Made in Singapore (12 April 2010)

Hop onto the Hippo Bus Heritage Tour, sit on top and see the other site of Singapore! The one hour tour takes you to some old and new site of Singapore ... Chinatown, Little India, Arab Street, the Flyer, 'Thorny' building and other parts of the Nation City where you can see old buildings ... My favourites.

I did it a couple weeks ago and wodered why I have missed out this tour for years visiting Singapore.

What did I see?

1. Tower of St Andrews Church .... looking dramatic at dusk.2. Old Mosque at Arab Street3. Hindu Temple at Little India (Yes, I know, I should get rid of that apartment at the background to make the better picture!)4. Chinese temple5. Colorful Chinatown6. Shady Chinatown7. The Rafless Hotel8. Old and New .... Fullerton Hotel and skyscraper CBD Building.9. Esplanade (The Opera House of Singapore)... or is it 'Durian' ... the King of Fruit?10. The tallest flyer in the world ... Singapore Flyer.11. And of course .... Colorful Apartment where most of Singaporean spend the life with their family.The pictures only proof some of the beautiful sights we will find ....Wondering why the pictures a bit dark? Was it cloudy that day? Nope, I took them behind tinted glass of the tour bus :) But still good, right?

Good things about Singapore, besides being very clean; even it keeps building new constructions ... Resort World, F1 Facility, casinos; it still preserves its heritage. But for the variety traditional dance, show and parade ... nothing beats Indonesia ..

So, come and see it yourself! What? Singapore or Indonesia? BOTH!

No, I did not take any money from Singapore Tourism Authority :)

Malaysia Ha ha ha ... (10-11 April 2010)

Malaysia? Kalo mau dibawa serius sih, terus terang aja, saya sebal. Tapi karena mau nengok si Bonie, teman saya yang lagi di rantau, saya relain deh nambah devisa kesana beberapa ringgit.

Pas di pesawat Jakarta - Kuala Lumpur (KL), saya pasang wajah judes pada para Pa' cik dan Ma' cik (Jahat ya, padahal ada yang baik juga lho). Tapi judes mode saya ON banget pas Pa' cik yang duduk di sebelah saya, dengan logat melayu nya bertanya "Mau keja di Malaysie ya?" ...Apa Pa'cik, mau ngegebugin saya juga?

Untung udah itu saya mutusin ngak mau mikir yang berat-berat, have a look around, banyak yang bisa diketawain di Malaysia ....

1.Ternyata Pengedar masih legal di Malaysia, padahal dipikir udah digantung semua.2.Dipikir Rumah Sakit cuma untuk sakit badan, ternyata juga buat yang merasa cemas, malang dan cari kemudahan. (Check out the 'Klinik Pergigian')3.Peronda? Ketongannya mana Om?(Ternyata 'Peronda Lebuh Raya' artinya 'Patroli Jalan Raya' atau bahasa kerennya 'Highway Patrol').

4.Eeerrrrr ....No comment lah ...5.Apalagi yang ini ...6.Bisa pake 'ais' lagi....7.Baru tahu, kalo di Malaysia, AC bisa ikut pemilu ...menang lagi!8.Jangan senyum dulu, bahasa yang bikin bingung bisa menular lho. Buktinya, spanduk restoran padang paling laku di KL aja ikut-ikutan ngaco ....So my fellow Indonesian, gimana kalau kita patenin Bahasa Melayu aja? Kan lucu, bisa jadi hiburan .......

Untuk Indonesia ku yang cantik dan beraneka.

Step 2 - Let’s Make a Pinata!! (Decoration)

Now that we have the piñata shell ready, we can start to decorate it.

(For those of you who don't know how to make the shell, please look at February 2010 posting on making of pinata shell).

So what kind of piñata do we want? Hhmmmm … let’s try the easy one. Let’s make Mr.Chicken King piñata! Lulu will help us ... she's the expert, but she's abit shy to admit it :)

What you need:
1. A piñata shell. Your shell should have one hole on top of it.
2. Plastic rope
3. Some colorful paper
4. A cup of Glue
5. A scroll of cardboard paperHow to do it:
1. Make one hole in two sides of the pinata. So now you have three holes in the piñata; One on top to have the candies in later, and the other two on the sides.2. Insert plastic rope thru one side hole and come out the other side hole.3. So it will look like this.4. Pick yellow and orange papers and cut them.Stick the yellow and orange paper covering the surface of the piñata.

5. Here is the Head of Mr.Chicken.6. Make eyes and smiley lips. Glue the eyes and lips onto the Head. Make sure there is room for the Crown on the upper side of the Head.7. Use cardboard paper for the Crown and decorate all you like.8. Put the Crown on the Head and stick it.

10. Now you have Mr.Chicken King piñata ready for party!!! (Don't forget to put in the candies OK).Besides Mr.Chicken King, using the shell, we can always create many kind of piñata. Use your imagination.

Kutai National Park, Indonesia (3 April 2010)

The advantage of living in Sangata is having the nature as our backyard. Besides having monkeys, lizards, hornbill birds even snakes as neighbors, we are closed to one the largest rain forest area on earth. The area is known as Taman Nasional Kutai (Kutai National Park). It is home of the famous Orang Utan.

Today, on the sunny Saturday morning, I visited the forest. I had my colleagues joining me. To get there, we have to ride a boat. So, with life jacket on, we were on a 20 minutes boat ride.Nice scenery from the boat. Then we arrived at ‘Camp Kakap’ where the researchers and rangers stay or transit.After leaving our life jacket in the camp, we started our ‘jungle trek’ accompanied by two guides. The sun was up, but we were lucky that it was a quiet dense forest, we have the trees protecting us from the heat.There are some small rivers in the forest. So we got to pass the bridges.We also found many kind of trees.

Giant tree.Snake tree (The snaky branch is actually the root).Even hairy trees … :)We really wanted to see Orang Utan which usually comes by around the trekking area.

That morning, we found a mother and her baby sleeping on top of a high tree. A bit disappointing, because we could not see them clearly. So, we left them alone and carried on with our walk.

When were walking back from the giant tree, our guide got a call from other guide that the Orang Utans were awake and moving. So, we run to get to where they were.

And there they were …

First, we saw the mother.Then we saw the baby, it was hanging on a tree branch …So cute....It was a good two hours jungle walk.