The Team

Hmm.. at TA Research we have a mini team. That would be me, Patricia and Ikmal. (Pat and Kimal). It all started last year. Kimal found a RM200 return ticket to Yogyakarta on MAS. The three of us, looked at each other in unison and decided to book the tickets in the span on 20 seconds! That was the Original sin. heheheh

Me and Kimal are at the back

The four of us, including Luke, Pat's bf went to Yogya early January in 2009. It was fun. I made a few friends there. It all started when we were in town, I walked past this art booth and an artist was sketching a portrait. Since I loathe walking and was wayy too tired to continue walking around, I told Kimal that I wanted to get my portrait done by that dude. So I checked and bargained and sat. I was getting the hang of speaking Indonesian and we were chatting away... I told him we wanted to go to Borobudur. At that point of time, we were going with the hotel's taxi which would have cost RP1mn or so? Then the artist, his name is Stick, told me that we could use his friend. And that we could just pay for petrol and tip him. So, I called Kimal and Pat... we discussed and within 5 minutes we all agreed to use Stick's friend.

Later on, after shopping and once my portrait was done, we were dying for cheap and good Indonesian massage. Stick, volunteered to take us in his van :) Bless him. So he took us to this place, it looked alright. We had a 2hour massage each with scrub and it only cost us RP70k=RM25? We felt soooo bad and gave a RP50k tip to our masseuse.

The next day, at 3 am, Stick's friend took us to Borobudur. Travel time was about 3 hours. We got there just in time for sunrise. What can I say, it was amazing. Hahahhaha we saw it from the van-not from Borobudur. Entrances were closed till after sunrise. You're supposed to stay there from the night before if you wanted to get sunrise at the temple.

And then, hmmmm.....yea..we climbed up. We got separated and at one point, we were shouting for each other... like "Paaaatttt where are you?"... until.. a lady came up to us and said .."Wow! You can speak english!".. and we were like ...''err..is that a trick question?".. and then she was like.."oh good. Can I ask for a favour?"..hmmmm.... Me: What kind of favour?, Lady: Oh Im a teacher and I would like you and your friends to gather around and converse in English in front of my student. Me & Kimal: oohhhhhhh... Ok la then...hahahahha

Guess what? There were about 100 students!!! The first 10 minutes were spent on camera! I mean, smiling and posing for the students' cameras. We felt like celebrities hahahhaha seriously And then it died down. So we started by asking some simple questions to the kids. Obviously, the good students would show off to us and asked us some questions. Funny thing was, it wasnt much of a conversation. The students were mostly memorizing sentences and not knowing what it means... or not knowing how to answer apart from the cursory "I am fine thank you"...

Then, we left Borobudur and checked out other temples. On our way back we stopped by Afandi's Gallery. Afandi was this famous Indonesian artist. His stuff are unique, but self-centric. He was portraying himself, his emotions, his demons, his life etc... His paintings closer to his death were slightly different...Probably he showed some anger..or frustrations...heheheh mcm terer la pulak kan...

All in all, it was a good short trip. We had good food. Good company. But that was the start. Then the ticket booking became more rampant. Boss got ticked. So did my dad. But you know what? I llloooveee looking at my passport. Its colourful! Hehehhehe

So yea...next year, me Pat and Kimal are headed to India.. then Cambodia.. we went to Bali..Medan...Jakarta... oh Europe... ish ish... supposedly New Zealand which I bailed out on cause I was saving up for Europe... hmmmm....Thats our team. :)

xoxo