May 10th

Your Birthdate: May 10

Independent and dominant, you tend to be the alpha dog in most situations.You're very confident, and hardly anything ever shakes you.Mundane tasks tend to drain you - you prefer to be making great plans.You are quite original. When people don't "get" you, it bothers you a lot. Your strength: Your ability to gain respect Your weakness: Caring too much what others think Your power color: Orange-red Your power symbol: Letter X Your power month: October

Your Birth Date Mean?

*My brain twice faster than my mouth,if you don't "get" it, then it's your lost...
*That strenght and weakness creates who I am....

AMAZING THAILAND

My two sisters, one close friend and I planned to have a holiday in Bangkok and, as we did not want to face any troublesome situations later on in a foreign country (none of us can speak or understand the local language), we decided to take a package tour – 3 days & 2 nights.

We are all Indonesians; 3 of us live in Jakarta and we all travel pretty often. And for me, since I’m living in Singapore, I got the most interesting job to book our flight tickets including the accommodation, and without thinking any further, I booked 4 tickets SIN-BKK-SIN via Zuji online, leaving on September 09 and returning on September 11, 2005.

To cut the story short, here we are 4 of us standing in line, queuing for our passports to be stamped. As for my eldest sister and our close friend, this is the first time for them in Bangkok, so I could imagine how excited they were to start the tour right away.

As we slowly approached our turn to get stamped, which is quite normal in Bangkok - as you all know, Don Muang is one of the busiest airports in the world - finally my second sister got her turn. After she was done, it was our best friend’s turn next. It so happened that at the same time the immigration officers changed shifts, and all of us were hoping progress would get faster.

WRONG…!!!. When Sinta (our friend) took her turn, standing firmly inside the yellow box with a picture of two footprints in it and looking straight into the camera on top of the desk as instructed, the officer couldn’t care less about her at all, as she received a social phone call and just kept on talking, laughing, joking, yapping away on her cell phone and ignored Sinta completely, not even typing or pretending to type, nor flipping through her passport, and acting as if it was her break time… As proof of this, my second sister was waiting behind the immigration counter, and could see everything that Miss Immigration Officer was doing (or not doing!).

And of course Sinta was getting more & more frustrated as she stood there hopelessly waiting, waiting, and waiting. She turned her head to me and said in 'bahasa Indonesia' that the lady is still busy on her cell phone. I could only smile at her and think it will surely end soon.

Finally she finished talking, stamped Sinta’s passport and let her pass. In spite of her treatment, Sinta said thank you, but was completely ignored and got no response at all. So she walked through and waited behind the counter with my second sister Eka, who was already pissed off with Miss Immigration Officer’s lousy attitude.

But the story is far from ending. Next, it was my eldest sister Lucy’s turn. As she was standing in front of the counter to get her stamps, Miss I.O ripped Lucy’s passport out of its protective plastic cover and tossed it over the counter at her, so that Lucy ended up having to pick it up off the floor. No word of apology, no sorry, no nothing! Without knowing what’s going on, Lucy just kept quiet and didn’t say anything. Seeing that, Eka immediately said “Don’t be rude, please!” After a while, Miss I.O. turned her head round to Eka and told her to stay back and don’t cross the red line, and then started mumbling in Thai language with a bitchy look on her face. Guess she was pretty angry that someone dared to tell her off.

And finally it was my turn. Aha, as I had already learned from the above experience, I immediately took off my passport cover, just in case it was her normal habit to throw things in people’s faces. She looked at me and asked where this passport had been issued. I gave her the short answer “Singapore”, and without asking me anything further, she stamped it. I still said “thank you” to her after all that, even though I was pretty pissed off as well with her attitude and treatment of my sisters and friend, and of course there was no response from her side.

That was the rudest experience we had in Thailand. Is this the right attitude for an immigration officer to act like that? I believe the authorities must take action in these matters, to make all visitors from all around the world to feel welcome in their country and not to forget that these visitors are valuable assets to the country.

As we all know, one’s passport identifies the country to which we belong; by throwing the passport cover like that, it is an insult and shows prejudice against that person’s country – hardly the way to encourage visitors to return to Thailand or to promote Thailand to other potential visitors.

So much for the slogan “AMAZING THAILAND”…maybe the authorities should think of changing it to “INSULTING THAILAND” instead.

To be fair to the Thai Immigration Officials – they were not the only Thais who managed to insult us during our short (and probably last for my sister,she still pissed) visit to Thailand. The hawkers and shop assistants in Phatphong / Chak Tu Chak market were equally proficient at demonstrating their superiority over foreigners by taking every opportunity to cheat us and compete with each other to see who could be the rudest.

Now tell me how amazing is that!

Khap phun Ka!

September 16, 2005

*this is base on true story, without any disrespect to the authority or thailand people in general, please take it as an eye opener.Some people might have faboulus and great experience and some people not.

Memories of Congklak

After sending comment to Wati, this topic brings back my childhood memories..game called Congklak.I believe every kids in Indonesia who was born between 1820's - 1970's familiar with this game. :D

In late 70's, I first played this game with my sister,we were so into it, back from school while mom already in front of our bedroom,and start shouting "a a a...go get change, wash you're hand and foot,finish your lunch and do your homework first"...with mumbling,we both rushing to followed her order. After pass the checkpoint, she let us play.

So let the game begin....most of the time I lose from my big sister. It didn't take me long until I found out, that she was cheated on me. She's hiding 'shell' between her fingers, when she's about to shoot nothing.(nembak).Damn she's good.Of course I was angry at her, but then it didn't stop me from following her trick while I played with kids neighbor...:p

The first congklak we had, was made out of wood, just like picture above excluding the 'duck head' on it,very simple. Second one was made out of plastic, red colour, with this Congklak the story begin. As this game can be addictive as well, sometimes we played until late night, coz neither of us want to hold a 'Loser' title and you can imagine how noisy it was... until one day, back from school, we found our 'beloved' plastic congklak was on top of stove and completely disfigured, from all 16 holes became 4 and 1/2 and short from approx 1 meter long shrunk to 30cm, .....what's going on here?? we all puzzled, go figured.

It was my Dad who did it!(Mom confessed), We cried 'like someone died' (ok maybe not that so drama)for almost 5 minutes (or longer, hey..we were kids ok!)...stop,then we begged mom to buy a new one, offering her in return our long list of promises, 'promise we play only when we finished our homework', 'promise we make our room more tidy', any kind of promise you name, we mentioned all.... then she replied:"Ask your Dad when he comes home" with sorry face...and crying continued (this time as I can recall was longer :p).

Urghhh... I've had hate him for what he did. Apparently he can't take with all the noise 'pletak-pletok-pletak-pletok' it makes while we played, he got crazy by it.When he came back from work that day, none of us talked nor smiled to him ...hahahaha.

Ohhh there goes our Congklak ...end up in trash bin.

Sudoku oh Sudoku...ahh Sudahlah

Pasti tau dong permainan Sudoku yg bisa bikin kita addicted....

Aku kenal permainan ini udah kira2 4 thn yg lalu, waktu pas lagi liburan ke jerman, yg kala itu belom punya banyak temen disana, jadi daripada bengong atau nonton RTL mulu (bahhh...)akhirnya kuputuskan satu hari ngider2 di "Real" (baca.Re-Al) di Langenhagen,Hannover. Oh btw dulu Real ini namanya Allkauf, auk napa ganti nama??ganti management kali,Real ini supermarket sana,model kaya Hero di Jkt gitu deh.

Ngubek2 bagian majalah, endup beli 4 majalah interior design, 2 majalah Bauhaus, apalagi ya.. hhmmm...raetsel(riddle) atau crossword atau apa ya (*mata sliweran sana sini, kiri-kanan-kiri lagi-kanan lagi)...eh apaan nih SUDOKU, gak pernah denger/liat deh sebelomnya,(sounds like japanesse,which is yup, emang asli permainan orang jepang) .Flipping2..isinya kok banyak angka dikotak2in mulu ya??akhirnya.. why not..patut dicoba,beli 1 dulu ah..takut bosen dan gak suka.

Walhasil, setelah 1 buku (10 hal, bolak balik, total 90 kotak) aku kerjain dalam waktu kurang lebih 4 jam gak brenti2 (stop cuma buat "klein machen"/make pee..).Langsung jatuh cinta pada "angka" pertama.

Sudoku ini ada 4 level kategori: leicht/mittel/schwer/sehr schwer= gampang/menengah/susah/susah buanget.
Model sudoku ada 2 macem yg aku tau (gak tau kalo skrg dah ada model baru), yg berwujud ngisi ANGKA (digit 1-9) sama yg ngisi ABJAD (A - I). Cara pengisian gampang, isi angka dari 1 sampe 9, pada kotak 3x3 yg tersedia, tapi aturannya tiap row atau column gak boleh ada angka yg sama. Gampang kan...

Permainan ini sendiri sebenernya gak susah, tapi coba deh main lebih dari sejam, yg diliat angka mulu....ditanggung histerical abis.

4 tahun berlalu,sudah tidak terhitung berapa buku Sudoku yang sudah aku beli (kalo di jakarta, dikiloin bisa tuker sama abu gosok berapa canting ya??) Yet,Sudoku masih jadi salah satu hobi yg belum bisa aku tinggalin, sampe2 suami tercinta walaupun dia gerah banget ngeliatin aku yg kadang sampe lupa makan (kadang lupa, kadang emang males..*ngaku)hanya gara2 Sudoku, surprise2 dia ngado-in aku Sudoku pocket yg pake batere,modelnya kaya PDA, lengkap dengan system 'screen touch' pen included,harga beli saat itu 12euro(kaliin sendiri ah kalo dikurs ke Sgd/Rp). *Danke Schatz*.

Permainan ini udah mewabah belum ya di Jakarta?

Ahh Sudahlah...klik link diatas dan Selamat ber-SuDoKu ria, tapi jangan culas(.curang) ya pake ngintip solusi...gak aci lagi.

Tips of the Month, saying I LOVE YOU more often..

Kemaren gw dah cerita sedikit ttg "Siapa sih Gw??",hari ini gw kasih sedikit gambaran "Siapa aja sih Family Member Gw??".

Mudah2an tuh foto disebelah gak bikin sakit mata buat diliat,gak usah deketin kepala gitu dunk....yg jelas kita semua cantik2 dan ganteng2 kok sekeluarga.Yang missing disitu Babe gw yg lagi heboh masak di dapur (you know when men cooks they turn the kitchen upside down), sama ponakan gw cewek Inez (malem minggu jek, teenagers pula you know lah..) sementara kita2 pada asoy geboy pose kaya model Cosmo gak brenti2...gw ada 9 foto yg sama dgn posisi duduk kita yg beda2..

Para lelaki (adek,suami dan ponakan) dah pada gerah dan gigi kering, dipaksa senyum mulu.Walaupun sang tukang poto bilang "relax ya relax....."(relax your head).Mana ada sih yg mau keliatan jelek di foto, apalagi foto keluarga...huhhh gak relaaaaaaaa.

Additional di foto ini, ada sodara sepupu gw ama anaknya (Jane-duduk/didepan ngerangkul anaknya 'Imani' )yg lagi dtg dari Belanda buat liburan. Sisanya ya ada Nyokab(centre,nyempil),kakak2 gw, adek2 gw, plus ipar2,ponakan2,ama calon ponakan (adek gw yg cewek saat itu lagi hamil 7 months).Brady Bunch banget gak sih nih foto...

Anyway, begitulah kira2 anggota keluarga gw yg penuh suka dan duka, ada berantemnya, ada nangisnya, ada ketawanya,ada gosipnya, ada gilanya, just like millions others family. But for sure we Love each other dearly.

Saying "I Love You" to each other is something you hear it often in my family.

Maybe for some family, its just sounds ackward to say it,but I guess this habit is something that others can start to do the same, there is no shame to do so,just remember nobody knows when we have to depart from this world and leave our love ones behind, so before we regret and wondering if they knew how much we loved them start saying I LOVE YOU more often ok...peace man!

Who am I ???

Born 35 years ago in small island called "Pulau Dewata" Indonesia, from Mix Marriage parents, dad is half Manado (Tondano)- half Sundanese(Bandung) and mom coincidentally also from MM (noted. please do not refer to Melt in your Mouth not in your Hand adverts.)her parents half Javanese half Dutch.

We are 5 siblings in total, 4 noisy/rushing/loud/vexing/irksome sisters and 1 calm/choose love not war/mushy/mom's favourite (:obvious mom) younger brother.I'm the middle child, in some point (most of it) I always in middle of everything.To get a clue of my point start asking around your friends/neighbours/family members it so happend born as a middle child, its just S**ks. Let me hear say "Yeah"...

Wanna know why?? when we were young, I was always in middle of to be forced to stand on which sided i am between my 2 screaming and hair pulling fighting older sisters, it was crucial decision indeed either way I will be in dangerous situation.It was hell!! And my other 2, younger sister and brother, they were too young to be part of that circus war.But as time goes by,as all of us grown in our on way, i'm kind of miss those moments,hahaha.

I was born,raise and married as a catholic, and still keep believing in Our Father and Mother Mary.But as most other people (I believe so), i'm not that type who goes to church every sunday, and I'm not ashamed to admit that.Some people might have reasons and for some people just simply lazy to do so, and I 'm one of them.Looking from my mom excuses,she's always says, God is everywhere, so no matter where you are, if you want to talk to Him, just talk!He will listen to you. I hope He will...hope I can change this bad habbit someday.Trying not to be Snot,but I may say I'm people person, my friends came from different background,religion,ethnic,sex status,colour and I cherish and appreciate our friendship.So for those who still believe in "I'm White-I'm better than you", "I'm Black- I'm stronger than you",I'm Yellow-I'm smarter than you" .etc.....I have 3 words for you "Go To Hell".

Like they said, the apples fall not far from the tree.I Guess that phrase is so true,the influence of marrying the Auslaender (german for Foreigner) from our parents has been followed by me and my other sister who end-up marrying to Ausies.Our big family become so colourful with culture and language.As bahasa Indonesia is our mother-tounge, Dutch,English and German become international default language in our family, not to mentioned, if we also start our silly broken dialect Manado and Sunda.Oh boy...

Yup married for almost 10 years, 10 wonderful years full with ups and downs,and love every minute of it.Children still on our waiting list after all these years and we still put whole lots of hope and faith."Never give up never surrender"....(Galaxy Quest, have you seen it?)

Udah ah capek..gw pengen nonton Desperate Housewives..lanjut lagi besok kalo mood lagi on.Wueekkk.