APRICOT 2013 and Traceroute Party

Last month, I attended APRICOT 2013 in Singapore. It has been a long time since I attended APRICOT or any other APNIC events. The last time I attended APRICOT was in 2010 when it was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Therefore, it was nice to meet some old and new friends during the event.

As usual, I attended only the conference and not the workshop. Some of the interesting topics discussed during the conference were:

1. Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), which is designed for Internet routing security to prevent route hijacking or blackholing;
2. Software-Defined Networking (SDN), which is an approach to provision network connections on-the-fly, normally within cloud computing and virtualisation environment;
3. DNSSEC, in a bid to secure the DNS (Domain Name System); and
4. Last but not least, IPv4 exhaustion and the (very slow) deployment of IPv6.

This weekend, I will be going to Jakarta, Indonesia to attend Traceroute Party. This is one of the biggest gathering events related to the (very big) Indonesian Internet community, with telcos, NAPs, ISPs, content providers, game providers, Internet communities, bloggers and the Internet users in general, are expected to attend. There will be 300 exhibitors, talk-shows, workshops and last but not least, many indie bands performing live. This even is hosted by IDC Indonesia.

I will make use of the opportunity to hang around and get together with some old friends, and make some new friends as well. Some of my friends from the Indonesian ISP and Internet industry are expected to be there. I hope to meet some of my old friends during the RADNET era. Most of my friends in BemoNet community will also be there, since BemoNet has 3 booths at the event, and we don’t have any idea on how to make use of the booths. ;P  I will also make the opportunity to meet some friends from the RKTI and BlogFam communities as well.

See you in JCC this weekend. :)

Happy New Year 2012

I spent the New Year’s eve in Bintan, Nirwana Garden Resorts in Bintan Resorts, Lagoi, to be exact, and spending the last day of 2011 shuttling (islands hopping, to be exact) between Bintan and Batam. Going through the change of year with mixed feelings, here’s the story.

Towards the end of 2011, I was informed that my brother’s family would be spending New Year’s eve in Bintan Resorts, and that my parents are going with them. And my mother specifically requested me to join them to celebrate the new year there. I then decided to go with my son Irza, while my wife and my daughter Inka are staying in Singapore.

My brother and his family and my parents arrived in Bintan on Friday (30/12). They took a flight from Jakarta to Batam, and then caught the speedboat from Telaga Punggur in Batam to Tanjung Uban in Bintan. There used to be a direct ferry from Telaga Punggur to Bandar Bentan Telani (BBT) ferry terminal in Bintan Resorts, but for some reason, the ferry service was not operational.

I and Irza left Singapore for Bintan on Saturday morning (31/12). We took the 9am ferry from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal (TMFT) in Singapore, and arrived in Bandar Bentan Telani ferry terminal at 9am Bintan (WIB) time. This was when the bad news came in.

When we boarded the shuttle bus which would bring us from the ferry terminal to the resort, my brother called. He said that my mother fell off the electric bicycle she was riding, and she fractured her arm. When I and Irza arrived in the Nirwana Resort Hotel where we are staying, we immediately went to the hotel’s clinic to check my mother’s condition.

Going back to the hotel’s clinic reminded me of another unpleasant experience I had couple of years back there. When I was swimming on the sea with the kids, my foot was bitten by some kind of a poisonous fish, and I needed to spend couple of hours in the clinic to get the venom taken off my foot.

While the hotel doctor has tried her best to put a bandage for my mother’s arm, it’s not sufficient. The hotel clinic doesn’t have X-ray equipment, so my mother needs to go to the nearest hospital which has the equipment, as well as the specialized doctor who can further check her condition. Luckily, she has a friend in Batam who can arrange for an orthopaedic doctor to check my mother’s condition in Awal Bros hospital in Batam.

I then accompanied my mother and my father to go to Batam, after leaving Irza in Bintan under my brother’s care. We took a pre-arranged taxi to Tanjung Uban, from where we took a chartered speedboat to Telaga Punggur in Batam. From Telaga Punggur, we took another pre-arranged taxi to go directly to Awal Bros hospital’s emergency department.

My mother had her arm being X-rayed and the result was not good. She had three bones fractured on her left arm, and most probably would need to undergo operation. I was prepared to spend the new year in Batam when my father decided that he is bringing my mother back to Jakarta so that she can have better treatment (including operation, if necessary) there.

My parents’ Lion Air tickets to Jakarta was for the next day (1/1)’s flight, and I tried calling Lion Air hotline in Batam in a hope to change the tickets to the current day (31/12), but there was nobody picking up the phone. So we decided to go to Garuda Indonesia office located in i Hotel Batam, located near Nagoya Hill, to purchase new airline tickets to Jakarta so that my parents can fly to Jakarta on the same day.

Since my parents decide to go back to Jakarta on that day, I then had to go back to Bintan, and I needed to go back fast since the speedboats from Telaga Punggur to Tanjung Uban only operate during daylight. After sending off my parents at Hang Nadim airport in Batam and had a quick (very late) lunch at Singgalang Jaya padang restaurant there, I took a taxi to Telaga Punggur (Rp 65k). Finally I managed to secure a seat on a 4:30pm speedboat to Tanjung Uban (Rp 30k + Rp 7k tax). It was a bumpy ride to Tanjung Uban with choppy waters and a full-house boat with standing passengers.

My brother had arranged for a taxi to pick me up at Tanjung Uban jetty back to Nirwana Gardens, although I needed to wait for around 30 minutes until the taxi arrived. We had a brief stop in a sate Madura stall in front of the At-Taqwa grand mosque in Tanjung Uban, before arriving in Nirwana Resort Hotel, in time for the gala dinner and the new year’s countdown party.

It was one of the great countdown parties ever. Great gala dinner, and we also won one of the lucky prizes. Awesome live band, and great fireworks over the sea off Bintan during the countdown. But still, we celebrated the new year with mixed feelings, since at the same time, my mother arrived in Jakarta and directly checked-in to Fatmawati hospital.

The next day (1/1), I and Irza took the 2:35pm ferry back to Singapore, while uncle Arief , auntie Via, Alif and Kayla went back to Jakarta via Batam using the same route: taxi to Tanjung Uban, speedboat to Telaga Punggur, taxi to Hang Nadim airport and then the Lion Air plane back to Jakarta.

At the moment, my mother is still warded in Fatmawati hospital, and currently is undergoing pre-op examination. She might be undergoing operation on her left arm in 3-4 days.

Mohon doa dari rekan-rekan sekalian untuk kesembuhan beliau.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Pangandaran is Getting Closer

This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.

Pangandaran is a famous tourist attraction, located at the south-east end of West Java province, Indonesia. Its beaches are reputably the best and finest in Java island, and also offer excellent surfing. Other than its fine beaches, Pangandaran also offer a beautiful national park and its own version of green canyon.

However, its location at the southern regency of Ciamis in West Java makes Pangandaran not really appealing to Jakarta and Bandung tourists, let alone foreign tourists. By road, it takes around 5-6 hours to reach Pangandaran from Bandung, the capital city of West Java province, and it takes around 7-8 hours to reach Pangandaran from Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia, by road.

Fortunately, there is now a faster alternative to reach Pangandaran, which is via air. Susi Air, an airline previously specialised in chartered services, has started scheduled services from Jakarta and Bandung to Pangandaran. This will cut down the travel time between Jakarta and Pangandaran to only one hour. It will operate a Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft with a capacity of 12 passengers to service the Jakarta-Pangandaran route twice a day, one direct flight and another one with a stopover in Bandung.

The flight from Jakarta will depart from Halim Perdanakusuma airport, located east of the city and closer to the city centre compared to Soekarno-Hatta International airport.

Indonesia AirAsia’s Change of Flight Timing

On Friday (16/10) morning, I received both SMS and e-mail from AirAsia, to inform me that my and my family’s upcoming Indonesia AirAsia’s QZ 7785 flights (same flight on different dates) from Singapore to Jakarta on December 2009 are being rescheduled from 12:40pm to 5:45pm. There seems to be a re-timing exercise affecting this specific flight number and all QZ 7785 flights after 25 October 2009 are affected.

I immediately logged in to AirAsia’s website and tried to change my itinerary to an earlier flight for the day using its “Manage my Booking” function, however I would have to pay S$40 “change fee”. Luckily, there were some other Indonesians in Singapore who had also purchased tickets for some future QZ 7785 flights and were affected by the same problem, and they were kindly enough to share their experience in Indo-Sing mailing list. They mentioned that if we call their call centre to request for a change to an earlier flight due to this re-timing, they will process it without charging the $40 change fee.

That’s good news! The only problem is that it was very difficult to call AirAsia’s call centre number in Singapore on that day. I tried calling the number (630 77688) since 10:30am in the morning and I kept on getting busy tones. I eventually managed to get in touch with them at around 3pm in the afternoon, and I immediately lodged my complaint about the change of schedule and requested for a change to an earlier flight, free of charge. He requested for the booking codes and I gave him.

The call centre staff then gave me a Service Request Number (SRN) and was transferred to their support staff. They put me on hold for quite some time (I think close to 5 minutes) before a support staff then took my call and request for the SRN. After I gave him the SRN, he then processed the flight change (for both myself and my family, who are on the same flight but different date) and informed me that I will receive an e-mail containing the new itinerary within 15 minutes. Yay! :)

Less than 5 minutes, I received the email with the new itineraries, and immediately print them. Just to make sure, I went back into the “Manage my Booking” function on AirAsia’s website to check the booking, and it’s confirmed that the flight has been changed to an earlier flight (10:30am) for the day, for both booking. I am a very happy AirAsia customer now.

Thank you, AirAsia. :)

Using IM2 Broom Unlimited

I and my family are now in Jakarta, Indonesia for a (short?) two-week holiday. We left Singapore yesterday afternoon, taking Lion Air flight to Jakarta. It took more than 40 minutes for us to queue for checking-in at Singapore's Changi airport. The flight was full, there were so many passengers queuing for checking-in and yet, there were only 4 check-in counters available. It also caused around 20 minutes of delay of the flight since it took some time for all passengers to eventually checked in to the flight, despite an additional one (yes, only one, sigh) counter being set up.

We arrived at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at around 4pm. It turned out that we were on the same flight as Yudi (one of my friends from the Indo-Sing community, and I initially had mistaken him as Pieter, another friend from the same community, gosh!)  and Audi (one of my band-mates) with his wife Erina and son Rifa. My parents picked us up at the airport and we went straight to Plasa Semanggi for late lunch/early dinner. Lion Air is a budget airline and they don't serve any snacks or meal on board. We also didn't have the chance to have our lunch at Changi airport prior to boarding the plane due to the check-in's long queue taking up much of our "precious" time at the airport. Had a Bakmi Gang Kelinci's chicken noodle at the food court in Plasa Semanggi, which is located on the 3A floor of the shopping mall.

I also went to Indosat's IM2 Broadband Centre located on the first floor of Plasa Semanggi, for me to buy the starter pack of IM2 Broom, for our Internet connection during our stay in Indonesia. The starter pack costs IDR 150,000, and it provides unlimited HSDPA/3.5G-based Internet connection for a month. Subsequent months will even cost less, only IDR 100,000/month. Quite worth value for money, especially since now we have mobile phones which have HSDPA capabilities so we don't need to invest for additional HSDPA modem, which can be quite costly.

I am currently using my daughter's Nokia 6120 classic phone as a HSDPA modem using the PC Suite for me to enjoy the Internet connection using my laptop. Since I'm taking the unlimited package, the maximum bandwidth speed I should get is only up to 256 KBps for the first 2 GB of data transfer, after which the bandwidth will be capped at 64 Kbps, unlimited until it expires in one month. However, seems that I could get up to 460.8 Kbps of connection last night when I tried to connect. :) Connection is good for browsing purposes, accessing international sites sometimes can be a bit slow, but I believe this is more to infrastructure issue on the ISP's connection to the global Internet rather than issue on the HSDPA connection itself. Accessing local Indonesian sites is very fast.

Unfortunately, IM2 Broom only provides data connection without any voice capability, while I also need a local Indonesian number for normal voice calls, to save the roaming charges. I might be getting a Telkomsel's Simpati line today, so that I can also use its Telkomsel Flash feature for ad-hoc Internet connections for my phone. I won't be using my SingTel line for HSDPA connection here in Indonesia, the data roaming charges are very expensive.

Other than Jakarta, I'll also be visiting my hometown Bandung (of course) and Garut (Cipanas, to be exact) for a short holiday, before going to Tasikmalaya to celebrate Hari Raya Idul Adha (Hari Raya Haji) with my family and relatives there.

Windsor Bed & Breakfast Hotel

Windsor Bed & Breakfast Hotel is the hotel I'm staying during my week stay in Christchurch to attend the APNIC 26 Meeting. As one of the APNIC meeting fellows, the hotel cost is bourne by APNIC (thanks Sunny!) and I'm sharing a room with another fellow, Stanley Osao from Papua New Guinea.

I would have to say that their service standards are quite high for a budget hotel. The hosts (which are the owners of the hotel) are very nice and friendly, and the room is very clean, tidy and comfortable. The bathrooms are shared, but they are quite a plenty and bathrobes are provided.

Every morning, they serve a very generous English-style breakfast, which is cooked on the spot. We can choose the breakfast menu, which consists of eggs (scrambled, poached or fried), sausages, bacon, baked beans and sweet corn. I love their beef sausages, unfortunately I couldn't try the bacon since it's made of pork. On top of that, there are also toasts, fresh fruits and cereals which you can have your own servings. To be frank, the breakfast time is one of my most-waited time during my stay there. :)

They have a lounge where guests can watch TV and use some computer terminals to connect to the Internet, free of charge. On top of that, they also provide free wireless Internet connections for people like me who has laptop with wireless connection. The lounge also allows us to interact with other guests, creating a "warm" environment for the guests. Free carpark lots are also available for those who drive or rent a car.

It's conveniently located near the Christchurch city centre, just in front of Cranmer Square and only several minutes walk to the Arts Centre, Canterbury Museum and Cathedral Square. The historic Christchurch Tramway also stops just in front of the hotel.

These high standards of services for a bed and breakfast hotel makes its rates to be a bit higher than other B&Bs in Christchurch. The price for single is NZ$89 while for twin/double is NZ$128, and they have a plan to increase the rates to $NZ98 (single) and NZ$140 (twin/double) after 1 November 2008.

More pictures of the hotel can be found here.

e!Hub @ Downtown East

It has been quite some time since I visited Downtown East in Pasir Ris, and was surprised when I went there again with Inka last Saturday, after dropping off my wife and Irza at the Singapore Expo for them to watch the High School Musical: The Ice Tour.

There's a new shopping mall called e!Hub @ Downtown East, featuring some leisure activities such as bowling at Orchid Bowl, watching movies at Cathay Cineplex, karaokeing at K-Box, and many more. There's also eXplorerkid indoor family park for the kids, and also an indoor ferris wheel similar to the one at First World Plaza, Genting Highlands, Malaysia and Bandung Supermal, Bandung, Indonesia.

How I envy those who live on the east side of Singapore. Looks like they are more accessible to many attractions and leisure activities compared to us on the west side of the island.

Gelanggang Samudra, Ancol

This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.

 

Gelanggang Samudra is an animal-based theme park, which is one of the attractions at the Taman Impian Jaya Ancol recreation park located in Jakarta, Indonesia. Ancol itself is a popular recreation park among Indonesians, located within the shore of the Jakarta bay, north of the city. However, being an aging attraction, it seems that Gelanggang Samudra is not as popular as other attractions such as the Sea World, which is located next to Gelanggang Samudra, the Atlantis Water Adventure and the more thrilling Dunia Fantasi.

For me, I found out that the Gelanggang Samudra is more educative to the kids. There are three animal shows, namely dolphin show, sealion show and other various animals show, staged several times a day, and each show is being conducted at different times, to ensure that we can attend all the three shows at the shortest time possible. There's also one 4D show which we can attend, and the kids also can have unlimited access to some rides, such as bumper car and balloon ride.

The MCs and the trainers of the animals who are staging the shows are also very professional in bringing up the shows with some jokes here and there. However, the shows were being presented in bahasa Indonesia, so foreign tourists might have difficulties in understanding them although they can still enjoy the animals' talents and capabilities during the show. That might be the reason why this attraction might still be appealing for domestic tourists, but not for foreign tourists.

On top of Ancol's entrance fee (12,000 rupiahs per person and 12,000 rupiahs per car), we needed to pay the Gelanggang Samudra's entrance fee of 60,000 rupiahs per person. That would set you back around 72,000 rupiahs (around SGD $10 or USD $7.79) per person, which is quite reasonable. The best way to reach Ancol is to drive your own car or take a cab. Alternatively, you can also take the TransJakarta busway.

More pictures can be found here.

Treetop Walk at MacRitchie

This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.

HSBC Treetop Walk is a free-standing suspension bridge, which provices a bird eyes' view of the forest located at MacRitchie, which is part of Singapore's Central Catchment Nature Reserve. To reach the bridge, we can follow the MacRitchie walking trails from MacRitchie reservoir or from a carpark along Venus Drive, off Upper Thomson Road. Walking distance from Venus Drive carpark is notably shorter compared to the walking distance from MacRitchie reservoir to the Treetop Walk.

Nevertheless, we still have to be prepared for a long walk. From Venus Drive carpark to the entrance of the Treetop Walk is a good 2.5 km walk along the Treetop trail, passes by the Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) and Terentang trail, before reaching the Ranger Station, which is equipped with toilets and drinking water dispenser for us to "recharge". From there, we still need to climb the Bukit Peirce hill, where the entrance to the suspension bridge is located.

HSBC Treetop Walk is opened between 9am and 5pm on Tuesday to Friday, and between 8:30am and 5pm on Saturday, Sunday and public holidays. It is closed on Mondays (except public holiday) for maintenance and research. Since it's closed by 5pm, it's advisable to reach the Ranger Station by 4pm.

The view from the suspension bridge is spectacular. Unfortunately, the bridge is quite narrow and it's a one-way traffic flow so we can't spend much time on the bridge, otherwise we will block people behind. And since it's a one-way traffic, we have to move on and follow the Petaling trail to go back to the Ranger Station and further back to the carpark. This is quite a long detour via Petaling Hut and then follow Sime track eastward back to the Ranger Station, adding around 30-45 minutes of journey time.

The total length of the journey from Venus Drive carpark to Treetop Walk and then back to carpark via Petaling hut is more than 7km, which is quite a long walk (about 3 hours walk in total, depends on our walking pace). With some quite difficult terrains found along some of the trails, the walk might not be suitable for very young kids and the elderly.

Note: More pictures can be found here.

Quicklink: Another Jakarta-Bandung Travelogue by Rush Murad

(Pictures taken from the article)

Being involved in a accident last year -- while the car he was taking had the brakes failed when cruising down the steep slope of Mount Tangkuban Perahu -- does not prevent Rush Murad, a Malaysian traveler and blogger, from again choosing Jakarta and -- especially -- Bandung, for his holiday destinations. He revisited both cities recently and again, he wrote a nice travelogue about his journey, in Malay. The travelogue can be found here.

Again, thanks for writing such a nice travelogue and helping to promote our country's (and especially, my home town's) tourist attractions.

Singapore DUCKtours

This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.

Singapore DUCKtours is a combined city and harbour tour in Singapore, using a refurbished ex-military amphibious vehicle they call as "duck" which can travel on both land and water. The one-hour tour comprises of 40 minutes water tour around Singapore's Marina Bay area and 20 minutes land tour around Singapore's civic district. The water tour in the Marina Bay area will show you places around the Singapore Flyer, Benjamin Sheares bridge, the floating platform, Esplanade and the Merlion, while the land tour in the civic district area will show you places around City Hall and the Padang.

The tour departs from Suntec City on an hourly basis between 10am to 7pm, subject to weather conditions. The price is $33 for adult and $17 for child, quite expensive since it's catered more for tourists. To purchase the tickets, we can approach the ticketing counter, which is located at the Suntec City Mall, near the Convention Centre area. We can use major credit cards for payment.

We will board the duck on an open area just next to the ticketing counter. There is a tour guide who accompanies all the guests throughout the journey and give running commentaries with regards to all the tourist attractions along the way. The best photo stop would be the Merlion, where the duck boat will have a brief stop to allow all guests to take pictures of the Merlion from both sides of the boat.

Note: More pictures can be found here.

Mount Faber

This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.

Mount Faber, one of tourist attractions in Singapore, is not really a mountain. It is just a hill, about 106 metres in height, located just north of the Harbourfront area. The highest point is called Faber Point, and from there, we can have a panoramic view of the surrounding areas, including the Harbourfront area and the buildings at Singapore's central business district area. There's a small Merlion statue in Faber Point, and on the lower level, there are some stone carvings depicting some of Singapore's history.

Just further down from Faber Point, there's a building called The Jewel Box, houses some fine dining restaurants and some souvenir shops. From there, we can also catch a cable car to Harbourfront and Sentosa. Apart from that, there's nothing much to see and do there other than enjoying the greenery of the secondary rainforest around Mount Faber.

The best way to reach Mount Faber is by taxi. There is a bus service from SBS Transit called Parks 409, which runs from Harbourfront bus interchange to Mount Faber on Saturday, Sunday and public holiday. The bus fare is $1, payable using cash or EZ-Link card. If we drive a car there, finding a parking lot might be difficult, especially during evening peak hours. However, The Jewel Box provides valet service for those who need it.

At the moment, the National Parks Board is building a bridge to connect Mount Faber Park and Telok Blangah Hill Park, with a further connection up to Kent Ridge Park, connecting all the three parks. This means that visitors can jog or walk from one park to another without having to exit the park and/or take other methods of transportation. When I visited Mount Faber recently, I saw that the bridge is still under construction, and might be fully operational in the next couple of months.

Dolphin Lagoon in Sentosa

This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.

 

Sentosa, a small island located south of Singapore, is one of the country’s most visited tourist destinations. With only S$2 entrance fee per person (excluding transport), going to Sentosa is now much more affordable compared to several years ago when the entrance fee was still a hefty S$6 per person. There are many ways to enter Sentosa, and the most convenient and cheapest method is to take the Sentosa Express monorail from VivoCity shopping mall, with a transport fee of a mere S$1. Alternatively, you can also take the Sentosa bus from Harbourfront bus interchange with the same fee. Taking the cable car from Harbourfront tower or Mount Faber to enter Sentosa is also possible, with a much higher fee. Once we enter Sentosa, all the transportation methods within Sentosa (bus, monorail, tram) are free.

There are many attractions inside Sentosa, each with its own entrance fee, which is on top of the S$2 entrance fee into the island. One of the attractions which tourists usually visit is Dolphin Lagoon, which is located near to the Palawan beach in Sentosa. The entrance fee is quite steep, S$19.90 for adult and S$12.70 for child, however the fee includes the entrance tickets for both Dolphin Lagoon and Underwater World. To reach Dolphin Lagoon, we can take the Sentosa Express monorail to the Beach station, and from there, we can take the Palawan beach tram which will bring us right into Dolphin Lagoon’s doorstep. Alternatively, we can also take the red or yellow line bus within Sentosa.

There are dolphin show sessions where we can watch all the pink dolphins in action, four times daily at 11am, 1:30pm, 3:30pm and 5:30pm. It’s advisable that we manage the time properly and be at the Dolphin Lagoon gate at least 30-45 minutes before the show time. This is to ensure that we get the best seats for the show. Take note that the waiting time for buses and trams in Sentosa is quite long, especially during peak holiday period where Sentosa can get very crowded and it seems that the available buses and trams are outnumbered by the visitors.

After each session, there’s a meet and greet session where we can touch the dolphins and have your photos taken with them. For this, we would need to pay additional $15 fee per photo session, and each session is valid for up to two persons. We will have to go to one of the two corners of the lagoon compound and queue there to have our pictures being taken while touching the dolphins. We can then collect the photo at the souvenir shop near the exit of the lagoon complex. If we have another friend with a camera there, we can also ask the friend to take our pictures with the dolphin, so we can also have our own version of the photo.

Do not forget that the admission fee for Dolphin Lagoon includes the admission to Underwater World, which will be valid on the same day. So we might want to manage our time properly so we can visit both attractions on the same day. Underwater World opens until 9pm daily while the last show session is at 5:30pm daily, so if we reach Sentosa in the afternoon, we might want to watch the Dolphin Lagoon show first before heading to the Underwater World, which is located on the other side of the island.

Amazing Race Asia 2 Has Started

I have just watched the premiere of The Amazing Race Asia 2 on AXN Asia just now. It is the second season of The Amazing Race Asia series, one of my favourite shows, after its first season last year. This season, the race started in Singapore, specifically near the Raffles Landing Site where I and my kids just visited last week, and their first destination was the Merlion statue at Mount Faber. Believe me, I didn't know that there's another Merlion statue in Mount Faber, until I watched the show. I thought Merlion statues in Singapore can only be found in Merlion Park and Sentosa. :)

Similar to last season, there are ten teams competing for one hunder thousand dollar. There is one contestant from Singapore, Adrian, who is hearing-impaired, making him the first hearing-impaired contestant in the Amazing Race history. There's one team representing Indonesia, actress Kinaryosih and her partner Brett, and they can reach the pit stop at the fourth place in the first leg of the race. Not bad. :)

So, from next week onwards, I will have to mark this important time of the week: Thursday at 9pm (Singapore time), for me to watch The Amazing Race Asia 2. Oh, and don't forget also that every Wednesday at 11pm (Singapore time), Channel 5 is also showing the latest season of the Amazing Race.

Pictures courtesy of AXN Asia website.

Quicklink: A Jakarta-Bandung Travelogue

(Pictures taken from the article)

A nice travelogue written by a Malaysian friend on his trip to Jakarta and Bandung, last month. Rush Murad is a Malaysian blogger based in Sarawak, and the travelogue is written in Malay. I really enjoy reading it. He also put some nice photos in the article.

Quite unfortunately, he was involved in an accident while the car he was taking had the brakes failed once cruising down the steep slope of Mount Tangkuban Perahu, north of Bandung. Thank God, he is safe and sound, albeit a small injury.

You can read the travelogue here.

APRICOT 2007 in Bali

The APRICOT conference, which stands for "Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies", is the place where all network geeks from Asia Pacific, if not the whole world, gather to discuss about new technology in the Internet and IT fields, especially on the network area. The event consists of workshops, tutorials, conference sessions and some other forums as well. We can say that APRICOT is the Asia Pacific version of North America's NANOG. For this year, the APRICOT 2007 will be held at Bali International Convention Centre, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia. It will be hosted by APJII, the Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association.

The last time I attended APRICOT was six years ago, during the APRICOT 2001 event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Since then, I never attended the next APRICOT events, until this year, my company has agreed to send me to attend the APRICOT 2007 in Bali, thank God. I will be going to Bali on Saturday, 24th of February 2007, and will be back to Singapore on 3rd of March 2007. I will attend the tutorial, conference sessions and the APNIC member meeting.

I'm glad that I'll be meeting quite a lot of friends there, including some of my friends from APJII and my ex-colleagues in RADNET. I took a glance at the event's organizing committee here and saw some familiar names, including Mauldi Wirastomo and Hammam Riza, two of my ex-bosses while I was in RADNET last time. :) For those of you who will be going to attend APRICOT 2007 as well, just drop me a note, in case we can meet up there and have a chat. Looking forward to see you guys in Bali! :) :)

Zabrina and Joe Jer Win the Amazing Race Asia

Amazing! As I have predicted earlier, my favourite team, the Malaysians Zabrina and Joe Jer, have won the first session of the Amazing Race Asia, with a narrow lead from the second team to arrive at the pit stop, Sandy and Fransesca. The race ended at Bako National Park (misspelled as "Baku National Park" by the show's producer), which is about 37 km north of the city of Kuching, in Sarawak, Malaysia.

The other Malaysian team, Andrew and Syeon, was actually the first who finished the "building the bench" detour at Kuching's Old Courthouse, but got lost when finding their way to the Sarawak Cultural Village, making them the third team to arrive at the finish line. One member of the teams had to take up treetop challenge in Permai Rainforest Resort, before setting off to the beach and took the speedboat to Bako National Park. Zabrina finished this treetop challenge very well, making her team to be the first to arrive at the finish line. Congratulations!

How about the Indonesian team, Marsio and Mardy? Well, contrary to my prediction earlier, they were actually on the fourth place, after becoming the last team to be eliminated from the race, during the leg in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Not bad at all, actually, and the fact that they can achieve the fourth place is simply amazing and beyond almost everyone's expectations. My sincere congratulations to them as well. :)

Overall, I really enjoyed watching the show, and I am really looking forward for the second season of the Amazing Race Asia. Good work, AXN Asia!