Seize the day

Here I am !!! Leaving all business school stuffs in Indiana, I can't believe that it feels sooo good. I know that tons of works are waiting (I am a dead meat if I miss the Accounting materials !) but this is the real fun of staying in US. Yesterday we had lunch at Ollie's, a Chinesse resto across the Columbia University with Handri & family. Our journey was only to Macy's at 34th Street. If we don't make it nowhere else, at least we had footprints in Macy's. I didn't buy anything, I still considered they are too expensive for me.

Today we will go to our Rep. Office in downtown Broadway. Then Century 21st, Hardrock Cafe, Levi's stores, and many more.

It was such a GREAT trip. Why? Numero une : New York City is a fantastic city. I was so amazed by the colors, dynamic, and the spirit of the city. It is so alive and it never sleeps. Half day wasn't enough to go around but at least I made it to South Street Seaport, Battery Park, Broadway in south part of NYC, Wall Street, Fulton, and WTC. I will come back again someday.

Numero deux : I met investment bankers from Wall Street and learnt from them (although from a very different perspectives from other students). They are super duper smart, highly committed people, They have many interesting angles, too. I am positive that they are people I wanna work with to get inspired and infected by their spirits... but one thing for sure, I think IB is not the thing I wanna do.

Troix, I was with at least two new best friends in the world (at least from my side) : Amy and Barath. They are good, smart, and open-minded warm-hearted people. I thanked them for being such a wonderful companion during the trip. It wouldn't be as great as it was without them. I also met Pak Lucky, Pak Dwi and family, Pak Ricky and other family members of our Bank's rep office in NYC. They are very nice and helpful.

The only things missed were Miss K and her dad. I wished they were there, too. But it was only a wishful thinking since we have so many things to do in that part.

Even our vacation schedule was postponed due to Kaylia’s high fever (she had been once 40⁰C and been through double medical check up with Dr. Budi; thank God, it was nothing serious), finally on Thursday we left the house early in the morning to catch 06.20 am train to Bandung. It was Kaylia’s first train trip and she was delightful to enjoy every scene on the window along the railroad.

During the free weeks, we went to Ci-Walk twice where I bought some under pants and dasters for Kaylia. She played at Gym&Jump for about 30 minutes before she got bored, started playing the same toy and blocked other kids from the game. We also visited my cousins in Cinunuk and Ujung Berung then met my gank who recently gave birth to their babies: Febbi with baby girl Orlin @ her house in Cihapit, Opie with baby boy Danesh @ her house in Karinding, and Yoan with baby girl Indira @ her house in Dago. We tried Cisangkuy and Jl. Imam Bonjol’s snacks. But too bad I couldn’t come to Alumni Meeting at my college on week end because Aris felt he must spend more time only with Kaylia and me.

Honestly, I had been waiting for this long holiday with Kaylia (and her dad) alone, free from work and tight routine schedule. I gave 8 days of my yearly 12-day off up. One of our dreams is to have an adventurous trip together, back packing around exotic places. You know what, we have not been anywhere without bunch of our cheerleaders : baby sitter, servants, or side-kick families. So, we thought this spring vacation was a good time to enjoy days perfectly alone : me, Aris, and Kaylia. Stupid thing happened : Aris forgot to bring the camera, he only brought the charger ggrrrrh…… :p.
Refreshing our heart and strengthening our bound. This two weeks notice was worth a further try.  Spending time with them is always be a low risk, high return shoot.  I remember a poetic phrase : …April will never be spring, until I find you again….

The next morning, I took Kaylia to Mang Oyo again. I chose different menu for my self. It was ketoprak... hahaha... When I saw a delman, I asked to carriage man to take us to Ganesha Street. Again, Kaylia cried because she felt uncomfortable doing a new thing. Even she knows the shape of a horse from her books, she never saw a real horse before so she was upset all the way.

To calm her down, I bought an orange balloon for 1000 rupiah. We took Cicaheum-Ledeng angkot to get back to the house. I remembered that there was no spaghetti noodle or the sauce @ home so we stopped by at Hero. The last transportation spec Kaylia and I took that day was becak which brought us from Setiabudhi street to my parent's house.

My friends came about 2 o'clock. We had a great time together !!!!

 

Last Saturday morning, my little family (except Aris) left for Bandung to celebrate the Idul Adha Festive. We arrived about 8 in the morning and after got information from Joe, we stopped by at Mang Oyo's chicken porridge beside Edo store on Dago street. It was good. Kaylia ate the plain porridge. But Tante Arfi told me she prefered Bubur Sukabumi in Tebet.

Later, when we finally arrived @ my parents house, Kaylia started to yell and refused to enter the house. She wanted to go home and cried hard. We needed some time to convince her that Max, the black-and-white cat she met on her Lebaran holiday about 2 months ago, still lives there. I told her that she'd better find the cat before it got away. It worked. She ran into the house to look for the cat. The the rest was OK.

Here's the picture of Max's son, Figo.

This day is my last day at the office and it means many things to be done before beginning my Idul Fitri holiday. Data processing will take about 5 hours and another one hour to complete the form. The process will continue to create other reports and I expect they will have been resolved before 3.45 this afternoon. Then the culture program planning report has waited since Monday to clear up, just like Mrs. DG reminded me yesterday.  Then @ 2 sharp I’ll present my KL workshop material at our knowledge sharing session.
Everything has gone well this week. Actually I had a great Saturday last week end. I came to Ever Green to massage and scrub my body. Too bad, the steam was an extreme heat that I couldn’t stand it more than 5 minutes. Then we, my sister in law and me, went to Sari Dewi Salon to get our hair creambathed.  Around 5 we, Aris and me, went out to GM with Nunu and Riyad. Nunu is 9 weeks pregnant. What a good news it was.  She will be good mom for sure. Just like Kaka (11 weeks) and Frida (5 weeks) will do.
Next Sunday morning, we’ll be leaving for Bandung to celebrate Lebaran fiesta there. My Mom and Dad are unpatiently waiting for Kaylia to join them there. We’ll be back around Nov 7. Means no posting until then.

This was Saturday, the last day of the program. I woke up with swinging heart either because it was time to have fun or today would be the day I see Kaylia again. The half-day city sight seeing tour began at 9 sharp and was planned to shoot 3 main places. No more shopping, I thought as I heard the menu delivered today.  
We broadened our view of the city by first stopping at Independence Square (where the Malaysian declared their independence in peace). There I recognized a large cricket stadium (I don’t know the exact size of cricket field should be, so maybe it was that large indeed) between the currently Supreme Court (it was the British Government Building)  and some old fashion buildings then acknowledged as the British club and church. The tour guide said that the Govt of Malaysia tends to preserve the old buildings as they were. So it was not too hard for me to imagine how British families spent their week ends in the square almost a hundred years ago.
After spending about 15 minutes at the square, we left for KL Tower which is located in the middle of conservatory jungle down town the city. Over 400 m height, the tower is one of the highest tower in the world. We only went up to the observatory level which can be reached in exactly 57 seconds (none of us minded enough to count the clock so we assumed it is right). The city sight from 200 m high was not much different with that from my hotel window. KL is a growing city where sky scrappers birth and rebirth in unbelievable speed. But compared to Jakarta, it was better planned indeed. My one hour enjoyable moments there was also completed by catching some more fridge magnets, a British’s national soccer team costume and a blue hat for Kaylia.
The last place was Putrajaya. How fantastic it was when first I saw it appeared behind the hills. Despite the town’s heat, gladly we memorized every detail of the main square circled by the PM building, the mosque and the artificial lake.  The utmost beauty was the mosque. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to take a prayer there considering that KL is one of Moslem city (frankly, I didn’t take prayers anywhere else but my hotel room). At 2 pm, the Center sent someone to drive us to the airport. Luckily, we still got time to get inside Alamanda Shopping Mall in Putrajaya. There was I found MPH Bookstore and got some classic children books (A Little Princess, Around the World in 80 Days, Huck Finn, Great Expectation) and of course a Barney book to win Kaylia’s heart (haha..).
At the end of the day, the 7 of us (Mr. Ronald had flown back earlier) were too tired to chat and preferred to take a nap in the plane. I woke up and smiled when the stewardess told me we were about to land. Great Malaysia days!

This was the best day of my trip in KL. I got a lot to be the reasons. First, it was relieving that the presentation went well enough (coz someone else did it, actually). Kind of strange that I got a little hint that I will miss my workshop friends. We had been only 3 days together and I hadn’t known them well enough. Despite of trying to remember each other’s name (which could be quite difficult), we had such a good time together. I can’t easily forget Bold of Mongolia, Esther and Recio from Philipines, Kenny who sat beside me in the 2^nd day and of course Sheema of Pakistan and James from Singapore who apparently got brain and beauty in one package. Their presentation were remarkable and they both were good speakers.
Second, in the afternoon we had our closing ceremony in Tamarind Spring. The restaurant is a nice place, located in a hilly ground and equipped with a beautiful lighting as background. Dinner served at about 7.30. The food was a real delicacy. I had garlic fried rice, a piece of lamb, shrimp, fish cake, and a bowl of Cambodian sea food soup. I chose watermelon juice for drink. The organizer entertained us with some traditional dances from Malaysia and Indonesia. Kind of funny that I enjoyed jaipongan so far away from it’s nativeland. Another best thing was something that really embarrassing. But actually I did it.
Never had talked before, coincidently I had a nice conversation with the famous smart and cute James at the bus in our way home from the restaurant. He graduated from Nanyang Technology, served the national army for 2,5 years, now working for the monetary authority yet still trying to figure out what kind of career he really likes and wants. I wasn’t sure he has married (though I never asked him on that). We talked a lot about our job. Because he thought that we were at the same age and I looked a little too young to have a 16 month kid, he surprised when I answered him that I’m almost 31 years. Well, it was more than enough for me (smiling….. ^_^)  
After driving us as far as 15 minutes from Tamarind, around 9 pm the guide tour from the Centre announced that we arrived at KLCC, a place where I planned to see. I shopped 2 pinky Vincci shoes for 119 RM and took some pictures at the park in front of KLCC. Too bad we could see the Petrosains. We continued our walk to catch up my final agenda to get into Hardrock Café. I wanted to buy T-shirts for Aris. It was the first time I got into a café or bar so I felt a little shaky. Of course I wouldn’t expect to met someone wearing jilbab, kerudung or any scraft in there. The music was loud yet cool and it was cloudy air everywhere.  After step out bringing couple of HRC T-shirts, I took the 1,2 RM trip monorel to back to Medan Tuanku with (again) Ivet, Ferry, and Is before finally entered my room hotel at 11.30 pm. Pffiuh, what a great wonderful day.  

My second day began with a little anxiety about the country presentation. I didn’t think that the material I brought was sufficiently enough concerning the difference between the topic in the discussion with the slides I prepared. Just lucky us that we were planned to get our turn the next day so we had chances to make it over. Mr. Ronald was planned to deliver the presentation since the issue on financial sector stability framework is much more his expertise than any expertise’s of us. But we gladly offered help to elaborate the material in the night. The best time of the day happened after the session was over. At 6.30 in the afternoon we left for Central Market and Chinatown where I spent my RMs buying cell pulse, some T-Shirts, and souvenirs. I was attracted to a nice army T-Shirt which was offered at 25 RM. I thought it was too much so I didn’t even take a further look anymore. I walked with Ivet, Is, and Ferry and had a cheap delicious fancy dinner of tom yam and kang koong goreng at Sri Kenangan. The waitresses there were from Jember. What a small world. Then we walked along Petaling Street and took some pictures around the square. Finally we got back at 9.30 sharp. As I predicted before, none of us awaked to prepare the tomorrow’s presentation.

The 18.30 flight finally flew me to KL last Tuesday. One bad news came couple minutes before we were leaving to the airport. Fajar failed to join us due to his not-long-enough working period. Poor him, I felt terribly bad about the cancellation. Hope next time we can go together, dude.
We arrived at about 21.30 and the beautiful Norhayati from the Center cheerfully welcomed and guarded us to the car. We had a 25 minutes night trip to reach the hotel. We stayed at Sheraton Imperial Hotel (it is actually quite expensive, especially for me who didn’t have a roommate to share the rate). I spent much time watching TV on the first nite. Pretty boring, indeed. Although I brought Atik’s Sassy Girl Chun Hyang along with me, I couldn’t find any adaptor while my notebook had suffered from low-battery kind of thing. Late in the dawn, I had my first sahur meal alone. To be honest, the food wasn’t as delicious as I expected.
On the first day of the workshop, we had an ice breaking session over 38 participants from 11 countries. Although I assumed that not all ice had been successfully broken, I found out the session was fun. The first participant I talked to was from Korea. Stupidly as always, I jumped into a big hole as I started telling him that I am addicted to Korean dramas (especially the ones from VCDs I could borrow, instead of buying them my self). He seemed not too impressed on it but kindly he said thank you for watching them so passionately. Then I hovered around, had some little chats here and there. Mr. Khanal from Nepal said that his country is the place where the God Buddha came into this world. I had been so fool to associate his country with Tuesday Lobsang Rampa (a Dalai, one of the member of Dalai Lama’s board who actually came from Tibet). Silly me L. Then I spoke to Christina from Taiwan who was surprised that she and her partner, Michael could come together to KL. Usually, the Taiwan authority only sends at the maximum of 1 person (it’s just because they couldn’t send a half). She thought that Indonesia must be so committed to the workshop’s issues so 8 of us made the biggest team. Hahaha, it was the same question Charles ever asked me (the Charles of Taiwan who I met at the course in Singapore which more than 50% of its participants were from Indonesia).
The rest of the day was OK. Philip and Lily, the speakers, were both fine. Philip’s voice was soft and sweet so I saw couple of participants were trying their best to stay awake during the workshop. Lily was a clear and dynamic speaker with loud, full of spirit voice. During lunch hour, I took a brief look at the streets around the hotel. After some minutes walking, it was clear enough that KL is as much hot as Jakarta. Some friends say that it usually has a light rain in the afternoon. Not long after the session was over, we had a welcome dinner where I couldn’t find rice. I gave up and ate noodles and a baked potato which were not bad at all.