Finally Woken

Greedy Green

I read in Tasa's that Whole Food Market encourages its customers to bring their own bags by taking 5 cents to 10 cents off the bill for each. The same policy will be applied to Marks & Spencer's customers soon.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Marks and Spencer is to begin charging its food shoppers for carrier bags.

Customers will have to pay 5p for plastic bags, with the money raised going to an environmental charity.

Chief executive Sir Stuart Rose said the company wanted to "make it easy for our customers to do their bit to help the environment".

Campaigners say plastic bags damage the environment. Some 13bn are given free to UK shoppers every year, and they take an estimated 1,000 years to decay.

My blog is updated today, 30 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Train Ramblings: How Well do You Actually Know About Your Own Country?

I am writing this in a moving train that is taking us back to Aberdeen. Yes, the train provides a free wi-fi service, which helps me to endure the 7 hours journey back from London. To think that most shopping malls in Jakarta still charge their customers for providing wi-fi service is ridiculous, especially when you have to buy different wi-fi cards on different shops. Sitting down in Coffee Club might not guarantee that the wi-fi cards I buy from Starbucks would work although they are in the same mall. Starbucks Plaza Indonesia's wi-fi card wouldn't work at the one on Plaza Senayan. Go to Cazbar or Eastern Promise for a free wi-fi. No frills. You just have to buy a glass of beer and smile at the gorgeous barmaids to obtain the password, and they will let you sit with your computer on.

London weather had been nice with a little bit rain here and there. Definitely warmer than Aberdeen, definitely much more busier which took me a split second to get used to see a lot of people in London Bridge. I was officially sweating (first time in a year!) when arrived in Swindon to visit an old friend and her family in Marlborough and realized that all I had with me was cardigans or long-sleeves t-shirts, unsuitable for south of London temperature and I should have brought my tank tops with me instead. If I complain that Aberdeen is quiet with only 250,000 people, well, Marlborough is only occupied by 25,000 residents. But it's a lovely town, and is only 30 minutes from Bath (picture, left) one of the most beautiful city in England. Stuart was freaked out when I said I've fallen in love in Bath, because he thought I said Bart(ele), not Bath! But it's just as terrible because the villas on the top of the hills easily cost several millions. Poundsterling, of course.

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My blog is updated today, 28 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Frustrating

A combination of a scheduler who pays a great attention to details and a natural worrier would be the worst. It's me. Me. Me. I am such a pain in the butt to those who think that birds are chirping and the world is smiling and everything is perfect even though your life is not planned. I would stand by their door and tell them that it's going to rain and they're better to take the umbrella and next time read the weather forecast before taking too many tank tops.

And if it's my event, it's double worry and double attention to details. It's frustrating to see everyone takes everything very easy, while I'm sitting down and drafting schedule for everybody on hour basis. Only to a reply that they haven't even booked the flight, or they don't know what to do - but as long as beer and girls are involved, they're happy.

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My blog is updated today, 27 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Great Scottish Castles (1)

Scotland's turbulent history has left an enduring mark on the landscape in shape of the many castles, fortresses and tower houses that pepper the countryside. Some - such as Edinburgh or Stirling - rank amongst Europe's most impressive structures while other less grand examples provide a stark insight into darker times.

 

The first time I landed in Scotland, one of my goals was to visit every single castle. That until I found a book that lists them all. There are thousands castles scattered in Scotland! Even to visit all castles in Aberdeen and Grampian area will take years, unless if I do it every day. Maybe.

In the mean time, I set my goal to be a simpler one: visit all famous castles first. Here are 5 of them:

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My blog is updated today, 20 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Without Prejudice

For the past two days I attended a settlement course in a very gorgeous hotel. It's rather late, considering I have been here since last June and know most of the absolute essentials, but it's still worth to attend, and I got to see new people and had free lunches, yay!

The course is done to help people settling nicely in a host country. Unsettling employees and partners could jeopardize their posting, their unhappiness threaten their productivities because they are worried about other matters rather than their jobs, and the company could loose their valuable resources. So 2 days course in a very nice hotel with free lunches is worth spent.

For those who just come to a new place, or even those who repatriate back after spending years in other countries, this course is very helpful. In fact there were two Scots in our course and even they found many things they didn't know, and lots of things have changed since they left.

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My blog is updated today, 16 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

On Fitna, Bloggers vs. Hackers, and Computer Illiterate MPs

Fitna is a short film by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, which explores Qur'anic motivation for terrorism and Islam in the Netherlands (explanatory stolen from Wikipedia). On April 7, Indonesia has blocked access to YouTube and a couple of other websites such as MySpace and Multiply. The Minister of Information and Communications Muhammad Nuh has passed a bill that forces 146 ISP's in Indonesia to block access to YouTube. Kompas has confirmed that the reason for the block is Youtube's refusal to remove Fitna from their servers.

After a week of public debates and overwhelming protests, Nuh has apologised for ordering the blocking of Youtube, Multiply and a few other sites which host the video Fitna, and the virtual community in Indonesia can relax, sit back, and exhale for a while.
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My blog is updated today, April 12, 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Haggis, Black Pudding, White Pudding

Haggis, a traditional Scottish dish, is - according to Wikipedia - made of the following ingredients: sheep's heart, liver and lungs, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for about three hours. Today the dish is prepared in a casing rather than an actual stomach. MacSween (picture, right) sells cooked haggis, and we only need to remove it from the outer plastic bag, wrap in foil and re-heat it.

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My blog is updated today, 8 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Spring? What Spring? (2)

It's mid April. It's supposed to be spring. Summer should be around the corner. With a high spirit we headed down to Edinburgh. We planned to visit several places. The sun was glowing even with the dark cloud above us. But then God thought it would be funny to blow some cold.




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My blog is updated today, 7 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Friends Abroad

Last night I found out that Bugilsnews displays Indonesian Expatriates Forum (IEF) link and its widget on their site. With a few thousands of subscribers (I was told they had 10,000 readers a couple of years a go and it was when Bugils Group hasn't been crazily expanding - to how many bars now, five, six? - like nowadays, so the number might be bigger now), having the link there will hopefully spread the news about IEF.

Despite what people think - especially our Indonesian friends and family back home - that life is glorious, the future is bright, and everything is nothing but sweet love if we live abroad, being away from home is always a lonely (and most of the times, shocking) journey. Only people who are in our shoes, or have experienced the same thing would understand what we are going through. Like eating live squid in Korea, for example. Or wondering why they invent a very cold fridge in Norway that freezes the veggies right away. Or finding new friends.

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My blog is updated today, 4 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.

Spring? What Spring?

On Sunday we had to adjust our clock back to 6 behind Indonesia. Spring has come, apparently. Everybody's mood has lifted when the week has started with a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the sky was blue, the flowers have been starting to reappear, and the sale has begun.

Today when I looked outside the window, I saw what I have seen yesterday, so I bravely put on a short-sleeves top - the first time in 5 months, probably - and a jacket. I was so looking forward to put my normal (read: tank top, jeans, and jeweled sandals) clothes back on, rather than having to think about the whole colour arrangement against gloves, scarf, coat, and boots. But the digital thermometer showed 14.5 degree (Celsius).

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My blog is updated today, 1 April 2008. Click Finally Woken to read the complete story.