indonesia

i remember when i posted my very first photo album on indonesia in facebook, someone remarked or asked - how's the situation in indonesia? better now?

situation? what situation? the only bad situation i'm faced with on my first trip to indonesia is the traffic situation. i still don't get it why at the traffic light the drivers there prefer to stop on the line, instead of in between the lines. funny. nevertheless, it's a nice country, with a lot of nice places to go to.

my current work has taken me to a lot of cities in indonesia. i've covered more cities in indonesia, i think, than majority of the indonesians. and i loves every part of it. ok... perhaps, except batam. if not for work or a one day cheap stuff shopping, i don't think i'll ever set foot on batam again.

my first trip was way back in early november 2008. to palembang, the historical city once a buddhist kingdom of srivijaya and also where parameswara comes from.

this is the very first picture that i took of palembang.


look at the traffic. it's pretty bad when you're there to experience it. people don't give way, and short honking can be heard from time to time.


i stayed at the aryaduta hotel, in palembang square. it's just a stone throw away from the shopping mall. not the big ones with lots of nice shops, more like the shopping mall that you normally finds in small towns. and it has carrefour as its ancor tenant.


this is the jembatan ampera, on sungai musi. it was built by the japanese as a gift to the people of palembang (what the..??) before they surrender during world war 2.


lastly, this is the ayam bakar that i so damn like, ok. and nope! this is not the local food which is famous in palembang. the famous local food of palembang is called pempek.


i didn't take any pictures of the pempek, as i did not bring along my camera when we went out for supper that night. pempek is actually fish cake and available in varieties. i tried all, some tasted nice, some tasted ok and one sure tasted weird to me tho. i think it's call pempek panggang.

palembang, aside from being a historical city, there are nothing much to offer from a tourist point of view. it can be a pretty boring place as there are not much tourist sites, except the musi river? oh... there's another mosque that was built looking like a temple.


anyway, i went to palembang twice, and i think i'll be making another trip there soon. looking forward to meeting my indonesian friends(from work) there tho.

new leash of life...

wow... my last post was way back in nov 2008 and that's more than 4 months ago! i can't believe how fast time passes by just like that and that was posted when i was in palembang, my first working trip. the past 5 months has been nothing short of a life changing experience for me.

joining a new company, something that probably not what i would have expected after 4 years in the previous company, so comfortably wrapped around in my comfort zone. maybe might not be so accurate to say it's something that i do not expect, as i have been contemplating on a move for a while before i finally updated my resume and started hunting for a new job.

interviews were not hard to come by, surprisingly. and i was surprised even more that i have quite a number of offers in the bag, even from the mncs! since my graduation, i had not been to much interviews, let alone sending out tonnes of letters with resumes. my first job was sealed even before i go for the interview. the manager of the headhunter company likes my resume that she highly recommended me to the company. well, the first job lasted me a good 8 months before i quit the IT field for good, venturing into a totally different field.

excited. met a lot of people, both in the industry and other industries as well. it opened up my eyes to the world of businessmen and how deals are done. knowledge? it's important, but networks and friendships play an even greater part!

it's inspirational when you have direct access to the people who are part of the founding members of the company. how long have they come... how much hard work had they put it to get to where they are now. how much have they improved. imagine someone who started work at aged 19, and can't even speak a word of english. now he is the leader of a publicly listed company and speaks fluent english.

somehow, towards the end, things didn't really work out. some people get stagnant and prefer to stay the same and not fix it if it's ain't broken. i almost fell into that category, and it makes me feel kinda miserable. i hesitated, but i am really glad to finally forced myself to update the resume.

my new job has given me a new leash of life. new industry. wider scope. bigger responsibilities. and worst of all... a target to meet. kpi. dem.

update more later...