Starting My Life Anew

Goodness gracious.I almost couldn't sign in to my blog after a long time of not updating.Somebody has been pestering me to update my blog and well...here I am again.It was months since I last updated my last post regarding my resignation while working in a shipyard copany based in Batam.I relaxed at home for three months without a job to spend time more with my family.

The good news came as my medical checkup was finally approved after being KIVed for 8 months!I was accepted to join SCDF as a regular firefighter and the best thing was I was posted to my former station which is Jurong Fire Station located at Boon Lay Drive.At that point of time,I was too excited that I can't wait to start my career immediately.

22nd January 2009,my first day at work.I'm already used with the routine and I'm already recognised the moment I step in the station.I didn't immediately start my ROTA duty(I'm officially in ROTA 1) but instead I was selected to participate in the oncoming Inter-Unit Rock Climbing Competition so I had the privileged to follow office hours from 8am to 6pm.

Initially,I thought that rock climbing is pretty easy but in actual fact it is really hard.Before you even reach the top part of the wall,most of your energy is already drained.Training was intense as the competition is getting near so we need to put in a lot of effort.Training venues for rock climbing is held at Bukit Batok Fire Station, Singapore Polytechnic or at SAFRA Yishun which is rather much challenging for a newbie like me.

This is me climbing the walls of SAFRA Yishun.

I will inform you guys if anyone of you is interested in supporting us for the competition which is held at SAFRA Yishun.I'm not sure about the date but I will tell you later on.

Tendering My Resignation

I'm back again for so long not updating my rusty blog. I was too busy as I was working at Batam. For 2 months, I worked in a different environment. I managed to pick up the culture, language and the people in Batam. In fact, it was an adventure. I have already resigned and the only thing is to tell my life experiences.

I have loads of pictures and videos to share with you the memories I had while I was in Batam. Every good thing must come to an end.

This was just a normal thing which usually happened on the early Monday morning where I took the morning ferry at 7am. Almost reaching at Waterfront,Teluk Senimba.

I guess I was just bored inside the car. We were going to Nagoya as my friend wants to go to Bank Mandiri to withdraw his cash.

I took this ferry ,Batamfast, from Batam Centre to go back to Singapore. I stumbled upon a great scenery, a rainbow and a sunset.

This a floating dock. For your info, this platform can submerge underwater so that huge vessels can berth and dock for repairs. See how huge it is. The place is breezy too.

An overview of how high a vessel can be.

My medic giving stitches to a worker who had an accident on his shin. A very deep cut. WARNING! Not for the faint-hearted.

I managed to catch a glimpse of Singapore when my ferry was heading for Batam.

Golden Globe or known as GeGe like the Indoesians call it.Popular during Friday nights. A must go place if you are here at Batam. Do visit Nagoya to enjoy the live band here.

This is me in full uniform including the body harness. So basically, you guys have the overall picture what I did when I'm in Batam. I have made lots of new friends. In fact, Bahasa Indonesia is a beautiful language. Below is the pictures of my colleagues which I was in charged of.

They are great people to work with and I won't forget thir hospitality when I was there as their superior. They are my brothers, family and working colleagues.

I promised them that Iwill be coming over in a month's time to visit them again so anyone interested in following me just leave me a tag. Do not worry about the safety of the place there as I know some contacts especially the police.

So since I have resigned, where am I heading next?Of course,back to firefighting.

A Week of Culture Shock

Unveiling my new title

As an explorer, you have to take risks. I took my risk by taking up a job outside of Singapore. Alone and unknown of the working environments, I rise up to the challenge. Working in Batam, Indonesia ( a third-world country) - totally a culture shock for me. Overall standards in Batam are way behind Singapore. I will touch on that in a little while.

Foreigners working there at Batam are called expatriates so I'm one of them. The people there look up to us as we are better certified and knowledgeable in different areas. I felt honoured when I step into the office on the first day as they called me "Boss" or either "Pak Iskandar". There are also other Singaporeans working there.

I did manage to learn and speak Bahasa Indonesia that fluently within the week. My co-workers comes from different places of Indonesia and have different ethnic groups like the Bataks (mostly Christians), Flores, Javanese (mostly Muslims), Manado and Riau so it is essential to communicate with them using their language as majority do not understand or speak English.

My jobscope is actually to monitor workplace safety at the shipyard cum fire & rescue. I am in charge of the fire & rescue training department as I have the certificate and experience back in Singapore. I am a newbie in marine industry and also how the work is done at the shipyard but luckily I met another Singaporean expatriate, Nor Isham, who is much knowledgable and experienced in this line.

My colleague of mine is actually in his 40s and seriously I am the youngest expatriate working there at Batam. He was really a nice person and does have the same interest as me like travelling. He has travelled to almost every continent so it was great listening to his adventures.I think without him, I will be disheartened because of the work conditions here. He was my mentor who never fails to impart knowledge to me.

My trainees in training

Expenses there is really cheap. One box of cigarettes cost from S$1.50 - S$2.50. I only smoke Dji Sam Soe, love it. Fried rice or Mee Bakso only around S$1.50++. I do save loads of money.

View of shipyard

Going to the repair site can be very dangerous.Without proper equipment like safety boots and helmet can endanger you. You can also face a fine for not doing so. That is why I am here at Batam to monitor safety.

Touching on the first paragraph, I have heard lots of stories from corruption, law, system and supernatural sightings from my colleague, Isham. He has his own house and have been working in this company for 3 years. He always emphasize to me not to put too much trust on the people here as they might backstab you. The police..hmm..well, you know..I don't want to say much publicly. Most of the places here are not that well-developed. Lots of forests here and there, so it's not surprising if people see strange sightings. That kind of feeling is not felt in Singapore but at night at Batam, it is damn scary.

It's been only a week but I still have a long way to go. I will update you more about my experience when the time goes by.

2 Months of Emptiness

I do really apologize to all those people who patronise my blog but I haven't been doing my job to update my blog. You guys must be wondering what actually I'm up to right now. From my last blog update, I told you that I was looking around for jobs and I did manage to find one.

With the help of my relatives working at the airport, I got myself a job as a Cabin Data Management Technician. My office located at Terminal 1, near gate C17 pronouned as Charlie-One-Seven. Frankly speaking,it was a great job. No pressure from your superiors, working shifts and your work is own time own target. My employer is from SIAEC. My jobscope is actually to inform the technician to rectify defects that occurred in our SIA aircrafts which happened during flight. Great working environment. Most of the people in the office are males. Lots of foreigners, the Phillipinos and the pakciks and abangs are friendly.

Outside the office, you can see different types of airplanes at the parking bay. To name a few: SIA, Jetstar, Cathay Pacific and etc. In case for those who don't know, I have this fascination of planes so sometimes when I need a breath off fresh air, I just step out of the office and took some time off to just see airplanes: landing and taking-off. If I'm lucky, I get to see SIA's new Airbus the A380. When working shifts, especially night, I get to see the beautiful sun rise. For every lunch, I ate at the Terminal 2 foodcourt. My colleague, San and I would always walk back to Terminal 1 via the departure hall.

My misery: For two weeks, I made great bonds with the people in the office. Until one day, I was told to end my job as the company is taking in foreigners. It was unfair. It was beyond my control and I have to face the facts, It's no use complaining anyway.

Back to square one: I was searching for jobs again until one day I received a message from my friend who told me that there is a position for a Fire Trainer based in Batam. Teach the Indonesian people to deal with ship fires as it is a marine company. Nonetheless, I sent my resume and I got a call from the company the next day. I went down to Pandan Road for the interview at the ASL Marine building. It was quite fast for an interview as I was asked just a few questions. Guess what? I got it.

Benefits: Free food and accomodation. Working hours starting at 8am to 6pm. Workplace is just beside my quarters located at Batam Harbourfront. I was told that the quarters is like a condo and you have an own maid. There is overtime pay.It is up to my own accord whether or not to go back Singapore in every week or a month. Ferry to and fro from Singapore will be paid by the company. Salary wise = CONFIDENTIAL.

Actually right now, the company is processing my visa. They told me that it would take 2 weeks or so to be approved. The fasting month has already started and I believe I have another 1 more week before everything is done. I can't wait to find out how is the working environment outside of Singapore.

I may or may not be celebrating my Hari Raya once I got the job. I may not have time to update my blog that often. I will be missing my friends and families back home. This is what I want the rest to know.

Reminiscing

I didn't realize time flies really fast. 2 weeks have passed by and a lot of events happened. Got to see a few of my friends got married. Met up with some old friends of mine.

My friend, Muhairin or more known as Rino has a great voice. I took a video of him singing with his cousin at his younger brother's wedding.

It was like a picture from the old days. It's been a while I never met this fellas..

From left: Rino, Bai, Amy and me

For two straight days I had to attend a wedding function. The other one was the wedding of my old schoolmate friend of mine, Hafiz. Still can't believe he is already married. His single days are over. Wonder when is my turn?Hmm..

Hafiz and his wife

It was also a day where I get to see all my former schoolmates. People do change and all have grown up.

Introducing my smart wear! This was taken by Hassan at Northpoint as we were going for an interview. Sorry for not updating for sometime.

Bali Dreaming 07'

Since I have already posted my travels to Thailand: Krabi, Koh Phi Phi and Phuket.. I am going to show you my pictures and videos of my travels to Denpasar,Bali. The travel took place last year from 20th of August to 24th August 2007.

As usual with my partner. Ade, we embarked on a journey. A journey which got us more interested about travelling. We booked tickets from Garuda Airways with the help of my friend, Raedah, who worked in a travel agency at Bugis. She got us quite an affordable price including accomodation also. It cost a total of $360 if I'm not wrong. We planned for a five day trip to Bali.

Departure Hall at Changi Airport, Terminal 1

We were at the Burger King trying to ease our hunger before boarding. Our flight was at 6:55pm. We have loads of time so we decided to take a walk at the retail shops. I bought one whole carton of Marlboro which cost at $22 only. DUTY FREE! I remembered vividly while waiting for our plane. A Caucasian man came up to us and was surprised he talked to us in Bahasa Indonesia very fluently. He thought we were Indonesians. He even told us he has a house in Bali and the place is relaxing. We told him that we were on a holiday. Does he have any motives??

After a one and a half hour flight, we finally reached Denpasar, Bali at the Ngurah Rai International Airport. It was already nightime. As you can see from the looks of Ade's face, he was really tired. I'm still active and got the cheek to record a video.

Upon alighting the plane, we still have to wait for a bus to send us to the terminal. I just love airplanes ever since I was a kid. Quite noisy in the bus from the footage. We have to find our personal driver by the name of Pak Madi as he will be the driver sending us to our hotel. Driving from the airport to Kuta is only just a short ride except for its traffic. As you can see, the roads are very narrow. There are also lots of retail shops selling surfboards, wears and very nice accessories. Finally, we reached our hotel at the heart of Kuta, Legian. It's called Matahari Bungalow. Our room is located on the first floor facing an open space where there is serenity and calmness at night. Soothing gamelan music can also be heard from a distance.Sounded eerie playing at night but actually very relaxing. We settled our stuffs before going out to buy some late night snacks.

Introducing our stay! Nice right? That is our room on the first floor..

Morning! Rise and shine! We head for our morning breakfast at the restaurant just across our room. Orange juice, bread and fried rice..It taste so great with the chilli padi. We planned where we want to go after this. First stop, Kuta Beach.

Leading our way to meeting Pak Madi, the driver

In the car with Pak Madi, we told him where we want to go for the whole day. The video footage here shows the landmarks that is popular in Kuta. Showing the popular nightspots, Embargo, the statistical monument where the Bali Bombings took place just across the road.




The beach! I'm so fascinated by the beach. The waves are not really that big at Kuta Beach. Maybe it's suited more for beginners who just started surfing. I know I'm wearing the wrong clothing to the beach but hey, it's just a stop. After that, we are going to another place much more cooler.

Ade took this picture with his camera while I'm recording

Landing both my feet on Bali's soil

Pledging my loyalty to be a firefighter..haha

Colourful scenes in Kuta Beach

Have SOSRO Ice Tea when you are thirsty!

Looking at how excited I am visiting the beach. The footage shows people learning how to surf. Ade even took a photo of a group of Japanese dudes. We actually wanted to take a picture with the two ladies but eventually we were not psyched up. Comparing Singapore's view from East Coast, there are totally no ships here in Bali. The water is cold though and quite windy. After walking around, we ate traditional Balinese 'Rojak'.

Off we go, to another location! Next we went to Ubud to visit the Sacred Monkey Forest. This cool and dense swathe of jungle, officially called Mandala Wisata Wanara Wana, houses three holy temples. The sanctuary is inhabited by a band of grey-haired and greedy long-tailed Balinese macaques who are nothing like the innocent-looking doe-eyed monkeys on the brochures. As told by Pak Madi, the monkeys are very ferocious if you never hand their 'goods' they want. The weather was cooling with light showers. So Pak Madi told us it's not a good time for us to visit the place as the monkeys were not visible.

Next destination we headed to was Kintamani..It was quite a long drive to me though. Let's say around 30 minutes or so. Along the way, the view of a location caught my eyes. It felt so calm and peaceful when you are at that place. The pictures are right below. You are looking at a paddy field.

A bit foggy because of the weather

Me and Ade taking a pose

Pak Madi told us a lot of interesting facts and stories about the island while driving us to Kintamani. Only then I knew that Kintamani is high above ground and you can view an extinct volcano. The temperature suddenly starts to drop and its COLD!

Reaching at the destination, it was really foggy,misty,windy and cold. We went to have our buffet at this restaurant just at the edge of a cliff. Too bad, the foggy weather covers the whole view of the volcano. I just can't see anything. The buffet lunch was simply amazing. A lot of choices and umph umph..DELICIOUS! Costing for only 70,000 IDR and that's only like S$10! All you can eat! The footage above was taken at the toilet of the restaurant. I just wanted to show people the misty weather at that point of time.

Can't stand the cold...

Courtesy of Pak Madi

Great view of the paddy terraces

Another view of the paddy terraces

Me viewing the terraces

After the buffet, Pak Madi stopped us at another location. There was a village and a shop selling batiks. It was a peaceful and serene place. We took a few pictures and Ade bought a piece of batik meant as a souvenir for his mother. Then, we headed back to our hotel. It's already night time and we felt hungry. We went out and dined at this simple 'kampung' restaurant and it's so damn cheap. Their sambal belachan was superb I tell you. Smoking Dji Sam Soe, a popular cigarette which does not sell in Singapore, was so satisfying after a great meal.




Walking along the streets of Legian is actually straightforward. Rows of pubs, restaurants and discotheques are plenty. Many different people I see on the streets like Japanese, Italian, French and Arabic. You just can't take your eyes off when a group of foreign ladies walk-by.Mamma Mia!

Standing in front of the statistical monument

Chilling at Crusoe's Pub having a try of Jungle Juice

Nightlife at Kuta, Legian is one the most popular tourist spots. There is Embargo, Bounty, Apache and Paddy's Club to name a few. Throughout the night, we just browse through the places and visited branded retail shops like Quiksilver and Roxy. Have you all heard about 'magic mushroom'? It's a mushroom which gives us hallucination and it's kind of like a 'laughing gas'. You can either eat with an omelette or mixed them with juice drinks. Me and Ade was walking when this Balinese guy sitting alone said, "Magic mushroom?" I wanted to try the stuff so I confronted him and he told me the price was 150,000 IDR and that's S$20. So expensive for that stuff but it's worth it. The guy's name was Andre and he was a cool dude who have piercings on his face. He mixed the mushroom with juice drinks and I drank that while chatting with him. Ade drank a bit and you know what's the result? We were all laughing like mad!

Another day, another adventure. Ade loves water sports especially diving so Pak Madi brought us to Nusa Dua where there is a whole range of water sports from jetski, parasailing and snorkeling. The package is quite expensive though so Ade went on without me. It costs 350,000 IDR equivalent to S$50. I became a camera man instead shooting videos of Ade's experience. In the footage, you can catch a glimpse of Pak Madi.




Ade was so excited when he tried parasailing as he comes down after getting a bird's eye view of the area.

How it looks like at Nusa Dua

After the adventure, Pak Madi drove us to Jimbaran Beach for a seafood delicacy by the beach. It's near to the airport as you can see the airport runaway from here. It's preferable if you have dinner at Jimbaran at night.Perfect for couples especially.

The view of Jimbaran Beach

Both of us began to feel very tired after the meal. The day ended early and we had a rest back at our hotel. Not at the same Matahari Bungalow hotel but another hotel just a few blocks away. More cosier and much cheaper for a night's stay.

It was the second last day of our trip. It was a day for us to do a bit of shopping. We ate at McDonald's that day. A meal costs around 47,000 IDR. Almost the same as the price in Singapore. Most of the time we visited retail shops and browsed some T-shirts.

Passing the time, we visited Kuta Beach again. The Mee Bakso Jawa we ate was really nice. One advice to those who wants to visit Bali is not to give any chance to peddlers as they are quite persistent. I was the victim. One of the peddlers offers to massage my legs . Want to know what happened? View the picture below with me being massaged by two old ladies. That was a lesson to be learnt.

This is what happened..

This video is just to show how they make a temporary tattoo on my buddy, Ade. Many interesting designs you can choose from the catalogue.

Beginning of night time, we decided to go to one of the discotheques as the next day we are leaving. Before that, we entered an antique shop selling all kinds of sword and weapons.

With an ancient dagger

With a samurai

After our shop visiting, we went to Paddy's Club. I think the cover charge was 50,000 IDR with a bottle of Bintang beer free. The club was fully air-conditioned and quite spacious I must say. We also ordered 'Jungle Juice' as you can see from the picture its a tumbler with different mixtures of fruit cocktails and liquer.

Arrangement: Welcome to Paddy's Club

Presenting Jungle Juice

As the crowd began to pick up, sexy dancers grooved at the podium. The music played was also not bad from trance, house and RnB. I was addicted! Ade moved around the club and took pictures. The time was getting late. I had fun dancing to the beat but we have to get back and rest for our flight to Singpore the next day.

Checking out from our hotel, a different driver brought us to the airport. Thank you so much Pak Madi for all the tours. It was still early as our flight is around noon. So we ate at a restaurant, the last Indonesian food before our departure. Ade was not feeling well as he complained of stomach problems.

I just love Balinese gamelan music..so relaxing..de-stressing. Having a cup of tea before moving.

This is how it looks like in the the interior of Ngurah Rai International Airport. Looks small.

The gateway to Bali!

Nothing better to do so I took a video to record the last moments of the time here at Bali. So that is all for my adventure. I hope you guys love and enjoy reading my posts. Hoping to share my next travelling experience for my next trip. If I have the chance to visit Bali again, I would of course. Cheers!

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