Friday, July 11, 2025

Why are we reading for?

Beware for another random thoughts.

As I was packing my stuffs to go back home to Jakarta for a shortwhile during summer, I packed several of my finished books to put in Dubai. Did so so that when I need to move back later on, at least I've got rid of several unused stuffs.

And then I started to think.. all these books I've read, but none of them really stuck to me. I cannot remember a memorable lines, I mean I can tell you how it made me feel reading the books, but I can barely retell you the story or the content. I read The Cultural Map. But what I can tell you about it?? Other than people came from different background and stories and how I became more 'aware' on how we say direct and indirect things, I think..

Wait.

So I have become more consciously aware of how people communicate! And how even with direct communication, people have different way to share feedback! Wow, I actually got something.

Sure I think there are still a lot of interesting part at the end of that book that I think is interesting, but somehow that didn't stick to me. Either I didn't really relate to it or just because I read it in a hurry to finish the book during the flight haha.

OK. So now, I think I can craft what reading means to me.

Reading means you are opening yourself to the possibility of having a game-changer mindset, eye-opener, an emotion, or simply just joy from passing through the time. It doesn't mean everything you read will stick to you, but when it does then it fucking does.

Books that stick to me, even though I cannot remember the exact plot are like Laskar Pelangi and Negeri 5 Menara. I think The Naked Traveler is also that kind of book! I know I want to travel and see the world after I read those amazing books. They're definitely the kind of book that I would want to re-read.

There are eye-opener books that are very enjoyable to me, like Freakonomics, Factfulness, Indonesia Etc, Sapiens Graphic Novels. There are books that make you feel empowered, like Educated and Becoming. There are also books that give me emotions, mostly fiction books like Harry Potter.

I do not need to memorize all the words in the book to say that I've read the books. But I need to make sure that I digest the words from the sentences and chapters that are meaningful to me. And not every book will make you feel something, and that's okay.

FYI, I wanted to ask this blog's title to ChatGPT. But then I remember this quote: we use AI not so that they can write and make arts. We use AI so that we can write and make arts because they are doing the menial jobs like washing the dishes and cleaning. Well, not the exact word-by-word quote but that's close! Let me also share with you the image below if I found it haha.

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not  for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my
Found it!

Sunday, July 6, 2025

A Trip Through Time: Labuan Bajo May 2022

Moyahoo~

I've been postponing this post for months already, every week swearing that I would write this on weekend yet I did not, again and again. So here I am today! On a Sunday night finally gathering enough will to write something. If I did not, this would be like my trip in London.. which you haven't seen at all here, right? Hahaha.

(Note: Writing this again in January 31... yep, I've postponed this post for FIVE MONTHS I'm sorry)

(Pandemic came and just when I thought I'd have an abundance of time, came TWICE with their 5-year worth of videos for me to keep up 😄)

SO in early 2022, somehow Novi and I had an idea of going to Labuan Bajo. It seemed so wacana-ish the first time. I haven't gone with a friend just traveling on our own expense so it just didn't seem very real tbh. Then Novi posted the idea to her close friends hoping for someone else to want to join the club, and we have Lilian in!

Lilian joining our group trip is really a boost in the probability of actually making this trip happens (sorry, Nov ahaha). I don't know if it's us feeling wary because we are now having an ACTUAL PERSON that actually wanted to go or if Lilian is a certified adventurous traveler, but I felt that at that moment, we really needed to go.

Around April, Garuda Travel Fair was held. What makes traveling or other things become just a plan is, I deduce, the feeling of no deadline, that there is no timeline to follow. GATF added that sense of urgency to our plan and we quickly decided on a date.

A finality to the plan

There was no going back after. The tickets were booked, then we finally booked a tour for living on board in Labuan Bajo.

Oh! In the middle of finding time for our LBJ trip, Lilian said that she would extend her trip because she wanted to dive. My FOMO ass of course can't miss this! If you see our group, it was originally 27-29 of May. May 26 was the Ascension Day of Christ, so it was quite the long weekend. Apparently, that was not enough to spare time for diving, so we decided that we would stay in Bajo from May 22!

Calendar for reference as my personal calendar was packed with personal affairs haha

Spending a week in Bajo, what did we do???


Seeing the airport again
Somehow seeing the airport wasn't really the highlight of my trip as I've done 2 Bali trips before this during the pandemic. However, it was fun still since it's been ages since I last did a flight trip with friends. Mendra and I arrived first and we did lots of talks before finally meeting Lilian.

Buying books in airport is also actually my thing. With Mendra's advice, I finally bought this book:

I've actually put my eye on the book since university days. I like factual books like this and actually what intrigued me was when Mendra said, "Buku ini dipake di kuliah gue, susah loh bukunya." Feeling challenged, I checked out right away. HAHAHAH. Please pray for me so that this book did not only stay on the shelves or under my TO READ LIST, but that I will actually read this one day. AMEN. Also, I'm so so so so done with self-help book ffs.

And this is us preparing to fly!

I really really wanted to share with you my picture flying in a Garuda again or pictures of Labuan Bajo from the heights, but I really don't have it because in an incident I would tell you later, I actually lost my phone data from May 22 to 26! T_T Bottomline is and I will say this again: PLEASE BACK UP YOUR PHONE REGULARLY BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT SAVED ME.

We flew, and landed in LBJ that was scorching hot with no AC detected at that airport (but like, yeah we had to save the energy!). There was really no online hailing provider in Labuan Bajo so we had to stick with the traditional taxis. Surprisingly but not, all cars here use Innova. Pretty understandable tbh as Labuan Bajo is surprisingly so hilly even though it was in proximity to the beach. Probably they cut the cliff or something to build ports; however, bigger CC is definitely needed for cars.

We went straight to the hotel to put our bags. Our hotel is a budget 1 star hotel called Green Hill. I had the picture since I sent it to my mom:

Or I did not. I forgot where I sent it but it was literally nowhere lol. The hotel was soooo nice. I was opposed to it at first because the bathroom was only covered with a curtain and it had no roof. No lock wasn't my top concern. It was the non-existence of bathroom roof.... My anxiety went through the roof because lol idk what would happen with the smell etc. As a 1-star hotel, they didn't give us amenities but we were provided with clean towels every day. Everything was clean and honestly their bed, bed sheets, and pillow sheets were so so clean and comfortable. Location? Damn it was super strategic. It was located in the Soekarno-Hatta main road and was only about short 5-minute walk to the port. Superb spending!

After checking in and storing our bags, we went to iDive center. There we measured our diving toolkits for the next day's diving. Funnnnn 🥺 The road there was so hilly by the way, it felt like hiking and I was so weakkkk for not doing any physical activities for the longest time. I want to put the hilly road pictures here but some of my pics are gone :)

Diving in Labuan Bajo
Okay! This one deserves a whole chapter of its own.

I am always an adventurous person, but I'm just too lazy to do things on my own. They say Ox people born at night means I'm an api tungku type you know, I need someone to blaze my fire 🤣 So, once Lilian said she wanted to go diving, I was so ready to follow! And another thing about me is sometimes, for things that I don't know that have little consequences for others, I tend to be over underestimating! So sorry Lilian, but I thought Lilian is at the same fitness level as me so when I see you diving often, I thought it was easy :')

We took a newbie class with iDive. Before diving, Mendra and I were also shared online learning materials. I was super confident with my learning ability from theory, so I didn't think of it as anything else. I was super chill embracing the day after, where I would embark on my first ever trip into the sea.

On board, we were given other basic information about the diving equipment and know-hows. To be honest, there was some conversation gap between us and the diving instructor. Idk, maybe it's how my instructor talked? The accent? So I felt a bit anxious because some points were unclear to me ksksks.


So my first diving experience was.. so so. The instructor did say we would dive until 3m of depth, but I was truly underestimating how deep that was. The average house stood 3 metres tall, so just imagine now above you, there was huge body of water + 1.6m (your body doesn't count), and surrounding you was just the dark vast sea.

Mendra asked to be on the surface once or twice and then we had to send him back to the boat. However, by the time I had to dive again for the third time, my ears hurt so much. I tried to equalize many many times but the stinging pain just don't stop so I decided that I wanted to give up too.

That was it. My 2 mio rupiah first diving experience ended in just 10-15 minutes 🤡 Adding to that when I got back on board, apparently the wave that I felt why I floated got me seasick. So I spent like 1 hour or so being super seasick on the boat and trying to ease it all out with antimo (our savior!).

Oh, almost forgot this one! Your body position-- to stand or to float horizontally-- is affected by your jacket air volume, controlled by the oxygen tube. So it needed some skill too and it was quite difficult for me to control! It makes me feel like a helpless cokcroach whose body is upside down lol.

In the end, I finally got over my seasickness and on the third diving scene to see the mantas, I tried snorkeling. Snorkeling was fun because you get to see the sea with your own eyes minus the anxiety of being swallowed whole by the huge scary sea.. Sea is truly scary guys this is my takeaway from the diving experience no one can tell me otherwise haha. Those diving clips are only great to watch because they edited the color, edited the speed (maybe, and added serene happy music. In actuality, it was super hollow and silent in the water. Probably I'm not gonna do it again :D


The gastronomy scene in Labuan Bajo
On the first day, we ate pasta at a seemingly foreign-owned restaurant. The price was surprisingly expensive, even more expensive than those in Bali. I'm suspecting it's the combination of their wanting to reach BEP soon with their dollar flocked tourists and the high cost for materials.

I also went to this seafood place. It reminded me more of those Muara Karang seafood stalls to be honest. I expected that the fishes would be very fresh but I think they were just so so. The way they cooked it was also so so, not to mention that I got to see rats running about.. so yeah. We also bought lobster, but idk it just didn't taste like what I imagined it would T_T (I watched Nick Fry catching lobster on youtube and the way his lobster looked on that video was just superb).


Basically we only tried food along this street by the pier. I think the restaurants are quite agglomerated in that area only. There was also this one oven-baked pizza place that was apparently owned by someone who was my manager's batch mate in university. The world is indeed so small!

Spending days in Labuan Bajo
We arrived in Labuan Bajo on Sunday. Monday is diving day. Tuesday and Wednesday is working from Labuan Bajo day. Thursday is Ayana day (while in the morning we get to walk around Bajo). Friday to Sunday is living on board day.

We had Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of Thursday to enjoy Labuan Bajo. However, this would later be my most regretted decision ever: I should have taken leave. As I didn't, all I did during the day was trying out breakfast at the hotel across the street (which was only chicken katsu (!!!)), had meetings, and then dinner around the area of Bajo.

I didn't remember much about what work I did back then. Maybe there was a day when I had more important meetings, but in general I really felt like this has the potential to be me enjoying a slow life in Bajo but somehow I wasted it on city-related things.. Labuan Bajo is quite secluded to the hustle bustle of the city and is the perfect place if you want to have a serene getaway compared to Bali. Bali is too flashy HAHA butttt maybe if you're a picky eater like me, you'd find the convenience of Bali more alluring.

The biggest regret from not taking the leave is definitely us not being able to explore Bajo! We didn't even get to see the Manggarai settlement and all the things in the mountainous part of Bajo aside from its sea.

Trying out Ayana
We spent around 3 nights in this beautiful and clean boutique hostel called Green Hill. However, we wanted to try splurging a bit by staying a night in Ayana! It's a 5-star hotel, wouldn't call it a resort since it's relatively small with just okay activities offered around. We arrived at noon, hiding ourselves since we booked only for two but would snuck in two people, completely broke students behavior but make it Ayana hahaha.

That day we explored the hotel a bit, taking a view pictures here and there during sunset. We wanted to try their seafood, but after trying out more down-to-earth seafood the day before and finding the seafood scene here to be so-so, we decided to just eat at their Japanese restaurant. SUPER BASIC I know, but we weren't much of a food explorer and we wanted to enjoy the hotel!

Oh, and before dinner, me and Mendra actually tried out their spa :3 It was a super overpriced spa tbh haha I could've had like 10 hours of good spa in Bali.. but well, supply-demand and FOMO beat me to it!

Missing my phone data..
At night, we were ready to sleep and enjoy our night in Ayana. I was looking at my phone when I suddenly noticed something weird with my phone because when charging, it's stuck at the Apple logo. It was a big WTF moment for me. I was practically in this secluded island with definitely no iBox or any fancy electric shop in sight, and tomorrow I was about to board a supposedly magical adventure in this exotic seas. But no working phone for me!

I was super devastated. As usual, my go to was the Apple Care center. It helped me before with an unexplainable error from my old phone, so I believe this should've also fixable. Luckily I somehow still got Apple Care package, though I'm not sure if it's coming from my phone or from my recently purchased MacBook.

Maybe it was around 12 pm when I discovered the error. Spent hours finding solutions on the net and youtube before I finally went for Apple Care. Somehow they asked me to do the boot up using iTunes PC, so I need laptop. However, my work computer cannot be connected to any external devices.. Luckily, in this journey where everyone still worked, we had Lilian who brought her laptop that can be connected to external devices! So because of her laptop and this amazing Apple Care instructor, I managed to at least boot up my phone.

I slept at 4 am maybe after all the chaos. Since I had to be on the ship the next morning, I decided to just sleep it out while waiting for it to be fully restarted. Luckily when I wake up, my phone is back!!! It's just completely blank lol. Thankfully, the last time I backed up the phone is before I flew to LBJ so I still had the data online. This wasn't something on my mind when I decided to set "back up every time connected to wifi and power" but wow it really could do you a service in emergency!

PSA: PLEASE BACK UP YOUR DATA REGULARLY!

The drama hasn't ended though because we really needed to go to the harbor in like 9 am? I lost all my energy because of my phone so I just let my friend wander. We planned to take the transparent canoe but sadly it drizzled a bit so it wouldn't be a wise decision :')

By the time we had to go to the harbor, I managed to restore the majority of my data though still WhatsApp took 30+ Gb so I just went to the sea without WhatsApp. It's a silent trip for me! Haha.

Living on board in Labuan Bajo

I remember I had to wait a bit in nearby Starbucks while waiting for the ship because I wanted to try my luck and see if I can restore my backup using all these public wifi. But eventually time ran out and we had to board, so yeah, no WhatsApp it is!

We had to board on small boats before we go inside the bigger ships. There were lots of small boats swarming to several big ships. Our ship was called Natural 001, a relatively new brown-colored ship. There was a bit of rain so it was a bit tricky to hop on the boats and the ship. I tried to be very mindful so as to not do any stupid small mistakes 😂

And what we didn’t realize would happen with the rain is.. that the weather would be very windy and the sea very wavy. It wasn’t a warm welcome for land people :(

I’ve had experience of seasickness before and it was something I very highly anticipated for. We’ve prepared lots of Antimo before going into this trip. Mind you, I’ve never even had Antimo before! I know of the product because the jingle was so instilled in me (“Antimo.. menyenangkan perjalanann kiiitaa!” hahaha), but I don’t have motion sickness in a car so I never took it.

Due to the wave, it was suuuper unconfomfortable for me on the ship :( Lilian was really a champion, she still managed to open a laptop and had a meeting there! Only signal in the middle of the sea stopped her, meanwhile I had to bear with the seasickness just by existing gahhh! I remember pondering whether it’s best for me to look at still objects (like the table) or at the sky 🥲

Eventually the weather got better and we can sit by the deck without worrying of the rain. I was still super dizzy even after drinking 1 tab of Antimo. I didn’t think I could handle being in the confined room (and our room was like quite under the base floor?) so I just slept on the deck. I slept there absolutely without minding the sun burning my face because all I could think about was that SEASICKNESS 😭 I slept with only a cap covering my face lol.

In the first day, we have 3 destinations: Kelor, Manjarite, and seeing the sunset with the sky full of kalong. I did go out from the ship for Kelor. There was a mini hiking activity to get to the peak, where you can take pictures of mini bajo. Of course I didn’t have the will and body to hike, so I just stayed at the foot of the hill, with my head rested on my arms and slept my way through the 1-hour stop. I also got myself cup noodle because I think I needed some warm soup 🤣

Then we stopped at Manjarite. This is a snorkeling spot. Tbh after I dived earlier the week (which turned out to be just an expensive diving experience), I no longer had any curiosity for snorkeling so I skipped this. I think I slept in my room after that Kelor stop, and was woken up to have dinner. I did feel a bit missing out on the Kalong spot though, you know I’m a sucker for anything #sunset 😂 (ttagaun sunsett~~)

I woke up for the dinner because or else I might not have enough energy for the next day, which was supposed to be the big day because we were going to Padar island, pink beach, and Komodo island. The dinner was tbh amazing.. if I were already reading One Piece back then, I would be fawning on how the ship crews were really living the nakama life. They bring fresh catch but also catch several life fish on the board and they cook amazing dishes! They really taste amazing, really fitting to the notion that sailors cook amazing food 👍🏻

I continued to sleep in my room after eating another Antimo for the day. I forgot if Mendra also went to sleep or if I went to sleep earlier. However, what I remember was that the next day I thankfully woke up feeling super refreshed! I don’t know if drinking the Antimo (ended up having 2-3 tabs the previous day I think haha) help with the dizziness + sleep, but I remember feeling so good when I woke up. I was finally able to absorb the beautiful and amazing idea that I was there in the most beautiful part of Indonesia.

We were preparing to stop at Padar island before the dawn breaks. So in the middle of the dark and solemn night, we can really see the beautiful star constellation adorning the sky.. superb experience! Too bad my phone wasn’t able to capture all that, but it was something to remember. My phone back then was "just" an iPhone 12 and clearly the night capturing capability wasn't that advanced yet.

It's 3 years ago but I can still remember how solemn and peaceful the night was


Purplish sky

By the time we are mid-hike, the sunset shows
The sunset that starts to show the parking boats!


(From this point on, it's July 2025 and I just started to write again from Dubai hahaha with the same Why Nations Fail book on my bed that I haven't managed to finish!!! T_T)

The hike was.. tiring. I didn't expect it to be so full of effort. Like I know that hiking is not my forte, but I didn't know that we had to hike. I knew I had to go on though, there were no option for me to back down!

And indeed, the view in the end was very rewarding. Up to now, it's still one of the pictures that I am proud about.

It was 28 May 2022 at that time, so I made this picture for TWICE Dahyun's birthday! 😂
Dubu's birthday

The signature look of Padar island


The fantastic four! :D

On the second day. I can finally start enjoying the boat. Of course, I still had my daily dose of antimo!

I started to realize how blue the sky and the water is. Clearly it's one of the most most most beautiful and pristine thing I have ever seen. I am so glad that I get to experience this! Definitely a place that every Indonesian needs to visit at least once.
The ship in calm seas

Next up is the pink beach! For every small visit to each island, the boat will put its anchor to the deeper sea, avoiding the beautiful coral reefs of course, and then we got small ships to bring us to the shore. Below is the example of how we were being "transported" to the shorelines.

Us in the small boats on the way to pink beach

Pink beach

And one thing I learnt is that the beach gets and retains its pink color from the coral. But then tourists start coming in and take the red coral home.. that's why some of the pink beaches lose its color. What we see may not be the same pink beach that others are seeing. Please protect the nature's beauty and take nothing but pictures!

See what I told you about THE BLUEST water I have ever seen!?

And then after that, we sailed away again to the Komodo island. This is also another nature's wonder! So the komodo dragon is a type of lizard, but a big one. It's said to be one of those living creatures that survives the dinosaurs era. We were told so many dangerous things about the Komodo dragon, but well we can still see them here out in the wild! I was so afraid though being near them because they told us about how speed they are when they are chasing their prey. I was also told that this island is not the only island with komodo, for example the Padar island may sometimes have komodo as well. And why is that? Because they can swim :)))

After our journey to the Komodo island, we then had our lunch! As usual, the ship crew cooks for us. I think it was from that moment that I started to have this notion with me: seamen cooks very well! I think it's probably because they need to entertain so many sailors on the sea. They are away for so long, the only pleasure that they can obtain is probably from food. In the sea they also have access to the freshest catch of the day, so probably that also explains!

One of the dishes served to us

Before diving in Taka Makassar to catch the sighting of mantas and turtles! I probably forgot about the manta, but we definitely saw turtles!

Nightfall then came for the second day. After we cleaned ourself (in the water-clogged bathroom btw :'))), we had a nice dinner and then got a get together with the crew and the participants. We sang some songs and then went back to sleep.

When the third day came, it was already time for us to say good bye. We still can do some snorkeling though, but those are full of school of colorful fishes and corals. It was also quite packed with other people, so different from our previous spots where we had the limitless sky and ocean surrounding us.

I got a cool picture of the sea though! You can see the view of the so many islands here. It maintains to be my wallpaper until now for my Work profile!

The horizon in Labuan Bajo sea


And before we knew it, we already made it closer and closer to the main island. It was finally time for us to say goodbye to the ships and all the good memories here!


The crew that reminds me a lot about Usopp from One Piece! Haha I started reading One Piece the year after, in May 2023

We then chased our flight at around 1 or 2 pm.. and thus that ends our journey here in Labuan Bajo. It was a really nice getaway for us, this being our first flight after forever. The reality here, in which I don't really see the people wearing masks because probably they've quite secluded, was a fresh view for us from Jakarta.

In the airport, I also bought another book! That is also still with me here in Dubai at the time of writing yet I still haven't got the chance to finish! xD It was this boo, The Happiness Project. I think I kinda expected this book to be about a journey of life with the 'finding-happiness' themed voyage, which would fit perfectly with how I felt after leaving Labuan Bajo. Yet, turns out it's more atuned to the city life. Well, not so irrelevant for me since I'm a city girl after all! But I really need to finish this, gosh.


I saw my tanned lines as a badge from my week of beach life here. I really am a beach girl! Although if I need to make this trip again, I am probably at that stage in life where I would prefer much more comfort than this haha but this one's something to remember!

My adventurous self badge

Bye, beautiful Bajo!


Things I regret
If there is one thing I regret.. is that I don't take my leave as a leave. I had several days in which I need to work, probably I am saving my annual leave. But duh! I am already at this beautiful place and I didn't even spend the time to book a car and go somewhere, like visit the Manggarai people's village maybe?? It was an unncecessary "work-from-Bajo" thing because I should have enjoyed and explored more. Though maybe to my old-self's defence, we were only working for like 3 years and we still felt guilty about taking leave. WFA also was quite glorified back in the day, therefore we felt like we needed to still connect with work. I forgot if I had written about this previously, but even Lilian continued to be in a meeting after we had sailed through the tumultuous sea (and I was seasick-ed HARD) until she finally lost the signal!

The post-card
Back home, a few days later I got a post card sent from myself! I remember sending quite a number of postcards to my family and friends, but I don't think they even got this at all?? This is maybe one of the only postcards that succeeded in going its way accross the sea to Bekasi! :)

I put the post card as a bookmark for my Why Nations Fail book, so here it is with me in Dubai!
I got my post card from Bajo!

Since the Labuan Bajo trip, I ended up being quite close with Novi, Mendra, and Lilian. It was quite a group! I am also grateful because after that trip, I continued making several more meaningful trips with friends.

I love life!








Monday, June 23, 2025

Life Update from The Pearl of the Persian Gulf

Hello, there!

Believe me when I say that on the back of my mind, writing a blog post always pops out as 'things-I-would-do-in-my-leisure-y-time-to-feel-productive'. However, I also know that I still have a draft post for 2022 (my Labuan Bajo trip) and 2023 (a year with too much TWICE). I even planned on writing my first Europe mainland trip in 2024, but duh, I procrastinate too much!

So as to not let this one be too outdated, let me just put it out in the air: I am now residing in Dubai!

Well, at least for the next remaining 8 months to go! :)

It's been something out of my imagination, honestly. I grow up being not very used to flying or visiting places far away from where I live. I cherish every flying experience so much, I still remember my very first experience of flying on a place (that one was also my very first experience of missing a flight, though hahaha).

I feel lucky to be an avid reader. I read a lot of books growing up. Despite having read lots of English books now, actually those that really touch young Nana are Indonesian books. I wonder do we still have strong Indonesian writers out there publishing new works?

My two most favorite books of all time are: Laskar Pelangi (Andrea Hirata) and Negeri 5 Menara (A. Fuadi). Both I read from the humble library of LIA Kalimalang, my sanctuary as a very quiet LIA student back then haha. Laskar Pelangi was a very big hit movie back then, but reading the 'heavy' novel brought a different level of richness in terms of story and value. Negeri 5 Menara was also a book that I didn't know I would enjoy reading. I remember picking up the book because I knew of a movie titled the same.

Both books inspired me so much. They basically told a story of someone from a very humble background, who through education are able to actually experience living abroad. Obviously the stories were wayyyy more meaningful than that, but that was the thing that stuck out to me the most.

I read through all the series of Laskar Pelangi, following Ikal's stories in his humble Muhammadiyah school in Belitung, to him going to IPB, and then going to Sorbonne in Paris. I swear when I visited Paris last week, I was ecstatic to find that I was staying near Sorbonne area! After all these years the story is still stuck to me. 

I didn't read the other series of Negeri 5 Menara (but I bought all 3 and gifted them to Clement hoping that he feels as inspired as I do), yet I am really fascinated with how Gontor shaped its students and emphasized the importance of learning foreign languages. I know after that Alif managed to be a journalist in the US.

Wow that was a long intro. But to cut to the chase.. now I am doing it. Thirteen years later I found myself experiencing what I read in those amazing novels. I don't know if this is the power of manifesting, longing, or whatever.. but I am very grateful at where life has taken me.

I started living in Dubai per March 2025. It was such a big move to me. I, who never once lived faraway from my family, am now living alone! In Dubai nonetheless! Honestly what made the move easier was that moving to the regional office meant there were a lot of Indonesians here who I know I can rely on. As someone who actually likes to talk and mingle when I feel like it, being able to destress by not speaking English all the time is so precious to me!

Dubai, who before I moved here sounded fancy and money money money, now sounds like home to me. Before the move, I didn't even know that Dubai hosts the Emirates airline for example, or knew that it was part of the United Arab Emirates. My knowledge about the middle east countries was practically zero I know haha.

I moved here during the chilly and okay-ish weather of spring. But not long after, the weather started to get hot. It wasn't until these recent weeks though that it has became quite hot and humid. Thankfully the very heavy AC environment is very reliable. Not thankfully, I understand that there were very few months of the year in Dubai in which the city would be a nice walkable city.

Now my empty kitchen feels like my kitchen, with the IKEA kitchen racks that I assembled myself and the sauces and spices that I bought from the asian supermarkets. Cooking is not as simple though, somehow the utensils are not easy to wash and I hateee having soapy feel leftover in the utensils. But I make do, now I know the soap dishes brand that I like and also the sponge that is good to use. And also, because washing takes half the effort in cooking, I don't cook as often as I imagined I would be haha.

My kitchen and the cooking we often do together


Work life is also okay. There were lots of things that I haven't done and I should, I will get to it I promise.. (talking to self). But the work is interesting, I get to see things from a helicopter view. I could get more clarity, but I think this is a good start. I have a good team and a supportive boss, so all is well to me.

On weekends, thankfully I am also able to keep myself busy and productive! We are now able to rent cars and drive here (I also can drive!). We were taking trips to the other emirates of the UAE, to the beaches (never knew Dubai was such a beach city before), even during long weekends we've taken trips to Kazakhstan! Now we are also planning trips to more countries nearby, such as Georgia and Oman. More countries are coming definitely to the to-go list!

Weekend trip to Al Fujairah

Kaindy Lake in Kazakhstan. Pretty sure it's on of world's wonder!

I have so much to feel and experience here. Hopefully my future self would reember that I only need 30 friggin minutes to write this piece, and this post would break my cycle of procrastination. I hope to release new posts soon! Til next time!

Saturday, March 30, 2024

Random Info: Wrong name at the JR pass exchange order?

A week ago, I received the exchange order for JR Hokuriku Arch Pass and I was shocked because I found that I have input the wrong name! :( I tried to google for any resolve to my story but none seem to answer clearly. Two of my friends offered me these two answers: 1) it’s fine as the exchange order can be refunded anyway if you ended up not using it and 2) it’s fine and you can still exchange the order into actual pass.

I’d like to also offer you who may stumble upon this blog for my own resolve.

I reached out to the travel agent whom I bought the exchange order from, and it’s quite simple: I need to send the physical XO back to them, pay a little admin fee, and they sent the right exchange order back to me.

I also have asked the JR office directly via email.. the response came too late after I have resolved all my problem, but it also supported my 2nd friend’s solution: it’s fine. You can still exchange them anyways.



Hope this helps!

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

yes i do the cooking yes i do the cleaning

I just spent nearly 2 hours picking basil leaves, washing them, processing them, cooking pasta, washing all the utensils, eating the pasta, and then putting back all the utensils. I did that much effort just to eat a home-made pasta, guys!

harvesting my home-grown basil
harvesting my home-grown basil

blendering the basil in mixture of: olive oil, garlic, salt, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese
pesto fusilli with mushroom is done!

While preparing this after closing off work at 7.30 pm, I realized that I liked cooking so much. (Well no actually this realization has come way before this, and I already wanted to blog about my cooking but I just haven't got the time yet!)

Me and cooking
I knew that I always liked cooking. This post here is one of the example, back in 2012 I would spend my free time during school holidays to cook! The stories always ended with bad ending, though. Take that fried rice as my very first ever dish, I've made that too salty, too oily, too dry. I also tried making garlic bread, it ended up too soggy because I used too many melted butter. Also tried making fried eggs too back then and it was a trial and error too, I've always had problem with nailing the oil ratio as I was quite anti-oil haha.

If I ask myself, what do I like about cooking? Why do I cook? Maybe the answer lies in my innate pickiness towards food, but contradictively, I also like to eat a lot. I love to eat good food! I think it is a gift for me to be able to find happiness in eating good food. I'm not a big spender, but I do spend A LOT on food.

My very first experience with cooking during high school was because 1) I had too much spare time and I wanted to do something productive and 2) there was nothing to eat (that I liked) so I wanted to make the dishes myself. I asked my grandmom then to teach me how to fry eggs and make fried rice. It was tricky at first, with me being afraid with oil splashes etc but I kept on getting better!

Then came college days where I was super busy with school. The 4 years I spent at UI were undoubtedly my most productive years ever in life. There was no days without me having to do school work or internship or extracurricular work.

Then the pandemic hits.

With the pandemic, suddenly I had too much time on my plate. It was very healing for me too, because the weeks towards the pandemic, I was actually quite stressed with always having something to do on weekends. It honestly felt like my time was stolen away from me. I wanted to just laze around on weekend, but somehow the norms I had during college days had made me think that my weekend time can and should be spent on other people. The lockdown was a blessing in disguise for me because after finally realizing that my weekend time is mine and mine only to govern, I also found out that I now (then) had so much free time for ME!

All people back then did something new and tried to learn exciting things everyday. I remember that time tiktok is rising and people were making cooking videos on tiktok. I wanted to jump in the wagon! I know I like eating, I've established myself in office as a pasta lover back then, so I wanted to learn how to cook pasta on my own.

Now the reason why I didn't continue cooking after high school, aside from not having enough time, is actually about me not having the proper ingredients lol. I found that the available ingredients at my home couldn't quite cater to my aspirational menu: pasta and western food in general. During the pandemic, I've worked for a few months already and got some savings in my account. Therefore, I went straight to happyfresh (like most people did that time) and ordered my first ever groceries!

My groceries spending on happyfresh was quite hefty lol. I realized after doing the groceries, that there was reason my you should buy from traditional markets if you want to save as the price difference is quite significant. Also my very first cooking experience was basically a trial and error and I tried to follow everything the chef on youtube told me they used.

My very first experience ever (post high school)
I remember trying to replicate Willgoz's carbonara pasta back then. It was a weird fusion menu I'd say (from my 2023 quite expert perspective HAHA) as he boiled the pasta using milk while adding beef stock too. It's quite accurate in telling us to use eggs though for the sauce. I followed the recipe even to the minutes. I learned lesson 1 in cooking the hard way: always taste your cooking first.

Willgoz is using brand A pasta and he said to cook it for 7 minutes for al dente. However, I used an imported pasta so 7 minutes was too quick and my pasta was way half-cooked :) In an effort to salvage the pasta, my grandma made me reboil the pasta.. right after I've already mixed the pasta with my carbonara egg sauce... So my pasta was then al dente, but it was bland to the core as all the sauce was washed out! :(

Second try
This is quite phenomenal too. I tried making aglio olio this time. Alas, I also got it wrong this time with the pasta cooking time... I used fresh pasta and I didn't know that fresh pasta cooks way faster than the usual pasta, dammit. It should have been cooked at TWO MINUTES :))))) Since obviously the previous experience had made me worry over not cooking the pasta enough, this time I cooked it for way too long. My fettucine was super mushy and it felt like eating mushy noodles with too much black pepper T_T

After that
With my very disastrous experience in cooking pasta, I kinda gave up with creating the sauce on my own. Cooking was super tiring back then for me. I remember realizing that I clenched my jaw way too much when I was stressed, and I found that because of this cooking experience! For the few first times, after cooking I literally had trouble eating because I couldn't open my mouth properly as my jaws would get stuck. I noticed too that I would get super tired after cooking that I had to take quick naps, which would turn to hours of napping.

So I decided not to cook the sauce again on my own and turned into ready-made sauce. I like this store called Little Maria on Tokopedia and they sells various pasta cooking ingredients including the sauces. At first I bought the mushroom sauce from them, but then realizing that mushroom tend to expire quickly on sauces, I only bought their pesto sauce. To date, I still love their pesto sauce so much! However, it started to be so expensive when you think about how I needed to buy 60k a bottle sauce for 2-3 portions of pasta, when my very first reason to cooking (other than because I love doing it and I love eating) is that I wanted to save money hahaha.

So after that, I discovered three things on my cooking journey:
  1. Pasta can be simple. I no longer need to buy fancy ingredients, aglio olio is very doable with just garlic, aglio olio, chilli flakes, and mushroom. Well, packaged parsley can also be added to add greenish look. These days I also like to inject more protein to my dishes by adding chicken breasts, more mushroom, or even scallops. I like prawns too but they are too frightening to process with the skin lol.
  2. After learning how to make the OG pasta like aglio olio and carbonara, I became a huge fanatics of Italian original pasta. That's what you became when you watched too many "how to cook pasta as an italian" videos LOL. But I can't deny, those videos of Italian chefs sharing their grandma pasta taught me how to cook pasta way more effectively than any Willgoz/chef Arnold videos can. Back to the first sentence, so me being a purist meant I detest adding cheese to my pasta 🤣 It was fine when it's carbonara, but I super can't adding it when I'm eating aglio olio because it's just garlic + oil, just that. Now I don't give a fuck anymore and just add cheese however the fuck I want!
  3. Home-grown everything! To be twice as rich (by not spending!)! Remember the price of pesto sauce per bottle I mentioned? To save on delivery fee, I usually bought up to 6 bottles per purchase. In bulk, the spending amount was quite heart-shattering. I could spend 400k just to buy pesto sauce! 🫠 I did savor the usage and they can last me a few months, but it would make me dependent on them forever. So given my now added expertise in cooking, I decided to grow the ingredients for pesto on my own! At first I tried growing basil plants from seed but it didn't work well and the basil that grows is just not the type that I wanted. Luckily, youtube introduces me to basil propagation. I knew then that basil can be easily replicated from its stems! Therefore, I tried to look for genovese basil (the type that Italians actually use!) on Tokopedia. I luckily got a very good one and currently in my home, there are probably 3 other pots of mature genovese basil + 6 new small plants! :D Yep, the one you saw first on this post are the basil leaves that I grew on my own. Mind you, the result is very very good!

Other than pasta
I obviously try to cook other things aside from pasta. But to me, pasta is just the simplest and quickest delectable dish that I can make! And yes, from only cooking pasta during the weekends, now I sometimes cook pasta during dinner for the healing part and the eating good part, and I even dare to cook it during my short 1-hour lunch break.

Other than pasta, I also learned how to cook steak. I tried cooking several high grade steaks, I always buy MB6 above btw. But the result was just always so so to me. I thought it would be very economical as usually the one we bought on resto on 400k IDR was probably just an MB2 wagyu, but in reality making a high grade pasta tasty is so difficult. I am yet to nail the secret, is it my stove? Is it my pan? Steak is tricky because every video tells you different tricks. I fell to the same rabbit hole as with my very first experience with cooking pasta: believing blindly at what the youtuber told you. I was told to cook like 30 seconds per side for medium result etc etc etc but in reality you have to really know visually what does a good steak looks like etc etc.

So I haven't nailed steak and would like to just buy steak in a high-end restaurant lol, just wanna see if it's my taste buds that just can't accept steak or if it's my cooking skills. Hoping for the latter because I want to know what's good with steaks!

Me cooking thin sliced beefs + saikoro meltique is a different story by the way. They tasted good! I think the sauce is: oyster sauce, kikkoman, garlic, saori teriyaki, and honey. It tasted superb!

Also tried chicken katsu + japanese curry rice. Tasted superb but I'm yet to nail the water level consistency to make it into the right thickness.

I once made fried rice with dashi powder topped with runny omelette added with cheese. It was one of the most delicious fried rice I've ever cooked and eaten in my entire life... but again I've yet to make another perfect one! Fried rice is quite tricky because I need to prepare the refrigerated leftover rice from even the night before.

Yes i do the cooking yes i do the cleaning
I made this post late at night because I wanted to actually publish something on this blog after a long time not being able to. My friend posted a blog of his the other day and wow I was baffled at how he really managed to write that long ass blog post despite being busy with travelling etc (he ran a travelling blog and had just came home). Maybe he wrote that during the time he spent on airport/plane? Either way, I should also just write and let the mood lead me instead of postponing and daydreaming all day hahaha.

I realized I love cooking so much and despite the challenges it brought me in the beginning (the wasted ingredients, the TMD with my jaw, the failed dishes etc), it brings me so much joy. It became the thing I'm willing to do after a busy day at work just because I like it. And I would even do the cooking even when my sister (aka helper lol) is away and I got no one to do the cleaning for me.

To think that until a year ago, I still needed to watch a youtube video before cooking (bcs I'm afraid I'd mess up the recipe! lol) and now I'm the pan-flipping cook who can create (MAINLY PASTA) dishes however I want them to be, I'm immensely proud of myself. HEHE.

(Will add pics when I have the time! I always have pics because I've made it a personal commitment to always document the food I eat and we're talking about the food I cook myself here! haha)

Friday, December 31, 2021

Review Asal 2021

Buset ya bun udah mau 2022 aja.. Kayanya baru kemaren gue bikin post 1 Januari 2021 terus mikir, "Nanti mau update lagi ah buat 2022.." eh udah 2022 besok!!! Wkwkwk.

Lagi males nulis yang gimana-gimana jadi ini review asal 2021 aja buat jadi pengingat ke diri gue sendiri kalo gue nanti buka blog ini.

Hmm 2021 tuh.. definisi kaga berasa sih. Sebenernya berasa-berasa aja, tapi ya cepet banget aja gitu? Tiba-tiba gue udah presentasi lagi, gue gajian lagi, TWICE udah comeback lagi, gue gajian lagi, gue presentasi lagi, udah gajian lagi, TWICE comeback lagi, ya gitu aja terus.. Gue pernah dengerin podcast dan emang alasan waktu berlalu cepet banget bagi kita-kita (yang gue asumsikan udah seumuran gue atau lebih haha) tuh karena hidup kita sekarang udah monoton aja. Udah dikit hal baru yang dialami, jadi otak kita ga punya banyak check point. Bayangin aja dulu pas masih kecil, kayanya gue nunggu-nungguinnn banget ulang tahun lagi dsb dan berasa lama banget, tapi ya sekarang bhay aja ya kakk..

In General
Secara umum gue ga punya kesan yang mencolok banget sama 2021, karena cenderung gak ada bedanya sama 2020 dengan masih adanya Covid. 2020 was personally quite tough for me so in 2021 I learned to really manage my expectation and.. that's it. Kalo dibikin KPI, bisa dibilang 2021 ini KPI-nya mepet-mepet di atas target lah ya. So I'm quite content with 2021. Things got better. Things got answered. I was not a huge recluse like back in 2020, I gained some new acquaintances who I now dare call as friends. Meeting people like you is a huge blessing and I'm really thanking them for it. Love you lotssssss guys!

Sleep
I am proud to say that now I get better at managing my sleep teehee. Gue sekarang bisa kayak tidur jam 10 malem gitu dan ga berasa guilty (damn work pressure, I miss college!) dan bisa bangun lebih pagi. Kalo lagi niat gue bener-bener bisa buka mata jam 6 pagi!

Going Outside
Man I miss going outside. Gue ada pergi 1-2 kali sebelum delta melanda Indonesia di Juli 2021 gitu (btw Juli juga pas banget keluarga gue ada yang positif.. so yeah). Setelah itu gue sempet hiatus beberapa bulan dari pergi-pergi ke luar dan akhirnya baru keluar lagi sekitar di bulan September? Huweee I really miss going out, meeting friends, etc. Gue merasa banget gue tuh introvert yang tetep butuh human interaction sih, lol. Gue sekarang punya jadwal main badminton rutin (buat jadi alasan ketemu aja sih wkwk but still), starting to say yes to meet-up invitation, etc. Though gue juga maintain untuk gak pake semua hari weekend gue ya, cape browww hahaha. Gue juga udah mulai pergi ke kantor seminggu sekali dan ini cukup clearing up so much confusions yang gue miliki. EYY gue juga ke Bali di pertengahan Desember kemarin, dapet tiket gratis dari DNA Pro lmao!

Songs
I'm still a big big big Koreaboo like in 2020 lol. Gue seperti sempat ada momen-momen rediscover lagu Indo yang oke, tapi urghhh the ONCE in me is too dominating guys. Hahaha. Di 2021 ini gue malah jadi being extra fond of some old albums of TWICE. Gue jadi menemukan lagu-lagu lama mereka yang sekarang jadi all time favorite gue. I don't think I will ever cease over TWICE, at least not anytime soon sih. TWICE kemarin abis online concert di tanggal 26 Desember 2021 dan KEREN BANGET!!! Sumpah gue pengen banget nonton offline concertnya dan gue akan mengusahakan banget sih kalo muncul di SEA. Meskipun begitu tetep akan complicated banget sekarang untuk international flight, jadi gue harap TWICE bisa ke Indo sih :')

Hobby
I'm back to reading again. I joined this book club dan gue mulai baca-baca lagi to-read-list gue yang terbengkalai itu. I'm still cooking though gue sekarang lagi agak males untuk explore resep-resep baru. Gue masih belom berhasil bikin cacio e pepe btw hahaha susah banget itu menu! But I find that I actually enjoy cooking (not doing the dishes one!!!) dan yah ini cukup healing sih. Gue sekarang udah di posisi di mana gue nyaman dengan masak sehingga udah gak jaw-clenching berlebihan lagi huahaha (itu tanda-tanda kalo aku stress guys lmao). Eh iyaa, gue abis banget nyobain resepnya Chaeng yang Strawberry Santa. Gue berasa kena pelet karena udah bahannya mahal, gue kaga demen bahan2nya dan bagi gue ini kayak lo makan McFlurry pake kentang pula. I'm not a sweet tooth! But I will try anyway for Chaeng haha aku merasa harus banget meramaikan hashtag dia, I'm making this my personal mission LOL.

I think that's all for now???? Gak banyak mikir emang gue pas nulis ini hahahaha. I just wish 2022 will be a greater year. I don't have any particular goal for 2022 honestly buttttt I will try to be a more organized person.

See you!

Friday, January 1, 2021

To Judge Less

Hi again in yet another year! We have finally reached 2021!

I know I should've probably blogged about this on the last day of 2020, but I just couldn't find the time yesterday hehe so let me have it now. In this post, I will do a brief recap on how 2020 went for me.

2020 is indeed a weird year. So many bizarre and unthinkable things happened in 2020, it's almost hard to believe. Covid-19 suddenly happened in 2020 (and is still so real until now..) and it has a huge impact on everyone's life.

Personally, I have been on the luckier side of Covid-19 impact. My company has kindly let us do work from home with almost no benefit-cut. Although we were on quarantine, I am also basically a homebody who loves to stay too much. In this pandemic, somehow I also got another distraction (in the form of TWICE LOL). This might seem tone-deaf, but I think I am, personally, happier. Sure, I miss lots of things such as dining out, but those things are outweighed by other things I gained.

That's why, I honestly have a much more neutral view on how I see our new-normal (not normal because this isn't how we are supposed to do normal, but you get what I mean).

In the first months of Covid, people were divided between those who could stay at home and those who couldn't because of some reason. In the months after, however, the segregation is mostly those who decided to go out, and those who called them idiots hahaha.. and I think.. we need to understand other's shoes better.

As someone who mostly is just lazy to go out but giving out Covid reason when rejecting people's invitation to go out, I totally feel it is out of place to call people out for going out. People do have their limits and when so many need to go out just because they have to work, it's hard to live under the impression that going out is as taboo as it was months before. Therefore, I really have nothing against people going out, tbh.. But what I'm most upset is when people don't treat 'going out' as if there is still a very real pandemic going on! There were one or two instances in which I go out with car, and wow the number of people going out without masks is so frightening. They didn't even care about social distancing which is very worrisome.. While I agree that some people can't stand to not go out, but please, wear masks!!! --> this is something you can't bargain.

Another lesson on not to judge people I got from.. kpop. LMAO this is quite self-explanatory so I won't go too long about this. I could not understand before how people can love someone so remotely unavailable for them, but I do now. LOL.

Never judge people until you were in their shoes and may we live 2021 with even less prejudice with each other.

(I know this post is such a blabber hahaha it was intended to be deeper but I got distracted so I can only write this much)