안녕하세요!!!

ok.. last time i thought i'm gonna blog about my time in hsinchu, Taiwan... but since i've uploaded the photos of my Taiwan trip on facebook (link on the side), i will just skip it and go to my Korea adventure!

It was quite a crazy day/night at first... i went back from Taiwan to Singapore at about 1am in the morning. Decided to just go back to NTU and did some laundry, took the midnite cab, reached ntu at around 2am.. because my plane to Korea was the next morning at 9 am, after finishing all my stuff and packing, it was already 5am and i only had an hour or so of sleep before going back to the airport.

I took the plane that went to Beijing and then transfer to another plane to Seoul. It was a crazy 6 hours flight, my body was aching and i was totally super tired. after 3 hours of transit and another 2 hours of flight, finally reached Seoul. It was an accomplishment as in the last 24 hours, i was in 4 different countries... reached Seoul at 10pm, was not sure whether we should navigate ourselves at night thus decided to sleep over at Incheon while watching soccer.

Took the airport bus in the morning and get to our hostel. managed to get some rest before going out to venture Seoul. Gonna have to say that i totally love Seoul. Not because i am biased of korean stuff but this city is definitely a clean, nice, and happening city. The food is totally a treat. Haven't got to tried a non-delicious food yet (except for the corn tea i tried at the airport.. that one is totally sux!).. get my very first Naeng-Myeon (spicy cold noodle... a popular dish in the summer) and tried some street snacks that are just so good!!. Visited Myeong-dong, a popular spot for the young-adults and the Han river creek..

it's yoona!!!! not a real one though lolz..

korean food is really good!!

Dongdaemun area

the river creek... touch of nature in the middle of a metropolitan

a church in myeongdong... some scenes of You're Beautiful was shot here

More pictures and update will be uploaded soon... my summer school just started so was kinda busy but will try my best to keep this blog more lively!!!

Taipei 101++

Taipei is such a fascinating city. There are tons of different stuff that one can do here. the combination of metropolis city with touch of nature is really breathtaking.

Back to Nature

the first thing that we did on our first day in Taipei was climbing the 7 star mountain (yangmingshan). Were not totally prepared to do mountain climbing, we thought we would be using somekind of transportation to get to the top. Turned out we need to climb the mountain ourselves through thousands of staircase up to 2.6km.

me and vifo at yangmingshan.. this one is before the climb (read : happy face)

Though didn't really make it to the top, we did see a breathtaking view of Taipei city. The weather was cool and windy, didn't feel like it was summer.

The Night Market

There are a lot of night market in Taiwan. Lots of them selling considerably cheap items and yummy food! To be honest, most of my spending in Taiwan was on food! from mee sua, crispy chicken (this one is super good), snow ice (my fav), and spaghetti hotdog.. taiwan is like a haven for food-lovers!!! Visited the famous Shihlin night market and ximenting night market..

love the snow ice! the best dessert ever!

spaghetti on a hotdog with taiwanese sausage! EPIC!

although my feet were sore and about to fall off, still able to walk through the whole market and found the best food there!

The Taipei 101 + sightseeing

Used to be the tallest building in the world, better to see it at night when the lights are on. Though not much to see except for the exterior (it's an office building!!). The Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall was a wonderful place and the national museum was amazing.

Isaac, me and vifo

these dogs are not dead.. they are up for adoption.. just too cute!!

the limited time i spent in Taipei really felt very short. next one will be about my traveling to Hsinchu, a city one hour away from Taipei! More photos are/will be available through my facebook account (mostly uploaded by my friends ^^)

Summer '10

Finally my summer trip blog is O-P-E-N!!!!! gonna update lots of stuff happening around me...current location is in Taipei, Taiwan. Just landed at around 6.30pm. Taipei is not very much different from Jakarta, apart from everything is in chinese. The airport immigration officer spoke to me in chinese asking about stuff, and with my super-limited chinese ability, we are able to communicate somehow... super LOL moment!

pre-departure photo with the whole team!!

We took bus from the airport to the city centre. It was a long ride. The bus dropped us off way far from our place to stay. Thus we walked for about 30 mins to reach our hotel. We were starving but luckily the hotel (YMCA) is surrounded by a lot of food stalls and restaurants. After dropping our stuff off at our rooms, we head out for a food hunt!

Bought a lot of tidbits before settling on a famous (not sure if it is real but they said it is) mee sua stall. Definitely super yummy mee sua! it's different from those that we can buy in the crispy chicken stall in Singapore! this one has more taste and the oyster does not taste weird/ocean-ish. After that we divided ourselves into two groups, one going to mcdonalds(wth?) and my group went for more street snacking in taipei.

the famous mee sua food chain!

They said bubble tea originated from Taiwan, so we definitely have to try the original!

Oh for those still asking about me meeting the Wonder Girls... yes i did meet the wonder girls on 17th June @ iluma bugis! it was like one of the best days of my life!! so excited that the pictures i took were mostly blur but anyways i got all their signature and SHAKE HANDS WITH ALL OF THEM!!!! also got to talk to yubin and sunye!!! aaahh it was like heaven!!! they are way prettier in real life!!! more photos of the wonder girls meet and greet can go to my facebook account (link on the side!), the better quality is with on my friend's photo album.

are you trying to get my picture sunye?? hehehe

now that this blog is up and running again, gonna update this one quite frequently whenever internet connection is around! for more up-to-date stuff can follow me on twitter, http://twitter.com/DustinBT

Live Like We're Dying

Sometimes we fall down and can't get back up
we're hiding behind skin that's too tough
how come we don't say I love you enough
till it's to late, it's not too late

Our hearts are hungry for a food that won't come
we could make a feast from these crumbs
and we're all staring down the barrel of a gun
so if your life flashed before you
what would you wish you would've done

Yeah... gotta start
lookin at the hand of the time we've been given here
this is all we got and we gotta start pickin it
every second counts on a clock that's tickin'
gotta live like we're dying

We only got
86 400 seconds in a day to
turn it all around or throw it all away
we gotta tell 'em that we love 'em
while we got the chance to say
gotta live like we're dying

And if your plane fell out of the skies
who would you call with your last goodbyes
should be so careful who we live out our lives
so when we long for absolution
there'll no one on the line

Yeah... gotta start
lookin at the hand of the time we've been given here
this is all we got and we gotta start pickin it
every second counts on a clock that's tickin'
gotta live like we're dying


We only got
86 400 seconds in a day to
turn it all around or throw it all away
we gotta tell 'em that we love 'em
while we got the chance to say
gotta live like we're dying

FAN-atic

Fanatic - a person filled with excessive and singe-minded zeal. i believe most of us is a fan of something or someone, be it singer, actor, or even a friend. Then the question is, how far would you go being a fan?

The word fanatic has a negative connotation, most of us would not admit that we are a fanatic of something but i don't agree with that. i know that even if we don't admit it, there are some fanatic moments that we experience which affect our decisions and live in general. For example, i told myself that i am not a fanatic of apple company, but whenever i am talking about macbook or ipod, i talk aggressively and one-sided. Though i denied that i am a fanatic but my friends will say that i am a fanatic.

There are two kind of fanatics. Those that want to get their believe out there and make everyone following them and those that just keep it to themselves. The terrorists, for example, are those that wanted to get more people to join them and spread fear around the world through their 'questionable' ideology. Even some religions practice actively seeking out new members in any way possible which sometime i found it so annoying.

How far will you go being a fan? The recent big news in the K-pop world (yeah i listen to kpop now ^^) put a 2pm (a boy band group) member in the limelight. Due to an old post of his myspace, he got into serious trouble... the anti-fans really burnt him down, writing hate mails and even suicide petitions, and he then resigned from the group... and now his fans started a new movement to get him back, by boycotting any other activities of the other group members. It is really complicated and i am amused by how it turns out. All those fans/anti-fans will just do anything to get what they want...they call themselves a fan... but this is more like a fanatic..

Being a fanatic is good and bad... but sometimes we just have to put aside all this fanatic- ism and think logically and don't do anything stupid... being fanatic for your own country's sake is nationalism, but if u would do anything for the betterment of the country without thinking about the effect or even use of violence, that is terrorism.

So the question is, are you a fanatic?

I'll Go with The Wind Blows

It has been a long time since my last post, had a three-month break from college thus i went back to indonesia and the internet connection there is not as good, updating a blog became a pain due to the slow connection.

It's a new semester, a new start for me... beginning of the semester, i did not get a hall yet thus was squatting at my friends' place, but i am fortunate enough that now i have a hall... 

My life has not been going on the way i planned for most of the time, but i'm not gonna complaint about it, i'll just gonna let it flow... just follow what life has prepared for me... 

this post won't be long.. not so much to talk about coz i'm in a quite bored-cum-disappointed mood so i'll just end this with a song which is a good one.. from All-American Reject - the wind blows

A Fool!

How many times do we actually make the same mistake over and over again... once is okay... but a few more times? that is stupid...

I believe that people can never learn just by reading or just by theory... we need to see it, to experience it and to make mistake out of it... yet we are stubborn and egoistic that sometimes it took more than just a few mistakes for us to learn...

Last night i watched the movie 17 Again... yeah surprise surprise... i watched a movie starring Zac Efron... but hey one of the reason i watch that is because Matthew Perry from Friends and Michelle Trachtenberg, Georgina Sparks from Gossip Girl... it was a good movie, so much better than i've expected... it tells the story of a man who wanted to so called re-do his life and make the "right" decisions all over again... but in the end... it is about reminding him of the things from the past, his mistakes and his "bad" decisions, so that he can be a better person for himself and his family... a lot of points that we can pick up from the movie that actually surprisingly makes you want to say "Hey, that is so true!"... 

We all sometimes regret the things that we did... and wish that we can do it all over again... even i want to re-do some parts of my almost 21 years of my life... but hey, i feel that whatever happens.. it happens and even if i have to re-do it, i might have just make the same mistakes again and that will be stupid... i've only been in this world for 21 years... i am still young and life has a lot to offer to me... all i can do is not to wish for time to turn back... but to do better right now so i can have a better future... and sometimes the bad decisions that we make is actually for the best...

Okay, enough with this psychological whatever talk... now is American Idol time... well all i can say is that this season is not my most-liked season nor my most-hated season... it is an okay season... but i feel that the final two is fixed... i don't like it... somehow i want danny gokey out... yeah i am mean... but it is still possible... i want a kris vs adam or matt (with kris in the final for sure)... Kris Allen is good... his performance of Falling Slowly is like the best performance ever from any of the contestants...

Exam is finishing soon... one paper left... i really want to study hard for it but my friends are all done with theirs so it is very hard to focus... whoever set the paper to be so far end of the month is just an idiot!

Gonna leave this one with a video from the Wonder Girls called "E Ba Bo (This Fool)" nice song and i just love the beat... it tells us that in love you have to go and get the love that you want and not to wait...

oh, it was earth day on the 22nd... well i guess we all should do our part in making our earth a better place... global warming is so not cool... it has been freaking hot here in Singapore... incredibly hotter than usual... let's plant more trees than building more shopping malls... we have a lot of those already...

With exam finishing soon means i am going back to indo... not sure when though but should be soon... haha... can't wait to go back!