Happy Bunny Year 2011!

For me, CNY is identical with gathering + eating. And the result is always the same: overweight me with sore throat due to excessive consumption of cookies. This year though, my gathering is a bit different. Instead of having rounds of visits to friends’ place, we take a short family trip to explore a little bit of North Sumatera.


Happy Chinese New Year: Chu 1 at my place

We had the usual reunion dinner on CNY eve and relative’s gathering (a.k.a. red pocket collection period) on CNY Chu 1. On Chu 2, all of us woke up early and all ready for the first destination: Sidikalang.


Taman Iman, Sidikalang

The destination is called Taman Iman “Garden of Beliefs”, where it contained the symbols & statues for all the five religions in Indonesia. It has Vihara for Buddhist, Church for Christian, Pura for Hindu, and definitely Mosque for Moslem; all in the same garden. The garden itself belongs to the government, which is well taken care of. The entrance fee was Rp 5,000 (less than a dollar), which is reasonable considering that we can actually spend one whole day to wander around the place.

Unfortunately, the road to that location wasn’t very accessible. It was a painful 5 hours ride from my hometown with bumpy road. In addition, the lousy driver (I’m sorry, he really was) washed away my will to visit the place for the second time.

Our second location was Taman Simalem, which is called the Pearl of Lake Toba. It was located around 4 hrs from my hometown. The journey is as bumpy as the first one. The entrance few was Rp 200,000 per car (!!!) which is quite expensive in my POV. It was raining when we reached, and there is nothing much up there as well. Most of the locations are still under construction… and my sister told me that it has been under construction forever. We spend less than 2 hours there, then moved on to have our dinner and rest at Brastagi, Sibayak.


Taman Simalem Resort

All my family members (except myself) are morning risers. They could say that they were super tired and wanted to sleep for the whole morning, and then woke up before the sunrise. The same thing happened in the trip. They promised that I can sleep as much as I want, but finally knocked me awake when they have all showered and ready to go for breakfast. It was freaking 7am in the morning!! T_T Luckily, I was quickly refreshed by the morning shower. After breakfast, we spent the rest of the morning at the warm swimming pool before going to Brastagi Market. After sometime, we proceed to Sibolangit for lunch.



Sibayak - Brastagi

It was 1PM when I queued for the KFC there… and 2PM when I finally got the food. I can’t believe how lousy the service was. The person at the cashier can spend 5 mins at the cashier, then disappeared for 10 mins for frying some chicken. Even when the meal came with milo, they gave us Pepsi, saying that they run out of Milo (but refuse when we want to change it to tea). Further on, they run out of Rp 500 money for change, and so they just don’t give us the Rp 500 change!! What kind of rule is that?


KFC Indonesia – So little choice, so expensive!

After getting disappointment from KFC, we then move on to the themepark: Green Hill. It was crowded as they came with 2 CNY package. Package “Chin”: Pay Rp. 50,000, which come with 15 ticket rides or package “Chay”: Pay Rp 12,000 just for the entrance ticket. If you combine both words, it actually means “Generous” in Hokkien dialect. We picked the later and went in to the theme park. Of course, the place is not as amazing as USS, but considering its entrance fee (which is less than SGD 2), I think the place was really worthwhile. I paid another 2 bucks to try the rollercoaster “Gelegar” ride, which ended with me getting bruises around my legs. The ride was brutal!


Green Hill - Sibolangit

It was already 5PM when we decided to call it a day and traveled back to Medan. Alas, the traffic was jammed; so much that it took us 2.5 hrs for the normal 1 hrs ride. We reached Medan only at around 7.30PM. After dinner at Bakso Sumatera, we went back home and get some rest.

The next day on Chu 4, I went for a swim at Aston Swimming Pool. Oh God it was small T_T I took some 50 rounds of swim and still didn’t feel anything. After the swim, we continued with lunch at Aston’s restaurant: Green Jade.

With Uncle #5 & Family

The time was 2PM after lunch, so we checked out from the hotel and then went to visit one more relative. Afterwards, my parents traveled back to hometown, where I stayed for another 2 nights before my flight to Medan on Tuesday.

Chu 5, I woke up at 8.30 and welcomed by black out =__=. My sister was teasing me saying I’m the blackout bringer in the family. After breakfast, I browse through photos, help sisters to burn some into CD, and then idle for a while before deciding to pay a visit to Lisa & Lifen sis. I had a great fun chatting and eating with them. Lifen’s baby is so adorable! Jadyn Kimberly, may you grow to be the girl that both your parents proud of!


The latest addition to the family - Jadyn Kimberly

Chu 6, I flew of to Singapore. After some belated spring-cleaning, I went to pay a visit to Lily sis. It took me 5 mins to get her a gift, but an hour to hunt for mandarin orange. It’s so hard to find it anywhere now. I still don’t really understand why Singapore doesn’t have mandarin oranges in its normal fruit list.

Chu 7, I went to Bugis and did some praying. Along with that, managed to tick some tasks off my to do list. I reached back home at around 5PM, and then start to prepare myself for tomorrow. Downloaded Bangkok Traffic Love Story and Hello Stranger. Can’t wait to watch it!

Overall, I’m 4 kg fatter and still happy o^.^o
Have a fluffy year, everyone!
ED

PS: Saw this comic strip from xkcd and love it :p