Wednesday, May 07, 2014

New Zealand - Kaikoura

The trip to Kaikoura was the only tour that I managed to book in Christchurch. Interested to do this because it involves whale watching. So that seems to be awesome. I was the first to be picked up and then just another block was this Thai lady, who's quite old, and she's travelling alone. She's a primary school teacher from Northern Thailand who's going to retire in 2 years time. She spoke quite a decent English and she was quite chatty, straight away engaging me in conversation. I was most impressed by her travelling alone! From conversation during lunch, I also found out she was staying in a hostel in that other block, in which she shared the room with other people, girls and boys! So she's not as high maintenance as me and I was just basically in awe of her. I asked her if there's a locker, but she said everyone just put their things in the room and the lockers are not free. I suppose there's really some sort of camaraderie among backpackers, but it's just not something that I can do. I think you have to be quite easy going, low maintenance, open, and social to be able to do this and I sadly have to say I am none of those. I wish I could be, but no, sorry. Anyway then it was an Indian family, mom and dad, and 2 young kids who live in Bangalore. Well when I saw them, I wondered if they do not live in India, so I gotta ask. I found out that we would be taking the same train the next day. Small group and I was thinking how I would really want a bigger group, just so I could just kinda disappear and not having to be social with this small group, but then I also realized I have to be grateful for these people because without whom again this tour would have been cancelled.

Anyway, so it was a drive up to Kaikoura. In the morning there was fog as we drove out of Christchurch which I thought was beautiful, unfortunately we cannot just stop and take pictures. I actually saw a dolphin jumped out during the drive through Goose Bay. Only one though and it happened really fast, but I thought it was pretty cool, kinda a good sign for the day. Upon reaching the whale tour place, I straight away took the motion sickness pill because I was afraid I would get seasick during the ride. That was a decision that kinda haunted me out upon knowing that we wouldn't get on the boat immediately. We had around 30 minutes plus before it's our turn and the boat ride would be like 2 hours plus. The pill should be taken half an hour before the journey and with me taking it earlier, I wonder if the effect would be gone when I was still in the boat. However there's nothing that I can do. I gave the other pill to the Thai lady because I had 1 left and she wasn't sure if she would be okay. It seemed she didn't take it because she wasn't feeling well in the boat. Anyway, I used our free time to take some pictures from the beach. I would consider the weather to be good though it was not that blue sky sunny type.

It was an empty beach with nothing really. I saw this group of white birds and I had some nice pictures of them. It annoys me greatly that I don't know what these birds are called. In general, if I don't know things, I get very annoyed with myself and since I cannot let it go, I googled my way into it. I think these are called red-billed gull. What do you think, am I correct?

So anyway, then it's time for the briefing where they give you the safety instruction. They also told us that the sea was a bit rough and if people are prone to motion sickness, they should sit in the back. The place actually sells motion sickness pill, so I don't know why people just didn't buy them. The sea was really rough, even I felt like my inside was tossed, but overall my motion sickness pill worked. It's weird that I get nervous with airplane turbulence when being tossed by waves actually had a bigger impact. Maybe because eventually you land on the water? It's weird, I should be more scared since I can't swim, so it's scary to fall into the ocean. Anyway, during the ride, people must stay inside the boat, and when the captain reached the place where they thought the whale was, we could get out. During this time, the captain used some kind of device which he put into the water to listen for the whale. I think if he could hear something, that means the whale was in the water, so if he couldn't listen to anything, that means the whale was nearby on the surface. Our first stop wasn't fruitful, so everyone went inside again. The boat made contacts with the other boat which left earlier and also with the planes above which were taking people whale watching through the air. It reached a point where there was a plane circling an area, and another plane came, and our boat sped through the location. It was madness. I felt like it's so inappropriate of us for chasing this whale. Anyway, when we reached this other location, I think it was our third stop, we were told that the whale had been in the surface for quite some time. I think they're in the surface for like 30-45 minutes and then they would go down for an hour or so, so our window for this whale was kinda small. We're told that the whale would be on our right, so off everyone went to the right of the boat. It was kinda easy for me to get out, because I was sitting somewhat on the front, and people were like feeling sick or old, so they moved slower than me. I am a really bad person in spotting something, for me everything was just like an infinite blue, but then I saw it. I saw a bit of its back and it's not like it's making a lot of splash so you could identify it easily, it was pretty calm, or perhaps I was just rather blind. Anyway, I spotted it and really before long, it dived down and so I only have very few pictures of its tail.

After that we actually tried to go to another location, following another tip off, but then we had to go back, so even though we stayed awhile there was nothing. We're told that we'll got a 40% refund because it seemed this trip wasn't a good one. That was good news for me, it was good enough for me to see something and to get some money back, it's awesome. I don't know how much this whale watching thing cost since I booked it from another tour as a day trip, but I got 45 NZD back, so for me all is good. I'm not sure what a good whale watching trip would be. They did say on average they see 1 - 2 whales. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll get to see the whale blow its hole. Either way, I wasn't that disappointed with this trip. I didn't get sea sick, in fact I kinda dozed off on the way back, which is weird because we were being tossed up and down. I think the med made me sleepy. Will I do this again? I don't think so. Again, I think it just feels like madness chasing the whales. If human celebrities who understand the reason why people are interested in them could be so pissed by reporters and paparazzi, can you imagine how these whales feel who perhaps are wondering why everyday they hear funny noises and get strange waves from the planes and boats. That being said, I have to say that I am that noble, that perhaps if I should do this again, I would try the plane. I guess that's perhaps the only way you can see the whole shape of the whale.

So anyway, after that was lunch. I was feeling hungry and because of the med I was not losing my appetite :) The Indian family was feeling sick, except for the dad, so I don't know what they did. The Thai lady decided to join me and that's when I found out more about her. Then it was a drive back. Our driver / guide, John, asked if we saw any seal. I actually saw one when the boat was moving, it was swimming and it was so cute. John said let's try to see some. Maybe because the weather was getting quite gray and cloudy, it wasn't easy to spot the seals, but he finally made a stop, where we saw quite a few. They're really just these blubbers lounging on the rocks, except for this one who actually made some movement :D Seriously though, they're pretty cute.

Last stop before Christchurch was a winery whose name I didn't take notice of. The rest of the people don't drink, so I was left alone to do the wine tasting. Awkward, but I thought be confident. The girl at the counter was pretty nice. The first I tried was a riesling, then a red wine, and another white. I forgot what the names were. I thought the whites were good, but I didn't quite enjoy the red. Since I'm not a drinker, my opinion doesn't carry any weight at all :D The girl said we could go outside if we want to see the vineyards. Me and the Thai lady went outside but didn't really go near the plants. This drive to Kaikoura was actually the only drive in New Zealand where I saw vineyards and it's always a nice thing to see vineyards, I guess I have a soft spot for them since my first ever visit in Tuscany. This is the first visit of any vineyard though to happen in autumn and the yellow leaves were nice.

We reached back not so late, and refund was waiting for me at YMCA, and I got to relax watching the latest episode of Survivor which I have been following. So overall, I thought it wasn't a bad day :) Not many pictures from this trip, but you can go here to see more.

:) eKa @ 9:20:00 PM • 0 comments

Monday, May 05, 2014

New Zealand - Lake Tekapo & The Smallest Plane I've Ever Been In

The next day was my trip to Lake Tekapo. I actually tried to book a day tour which would bring me to Mt. Cook but that got cancelled because I was the only one signing up for that, so sad right? Was really demoralized with the cancellation since that meant I needed to plan something else and do things on my own. Was even sadder when reading an Indonesian girl's blog which said that she took a helicopter ride from Mt. Cook that has snow landing. That was really cool. Unfortunately her trip is her own and my journey had to be different. The most reasonable plan was to go to Lake Tekapo because if I made it all the way to Mt. Cook, I wouldn't have much time to explore before having to go back and I wouldn't get to explore Lake Tekapo. Upon googling for Lake Tekapo, I found out that there's Air Safari which with its small planes can take you high up to see Mt.Cook, Tasman Glacier, Franz Josef Glacier, and Fox Glacier and pretty much many other things that I couldn't remember. On a whim, I emailed Air Safari and asked if it would be possible for me to take the flight. While they responded kindly, they also said that they needed 4 people for the flight to go and I was alone and there's no booking at that time yet. Suffice to say that didn't boost morale, however they said just come, maybe there's something and they also checked the weather for me and advised which date would be better. Since I have nothing else better, I could only hope for the best that it will work out. There's also a helicopter company from Lake Tekapo that does pretty much the same thing but since it's a helicopter, it has snow landing. However since I was already demoralized, I didn't feel like emailing this helicopter company and also since it's more expensive with shorter duration, I thought maybe this was just one of those things that I have to let go. I was pretty positively sure that I would be so unlucky, that I wouldn't get to fly, and that the trip there wouldn't be great at all. It turned out to be one of the best day that I had in New Zealand.

To get to Lake Tekapo, I decided to use Atomic Shuttle since its departure point was just at the Canterbury Museum which is practically less than 5 minutes walk from YMCA, so no chance for me to get lost. By the way, I have been finding places easy enough, has my directional skill improved or Christchurch and Auckland are pretty easy? Anyway the shuttle is a small van instead of a bus, perhaps because there's not many people. We departed at 07:15 am. Managed to get window seat. Arrived at 10:30 am something and straight away I saw the Air Safari office. The helicopter company was just next door actually, but then I thought since Air Safari had responded to me nicely, I should just go to them. It turned out there were other people booking the flight that day and I could go for the 11 am flight. I basically just managed to go to the toilet before one of the pilots drove me and another guy to the hangar. I think they made a plane which was almost going to take off wait for us. It cost 340 NZD for a 50-minute flight, but I think it didn't fly that long. So pretty fast, I was in the air. The plane was really small, there were seats for 8 people exactly. There's the pilot, then there were 2 french speaking guys, the guy I was with, and a family, mother and father with their young son and toddler daughter. I was seated at the back with the mom who had the daughter in her lap. Well it's a mystery what could grab a little kid's attention, with the view outside, the little girl seemed to be more interested to see me. The flight was really bad for me actually because I had motion sickness and I am not sure why. Was it because it was too rushed for me, getting off a bus ride and straight away I went to fly? Or because the plane was small and I sat at the back? There's also turbulence and that didn't help. This brought back to mind lesson learnt from the trip to Provence and Capri, when the sky is blue without a speck of clouds that means the wind is strong in the area. They say when you are having motion sickness, try to focus on the horizon, but when the horizon is not in sight or when it's not in a straight line, it got really hard :( I was trying so hard not to puke and asked God to help me. Found one candy from Changi Airport in my bag and took that to help me from being sick. Overall I survived it and was happy to get down even though I think we flew less than the 50-minute duration. The view was awesome though and so it's quite a shame that I was feeling sick. As I was sorting through the pictures, I realized how awesome it really was, it's mind blowing, and it's an awesome experience. First we flew over Lake Tekapo with its blue water which comes from the glacial ice.

Then there's snow capped mountains and glacier. The pilot was giving description of each places we passed, but I was not processing any of it because I was focusing on not puking. Yes, it's quite a shame.

I also felt like I experienced a National Geographic or BBC documentary moments when I saw landscapes like below.

I was really happy when we finally landed, maybe the little girl too because towards the end she was not feeling all too good and she kinda kicked me too. Her mom said her ears might have hurt. I wonder if anyone else felt sick or all played it cool like how I tried to be :P Here you can see how small the plane is.

Upon finishing, the pilot drove me and the other guy back to village center. I asked the pilot what fuel they put into the planes because I saw a pump like what you use for cars. He said similar gas but with higher octane or something like that and that it's more expensive than normal gas (obviously). Perhaps this is the kinda gas they illegally use for drag racing as mentioned in Hollywood movies? So basically, to fuel the planes, they also pump gas the way they would a car :D

Back at the village, I still had some hours to spend at the lake. I love the village center because though it's small, it actually has all the necessary things like a supermarket, restaurants, and cafes. I proceeded to the bakery / cafe. Decided to get cream cheese bagel (side note: all the things they had seemed to be really nice). The place was manned by Korean ladies which perhaps are immigrants. One of the lady asked if I wanted it to be toasted and I said yes even though I wasn't planning to eat it right away. They nicely packed it with a little paper plate in the bag. I went to go by the lake and found an empty bench and since the bagel was warm, I decided to eat it. I was still trying to shake off the motion sickness and perhaps it's not a good idea to eat straight away but it was warm! That turned to be my best bagel experience. I did find myself eating really slow though, slower than I usually eat. It was like a beautiful epitome of travelling alone, you sit on a bench alone, near a tree, eating nice food, the weather was great, and seeing a beautiful view in front of you. This is what I saw.

As you can see there's a beautiful blue sky. The weather was really really great. The lake was beautiful and that small little house on the right is the Church of the Good Shepherd. I sat there for awhile, breathing, feeling it's such a beautiful day. As you can see that Church is like across the water on the other side of me, so when I was ready to move, I made my way to it. It was quite a longer walk than I expected. On the way there, a lady walking from the opposite direction with her husband said something like, hey it's you, you're alone ah? I was like, what?!? Then I realized they were in the shuttle with me that morning and turned out they also stayed in YMCA. They're a couple from Malaysia who are retirees though they still look young and they're travelling for around a month to explore Australia and New Zealand. We had quite a chat by what appeared to me as an apple tree. Stupid me didn't feel like picking the red apple I saw. Anyways, they were really chatty and it was nice talking about our trips, sharing a bit of stories and of course since I haven't talked to many people, I became more social than usual :P They were going to spend the night there, which is perhaps an excellent idea because after finding out more about Lake Tekapo, it seems that this is a good place to see the night sky because there will be many stars. I have seen pictures of the Church of the Good Shepherd at night with the many stars and it's beautiful! There's also Mount John Observatory nearby where you can do some serious star gazing.

So anyway, arrived at the church, but there were many people there and at its shore. I think you can go in the church, but it was so seriously small that I didn't feel like going through the crowd to go inside. I went to the shore, saw the brilliant clear water. It wasn't exceptionally cold. In fact I saw some people swimming in the lake. The shore is very rocky though and I always feel like I am the type of person who will just fall and break something. See I have very little confidence in my ability to do things correctly and I always have these thoughts that I'm just gonna slip and fall and do something stupid and hurt myself. I don't know why I keep on feeling this way when I have managed to do many things successfully on my own and I haven't fallen and hurt myself so bad. Of course when things like that happened like when I fell from the stairs and bruised myself bad (I was reminded of that as I wrote these lines), I went, of course this happens to you, you're the unlucky one. Hopefully with me writing this, no bad things will come my way, knock on wood. So anyway, there are many balanced rock sculptures / structures on this shore, some people got really creative. While they're not exceptionally mindblowing, it's still not an easy thing to do, I tried and I couldn't get it to be tall. Mine is like perhaps only 3 - 4 levels of rocks. I guess you really need the patience.

After I had enough, I decided to go back to the other side. Walked back from a different path now and I couldn't even figure out how that happpened, why couldn't I go back the same way I came? Anyway got into the other side of the road and that's where I saw what I believe is a dam that dams this lake (can a dam be a verb too?). That was quite interesting to see. Anyways, the other side of the lake has a bigger shore and less people and I just spent the time exploring it, still as rocky, but it was nice :)

There were not many trees, but the ones which were there have these glorious bright yellow leaves.

There were also some last blooming lupins and I ran my hand through one of them and said something like, "Hello beautiful, thank you for meeting me here".

I do that when I am alone and haven't spoken much, I begin to speak aloud to no one in particular or to things. I even spoke aloud to Jesus in Arthur Pass (that's another story). Other than the grass, a few lupins, there were also berries. I am always intriqued by this. Too bad I couldn't know if they're poisonous or not.

I stayed until around 3 pm, that's when the bus would take me back. Decided to take the InterCity bus this time around because it will arrive back in Christchurch at 7 pm something, not as late as the Atomic Shuttle which will arrive back around 10 pm even though it's stopping right back at the Canterburry museum. Found the meeting point for the bus, but wasn't sure if it's correct until I saw another Asian couple from the shuttle earlier that morning and another guy waiting. The bus was running late, but I felt better because there were these people and I also asked the guy if he's waiting for the same bus which he did. The bus finally arrived and it's the GreatSights bus coming in from Queenstown. The GreatSights bus are buses which is also like a tour because it drops you at these attraction places. In fact, just after they were dropping passengers in Lake Tekapo and picking us up, they made a stop at the Church of the Good Shepherd, which of course for me was redundant. I was barely sitting down and we made a stop, but at least then I could see the statue of the dog. I read about this but totally forgot about it, so it's a good thing that God made sure I didn't miss it.

By that time there's a wedding in the church, so the church was closed. Didn't know it's popular to have wedding there. It's very small so I'm not sure how many guests they can fit in, doesn't seem practical for a big family. Anyway the bus didn't make any more touristy stop, but it did stop for tea break and that's where I met 2 Indonesian couples from Surabaya. I was so happy!!! Always happy meeting Indonesians, nice Indonesians. They were in-laws, maybe 5-10 years younger than my parents or perhaps same age. At first I saw the wives and they were quiet that I thought they were Japanese but when I heard they said something in Indonesian, I straight away came up to them to talk. They were pretty nice. They introduced me to one of the husbands, the other one was somewhere else at the time and the Om (= uncle) was very nice and we chatted a lot. I am glad they are nice. They're pretty awesome to be doing this trip on their own and they're including Australia too. You know in retrospect, I should perhaps have done what they did, taking the GreatSights bus either from Christchurch to Queenstown or the other way around and then make my way to Auckland. I should have researched harder when I only had 2 cities as bases for this trip, when usually I stayed in at least 3 cities. If I had made it to Queenstown, I could have gone to Milford Sound. However, it's not easy planning a trip and this was as best as my brain and heart could muster and also because the budget increased pretty quickly, I was thinking I should be more acceptance with a shorter trip. Anyway, the Om filled me in about their trip, they did a reverse of what I do, starting in Auckland and ending in Christchurch. He talked about the tour they took in Auckland and the one I was going to take too and they had a good time there, so I was feeling happy for them and me :P He even came by my seat in the middle of the trip to talk more and I was impressed that he knows how to google. They're leaving Christchurch in the evening next day, so they're not planning to do much in Christchurch. He said they would most probably just explore Re:START mall which I told him has nothing much. I told him about the Botanic gardens and that it's free and recommended them to go there, not sure if they really did. Anyways, I was so glad to be able to meet them and have good conversation in Indonesian. Then the bus apparently could drop us in our hotels, that's so awesome because I was kinda worried if I could navigate myself from the station to YMCA in the dark. I was the second one to be dropped and I loved how they're sounding like parents when we said our farewells. I really had a great day, so score score score and high five all around. I thank God really, it was truly one the best days I had in New Zealand and my days there actually had been pretty great :) For pictures from this trip, you can go here. The pictures from the flight were really great that I didn't even enhance their colors.

:) eKa @ 10:07:00 PM • 0 comments

Sunday, May 04, 2014

New Zealand - Christchurch

Hello guys, I am back, so be prepared and bear with the next few posts which will be about the trip. Not that you will be interested to read it or perhaps you will be interested to read it as compared to my usual mundane writings. Anyway, let's go to the story.

So I left Wednesday evening, April 23th. I chose to take Qantas because Singapore Airlines with its direct flight cost like S$500 more which is more than enough to pay for my hotel in Auckland, so I guess I'd have to make do with longer journey and transiting in Sydney. The flight left around 8 pm and you have to be in the airport like 2 hours before and I have to say I am one person who doesn't really observe this. Most of the time, I make my way to the airport 2 hours before the flight. Anyway, that Wednesday afternoon in my side of Singapore, it started raining with thunder and all and so I began to be worried, like do I have to stand by the road in the rain trying to flag for a taxi. So I decided to call for taxi and let me tell you something, there are some things in this efficient Singapore which is not that easy to get done and to have it, it's like getting a miracle. Calling for a taxi is something like that. You will be put on hold forever or just be told that no one is available to speak to you. I tried all the numbers there are and some more than once. A miracle, I got through to one person. It turns out that if you want the taxi to come like 15 minutes later, it's called an advance booking and you have to pay more. Redonkulous! But what can I do, I needed a taxi and so I said fine. The person said okay, you can hang up now and you'll get an sms about the taxi. The sms came and it told me that there's no taxi available and try again in 10 minutes. WHAT THE F**K?!?! I told you it's like getting a miracle trying to call a taxi here. So I had no choice, I scrambled to finish up my laundry and packed my luggage because I foresaw that I needed to wait some time before a taxi came my way and the street I am in is not that busy. Got my hoodie up and went to the street and started to flag frantically. It came to me that this happens to me quite often, having to go to Changi airport and having to wait in the drizzling rain with my luggage. I was like please please God help me over and over. There were taxis but they were taken and somehow the empty one going on the opposite direction didn't want to make a u-turn to get me even though I was waving like crazy. That was until a taxi uncle in the opposite direction rolled down his window and asked where I was heading and told me to wait for his u-turn. I felt like perhaps he felt sorry for me standing in the rain like that. So yeah, this one paragraph is to say that I finally managed to get a taxi and I didn't wait that long, like 10-15 minutes or so and I really thank God for this.

Got into the airport, chose aisle seat for the first flight to Sydney and window seat for the flight from Sydney to Christchurch, my first destination in New Zealand. Had lontong for dinner in the airport and called mom in the cactus garden since I didn't have time to call home before because of the scrambling. The moral was still low that I remember me telling myself not to cry after calling mom. It's not an emotion one should be having when they are going for a vacation, but I don't know, perhaps it's pms but I was just so moody and felt like seriously and honestly that I kinda didn't want to do this at all. Why I am leaving for this trip? It's a stupid feeling to have but I felt like it has become a chore, like some sort of work to be done to make my life be more fulfilling. Are you surprised to be hearing all this from me? I really think it's the pms speaking and the fatigue and the rain and everything not going perfect. In the plane, I got the side block and it's a smaller plane that there were just 2 seats at the side. There's another lady sitting next to me and she's really really tall that I felt kinda sorry for her to have to compact her body in her seat. That long flight didn't help to lift my mood, again I was questioning myself, all I wanted was just a bed where I can really sleep, I also wanted to just be away from everyone which is perhaps somewhat a good feeling to have since I would be going to a place where I know no one, but still the mood wasn't lifted. Movies I watched was Casse-tête Chinois or Chinese Puzzle which I realized was a sequel of L'Auberge Espagnole which after googling I realized it's the 3rd of a trilogy, I didn't watch the second one. Anyway in that movie, the main character, got divorced at the age of 40 something and had to move to New York to be nearer to his kids and he said it's so depressing to be reaching that age and to have everything fall apart and I realized that is so true. It's depressing for me to be 32 and being absolutely single with no end in sights, but I think if you already have all that, the husband and the kids and find out that 10 years down the road, it's all blown up to pieces, it is perhaps even more depressing. Anyway, I also watched some episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine which I thought is not really that funny that I managed to drift in and out until suddenly a thought came, did you bring the key to your luggage? Wow that shocked me a lot, that I was fully awake and started rummaging my bag. I didn't find it immediately so I started to panic, but then I found it. I'm not sure if I really put it in there or God just magically put it in for me. I like to think the second one, because I was so in a hurry when I left that I didn't know what I was doing.

So anyway, arrived in Sydney, the direction for transfer was clearly marked, so found that easy enough. Experienced a new thing in airport security, which was to be wanded for residue of explosive. Okay ... I mean what else can I say, maybe threats could come from people who looked like me who look so incapable of doing things :P Now that I have spent many hours in Sydney airport, I can say that its international terminal is divided into 2 wings and my next flight was at the other wing. So I made my way there. This time, the transit time is around 3 hours. Found a seat and started reading Everything Is Illuminated. This is the first trip of mine in which I brought a book, all because I knew I had many hours to kill in transit. The next flight to Christchurch was by Emirates and I love it, I think Emirates never fails to be good and of course there's more space in the seats. It's very confusing why shorter flight has better seating than longer flights, unless you're taking budget airline. Anyway do they just really want to pack as many people in the longer flight? Anyway with the window seat, I got to see Sydney, spotted the opera house and the harbor bridge and I thought it's quite an interesting city, it and its surroundings seem to have river all over running through them.

Anyways, arrived in Christchurch, found the super shuttle easy enough and was transported to YMCA Christchurch. My first time in a YMCA and chose this because I think it's quite strategic, very near to the botanic gardens. Decided to choose a room with 2 single beds even though I was alone because the room with 1 bigger bed cost more. So as Casryn told me, just use the other bed for putting things and such. Well, I used that to watch the tv and moved to the other bed to sleep because the first bed has a mirror facing it. Anyway, while YMCA Christchurch is nicely located, I thought its housekeeping did a poor job in cleaning the room, so I dislike them for this. I know I should be more easy going about this. I reached the room at around 3:30 pm and though I was tired, I forced myself to get on with the plan, which was to go see the Cardboard Cathedral. There are not many tall buildings in Christchurch, I wonder if it's all because of the earthquake or it's always like that. There are construction everywhere and what I thought was pretty cool was the many graffiti art around city.

Didn't get lost and found the Cathedral based on the direction from google map. It's small and it's not very cardboard-y and I was feeling uneasy about entering, but I did enter and then I felt uneasy about taking pictures that I asked one of the lady there if I could. She said I absolutely may. Still felt uneasy about doing that, that I didn't stay long.

Then off I went to Re:START mall trying to find if I can buy some water and snack and no I didn't find any place which sells that. It's one of the frustrating thing about Christchurch I guess and I guess also as someone who live and grow up in Asia and in a city, we're just so used to of getting things easily. Like back home in Jakarta, my house is less than 5 minutes walking distance from a convenience store and here in Singapore, I'm just 7 - 10 minutes walk from an adequate mall. In Christchurch, there's none of those. There isn't any convenience store like everywhere. I was getting disappointed. There's a cafe coffee shop at YMCA and even that closes at 5 pm! Another thing an Asian like me will find very hard to get used to. So even though I wasn't hungry, I decided to go eat something at the restaurant at YMCA in the hope that I could buy some water there. Settled on the minestrone soup which has quite a filling serving and bought 2 bottles of sparkling water and then I decided to end the day.

I was so tired and I think I slept at around 8 pm only to be awoken at 2 am. See this trip is really a trip where everything is out of my control. I debated if I should write this down, but since it's part and parcel of being a girl, I guess I just let it all out. So awoken at 2 am because of tummy ache because I had my period. I tried my best to get it to come on time and I failed and it decided to come along with me on the trip :( I was in pain that I decided to just take the med. It took some time, but it finally eased out and I managed to go back to sleep and was shocked when I was awoken by my phone's alarm which I set to 8 am. I was surprised that I managed to sleep that long. So anyway got ready, decided to have pancake for breakfast at the coffee shop downstairs and bought a bottle of water. Water would be my one gripe in Christchurch, I found myself having to always plan to buy them when I can find them and make sure I have enough water, but really for me who drink a lot of water, it's the most essential thing that I look for when I am settled in a new place and no, I'm not keen on drinking tap water.

Anyway, proceeded to the Botanic Gardens where i-SITE is and decided to book the train ticket for my day trip to Arthur Pass, I'll talk more about this train tickets and all when I write the Arthur Pass post. Knowing that there's nothing much in Christchurch, I also bought the gondola ticket from i-SITE and got a map and direction on where to take a bus to get there. First stop was the Botanic Gardens which was free. It was a rather chilly morning and it's cloudy with grey sky :( It was somewhat interesting. There were many Chinese tourists having fun taking pictures with the yellow fallen leaves. They really put much effort in posing.

Found the rose garden section, but the roses weren't really blooming. It's autumn after all, so not many blooming things around?

Also found the water garden and other areas which I thought was pretty nice. Made my way to the other side to the Heritage Rose Garden and this is where it started drizzling :( So I made my way to the visitor center where there's shelter. Used the toilet, took some time with my period and all, but by the time I got out, the rain cleared up and there's actually some blue sky. So that was kinda swell. Decided to go around again, making use of the blue sky and there's some nice view.

Ended up walking by the river and saw the nice trees and people doing punting at the Avon river, which means that they're taking a ride in a gondola like boat. The Christchurch gondola on the other hand is a cable car going up a hill. You must be wondering just like me why they call these things like that.

So after exploring all the way back to the front gate, I decided it's time to go do the gondola. I read that there's a shuttle bus taking people to the gondola base departing from the front of the Canterbury Museum which is located next to the gardens. I waited but none came, so I decided to concede and follow the instruction of the staff in i-SITE to take the bus. Found the bus terminal without getting lost. I was told that it cost $3.50 and I can take the bus back for free if it's within 2 hours. Arrived in the Gondola base and the staff was pretty nice, they didn't shove as many people in the gondola, if you're alone, you get a gondola for yourself and so I got my own gondola.

There's actually sheep and all grazing on the hill there. Not surprising? Arriving on top, you can see the town Lyttelton and the island across from it is pretty cool and interesting.

At some points, it got really windy and I took some pictures of the grass being blown around but none of it were any good :( When it got really windy, I decided to just go in. They also have a time tunnel ride, which basically you are seated in a slow moving cart and go through a small exhibition area where you are presented with the history of Canterbury‎. It's interesting, but I just didn't love the long wait. After that, I decided to head back. Waited for the bus and it took some time and I realized that my 2-hour window has passed. I was ready to pay again, but when the bus came and the lady driver saw I was holding my ticket, she said she let me have the free transfer because she came late. Yeah, so happy, score!

I arrived back in the city rather late, well not late, but for a city where things close at 5 pm, you feel like 4 pm is late. Not wanting to have dinner in the same restaurant as before, I thought maybe I should try the cafe at the museum, but it seemed to be closed when I finally arrived, sigh. So I used what remaining time I had to explore as much of the museum as I can before it closed. It's free by the way. It's quite an interesting museum, they have historical section, natural life section, a bit of science, a bit of religion, Maori art, so a bit of this and that. They have a mummy and that made me think of my dad. This picture below is from a display of how the first settlers lived.

In the end, I decided to have dinner in the same restaurant as the day before. On my way leaving the museum, an older guy happened to walk next to me and started to remark that it's a beautiful day that day. This was like the same way I started a conversation with the Monsieur in Paris. Anyway, I said yep but it rained in the morning in which he didn't notice. He asked me where I was from and upon knowing I am Indonesian, he said he didn't seem to know anyone from Indonesia. Then he said, the capital city is Kuala Lumpur, right? Aaarrrghhhh, no, and so I had to correct him. I find it fascinating, New Zealand's nearest neighbour is Australia and Australia's biggest nearest neighbour is Indonesia, so I thought by proxy New Zealand would know more about Indonesia. I guess they're just contented to be in their own happy peaceful world. Anyway, that conversation with the man made me feel happy because though it was short, that was my one conversation of the day and I did really feel that God provide for me :)

For dinner, I chose the seafood curry which had rice in it and no I didn't choose it because of the rice, but because I didn't feel like eating red meat. The curry was quite good, but the more I ate it the more I thought it's so unlike the curry Asian knows. There's no spiciness in it and while the gravy was smooth, I wondered if they achieved it by milk rather than coconut milk. Anyways, it just made me think that it's a westerner's type of curry :P One of the waiter had Malaysian parents and he said terima kasih to me :) So that's pretty much my day. The period did trouble me in the morning, but it went alright the rest of the day. I ended the day early too and enjoyed New Zealand tv which is actually not bad. I am most intrigued by the fact that their channel 1, 2, and 3 have a twin in channel 6, 7, 8, which showed exactly the same things but just 1 hour later. So if you really like something, you can watch it again in 1 hour time. Alright, this first post have been long, so I will end here. For pictures of Christchurch, please go here.

:) eKa @ 7:40:00 PM • 0 comments

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Be Not So Fearful

The title of the post is a title of a song I first heard in The Walking Dead. The song was accompanying the first group who reached Terminus and it made such an impression on me. The lyric was quite hopeful even though in the context of The Walking Dead, it's kinda sad because they're walking into a trap. Still, I chose the song to start my playlist. What playlist? I'm off to New Zealand and as usual when I travel, I make a playlist. It's another alone trip and I have to say I am very very scared from the beginning. My mom texted me yesterday and I told her that I am already in "pasrah" mode, that's a word with no equivalent in English. It's something like ... I have stopped resisting, I have stopped fighting, and I am leaving it to God and the universe. It hasn't been a very encouraging planning process. Booked 5 day tours and 2 of them are not available. Darn it. I have to say even though I travel alone, I am not that adventurous. I often booked day tours (is it like cheating doing this?) and I don't do backpacking and stay in hostels. As I was researching this, I stumbled into a blog of an Indonesian girl who backpacked alone in New Zealand and I thought that was so awesome. Oh yeah, maybe it's surprising, mom actually didn't want me to travel anymore because she thinks I should be saving my money and I think she's worried. I told her about the plan when I went home for Chinese New Year and she didn't even ask whom I will travel with. I guess she's already assuming that I'll be alone. She also told me that no matter what she says, I will still do what I want, right? Yes, I said and with that I guess my mom does what any mom can do at this point which is to be supportive. I am nervous, I am scared. I don't know if I was ever this scared in my other alone trips. I don't know why I am this scared now. I hope everything will be alright. I'll see you when I come back and here's the lyric from Be Not So Fearful. By the way, the second song in my playlist after Be Not So Fearful is Denison Witmer's, Keep Moving Brother, Keep Moving Sister. I am really trying to make myself brave.

:) eKa @ 5:04:00 PM • 0 comments

Saturday, April 19, 2014

A Lesson in Disappointment and Jealousy

I'm not so sure how to start this post, no actually I know how I should start this post and even the title above. I guess I am having second thought if I should write these thoughts at all. Sometime it's a good thing to just not say out whatever in your head and heart especially when the thoughts are formed due to emotional distress. I don't know why I feel the need to write this. Couldn't I just write about how everything is fine? It wouldn't matter perhaps because I don't think I have regular readers (?) who would so miss things in my life. However maybe by writing about the bad things, if someone with similar situations stumble into it, it would be good for that someone to know that he / she is not that alone or crazy to be feeling what he / she is feeling or thinking. I know I am really comforted when I found out other people also feel what I have felt. I'm not insane! So here we go.

Last year when I went to Japan, I made my way to Sapporo too all because I was planning to see some sakura. However mother nature cannot be that predictable sometime and though I have tried to shift around the dates following the forecast, until the end when I was there, it was still cold and there's no sakura. Sad. Disappointed. I remember thinking that it was God's way to teach me about having to deal with disappointment, that no matter how I tried, sometime things couldn't go the way I want it to be. In fact many things in your life just wouldn't go the way you want it to be. However, I just couldn't let it go and I know I haven't learned the lesson because I am feeling exactly the same thing now. I just feel that I have done the research, I have planned, I have tried so hard, why can't it happen the way it should happen in my plan? Why can't I be rewarded for my effort? Perhaps it's a tragedy that a 32-year old like me hasn't learned this life lesson and still get all riled up when things don't go my way. I'm such a child or perhaps the OCD is too great, too consuming. I just couldn't deal with it. I am sad and like a spoiled brat, I am angry that I have prayed and prayed and yet God is not giving me what I want. I watched Grey's Anatomy yesterday and April was having a fight with Jackson about her Christian faith and she said that it's a sad thing that he cannot have faith in something he cannot see and that made me question myself so much. If I have faith that God will take care of it, why do I keep on praying on it religiously everyday and what's with all the pessimism that has been hovering around me for a long time that nothing is quite right, things that I just take as "I have a bad feeling about this". With my faith not being that strong, why am I surprised that things are falling apart? I practically bring this to myself?

Casyrn went to Japan last week and I saw pictures of the beautiful sakura she took while she was there and there's this big jealousy that I didn't get to see all that. I know how bad that is to feel all that. I am thinking she has a much better trip than me because of the things that I didn't get to see while it's a fact that there were many great things in my trip, I got to see the giant Buddha of Nara and Kamakura, I got to see the amazing hall of Sanjūsangen-dō, I got to see the beautiful garden of Hase-dera, as well as many other things that had moved me. All in all, I have managed to experience something that many do not get the chance to experience and yet I am feeling sad about the fact that someone else managed to see beautiful flowers and I didn't?

As I went through these thoughts today, I remembered this small clip in CNN that I watched about its journalist giving poor chocolate farmers in Ivory Coast a taste of chocolate for the first time in their lives. These farmers have toiled all their lives for the chocolate beans and yet they have never tasted what chocolate taste like after it's been processed into the form we know all too well and take for granted. I remember the farmer's reaction was that he's laughing in glee and said, "c'est bon!". It's nice. There's just glee and no bitterness at all in the way they felt even though they worked so hard and was still very very poor because only a tiny bit of money from the amount we pay for our chocolate bar go to these farmers. As I remembered that, I was feeling what a bad person I am for not feeling satisfied and grateful for my good fortune. I am always seeing things that I don't have, the things missing in my life and I have difficulty reconciling that with my life. I guess that's why I am always so unhappy. I try to fix it, to hope, to pray, but things very often do not go the way I want it to be.

I think there is a lesson in all this. To feel okay when things don't work out the way I want it to be. To feel okay when other people have what they have. Perhaps most importantly to remember that God will always give me sustenance. It all seems like the right thing to say, but I am not there yet, and me the way I am it's like I don't have the discipline to pull myself out of all these negativity and keep my faith strong. It's been a long time now, I've joked about it, but I think I realize it now that my faith in God has wavered so strongly :( I guess the points of all these words is just to vent. I am planning something and yet things are not going the way I want it to be. I am filled with a lot of disappointment and I know I should be thankful that even though it's not according to what I want it to be, the fact that I get to do something is already beyond what other people can experience and also God may actually help make my backup plan work and perhaps it's going to be even more beautiful than my first plan.

Let me end this post with a movie write-up. Watched Transcendence yesterday. It actually has many interesting components, we have topics which were explored in HER, we have zombies (I call everything which cannot die as zombie), and we have the usual thought provoking topics like what is our consciousness and what happens to it when we die (something which came to my mind when I was really really young) and how technology that was made to make our lives better can actually make us not quite human anymore. Very interesting things coming together, but I don't find it mind blowing. So many awesome actors in it and Johnny Depp is a really beautiful person. It's an okay movie I think, but I guess some people would find it boring and not interesting at all, not the wee bit thought provoking because many humans don't put much care about how technology has had bad impacts in their lives. So that's it for me guys. I do hope things will work out for me as I hope they will work out well for you too. Take care!

:) eKa @ 8:03:00 PM • 0 comments

Saturday, April 05, 2014

Noah, The Bible, and Finales

Watched Noah today. Wanted to watch this because it's banned in Indonesia, so I am pretty curious, though when I saw bits of the trailer, I was already kinda squirming because of the artistic license taken on the story. The movie did put that disclaimer at the start of the movie. After watching it, I can see why people may find this offensive. It's not like the bible story I know and I hate artistic license that goes too far away from the true story. Of course one can argue, what is the true story in this case? Who knows what actually went down with the story of Noah? I guess for me, watching it from a background of the bible lessons I had when I was young, this movie is not a good one. Why for the purpose of artistic license there are transformers like rock acting as the fallen angels? Why is there another person in the ark aside from Noah's family? Why the focus on one of the son's wanting to have a wife? I googled, the sons already had wives, they were in the ark too. Why the focus on the sexual tension between the oldest son and Emma Watson's character? Why made Noah to be rather insane? The oldest son said out loud what I was thinking, "Are you mad?". Then there are also small things that made me feel weird, like the costumes. They were pretty modern, they wore boots, boots with sole! Again who to say that there wasn't any boots before the flood? Seeing those costumes and the setting, it feels more like it's being set far into the future after the earth has been destroyed badly and humans have to start from the beginning as has been explored by many movies. Perhaps if this movie just say that it's inspired by the story of Noah and set it far into the future and change a few names, this could work. However when you present it as the story of Noah, well that's a rather sensitive issue. As purely entertainment, I don't think it's that amazing, it's not that exhilarating and at times felt like it's moving rather slowly, or perhaps it's just me getting quite annoyed from the many times I felt not that happy that the story moves that way. So as a movie it's not that amazing, the story is not that true to what people may know, but do these things warrant a ban in Indonesia? I don't think so. I don't think it's damaging to anyone's faith. Let the people watch it and let them form their own opinion of the movie. Darn over zealous muslims in Indonesia :(

So I don't fancy the movie much, but I have to say Logan Lerman was interesting in this. I only watched a bit of Percy Jackson from tv but I do love him a lot in The Perks of Being a Wallflower where he also worked with Emma Watson. Too bad his character in Noah is not that amazingly written, but at least he has more screen time than the elder brother. What's interesting for me is seeing this different side of him. Perhaps it's the haircut, but I feel like there's a bit of Paul Dano in the way he looks. There's a bit of creepyness in it, so it's interesting and it's nice to see him in a different look, to not be all soft and lovable :P

Since we're in the subject of bible story, I have started watching The Bible. I thought it's just gonna be a drama, but it's presented more like a historical reinterpretation with narration and all, I'm not sure how to explain it. Anyway, it is in the History channel after all. It's interesting but there's also some things that I didn't expect to be depicted the way they did it, for example the gladiators like angels in the Sodom and Gomorrah destruction. It was interesting though that they chose an Asian to portray one of the angels. I haven't finished watching the whole thing. I have to admit, I didn't enjoy it much because it's a bit boring for me, but since I've started, I think I will finish it. It made me dig into my brain about all those religion lessons in school. For example there was one part when I was thinking, I think Lot's wife looked back as they left and she was turned into salt and yes my memory served me right. A lesson there for people who look back when they're supposed to be moving forward, don't do it! Turning into salt is awful :P It's different learning all these stories as a child and then seeing them again as an adult. This maybe blasphemous of me to say, but really there's some insane things in the bible, burning bushes speaking to you, having to sacrifice your own son, a God that destroys everything and kills, they all make it kinda hard to be a believer. I mean if now someone says he hears God in whispers or dreams or perhaps burning bushes and God asks this person to sacrifice his son, we would think that this guy is crazy, no? I don't know, I guess my spiritual crisis is still lingering even though right now I am praying more to God to help me in life. Anyway, not sure if I'll watch the movie Son of God which is also part of this series. By the way, I read an interesting article in CNN about this movie, about why Jesus has to be sexy? Really though, the Jesus in this movie is hot :P

On other tv news, did you all watch the series finale of How I Met Your Mother? I hate it a lot! I don't like the last season, as the episode goes, I was thinking what a shame that this was the direction they chose for the last season. I would rather watch the friends being back in their apartment and bar rather than in a new different setting altogether and not even together in the early episodes with Marshall not being there. Then the finale was just like a stab stab to my heart. I'm not gonna give any spoiler here, but darn I was made to be Team Barney and to see that's what happened to him, damn it. I imagine Marshall and Lily rolling their eyes with all the stupidity their friends make in the years ahead. In the end, they are really the true couple. This is another example of how the ending of something can ruin all the good work that's been put - in the case of HIMYM, the work of many years :( I know the writers have planned it this way since from the beginning, but I guess the last season is what did them in. The additional season to tell a different story made it really really hard for people to buy the ending :( In contrast, I love the finale of this season of The Walking Dead, simply because no one died! The last episode started with Rick all bloody, looking dazed, sitting alone and I was like what, what happened? Where's Carl?!? I was pretty much preparing myself for major death as the story goes, even until the end I felt maybe it's really gonna be Carl, but no one died and that made me feel really happy :P

I finished reading Si Cacing dan Kotoran Kesayangannya by Ajahn Brahm. I think it's better in the original language, English. I can't say I am much inspired by the book. It has its moments but it also didn't really make a lasting impression. I think I've forgotten most of what I read. So that is the first book of this year. Got a new book today, Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I chose it because the cover was interesting and also it won some award :P The author also wrote Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I didn't read the book, but the movie was very moving, I cried a lot. It's April and I am only in my second book, not sure if I get 5 by the end of the year. I need to try harder.

One last thing to get off my chest. I debated if I should write this down, but I need to vent. Told someone that I will do something, didn't even plan to, but then it just happened, so anyway I asked her to let me know if she's interested. She told me she'll let me know soon. It's been 3 weeks and no news. I feel so pissed off. I know you can say, why don't you just ask her? I just feel that if you say you're gonna do something, you should do it! If she wants in on the plan, the plan has to change and the deadline is coming soon and now I just feel I am left hanging and this is not the first time it happened with her. I just feel it's rather disrespectful. I guess I feel even more pissed because I often feel people don't appreciate and value me much. Things like this and like finding out big news from Facebook damages me because I feel people don't care about me and you have no idea how true I believe that to be :( So anyway, I gotta move forward and stick with my original plan. Hope all will be well.

:) eKa @ 10:25:00 PM • 0 comments

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Ending March

Hello guys. A few days left in March 2014. Since I last wrote, it's been a scary week. My mother was feeling sick and wasn't getting better that she finally relented to be hospitalized last Saturday. That was really scary and sudden. Even more worrying was because I didn't have my passport at that time and going home immediately wasn't an option. It turned out my father wasn't feeling well also, but he didn't want to go to the hospital to get checked up as well. He did agree to go see a doctor in the evening. I think my brother was pretty busy and annoyed at the stubbornness of my parents. My mother was discharged the day after, so she only spent a night. As much as I would like to think it's good news, I think it's more because she was stubborn. She was feeling better and she decided to just quickly go home. Both of my parents seemed to be showing signs of getting better this week, which I think is good news compared to showing signs of deteriorating, but I'm not really sure if they're really okay, if whatever problems were handled, and if the drugs really work. Gonna call them later. My passport is also back, so I guess it makes it easier now if I need to go home immediately. I'll save the story of why my passport wasn't with me for another day. Anyways, still keeping my parents in prayer because seriously I was really really scared about the whole thing. People at home seemed to be not doing too good. Mom just told me today that my uncle is also sick now. I just hope everyone would be well soon and get stronger.

As for me, I thought I was doing okay, but today I found out the thing that stressed me out seems to be happening again. Damn it! I hate it when people lie to me or people are withholding information and not telling me anything. What the fuck?!? I hope and hope if a bad thing should fall my way, it would happen only when I am ready. I'd like to say I'll never be ready, but maybe when I am angry enough, it will be the right time because that would be the time when I would just take myself out of the situation willingly.

The other day, I saw a beautiful flowering tree nearby where I live. I was in shock, I was like what is that?!? It feels silly that there's something beautiful near you and you never realize it. The tree had been there for a long time and I'm pretty sure it's been flowering for some days or weeks and yet my eyes only managed to see it a few days ago. I thought it was glorious. It has pink flowers everywhere. I guess again because it's been so hot, the tree decided to just shed leaves and turn everything into flowers. I went up to it today and since I was in a hurry, I didn't really explore much of the area. I don't know what tree it is. Definitely not sakura.

Even more astonishing was that next to the pink tree is another tree with white flowers and they were blooming gloriously side by side. It was beautiful and yes again I was dumbstruck of how I do not know that such beautiful things exist very near me. I guess there's a moral to the story here, but I let you draw your own conclusion :P

Now let's go to our usual topics, movies. Here are the few that I managed to watch since I last wrote.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman - Chose this because Ty Burrell voiced the main character, the dog, Mr. Peabody. Ty Burrell played my favorite tv husband and dad currently, Phil Dunphy in Modern Family. Some people may argue, how about Marshall from How I Met Your Mother? Well, it's just Phil Dunphy has been married for quite a long time and I guess that kinda relationship and husband is the one I want to have :P So Mr. Peabody & Sherman being a cartoon, obviously there were many kids there. Luckily while they hadn't been the quietest kids around, I wasn't annoyed. I think the little blondie girl sitting in my row cried when it seemed Mr. Peabody died. It was so cute of her and kinda interesting to see how kids perceive the story. It's not a bad cartoon, I like the jokes that play around on words, and I love how the cartoon touched lightly on history, it made me realize how when I was young I learned some things also from watching things like this. If watching this made a kid remember that Marie Antoinette said, "let them eat cake", I think that's quite a good achievement, although it's not entirely true. Marie Antoinette didn't say that. I have googled this, but hopefully the kids would know this phrase or be interested to learn more about Marie Antoinette. Me myself, got most of my french revolution knowledge from The Rose of Versailles.

The Grand Budapest Hotel - A Wes Anderson's movie is just too scintillating to ignore and how I loved this movie. So many things to love about this movie. Love Ralph Fiennes and the boy who played Zero, Tony Revolori. Love love the cinematography. I think if you press pause on the movie, every single scene is just so beautiful, postcard like images. It's not all warm and fuzzy and in the end you do feel a tinge of sadness, but I still love the story :)

Divergent - Glad to see Theo James again. I've known him since his brief but very influential appearance in Downton Abbey. If you think about it, it was only with the Turk that Lady Mary let go. She didn't think about consequences, she just let go and obviously it was stupid of her to do that, but still the only guy who managed to get Lady Mary on pretty much the first try :P Anyway, watched Divergent with La Gioia and she was totally smitten with him which is kinda out of character for her :P I know there are some type of guys she likes but to hear her gushing about a guy, I think this is my first time :P Me too, I am still in love with Theo James :P Anyway, Divergent was pretty good. I like it and looking forward for the sequel. Can't help thinking which faction I would end up in. I conclude that I may end up factionless. Not a hippie. May not be smart enough to be the smart ones. Not that brave. Too selfish to be selfless and all is left is the lawyer looking faction and while some people may say that I speak with no filter, I'd like to think that they're all wrong, there are so many things that I keep to myself :P So in the end I'll be factionless, but hopefully not a useless factionless. I mean why are all those people without a faction look like a hobo? How can they just lose all will to live and think or even try?

Last piece of information. Today I posted my vote for this year's Indonesian parliament election. Dropped the envelope in with a little prayer to let God make it good and alright in our country. I'm going to waive my right for secrecy and just say openly that I voted for PDIP. Totally didn't expect to do this especially since I thought it wasn't right of them to be putting Joko Widodo as a presidential candidate (read my previous post). In the end I voted for them because above concerns of economy and corruption, my biggest concern in Indonesia right now is Muslim extremists and hardliner Muslims being more and more intolerant and force their ways into rules and regulations that affect the whole country, which is populated not only by Muslims, and so when I googled the candidates, I found that at least in Jakarta, PDIP has the most diverse candidates. So I thought, it would be just a fact that the majority of the people in the government are Muslims, but if in some way we can put some more non-Muslims then there will be hope that there will be more diverse voices, voices which would hopefully really voice out the concerns of non-Muslims who are getting really pushed with these hardliners. It's quite a hard election for me this time. It's hard to choose. It's all because parties need to be able to get more than 20% of the vote before they can put a presidential candidate in the presidential election. So right now what the parties have been doing is saying this is the person we want to run as president, but they never mention the vice president. Only one party states their presidential and vice presidential candidate in this election and already people are calling them presumptuous since they don't even know if they'll get 20% of the vote. The parties are hoping people will vote for them because they want to support their presidential candidate. What is worrying for me is if we vote for a party because we want to support their presidential candidate and then this party doesn't get 20%, they'll end up forming a coalition with other parties. Parties we may not like. Parties which they may have attacked during campaigns but then they form an alliance with, all for the sake of power. I would feel so betrayed with that. However such is the fact of Indonesian politics :( Indonesian political landscape is interesting though. It seems to change every election. People cannot be sure that they will be in majority. For example, the current president's party, the Democratic Party was the only party that managed to get 20% in the last election, but I think in this election they will not be doing so good. They have been dodged by scandals and when I saw that one of their candidate for Jakarta is FuckedUp Abbas, whatever respect I have for this party is just gone. Seriously?!?!? Do you seriously think we can take you seriously when you ask us to vote for FuckedUp Abbas? I wonder if they're even trying to win votes. It's kinda sad because there are many intellectuals from the Democratic Party wanting to be presidents, people I think more suitable than Joko Widodo. If I have to predict, PDIP will win the 20% and then Joko Widodo will win the presidential election unless the parties start campaigning and educating people to choose more based on potential and facts rather than sentimental feeling. It's been a subdued campaigning season in Indonesia because of more rules being enforced, which is kinda a good thing, but more coverage and debates are important so that people can be more informed. I live and vote for Jakarta, so it seems there are more information about the candidates and all, but it's not the same for other areas of Indonesia. The election committee should put all the candidates profiles in the net so that people can easily search information on them. 1.5 weeks left and I am looking forward to see how everything unfold. May all be okay and be good in Indonesia. Amen!

:) eKa @ 8:15:00 PM • 0 comments

Friday, March 14, 2014

32

Before we get to the title. I just found out that the governor of Jakarta has decided to run for president this year. WHAT?!?!? The Jakarta composite straight away rose on the news but I cannot in my conscience vote for him though I would have voted for him for governor that time (I couldn't because I don't live in Jakarta). I was actually really happy that he managed to become governor with his running mate Basuki. The reason why I think it's a big mistake that he's running for president is because he's only been a governor for 1 year plus. What the hell? Yes he's clean (seemingly so far), yes he seems practical in his effort to make a better Jakarta, and yes there are visible good changes in Jakarta, but I feel he's still running under the image of being clean and not based on achievement. I feel you need to prove yourself first before you decide to run as a leader of our country. Also if he stays as governor and really does good work until his terms ends, surely all that experience will be even more valuable as the basis to run for president next time. Not now, next time!!! Even my mother agrees that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to run for president now when we're discussing about the rumors last February when I was at home. I feel so disappointed. SO DISAPPOINTED!!!. I feel the party endorsing him is just doing this to lift the party up. This is not good, totally not good. Even making things worse, there are already the darn people who reject the vice governor, Basuki, replacing Joko Widodo as governor if he really becomes president, just because Basuki is not a muslim!!! This is so stupid!!! What would be ideal would be these 2 people just stay in their posts and run again as president and vice president in the next next election. This really doesn't make my day good.

Okay breathe, let's talk about the title. If you haven't guessed. I turned 32 today. Crap! Couldn't really sleep last night when I started thinking that in some minutes I would be 32, darn it! I also woke up earlier than usual today and even managed to get ready earlier than usual which made me feel stupid that I was up so early on my birthday that I decided to sit down first and played some games on my vaio. Overall I could just think of today as another day and ignore the getting older part. If I have to think about it, it's just depressing, so let's not. So today I managed to get out pretty early but the train was still full even after 9 am, darn people why are you all late for work? I had to do something today so that's why I was rather early. What is that thing I had to do, well I want to describe it, but it will reveal certain things, so I cannot give full detail. Let's just say I have to go into this place and when I got in, the security guard said I had to switch off my phone for the whole process and he had to check my bag and "wand" me (I think wand in this case can be used as a verb, hope you understand what I mean). I thought the security check was unnecessarily high. As I passed the security check and sat down to wait, my first instinct was to to check my phone and then I realized I had it off and had to keep it that way. Luckily I didn't have to wait long and the whole process was fast and smooth. Hope all will be okay and I'll find out soon.

After that I went to pray for good luck and for my birthday and then I went to Gardens by the Bay for the War of The Roses Floral Display. Seriously, this place is the most visited place by me in Singapore and most photographed too. Passed by Lao Pa Sat and realized that the place is closed for renovation, it seemed. I didn't know that. Anyway, the War of The Roses Floral Display wasn't as good as I expected it to be. You can see the pictures here. There was this mannequin kind of decoration which I thought was tacky. The horses sculptures seemed to be left over from the Chinese New Year display.

The medieval knights on horses were cool though.


Then of course there are pretty roses.

I ended the visit by checking out the Children's Garden. It was pretty cool, with different sections, like the water fountains and the sand place. Of course most of the kids were running screaming going crazy at the fountains. Seemed like a good time, especially since it's very very hot. I wonder if any of the parents felt I was creepy standing there taking pictures, but seriously I didn't focus on their kids much.

So that's pretty much it. I went for lunch and then just went back to my room. Didn't do anything else. There are things that made me feel rather sad and upset today, but I thought it's my birthday so I tried my best to push all the bad thoughts away. The best thing perhaps was that my morning errand went well and perhaps telling the truth to my cousin about how I really felt. At least there would be someone who knows one truth about me and it was quite a personal hard truth to admit. By the way, google gave me this today. How cute!

:) eKa @ 7:53:00 PM • 0 comments

Saturday, March 08, 2014

Everything is Awesome ♪

Everything is awesome. No, not really. Not that anything bad has happened, but the always pessimistic me can't just go around and say or sing, everything is awesome ♫ It's just I just watched The Lego Movie today and the song earwormed its way into my head so I was like the boy who broke into that tune after we got out the cinema, me in my head, him pretty loudly. Talking about a boy, I just can't help complaining about kids in a cinema, aarrrghhhh!!! I happened to sit next to a young girl, perhaps 9 years old and in my row there's a toddler girl who's perhaps between 3 to 5. Both are Asians. The toddler couldn't shut up and she's not even sitting, she's standing around. I would have been so pissed if I had sit in front of her and her parents did nothing! The girl next to me did make some noise at the beginning, then she got bored and she put her legs up to the seat in front of her, then she played with her chair that I think a few times she's blocking the person behind her and her mom said nothing! I hate all these parents. By the way, I think people who put their legs up into the seats in front of them are so disrespectful! Regardless of if there's a person in front of them. Hello are your shoes and sandals clean? Seriously, when I see adults doing this, my blood boils :@ So basically the watching of the movie experience wasn't great. I also felt the volume was a bit low, I wonder if they purposely did that so that the young kids don't get too shocked. With all these kids losing their interest and attention in watching a cartoon, I wonder at what age kids can really be trusted to behave in watching a movie. Also if there's any formula in movie making to make sure kids will really be interested until the end. Unless it's expected that kids should be rowdy when watching cartoons. I'd like to think my kids would be different, that I will teach them to respect the cinema as I do :P but I don't know, maybe my kids will be worse. Please not God.

So anyways, I thought the movie was great. I kinda figured out certain things before it happened and these things always made me feel good. I just checked, Liam Neeson also voiced the good cop. That's rather unbelievable. By the way, Liam Neeson has gotten so cool that just listening to his voice made you feel comforted :P Allison Brie whom I know from Community voiced the pony like character and that character is kinda the same as her Community character. In my mind that's what Allison Brie is, so it's kinda hard when I see her in Mad Men :P Anyways, the story was interesting, the lego is interesting, and to be able to have massive creativity to be master builders must be so cool. They set it really nicely for a possible sequel. So I think it's been quite a smart movie.

Onward with life. I have to say that my mental state hasn't been bad since I came back from Jakarta. In fact, this week I got a bit of ... let's say I got my first lego piece which is needed to build something. However then I got freaked out which is totally unexpected. I thought I would be all fine, but it's reaching a point that I question everything and if I should back out. I thought about it and in my head the answer is obvious, but somehow my heart or mentally in my mind, it's all pretty hazy. I wonder if I should be doing this, but yeah logically the other option is just too dumb to be considered. I mean the only way I would consider the other option would be because I chicken out and that would be silly. For you who are fluent in Harry Potter lingo, there's this potion called Felix Felicis. It's like a good luck potion. Harry Potter pretended to give it to Ron Weasley before his first quidditch game and since he thought it was real, Ron developed a confidence, basically blind faith that all would be well, and so he did well in the game. It is said that the dog people, which is me, will have a very good year in this year of the horse. So I guess in a way, that false confidence is kinda comforting me right now. I mean like I said, my mental state hasn't been bad and if I compared it to how I was months ago, that's a huge difference. I don't hate my life so much right now and things don't seem to be so bad now, like they get lighter. So perhaps if I just keep this blind faith, I should just rise above whatever fear I have now and think that everything will be awesome as it's destined to be for me now.

:) eKa @ 7:24:00 PM • 0 comments

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Saturday with Tom Hanks

Watched 2 Tom Hanks' movie today. Started this morning with Saving Mr. Banks which I loved very much. I thought it was really well made. Tom Hanks' role was actually quite small compared to Emma Thompson's role in which the movie is actually centered about. I have to shamefully admit that I have never watched Mary Poppins. Maybe one day I get around to it. The cast was great, I was surprised to see Paul Giamatti played a simpleton driver. There is no small role, I suppose. Go and watch it peeps, it doesn't get many showings here in Singapore, but it's really good. Then this evening, I decided to watch Captain Phillips. Didn't watch it when it was out because I did read that the movie wasn't as accurate as what went down exactly. Dramatic license can be such a turn off for me. After watching the movie, I have to say it's actually a really good movie. Gripping and the pace was great. It's interesting finding out that a big ship is not very fast, that a raggedy boat can catch up to them. Also interesting to see the defense mechanism that container ships like MAERSK Alabama has in dealing with pirates. It doesn't seem very helpful. It's also pretty crazy to see how "nekat" the pirates are. The Indonesian word describes it really well, the word daring in English is not sufficient for me. Another thing that I note was that the SEAL team was really cool, when have they not been? :D Anyway that got me thinking that maybe these ships need some security people in their ships, like an air marshal?

Well I got to think that because this week, I also managed to watch Non-Stop. I am quite taken by Liam Neeson with his Taken movie series :D but I wasn't that interested in watching this movie. However the majority won and since it's free, there I was. I actually liked Non-Stop a lot as the movie progressed, but then the conclusion ruined it all for me. It was such a lame conclusion. I don't buy the terrorists' reasoning and how I wished it could be smarter. It's like what I wrote in the last post, how a promising story can all just be awful by the ending and this in the end made me more critical. Like in the end how I found Julianne Moore's character to be rather useless. They have very interesting cast and one of them was the guy who played Peter Russo in House of Cards which I just started watching. I don't know the actor's name, but when I saw him, I was like oh Peter Russo is in this movie :P and then there's also Michelle Dockery and I was thinking how rather weird it was to see Lady Mary in a modern world :P Liam Neeson was of course cool and awesome. Seriously he's like getting cooler and more awesome as he gets older. I'm sure like me, there are many other who's having more love for Liam Neeson :D

Another movie that I managed to watch this week was Philomena. Yes, I am trying to watch all the movies nominated for best picture in this year's Oscar. I don't think I'll get to watch Nebraska before the award show so 8 out of 9, not bad. I love Philomena though I have to say that the ending (again with the ending!) was quite harsh to God believers. I'm not a Catholic, but I thought all the scolding from Steve Coogan's character to the nuns was unnecessary, too rude, too harsh. I still love him in this movie though and I think Judi Dench was amazing. It's quite a tragic story but I love it and Philomena is so lovable.

So this post is pretty much about movies that I watched this week. Man! I watched a lot of things and this doesn't even include all the tv shows that I managed to watch as well (yay to April and Jackson in Grey's Anatomy, so happy for them). 2 Tom Hanks' movies today and I like both of them :) As for best picture Oscar, I don't have any strong like to any of the ones that I watched, so it's rather hard to choose. Perhaps the one I love the most is Philomena but if I have to choose between the strong contender of Gravity and 12 Years a Slave, I'll choose Gravity. This has been an uninteresting post as usual? Well I hope you guys have better story than me :D Stay hydrated people!

:) eKa @ 11:35:00 PM • 0 comments