A Therapy Room for Minds

USA trip: Day 1: Arriving New York

vveen — Sun, 29 May 2011 04:43:55 +0000

after a 23-hour long trip from Jakarta, Singapore and Frankfurt, at 10.26AM we’ve finally arrived at JFK int’l airport for the very first time.

oh..this is my first long haul trip i’ve ever been. I don’t complain about the trip though, but the meals served in the plane really made me insane!

the immigration process at the airport was rather easy, except for our luggages, which were both tagged as priority, turned up as the last batch! hubby was a bit worried during the waiting, thanks to lost baggage experience in UK before.

we were picked by a very nice young lady who took us to our limo driver and car that were going to take us to SoHo, where we booked our hotel. it was 12.45 PM and it was almost three hours too early before the allowed check-in time, but thank God they let us in!

New York’s weather cannot be more friendly than today. it gave me peace in mind when the pick-up lady said the weather is gonna be good while we’re here.

in attempt to beat the jetlag, we made ourself ready for the adventure early. we took shower and changed clothes and then grabbed some sandwich from Dunkin Donut at the corner of the hotel.
we then learned on how subway work here in NY from the map we picked at hotel’s receptionist table. with hubby’s reliable compass on his watch, we made our first subway trip successfully from SoHo (Canal St) to WTC Walkpath. yes, we’re visiting Wall Street!

on our way to Wall Street we saw the Trinity Chapel (a very nice little relief chapel dedicated for people who lost their lives for the country. but for the last decade, it was a famous relief chapel to remember 9/11 victims) across Ground Zero.

we bumped into some beautiful buildings in downtown on our way to Wall Street. we walked down the Broadway St., lured by how fast the city moves and the beauty of well maintained parks across the city.

we found Wall St and took some pics there. the street is not long and actually filled more by the tourists. we also saw the lovely Federal Hall. I saw Bank of New York building at the first corner and got very excited. we also saw NY Stock Exchange building, Trump Building, JP Morgan’s first building, Fidelity…

we kept on walking down the street and mad our way to Pearl St and Pier 11. we initially wanted to ride a watertaxi to Brooklyn, but then we were intimidated by the long queue (it’s after office hour – and locals who lives in Broklyn use the waterway as their transportation mean to Manhattan) because we were too tired.

we finally ended the day by walking down to Chinatown and had an early dinner at GoGo dimsum restaurant. to our own surprise, Chinatown in NY is huugeee! the biggest Chinatown we’ve ever seen…

Chinatown is also close to Little Italy but we saved it for another dinner time. we keep walking down the street to our hotel to catch some sleep instead.

that’s our first day in NY. nothing spectacular yet, but i love every bit of our trip.

next: NY day two: Statue of Liberty, Midtown Shopping and Empire State Building.

update here and there

vveen — Thu, 26 May 2011 13:25:58 +0000

i’m finally able to switch on that option, Out of Office assistant and put my unavailability status: on a compliance leave. yes, not on training or out of office meetings.

so many MANY awesome things have happened in my life lately. it’s so sad that i didn’t manage to blog about them.

few things that happened: my US visa is approved (just one day before my birthday!) and hubby got me that 50mm lens i’ve been eyeing. you see, i’e crossed out few out of my wishlist already.

and what’s happening right now is that i’m sitting nicely inside a plane that will take me to Singapore and the next 20+ hours, another carrier will take me to… NEW YORK! and it’s THAT real New York, Big Apple, city where they filmed Sex and The City, CSI NY, Criminal Minds…yes, that one! (i sound so ‘kampong’ here, but hey, you know i’ve always dreamt about Big Apple!)

you see, i’m SO ecstatic!

so wish me a great and safe trip! maaan…this is going to be a looooong flight

confusing world

vveen — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:55:27 +0000

is it that harmful to teach your kid your own (and their own too, by the way) national language?

what happens to ‘mother tongue’ nowadays? here in jakarta, what happens to it?

recent purchase(s)

vveen — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:13:55 +0000

i’m so glad that Indonesia has slowly grown a lot of promising product designers who produce a very nice quality goods from clothing, accessories (shoes and bag), furniture, hardwares and many other stuffs.

for the past four years, i’ve been switching my purchase preference to shop local-made product. i didn’t remember exactly how the cusp of the preference change, but i remember that it was hard to find a good quality product that comes with unique style and friendly tag price! (i think some import brands here are overpriced, but buying cheap & mediocre clothes that turned ugly after being washed twice is not a wise act either). to my own excitement, i don’t remember how and when exactly jakarta suddenly has a lot of fun things to visit (and spend some money on). cool events such as Brightspot Market, Inacraft, countless batik expos, also not to mention mushrooming online shops that people love including Cotton Ink, Nikicio and Petite Cupcakes; they are my answered prayers!

here i show you my recent purchase. and i love them all

i highly recommend Tulisan (a keeper, indeed!) for a nicely illustrated tote bag and charming apron. i’ve also put iWearUP in my next month wish list

it is a relief that all the money spent for those retail therapies will go to our own people which hopefully also contribute to stronger economy for this country. ah, a girl would always find a good excuse to get her beautiful things, no?

noodle adventure

vveen — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:58:39 +0000

sunday has a new name : sunday noodle.

clockwise: bakmi aloy, bakmi khek, bakmi tan and bakmi alok. all these vendors are located in kelapa gading.

my current favorite blog

vveen — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:55:02 +0000

is gonna be: mr and mrs. globe trot’s!

if you love to travel (in style and budget), adore awesome landscape photos, or probably looking for a gateway/honeymoon destination inspiration, or again, you’re trying to figure how traveling for 6-months could work for a newly wed couple carrying only one luggage each?

i love Yuriy and Julia Manchik’s blog for the reasons below:
1. i want to be able travel carefree like they did
2. i love great landscape/portrait/ foods photos
3. I love how Julia always looked gorgeous (even though she didn’t have her closet carried around her and a hair straightener during the trip!)
4. i love a nice blog layout
5. i love how thoughtful they are about their readers (read their FAQ).
6. i’m interested to know how they pack their stuff and they let us know!

i think what makes me love their blog the most is the fact that their traveling style reflect the way i do (and want to do) my traveling, too! love the carefree, non-pompous and budget minded trip. love how they see the term ‘traveling’, not only means to get yourself a photo with city’s landmark, but more than that, you get to know new things; new culture, new people and new experience.

now the honeymoon is over and they’re home, but their page will ever stay bookmarked.

the hurdle

vveen — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 04:55:48 +0000

Been telling myself: early excitement is not good because the jinx will bite you back for being premature to feel something that is not yet confirmed!

Just like what happened this week, that the trip is most likely going to be cancelled L Well, it’s still ”a-may-be” though, but the trip will be commenced mid April and we haven’t applied for our visas yet because no agencies in Jakarta accepting our applications! Asked them why, they said there’s been a significant increase demand for EU visa in Jakarta lately, all EU embassies do not accept anymore visa application. Crazy isn’t it?

Uhm…back to ‘early-excitement’ thing, it happens often when I’m in the car and seeing the road is traffic and hassle free, i always go: “YAY, nggak macet!”. And strangely, after I said that, sooner or later, I’d find the road back to “normal” as in: back to congestion-mode! So that is why I often hush people when they talk the similar excitement aloud (only about traffic though)…it’s kinda freaky because it sounds like a jinx! Do people find the same thing like I do?

by the way, for future reference, I found Wikipedia page that has complete visa requirement for Indonesia-passport-holders. (It sucks to know when you hold such a passport that doesn’t allow you to have Visa On Arrival to Western Europe countries)

GAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

it may sound so boring…

vveen — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:52:21 +0000

Been married for almost four months, that is enough to totally change my routine. Let’s see how the newly-wed us having our routines day after day…

I woke up at 6 every morning, go straight for shower and getting prepared. I usually finish getting ready by 6.30AM (that’s because I do my make up in the car) and do nothing about my hair (I’m always terrible with hair). Next is preparing quick breakfast (usually not too far from slapping nutella or fish floss on slice bread) and pouring a glass of milk. Hubby is usually done with his preparation by now. After couple of minutes (absent-mindedly) staring at the shoes rack to choose the shoes of the day (me, not hubby), off we go to the office at 7.

We usually leave office around 7 PM (also to adjust with 3in1 traffic rules) with hubby picking me up somewhere near the office, followed by dinner (mostly around Kelapa Gading area) and reach home at 8.30 or later (during evil hour of traffic). When we reach home, the first thing I check each time I get inside our house: our porch. (lately, there’s a nocturnal being loves to visit us during night time…but somehow he gets scared away by hubby’s presence). The bat is now gone, I get to prepare our fruits intake and cleaning dishes. We’re usually ready for bed by 9.30PM, but we let another hour gone relaxing watching FOX crime or anything interesting appeared on the TV. We usually sleep at 10.30 or 11 the latest.

Our schedule doesn’t always this rigid. Once or twice a week, there are times when hubby has to arrive at the office at 7 AM and there are nights when i have to stay late until 8.30 and have dinner at 9.30 PM. To loosen up for a bit, we also take some Friday nights eating fancy dinner or grocery shopping at SCBD.

During weekend, I turn myself into a 24-hour domestic goddess. Nothing is fixed during weekend, except for laundry & ironing (both domestic tasks that must be done so we can have nice attires for the following week). I usually start off Saturday with laundry and breakfast preparation, followed with house cleaning and nap. Sometimes, we take a stroll at malls in Gading area or do sale hunting at Index. While Sunday, it is all about church and culinary tour. we took the rest of our weekend taking nap, do a bit of cleaning (sometimes) and enjoy the ironing (i strangely love ironing!)

sounds boring? surprisingly, it is not that bad at all.
yes sometimes when i insist both us going out for the sake of fresh air, but an hour massage at Bersih Sehat or a cup of coffee at Bakerzinn usually does it. It’s not surprising to see ourselves staying at home the whole day, survive the day with take-away foods, internet connection (for me) and online games (for him).

Some of my friends are intrigued by seeing how we spend our weekend, who think the best way to spend weekend is to spend it outside home. Not for us, though.

We have enough of Jakarta traffic and have seen Jakarta’s crowds on daily basis, we are not going to spend our precious weekend on the wheels.

No, thank you very much.

lovely weekend

vveen — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:36:10 +0000

the best way to start a fabulous monday is by having a sweet weekend and having pleasure in every little thing you do and you don’t do. my weekend, thankfully, was a pure bliss.

hubby just got back form 5-day business trip since sunday morning and just came back friday night. after all the flights and business to do’s, he had nothing better to do than sleeping the day away, but turned out we were already wide awake at 8AM! so we started weekend early. at 8am, we were already drilling the kitchen walls to install the new Grundtal towel hanger and dish drainer (yes, he brought it home!) and cooked the jumbo instant noodle for breakfast for two. the only sad thing on the day that we had to miss yvonne’s housewarming at her new apartment (even more unhappy than skipping JavaJazz 2011 though the free tickets were already with us..)

and the following day (my most favorite part), we spent the rest afternoon: arranging the next holiday itinerary! *love*
the trip would take a place somewhere in april (but sadly happened a week before my birthday) but of course that could not make me feel less excited about it

but visa is different story.

yes it requires ~~a visa~~ (couple of visas). i’ve never sort of dealt with visas directly before (other than student visas that i could conveniently got thanks to my parents’ support), but there’s always a first time, right?

so that’s all about our short and sweet weekend. i wish you all had a great one to kick start your awesome week.

currently reading

vveen — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:44:01 +0000

after Amy Chua’s infamous book, Battle Hymn of Tiger Mother (very entertaining, i’d say), i’m determined to read more books and finish it. it’s very sad to learn that i’ve only read 5 books last year (though one of them, Outliers, has more wisdom than books I read during my college years, but still!) and i’ll put the best effort to read more this year.

my choice for the 2nd book of 2011 goes to Mireille Guiliano’s: Women, Work & the Art of Savoir Faire: Business Sense & Sensibility, with its back cover suggests something around the art of enjoying a well-balanced life & how to maximize the pleasure of challenges get to offer.

yes, i need this!