Memories Monday : 2005 River Kwai Bridge and Train Ride

Once upon a time ago,

5 years or so ago,

When my lupus was going yo-yo,

I said "yo",

Let's go for a ride!

Warning to all friends, do not attempt the long train ride!

Go for the short one.

After a while, it will all look the same, river, tree, river, tree ...

and river, tree, river, tree more river, tree .. unless, you are really lucky to find a cute looking officer in tight pants at one of the many stops... like we did.

Yes... cute was definitely an understatement.

Other survival technique on board includes, do not let this "hot dog" lady out of sight.

Of course, being foreigners, we were charged at 50% more for hotdogs of the same size.

Tired legs.

Very tired legs.

After 5 sticks of hotdogs,

2 cans of coke.

Home ... via MH 001 ....

Aaahhhh ..... I am HOME!

Arrived home safely on Friday BUT, my body system is all hay-wired with time difference.

Yeah, jet lag ... I am lagging like MAD!

For two days (including today) - I woke up at 1.30 am, couldn't sleep - walked around, played with cats ... feeling hungry (eating loads of jelly beans), watched TV ... and fall flat to sleep at about 5.30 am. The other cat slave had to wake me up at about 3.00 pm to eat!

Not just lagging, I am tired ... very tired.

I was able to adapt when I went the other direction but coming home, I am just feeling dreadful.

To add to it - It is MONDAY tomorrow.

I should be working. We shall see.

Anyway - to those who don't travel a lot like me, please take note that it is worthwhile to check-in via the web for a boarding pass! You can even change your seat!

http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/checkin/webcheckin/web-check-in.aspx

I had my aisle seat, in the middle section (4 seats) with no one in between me and another lady seated at the other end. Nice ...

Oh ya - upon reaching home, my cats greeted me with caution. 

First was Garlic, who let out a soft "meow" - I then said "Garlic Head" (that's what I call her) and she "meow" louder - hey - that's my Garlic girl, the talkative one. 

Lulu girl, being the pampered one refused to let me out of her sight! She has been following me everywhere, even to to toilet! It is amazing considering that she is a snob most of the time.

Time now is 11:41 pm - I need to make myself sleep - time to reach out for ...... valium, perhaps?

Here's me hoping that everyone has a Marvelous Monday tomorrow !!!

I'm Odd too?

I've always thought myself as silly

BUT

Apparently Oxford thinks I am "odd" too ...

Or rather all "bins" are odd?

University of Oxford - Botanic Garden

This pair of sexy (tired) lupus legs walked through the University of Oxford Botanic Garden.
A rather small-scaled garden - but like most gardens, they are very colourful on a nice, warm, summer day!

I'll let the pictures speak - having a brain fog now.

Have just taken one little tiny Valium as my brain has been rather restless.

I need to rest, somehow.

This post is dedicated to Society of Feline Gardeners, knowing how these furry ones loves gardening, especially - Annie, Nicki and Derry who help out with some serious gardening!

Those less green paws like Lucky will probably have the same opinion as Charlie and maybe Milton, "these are all just colourful weeds!" :)

Faith ... Prayers ...

What is faith,

What are prayers?

Do we pray when we are in need?

Or,

Do we give thanks in our prayers?

How often do we light a candle for another,

How often do we light a candle when we are happy?

How often do we practice selflessness?

The above photo is the interior of St. Mary's Church, Oxford.

It is beautiful, peaceful.

As I was walking around the exterior of St. Mary's Church, I couldn't help but noticed prayers / blessed strings tied to a tree outside the church. It makes me wonder how far these holy strings have travelled and how much they had blessed those who wore it ..

In Buddhism, holy items when no longer in used are to be "returned" to nature, therefore, as you can see, prayers strings are tied to trees, as high as one can get.

Sometimes, holy items are "returned" via fire (i.e. burning), with a chant of "AUM".

~~~~~

Oh Lord, tame my mind, show me the right path for sometimes, I stray and get lost (seriously!).

I thank you for your guidance but please guide me further.

Let me love unconditionally.

Let me hold no hatred but love for others.

~~~

Imagine ....

Imagine ...

If drugs are still stored in Jars like this, I will have a very interesting (perhaps deliciously) looking medicine cabinet!

And this, my friend is very useful for ex-boss with migraines! Muahahahahhahaha

Photo taken at Museum of History of Sciences, Oxford

Mr. Pinky of Oxford ...

Kitty, kitty in Oxford!

His name is Mr. Pinky - 10 year-old cat.

Looks happily napping away while his "staff" was getting ready to perform.

http://www.travelindo.com/

I thought I would make a quick note to share with everyone my experience with the above travel agent in Indonesia. A big thumbs-up for http://www.travelindo.com/ !

Booking for domestic airline tickets online with any Indonesian airlines can be quite a hassle, especially if you hold a foreign credit card and are not travelling on the airticket(s) that you are paying for. In my case, I hit both rocks at the same time!!

Anyway, despite my complaints about their (Garuda & Lion Air) online booking system, payment especially - I am quite impressed with their "honest quick price display" - meaning what you see is what you pay! You can browse and immediately you would be able to know what's the final ticket price unlike Air Asia website that shows an indicative price, then you have to add the luggage thingy, food thingy, insurances thingy and lastly the convenience fee thingy to arrive at the "total payable" - frustrating ...

MAS online booking has similar "honest quick price display" that would enable easy price comparison! Bravo MAS...

Back to my "Indonesian Domestic Flight Tickets" booking experience.

There are several Indonesian airlines running the domestic routes and the most extensive ones are Garuda (of course!) and Lion Air. Based on "price and flights frequencies" factors, I've decided to go ahead with Lion Air - and this is where the headache starts ...

I attempted to book online on a Saturday evening, then found out about the restriction on credit card payments. I made a call to LION AIR 24-hour hotline in Indonesia and was directed to go to their KLIA Ticketing Dept, which was supposedly operational from 9am-6pm daily.

Sunday - KLIA @ 11.00 am and LION AIR office was closed! I tried to call their Penang Office, no one picks up too .. I panicked! I need to get them all in to Malaysia by Tuesday! Bear in mind, I still need to confirm and send them their e-tickets! The live very far from the airport, 6 hours drive away.

Nothing much can be done on a Sunday - so I made my way to the nearest travel agent and asked for Garuda ticket price - one way - a whooping RM 750! Well, if it comes to it, then I may have to go with this! Most of our local travel agents are not connected to Lion Air online booking, so meaning, they can help us to book (with a fee, of course) by calling LION AIR ticketing dept, in another word - more "waiting" BUT it can only happen on Monday!

So, whole Sunday evening, I surfed and came across a recommendation to the above website.

On Monday, I called the them directly (they are one hour behind us, +7) - I have to say, I was very impressed with their agents, Alip & Byti, who took the efforts to "understand" me with my broken Bahasa Indo/Malay mixed with English - imagine spelling out 6 Indonesian names over the phone! TravelIndo is connected to LION AIR booking and was able to book immediately (I can even cross-check the "bookings" on LION AIR website, just to be sure!) - payment was done via PAY PAL (perfect!) and was converted to USD. All done before 1.00 pm! Phew!

Was it worth the efforts? How much did we save?

Imagine this, Garuda vs. Lion Air, it is equivalent to RM 750 vs. RM 150!

Savings apart, I am glad I learned something new!

So, to those who are planning to travel around Indonesia - try & plan with

http://www.travelindo.com/

MITRA PERSADA TRAVELINDO
Jl. Pringgodani No. 1, Mrican Baru, Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia.

Ticketing : 0274-511100 (hunting 6 lines).

Tour : 0274-541409 (hunting 4 lines).

Fax : 0274-541402

info@travelindo.com
www.travelindo.com