a Little thought

Cica's tripping to Taman Safari Cisarua

2011-06-14T17:08:00.003+07:00

This was Cica's fourth trip to Taman Safari Indonesia
The first one was when I was working in Synovate as a part of family gathering, second was with Yufi's office also as a part of family gathering and the third one was with my mom as a part of Ratu, my sister's school trip.

I remember she wasn't enjoying the 2 first visits at all, in fact she was much smaller then about 2 - 3 years old. When she went with my mom, she came back with a lot of stories about what she saw...

We didn't really plan to go to Taman Safari that Saturday, it was all spontaneous kind of a thing. She didn't really want to go anywhere but Yufi and I thought since it was her last days of school holiday and because of work we didn't take her anywhere but my mom's house and she has been glued to her PSP and all day, we dragged her along and at the end she was really enjoying the trip as typical Jakarta children who are more familiar with mall than nature....we strive to drag her to nature or other activities beside malls it is much healthier and fun - exactly what my dad used to do when we were about her age. I didn't take Ratu this time, next time ya aunty (she was still in school - we left house at 7 am in the morning).

Maybe next time we come back with the whole big family including my nephew Arsya who has never been to Taman Safari before

So there we were driving to Puncak, with her complaining about going too far from home (d'oooh)

By the time we reached Taman Safari it was 10 something am because we stopped by to get some breakfast and trapped in a traffic around Ciawi.

She got excited by the time we reached Taman Safari's gate - but forgot to arm ourselves with carrot for feeding the Llamas and its friends, made a visit to the loo and drove to the ticketing booth..off we drive along the Taman Safari drive way.

The first one we saw were elephant and hippos, Llamas are everywhere, Cica called them "preman" (thugs) because they always poke their nose into the car looking for carrots, I could see Cica's excitement, she even wind down the window and poked her head out and saying hello to all animals hahahahaha Yufi and I were so happy seeing her enjoying this trip after her complaining all the way up to Puncak..goshh!

We drove slowly to see one animal after the other for Cica to take a "closer" look as she refused to wind up the window and still poking her head out all the way through and chirping happily. She was amazed by the giraffe who was standing gracefully and very statuesque. There were some zoo keeper herding the elephants for the show in the amusement area and one elephant poked its trunk into the car and brushed Cica's face hahahahhahaha forgot to take a picture tho

We drove from one animal to another animal, as there were a lot of cars the queue was long as well

Although considered a bit crowded especially during weekends or school holiday but it is very entertaining. Taman Safari also has expanded its facility and it is bigger than the last time I went there. .We managed to visit the other part of Taman Safari where Pinguin was located, we also went to the Curug Luhur waterfall which located in the back area of Taman Safari.

For people who can't be bothered drive their car around and park from one end to another, there is an option, ride the Taman Safari train, with small amount of money and it goes to each point of destination in Taman Safari, you can hop on and off throughout Taman Safari without extra charges as long as you keep the tag intact on your wrist.

There is swimming pool also.

The other attraction is of course the baby zoo. You can see baby and not so baby animals in it. You can ride a pony, camel and elephant also in this area. Cica took pictures with baby panther and tiger which enough to give me cold feet, in case the baby tiger or the not so baby ( I guess he was a toddler in human's age :P) scratch her on put those "cute" paw on her face. but it didn't happen....

For parents, there are several restaurants and cafes located all over Taman Safari, if you want to have a little rest or lunch you can pop in to one of them. The prices are decent, some are expensive some are fine. There are several spots where you can enjoy "bring your own" lunch (Read: picnic) which I think is better especially if you come here with a bunch of your family, you would be better of with this option, much more fun.

Cica was also interested staying overnight in the caravan hotel / camping ground in Taman Safari. Should give it a shot one day, quite interesting

Below are photos of which we took during our trip to Taman Safari

Overall our visit was very entertaining for Cica, I guess she wouldn't mind if next time we go there again.

See you next time :)

It's been so long

2011-01-31T11:17:00.003+07:00

My gawd, it has been over a year hasn't it?
I have moved to a new office, the same industry, different color

Less traveling but that does not mean I come home when the sun is still shining, it is pretty much similar in that department.

We still go home when sun is set somewhere in the west, real set :)

Anyhow good to write something meaningless just to proof I am alive

Will travel in the next 3 days, working hard on the report now so no one bugs me on the same while I am on leave hehehehe

2000 km in attempt to view the mystical Bromo Mountain

2009-08-19T15:40:00.019+07:00

Gladly announced that the trip to Bromo Mountain is on, it’s Yufi's b’day treat hehehe yippee

Although we were thinking of not going at all as my brother admitted to hospital because he suffered from appendicitis and cica was also having flu. Sondi was well after his surgery and cica was also getting better.

Day 1

We were supposed to leave home @ 5 am but then decided to take cica once more to see her doctor to make sure she is fine. We left home at exactly 11 am.

I was thrilled on the trip, it was finally a dream come true for me. A chance to view and admire the famous Bromo Mountain, though I was not all ecstatic about the route we were going to take. Yes, unlike the previous trips where we opted to take southern inter province route as because the southern route offers nicer view, less dusty and less humongous trucks. But no can do we had to take the north coastal interstate route A.K.A Pantura as we race with the time if we wanted to make it in time at Giveme's wedding as well. Right, bit my tongue and turned my mind to suddenly thinking of happy thoughts.

Okay passed Bekasi entering the interstate / container jungle. Still happy thoughts, I tried to keep my mind occupied with the cold air of Bromo Mountain. “Okay this is not so bad” I thought. Boy I was wrong, by the time we entered Kosambi (that was only 2 hours from Bekasi) I felt so dehydrated already, darn! Need to gulp on lotsa water otherwise I would get a headache and it would not be good. We made a stop for 15 mins to gulp down some water, I finished the whole bottle in 5 minutes as if I found an oasis or some sort.

After that we continued on passing the dusty, container crowded route, most of the road condition was okay and there were some fixing going on as the festive month of Ramadhan and the day of Idul Fitri is coming, as soon people will by tradition be going back to their hometown for a long break

Anyhow, we arrived at Indramayu and had lunch there as our tummy already screamed for rescue. We stopped for 30 minutes then continued on the next city which was Cirebon. The road was again quite decent although it was kind of wavy and pebbles were scattered on the road side and it seemed that the road fixing happened along the north coastal route at the same time, hence it successfully stopped most vehicles and made them line up like a gigantic snake at some points. I felt that we were not so aerodynamic (if you know what I mean) throughout this journey I don't know whether it was because the imbalance weight of both of us ( yes I am heavier than my lovely hubby) or the wind was blowing quite hard. I felt that the velocity and the wind speed did not match as every time we passed all of the humongous container trucks we flew and swayed a bit and I mean it literally. The most annoying thing was whenever Yufi found an empty road he squeezed the accelerator then flew as well which such action caused me being tossed off my seat a couple of times as if I was a broccoli being fried in a wok. Although I shrieked happily (this has to be read in a sarcastic tone) as the tossing was rather ticklish my horror was what if I landed back not on my seat but somewhere on the asphalt, realizing the reality I banged on Yufi's helmet to remind him to take the road easy.

We made it in Cirebon then Brebes, Tegal, went around the outer part of Pemalang (sorry to my nanny we didn't have a chance to say hello to her hometown) and Pekalongan, Batang then Weleri then Kendal then Semarang.

There was nothing much you could see on those cities except that most are known for its sea produce as those cities located on the north shore. The most you could explore probably just the culinary spots, for example Cirebon known for its small shrimp called "Rebon” although to some it is also known for its cultural and religious heritage. Tegal known for its eatery which in Jakarta known as Warung Tegal (funnily I didn't read any eatery written as Warung Tegal though) it sells homemade food as if your mom made it. Brebes is known for its pot tea and salted duck egg. Pekalongan a bit more interesting as it is known also as the city of Batik ( a traditional cloth which decorated with symbolic pattern) the batik is chinese influenced because the city like Cirebon and along were long time ago trade cities where traders' ship from other countries set sail in Cirebon for trading both in Cirebon or close by cities..

I had to say bye bye to all the batik shops along Pekalongan even though I felt that they were calling my name because we didn't make any stop (if I rode the bike myself I think I would ha ha ha)

We stopped in Batang to taste what they called Nasi Megono. It was white rice topped with julienne jackfruit and shredded coconut. You can pick up various side dishes like fried giblets, fried Tempe (fermented soy bean), fried snails (eww) well almost any fried stuff you can pick to accompany your Megono Rice, super! And it was also friendly in cost.

We continued on to Weleri and Kendal for Semarang right after dinner, I was looking for the famous Alas Roban, apparently it was a new bypass they have cut short the old Alas Roban (Bimo said it was still there we have to make a right turn to go through it) I saw a direction board saying that Semarang is 33 km ahead, they lied, I felt it was forever. We took the new bypass from Kendal to Semarang. At last arrived in Semarang safe and sound at 10pm. Met Bimo and guys from HTML Semarang After a short chit chat, Bimo took us to his house and we met his wife Jenny. We were so grateful that they lend us one of the rooms in their house for us to crash in that night. We were treated so well. Love the sweet green tea Jenny made us. We had a chit chat about ghost yes ghost, some said Semarang is a city of ghost, blame it on the history. The chit chat made us a bit jelly as Jenny were saying that a "lady" (that a ghost to you) came over when a couple of Bimo's buddies slept over at their place and came back again to check whether those guys were still there, spooky, well, talking about ghost's crush. We dozed of right after; I guess exhaustion beat the horror

Day 2

We woke up at 6 (sort of) got ourselves ready for Bromo Mountain while Bimo and Jenny also got ready for work. Jenny's served us a Soto for breakfast (a clear chicken soup) nice. She led us out from their housing complex then we continued on to Solo route.

We took Salatiga route to go to Sragen because it was closer to get to East Java’s border. We stopped at a temple I forgot the name, took some pictures then off to Solo. We went through a road that leads us to Salatiga then Sragen. We stopped at a coffee shop and the lady who owns it told us that a couple of Harley Davidsons have just passed the same route. We stopped for coffee around 20 minutes then continued on. The alternative route was quite empty although the road was a bit smaller but it felt like a highway and guess what I spotted? Shopping spots Batik village! Darn I didn't know the name of the village but I could read that the banner said "Desa Wisata Belanja" well well well all batiks in the village are for sale I thought and my mind started to drift away and I was seeing myself drowned in batik cloths already when I heard someone's voice, darn! It was Yufi's, there goes my hallucination. He asked whether I spotted any sign for direction to Sragen, luckily I admit that I am good with direction (what a brag). We arrived in Sragen and stopped at the closest service station to get the bike's oil changed. We had our lunch while waiting for it to finish.

We continued on, 40 minutes later Ngawi was on site. I spotted Gontor Putri 1,2 and 3. Their building was amazingly huge. Gontor is a modern Islamic boarding school for those who did not know, the boys boarding school is located in Jombang (if I am not mistaken). The girls boarding located in several areas but still on the same route of Ngawi regency, Mantingan is the only exact place of Gontor Putri 1 that I remembered though and No, these Islamic boarding schools do not teach terrorism to its pupil, Islam as most religions in the world teaches peacefulness and believe to love is better than to hate. Those terrorist are simply have twisted mind and got twisted pleasure out of bombing. Indonesians loathe those sick people. We continued and passed teakwood plantation area for 40 km or more before entering Caruban. I spotted some tourists made a stop in kiosk along the teakwood plantation to do some shopping, those kiosks sell all sort of furniture mainly made out of teakwood, the design was unique though. We stopped at Sederhana restaurant to have early dinner as Bromo Mountain was still a long way to go. We met the aforementioned Harley Davidson riders, some said that most of Indonesian Harley owners are stuck up, but the guys we met were friendly they even said that we are nuts going to Bromo Mountain alone while they ride with a complete companion set consisted of a safety car, buddies and mechanics. They were heading to Bali for Harley Davidson's gathering. Well what to say, you guys rode a Harley where spare parts are scarce commodity in small cities along the route, having a safety car and mechanics are part of the deal. I envied their jackets and their protector. It smelled original (unlike ours) as I saw one of them was fitting his knee protector on and sort of spotted the "A" with a star behind it (read: alpinestars) When he walked, the protector didn't even wobble (ours do) oo well sob sob J

We finally entered Nganjuk and got the chance to show Yufi my lovely hotel in Nganjuk where I stayed last time on a work trip.

We continued on to Jombang and Mojokerto. In Mojokerto we took a right turn which leads us to Mojosari. We want to avoid the famous Lapindo mud which successfully eaten more of a dozen villages and left the villagers homeless. We showed up around Gempol and took the route to Pasuruan through Pandaan. We made a stop at Pandaan. Asked around which way is the closest to go to Pasuruan then Probolinggo then to Bromo Mountain. Most of them directed us to Tosari as they said it was closer and we could also go to Cemoro Lawang from there (later we found out that Bromo Mountain has 4 entry gates, the most used entry are from Probolinggo and Tosari, most decent hotels and home stays can be found in Ngadisari village, Cemoro Lawang and you can reach the place from Probolinggo entry gates. Whereas in Tosari mostly are home stays the two areas are on the opposite side, in the middle of those villages lies a desert, which can only be crossed by a 4 wheel drive or a lighter, slimmer tires motorcycle, a fully loaded bike like ours would get stuck in the sand unless you are willing to push the bike through the desert, I don't think so). Since our hotel was located in Ngadisari, Cemoro Lawang and the easiest to reach the place was from Probolinggo. O bollocks! We wasted 2 hours of our time going around and dazzled ourselves with confusion; we supposed to arrive at around 6 pm at Bromo Mountain. We turned the bike back to Probolinggo route.

We arrived at Tongas (There were two routes to reach Bromo Mountain from Probolinggo, one is from Tongas and the other one from Probolinggo city, both routes meet at a point called Sukapura) around 7 pm and I couldn't feel my derriere anymore we stopped there and had a chit chat with the locals for 20 minutes, we continued on to Bromo Mountain. Yippee Bromo Mountain, I am coming! The road was noticeably and slowly inclining, the more we went up the steeper it became, the bike worked really hard to take us to the top of the mountain ( as you know it carried me and my set of beauty necessities hahaha), we passed several villages and I felt like it was forever, we passed a village where land cruisers with "Bromo Mountain Sunrise" stickers lined up. Finally our lovely good ol' bike took us safely to Ngadisari, well almost, obviously (d'oh) we took a rather difficult route, it was concrete made road, sort of 60 degrees ( it felt like it was 60 degrees, I am bad with numbers) inclined, the bike couldn't perform its best show because the load (yes moi and the necessities were heavy) the bike slowly went down the hill, Yufi and I had to jump off and hold the bike, prevent it to slide down further. That was, I am telling you a horror. To make the load lighter I offered myself to walk up, that wasn't a good choice either as I was gasping for fresh air as I felt my lung wasn't functioning properly. Walking in a cold air and on a steep road weren't exactly a soul mate, what a fitness test! I told my self "damn it! Breath slowly, I don't wanna drop faint here" I stopped to catch a breath and manage my breathing, took off my jacket and glove as well. I have never felt so panic in my life, I did this time. Finally the bike was able to take us up, Yufi squeeze the accelerator way before the steep road to help the bike climb up. The bike was apparently overheated. Sorry Bike

Finally the Cemara Indah hotel was in sight. Thank God! I was like "mmmkay” I thought the hotel was kinda you know a hotel (I always have certain imagination of a hotel, mostly they are good) as it has the best view of Bromo Mountain, fully booked by mainly international tourists but the room looked like well a room, oh okay it was pretty decent, very minimalist. Never mind the most important thing was, it offered a hot shower and blankets. Imagine yourself taking a cold shower at around 2600 meters above sea level, unless there are some scientific proofs that taking a cold shower in certain altitude keeps your youth, adds glow to your skin and reduce your excess fat, I would go for it without complaints.

I loved the cold air though (but not the part where I was gasping for O2), cold air always unfailingly gives me a happy buzz. We headed down to the restaurant to have dinner and Yufi got a bit worried about the bike's clutch as the result of the "small" (it was life and death to me, remember hard to breathe?) incident, he took the bike to where employees keep their bike. We had a hearty dinner because you know cold air makes you hungry fast. The food were okay or maybe because we were starving. After dinner. I took a hot shower and went out to admire the stars, they were so close as if you could grab them and put it in your pocket as souvenirs. Beautiful!

We went to bed at 11 am as we have to rise and shine at 3 am to go to see the sunrise up in Penanjakan. I fell asleep in a second, tired and cold air was a perfect combination to doze off fast.

Day 3

We woke up at exactly 3 am. Yufi was thinking to take his bike up to Penanjakan and that means go through the desert. The employee said he better not to, as he might get lost in a fog and that the sand would definitely slow him down or straight forwardly he said would cripple the bike, unlessYufi was one of the locals who effortlessly ride their bike around like it was asphalt road. No way! I don't wanna push the bike along the desert and along those entire steep roads. After a stiff argument that he could go ride in the desert all he wants after the sunrise, we took the Land Cruiser instead (not mine but we paid Rp. 275 grand to rent it plus the driver, we met some lost local tourists to split the rental fee and you also have to pay Rp. 6000 per person to enter the gate of Bromo Mountain complex)

Here is some info on places to visit when you are in Bromo Mountain. There are 3 must visit places in Bromo Mountain. First are Penanjakan, it is the highest summit of Tengger mountain where you could view the beautiful sunrise on the viewing point. You could see the top of mount Batok and Mount Semeru enveloped in a blanket of fog. It was magnificent. There was no exact definition on how beautiful the view was. Second, after Panajakan, it is the sulphur crater. You have to walk passed the Tengger temple and walk up to the slope of the crater around 3 km; you have the option of walking or riding a horse. You have to fork up Rp.100000 for a return trip to and from the crater on a horse. The third would be the savannah and the "Pasir Berbisik" they called the place after a movie with the same name as it was shoot in the area. To go to these areas, you could hire a land cruiser (unless you ride in a group where your mates could lend a hand if you stuck in the desert, Yufi's mate was just moi, pushing? No way!), just go to the closest Land Cruiser’s post they will call one for you of course you have to pay the rental fee. It is cheaper if you go to the post than hire the land cruiser through a broker. There is actually fourth place to visit which is Ranu Pane, a lake in the middle of Mount Semeru but since Semeru is a little bit active at the moment, the Government closed the park to avoid danger.

Yufi and I visited the first two places as going to the third one cost us another Rp.200000 and we short on cash hahaahaha. The first two dazzled us. We went up there in a Land Cruiser, at most of steep road they had their 4WD gear on, I looked at Yufi and murmured, "look, otherwise we would be pushing the bike right now going up and say bye bye to sunrise" he agreed. We couldn't even see a thing within 2 meters as thick fog was all over the place. The driver on the other hand, could drive with his eyes closed because he has been passing the same route thousand times to take us tourists up to Penanjakan. One small thing I noticed from the driver was, at certain points on the way up, he flicked the cabin light on and off a couple of times, which made me wanted to know why he did that. But I forgot to ask. Let it be a mystery.

Stopped by to a kiosk to sip on some coffee, met an old lady and had a chit chat, she said “do what you are doing now while you both are still young” (ahemm) as she said she wanted to do the same when she was young but didn't have a chance. We took her advice as a motivation. Everything was beautiful in Penanjakan the sunrise, the view of Tengger Mountain from the top. We even had to cram ourselves in between international and local tourists, some were even bitchy as Yufi tried to squeeze his camera between them to capture the sunrise, and one of them kept saying “No place" like a dozen times as if we were some idiots who didn't understand English. They didn't even take picture for God's sake; they were just standing lazily on the gate looking at the sunrise as if they were on their own porch.

Don't let this ignorance ruin our mood. We took a dozen of pictures while we were in Penanjakan. We then headed down to the crater... Fog was still up in the air, you hardly saw a thing around you. The ambience was mystical. You felt as if you were in one of that kungfu movie "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" awesome! We wanted to go up but instead roamed around to see whether there were food kiosks, we were starving again, found a guy who sells bakwan malang, I curiously asked where he comes from, he said

he's from Tosari. Our jaws dropped hahaha he had to pass all those steep roads and the desert before to get to the temple. He

said in the dessert there is a path for motorcycle. The sand is a little bit hard as locals pass the road all the time and it was a bit grassy. Hat off for him. He said because he is used to it already.

Still we couldn't hide our admiration. A motorcycle with a bakwan stall fitted on the bike climbing up steep road Awesome
We had a chit chat with a clever tourist guide and drown in a conversation from politics to Global warming. The last one, was indeed has a direct impact to Bromo Mountain. August was supposed to be the coldest month in Bromo Mountain but this year was not so, usually farmers there experienced the "upas" where frozen iced blankets their plants. There is no such a thing this year, although upas causes farmers lost in their revenue, but to some it's also a sign that global warming is slowly taking its toll to the environment. Sad aye.

The guy gave us advice not to go up to Pananjakan by motorbike alone, unless you are in a group; you have mates to back you up as it is not an easy route to go through.
Finally the fog cleared up a bit and you could see the Mount Batok standing next to you, whoaa great view. We opted to ride a horse, although I was a bit worry the horse couldn't take my weight hahahaaha but the guy said "don't worry you are not heavy at all" what a compliment.
I decided not to go up to the crater but hang around around the stairs, because the sulphur smell suffocated my lungs, instead we took some pictures and help others took picture. The view from the stairs also as amazing as one we viewed in Penanjakan only from different altitude. We went down again and by this time the fog started to dwell back in the area. An incident happened, a horse threw a little girl off its back, and lucky she didn't crash on the concrete pilars. I asked whether she was okay and got hurt, she said she was fine, although I could see she was a bit shaky and she said she was trying to control the horse but got threw off instead. Talking about mad horse and law suit to someone one of these days. We got back to the hotel, had breakfast consisted of Nasi goreng and tea. Yufi begged whether he could go back to the desert on his bike to fulfil his curiosity, because he gave me a begging look, I gave in. We took off the top box to reduce weight off the bike. Finally got to the desert, a couple of meters ride he got stuck and I jumped off to give the bike some push and I decided to walk, he fell off from the bike, 200 meters later and tried hard to lift his bike up, I was there laughing hahaahaha.
While we were trying to lift the bike up, a guy with a Honda GL Pro passed us in full speed, whoaaaaa. We broke into into a hysterical laugh. Ironic. After Yufi felt satisfied riding around, fell off on the desert a couple of times and got himself souvenirs, a couple of scratches on his legs we rode back to the hotel, we made a stop for a coffee near the hotel. A seller asked Yufi how's the bike and gave a short crash guide how they usually handle the bike on the desert, he told Yufi not to fight the shaky steering, hold on to it and accelerate in the highest speed so the bike wouldn't sink in but fly on the sand. A wee bit too late but useful for next time. We got ourselves ready to go to Solo afterwards..

Bye bye Bromo Mountain wish could make another visit with Cica sometimes next year. Went down the mountain at 12 pm, we feel the hot air blew us, darn! Back to reality the kungfu movie is over. Had lunch at Rawon Nguling in Nguling, Pasuruan. Felt so lazy and sleepy right after lunch but the show must go on, Giveme's wedding is waiting.

We continued on Pasuruan city and arrived at Gempol to Mojosari, we were blocked by a pre Independence day marching. We had to stuck in the crowd for half an hour before could slowly ride through them. Off we got to Mojosari, then Mojokerto then Jombang. The road was more crowded compared to the other day, holiday is over. People rush to go back home. We got to Nganjuk at 5 and stopped for some snack and drink. We saw carnaval to celebrate Independence Day. We got to Caruban at around 6pm and again got stuck in a pre Independence Day celebration, this time was a carnaval, so funny as well as amazed how close tied these small cities people to each other. They wore all sorts of costumes and had a lot of themes. Apparently army or police capturing terrorist became a trend theme, some wore police or army costumes while some were being dragged around pretended to be the captured terrorists. Yufi took some pictures off them. We enjoyed the carnaval.

We got to Ngawi at 6.30 pm and go straight to Sragen. We had dinner in Sragen's "Lesehan Bandung". A famous eatery in Sragen (as recommended by my office's interviewer last time I went to Sragen for work) and made some phone calls to some hotels in Solo, damn most of them were fully booked. We decided to go look for a place to stay later. Yufi rode on a full speed, we felt tired already and I need a good hotel to sleep in. We finally entered Solo at around 8pm and bumped into Asia hotel in Jalan Monginsidi, we went there to check whether they have a room available. They did so we decided to stay there for the night. The room was fine. Felt so tired I dozed off right after.

Day 4

We woke up late, had breakfast and got ready to go to Karang Anyar. We left the hotel at 12pm straight to Karang Anyar. Yufi felt the clutch string a bit off (later we found out it was nearly worn out) we arrived at the wedding and stayed there for an hour.

We went to local bike workshop to get the clutch string changed. On the way back I read "Tawangmangu 30 km". We decided to go up there. We passed Tawangmangu, ride on to Cemorosewu which located on Gunung Lawu. I remembered passing this road long time ago with my dad from Madiun. We hung around for awhile had late lunch. Yufi had a bunny satay and I had an indomie. I grieved for all those bunnies. We took off at 6pm we arrived in Jogja at around 8pm. Had dinner in a street stall. The street stall was unique because it was a VW Combi. We had spaghetti and lasagna with cold chocolate yummy and cheap. We continued to Kebumen. Around Banyumas. At Tugurejo we stopped at a gas station to have some coffee and I spotted a small sign next to a guy "Pijat Pak Bagyo" whoaaa a massage service, I asked him how much (we were broke already) he said it was up to us. Yufi went to have his back, legs and hands massage while I opted for legs massage. Bliss. At 12am something we got ready to continue to Wangon and may stop there as the route from Wangon to the province border a bit dangerous. You could get mugged along the route. Yufi ride on the higgest speed this time. Got to Karang Pucung as Yufi was so sleepy, we decided to continue after dusk. I couldn't believe me sleeping on the porch of a gas station. With other bunch of people. I got myself close to Yufi hahahaha. My late dad must be sad knowing his pretty princess slept in a gas station hahahahaa. Amazingly there were no mosquitoes.

Day 5

6 am we continued to Banjar. Actually from a gas station (where we stayed overnight) to Majenang was only 17 km but the road condition was bad, loose gravel, bumpy, you name it. Afterwards the road mostly already fixed with hot mix asphalt. Finally, I never felt sooo happy in my whole life seeing the gate saying farewell to Central Java and Welcome to West Java. Closer to home already although it was still 293 km to Jakarta from Banjar. We had a Soto daging as our breakfast in Banjar. Took the road slowly this time. Nagrek felt soooo faraway. We also bumped into carnivals along the route from Banjar to Nagrek. It was our Independence Day. Happy Birthday Indonesia!!!

We stopped at Nagrek to take some rest as Yufi wanted to take a nap. We continued around 11 o'clock and had lunch at Ampera restaurant in Soekarno Hatta road.

Yufi decided to go back through Jonggol because it was daytime and it was a shorter cut. The road to Jonggol was amazingly full of people; I guess they didn't want to get stuck in the traffic as well as people were also going back from their holiday. In some areas along the route the road condition was so bad but we took it easy. At last Jonggol. Yippeeee home is only a blink away. We cut short our route through Kota Wisata and stopped to have some ciggies. We continued to home.

Arrived home at exactly 5ish pm. Home sweet home, my sweet Falisha was sleeping and I was relieved.
I thank God for keeping us throughout our trip safe.
I was happy and I am still happy, although we felt unbelievably exhausted.

Merdeka!!!!

Visit Indonesia Year 2009

Let’s get Lost!!!!

Leisure @ Work

2009-08-05T17:06:00.004+07:00

Working for a research company, in my case is working for a qualitative team in a research company comes with two sides of a story. Knowledge and Fun

I can say that time is flexible, I mean really flexible. One day we could go home on time with a big grin on our face, the other day we go home like nearly pass midnite, yawning every five seconds and sleepy eyes not too mention if the project lasts for another 3 or couple of days more we have to be at the office first thing in the morning and prepare everything (read: FGD / IDI) like you've had a "sleep like a baby" sleep a night before. Another day we would have a project that requires us to travel to places from the city to the most rural areas. Most of the time we also go to places which are also tourists destination (in this case working days in the other part of Indonesia usually becomes oh so beautiful)

I left my hubby and daughter quite often especially if we got a bit popular among our clients. I do feel sad that I have to leave them but most of the time I am eager to go as I could go back with a lot of stories and tons of plans to take Cica and hubby there.

During a normal FGD/ IDI (normal means that we do the project in Jakarta and in our office or somewhere in Jakarta) you usually find a lot of interesting things mostly about your respondents who come from various social classes and your clients.

From the respondents I usually get things like finding out their hopes, observe the way they see and perceive things and the way they see life, each can be a lot different, then out of not so normal projects (means out of town) you will find a lot more interesting things, wider diversity and perceptions either for daily things or for life which most of the times give me a slight nudge to the heart. It gives you a chance to look at yourself and to see how you perceive your life. Lessons for life. From the clients, apart from absorbing some intelligence thoughts you can also find and in my acse ask more about their products and services. Which most of the times help me decide which to buy and not to buy (I am a customer too u know), hence another lessons for life.

The fun bits come from travelling either in and out of the city. Well okay not so much in the city (I lied) apart that you have to experience hopping from one place to another around Jakarta. It usually feels like I give myself voluntarily to taste Jakarta's traffic where most people try to run away from it. What can I say, sometimes we have to go from one end to the other end like from BSD straight to somewhere in Kelapa Gading. Yes don't imagine that, you'd get stress out. There are a lot of things you can do in the office car (if you are successfully booked one or in a taxi if luck was not on your side at that moment) like munching on some "gorengan" (or other things) or sleeping like crazy. But that's about it.

The most glorious feeling comes if you (or most of the time is your Project Director or your Associate Director) aced an out of town project, all of a sudden everybody in the team are willing to travel. So far I feel like I am lucky.

Apart that work is work we always try to squeeze in sometimes in between to do a little exploring. We often forget how tired we are, in attempt to find out about the place especially if we never popped over to the place.

I have been to many places around Indonesia because of my work.

I was stranded in Palembang's scary train station (where thugs were all over the place), tried to catch the only train that goes from Lubuk Linggau to Prabumulih. Slept through my next stop and got carried over to the next stop and tried to catch a travel back to Prabumulih

I got to see Gorontalo in Ramadhan which means no food stall open during daytime and got lucky because one of the respondent brought us some Binde Biluhuta soup, that tasted sooo good I finished one whole tin container.

I went to Padang and accidentaly experienced one of the biggest earth quake in my life that required me to run off to the runway and pray like I never pray before in my whole life.

I went to Nganjuk where the nicest hotel felt like a dorm.

We went overland from Semarang to Purwokerto to Yogyakarta then flied off to Surabaya then continued our journey to Malang overland.

We have stayed in Semarang for nearly a month cummulatively until the Novotel staffs recognize our face as if we were the VIP customers. (or maybe because we always took some Dilmah tea back to our room hihihihi)

I went to a lot of places and I love it even if it means that before we got a chance to had that squeezed time I had to run two or three groups which usually include talking to people for 2.5 hours straight each FGD (so please multiply that 3 hours by 2 or 3)

the couple of last projects were even finer. We got a chance to go to the magnificent Borobudur and Prambanan (in fact a couple of times a day and stayed there like you were one of the ticketing officer and the next day felt like you were the guard of the statues) (The last time I was there for a project which was a week ago, I lost the appetite to take pictures as we already took tons of them during our earlier project).

We also got a chance to taste Bali for a week, chasing around tourists like we were their fans. The next day we sat around in Discovery mall to chase another tourists (Poor tourists, they must have thought that we were lunatic Indonesian girls). I got a chance to test my bike riding skills after five years not riding a bike (as I proudly confessed that I am the passenger now) slithering Kuta narrow streets (Too exagerating) okay Kuta Streets like a pro with Matya or Jule on the back. Feeding our eyes with beautiful merchandises beautifully displayed on stores which we could only passed (as the work hasn't yet finished) and starred at.

I am looking forward for the next out of town projects.

You could see my work travel photos in my facebook. I would post some here if I had time

Living in Blackberry

2009-03-12T15:16:00.004+07:00

Finally I got the (so called) "it" communication device after trying to resist its invasion for quite sometimes. I just simply do not want to jump into this craze by having one and another thing is I have fell in love with my phone already.

I miss my HTC Touch Diamond, it was my dream device and I spent my own money getting it. My Money!!!

Why did I finally surrender?

First of all my BB (that's what people call Blackberry for short...I was so nerd that I had to ask my sister in law (who has had her finger on this device long before I do) twice what it stands for "BB? What is it? What? oohh...) was a gift for our anniversary / Bday from my husband (I still insist that it is for our anniversary in attempt to get another present heheheh) the second was I had to sell my HTC Diamond because well I do not need two powerful devices right? And the resale value is good I can pay my credit card bill hahahaha.

Okay mine is Curve 8900 a.k.a Javelin, compact and cute. I felt like I had no self opinion at first...felt like I am a follower, I hate to be a follower I always considered my self as an early adopters although not a trendsetter. I felt sooooooo ashamed converting to Blackberry hehehehehe

First day of usage, mmm okay how to use it...quick tutorial from Yufi, but did most of the settings on my own (emails and other stuffs) I did not see any thrills of exploring the device.

Second day of usage, got a grip on using BB messenger and got lots of PIN from friends and family hehehehehe

Third day of usage, I got a grip although not yet mastered the device.

So the device is quite easy to get a grip on and quite useful in terms of what u can do with it especially emails and instant messaging. basically you are constantly in touch with others.

One thing that I am not really thrilled is that it does not have any office application, you can only view and edit but not create and no video call, how I am gonna see Cica if I am out of town??? Too bad aye?

My verdict so far I like this device 85% like I said I am not yet mastered the device. I would like it more if it has a video call and office app.

Do I still feel like a follower, you bet I do!!
But does this device help? So far yes minus the office app other things are super. Compare to my phone..no difference apart from BB is faster in terms of connection to the internet

So are you going to convert? You decide

Riding to Central Java with Love Part IV

2009-01-14T21:06:00.002+07:00

Leave the bunny alone....

We headed back to Jogja going down through a different route but the road ended in Jl. Kaliurang -Jogja where I previously said along that road you can see a lot cafes and internet shops. Before we got to that road we passed Mirota Batik, the souvenir shop I've been mentioning a couple of times before, and it was open, yuhuuuuuu. We made a stop there after getting some stuff I wanted we took off.

It is said that you have not yet been to Jogja if you have not yet taken a picture at the Jogja monument a.k.a Tugu Jogja, it is located right in the middle of Jogja city, Rigen said that it used to be used to mark the border. So we took a picture there, after a couple of shots we then headed back to the hotel.

Time flies so fast, we were nearly at the end of our journey...sad? you bet!

So we got back to the hotel, filled with satisfaction with our first trip together, now it is about going back home.

Off to sleep we went.

Day 4:

I thought we were going to go early but we did not, Yufi and I woke up at 7 or 8 and got ourselves ready, Rigen and Ghesy came over at around 9 am so we cruissed off after saying thank you and all to Mbak Shanti and her brother.
We stopped over at Rigen's grandmother's house, you see we younger people have to pay our respect to our elderly even just to say "see you later granny" hehehhe

We finally took off from Rigen's grandmother's house at 10.30 am made a stop at ATM machine first.

Home here we come. We gone through Jogja - Purworejo - Banyumas -Majenang - Banjar route a little bit different from the route we came in, last time we made a turn in Banyumas through Purwokerto.

The road was kinda crowded, holiday has ended, people were going back home at the same time we did. We didn't take picture at all on the way back because rain was acompanying us along the way to Banjar even Ciamis, at one point it was bright and the next kilometer it was raining, so we practically glued to our rain coat. I even managed to change my pants because eventhough it was covered by the raincoat, I was still managed to get wet.

City after city we passed, the road was sensibly crowded, we even passed an accident, we had to queue for sometimes, but since we were not in a car we could swiveled through the traffic jam, the cause of the traffic was this truck filled with LPG tanks (I hope it wasn't loaded) tipped over because of the slippery road.

We got to Bandung at 9 PM, had our supper then headed home through Bandung Purwakarta Karawang - Bekasi route. Purwakarta was a very quite road after the Cipularang highway officially open, people would rather go to Bandung via Cipularang than the old Purwakarta route. Poor old those Tapai seller (Tapai is food made out of fermented casava, which is a Sundanese snack) well I guess not all change are good, some have to willingly lose their income...

After passing industrial estate and a couple of factories in Karawang we arrived safely in Bekasi at 3 am, in front of a familiar mall which I do not visit very often, but it was the landmark which stated we were finally home! We splitted with Rigen and Ghesy in front of this mall

We arrived at home at 3.15 am. I Miss my daughter very much!!! I was finally home.

So the trip is officially ended, but it does not mean the trip is going to be my only trip on the back of a motorcycle. I plan to go toBromo in July, if everything was going smoothly, the trip is definitely on, I have even marked my work calendar as a leave and have asked my boss's permission, amazingly she said Yes yippeeeee.

There are a lot of places that I want to visit in the future where of course we could bring along our motorcycle such as...Sumatra Island, Bangka Island, Bali, Lombok, West Java, East Java, Madura Island, NTT such as Kupang, Larantuka, Lewoleba (my brother went to Lewoleba 2 years ago to find a sea cucumber he said the view was great!) kalimantan and others because this is not just about taking a beautiful pictures but also a lifetime experience that is of course if our annual leave permitted hehehehe

well everything always starts from a dream..

Riding to Central Java with Love part III

2009-01-13T14:44:00.003+07:00

Still Day 2:

We went up to our room finally to get some beauty sleep, we made a plan for tomorrow, such as where to go since tomorrow is going to be our last day in Jogja. Off to bed!.

Day 3:

We woke up later than we supposed to, so we got ourselves ready in a flash (okay I did not as I had to iron my hair hehehe), had some breakfast and headed to our first destination, Prambanan Temple. Mbak Shanti (the hotel owner) told us not to be in a rush because Prambanan Temple is so close by "it is only 15 minutes away from here" she said, I was like "no kidding" because based on my experience, 15 minutes in other cities in Indonesia is an equivalent of hours of Jakarta people standard time, as you might have heard from the news that Jakarta is one of the city with worst traffic in the world, so everywhere you go is measured in hour even if it was only 100 m away (especially if you are in the SCBD district of Jakarta) and the ride was supposed to take 5 minutes to get there but in Jakarta standard time it would take 30 minutes or more if you are not lucky. Since the traffic is way looser in Jogja so 15 minutes means that the distance to go is at least 5 km hehehehe Okay back to the Prambanan temple topic, I was dumbfounded by the distance to Prambanan, disbelief to be exact, but then slowly I put on my jacket and my helmet and hopped on to the bike, Yippeee off to Prambanan we went.

Dear God, it was actually took us around 15 minutes from our hotel to Prambanan Temple (if we hadn't made any stop to buy some munchies and water) I was amazed and wished that this state of traffic would happen in Jakarta as well (that would be such a utopia people!!)

The Prambanan Temple wasn't as crowded as Borobudur was, since I guess a lot of visitors were heading back home since the New Year has passed, but I did not say that it was empty either. Unlike Borobudur, Prambanan Temple can easily be seen from the ticket booth and you did not have to walk for a couple of hundred meters to see the Temple. And I forgot to mention that even though the entry ticket was merely cheap but you are also charged for bringing a camera in to the site, the charge was not expensive at all Rp.1000, but I just couldn't get why do they have this bizzare rule. It was quite annoying as I saw some people had to count how many of their family members bringing in camera.

Prambanan Temple was still under going re-construction and from the look of it, it was nearly completed and she was kinda back into her magnificent shape. Prambanan Temple was badly damaged because of the earthquake in 2006 in Central Java (Jogja to be precised) which also killed hundreds of people in Jogja and its surrounding cities. UNESCO and Indonesian government have been re-constructing the Prambanan Temple ever since. A lot of important pieces missing and imagine how hard all these archeologist to glue the temple back in one piece.

The main temple was still partly covered with scaffolding and the whole complex was fenced so we could not look inside the temple, but fine by me, we just took a couple of pictures there and I also told a story as Yufi wasn't quite get on the temple history so I was yapping like a professional tour guide (which is now I wasn't quite sure either, whether I gave out the right information hehehe Sorry Yuf it wasn't Joko Tingkir who forced Roro Jonggrang a.k.a Shiva to marry him but it was Bandung Bondowoso, this poor guy had to built a 1000 temple in one night as a condition to marry Roro Jonggrang, as Roro Jonggrang herself requested, he almost made it as he was on his 999 temple but Roro Jonggrang was freaked out as it means that he only short of one temple to marry her, so she asked all villagers to hit on every mortar they have to deceive Bandung that it was dusk already, whe he found out he was being deceived he was furious and turned her into stone, that stone then placed in the main temple of Prambanan) This is the legend passed for decades, I was wondering whether or not Bandung Bondowoso was a handsome guy..heheheheh as Roro Jonggrang did not say that he was ugly but the reason she did not want to marry him was because he killed her father, like Hello who wanted to sleep with the enemy? Fair enough.

We left the temple complex after spending almost an hour and a half. There are a couple of small temples around the area, Candi Boko was one of them but we did not go there as we had to meet Rigen and Ghesy as we want to explore Kaliurang area.

First we went to Malioboro Street, where you can find all sort of souvenirs ala Jogja (read Batik) and the street was packed with cars and people, I wanted to go to Mirota Batik as the shop has everything in but it was closed, I was quite dissapointed, the lady on parking lot told us that the one in Kaliurang was open so I said to Yufi we have to go there later. We then went to Kraton (Jogjakarta's King's Palace) area, it was not at all like what I had always imagined and I wasn't that interested in exploring Kraton so we only stayed there for half an hour later I found out from Rigen that the one I had in mind was Tamansari is the other part of the Kraton (Shoot!) but what the heck we have to go to Kaliurang, the weather was unusually hot (meaning that rain was on its way) so we headed to kaliurang.

I told Rigen and Ghesy whether they mind or not if we made a quick stop at Mirota shop on the way up, they didn't, great! but eventually we made a stop at the wrong Mirota, it was a supermarket while the one I wanted is a souvenir and batik shop, well, what the heck so we had a traditional "Carabikang" cake instead.

Kaliurang is located on the slope of the famous mount Merapi which is still an active volcano (the last time it was errupted was in 2006), on the way there we passed a long line of shops, cafes and internet cafes, no wonder because one of the famous state universities, Gajah Mada is located around the area. I liked the ambience of the Jl. Kaliurang - Jogja it was different from Malioboro street. It was more laid back I guess.

We went up and down the hill, the air was cooler than Jogjakarta city (yes it sure is, we were on the Merapi slope) since the lunch time had long overdue and the rain was sheepisly showed its existence, Rigen took us to Moro Lejar restaurant, it was Javanese - Sundanese style restaurant where you can have clear water fish like Koi like fish (well it is slightly different from Japanese Koi) and Gurame fish. The restaurant was consisted of ten or more hut and guests can enjoy their lunch in the hut accompanied by the paddy field view. The food was nice and the price was okay, medium price I might say, the only hassle was our hut lcoated so faraway thus it was hard to call the waitress.

We continued our ride up to the Merapi Slope, Rigen told us on an intersection that one of them is leading to Mbah Marijan's house, he is the caretaker of Merapi Mountain which is inherited from one generation to another generation of his family. The kind of Jogja himself appointed Mbah Marijan to be the caretaker. After the 2006 Merapi Erruption, Mbah Marijan became famous he even became a TV star as he endorsed an energy drink hehehehe.

Unfortunately it was raining heavily and our view was blocked so we made a stop at this small "warung kopi' to my horror the warung also sell "satay kelinci" a.k.a bunny satay, I could see the bunny (it was only the bones left) being hunged but the furry feet was still there....crazy.

Some people said Satay kelinci was nice but Man I wouldn't eat it at all, Helloooo... Bunny? Come on!

After the rain was only dripping we went down.

to be continued

Riding to Central Java with Love Part II

2009-01-07T22:26:00.003+07:00

Still Day 2:

After feeding our eyes with beautiful views, we took off from Borobudur, on the way out we were "greeted" by the street vendors , they were all selling all sort of stuffs ranging from a Borobudur miniature, Borobudur Ashtray, key rings and all sort of cute things even a back scratcher made from wood and bone (mm my mom would love it..) and a wooden spoon and etc etc but I had to keep my sanity and tried hard not to fall into all these sellers circle otherwise I would easily dig deep into my lovely backpack and stashing away my money until the last Rupiah I have. Hooray finally I arrived at the parking lot safe (well my wallet was safe indeed). The day was crazily hot, and while I was putting on all the necessary gear before riding back on Yufi's motorcycle, I was sort of drifted away a little bit..I was like "God I can't believe that I am here at last in the amazing Borobudur even yesterday I was at Dieng Plateau and the most craziest thing was we are here riding a motorbike after 12 hours of riding from Jakarta (that was to Dieng Plateau though, it took us another 2 hours to get to Borobudur) which was never ever crossed my mind before especially if my Dad was still alive he would definitely lock the gate and not letting me out at all, as you know how crazy Indonesian riders can be sometimes, because we are famous of being ignorant to traffic rules, but there I was, happily and enthralled by the views and of course the ride itself.

Okay I am comfortably geared up and ready to continue our ride to Jogja. Time was pointing at 2 something and we believed that we would get to Jogja around 4 PM so we cruised off.

We arrived at Jogja around 4.45 PM well almost 5 actually, we headed straight to the TIGER Hotel, a nice brand new hotel operated by a nice lady, Mbak Shanti and her family. The hotel was only 10 days old and she was still fixing and fitting stuff here and there but Yufi and I liked it, even Rigen put his in laws at the hotel as well. The hotel is located near Quality Hotel which is on Jl. Adisucipto (Jl, Raya Solo - Jogja). We went to the reception and got another good news, because the hotel was new so was her way of keeping the guest reservation which actually kind of prone to children's curious little hands, so anyway she lost our reservation because her daughter twinked it off and gave up our room to other guest, so in order to keep our reservation she gave a deluxe room with the price of a standard room hehehehe lucky eh?

We found that the room was huge and nice in overall, but I like the owner and her family more you felt just like home. So we cleaned up ourself, called Rigen and go around Jogja to get some dinner, as it was New Years eve, Jogja was drowned by human flood, people flocked here and there most of them ride their motorbike ranging from "Bebek" type both automatic and non- automatic to "male" bike not too mention cars hundreds of them with mostly "B" plates (B means that the car comes from Jakarta) and other plates but Jogja plates. We finally squeezed our motorcycle out of the crowd and found "Lombok Ijo" restaurant for dinner.

As we can not stand the crowded Jogja city center, we decided to head back to our hotel and spent our New Year there.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!!!

We then felt hungry again, Rigen suggested that we try "Angkringan" a street stall which sells all sort of "finger food" which consists of chicken feet, eggs satay, chicken liver satay, chicken giblet satay and "Nasi Kucing" or "cat's portion rice" (why do they called the rice like that because the portion is so small you need to eat more than 2 serving) and some "gorengan" (fried assortment like tofu and corn fritter). Rigen munched on chicken feet, Ghesy, Yufi and I opted for ginger milk tea and I also ordered chicken liver and giblets satay, Yummy!!!. One thing unique about the Angkringan is it was kinda dark...the light setting was minimum, I bet it was only 3 watts or something.

After chit chatting and set plan for tomorrow we headed back to the hotel and saying night night to Rigen and Ghesy.

To be continued

Riding to Central Java with Love

2009-01-05T16:58:00.010+07:00

Okay, this is a spontaneous travel I might say, we didn't have plan to go actually it took us 4 days to actually decide. Yufi said "let's cruise to Jogja just the two of us riding the bike" and I said "it's on beibeh"!

This trip might not be that incredible for most people especially yous who have been in a motorcycle touring and maybe when you read this you will think "what's the big fuss about this trip" but to me the trip was memorable not just because this was my first trip riding a motorbike but it was lots of fun, meeting nice people and I guess it makes me love my husband more hehehehehe and makes me feel grateful of what I have at the moment. This is like a pre-celebration that Yufi and I have almost made it to 5th year of marriage.

Here's the story:

Day 1:

Raining, We looked at each other grinning with question mark on our head "shall we cruise or shall we go back to bed?", mm decision decision especially Cica was having cough after we took her swimming to Waterboom for her birthday, but what the heck we decided to go.

We left at 2.30 am and went through Jatiasih - Narogong - Jonggol - Cianjur - Citatah - Padalarang - Bandung, I'm telling you aye the route was quite a horror, it was dark, the road was up and down lots of sharp turns and added to the horror was the rain it was raining cats and dogs since Narogong we have to put on our rain coats, along the route yufi just didn't dare to look at the side mirror that how creepy the situation was hihihi and he was scared that I might have turned into some creepy creature or something.

We were kinda relieved when we saw glimpses of lights down the road, yipeee Cianjur was on sight. Went through Cianjur, Citatah then Padalarang we cruise down to Soekarno Hatta, supposedly making a stop at Ratih and Riko's house but we made a stop at Circle K Soekarno Hatta instead,

after a cup of coffee and some bread we cruise off to Banjar through Nagrek - Tasik - Cikoneng - Ciamis - Banjar.

Arrived at Tasik around 10 am, we stopped a few times just to straighten our legs and butts and to have one two puffs of ciggy along the route

Finally hitting on Banjar asphalt, bye bye West Java welcome Central Java, felt closer to our destination. Made a stop at Pringsewu restaurant, yes pricey restaurant as we found out after paying the bill, blame it on Yufi as he was brainwashed along Banjar - Majenang route by the restaurant ad. The restaurant ad was placed every kilometer huhuhu shoot, but the food was nice though, if money is not an object this is the place.

Cruise off and made another stop at Lumbir, Central Java, had a cup of coffee then continue to Dieng our first destination. Gone through Purwokerto - Purbalingga - Banjarnegara - Wonosobo route to Dieng Plateau, well it is like a habit as we made a couple of stops along the route as well couldn't ignore the nature call.

Cool wind caressed my face as we were riding off Wonosobo road to Dieng, finally embracing the cold wind I missed so much, yuhuuuu super fresh air!!!!

Arrived at our humble hotel or homestay as people at Tambi Tea Plantation called it, the room was small for the price (which is now I think kinda pricey) but it paid off by the weather and the serene surrounding. Dozed off right away after a hot bath and a nice homey dinner plus the inviting weather, it was raining like crazy but I loved it a lot!!

Tambi Tea Plantation itself located at the west slope of mount Sindoro, and I guess it was 1000 over above sea level, did not matter to me as I love cold wind!!

Day 2:

Woke up kinda late at six supposedly wanted to see the sunrise but weather was kinda gloomy because of the rain last night, but what the heck we cruised off to Dieng Plateau 1370 m above sea level, and located in between Mount Sumbing and Mount Sindoro, we took a couple of pictures at the gate, then headed off to Candi Arjuna, had some breakfast and met a nice family, Tante Melissa and Om Haji Deden with their daughters and granddaughter, I was very impressed how humble they are! very rare nowadays don't you think? after a quite long chit chat and our breakfast was paid by Tante Melissa (thank you so much tante!!) we walked off to Candi Arjuna complex which consisted of a couple of small temples and a big one in the middle the place was neatly refurbished still there were a couple of temples rocks waiting to be placed on its proper site, we took a couple of pictures at the site.

Then we headed off to Kawah Sikidang, it was a sulphur crater. The place was kinda abandoned very dirty, which I thought quite a pity as the surrounding view was quite spectacular. Yufi's Pulsar was having its own time, getting a nice bath and voila it was all shiny and ready to rock the asphalt again. Meet a couple of touringers, I like to call them a bunch of "Bro's" huhuhuhu as you know the salutation is famous among motorbike club members, which I dunno why they like to call themselves and others "Bro" anyway...headed to Telaga Warna, The coloured lake was calmly green coloured, it supposedly reflects so many colours if the sun was up but unfortunately the sun was hiding somewhere, we bumped into Tante Melissa and Om Deden's family again, we walked the path along the telaga warna together to have a peep at "Goa Semar" where our famous "husband stealer" Mayangsari, is widely known for getting the ancient water from here for whatever (I did not say this, the guide told us), the water itself is believed to have a supranatural power to heal any diseases and makes you pretty/ handsome Tante Melissa was intrigued to get a bottle of the water, so did I heheheheh

Apart from the water, the goa (or cave in English) was famous along people who want to get a certain power or simply to meditate and the place has its own Kuncen or caretaker which to my opinion he did smell like an incense hehhehe so I guess people know that he was a caretaker hehehehe

Anyway we headed back to the hotel (after saying goodbye to Tante Melissa's family and exchanging phone numbers and facebook ID) to get some brunch and packed up for Jogja.

We went through different route this time, the road was kinda steep and small but the view was spectacular with fog all over the mountain slopes, Loved it a lot.

We finally cruised on Magelang's asphalt heading to Borobudur, made a stop at Magelang city to had a lunch, Padang food which was not Padang at all heheheh but at least we stuffed our stomach with food and keep our stamina fit.

Finally Borobudur, I missed my father then, the last trip I had to Borobudur was with him and my family. The weather sucked though, the sun was happily shining above my head, which made me not happy at all, I missed Dieng Plateau hehehehehehe.

Borobudur was packed with tourists as yes Holiday was on going people were crowding the place. The view was still breathtaking, I wonder why it is not the world 7th wonder anymore, what was missing is that our people love to violate the rules, some were taken pictures inside the "Stupa" unbelievable! and yes rubbish was everywhere in sight.

After feeding our eyes with beautiful views and reminiscing last trips I had with my dad, we then headed off to Jogja our final destination. The weather was unbelievably hot and Yufi agreed that Dieng Plateau was a cool place to be!

To be continued as I have to prepare for work tomorrow heheheh

Pictures can be viewed at http://www.new.facebook.com/wall.php?id=541727966&banter_id=632734403&show_all#/album.php?aid=2009703&id=1508132422&ref=mf

Pheeww She's is going to be 4 years old

2008-12-15T11:35:00.005+07:00

Yup, Falisha, My daughter will be 4 this 29th December. I can't believe that time flew so fast. I only have a glimpse of memories of her development in this last 4 years not because I forgot but because every single progress and things she does everyday over shadowed all of her past progresses.

I have gone through so many things bringing her up and face so many of her wits, cheekiness and complaints and enjoy her love to us, her parents. Though sometimes I just feel like pinching her but on the same time I also feel like laughing my heart out because of what she does and says.

There are times that I had (or should I say still have) to face her "No school for me" strike or strikes since it happens so many times :)) everything about her is cute, the way she says thank you to me and Yufi everytime she gets a simple thing from us even a magazine, the way she tries to persuade me to take her to my mom's house and our weekend fight over her TV invasion watching Ben 10 or Power Puff Girls and even Transformer, although God knows how hard I tried to shoo her back to watch Play House Disney but it is always been our lost and we always ended up watch her Ben 10 for the weekend unwillingly of course. Her annoying habit of wanting to play the same song in a car, (Hello...no CD changer fitted in the car), her whinning over little things like how she wants her blankie spread evenly without creases (Duh) and how she can not live without her baby bantal "guling" which is actually as old as she is and she likes throwing it around if she got mad at us. Her face when she stands in front of a mirror or when she tries to comb her hair or try lots of things including Yufi's sunglasses. Everything!!

I just hope that we, Yufi and I could be the best parents we could be and give her the best we could provide her in order for her to have a bright future, a good character as a person and the most important thing is be what she want to be ( of course in a positive way!) and stand on her own feet and prove to everyone that there is nothing she can not do.

My dearest Falisha, Happy 4th Birthday,

I love you so much! Mama can't wait to go through years ahead with you to watch you grow!

Logical Thinking in Reporting (sounds serious aye?)

2008-10-31T11:25:00.003+07:00

Not knowing but wants to know more is better than not knowing but do nothing about it.
I feel kinda sad but at the same time a dead curious as well. My report is not in logical order, although it is filled with a lot of information. Unfortunately rather than putting it in "boxes" in order to be logical all the information is said as cluttered. Now I am dying and trying to re-do it and GOD it is hard aye, I have had spent 2 days try to re-thinking how I think in the report.

The question is, if you are used to the "not so logical way of thinking" would that made you someone who is not logical characteristically?

Now, I am dying to change the way I think and a got little bit frustrated, I am asking myself whether or not I can change my not so logical way of thinking into more logical way of thinking? So that I would be able to create a more logical report?

I need this report to be logical!!!

Okay back to work :)))

Reminiscing The Past

2008-07-18T15:34:00.005+07:00

Pernah punya lagu yang selalu bikin lo smile and flashed back to the old days..when you were still pure (hihihi okay no such a thing) anyway I am serious about this song thing, I have a lot of songs that reminds me of the good things and the bad things in the past. This song is one of them, I do not say that this song reminds me of bad things happened in the past but about something in between.

You fell in love (ya rite like I knew what love is about at that time..) then you realised that you were being fooled, your life was miserable not that miserable but miserable enough. And when I listen to this, the song was at that time was a good representation of how I felt.

I have heard this song many times before through a very best friend of mine, Erfan a true fan of The Cure (unfortunately he is not with us anymore, May Allah bless his soul) who dragged me to become The Cure lover but I did not associate it with any events going on in my life at the time until years after that.

A Letter To Elise
smith/gallup/thompson/williams/bamonte

oh elise it doesn't matter what you say
i just can't stay here every yesterday
like keep on acting out the same
the way we act out
every way to smile forget
and make-believe we never needed
any more than this
any more than this

oh elise it doesn't matter what you do
i know i'll never really get inside of you
to make your eyes catch fire the way they should
the way the blue could pull me in
if they only would if they only would
at least i'd lose this sense of sensing
something else that hides away

from me and you
there're worlds to part with
aching looks and breaking hearts
and all the prayers your hands can make
oh i just take as much as you can throw
and then throw it all away
oh i throw it all away
like throwing faces at the sky
like throwing arms round
yesterday
i stood and stared
wide-eyed in front of you
and the face i saw looked back
the way i wanted to
but i just can't hold my tears away the way you do
elise believe i never wanted this
i thought this time i'd keep all of my promises
i thought you were the girl I always dreamed about
but i let the dream go and the promises broke
and the make-believe ran out...

oh elise it doesn't matter what you say
i just can't stay here every yesterday
like keep on acting out the same the way we act out
every way to smile forget and make-believe
we never needed any more than this
any more than this
and every time i try to pick it up like falling sand
as fast as i pick it up it suns away
through my clutching hands
but there's nothing else i can really do
there's nothing else i can really do
at all...

A Letter to Elise is the third and final single taken from the album Wish from The Cure in 1992 according to Wikipedia and it is not played very often.

I do not know why I like this song very much, I never get bored of it buat gw artinya dalem aja gitu according to my interpretation to this song gw juga belum nanya sih ama yang buat. Lagu ini emang tentang Cinta and choices that you make in order to get the right Love I guess (bener apa ngga ya booo) tapi Ngga tau ya kadang denger lagu ini antara senang dan sedih and makes me want to go back to that certain point in my life and going through my stupid love life again you know how wonderful sometimes being in a crossroad and just lost in it and be stupid, hehehehe you just do not do that kind of thing anymore nowadays ya iyalah secara gw udah merit, kalo iya selingkuh dong namanya...

Gila ya setiap kali dengerin lagu ini gw jadi berasanya gimana gitu, berasa bego berasa I am lucky tapi ngga pingin juga ngerubah what had happened, kalo ngga ada kejadian-kejadian circa that time mungkin gw ngga jadi seperti gw sekarang.

Anyway.....a good peep to the past and how I miss it now

Project oh Project....

2008-06-17T02:57:00.002+07:00

Huaaaaa bete abisss menangani sesuatu ditengah-tengah..something happens you just don't know how to answer. Itu yang gw alami ditengah project ini. Sesuatu yang gue ngga suka. I may be a slack but have no problem being in charge of a project..as long as I know what's going on in the beginning, I got into this project in the middle soooooooooooo

I found so many problems in this project. The clients, they are like a pop up message like they call you anytime and text you most of the time,asking for bloody updates here and then, well I know that it is their job but I hate being pressured like that as if you are an idiot do not know what you are doing and of course we will give them updates, but it will not be like every single half an hour and to make it worst that we found a problem oh well basically we couldn't find certain respondents and I do not know why, so the client turned from a pop up message to a machine gun because it seems nothing could stop them from bugging me and by the time the FGD is about to start 2 important respondents went AWOL GOD...masalahnya adalah kalo client-nya ngerti situasi yang dihadepin sama orang-orang lapangan that no matter how good your plan is but things could go wrong and to make it worst kita agak-agak ngga succeed in recruiting respondents...pick the wrong city? you BET WE DID well should I said HE DID..I feel so alone like all eyes are on you..

Anyway being in Medan is somewhat good and somewhat bad...good that maybe the food is okay and the room is okay bad is because of the problem and I am not with my husband and Cica..
I do not have many photos of me being in Medan this time..actually I was going to take some pictures but since you know things are very unfortunate for me so I would just leave it at that..not taking pictures unless Maya takes some hehehehe .

Anyway wish me luck and I'll be out of town again since the client decide that we have to re-do the FGD in Pekan Baru...so you know and by this wed I'll be in Banjarmasin for another 3 days and a couple of days after I might be in Pekan Baru...

I really wanna go home now curl up in bed with both Cica and Yufi

2008-05-23T11:59:00.000+07:00

"To Respect Child Rights is an Obligation, not a Choice"

Saya buka kembali buku hidup saya, sebagai bahan perenungan bagi para ORANG TUA...

Tahun yang lalu saya harus mondar-mandir ke SD Budi Mulia Bogor. Anak sulung kami yang bernama Dika, duduk di kelas 4 di SD itu. Waktu itu Saya memang harus berurusan dengan wali kelas dan kepala sekolah. Pasalnya menurut observasi wali kelas dan kepala sekolah, Dika yang Duduk di kelas unggulan, tempat penggemblengan anak-anak berprestasi itu, waktu itu justru tercatat sebagai anak yang bermasalah.

Saat saya tanyakan apa masalah Dika, guru dan kepala sekolah justru menanyakan apa yang terjadi di rumah sehingga anak tersebut selalu murung dan menghabiskan sebagian besar waktu belajar di kelas hanya untuk melamun.

Prestasinya kian lama kian merosot. Dengan lemah lembut saya tanyakan kepada Dika "Apa yang kamu inginkan ?" Dika hanya menggeleng.

"Kamu ingin ibu bersikap seperti apa ?" tanya saya.
"Biasa-biasa saja" jawab Dika singkat.
Beberapa kali saya berdiskusi dengan wali kelas dan kepala sekolah untuk mencari pemecahannya, namun sudah sekian lama tak ada kemajuan. Akhirnya kamipun sepakat untuk meminta bantuan seorang psikolog.

Suatu pagi, atas seijin kepala sekolah, Dika meninggalkan sekolah untuk menjalani test IQ. Tanpa persiapan apapun, Dika menyelesaikan soal demi soal dalam hitungan menit. Beberapa saat kemudian, psikolog yang tampil bersahaja namun penuh keramahan itu segera memberitahukan hasil testnya. Angka kecerdasan rata-rata anak saya mencapai 147 (Sangat Cerdas) di mana skor untuk aspek-aspek kemampuan pemahaman ruang, abstraksi, bahasa, ilmu pasti, penalaran, ketelitian dan kecepatan berkisar pada angka 140-160.

Ada satu kejanggalan, yaitu skor untuk kemampuan verbalnya tidak lebih dari 115 (Rata-rata Cerdas). Perbedaan yang mencolok pada 2 tingkat kecerdasan yang berbeda itulah yang menurut psikolog, perlu dilakukan pendalaman lebih lanjut. Oleh sebab itu psikolog itu dengan santun menyarankan saya untuk mengantar Dika kembali ke tempat itu seminggu lagi. Menurutnya Dika perlu menjalani test kepribadian.

Suatu sore, saya menyempatkan diri mengantar Dika kembali mengikuti serangkaian test kepribadian. Melalui interview dan test tertulis yang dilakukan, setidaknya psikolog itu telah menarik benang merah yang menurutnya menjadi salah satu atau beberapa faktor penghambat kemampuan verbal Dika. Setidaknya saya bisa membaca jeritan hati kecil Dika. Jawaban yang jujur dari hati Dika yang paling dalam itu membuat saya berkaca diri, melihat wajah seorang ibu yang masih jauh dari ideal.

Ketika psikolog itu menuliskan pertanyaan "Aku ingin ibuku :...." Dikapun menjawab: "membiarkan aku bermain sesuka hatiku, sebentar saja". Dengan beberapa pertanyaan pendalaman, terungkap bahwa selama ini saya kurang memberi kesempatan kepada Dika untuk bermain bebas. Waktu itu saya berpikir bahwa banyak ragam permainan-permainan edukatif sehingga saya merasa perlu menjawalkan kapan waktunya menggambar, kapan waktunya bermain puzzle, kapan waktunya bermain basket, kapan waktunya membaca buku cerita, kapan waktunya main game di komputer dan sebagainya.

Waktu itu saya berpikir bahwa demi kebaikan dan demi masa depannya, Dika perlu menikmati permainan-permainan secara merata di sela-sela waktu luangnya yang memang tinggal sedikit karena sebagian besar telah dihabiskan untuk sekolah dan mengikuti berbagai kursus di luar sekolah. Saya selalu pusing memikirkan jadwal kegiatan Dika yang begitu rumit.

Tetapi ternyata permintaan Dika hanya sederhana: diberi kebebasan bermain sesuka hatinya, menikmati masa kanak-kanaknya.

Ketika psikolog menyodorkan kertas bertuliskan "Aku ingin Ayahku..." Dikapun menjawab dengan kalimat yang berantakan namun kira-kira artinya "Aku ingin ayahku melakukan apa saja seperti dia menuntutku melakukan sesuatu" Melalui beberapa pertanyaan pendalaman, terungkap bahwa Dika tidak mau diajari atau disuruh, apalagi diperintah untuk melakukan ini dan itu. Ia hanya ingin melihat ayahnya melakukan apa saja setiap hari, seperti apa yang diperintahkan kepada Dika. Dika ingin ayahnya bangun pagi-pagi kemudian membereskan tempat tidurnya sendiri, makan dan minum tanpa harus dilayani orang lain, menonton TV secukupnya, merapikan sendiri koran yang habis dibacanya dan tidur tepat waktu. Sederhana memang, tetapi hal-hal seperti itu justru sulit dilakukan oleh kebanyakan orang tua.

Ketika psikolog mengajukan pertanyaan "Aku ingin ibuku tidak ..." Maka Dika menjawab "Menganggapku seperti dirinya" Dalam banyak hal saya merasa bahwa pengalaman hidup saya yang suka bekerja keras,disiplin, hemat, gigih untuk mencapai sesuatu yang saya inginkan itu merupakan sikap yang paling baik dan bijaksana. Hampir-hampir saya ingin menjadikan Dika persis seperti diri saya. Saya dan banyak orang tua lainnya seringkali ingin menjadikan anak sebagai foto copy diri kita atau bahkan beranggapan bahwa anak adalah orang dewasa dalam bentuk sachet kecil.

Ketika psikolog memberikan pertanyaan "Aku ingin ayahku tidak..." Dikapun menjawab "Tidak mempersalahkan aku di depan orang lain. Tidak mengatakan bahwa kesalahan-kesalahan kecil yang aku buat adalah dosa" Tanpa disadari, orang tua sering menuntut anak untuk selalu bersikap dan bertindak benar, hingga hampir-hampir tak memberi tempat kepadanya untuk berbuat kesalahan. Bila orang tua menganggap bahwa setiap kesalahan adalah dosa yang harus diganjar dengan hukuman, maka anakpun akan memilih untuk berbohong dan tidak mau mengakui kesalahan yang telah dibuatnya dengan jujur. Kesulitan baru akan muncul karena orang tua tidak tahu kesalahan apa yang telah dibuat anak, sehingga tidak tahu tindakan apa yang harus kami lakukan untuk mencegah atau menghentikannya.

Saya menjadi sadar bahwa ada kalanya anak-anak perlu diberi kesempatan Untuk berbuat salah, kemudian iapun bisa belajar dari kesalahannya. Konsekuensi dari sikap dan tindakannya yang salah adakalanya bisa menjadi pelajaran berharga supaya di waktu-waktu mendatang tidak membuat kesalahan yang serupa.

Ketika psikolog itu menuliskan "Aku ingin ibuku berbicara tentang ....." Dikapun menjawab "Berbicara tentang hal-hal yang penting saja". Saya cukup kaget karena waktu itu saya justru menggunakan kesempatan yang sangat sempit, sekembalinya dari kantor untuk membahas hal-hal yang menurut saya penting, seperti menanyakan pelajaran dan PR yang diberikan gurunya. Namun ternyata hal-hal yang menurut saya penting, bukanlah sesuatu yang penting untuk anak saya. Dengan jawaban Dika yang polos dan jujur itu saya dingatkan bahwa kecerdasan tidak lebih penting dari pada hikmat dan pengenalan akan Tuhan. Pengajaran tentang kasih tidak kalah pentingnya dengan ilmu pengetahuan.

Atas pertanyaan "Aku ingin ayahku berbicara tentang .....", Dikapun menuliskan "Aku ingin ayahku berbicara tentang kesalahan-kesalahan nya. Aku ingin ayahku tidak selalu merasa benar, paling hebat dan tidak pernah berbuat salah. Aku ingin ayahku mengakui kesalahannya dan meminta maaf kepadaku". Memang dalam banyak hal, orang tua berbuat benar tetapi sebagai manusia, orang tua tak luput dari kesalahan. Keinginan Dika sebenarnya sederhana, yaitu ingin orang tuanya sportif, mau mengakui kesalahnya dan kalau perlu meminta maaf atas kesalahannya, seperti apa yang diajarkan orang tua kepadanya.

Ketika psikolog menyodorkan tulisan "Aku ingin ibuku setiap hari........ " Dika berpikir sejenak, kemudian mencoretkan penanya dengan lancar " Aku ingin ibuku mencium dan memelukku erat-erat seperti ia mencium dan memeluk adikku" Memang adakalanya saya berpikir bahwa Dika yang hampir setinggi saya sudah tidak pantas lagi dipeluk-peluk, apalagi dicium-cium. Ternyata saya salah, pelukan hangat dan ciuman sayang seorang ibu tetap dibutuhkan supaya hari-harinya terasa lebih indah. Waktu itu saya tidak menyadari bahwa perlakukan orang tua yang tidak sama kepada anak-anaknya seringkali oleh anak-anak diterjemahkan sebagai tindakan yang tidak adil atau pilih kasih.

Secarik kertas yang berisi pertanyaan "Aku ingin ayahku setiap hari....." Dika menuliskan sebuah kata tepat di atas titik-titik dengan satu kata "tersenyum" Sederhana memang, tetapi seringkali seorang ayah merasa perlu menahan senyumannya demi mempertahankan wibawanya. Padahal kenyataannya senyuman tulus seorang ayah sedikitpun tidak akan melunturkan wibawanya, tetapi justru bisa menambah simpati dan energi bagi anak-anak dalam melakukan segala sesuatu seperti yang ia lihat dari ayahnya setiap hari.

Ketika psikolog memberikan kertas yang bertuliskan "Aku ingin ibuku memanggilku. ..." Dikapun menuliskan "Aku ingin ibuku memanggilku dengan nama yang bagus" Saya tersentak sekali ! Memang sebelum ia lahir kami telah memilih nama yang paling bagus dan penuh arti, yaitu Judika Ekaristi Kurniawan. Namun sayang, tanpa sadar, saya selalu memanggilnya dengan sebutan Nang atau Le. Nang dalam Bahasa Jawa diambil dari kata "Lanang" yang berarti laki-laki. Sedangkan Le dari kata "Tole". Waktu itu saya merasa bahwa panggilan tersebut wajar-wajar saja, karena hal itu merupakan sesuatu yang lumrah di kalangan masyarakat Jawa.

Ketika psikolog menyodorkan tulisan yang berbunyi "Aku ingin ayahku memanggilku .." Dika hanya menuliskan 2 kata saja, yaitu "Nama Asli". Selama ini suami saya memang memanggil Dika dengan sebutan "Paijo" karena sehari-hari Dika berbicara dalam Bahasa Indonesia atau Bahasa Sunda dengan logat Jawa medok. "Persis Paijo, tukang sayur keliling" kata suami saya.

Atas jawaban-jawaban Dika yang polos dan jujur itu, saya menjadi malu karena selama ini saya bekerja disebuah lembaga yang membela dan memperjuangkan hak-hak anak. Kepada banyak orang saya kampanyekan pentingnya penghormatan hak-hak anak sesuai dengan Konvensi Hak-Hak Anak Sedunia. Kepada khalayak ramai saya bagikan poster bertuliskan "To Respect Child Rights is an Obligation, not a Choise" sebuah seruan yang mengingatkan bahwa "Menghormati Hak Anak adalah Kewajiban, bukan Pilihan". Tanpa saya sadari, saya telah melanggar hak anak saya karena telah memanggilnya dengan panggilan yang tidak hormat dan bermartabat.

Dalam diamnya anak, dalam senyum anak yang polos dan dalam tingkah polah anak yang membuat orang tua kadang-kadang bangga dan juga kadang-kadang jengkel, ternyata ada banyak Pesan Yang Tak Terucapkan.

Seandainya semua ayah mengasihi anak-anaknya, maka tidak ada satupun anak yang kecewa atau marah kepada ayahnya. Anak-anak memang harus diajarkan untuk menghormati ayah dan ibunya, tetapi para ayah (orang tua) tidak boleh membangkitkan amarah di dalam hati anak-anaknya. Para ayah harus mendidik anaknya di dalam ajaran dan nasehat Tuhan.

Untuk menyambut Peringatan Hari Anak Nasional Tanggal 23 Juli 2008, saya ingin mengingatkan kembali kepada para orang tua supaya selalu berpikir, bersikap dan melakukan hal-hal yang dikehendaki Tuhan.

Sumber: Ditulis oleh Lesminingtyas

Mmm is this what we want for our child?

Foto Cica

2008-05-17T20:34:00.005+07:00

Foto Cica di ambil sama Om Mayzal nih keren kan ternyata..... yang tadinya takut malah jadi suka banget difoto sampe nanya "besok foto lagi ya om Mayzal"

A Ride to Puncak

2008-05-12T08:29:00.011+07:00

Puncak Pass view in the evening

On Saturday, Yufi and I decided to go for a ride to Puncak, yes with his beloved Bajaj Pulsar, anyway we sent Cica to my mom's with the help from my parents in law (they are having their own adventure as well at the moment, driving to Padang) we left our house at 2 PM.

We decided to go through Jalan Raya Bogor, because it's the closest track from the house and we thought all the people who work at factories along Jalan Raya Bogor, will not be out yet before 4 PM so the road will be less packed (God, we are so not right..), The weather in general at that time was awfully hot and Yufi wore this thick padded jacket he's just got earlier in the morning (yes, HOT, the insulation is made from fleece fabric which is supposedly being worn in a damn cold weather somewhere in a country up north errr Alaska? rather than in Jakarta) anyway we had to make a stop in an Indomaret minimarket to buy some drink. When I was roaming in the store, a lady was fainted in the store and no one actually cared, one store attendant tried to help by trying to pour a bottle full of alcohol on her, I was kinda yell at him (GOD, are you nuts!!) . I hurried to help her husband and slapped some "minyak angin" on to her forehead and neck then the husband tried to call someone when she was kind of conscious I left and paid my stuff.

We went through Sentul area, first was the infamous Sentul circuit then took a right turn, then cruised along the road passing through villages (well it is not called villages anymore but houses are on both side of the road, then passed some of beautiful (not to mention expensive) estates along the way one of them was of course Bukit Sentul Estate, the road condition could not really be called smooth..well just as normal as any other rural road would be just enough for two cars passing each other both ways at the same time, uneven surfaces are here and there but generally it was a cool ride along the area.

We finally reached to the back gate of this real estate called Rainbow Hills, most of the houses there are rather big and looked more like a mansion than a house to me, but most of them looked abandoned especially in the back area of the estate, then we passed a huge golf course, from the look of it, you have to drive a golf car to actually go from one hole to another (I was kind of remembered that I have been to this golf course before...then yes of course My dad played golf here as well last time), the houses around golf course area were in better condition than ones we previously passed. We got out of the estate then rode along the rural road, which was actually smaller than the rural road which we have passed off Sentul area, and it was steeper as well, we passed some beautiful some were very laid back villas, one of them caught Yufi and I attention, the house was medium size, made out of very simple material, made us think mmm how nice..imagine if we had a place like that to go for the weekend..

Then we passed Gunung Geulis Resort, this place I bet was even bigger than Rainbow Hills, guessing by its golf course size, a 39 hole golf course..after we passed the Resort we got to the Gadog area, finally..then we decided to have lunch at Cimory Resto (Cisarua Mountain Dairy) which known for its "fresh from their own farm" milk. The place is about 6 KM from Gadog, 2 storey building overlooking a mountain (I do not know which mountain is that), spacious car park (which always full with cars) and playground for children. The place consisted of a shop and a restaurant. The shop sells sausages (Kanzzler Brand), yoghurt (Yo-Lite brand), fresh milk (Cimory's own brand), some munchies and local snacks. The food served in the restaurant was mainly western apart from local specialties, where sausages took a quite big part on the menu list and of course Milk (milkshakes, fresh milk, etc), Yufi and I were more interested in trying the sausages menu so he ordered American Grilled sausage with Chocolate milk and I ordered German Bratwurst (do I spell it right?) with German spices and a coffee flavoured milk. The taste was okay, not genuinely delicious but nice. It also has a farm tour with various price range (lunch and souvenir are provided) for children and adult but the tour has to at least have minimum 40 people in it, they will take you around the farm, learn how to milk a cow, to see how fresh milk put into milk bottles and etc.

We then continued our ride to Gunung Mas Tea Plantation, the weather was getting cooler, we got to the Gunung Mas Tea Plantation had to pay Rp.6000 per person (since we were riding a motorcycle, we did not get charged for the transport, but they do charge for cars) with the amount you will get a free sachet (5 tea bags) of Walini Black Tea. The area was good for walking and cycling, the air was very fresh and they have bungalows for people to rent as well and the bungalows were also fully booked by families. Since both of us were lazy to walk so we went around without even getting off the bike hehehe. We might go back there again with Cica next time she could bring her bike then.

We then continued our ride to Puncak Pass. It was not quite different from last time I went there. We stopped over in a small warung to have coffee and just eyeing the scenery from the warung, the weather was cool and nice, I wonder whether it would still be this cool in the next 5 years.

We then went down from Puncak Pass at 6.30 PM, straight to home, we went through Bogor this time as Yufi said it would be quite scary if we passed Rainbow Hills during the time. We went through Depok then Pasar Minggu then finally arrived at My mom's house at 9 PM.

The only bummer was we did not bring a decent camera so.......

In general I loved it well although it was tiring and all your bones were aching (too much sitting and not too mentioned the seat cushion was far from comfortable) spent time with your lovely husband harassing and dissing each other hehehehe but I would love to do it again though , a bit farther then next time, we plan to go to Ciwidey next time.

Dilemma of a working mother

2008-05-09T14:49:00.011+07:00

There will be a time when you realise that your children have grown up and they are not little babies anymore..and have I mentioned that I have encountered such moment? Yes last nite, My hubby and I just arrived in front of our little gate, I was just about to take off my helmet when I heard a squeaky loud voice (which funnily was very familiar to me) mumbled words which I couldn't comprehend at all in that very moment, then I finally enter our small carport and as I suspected, that was my cute daughter's voice, so I walked up to her in my very attentive gesture and asked her what was she mumbling on about, then this "thing" came out "Mamaaaa Cica mau beli sepeda yang lodanya duaaaaa ituuu yang kayak o'oow" (artinya: mama cica beliin otopet dong yang kayak teletubbies) well as based on our assistant report that one of the kid in our neighborhood has one, she tried the push scooter then decided that having one is kinda cool, so there she was with her demanding voice asking the very same scooter to us, her lovely parents.

That was when I realised that beneath her small but sturdy built, behind her cute little smiles and acting, she is not our little baby anymore, she has grown into a little kid because she already knows what she wanted...Okay that would be a classic mistake for us working parents that we sometimes (well okay most of the times) indulge our children with small, meaningless presents which we brought together with our arrival at home after work, so these little people got used to the treatment. When we finally realised that they actually do grow..then it is a little bit too late.

Now it is up to us to re-define the meaning of indulgent to these little people so they will not become demanding children one day because you know, we have to be wise and we have to teach them that in order to get things you have to work hard for it, or in this little people's case they have to be good like clean up their toys after playing and put those back in their storage, finish their meals, take a bath in time, never screams, etc, etc then I think..alright I would do that so Cica will not become a spoilt little girl (I said it over and over again in my heart that I will not OBEY to her SUMMOND of getting her a push scooter) in fact after work today, My hubby and I have plan to stop over at PIM to have a peep of this push scooter at toys store somewhere in there just to check how much it cost and maybe we will also check the price of children's helmet, knee and elbow pad, so that when Cica ride her push scooter and accidentally fall off then she would not get scratches on her knees and elbows.

Push scooters that Cica has been talking about.

(http://www.radioflyer.com/) (http://www.toysrus.com/)

And even today, her cute face is dancing before my eyes....and her mumbles keeps playing on my head....who's on earth would be able to resist buying things for their own children... especially if she looks like this..........

But for sure we will not get it for her as in TODAY (well we are on a tight budget rememberrrr) but I guess in the next couple of weeks I might.....

Now tell me....what do you think IF you were me?

Reminiscence of the past

2008-05-06T18:13:00.006+07:00

Okay..it's been a busy day..meeting with a very nice and polite client (okay it was only like 45 minutes or less I guess..) and trying to fix the dicussion (nearly there) and have sent an RFQ to China (was it China or Hongkong, damned they sounded the same) and still managed to peep on my facebook, downloaded 3 songs (Mas Ar would kill me if he knew about this) and browsed through my friends' blog and I ended up at Deki's Blog and look what I have found!! an old photos of us in kindie when we were doing this manasik Haji thing, Amazing aye.....looking at the photo reminds me of the past I just can't believe I am this old now hehehehehe

It is over...

2008-05-06T08:08:00.003+07:00

Why good days gone so fast? you can't really recall what have been happening for the last 2 weeks, of course not, 2 weeks have been very cruisy....relax...and it will be over soon..like today soon because all the bosses are coming in (sigh) OHHHHHHH and projects are lining up already...
IT IS NOT FAIR!!!

Okay now...calm down...be professional...inhale and exhale....

Just (I'd like it to be) an ordinary day

2008-05-02T16:57:00.005+07:00

Okay..I think I am not a writer material am I...like I only post to this blog only when I am sort of lost all the fun from browsing the net.
Okay..usually I would say that I had been so tight up at work but okay I am being honest that it's been very cruisy weeks I hope that it will still be cruisy for weeks ahead..in my dream!!! projects are lining up to be commissioned, another trip to whatever land...

And yes..as a mother, it's our nature to brag about our children..My Cica is the cutest girl in the whole damned world (right this is a bit too much) okay well she's progressing really well somewhat a little bit out of control, GOD I am so desperate, she knows how to push our buttons by being so stubborn (which Mom said it is "so Intan") and with her password "kalo gitu nanti Cica-nya nangiss deeh" I'm trying to figure out how to mend this stubborness and also to minimize the effect of her knowing that she is so "Oh precious" to her parents and family. Okay one step at a time. I Love her dearly oh and another thing is she is currently going through an oedipus complex where I as her mother seen as the most precious thing in her life ha ha ha ha ha darling Mama feels honored.

Okay Im just gonna write the summary about what have been happening in my life the since beginning of this year specifically the last couple of months:

My hubby has been so caught up with his "bro-calling" new mates whose accidentally (surprised!!) happen to have the same interest in BAJAJ PULSAR and he's been obsessed (not too chronic thank God) to his lovely bike...

Me? Okay apart from having to sign (I think more of a FORCED rather than an offer) this contract paper because I opted to go for Training in Malaysia (GOD that was dead boring-meeting old friends and enjoying glasses of margaritas are much better-training) but the food especially at this fusion resto in the posh mall next to the boulevard mall was kind of super!! is still looking for a job, another one..I dunno I believe that somewhat I am not underpaid...but why do I feel like I am like every single month especially after sending all those lovely money to all the envelopes where they belong shit aye...

Anyhow..need a holiday aye..but not now since we are still struggling with the finance thingy and all the lovely life problems of our lovely big family (OOOHHH THAT IS JUST WONDERFUL..) but we are here smiling our heart out.

but hey with or without holiday..I guess my life has been pretty much cool the best if I count Cica in (without the famous tantrum)..well like Felie and Joey said.."Yes it is not as cool as our life used to be but hey we are standing on our own both damned feet bebeh" and isn't that something to celebrate?

Arsya

2007-10-03T18:49:00.002+07:00

Cica ikut outing kantor mama

2007-09-28T10:18:00.001+07:00

Ok..I was gonna write about our new house..yes we have moved into our new little house after these years living with my parents....the complete story is later, I will include some photos of our new house heheheh...

Ok now outing...It's a bit late though because this outing took place about a month ago, but hey..never too late too publish aye...
We went to Marbella. In general it was great...we had our own big room (studio apartment is more like it) the only thing is there were no food for kids...so it was hard for Cica to get decent free food, we had to buy...apart from that she really enjoyed it, We could feelt her excitement especially when she swim and went to the beach, but I guess she was tired after that then she got cranky at dinner time because I had to wake her up while she had only been sleeping about 15 minutes for dinner, so after quick dinner (with again no food for kids..) Yufi took her downstair to watch the clown show from Marbella.

On the way back to Jakarta we stopped over to Pandeglang to visit my dad's grave, coz Ramadhan was coming...I miss him...

Well here are the photos from the outing..

Gorontalo

2007-09-27T10:50:00.002+07:00

Gorontalo

2007-09-27T10:46:00.002+07:00

Yaak setelah abis merasakan gempa di Padang, terbanglah gw ke Gorontalo dengan naik Lion Air...Ok this is the story..naik Lion air dari Jakarta ke Makassar...well pesawatnya sih bagus lah kan yang baru itu Boeing 737-900 ER tapi kalo ditanya soal kenyamanan...well serasa kayak naik bis...trus soal kebersihan toilet-nya just don't wanna comment on that.

Dari Makassar pindah pesawat..(yes unfortunately Lion Air juga soalnya hanya Lion yang melayani rute Jkt - Gorontalo)...dengan pesawat yang kayaknya sih mungkin seumuran sama gue..yang bikin shock sebenernya wasn't the plane but how the pilot do his job, my GOD I guess he didn't know how to measure the run way so does not really know when to lower the plane in time in order to reach to the runway in time yang ada malah turunnya semena-mena trus kayak ngepot gitu huhuhu dan itu udah tengah malam boo kita nyampe di Gorontalo

Ternyata Gorontalo cukup luas..dan baru aja jadi provinsi (ato gue yang telat tau ya..?)

berhubung lapar tadinya kita mikir pasti ada resto di luar hotel ternyata ngga ada...dari puasa pertama sampe seminggu sesudahnya toko-toko banyak yang tutup apalagi pas siang...merana lah gue dan Matya setelah melaksanakan tugas (GOD why banking people sucks?) gue dan Matya keliling kota Gorontalo dan ke objek wisata, lagi-lagi karena puasa jadi sepi berat gitu....

beli oleh-oleh buat nyokap dan mertua baru deh kita balik ke hotel...

satu yang terkesan dari Gorontalo adalah I guess the people are quite ramah ya..? dan udaranya bersih banget...dan Puasa berasa banget disitu karena tiap dhuhur dan Ashar aja semua orang pergi ke Masjid...

Earthquake in Padang

2007-09-17T15:04:00.001+07:00

Yes, another job landed me in Padang again, I was eager to go by means I could go and see Si Iphie despite the fact that I have to spend another 2 days with out of this world client. GOD they are idiots!!.

anyway..after a long day of work and slept through until 10 am in the morning, finally I met Si Iphie the pregnant girl, she was well and I could tell was very happy and I was happy as well especially since she's planning to go back to Jakarta. I met her mother as well who was there with Ibu and Vicky.

The I headed off to the airport, Garuda was delayed...then this thing happened...
the earthquake, later I learnt that it was big 7,9 richter scale...the whole airport was shaking badly...That was the first time I felt really scared and think about Cica and Yufi, my family...
gilaa yaa akhirnya sampe juga keluar ruangan dan lari ke runway dengan susah payah setelah melewati orang-orang yang juga panik kayak gue......

at the end of the day terima kasih ya Allah untuk menyelamatkan saya dari marabahaya.

Me,myself and i

2007-08-24T17:47:00.003+07:00

Weeee Keren Kan

Blog lewat hp

2007-08-24T16:34:00.001+07:00

Great i could blog frm my mobile now cool aye hehe cant wait for the next group:'(

Me

2007-08-24T16:19:00.001+07:00

Lagi nyoba foto sendiri

My Heart

2007-07-19T11:26:00.000+07:00

My Heart - Elizabeth Barret Browning

ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

II.
You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend ;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

III.
How tired we feel, my heart and I !
We seem of no use in the world ;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently ;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet :
What do we here, my heart and I ?

IV.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I !
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
`Dear love, you're looking tired,' he said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head :
'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

V.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I !
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh Of happy languor.
Now, alone,We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

VI.
Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures ? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

VII.
Yet who complains ? My heart and I ?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out :
Disdain them, break them, throw them by
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, -- well enough,
I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

My Dream Bag

2007-07-18T16:07:00.000+07:00

Huaaaa keren banget yang tas LV yang Neverfull ini...kayaknya masuk semua benda, moreover emak-emak kayak gue....cuma ngga usah pun ngomongin the "real deal" yang KW super aja bikin gue mikir hehehehehe...tapi gimana dong it is like the "it" bag gitu.....

Kapan yaaaa bisa beli niiih.....

Jalan Ke Padang

2007-07-17T18:12:00.000+07:00

Well yang ini I have to give the credit to my office meski we have love and hate relationship (who isn't by the way..)

Nah setelah dapet kemudahan to give advice where should the research be done..akhirnya terpilihlah Kota Padang..selain bla bla ada my best friend juga disitu. she's just moved in 3 months earlier so bagus kaann I could spend time and have a little fun after work.

jadilah si Iphie supir gue untuk beberapa hari hehehehehe thank you darling..

it's been 2 and half years since I went there sama Yufi ya..lotsa things has changed tapi yaa setidak-tidaknya ngga serumit dan semacet Jakarta. trus ada satu cafe yang kata si Iphie mayan decent and yes I admit it is pretty decent gue kasih nilai B lah untuk burger-nya karena rasanya emang lumayan enak gue sampe nambah 2 kali heheheh (atau karena lapar yaa..?) dan yang paling oke dari semuanya adalah pemandangannya..meski ngga sebersih di luar negeri sono (sayang banget yaa) tapi it does have a spectacular view especially sunset time..yang ini sempet gue nikmati hari pertama dan kedua meski pada hari pertama malemnya ada gempa lumayan heboh..

oiya yang lagi rame adalah desas desus tentang Sikuai Island, most who have visited the island say it is beautiful..versi murahnya kalo ngga sanggup bayar private boat ke Mentawai...hiksss padahal kemaren sempet ngobrol sama bule-bule yang pergi ke Mentawai, Mentawai is the most beautiful island with beautiful shores and amazing wave in the world tapi what to do guys..it will cost us a fortune to go there...unless your safety issue is not your major problem hehehehe

pinginnya sih mampir ke Bukit Tinggi tapi apa daya waktu dan uang tak cukup hehehe pinginnya next time ke sana lagi sekalian ajak Cica juga...

In overall perjalanan gue kali ini terasa menyenangkan mostly because I could see my best friend there, enjoying the days with myself (sorry baby...bukannya mama egois hehehe)

so till we meet again in Padang...hopefully soon.

My Princess has grown up...

2007-07-17T17:29:00.000+07:00

aduh....sudah lama sekali ya...ngga ngisi blog..tadi pas mau ngisi malah udah lupa sama login-nya..

well mumpung kerjaan lagi sepi nih hehehe tumben banget...kemaren-kemaren kayaknya gilaaaa banget tapi seneng sih bisa ke Padang ketemu Iphie and Alhamdulillah banget akhirnya Allah yang Maha Besar give my best friend the miraculous gift she always wanted...semoga ya Allah diberi kemudahan selama 40 minggu penuh Amin Amin.

okay...now what...wah sekarang Cica udah besar banget udah 2 tahun 6 bulan....si Bunda aja bilang "gila ya perasaan gue baru mandiin dia kemaren masih di dalam bak bayi sekarang ya ampuun.."

iya emang she's a big girl now..can you believe it? I can't..it's really amazing pokoknya....

sekarang dia udah bisa comment on everything...trus suka sok tau....trus suka menolak untuk bobo....suka niru-niru..trus aduuhhh yang ini udah termasuk kronis..seneng banget jalan-jalan..apalagi kalo udah liat gue dan my hubby pake jeans....pasti langsung..."Cica ugi doong" pergi maksudnya...dia suka renang trus dia juga suka gambar...yang terakhir ini bikin gue agak bangkrut sebenernya, yap finger painting soalnya kemaren gue sempet nitip temen karena temen gue beliin yang sama untuk anaknya ternyata Cica suka banget tiada hari tanpa finger painting sampe nyokap bilang "emang sih dia jadi anteng tapi dia jadi semangat mewarnai semua tembok pake cap tangan.." hehehehehhe akhirnya si Mbak Imah yang wara wiri ngasih seprei dimana dia duduk dan ber-finger painting ria na yang bikin bangkrut adalah harganya emang rada mahal sih tapi ya anything for my princess deh..tapi sekarang ini si finger painting udah abis..jadi pake pinsil warna atau paek crayonnya auntie Ratu, yang pasti sih bentuknya udah ngga jelas gitu hehehe alias patah sana sini

selain hal-hal diatas tadi Cica juga sudah bisa memilih untuk pergi kemana, mau ngapain dan minta sesuatu..kalo diurutin sih sebenernya kesenangan Cica adalah

Pergi-pergi meskipun cuma diajak Jida-nya ke Tip Top di pondok bambu itu udah bikin dia girang segirangnya kebayang kan kalo perginya rada jauh...

Berenang karena dia udah bisa ngambang jadinya seneng banget kalo diajak berenang terakhir sih minta swimming board...meski harganya 38 ribu gue cek di Carrefour..tetep aja belum kebeli...kayaknya ia udah bosan pake yang di lengan itu..tapi demi safety...I'll insist hehehe.

Gambar...sekarang ini medianya banyak dari mulai tembok kamar si Bunga sampe ke kamar nyokap gue..

Stickers aneka rupa..oiya yang ini sempet bikin Si Bobby adik gue kerepotan karena ternyata Cica meninggalkan banyak sticker tertempel dengan manisnya di kaca jendela mobilnya. Selebihnya yang jadi korban-nya adalah pintu kamar gue, tembok keramik kamar mandi, pintu lemari ratu sampe pintu kamar si Budi cuma yang terakhir ini juga sukarela kamarnya ditempelin sih...

apa ya yang ke lima..?

Cica juga udah mulai ikut-ikutan Ratu ke TPA sejauh ini sih sudah bisa baca doa Bobo, Doa mau pergi deh sama Basmallah Alhamdulillah sih...kepinginnya sih daftarin Cica ke PG di sekolah alam karena gara-gara ethnography kemarin jadi kesengsem cocok banget ama jiwa-nya Cica..tapi I think I have to very carefully screened the safety of the school environment..make sure ngga ada benda-benda berbahaya berterbangan dimana-mana dan at least para siswanya tetap diwajibkan memakai alas kaki.....ada beberapa kandidat sekolah sih...deket-deket komsen sana...tapi I still need to visit the school myself yaa..

Okay....kayaknya udah dulu yaaa nanti gue bikin blog lagi...

Cica's 1st tooth

2006-01-03T17:14:00.000+07:00

aduhhh udah lama banget yaa ngga tulis tulis, well...I would blame it on my work hehehehe anyway it's a bit late to actually announce that my lil' princess has tooth bloomed out of her gum, now she actually has a couple of tooth about to emerge, but the one that has emerged earlier than others is her bottom front tooth, it was looked more like a rice stuck in her mouth, so funny...

she hasn't stop drooling since....now she has 2 bottom front teeth and 2 emerging front upper teeth and the other 2 front upper left and right side teeth, hoepfully I will see them in no time.

sekarang Cica bisa sedikitnya munch on something crunchy, meskipun compare to anaknya temen-temenku yang notabene sudah punya banyak gigi di usia 1 tahun..tapi my Cica is still cuter than ever....

Mmmmmmmm

2005-09-27T17:10:00.000+07:00

I love this Chair

2005-09-27T16:39:00.000+07:00

Cica tuh seneng banget jalan-jalan ke PI Mall, I dunno why but everytime we go there she always showing this big "no teeth yet" grin, sampe-sampe waktu kita kesana kapan itu, satpam di Metro dept store bilang, aduh lucu banget sih bayinya sampe nyengir begitu.....heheheh tapi mama-nya jadi malu as if she never been to a mall before. and it is still a mystery, why does she prefer PI Mall over other malls, pernah Cica dibawa ke Mal Taman Anggrek, Plasa Senayan dan plasa EX tapi reaksinya ngga seperti kalo dibawa ke PI Mall, mungkin karena lebih banyak anak anak kecil running around kali ya..? terakhir kali sih she likes to have the escalator ride, itu loh naik turun pake eskalator, dia seneng liat orang turun dia naik, pertamanya sih mama sama papanya ngga ngeh, kenapa dia so excited all of a sudden, ternyata setelah kita naik escalator dan she got even more excited baru deh we got it, apalagi setelah kita nyampe ke atas, she cried, ya udah mengertilah so I had to make an extra effort to carry her on a escalator tour of the day, gitu deh naik turun tangga jalan, she was soo happy and for me it's enough.

ini ada foto-nya cica pas papa sama mama-nya makan dan dia mau ikutan makan karena she didn't want to sit in her stroller jadinya didudukin deh di kursi makan yang tinggi itu, she liked it a lot.....

Long time no see

2005-09-21T14:18:00.000+07:00

huaaa it's been so long...well I have been so caught up at work.....poor my princess...and poor me for not having the chance to see her catch new skills. anyway.....Cica-ku sayang masuk rumah sakit karena diare dan muntah, dirawat di RS Hermina selama 4 hari, it was all started from Cica's daddy, gara-gara salah makan di Wendy's, have I ever told you that I found a maggot di baked potato-nya...urghh yuck, aduh Cica-ku kasian banget udah medium dehidrasi,sebelumnya mama-ku telpon kalo beliau mau bawa Falisha langsung ke RS aja karena udah kuyu dan pucet banget, untung Cica's daddy udah pulang kantor duluan dari aku suster-nya susah dapet vein-nya untuk infus karena terlalu kecil.....I couldn't stop crying seeing her like that. tapi alhamdulillah akhirnya infus-nya bisa juga dimasuk ke pembuluh darahnya, masuk ke kamar rawat inap Cica udah lemeeess banget....malem-nya, setelah menghabiskan 1 botol infus, mukanya udah lumayan ngga pucet, I was a bit relieved paling ngga dia udah mulai ngga mau diem....tapi diare-nya masih.....alhamdulillah abis 4 hari kondisinya membaik meski pup-nya masih cair yang penting Cica udah boleh pulang, dia seneng banget karena 4 hari ngga bisa kemana-mana selain mainin selang infus-nya (yang berulang-ulang mesti di bantu pake pump karena ditarikkin terus)

cobaan deh...setelah itu my Lil cousin Chacha juga masuk rumah sakit....habis deh rumah dikuras sama mama-ku......

Mudah2an this kinda thing will never happen again.

Love'

Intan

2005-08-12T10:50:00.000+07:00

hello

Hi there,

2005-08-12T09:48:00.000+07:00

Hi there,
this is my1st try out to use this Blogging thing.....well obviously im not a tech savvy, but i'll catch up...the easiest reason for me to have this blog thing is so that later when my li'l princess grown up she'd say "well my maaa is not as lazy as I think she'd been" hehehheehe and also I've got dissed for not having even one simplest blog (just because I was majoring in IT...sigh....) o..well after spying on a couple of friends' blog (I didnt know where to get a free blog..and of course find out how to create one....) I finally have a blog (YAY!!!)