Tjong A Fie Mansion, Medan, Indonesia

This is actually the 2nd time I have my writing in the Newsprint.
The story is about my visit to Tjong A Fie Mansion in Medan, on July 2013. I found that place as an interesting place for those of you who are looking for some different adventure in Medan, Indonesia.

Pikiran Rakyat, Sunday Aug 25th 2013

It is not a secret that Malaysian used to take a short shopping vacation to Medan, especially those who are very into textile and food. Medan is known as a place to buy cheap textile and also food heaven. 

Name the food that you wants to eat, and this city must have the best one. Not that I am coming from Medan, but believe me it's true. 
So, planning to go to Medan?? You might wants to add this place to your itinerary. 

Tjong A Fie Mansion, located at Jalan Kesawan Medan, very nearby to Merdeka Walk. The entrance fee is only Rp. 35,000 (around MYR 10). They do have the guide that can speak in English very well. 

Enjoy!!

-In Front of the House-

-The so called Lunch Box, but for the whole family :)-

-The unusual testament-

Newsprint - Keindahan dari Beranda Masjid

My writing at the newsprint..

Things You Need to Know about Legoland Malaysia

I believe some of you already know about the new Legoland Theme Park which is located at Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Since the name is Legoland, then all the park is using lego as the main attraction. 

Legoland Main Entrance

This park actually started operating sometimes around September last year (2012), so it is still very new. Located in the Nusa Jaya Area, it is around half hour driving from the centre of JB. Not too far actually, but the area seems just very new and open only for this purpose. On the left side of the Legoland Main Entrance, they are still constructing the Legoland Hotel and Waterpark. As the plan, it will only be open on 2014.

Since the park is still very new, I have some tips before coming to this place :

Ticket
The ticket price to enter this place is reasonable for me :
Adult : RM 140
Child and Senior : RM 110
But buying the ticket on line is a lot way cheaper rather than buying it directly at the gate. If we already knew the exact date to come, then better buy on line. It will only cost us RM 112 for adult and RM 88 for child and senior. And also do not forget to check the discount voucher. Some products may sell the discount voucher. Last time I get 35% discount voucher buy buying RM4 Mamie's product.

Umbrella, Sunglasses, and Hat
Throw away your jacket, use the very comfortable clothes and also do not forget to bring, umbrella, sunglasses and hat. This park is way too hot! Johor it self is already a hot temperature city, and then with this new open park, the trees are still not enough to block the sun go straight away to your head, there are also no building comes to surround this area. So just prepare yourself to drink lots of water.

Backup Clothes
Bring along your backup clothes. Not because you will play with water and get wet, but mostly because the weather. After enjoy playing in this park, my husband brought my son to take a bath and change his entire clothes. Me and my husband also do that thing, changed our entire clothes.

I can give 4 stars to this place because the place is very clean, the restaurant sell food with taste with reasonable price, the supporting area also complete. They built a nice Surau, Baby Care Room and Toilet.

Huge and Clean Toilet

I even can put the ***** (5 stars) to the baby care room. Not only because of the place is cold hehe :p but, inside the room we can found 2 big toilets for changing place. The play area, huge pantry with all the equipment might be needed, and then a baby cot and of course the nursery room. 

They have two person in charge inside this place. One for taking care of the tidiness of this place and the other one responsible for the door. Because some of the man, might not reading the sign that they are not allowed to enter this place. 



The park is very child friendly. Some parks may let kid to come inside the park and then got nothing to do. But Legoland is different, it is actually built for the child. The games and the ride can actually be used by child with age 3 and above. So it is worth to pay the ticket. My son got very happy with the games here. He really enjoyed the whole day, even though it is so hot that day.

Complete Pantry!!

Then the last thing is for the souvenirs shop. Usually I always be a fan of souvenir shop inside a theme park. But not for this one. They mainly only sell Lego in this place. They did sell some other thing, but not that interesting. Even the fridge magnet does not work on me :p 

So I think that's all for the Legoland trip from me. Hope every one who wants to go to this place get a better idea :) Do not forget to check to the Legoland Calender, because they will close several time in a year, and of course do not forget to check my other story about other theme park.

Strait of Malacca Mosque

A beauty will always be a beauty..
This is the word that I can use to describe the Masjid Selat Melaka. As the name, the position of this mosque is literally at the strait of Malacca. It is 2 hours away from Kuala Lumpur. This mosque development started on 2003 and only finished on 2006. It took almost 3 years to create this beauty. The concept of this building mixed the Arabian and Malay architecture style. And what makes this Mosque become different with others is the building of the Mosque is on top of water. So we also can called this Mosque as a Floating Mosque.

There are several things that I found a little bit uncommon with this mosque :

View

astonishing!!

This is the view from the back of the mosque. First time I stepped in front of the mosque, I was too excited. Then I walked to the back of the mosque, there's nothing than Subhanallah.. We can hear the sound of the wave and the wind from the sea. Not to forget at the beautiful blue sky, without clouds on it.

Vacancy

Actually it was my husband who's paying attention to this unique vacancy ad. It is different yet using a catchy kind of wording. This mosque is looking for Makmum. In Moslem, Makmum means the follower of Imam at the praying time. Since this mosque was built at the very end of the road and at the strait, there are not so many people can come to pray in this mosque. That is why, by using Pahala as the reward (from the Almighty), they invite us to come at the praying time.



Tower

multi function tower

The tower of the mosque have a double function. Not only used for the mosque purpose, but also as the light house at the night. The tower itself, is still in the same area of the mosque.

Child Friendly

children play area

Not so many of mosque that I have been visited got a children play area and a baby care area. This mosque prepare for those thing, they got the children play area at the corner of the mosque and the baby care inside the woman toilet. All of the part of the mosque is very clean. I found this toilet is the cleanest kind of toilet that I have ever visited.







The area surrounding this mosque is still so quite. There are no housing around it. But, just next to the mosque, they are developing a unique kind of building, looks like using an Arabian style, but I can not get the exact information about the function of the building. Whatever the purpose of the building, I hope it can make the mosque can get more visitors so that the mosque management can pull down the vacancy ad as soon as possible ('',)

Also visit my other Mosque journey here :
Hongkong
Shah Alam
Islamic Art Museum

Menjadi Seorang Srikandi

Gambar : Pitoyo.com

Srikandi dalam kisah pewayangan digambarkan sebagai sosok seorang prajurit wanita. Pejuang wanita yang tidak pernah takut menghadapi perang, menghadapi rintangan dalam hidupnya. Kisah inilah yang kemudian banyak menginspirasi para wanita untuk menjadi a strong woman. Wanita yang bisa berdiri untuk dirinya sendiri, tentunya tanpa melupakan kodratnya sebagai wanita.   

Tahun ini 2013, ajang pemilihan Srikandi Blogger digelar. Ajang ini merupakan pemilihan yang dilakukan oleh Kumpulan Emak-Emak Blogger untuk para anggotanya yang sudah mendaftarkan diri untuk ikut. Tidak ada batasan usia, jenis tulisan, bekerja atau tidak, lulus sarjana atau tidak. Batasan yang jelas hanya antara wanita atau bukan. Ya namanya juga Srikandi ya..

Singkat cerita, saya dengan sepenuh hati, tanpa berpikir apakah akan menang atau kalah, mendaftarkan diri untuk mengikuti ajang ini. Saya tertarik untuk ikut, setelah saya membaca kisah Srikandi. Jujur saja, saya bukan orang yang tertarik mengenai cerita pewayangan apapun. Sehingga sebelum mendaftar, saya harus tahu terlebih dulu, siapa sebenarnya Srikandi ini. Kenapa sampai ajang ini memilih nama Srikandi untuk mewakili wanita yang berkompetisi didalamnya. Ternyata, memang tidak salah nama Srikandi dipilih untuk mewakili sosok wanita. 

Sebenarnya, dengan mengikuti pemilihan Srikandi Blogger ini, membuat saya terpacu untuk terus berkarya. 
Sedikit cerita, saya sudah hampir 2 tahun menetap di Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Sebelumnya, saya dan keluarga tinggal di Jakarta. Saat saya masih di Jakarta, saya bekerja pada salah satu Bank Swasta Nasional, sehingga kegiatan rutin saya adalah bekerja. Ketika memutuskan untuk ikut dengan suami ke Malaysia, saya tidak pernah tahu apa yang akan saya kerjakan. Menjadi Ibu Rumah Tangga yang memang benar-benar tinggal di rumah, tidak pernah masuk ke dalam bayangan saya tentang hidup saya. 3 bulan pertama, merupakan bulan-bulan tersulit bagi saya, saya yang biasa bekerja, menjadi tinggal di rumah. Saya yang biasa punya 2 orang asisten rumah tangga untuk mengurus anak dan rumah, tiba-tiba harus mengurus semuanya sendiri. Banyak hal lain yang tentunya membuat 3 bulan itu menjadi cukup berat bagi saya. Bukan tidak sering saya merasa menjadi ketakutan dan menjadi insecure dengan kondisi saya.

Tapi, ternyata selepas 3 bulan tersebut, energi saya kembali terkumpul. Saya menjadi orang yang tidak pernah berhenti berkegiatan. Senin hingga Jumat saya punya setengah hari untuk berkarya, apapun itu. Sabtu dan Minggu, saya pergunakan untuk mengikuti kursus sertifikasi untuk menjadi Perencana Keuangan. Cita-cita dan passion saya dari dulu yang tidak pernah bisa terealisasi, karena terjepit oleh jam kantor. Saya kembali menjadi Srikandi untuk keluarga kecil ini. Saya menjadi orang yang tahu kalau berkarya bisa darimana saja.

Mungkin ini juga yang ingin ditonjolkan oleh para panitia Srikandi Blogger. Nominasi, maupun juara terpilih nantinya merupakan wanita yang bisa bersuara (lewat media apapun, termasuk tulisan), wanita yang tahu cara menghargai diri sendiri, wanita yang tetap menjadi suri rumah tangga, dan tentunya wanita yang tidak pernah berhenti untuk berkarya.

Kalau saya berkesempatan menjadi pemenang, waaah saya bakal bersyukur sekali karena pastinya tidak mudah. Yang pasti, saya berjanji tidak akan pernah berhenti berkarya. Saya akan terus memanfaatkan blog, dan media sosial yang ada untuk menyampaikan suara saya dari jauh, tentang pentingnya menjadi bermanfaat untuk diri sendiri dan orang lain, dan tentu tentang pentingnya merencanakan keuangan keluarga.

Great Event, Gone Very Well :)

This last Saturday, 35 Indonesian's people who lived in Malaysia, were having a great time. We're spending half day attending the Financial Planning Talk with Ligwina Hananto.

Ligwina Hananto is one of the popular Independent Financial Planner from Jakarta, Indonesia. She's the one with the strong word about financial planning. That day, she did an excellence job by sharing the reality about what we have to face in terms of family financial planning, to all of my friends here. A big thanks to her.

I actually came up with the idea to invite her to come to talk here on end of last year. 

I just feel that maybe I also need a refreshment and of course I really wants to help my friends to go through the right path about this financial planning thingy. 

Living abroad sometimes it is not as easy as it seems, in terms of financial. Great if we are hired by a huge company, and treated as an expat, but sometimes financial planning is not only about financial problem, but more to understanding. But hopefully every single person who attend the talk, not only having fun here, but get a clear idea about how should we manage our financial planning in a correct way. 

The talk was covering the financial planning process, from start preparing the Emergency Fund until how to get to the Financial Freedom. 4 hours interactive talk, long enough actually, but still people keep coming in person to ask for their own questions to Wina after the talk. See the crowd..

Lining up for the personal questions..

After the talk, I received lots of positive feedback from my friends. Ooooh I am so proud of myself hehe..I think I deserved it :p 

Just never imagine that I can make something like this happen. 

Happy "Early" Birthday Greetings from Ibu..

Taken from "Parenthood" TV Series :

If someday you become a parent, you will see so much of yourself in your children. Your eyes, your smile and whatever. But one thing that you have to remember, they are not you. They are a different person.

I am not to sure whether the words are exactly the same or not. But that is the message coming from a mom, as a selfnote to herself to her daughter. I am totally agree about that sentence. 

Sometimes as a parent, we think that our children are us. Asking them to be just like us. Asking them to act the way we act, taking the same decision making process and point of view just like how we did it. Until we forgot that they also have they own style in facing life and also until we forgot that they can not read our mind. 

My son is going to be 4 next week. I have not gone so far and of course yet so mature in parenting. I am just trying as best as I can as a parent. Currently I am working on how to communicate in a good way. Try to respect his feeling, try to listen what he wants to say instead of cutting him off. For me, communication is the very most important thing that every family should have. 

I try many ways, I bought and read books. I watch movies, like this "Parenthood" one. And the most important thing is, I practice. Practice does makes perfect right? :)

His 4 years old birthday, is my fourth year being a parent. Still gotta lot of homework to do. We will work on it and keep doing great son..I promise..

Happy Birthday Son..

-Love, Ibu-

 

While In Hongkong - Culture Shock

New places, will always come with new story. Starts from the habits of the native people and the culture. Some might be totally different with ours and very unique also. From my short trip to Hongkong and Macau few days ago, I found out some habits and culture that was totally different with mine, there are :

HKIA praying room

• Before we went to this place, we already knew that the challenge for us is to find a place to pray. That is also why we manage to not only stay nearby a mosque, but also to arrange the places we visits so we can stop by at the nearby mosque. All the day trip went well, until we are about to go back to KL and at the airport. My husband almost pray at the emergency exit, but then we find a different kind of sign in front of us. So the picture next to us is the praying room at HKIA. Since it is a praying room, so every religion is welcome here. The room supplied everything we need to pray, Qur'an and Shalah utilities, Bible, and other books that I don't know what it is. This praying room is at Terminal 2, just next to the Pacific Coffee and nearby Disneyland Store. So relief that HK have this place :)

• It is never written that we have to stand at the right side at the escalators or stairs or ways in HK. But that's the practice there, so just left your left side empty. People are always rushing there, they will take the left side to walk faster.

• I found an umbrella dispensers machine at the MTR Station. At the machine, we can find the excellence of buying the umbrella. And what is the most surprising thing for me is that the umbrella is under a warranty. The price for each umbrella is HKD 78. Should really grab one :)  

Cute Umbrella Machine

• Not to forget, Hongkong's street is so small. Actually I kinda like it, very easy to cross the street. Eventhough the streets are small, but the bus using the street are the big buses. Also, since they are using tram as one of they transportation mode, the streets are full with the tram's tracks. Just pay full attention to the traffic light because if you're not, it will be very dangerous. 

• Macau's currency is MOP, but we can use HKD to do transaction in this country. Don't care whether we are at the small shop or at the big department store. Even we can pay our transportation using HKD in this country. They treated the HKD just like they treated their MOP. Only it doesn't work the way around. In Hongkong, no one will receive the MOP to transact. So better finish the MOP before leaving Macau.

Also read here for more stories about Hongkong :

1. Masjid and Halal Food Tour

2. Hongkong Transportation Mode

3. Disneyland Hongkong

While In Hongkong - Disneyland

Our first destination in Hongkong is the Disneyland. The place where Mickey and Minnie Mouse and other characters of Disney stays. We consider to choose this place in our first day visit, because we just can not let this Disney things left behind and ended up not to visit it. Curiosity and also my son's request to see his "friends" was the of course considered as the main reason. 

How to get there?

Direction to go to Disneyland is everywhere. Very easy to find. Last time we choose the MTR. As I mentioned before, you can go anywhere you want from the Central station, that is why, I choose to give direction always from central. From Central Station, change to the Thung Ching Line MTR, and stopped at the Sunny Bay station. Sunny Bay station is the special stop for everyone who wants to go to the Disneyland. From this point we have to wait for the express train to bring us to the Disneyland. The ambiance here already feels like we are at the Disneyland. The express train windows are designed with the Mickey Mouse head, and the interior of this train also designed with Disney's character. The fare for this express train is HKD 21 (if I am not mistaken) and we can use our Octopus card to pay for this train. There are also other ways to get here, you can check it here.

Cute Disneyland Express Interior

Even this one coming with the Mickye's Head

Ticketing and Fare 

Given tips from my friend, we bought the ticket online. The price in buying online or direct is the same price. Last week price is still HKD 399 for adult and HKD 285 for child. But, just now I checked the website, the price already changed. 

Buying ticket online will avoid you from a long line and the probability that the Disneyland stop selling the ticket at that day, since the park is already full. Tips for you who paid the ticket online, please bring along the card that use to paid for the entrance ticket. The automagic counter will need you to insert the card, to printed out the ticket. Yes the name is automagic, and here is the counter.

Eventhough we're saved from the que in buying the tickets, but we still have to que to come inside the Disneyland. The gate person, needs to checked our bag one by one to ensure that we are not bringing any kind of food to the park, and also things that may caused danger. They even checked our small passport bag.

Passing through this gate, now you can enjoy the Disney world, do not forget to take the maps and the show schedule at the information board. 

What is inside the Disneyland?

At the time we was there, there are several attractions and shows that is under maintenance, but they still put it at the schedule. Fortunately we've checked the website before we go, so we do not waste our time to wait for the shows that will not happen anyway.

There is the Golden Mickey Show, considered as the Main show in this park. Unfortunately the show is on Mandarin speaking, so it hard for us to get the full concentration to watch that live show meanwhile we still have to looked at the subtitle on the right screen in front of us. My son who also can not read complaint about it, he barely can not understand the show.

toy story on stage

Other than that show, there are also The Mickey's Philhar Magic Show. We are given the 3D glasses to watch this show. The show is look alike with the Shrek's show in USS, the different is on the seats. The seats in USS moved along the show, this Mickey's show is not.

The other big show is the parade. It is a big parade. All of the Disney characters were there. For one with kid, surely do not missed this parade. They will be really happy to see the character waving and giving an eye to eye contact with them. 

 

One last show that we've missed is the Firework show. Bear in mind, if you bring kid to travel along with you, just follow your gut, when to stop to take a rest and when to keep on going. That time, my son was so tired, until he can not open his eyes. So before the fireworks start, we decided to go back to the hotel. 

Tips for Moslem

Disneyland only sell Halal food at the Adventure Land Area. In this area, there are two food court, one is halal and the other one is not. Please check first before entering the restaurant. The halal food restaurant sure have the halal logo in front of it. Food here is a little bit pricey, but it is worth it to buy. Details about the food is here.

I did not see any praying place inside the Disneyland, so just bring along the Sajadah and you can asked for a space to pray. Last time my husband did it at the Lion King show area (which is closed at that time). Eventhough the person who we did asked about the place can not understand what we're asking about, still she gave us a space to pray.

So this is it for the Disneyland Tour..
Enjoy!!

While In Hongkong - Transportation Mode

Hongkong surely has a complete and integrated kind of public transportation mode. All of the transportation mode are connected one to another from different point to point. Being a visitors to this country, there will be no such thing of getting lost. Not only because of the transportation, but also because of the complete information is very easy to find. 

Before go deep about the transportation mode, there is one important thing that needed to enjoy the comprehensive transportation, that is the Octopus Card.

Octopus Card

Octopus card is the name of the card that we need to have to travel around Hongkong. Named after the octopus, it describes the function of the card. Can be use for every kind of transportation mode also as a replacement for cash in lots of stores in Hongkong. 

The octopus card actually produced in several type, but for the travellers used, just buy the rent card one. The initial price for this card is HKD 150, contains of HKD 50 deposits and HKD 100 credit. After finished the travelling, we can got the refund for the amount left inside the card and return it, with HKD 9 charge if the time holding for the card is less than 3 months. The refund can be made at the customer services booth at the MTR station. 

If you decided not to have the Octopus card, taking MTR is no problem at all. Simply buy the MTR ticket at the customer service. But problem will occur if you are going to take the bus. The bus will not give you the change, so you must be ready with the exact amount of fare, or just bear the loss from paying more than the fare. 

Transportation Mode
Like I said before, that HK is doing very well in serving public transport not only for the citizen, but also for the visitors. The common public transport used are bus, MTR, taxi, tram and ferry. As the example, I will tell how we decided to choose our transport to get to the hotel from the airport. The airport actually provided all kind of transportation as I mentioned above. 

Airport Express

Airport Express is the express train that will only stop at the Central station and or the airport. Pros of using the airport express is because it is the fastest way to reach the Central station, only 40 minutes. The only problem in using it is, the train will only stop at the Central Station and we need to transfer to the different line to get to our hotel. With a lots of luggages, I strongly not recommend to use this way, because to get to the different line, we need to walk so far. Other than that, the fare for this train also quite expensive, it is around HKD 60  for a single journey. Can check the fare in this link.

Bus Stop..

Public Bus

There are a dozen of public buses that we can choose from the airport. The one with higher fare with less stops, or the one with the lower fare with more stops. The pros of riding the bus is with lots of luggages we do not need to go up and down the bus until we meet our stops, the fare is very cheap, last time it is only HKD 21 per person, and also we can see the city view by riding the bus. The cons is the bus will take about 1 to 1.5 hour to get to the places, but still it depends on the destination. The complete information can be find in this link. 

Taxi

Same with the bus, taxi also a hassle free way for a lot of luggages. The only thing is the taxi driver will count the luggages and put the extra charge HKD 5 to every luggage. The other thing with taxi is, we really need to know the exact address of our destination. Sometimes the taxi driver only know the area but not the exact building that we are looking at, so it will be much better to have the map to the place. 

Ferry

Ferry services from the airport only destined to Macau or Shenzhen (if I am not mistaken), so that is the reason why we do not choose this mode. But we did experiencing the ferry to Macau on the other day, also from a different harbour, called Hongkong Ferry Macau Terminal. The name of the Ferry is Turbo Jet. Will put the details in my Macau trip :) Other than that, the ferry also served us to come across Hongkong Island, Kowloon and the Outlaying Island.  

Tram
Other than all of that transportation above, they still have the tram called the Ding-Ding Tram. The trams journey divided in to West Bound and East Bound Tram. The tram start working on 5 am and will only stop at 12am. Even the rate is also cheap around HKD 2.3 per single journey.

For the recap, to go around Hongkong, we can choose the transportation mode that we want. I have been travelling using the bus, MTR and ferry. But my favourite one is bus, not to tell that I am too lazy to walk so far only to get transferred to the different line, but it is also much  cheaper compare to the MTR. And one main reason, for a traveller I really need to see the city, taking pictures from the bus, getting to know about the road and area that I passed through. 

So this is a wrap for the transportation mode in Hongkong!!