And the “fun” part? I caught it right one year from the previous one (my first time with the virus.) I also started to suspect a pattern: It happens after big-scale meetup (Division Meetup) and I might pick it up during one of my transits or flights.
I noticed the discomfort when I was on my flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur — that sore throat-feeling — but I didn’t think much about it. As soon as I arrived home, I made myself a huge bowl of Indomie Soto with two poached eggs. I missed soup noodles so very much, and I’ve been seriously thinking of sending event feedback to have soup noodles as part of permanent repertoire on every meetup meals.
Thinking back, that bowl of piping hot noodles might be the one that helped me because on the next day, I felt like a hungover trash panda, which, I felt it would be waaaay worse had I not having that Indomie. I kept sneezing and I felt faint dizziness, and I kept feeling hungry without any reasons. I thought it was just because I have been missing Asian food, but no, it was a really weird type of hunger. I had to call a day off in last minute with my team and took a nap — at this point, I already suspected that this might be Covid, even though I was not sure because I can still smell things. However, post-nap, I still felt horrible so I decided to take a Covid test.
So, yeah. I found myself sitting on the same spot on my apartment’s rooftop, trying to grill myself alive to get rid of this gosh dang virus. Also, it’s November, and while Kuala Lumpur is blessed with tropical climate, we are having rainy-borderline-monsoon season here, so the sun we can get is a 15-minutes sun before being replaced by winds and dark clouds.
There are not a lot of singers who understand that it’s never about upstaging one another. Most of the time, those who understand how to elevate a song instead of competing are mostly the legends. You can hear it when Chester and Chris harmonized the chorus on timestamp 03:15.
Just recently, I went to Sapporo for a team meetup. As a company with distributed working/remote working Before It Was Cool™, Automattic understands the importance of meeting face-to-face. Yes, we do remote working, and yes, we also appreciate the opportunity to meet our co-workers in real life.
Anyway, the trip was mostly work-related trip as in, the week was filled with workshops and learnups. Nevertheless, it was fun.
Good morning, Sapporo!
Otaru Day Trip
“Otaru has been a major fishing and trading port since the 1800s. Many handsome turn-of-the-century western-style buildings, such as former warehouses, residences and offices, built by foreign shipping and trading companies, still dot the town. Together with its coastal location, this makes Otaru an architecturally interesting and aesthetically pleasing place to spend the day.”
I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to see the leaves changing colors. Born and live in the tropics for my entire life, witnessing changing seasons is such a privilege. Thank you, Sapporo. Until next time.
We had our breakfast at Nasi Kandar Pelita (roti canai, Maggi goreng, tosai, and poori set) and took a walk on the KLCC Park while Wira and I tried our DSLR cameras after long time (he uses Nikon, I use FujiFilm.)
Roti canai
Roti canai is quintessentially Malaysian that shows the nation’s close ties with Indian’s culture and food — and no wonder, as Indian is one of the three major races here in Malaysia (Indian-Malaysian.) It’s based from Indian flatbread that repeatedly kneaded and folded and flattened (the whole process is called “canai”, hence the name.) It usually served with dal and curry, but you can expect the dish in sweet format, such as roti canai Milo and roti canai pisang (banana).
Whenever there are new popular series, my first question is: “Does it have a happy ending?” Yes, I haven’t watched “The Game of Thrones”, and never will.
I also can’t watch movies with a very intensive storyline. While I enjoy thriller or detective shows, there is a specific limit on when and how I can watch it. The reason? Thanks to my overthinking, I have a habit of making my life more complicated than it should be as if it’s not stressful enough. Another thing I noticed from many popular series is how the characters tend to “quip.” A character says something, and without missing a beat, another character replies, usually with a sarcastic tone and some smart-ass sentences. Not that I hate it (“hate” is such a strong word on this,) but it can be really tiring quickly. Also, there are a lot of camera movements, and hoooooo boy, my vertigo already protesting.
That said, if you are like me and you gravitate towards light, feel-good, and calming shows, you can check these series and see how it feels for you (and yes! The drawings, other than the webtoon snapshot, are from yours truly ?)
The Road to Red Restaurants List (Zetsumeshi Road)
Available on Netflix, this series tells the story of a regular Japanese salaryman, Tamio Suda, who spends his weekends driving and “camping” (well, not exactly camping. More like spending a night in a van) to different towns and cities in Japan. One day, he stumbled upon an udon restaurant on the foot of Mount Fuji and thus started his adventure of finding “endangered restaurants,”; restaurants that will be gone once the current owner/cook passed away or decided to retire.
While the focus is food, the series offers so much more: An aging community, curiosity in life, courage, freedom, and enjoying the present. All of the restaurants mentioned throughout the series exist in real-life, and I hope the series helped the restaurants to continue their business so it won’t be endangered anymore!
The Sound of Your Heart
This is a K-drama series on Netflix based on a mega-popular webtoon with the same title. The series tells the life of a webtoon creator, Cho Seok, and his family and friends. Fun fact: Cho Seok is the webtoon creator for “The Sound of Your Heart”!
Many K-drama fans commented that the webtoon is far funnier than the series, but I guess that’s how it is with live adaptation. The webtoon definitely shows a lot of slapstick comedies and outrageous humor.
Only Murders in the Building
Hands down, my favorite from Disney+. My husband enjoys movies and series, so our Disney+ subscription is definitely being spent wisely by him since I watch only this series. I love how unusual the cast is. A group of strangers connected by their love of podcasts and true crime solving, well, true crimes. This series is… Quirky. I honestly don’t know if “quirky” is the right word for it, but it’s “unusual” in its own way. This series gives me a similar feeling to “Elementary”; those small things, the props that show the characters’ personalities, somehow shine through, giving out warm and fluffy feelings whenever I watch it. Yes, the central topic of the series is murder, but it also delves into some seemingly unimportant things. Yet, it becomes “that” character, such as Oliver’s obsession with hummus dips and Mabel’s general annoyance whenever Oliver and Charles try to be “hip” and throw some Gen Z lingos.
Sister Boniface Mysteries
This series is available on BBCPlayer, and it’s just so quintessentially English (I’m sorry, I can’t help myself.) Sister Boniface Mysteries is a cozy detective series with a nun as the central character. While there are bound to be some “plot holes,” I really appreciate how soft and kind this series is. One of my favorites is when Detective Inspector Sam Gillespie shared his experience during his time serving in war — on how the hatred and the horrors of war should be a thing of the past.
And now, I just realized they have the latest episode of “Only Murders in the Building,” so I’m just going to curl myself with a cup of warm milk tea and click the play button.
When half of Southeast Asia had ticket wars for Coldplay and Taylor Swift, I had a different type of “ticket war”: Passport renewal registration.
My passport is due to renew on September-October, but since I have to go for a couple of work trips during those months, I reached out to the Embassy to check if it’s possible for me to renew my passport before it hits 6-months mark. I had the initial conversation through WhatsApp, and the staff asked me for my passport’s expiration date. “Slightly earlier, but it should be okay for you to renew your passport on July-August.”
Excited, I went through online registration process on http://paspor.kbrikl.id/. When I had to choose for the appointment date, I was so surprised that the earliest available slot was in August. Mind you, it was May when I registered.
The online registration is pretty straightforward. For passport renewal, you won’t have to prepare gazillion of documents. As for the payment, you will need to use an e-wallet app MyMCash (iOS and Android) as the Embassy staff no longer accepting cash.
A couple of weeks ago, though, I got an automatic SMS from the Embassy; informing me that my appointment date has been moved to July 7. I’m really happy about this, because this means I have more time to work on my visa application process.
Anyway, I’m currently waiting for my number to be called — and there are 100-ish people between the current number and my number. No joke. Indonesia Embassy in Malaysia is one, if not the, of the biggest and busiest Indonesia Embassies in the world.
