Fourth Day: Bugis and Orchard

Today i went to Buddhist temple in Chinatown around Bugis area. This temple are always full of people who came from many places, including foreigners. Outside this temple, there were a lot of people selling many kinds of items. There were also shops there, mostly selling Chinese foods and items.

There was one mother who was sitting in front of the temple, wearing a board in front and in the back of her body, asking for people to search for (probably) her daughter. She was missing (which is rarely happened in Singapore) since few days ago. Many people helped her out, but up to the time i left that place, she still hasn't found it yet.

Next, we went to Bugis to buy some goods and have lunch at Oriental House restaurant. After that, we leave to Sun City Mall through MRT and we walked around there for several hours before we finally looked at the Wealth Fountain and also Koi Garden inside Sun City Mall. Unfortunately, the show for Wealth Fountain started at 8 PM, so i couldn't see it, because i have an appointment to meet my relatives in Orchard at 6.30 PM.

We went to Orchard through MRT again and we finally met at Ippundo Ramen, located at 4th floor of Mandarin Gallery, adjacent to Takashimaya building. It is a new mall in Singapore, so not many stores are open at that time. It was full of people, because it's the only branch in Singapore, so we had to take some time waiting in queue in order to take our seat. Lucky for us, we got a nice seat near the painting. They paint three version of ramen story in English, Chinese, and Japanese. We got the Chinese version.

We finished eating and came back to our apartment around 9.30 PM and start packing for tomorrow's journey to Indonesia.

Third Day: Jurong Bird Park

Today, i visited Jurong Bird Park, located on the west side of the Singapore's MRT system. It took about 30 minutes to reach there from my apartment where i stayed. It's an integrated area where almost all kind of birds are preserved there. They are tamed animals, so people can enjoy the nature and also many kinds of shows over there. Luckily, the website already published the events schedule, so i wrote a note first before leaving to Jurong.

One thing that amazes me is that in almost every place in Singapore, i always see people reading a book while traveling, whether in the MRT or while walking down the street. It seems that the reading habit in Singapore is very high. I hope that people in Indonesia could do the same thing like in Singapore

Second Day: Amazing

Today, i went to Sentosa Island using MRT to reach Harbour Front and then from there, i took the Sentosa Express which brought me to Sentosa Island. It's a separate island from Singapore, but it has been designed with full planning, so that everything is very easy to reach, even for people who has just been there for the first time. What amazes me is how clean the area is. There weren't so much cleaning service at that area, since most people threw away the trashes in the trash bin (probably because Singapore are very strict with the rules and they give quite a lot of money as the fine if someone broke the rule. They even sell shirt which describes all the fine). There weren't so many people who acts like a security officers, because i rarely heard of any crime committed in most of Singapore areas.

By the way, Sentosa Island trip was an amazing experience. It was a big island and it's full of fun and pleasure. I can't say much about it, except that it's great to be there and i recommend that you should visit it if you are planning to go to Singapore. Also, you msust see the Songs of the Sea if you are Sentosa Island. It's a must-see event.

One thing i learn from today: don't be afraid to ask other people for information. They are so friendly and they will likely to help you at no cost at all.

Lost My Luggage

Today, i was travelling to Singapore for holidays. It supposed to be my first experience and i was expecting a great experience, but that's not what i got from the start. My first unlucky case was when i wanted to copy my NPWP and my passport. The store was out of paper, so i had to use whatever paper they have to copy it. Luckily, it was OK for the imigration.

The biggest problem ever happened today was when my baggage wasn't found when i wanted to claim it. It was lost and i had a feeling that it was missing since we boarded in Jogja. The officer in Jogja probably missed my luggage and i don't know where is it right now. I have filled a complaint, but i can't do anything but wait for it. The bag consists of my clothes, so i don't have any clothes besides what i'm wearing right now. I will be five days in Singapore, so that means i have to buy enough clothes here.

Let's just hope that there will be no more problems in the rest of my holidays. It supposed to be a fun holiday, but unfortunately, it wasn't. Just because of a missing luggage, everything screwed up and i have lost my mood to enjoy this holiday.

Offline Temporary

I will be offline starting from tomorrow until Saturday, since i will not be here. Yes, i'm leaving to Singapore early in the morning and i don't bring my laptop around, so it's impossible to write a blog from a mobile phone (i know it's possible on my E71, but still it's more complicated).

So, cao for the moment, and i will be back online when i return to Indonesia

Wine 1.1.36

Another development version of Wine (1.1.36) has been released. This time, it has completed the separation of 16 and 32-bit codes, improvement on Improved Shader Model 4 support, fixed lots of memory leak, improvement on MinGW debugging support, and also bunch of MSHTML fixes.

See the complete announcement here and get it here. I have download it, compile it using SlackBuild script, and then upgrade the current version with the latest one

My Smashing Book Arrived

Last year (well, it's actually last month, but now it's 2010, so let it be one year ), i ordered Smashing Book from Smashing Magazine. This book talked about web, starting from designing a good user interface, CSS, typography, usability, and everything you should know about web designing. It's written by those who are passionate about the web and those who runs the Smashing Magazine.

When i came back from my office today, i found a package on my desk. I look into it and i saw a Smashing Magazine logo on it. So the package i have been waiting for has just arrived . I have been waiting for this for two weeks, since i got a shipping confirmation at December 24, and it's January 8 now, so it's actually around 2 weeks + 1 day. It took so long probably because due to long holidays (Christmas and New Year). The delivery estimation is already mentioned on this page also

I know this book from my colleague, Andronicus Riyono who have bought this book when pre-orders came out and he had received his book before holidays. There is another colleague of mine who had ordered the same book, but unfortunately his order haven't arrived yet. Mine already arrived even though he ordered his book long before i ordered mine. He took the air mail, while i took the ground mail, as per suggestion by Andronicus who also got his order via ground mail.

The book costs around USD 29.90 plus shipping fees which is USD 5 for ground and USD 10 for air mail. So in total, i spent USD 34.90 for this book. It's worthed to spend this amount of money to buy this book, because the content is more valuable than the price itself.

I would recommend this book for all of you who have the same passion on web design or wanting to learn about how to create a good web design. It's a must-have book IMHO.

Three Hours Invigilator

Today i became an invigilator for Data Warehouse exam which was held at UKDW's Conference Room. The duration for the exam was 3 hours, that's the longest exam i have ever seen. Normally, in regular classes, we hold up to 2 hours maximum, but we never gave that much time, since sometimes the students may have to face up to two or three exams a day, so they need some time before entering the next exam.

Waiting for three hours was a pain, but it's my job. Everything is over now. I have given the marks and the only left to do is submitting the grades to the officials.

Linux Kernel 2.6.33 Less Interesting?

Linux kernel 2.6.33-rc3 has been released by Linus post holidays and it's getting slimmer and slimmer, mostly due to long holidays since new year. What i have seen on this version is that it may not as interesting as previous release, since most people were busy with spending time on their holidays, but we should also think about the distribution of people who contributed to this project. There are more than 1000 people working on Linux kernel project and on each release, they might want to put their effort into the main kernel tree, which is done at the merge window (usually takes time after the release of final version of a Linux kernel and before 2.6.33-rc1 gets released).

KernelNewbies still didn't have the brief summary yet, probably waiting for one or two RC before they considered it to be stable enough to be put online and read by public. Here's the 2.6.33-rc2 announcement by Linus on LWN.

First Workday

This was my first workday on 2010 and it was good to be able to work again since too much holidays are not good as well. It's not a full time yet, since the classes hasn't started yet, but i wanted to make my mind refreshed again by the mind of working environment, so that i will be fully prepared for tomorrow's job which requires me to work full load since we will be discussing about the new curriculum. Can't wait for tomorrow

New Memory and Battery

Today i bought a new memory stick and also a new rechargeable battery for my digital camera, Sony Cybershot DSC-100. Why would i do this when i have 2 GB on it already? It's because i will be going next week for about a week and i'm sure it will took a lot of pictures there.

I bought 8 GB of memory stick pro duo from SONY, which is the same vendor who produced the digital camera. At first, i was unsure whether the memory stick can be supported by the camera, since there was no information about this. I checked the Internet and one people said that it supported only up to 4 GB. The seller dare to take a risk and put a 8 GB on it and voila, it's detected normally. It can save up to 3000 8 MB quality pictures. Very nice right? So in total, i have 6 GB (4 + 2), which should be enough for taking lots of photos on my traveling journey

Just for precautions, i also bought a new rechargeable battery, which is the same as i had now (original battery). The one i had now has been used for some time and it's still very good, but it will be safe to bring another one for backup.

Vegas Casino Mirage

Going to Vegas means you are ready to rock and roll. You will most likely spend your money on the gambling places wide spread all around Vegas. For those who have been to Vegas, doing this activity is piece a cake, but for those who have never been to Vegas, they have to work on preparations, since Vegas are big enough and they sure have plenty of casinos and hotels there.

Vegas Casino Mirage is one of many places that have both hotel and casino under one roof top and guess what? They have just makeover the Mirage casino & hotel, so you will get a new design with more heat on the Volcano, which resembles Vegas (hot). The Volcano will erupt nightly every hour from 8PM till midnight. Can you imagine that? It will be a fascinating event every night before you go to sleep

Likes to taste new drinks? They have it all too. It's on their dazzling pools along with many other entertainments, such as waterfall, pool oasis, Cirque du Soleil and also Terry Fator Theatre. It's all there on the Vegas Casino Mirage.

Special note for the Casino. It's not only for gambling, but you can also play responsible gaming too. If you like sports rather than gaming, take a look on Mirage's 10,000 square feet of big-screen, state-of-the-art race and sports book, where you can see many kinds of sports, includingPro and college football, Hockey, Pro and college basketball, Auto racing,Womens' professional basketball, Golf, Baseball, Tennis, Boxing, World Series, NBA Championship, Stanley Cup, and mens' college football and basketball championships. It's all there in Mirage's Casino.

Afraid of not getting vacancy rooms? They have 3004 in totals, which means you have plenty of spaces there. For safety, it's advisable if you book them now using online reservations.

If you want to have a look on it's history, you can check Wikipedia's article about The Mirage. They sure have a long history, since it's been serving since 1989, which means 21 years since it's opening.

Portrait Drawings

Yesterday, i had a chance to browse YouTube and i found a cool video where the author drew several celebrities in the world, including Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Christian Bale, Angelina Jolie, and many more. He can even drew Po (Kung Fu Panda). You can check the official website here.

If you want to see how he draw those pictures, you can visit his channel on YouTube. What a creative person

End of Holidays

Tomorrow will be the last day before i'm going to work again on Monday. It's been a wonderful long holidays since last December (that's one year ago ). My sister took longer time to stay in Jogja so she could accompany my mother longer, since she only came back once a year. We had a wonderful time in the last few days since we always go out together along with my family and also my girlfriend.

Today, we were planning to go to Jejamuran, but when we got there, it was so full, so we decided to ate somewhere else. We finally decided to go to Pring Sewu which was the nearest with Jejamuran (it was 2.30 PM, so we were already hungry). After that, she went again with my mother and i took my girlfriend home and resting at home.

Tomorrow, she will leave to Jakarta and probably she will be coming back again next December. Thank sis and have a safe trip

Happy New Year

2009 has been a great year for all of us, but it's time to leave 2009 and start living in 2010 where new challenges, opportunities lies within it. I hope this would be a good start in 2010, so i would greet you all with:

Happy New Year 2010