do and all that flashing are all the mundane things I do for other people which are not as important in retrospect to what I have done for myself. I am glad to say that I believe I wouldn't have that regret simply because I did that alone trip to Italy. Yes I have visited some other places after that trip and crossed some things in my list, but that Italy trip is enough for me to say "God thank you for the chance, it was good".
3) There's noone who wants to travel with me. Either they're not interested with the places I want to go or the most cited reason is that it's expensive or they just say they would but then when it's time to do it, they back up. I think it's dumb to not do things because noone wants to do it with you. If I just sit down and wait for people to do things with me, I may end up old and not having done anything :( That is tragic. How can I do that to myself? I owe it to my past and future self to do right for me. Yes there are fear and they can be paralyzing but I just need to ask myself the one question. The one I asked when I was deciding to travel alone for the first time, do you really want to sit here where you are right now, doing the things you do everyday which do not excite you or would you rather run around in Rome even if you get lost, you can get gelato involved ;) That's really easy to answer, right? If you ever feel that doubt and that fear in deciding to travel alone, I think it's very easy to encourage yourself. You just need to ask yourself, if you seriously would rather be where you are rather than taking chances on seeing other parts of the world.
4) I want to be an able parent with answers for my kids. Here's to believing that kids are in my future. I want the kids to look up to me and know I can protect them and give them answer. I believe the richer your experience in life, the more it will help you with this. I need to be able to take care of myself and rely on myself well so that the little ones can rely in me in all confidence. I've known some ladies who insist they have to work so that they are not too dependent on their husband. They're thinking that in an event of a divorce, they have some money of their own and a job. I never like this kind of thinking. I do however feel that's it's important to be mentally independent and strong in case of unexpected separation from your husband. I believe being mentally strong is shaped by life experience and yes they can be achieved by many different ways. One way for me is to travel and see the world and to put myself in situation I don't fully understand and trying my best to muddle through.
5) My time of living recklessly is running out. I actually don't think I am very reckless in living my life. Perhaps financially I'm not as amazing as some of my peers are. Traveling cost quite a lot and so I sacrifice material possessions to fulfill it. So at this point in time, I don't have that piece of land or a house or a car or expensive diamond necklace. Yet I know though that when I'm about to die, I will not regret that I lack those things. Still the fact remains that I have been living my life knowing there's the safety net of my parents. Yes, at this age, my parents are my safety net and I'm not shy to admit that. I have pretty generous parents. Mom offered to pay my rent if I ever decide to take a break and figure my life out. FYI, mom is not making as much money a month as my rent. It's a free pass as Gascoigne will put it and I have to say, I'm not embarrassed at all to take it. The idea of these free passes being there is comforting but they will expire pretty soon. The time will come when mom and dad should just use whatever money they have for themselves. Also the time will come when I am tied to responsibility like a family. Remember the kids I am so certain I will have. Well I don't picture myself traveling while bringing strollers for my kids though I have seen many couples do that and I admire them for it. When I have kids, all the money should go for their education and future just like what my parents do for me. Those times are coming soon (here's to blind faith) and so I am running out of time to live as I want in my single-hood and I have to make use the most of this time. There's the argument that you can travel at any age. I agree. However I've also seen how age can be quite a hindrance physically.
My cousin in law told me that my way of thinking is very westernized. I was pretty stunned at that comment. Westernized? Really? Well, I am sure that there are many other Indonesians who are like me but I can see how my thoughts are considered that way. It's against the grain of Indonesian being to be doing things alone, I guess. Also the fact that many Indonesian my age in Indonesia will be busy and rather in a panic mode (especially for the ladies) for not being married and they'll be setting having a family as their goal as well as more long term plan, like the goal of having houses and making their money work for them and be all entrepreneurial and stuff. Perhaps, I am different than the typical Indonesian my age but I don't think it's quite correct to say I'm westernized. Yes I can see how the way I live my life can be seen to be rather strange and worrying without any long term plan or big assets at this age, but I can only live my life the way I can. I just see this time as the time to do the things I want and while perhaps I should consider a more long term plan, I rather not bank too much at that right now. Yes, it's perhaps not wise, but who knows, maybe there'll be a zombie apocalypse in the near future. Will you not regret then focusing too much on the future and sacrificing your present? In between material possessions and time, I think time is more valuable. For me it really boils down to desire and time. I have that much desire and I know there isn't much time to live this way anymore. If it's too morbid to talk about death, then there's that thing when you just have more responsibility as you grow older. More financial restriction comes your way :(
So why I am writing about this now? It's because I'm traveling alone. Flying off tonight. Where to? Well you'll know when I come back or if you are my facebook friends then I guess you'll be seeing some pictures (I'll try to post some along the way). So up there are the general reasons why I travel alone or travel in general. Now the reasons on why I choose to travel alone now.
1) Of all the travels I've done with other people, I always ended up planning EVERYTHING except for that short Bintan trip in which la Gioia was very hands on in everything. Well she's a responsible and nice person who realizes it's rather unfair to let just one person deals with everything. It turns out, I get pretty annoyed and frustrated on doing this. It's not that easy and I did lose sleep over this. Now, Dewi said I'm so particular so it can be hard and intimidating to float ideas to me, because I would just shoot them down and choose my way. Well I'm always open to you doing your own thing and I do my own things if our ideas don't meet. The thing is, I'm not an expert in all this, so I need all the help and suggestion I can get. Also when we are in the city or places, there will definitely be things that we don't understand, so it would be great if you can just rise up and try to figure out a solution rather than waiting for me :( Seriously, I can still remember Dewi deciding to just drop and sit down on the floor in a mall while waiting for me to ask for direction. I know it's selfish and ungrateful of me to be complaining about these people because there are really times when I am truly thankful to be having a traveling companion, but I guess as usual with me the negativity can just overcome the positivity greatly. So I'm feeling that if I have to be responsible for the two of us and you're not really bringing anything to the table, then I just want to be responsible for myself. If I get lost, if I get confused I can just blame myself rather than being all pissed off because the other person is not doing anything to relieve the situation. If you think I'm just being a selfish person, well Casryn just came back from a trip to Europe with her sister and she gets my frustration because she felt the same. She even said sometime she wished she had been alone. When your partner is passive and just leaves everything to you, really you just want to just drop that dead weight. Anyway for this trip, I actually asked my cousin if she would like to come along. It was her idea in the first place, however she doesn't want to :( sad, so I decided to just not ask anyone and do it on my own.
2) I did it once, but can I do it again? It's still overwhelming. I think it's like if you had done bungee jumping once, the second time you're going to do it, you will still feel nervous, unless you just never feel nervous and scared. It's just I feel you do it once, it doesn't matter much. It's something like a beginner luck. If you can do it again and again, then it's really something. The only way you can strengthen your head and heart is just to face whatever it is which is uncomfortable to you again and again until you don't have the fear anymore. I want to challenge myself. I want to do something good for myself. It's like I'm promising myself, I'll do something good for you and I'll take care of you, it'll be okay. Surprisingly I'm pretty calm about the whole thing though this country I'm about to visit is gonna be challenging because the language barrier is gonna be humongous :( but yeah in general, I'm pretty calm though there are still little fear and nerve creeping in. It's still scary because you know what can go wrong. I hate thinking about the fact that I'll be confused trying to figure out direction dragging my luggage :( The fact that I have this calmness rather bothers me actually because I think a little bit of fear is good to make you focus more and make sure you don't miss out anything. I found myself forgetting things when I started to pack so it's worrying. I kinda lost my packing check list, it's somewhere in one of my boxes and I'm too lazy to dig them up.
3) When I saw people traveling alone, I think that they're so cool. I did it once, I was cool then, but I haven't done it again. So basically I just want to do it again and see myself as cool too :P
So that's that people. It's me. I don't think traveling alone is for everyone really, even though I think Carl thinks everyone should try traveling alone at least once. I remember her saying, you will learn a lot about yourself from it. Well, I think it's not for everyone. There are people who can't even sleep alone, eat alone, so it's just gonna be awful for them. If you're wondering how to make it happen. I will suggest to try with baby steps, go watch a movie alone, go into a restaurant and eat alone, go into a mall alone and do things on your own. Even little things like this can be a problem for some people. If you feel like it's so weird and people are looking at you, well just remember that you may never see them ever again and even if your paths cross again, both of you may not even remember that you once met. Then for your first time try to choose a safe and easy country to avoid many challenges. Try it for a short period of time. Then remember you can google everything. There are many who have walked the paths so you can always find help and direction. Then for me there's a lot of prayer. I believe in God, so I am never truly alone. There's God and me and I'll trust everything is within His plan.
When my cousin in law said I was westernized, I actually wanted to say I'm anti social, but it's more difficult to explain what anti social is and it's an even more radical concept in Indonesian context. Selfish or anti social, whatever you call it, I know that it can actually be unhealthy. I'm losing the ability to compromise with people because I will just choose to do things on my own. I do realize that I have to push myself to be with people. This week, I'm proud to say that I did that when I went along with Ms. J to Gardens by the Bay for Tulipmania. I'd written why people don't ask me to do stuff so when someone did ask me, I felt compelled to accept and it's great to have her. Thanks to her, I found out about the cactus section for the first time ever and it's crazy because I've been in the garden many times and I didn't realize it exists. It's also good that she's also taking her time taking pictures, so I don't have people waiting for me by the exit :P Here are some pictures from my new point and shoot camera. I'm a very loyal person, even to a brand. The cameras I got is always canon. The first one I had was from the powershot series. Then I had the dslr and now I settled on the ixus. It's pretty nice, but now I also found its differences with the powershot. They really have distinct function differences. You can see some of the shots from the ixus below, I used some of its available effects. I'm not so happy with how their colors come out, maybe I still need to figure out certain settings. For more pictures from the garden, you can go here. The tulips were flown in from The Netherlands and I think that's actually not very environmentally friendly. Darn, I do miss Keukenhof.
:) eKa @ 8:20:00 PM • 3 comments
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Hello guys. I know it's been a long time since I last wrote, especially considering that there were times when I wrote like almost every week. It's quite a darn thing actually, because without language classes right now, I don't force my brain to put thoughts into words, so shouldn't I be writing more here? Well it's just I don't feel like talking much about the inner struggle that's happening in life and also even during those times, I most often talked about the movies I watched and those writings are not exactly interesting. Speaking of movies, I've also haven't gone much to the cinemas these days. There were times when I watched at least one movie a week. These days not really so. There aren't many movies that I am attracted to, but I should also add that being out of the cinemas kinda make me not in tune to what movies are out there. Like yesterday, I wanted to watch The Place Beyond the Pines but I couldn't because I couldn't make it to the timing and there aren't many showings anymore since that movie has been out for more than 1 week now :( Such a shame to be missing both Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper :( So anyway, I did go to the cinemas a few times. Unfortunately, the movies that I watched aren't really the ones that interest me the most. I was there because there weren't many options left :( I watched Jack the Giant Slayer. I thought Nicholas Hoult was handsome though I think he wore pretty much the same look throughout the movie. It wasn't an amazing movie I have to say. Then I watched Oblivion on its first day out in Singapore. Not that I was eager to watch it, but as I said there weren't many choices out there. I settled on that because Jamie Lannister was in it. Alright, the actor who played Jamie Lannister. I believe he only had around 10 lines in the movie, but he did help killing a drone. Well it's a group effort but he did kinda fire the final shot. So we can say that the king slayer is the drone slayer in this movie. I thought Oblivion was so so. I don't like the story. It annoys me so very often that when the situation calls for the characters to be strong and fight, they stumble on love. It's like, hello, there are bigger things we have to deal with here, we gotta save the world, so let's get a move on. Hence why I think the idea of The Host is deplorable. Well, what do you expect when it comes from the brain that gives the world Twilight. One thing that is confusing for me in Oblivion is why the capsule that had Tom Cruise's love interest in the movie took 60 years since it was released to land on earth again and what is the physics of this that the girl didn't age at all? Am I missing something here? Is it something like the speed in which it was travelling is so much faster than what's been happening on earth, so for the girl it may have been hours but on earth it's been 60 years? Anyway, so yeah, I wasn't amused much with Oblivion. Yesterday, I had to settle with The Croods. It wasn't bad. I shed some tears. I couldn't guess how the story was going to go. I just knew that it being an animated movie, it will have a happy ending but the climax to there was quite touching. I appreciate it since it managed to surprise me and made me cry :PSo those are the movies. This week my cousins and aunt were in town. I only ended up spending time with one of my cousins. I don't get people who come to Singapore and choose to just go through one mall after another. I know malls are different from 1 place to another but at its essence, aren't they all the same no matter which country you are in? I believe my time in Singapore has made me look at malls with very little interest though they are still the places where I spend a lot of time in. In my defense, what else do you do in a city? Luckily or unluckily I ended up spending the Saturday with my cousin at both the Universal Studio and Gardens by the Bay. My mom had told me that my cousin wanted to go there and I told her that I didn't want to accompany him since I am in a high money-saving mode. However on the morning I met him, I felt sorry that he's not going there since noone wanted to accompany him and so I kinda said alright. Suffice to say, money saving mode went out of the window. Even more so yesterday when I spent close to S$90 on Body Shop products. Body shop always does this to me, I always end up with lotsa stuff and so much poorer. I try to comfort myself that this spending are the spending which will eventually happen some months down the road. It didn't help. Anyway, so we arrived in Universal Studio and as I was queuing, one of the staff was asking me if I live in Singapore. Apparently there's an excellent package for people who live here. I got 2 tickets, 2 S$5 meal vouchers, 2 S$5 souvenir vouchers, and 2 express passes for 5 rides for S$150. The vouchers and express passes were great. It was a good deal since the ticket was selling at S$75 each that day. I also got some sort of membership card (I think). I had to ask what it's for, apparently I can get discount with it. I'm not sure on what though. So anyway, we didn't do all the rides. We did do all the rides covered by the express passes, which are The Transformer, Return of the Mummy, The Jurassic Water ride, Shrek 4D, and the Madagascar ride. I actually did Return of the Mummy again :| I was rather freaking out about it and it's good that I managed to do it, but it's not something that I want to do again. Immediately after that we did the Jurassic water ride and I actually got pretty dizzy in it and I felt like I wanted to vomit. Luckily I didn't end up polluting the river. My cousin was pretty brave. He did both the rides on Battlestar Galactica and when he was done with the Cylon ride (the blue inverted dangling feet one), he had a big grin on his face. Crazy!
Of course you gotta have bunnies and colourful eggs for Easter. Another commercialization thing. If only people would learn more about what Easter really means and why it's so important (more important than Christmas) for all Jesus believing people.
I believe this is a tulip and I was pretty ecstatic seeing them. They looked like it and they were like hidden. They were in a small patch and they were small and there weren't many of them and many of them are not blooming yet, still in their green bulbs. Perhaps this is just some sort of experiments in cultivating tulips for the dome. It does say something isn't it if they're not blooming yet. The weather in Singapore is so hot, so it kinda means that the temperature in the dome is so controlled and cool that the tulips are blooming late.
The waterfall after dark. For some reasons I thought the light colours would change but it was just purple when I was there. I didn't go up again because I was so tired but perhaps it's really cool up there.
:) eKa @ 5:25:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, March 16, 2013
So I made it to the S.E.A aquarium this week. It is basically the big aquarium in Resort World Sentosa. I only found out it's called S.E.A aquarium after seeing the guide map which was given to me. Even then, I was wondering what the S.E.A stands for. Then I looked at my ticket and found out it stands for South East Asia. I went during off peak period and so with S$29, I could gain entry into the aquarium and the Maritime Experiential Museum which inludes the Typhoon Theatre. The Maritime Museum and the Typhoon Theatre aren't actually remarkable. I think the entry to Typhoon Theatre have to be purchased separately during peak period. I think you can just skip it. To borrow the Singapore lingo, what I felt after the presentation was over was, "hhmmm, like that ah?!?". I had a group of primary kids watching it with me and I have to say that though their presence was noisy, their screaming did provide a good sound effect during the storm and when our "ship" was sinking. They kinda set the tone to the emotion that one must feel during that situation.Talking about these little kids. It happened that there were 2 groups of kids on a field trip. One was from a local school and the other was from an international school. I was thinking what it means when you pay more for sending your kids to an international school. While the teachers or guides for the local kids were kinda screaming at them and threatening them to behave, to sit down, to listen, to move along, etc, the teachers or guides for the international school were telling the kids, "come along lovelies" to ask them to move. Ha! I think it's because I'm Asian, so I didn't feel the approach taken by the local instructors was bad. If anything, tough discipline are things that we know very well. There wouldn't be kind words and all. Of course it makes you feel better when people use kind words to you. Who don't like the Malay aunties who pepper their sentences with the word "sayang" when they're selling things to you, right? I do believe how you are treated when you are young will affect you for life. It's just, I think if you're going to spend your life in Asia where things may get real competitive, then it's better if you are educated the Asian way. I guess at the very least, mentally you are trained to be tougher and not be too satisfied with what you achieve.
Alright, back to the aquarium. The aquarium is pretty impressive. The whole thing was actually pretty big and off the bat, that's a good thing. Often time you get disappointed when things are designed in Singapore style, i.e. small like the Universal Studio. However the aquarium was adequately spacious and you will take some time to explore the whole thing. A thought did come across my head that they must have scooped many things from the ocean to create this and that's not very environmentally friendly. By the way, I didn't see the dolphins. Last week, me and la Gioia were joking that perhaps the dolphins along with the pandas secretly died and noone dare to break the news. It's just we've been hearing they're coming / arriving but so far they haven't really been seen in public yet. Anyway I like the aquarium. It does feel like it's a collection of smaller aquariums until you reach the turning point with the humongous window display. Overall I think they did really well. For some pictures from the aquarium, you can go here. If you don't want to click, you can see a few from the aquarium and the Maritime museum below.
The maritime museum is displaying things about sea voyages taken long ago which took the route of South East Asia and they were displaying some items from countries along the way. For Indonesia, they were focusing on the port of Palembang. Then they had batik clothes being hung from the ceiling. Not quite a match if you ask me. These batik patterns seem Javanese, but I can be so wrong.
Then they also have this cross section of a big ship, like one that Cheng Ho may have travelled in and they show how things are arranged inside it, including this life size model of giraffes.
Inside the aquarium, there are many unique things, like these 2 types of fish.
I didn't actually take many good pictures. I don't think I am skilled enough. What is easy to take pictures of is the jellfish and I love how beautifully they moved, so graceful. The ones with the tentacles were like dancing, with their tentacles floating like clothes. Of course they are also so awfully dangerous. Beautiful but how it can be a real pain :)
These tiny ones were difficult to photograph though, but look at this, real cute right? Just like in Hongkong ocean park, their aquariums are lighted with different colours of light.
This one is manta ray from the big aquarium. It's also another beautiful thing. They are like magical cloaks flying.
:) eKa @ 8:59:00 PM • 0 comments
Saturday, March 09, 2013
It's March ladies and gentlemen. Oh God? I didn't like it when this month rolled into town because it's my birthday month. I've never liked getting older even since I was a young girl. This time around, I felt it pretty bad. What's worse than being 30? Being 31. It feels so final. That's it, you are getting older and older. Of course the usual phrase people utter to people who dread their birthday will be something many of you will say to me. Age is but a number. How old you really are is not defined by your age. Yeah whatever! How old you are physically is still defined by your age, no? So is the physical change of being older is what freaks me out? Perhaps. My cousin had her birthday some days ago and I'll have mine next week. I had a few plan about it. Nothing fancy, actually it involves doing errands. I do hope it will go much better than it went last year, which was pretty bad for me :(Anyways, the kind la Gioia contacted me and told me she wanted to treat me for dinner on my birthday. I asked her for today instead :P It's been a long time since I spent some time with a person where we can have conversation face to face (anything text-based over the internet or phone doesn't count for me). I couldn't even remember when was the last time I spent time with people. All those movies I told you I watched, I pretty much watched all of them on my own. So anyway, today we also went to watch Oz the Great and Powerful in Imax 3D. It's a first time for la Gioia to try an Imax cinema. We didn't have a good experience actually because we got dizzy watching it. I know I will end up in a 3D cinema again sometime in the future, but seriously I feel it's not really that worth it to watch a 3D film. It's more expensive, it does not necessarily enhance your viewing experience, and more often than not it becomes a torturous experience that ruins the movie for you :( That being said, I still love James Franco very much and Oz the Great and Powerful is not a bad movie. The scenery of Oz is slightly reminiscence of the landscape in Avatar. I love the flowers. The munchkin's song was also reminiscence of the Oompa Loompa's songs in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and that can be explained by the fact that the composer was the same guy.
I think the reason why I cannot say I love the movie wholeheartedly is the fact that I didn't really like the story much. It has a happy ending depending on which way you look at it. It's just I sympathize so much to Mila Kunis' character. Yes she's bad but it's somewhat not her fault. Once she ate the apple, all her kindness disappeared. Also she became that way because she was heartbroken and James Franco's character was not exactly that morally upright. Yes he did good in the end, but I didn't see him trying to explain things or say sorry for being quite a jerk. I just feel he didn't exactly atone for his mistakes and yet in the end he got fame, glory, and love. Another thing, when you are dropped in a foreign land and there are 2 parties saying they are the good side and the other side is the bad side, shouldn't you kinda be a bit more skeptical and research things through rather than just follow along? I wonder if I am the only one who think this way. Actually no, I am sure there are other people in this world who would sympathize with Mila Kunis' character and think James Franco's character is quite an ass (a little bit). I wonder if we are wrong to think that way.
What else to share? I've been feeling sickly. Haven't been able to sleep since from back in Indonesia. Got really weak with flu some days ago that I put so many drugs into my body. They helped me fall to sleep but darn, even them cannot help me to sleep through the night into the morning :( I seriously doubt I'm the type of person who can sleep less than 6 hours a day and be all ready to go. In fact, I'm pretty fatigue in most of my days :( Not really sure what I can do about it. I think it's all mental but yeah I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to talk about life because my life ahead still looks gloomy for me. I do have this thought formulating in my head that perhaps God wants me to do things on my own. I wonder why people can't do nice things for me, but today la Gioia did something nice, so my thoughts on things like that are often negated. Still, I don't know. I really feel God wants me to venture out on my own. It's scary but if you put things into context, it'll get easier to see it through. I know it doesn't make sense to any of you. I have so much things inside my head and heart that I don't tell anyone. When I was back at home in Indonesia, my aunt came a few days before I went back to Singapore and she said that she felt I kept a lot things inside and didn't share them out. I didn't argue to the fact that I feel the many people whom I would like to sit down and listen to me say things, don't really give time to sit down and listen to me. I get it that people have their own woes and it's mighty hard to hear people moan and complain and be all sad. I mean it's such a downer right, but somehow I wish they could just. I mean, I've listened to other people that left me feeling exhaustive after the "session". I wonder why the universe didn't give me someone in return. I guess the key is as the Indonesian says it, don't expect anything in return.
Okay peeps, I'm gonna stop now. I'm feeling dizzy. I've taken 3 different types of medicine since I reached my room, but the headache pill doesn't seem to be kicking in :( You guys take care 'aight. Since it's March, it's time for Águas de Março, whatever version you may have. I actually have only listened to it for the first time this month today. This could be my favorite bossa nova song. I am hoping that one day there would be an Indonesian version of it :P My only Italian version is actually the one of Mina. The title was changed to say rain instead of water. There's also the french version, Les Eaux de Mars, of which the one from Stacy Kent is pretty and the one from Sergio Mendes and Zap Mama in the Encanto album is interesting.
:) eKa @ 6:44:00 PM • 0 comments
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