International Lunch

Having 10 guests in the office surely brought a different feeling for us here .. though all of them are gone home now, except for Laxmi who's gonna be here for the next 3 months (she has just recently joined Rouse Manila and she's gonna be here learning and get familiar with Rouse' works) but it was definitely a memorable week for me at least.

So me, Mba Gita and Evie took Darshan, Tom, Laxmi and Andy (well, he's not a guest, he's an expat in Jakarta office but speaking Indo fluently) to Kafe Betawi -- Jakarta traditional food. They enjoyed the main course, Laxmi had the Soto Betawi, the authentic Jakarta food, Darshan had chicken Laksa and Tom had nasi uduk with semur daging (similar to Nasi Lemak with stew beef).

- tom seems happy with his food -

It was a good lunch and priceless moment witnessing Tom, Darshan and Laxmi tried tape (another type of fermented cassava) mixed in Es Shanghai -- it's a famous dessert contained of coconut, avocado, seaweed jelly, tape and shaved ice with raspberry syrup. But hey, western are famous in trying different kinds of exotic food, right? so it was a normal thing for him, but a challenge specially for someone who doesn't like cassava :D


Tom's priceless moment -- Oh Tom .. it's not bad right? ^^ As quoted from Darshan after we tried his a small spoon, "it's too much happening inside the mouth at one time."

Office Retreat

Last week our office held its annual retreat in Bandung .. so thoughout last week as usual, there were lots of guests came from other office's branches around the world joining for the retreat. This year we had 10 guests, the most so far I've been with Rouse of 5 years. They were Nina from Vietnam, Audrey from Shanghai, Lara from Guangzhou, James and Som from Bangkok, Tom from UK, Laxmi and Albert from Manila, Darshan and Shariton from Dubai and of course Lisa flew from Singapore for the retreat. So it was a very international retreat.

The retreat was different from previous year .. this year we had various presentations from our guests in the morning and the afternoon we had team building activities, where we were divided into 6 groups and we had to solve problems, find treasure, go through obstacle, etc. It was amazingly fun but torturing and tiring at the same time. The team building held in this forest in Dago Pakar area, it was hilly and for someone who is afraid of heights, that definitely wasn't a fun activities. But then how we learned to depend on our team mates.

- taken in between presentation -

Our group called Peuyeum -- it's a fermented cassava, traditional snack from Bandung -- with another slang meaning of pretty girl. The groups consisted 11 people -- Dwi, Budi, Nita, Lenny, Icha, Darshan, Lisa, Purnomo, Winu, Vida and myself ... we came out as the best and favorite team. YEY!! Well done guys. The facilitator said that our group is a fast problem solver, a good persuader and solid team. As prize, we won one huge box of Cuppa Cups which Darshan brought half of them back to Dubai and Rp. 100.000,- Hero voucher for each.

- peuyeum, the winner team -

The team building ended at about 6pm, we then went straight to dinner at Stone Cafe. We were all dead tired, but the atmosphere seems didn't allow us to sit quietly, so we closed the night with dancing and performances by office guests .. it was a wild night.

Surely, this year retreat is the best retreat I've been so far ... this performance by "reunited" Take That 2008 with their inspired rendition of "Back for Good" closed the night in Bandung nicely and memorable.

- take that - rouse jakarta version -

Beijing beijing .. wo ai Beijing

Beijing Olympic has officially closed on 24 August 2008 -- 16 days of world biggest games has come to an end. Athletes dreams have been achieved, world records have been broken .. China has fulfilled their dream to be number one in Medals collections beat United States on 2nd place. Australia didn't do so well this year.

The the Closing ceremony wasn't as extravagant as the Opening ceremony, but it was still fantastic compared to previous Olympics. There was a performance by bunch of British as they are gonna host the 2012 Olympic Games in London -- from Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin to Leona Lewis to David Beckham who did the first kick as to mark the official celebration of London Olympic.

Towards the end of the Closing Ceremony, it was surprisingly good to see Lee Hom appeared on center of the Bird's Nest with Kelly Chen and Rain. Though there has been rumoured of they were gonna perform .. but as we all know that China Olympic has been full of secrecy. Rain looked decent with his new hair look, LH looked tiny standing beside Rain .. it was rather short performance but glad he could be part of it.

Overall .. well done Beijing. You've done a GOOD job showing yourself to the world that China not only rich in traditional culture but at the same time has shown the world that they are well-developed country.

Beijing Beijing .. 我愛 Beijing ... Enjoy ...

blue stuffs

I came across the website 8orenji.com couple weeks ago, an indo site selling japanese stuffs. Well, everyone knows that Japanese has range of cute but useful stuffs. So I saw this eco bag on local magazines earlier and it happened that 8orenji have it or it's just meant to be ^^. Anyway, Noho Eco Bag is a friendly environmental bag packed in very cute Nohohon character.

The world are facing global warming issue this past year, plastic are so not in trend anymore. Even in China, consumers are obliged to bring their own shopping bag 'cos the seller are no longer provided plastic bag. Indo is slowly reducing the use of plastic shopping bag.

Anyway, I ordered the blue Nohohon Eco Bag last week and it arrived last night. Yey!! :D Though I think it's a little bit too pricey for such a small items, but hey .. it's Japanese .. the quality which counts.

So Nohohon is gonna accompany me on my trip to Taiwan and HK next month .. just hope it can fits everything on my shopping list *grin*

While cleaning my bottom drawer of my bed side table, I found this Calgon - take me away set of Body Splash, Body Lotion and Eau de Cologne. It's a US beauty products given by a friend from New York on my birthday couple of years back. I'm a blue freak .. so I guess that's the reason why she got this set for me :D I completely forgot about this but it smells nice .. I'll start use it soon enough before it gone bad :), while waiting for my supply of Victoria Secret and Bath & Body Works from Lia.

Pool Shark

While still in the topic of Olympic ... Michael Phelps, 23 years old swimmer hailed from Baltimore, Maryland USA has recently become the most popular Olympian of all time -- has just achieved his Olympic history records by swapping 8 gold medals in Beijing Olympics, he beat the Olympic history hold by Mark Spitz for 34 years. For that amazing achievement, Michael Phelps has named the Pool Shark .. 2nd rank to Jaws, Spielberg's famous killer shark. And he has brought swimming to be one of the most popular sports in Olympic games.

I read on bloodbubble's blog today that Michael Phelps consumes an astonishing 12,000 calories a day (Jesus Christ!!)

Here's what the golden boy have for breakfast daily:

Three fried egg sandwiches;
cheese; tomatoes; lettuce; fried onions; mayonnaise;
three chocolate-chip pancakes; five-egg omelette;
three sugar-coated slices of French
toast; bowl of grits; two cups of coffee.

Wow! His 1 breakfast can easily feed several families in African countries. Well, his swimming training can easily burn those 12,000 calories in snap of fingers.

With his speed and that much of calories, even Jaws is intimidated by him.

Sigh, now he makes me thinking .. maybe I really should go back to regular swimming. No doubt, I've ballooned up pretty bad since I started sitting all day at work.

words of the day ...

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way." What he had written was: "Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it."

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

Great men say, "Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness…. In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience."

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…

And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Beijing Olympic Fever

Beijing Olympic has begun and it has entered its 10 days, some of the sports have finished and some of the athletes have gone home. The world's eyes are focused on China and the games, which claimed to be the biggest and the greatest Olympic of all.

The opening ceremony was amazing indeed .. Zhang Yi Mou has successfully turning people's head and the world's eyes on Beijing that night. The dance, the attraction and the fireworks were unbelievable. And the Olympic Flame which has been kept secret during the preparation finally revealed on 08.08.08. Wow! Well of course in between that spectacular ceremony, there were few bits of imperfection .. some of the city fireworks were recorded before the actual event and the worst thing was the little girl who sang at the Olympic games wasn't the actual singer. The actual singer is said to be not pretty enough to sing at the Olympic games. Sigh!! So inconsiderate ... well, for what it worths .. WELL DONE China!

-the famous birdnest-

Indonesia has finished its competition on Indenpendence Day, 17 August 2008 ... overall we achieved 1 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze which were dominated from Badminton -- what else?! ^^ and our national song was played finally for men's double who won gold medal against China. Though I was proud that Indo won the gold medal, but my eyes were on these 2 guys, well .. one in particular. Fu Hai Feng (right) .. he came and competed in Indo couple of times during 2008, and he plays good plus he's good looking :) Sorry Indo, I know I'm not too Nationalist ..

- World Rank #1 for Men's Double from China - Cai Yun and Fu Hai Feng -

While in the topic of Beijing Olympic .. I finally completed my mascot collections, after few weeks of hunting .. BeiBei representing Australia (swimming), JingJing representing Europe (weighlifting), HuanHuan representing America (taekwondo), YingYing representing Asia (table tennis) and NiNi representing Africa (gymnastic).

Though I think there has been mistake .. Europe suppose to be Blue, Africa suppose to be Black and Australia suppose to be Green according to original Olympic ring .. oh well!!

I'm still so in the Olympic mood .. watch out for the Closing Ceremony on 24 August 2008, heard Mr Wang is gonna perform then .. :D

7 days and counting down

I've been slacking down with my blog lately .. not that I don't have or don't want to write anything, but when you reach work, you simply can't do much about anything other than your work, which has been killing me flat this past month.

Today, 1 August .. 7 days counting down to Beijing Olympic Games. I went to Beijing Olympic Exhibition on Wed held in Pacific Place, thought of getting some merchandise since I won't be going to China after all. After a long adventure getting there, sadly there was nothing much to see even buy. I was eyeing on Huan Huan red tee, but all they had was kid size, yeah like I'm ever gonna fit into those. So the guy said the adult size will be coming on Sat, which means I gotta spare some times this weekend to get it. Sigh!! The fact that I don't like Pacific Place, it's too classy and high class mall. It's on the lower level of Ritz Carlton Hotel, what do you expect? ^^

Anyway .. another postponed story was ... I went to friend's wedding last weekend. The groom is my childhood friend and the bride is my high school friend, talking about small world ey? I accidently met them last year in another friend's wedding. It took me and them by surprise of course .. a year later, which was last weekend, I received an invitation. Wow!! And the fact that they went to the same Junior high school in Theresia -- it's so meant to be.

Well, it was a very nice garden party wedding. There were 10 girls wearing green dress walking down the aisle with the bride and groom, which later I found out they are all my high school friends -- what a friendship.

Congrats to Vito and Lintang!