Tobacco: Deadly in Any Form

Celebrating the World No Tobacco Day 2006 in May 31, 2006, we -- concerned weblog writers -- would like to remind us all about the danger of smoking.

1. Reminding us all that tobacco is DEADLY IN ANY FORM. Cigarettes, pipes, bidies, kreteks, clove cigarettes, snus, snuff, smokeless, cigars… they are all deadly.

2. Reminding us all that tobacco in all types and names and flavors are deadly alike. Tobacco is DEADLY IN ANY DISGUISE. Mild, light, low tar, full flavour, fruit flavoured, chocolate flavoured, natural, additive-free, organic cigarettes, PREPS (Potentially Reduced-Exposure Products), harm-reduced… they are all deadly. Those kinds of labelling doesn’t show the products are any less dangerous.

3. Demand the Government of Republic of Indonesia to ratify the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) as soon as possible, for the health of future generation. Indonesia is the only country in Asia that is still not in the FCTC.

Internet, May 31, 2006

The Undersigned,

Indra Pramana


Related Links:

• World No Day Tobacco 2006
• Hari Tanpa Tembakau Sedunia 2006: Call For Action (in Bahasa Indonesia)

[Indonesian version]

Indo-Sing Blog

Indo-Sing mailing list is a mailing list dedicated to the Indonesian community in Singapore. Currently there are 683 registered members, and the number is still counting. This is because the mailing list is not only for those currently living in Singapore, but also for those who are still in Indonesia or other countries and have a plan to migrate to Singapore. The community has also conducted a gathering (article in Bahasa Indonesia) at Kantin Aneka, Lucky Plaza, end of April this year.

Right now, the Indo-Sing community has launched a new blog. The blog is using free Wordpress facility from Blogsome, and it's located at http://indosing.blogsome.com/. The articles will be contributed by all mailing list members who already have the necessary Wordpress account to post on the blog.

This blog will contain a lot of information which -- hopefully -- will be useful not only for Indo-Sing community members, but also for other Indonesians currently living in Singapore, or for those Indonesians who plan to migrate to Indonesia, either for work or study. Most of the articles will be excerpted from discussions in the mailing list.

Hopefully the blog will be useful to anyone. :)

[Indonesian version]

Hyperlink from Planet Indra to Technorati

Let me create the hyperlink first:

Technorati Profile

To claim Planet Indra into Technorati, I would need to add the above hyperlink into the site. Since I don't know (yet) how to edit the template of the Gregarius-powered aggregator, I would need to put the hyperlink on one of its posts. Since this blog is one of the blogs it aggregates, so I just put the hyperlink here. Hope it works. :)

Lau Pa Sat

Last Saturday (20/5) night, I and my wife went to Lau Pa Sat, a big food court located right in the heart of Singapore's Central Business District, not far from the Raffles Place MRT station. This building actually holds quite a lot of historical value, it was a wet market before it was being renovated and now it's being restored as a favourit makan place among locals and tourists, serving Singapore local food.

Actually, during the normal days, there's nothing special with this food court. All the food served there is similar to the one we can find on any other food courts around Singapore. However, one special thing about Lau Pa Sat is if we visit the place at night, especially Saturday night. Why? Because on Saturday night, the stretch of Boon Tat Street south of the food court is closed to traffic, and the road is filled with tables and chairs for all the visitors. It's such a great ambience under the stars (provided it's not raining) between all the office towers with the lights.

Satay is their anchor menu. You can have chicken satay, beef satay, mutton satay, and even duck satay, including the peanut souce, at 50 cents per stick. They also sell the lontong (rice cake) at $1 per portion. Other than that, you can also order BBQ prawn and chicken wing. We ordered 10 sticks of chicken satay and 10 sticks of mutton satay, including the rice cakes (see left picture).

On top of that, they also serve a variety of BBQ seafood, such as mussels, stingrays, etc. We ordered "mee goreng seafood" (see right picture) for $4, and it's indeed a good choice. The noodles are fried with quite a lot of seafood ingredients such as squid, baby octopus and crab sticks, very nice. :)

How about the drinks? Even though there are quite a lot of cold drink stalls available inside the food court, you shouldn't miss the teh tarik served by a makeshift stall near the corner of Boon Tat Street and Boon Tat Link (see left picture). They also provide ginger tea, cino tea, milo, and coconut ice. The teh tarik is really unique, and different from the other teh tarik we usually get from other food courts. The queue is quite long, expect to wait between 10-15 minutes to get your teh tarik here.

More pictures can be found here.

[Indonesian version]

Interview with RSI (again)

Last Saturday (20/5), again I had the chance to take part in one of Radio Singapore International (RSI)'s programme in Bahasa Indonesia, "Kutak Katik IT". Different from the previous interview which was conducted over the telephone, this interview was conducted on-site at RSI's studio in Mediacorp's Caldecott Broadcast Centre, on Andrew Road.

Similar to the previous interview, this interview is conducted by my friend, which is also an RSI staff, Rane "JaF" Hafied. Thanks to his kind invitation to conduct the interview on-site at RSI's studio, I had the chance to visit the Caldecott Broadcast Centre and see all the facilities myself. All Mediacorp's TV and radio channels are broadcasted from here.

Similar to the previous interview, the IT topic being discussed is quite basic and not too advanced. On this interview, we discussed about search engines and blogs. Specifically on blog topic, we discussed about what is a blog, how to create one and what's the purpose of having a blog. Quite a bit nervous since I'm also considered a beginner in the blogosphere. :) On the session, we also discussed and answered some questions from the listeners with regards to the topic we discussed on the previous interview, which is about e-mails.

Again, for me, it's really a priceless and great experience. And again, I would like to say a very big thank you to Rane for the opportunity being given.

[Indonesian version]

Food Culture

Banquet is our favourite food court, because all the stalls inside the food court are halal. So we can try all kinds of food available there, from hainanese chicken rice, which is our kids' favourite, Japanese food such as teppanyaki or teriyaki, Chinese food such as horfun, or any other kind of food, without having to worry whether the food contains pork or lard. Banquet branches we usually visit are the ones in Jurong Point and IMM.

So I was very happy to hear that Food Junction, the biggest food court chain in Singapore, has started to open halal food court as well. Its first halal food court has opened at Lot 1 Shoppers' Mall, Choa Chu Kang, under the name of "Food Culture". When it first opened, not all the stalls have halal certificate so they initially launched it as a "no pork no lard" food court. However, eventually, right now all the stalls already have halal certificates from MUIS.

Together with my wife, I went there last week. The food court is located at the third floor of Lot 1 Shoppers' Mall in Choa Chu Kang, just next to the "Let's Eat" restaurant, which also serves halal food. It's also on the same floor as the Choa Chu Kang Community Library. Lot 1 Shoppers' Mall itself is the biggest mall around Choa Chu Kang area, and it's located just next to the Choa Chu Kang MRT station, so you won't miss it.

There's quite a lot of variety of food being served, although the food court is not too big. I ordered chicken hor fun (see top left picture), a Chinese specialty which I seldom eat since it's quite difficult to find a halal horfun here in Singapore. :) I ordered it after seeing quite a lot of other guests also ordered the same menu on other tables. :P While my wife immediately went to her favourite Korean stall and ordered her favourite beef bulgogi, the Korean-style minced beef steak (see right picture).

Other than that, there are some other stalls serving other variety of food, although it's not as many as those in Banquet Jurong Point. Not too bad, at least there's another alternative for us to try different kind of food here in Singapore. :)

[Indonesian version]

Blogspot was down last night

Yesterday night, around 9:30pm Singapore time (UTC+8), I was not able to access this blog, as well as my other blogs hosted in Blogspot. And looks like I was not the only one having the same problem. I was not able to access all my friends' blogs hosted there as well. And one blogger, which I didn't know, even added comment on my other blog (using Wordpress, which is in Bahasa Indonesia, unfortunately), saying that he was also having the same problem.

The problem was intermittent, sometimes I could access, sometimes I couldn't. Even if I could access, I would only be able to see the top parts of my blog. And if I waited longer, I would then get this error message: "The page cannot be displayed". I suspect that the problem was related to load, either the load of the server, or the network. Hopefully this was just a one-time issue and will not recur.

I'm not too sure whether I need to migrate all my blogs here. I actually can combine all the 4 blogs into one, separated by category, which is supported by Wordpress. But then, I will render my Planet Indra useless. Hmm... :)

Alternatively, I can create 4 copies of Wordpress (including this blog) on my server, then I can import all my articles and the comments from Blogger. So there will still be 4 blogs, all using Wordpress and all hosted in my server. I will also still need Planet Indra.

Hmmm... but then, what if I miss the Blogger's interface? :)

Some people are very difficult to be pleased... :) :)

[Indonesian version]

Planet Indra

At last, I managed to build an aggregate site of all my blogs. Even though I named the site Planet Indra, which means "Indra's planet" in Bahasa, but actually the site does not use Planet (misleading, eh? :P). Since I was not able to get Planet to work in my server's environment, i use Gregarius instead.

I first knew Gregarius after I saw the Amigos site belongs to one of my friends, Koen aka Kuncoro Wastuwibowo. The interface is practical and interesting, so I was also interested to try installing it on my server. And I found that the installation is much simpler than Planet's installation, which is more difficult.

The installation process is similar to installing Wordpress, I just need to prepare a new database under MySQL with its own username and password, download the Gregarius installation file here, and then just follow the instruction on the INSTALL file. It was just a simple 4-step installation, including how to protect its administration page by a password.

So now, if you're a bit lost and didn't know which of my blog you should read, just go to Planet Indra. All the articles on all my four blogs can be found there. Much easier to read, don't you think? :)

[Indonesian version]

Interview with RSI

Radio Singapore International (RSI) is the only international broadcasting radio in Singapore, at least until now. The short-wave radio is broadcasted out of Singapore in four languages: English, Mandarin, Malay and Bahasa Indonesia, and run by MediaCorp Radio.

Thanks to my friend, Rane "JaF" Hafied, I had the chance to take part on one of its programme in Bahasa Indonesia, "Kutak Katik IT". The programme is meant for audiences who are new to IT, so the topic being discussed is also quite basic, and not too advanced.

For example, the first interview I had, which was done over the telephone, was discussing about the use of web-based e-mail clients such as Yahoo, Hotmail dan Gmail, which is very popular and widely used by most Indonesians. We also discussed about how to choose a good e-mail address, and also touched on some e-mail etiquette. The interview script and the audio file which you can hear (in Bahasa Indonesia), can be found here.

For me, it is really a priceless and fruitful experience. Many thanks to Pak JaF for the opportunity being given. :)

[Indonesian version]

Problems installing Planet

I really want to install Planet to aggregate all my blogs. So far I still rely on Kinja to aggregate them, and that's also only after I consulted Priyadi, one of my friends who is also a blog expert. So, couple of days ago, I tried to install Planet on my own server.

According to its documentation, Planet requires Python 2.2 or greater, while the Python installed on my server is still 1.5.2.

bash-2.02$ python
Python 1.5.2 (#17, Jun 6 2001, 02:45:56) [GCC 2.95.3 20010315 (release)] on bsdos4
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>>

So I downloaded the latest stable version of Python (2.4.3) from its website and installed it. There's actually a newer version, which is 2.5, however it's still alpha 1 release. I installed the Python 2.4.3 under my home directory, not as root because the server is a live server and it's shared by many users. Therefore, after compilation, the binary file will be in my home directory.

bash-2.02$ ~/python/Python-2.4.3/python
Python 2.4.3 (#1, Apr 27 2006, 14:46:13)
[GCC 2.95.3 20010315 (release)] on bsdos4
Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license” for more information.
>>>

After finished installing Python, I proceeded to download the latest version of Planet, which is still version 1.0, from its website. I went through the instruction on the INSTALL file, and follow all the instructions there, including to edit the config.ini file for Planet's configuration. I also have modified the planet.py file to call the newly installed python (version 2.4.3) inside my home directory, instead of the default python on the server (version 1.5.2).

However, when I tried to run the program, it didn't work. This is the error message I am getting:

bash-2.02$ ./planet.py ~/planet/indra/fancy/config.ini
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “./planet.py”, line 22, in ?
import planet
File “/usr/home/ip/planet/planet/__init__.py”, line 33, in ?
import dbhash
File “/usr/home/ip/python/Python-2.4.3/Lib/dbhash.py”, line 5, in ?
import bsddb
File “/usr/home/ip/python/Python-2.4.3/Lib/bsddb/__init__.py”, line 47, in ?
import _bsddb
ImportError: No module named _bsddb

I'm not too sure what's the cause of the error. I searched Google but I couldn't find any possible answers to the problem above. Someone said that the above error occurs because my Python environment doesn't have bsddb installed, however I'm not too sure how to install the module.

Or is it because I'm using BSDI (BSD/OS)?

Priyadi advised me to try installing the new version of Python as root (server wide), and not installing it in my home directory. However, I didn't dare to do that because it's a live server and shared by multiple users. Perhaps I might want to try using another server first (e.g. development server). Will try that later.

Anyone else might have encountered the same or similar problem and know how to workaround this? :)

[Indonesian version]

Install BlogMap on a Wordpress Blog

Last time, I have written an article on how to install BlogMap on our own blog. The article is more useful to those who uses Blogger for their blogs. Now, how to install the BlogMap on a Wordpress blog?

Basically, it's the same. There are five main steps need to be done:

1. Get a geo-tag
2. Put the geo-tag on our blog's template
3. Register our geo-tag to BlogMap
4. Get the script to display the BlogMap
5. Insert the script into our blog's template

The only differences are on point (2) and (5). In Blogger, the edit template option will provide one single interface to edit the whole's blog template. How about in Wordpress? Which template file we need to edit? It depends on the Wordpress theme use you. Each theme has different template files, even though usually there's naming convention for each type of file.

For step (2), the geo-tag needs to be inserted into the header of our blog. Therefore, in Wordpress, we usually need to edit the header.php file on our Wordpress theme's directory. The geo-tag should be inserted between the <head> and </head> lines, anywhere between the lines. I would suggest that you can put the geo-tag just after the <head> line, before the <title> line.

For step (5), we usually put the geo-tag script on the side bar. Therefore, the template file we need to edit is sidebar.php, the same file we need to edit when we need to insert our shoutbox, or any other banner we want to put on the side bar.

In Wordpress, we will see the change immediately after we edit the template files. Therefore, we don't need to do another "republish" like in Blogger after we edit the template files.

You can read this article to see more details about the other steps on how to create BlogMap in our blog. Do have a try! :)

[Indonesian version]

Which article goes to which blog? :)

After knowing that I am opening another blog, Minda Indra, my friend Tata asked me a very good question. How am I going to manage which article goes to which blog? :)

A good question, indeed. However, I actually already have the answer, and I have actually written it here. However, it's in Bahasa Indonesia, so please find the answer on how I manage my blogs, below. In English, of course. :)

Actually, I "only" have four blogs, "so far". :) Two in English, and another two in Bahasa Indonesia. Here they are:

• New Information, which is this blog. This will be my main blog in English. Postings on this blog will be in English, and can be formal or personal.
• The Journey of Inka and Irza. This blog is also in English, and this is more to a diary of my personal and family's life.
• Minda Indra. This is a new blog, based on Wordpress installed on my own server. This blog will be in Bahasa Indonesia, and the contents will be more formal, including my announcements and technical articles.
• Rumah Indra. This used to be my main blog in Bahasa Indonesia, and I will still post more personal articles for myself and my family, here.

Got confused on which blog you should visit? Don't worry. :) I am now using one of the features provided by Kinja to aggregate all my blogs into one single page. So you can view all the postings on all my four blogs in one page. You can find the aggregate here. I actually intend to install a blog aggregation tool called Planet on my server, however I still don't have the time to do it. Well, perhaps later. As for now, we'll use Kinja first. :)

One of you might ask, why don't I just combine all the four blogs into one. Especially since we can categorise posts on Wordpress. Moreover, Wordpress allows us to import all contents from a Blogger/Blogspot blog in a single click. Well, in fact, I have actually considered that option. However, I'm not too sure what will happen to the main page if I post everything there. I imagine our family's diary will be mixed together with my technical articles, English articles will be mixed with my Indonesian articles, very messy. Mixed, like a rojak. I don't think I will like it.

As of now, I think I'll prefer to have the blogs separated. So people will not have any difficulties reading them. As for those who wants to read *all* my posts on all my blogs, well they can use my Kinja aggregate. In the near future, I will also try installing Planet so I won't have to rely on Kinja to aggregate my blogs.

Minda Indra

Minda Indra. What is that, and what does it mean?

"Minda" is actually a Malay word, not an Indonesian word. It means "mind". So, "Minda Indra" means "Indra's mind".

OK, so what is Minda Indra?

It's just another blog of mine. :) Yup.. yup.. understand that you will complain. I already have several blogs, some for myself and some are dedicated for my family, in both English and Indonesian, so why should I create a new one, again?

Simple. I want to try installing Wordpress on my own server, so I can use my own domain name for my blog. One of my friends, as well as my customer, Glenn, asked me why I am still using blogspot.com for my blogs, even though I am working in a hosting provider. :) Well, I told him that I don't want to "sacrifice" my own server's space while I can get free hosting space in blogspot. :P But actually, the truth is because I am a very busy person (at work for the company, and at home for the family), so I didn't have the time to set up my own blog on my own server.

So at last, I managed to setup my own blog on my own server, using Wordpress. It's located at this URL: http://ip.sg.or.id/ and it's called "Minda Indra". The blog will be in Bahasa Indonesia, and the contents will be similar to what I am going to write here, I guess. In the meantime, the contents of Rumah Indra and The Journey of Inka and Irza will be more personal and more dedicated for my family.

So far, I do not have any plan to migrate or move all my blogspot blogs to Wordpress, yet. Perhaps later, in the future. Having your own Wordpress on your server combine all the features on both blogsome.com and wordpress.com, and more over, you can get all the flexibility that you can get, including installing whatever plug-ins you want to install, since everything is inside your own server which you have control.

Of course, I didn't have the time to install any plug-ins yet. I haven't even finished editing my Wordpress template, let alone installing plug-ins. Slowly... but sure... :) :)

Kantin Aneka 2

Since October 2005, there's a new "makan" place for those who loves authentic Indonesian cuisine. Reggy Haryanto opened Kantin Aneka in Lucky Plaza, Orchard Road, with authentic Indonesian cuisine such as ayam bakar rica-rica (spicy grilled chicken), ayam goreng (fried chicken), nasi timbel komplit, nasi empal, batagor, ketoprak and many more.

Initially, Kantin Aneka, which is located at unit #06-46/07 of Lucky Plaza (6th floor), only opens on Sunday. However, since early this year, Reggy also opened Kantin Aneka 2 stall inside the halal food court located on the same 6th floor of Lucky Plaza. This Kantin Aneka 2 stall opens from Monday to Saturday, while Kantin Aneka opens only on Sunday.

When this stall first opened, a lot of discussions is going on the indo-sing mailing list, praising the food served, which is being cooked by a female Indonesian cook, Nelly. I, myself, has went to Kantin Aneka 2 twice, even though I've never been to Kantin Aneka 1 since I seldom go to Lucky Plaza on Sundays.

Last Thursday (20/4), I went to Kantin Aneka 2 to have lunch. This stall is located in a far left corner of the food court. The food court itself is not really strategic especially for those who are downstairs (1st to 4th floor). It's because the whole 5th floor of Lucky Plaza is being used by Medical Centres, so a lot of people do not know that there's food court and some other eating places on the 6th floor, thinking that the 4th floor is already the highest floor housing all the shops and restaurants there.

I ordered the spicy grilled chicken (top left picture) and the ketoprak (right picture), thinking that the portion might be small. It turned out to be quite a big portion each. :) The food is really delicious! The spice on the grilled chicken is just nice, and the ketoprak is also delicious. Too bad I didn't have the time (and the space on my stomach) to try the famous batagor as well.

I would have to say that I'm putting this Kantin Aneka as one of my favourite's Indonesian eating places in Singapore, after Ayam Penyet and Es Teler 77 (for the chicken noodle). I plan to go there again, to try the batagor. Who wants to join? :)

[Indonesian version]

BlogMap

I was visiting Eko Juniarto's blog and was quite interested in the BlogMap appears on the right panel of the blog. Interesting, we can see the exact physical location of the blogger's residence (not the location of the server hosting the blog, though), and who are other bloggers residing in the same area.

The BlogMap feature is provided by Feedmap, so I went there to have a look and to find out how do I get my own Blogmap. There is a "How Can I..." section however it doesn't actually guide a beginner (like myself) on how to setup and get my own Blogmap.

And then, I stumbled upon this good explanation from Kuan Cheen, a fellow blogger from Malaysia, regarding the step-by-step guide on how to get my own BlogMap. Based on Kuan Cheen's explanation, I can see that there are only 5 simple steps to be done:

1. Get a geo-tag
2. Put the geo-tag on our blog's template
3. Register our geo-tag to BlogMap
4. Get the script to display the BlogMap
5. Insert the script into our blog's template

OK, so first, I need to get a geo-tag for my location. Geo-tag is actually a tag containing the value of our current location's latitude and longitude in decimal degree. Kuan Cheen suggested several sites on how to check the latitude and longitude of certain location, and I chose Multimap. By browsing to the maps provided, I can get the exact latitude and longitude of my location, and prepare the geo-tag as follows:

<meta name="ICBM" content="1.343, 103.7693" />
<meta name="geo.position" content="1.343;103.7693" />

Note that the above is the geo-tag of my location. You should use your own geo-tag if you want to have a BlogMap showing your location.

Next step, I need to put the above geo-tag on my blog's template. I'm using Blogger, so I just need to edit the template and put the two-line tag above under the <$BlogMetaData$> line. I then saved the template and republished the blog. I believe you won't have any issues even though you're not using Blogger, as long as your blog provides option to edit the template.

Once done, I would need to submit my blog to BlogMap. So I went to this BlogMap submit page, put my blog's URL and then clicked "Submit Blog!". Once the blog is registered, I will get the codes on how to show the BlogMap, Neighblogs and the OPML (for Blogrolling) on my blog.

I then inserted all the codes into my blog's template, saved the template and republished the blog again. And you can see the result on the bottom left pane of this page.

It's quite simple, actually. So, why wait? You can try out for yourselves. :)

[Indonesian version]

Goodbye Sonny...

I was very surprised when my friend and ex-colleague Mas Iwan A. Irawanto called me last night, to inform me that one of our best friends and ex-colleagues in RADNET, Sonny Iskandar, has passed away yesterday.

Please accept our sincere condolences to Vanny and family, and deeply apologise for not being able to go back to Jakarta to attend the funeral.

[Indonesian version]

Unefficiency of KK Hospital's Billing System

My son Irza was admitted to KK Hospital on 16 February 2006. During admission procedure at the Children's Emergency, the staff gave me an exaggerated estimation of the total hospital bill. Even for the C class ward, this is the estimated bill size:

ICU and treatment charges: $1,377.60
Ward and treatment charges: $456.40
Estimated investigations, tests and medication/drug charges: $17,500.00

Total: $19,334.00

Medisave claimable: $10,500.00

Estimated amount to be paid: $8,834.00

Initial payment to be paid: $9,000.00

Therefore, the staff asked me to make the initial payment of $9,000! That is on top of the $65 I have paid for the A&E (emergency) attendance fee. I was shocked that I would need to make such hefty initial payment only to admit my son to hospital. I was wondering, how about those who cannot afford to make such initial payment? Does it mean that those people will not be able to admit their children to the hospital?

In a state of anxiety due to my son's health condition, I didn't have any other choices except to pay the hefty initial payment. Luckily I have a credit card which has such the high limit.

My son was discharged from the hospital on 20 February 2006. They told me that I would not be able to get the details of the final bill size on the spot. The details will be sent via post in two weeks time. Any refund, if there's any, will be sent via cheque via post as well.

Two weeks has passed since the day of discharge, and I haven't received the final bill yet. And yet, I needed it urgently for me to claim the medical bills from my insurance company. So, on Tuesday, 7 March 2006, I rang the hospital's billing department again to ask for the status, and they said that they were still finalising the details and I shall received the final bill in one to two days time.

Two days has passed, and I haven't received the details. So on Thursday, 9 March 2006, I called them again. They said that the final bill is on the way, nevertheless they will send another copy in case I don't receive it.

I finally got the tax invoice from KK Hospital on Friday, 10 March 2006. Do you know how much is the total bill size? Only $810.97 (including the $65 A&E attendance fee), and all were covered by my Medisave account. Therefore, I needed to pay nothing, and they would refund me $9,065.00 for the excess payment. Sound ridiculous, eh? So I made the initial payment of $9,000.00 for nothing!

I was thinking that the cheque will be sent together with the tax invoice. I was wrong! The invoice mentioned that the cheque for any refund due will be sent in due course. OK, never mind, meaning I would not be able to get my money back in time before I went to Jakarta for a one-week holiday. On Friday itself, I immediately made a copy of the tax invoice and submitted it to my company's HR department for them to process the insurance claim. I left for Jakarta on 11 March 2006, hoping that I shall get the cheque once I come back.

Sunday, 19 March 2006, I came back to Singapore and was surprised to find out that I haven't received the cheque in my mailbox. The next day, I rang KK Hopsital again and they informed me that they were still processing the cheque! It was almost a month since my son was discharged from the hospital. Why they needed such a bloody long time only to refund other people's money??

Time went by, and after numerous desperate calls to the hospital for the whole week, I finally got the cheque on Saturday, 25 March 2006. Does the story end here? No! Again, I was shocked to find out that the beneficiary name is wrong! They have mispelled my name on the cheque, making me impossible to clear the cheque! Oh My God! Amazing!

I made another call to the hospital, and since it was Saturday evening, I was told that the business office has been closed for the day. Well I didn't care, I was asked to be escalated to higher authority who can ensure that I can get back my money by that day. The staff then transferred me to the Children's Emergency, because it's the only department which is opened during that time. Again, I was confused, how can the emergency department assist me on billing/refund issues?

Never mind, I then spoke to the staff from the children's emergency, and explained again the situation. Basically, no matter what, I wanted to have my money back by that day. She said that she would transfer me to a 24-hour on-call business officer, but after the phone was transferred, it got cut off. I tried desperately to call back the children's emergency hotline, but nobody picked up even though I tried several times. They might be busy attending sick children over there, and I didn't want to bug them with some billing issues. So I decided to gave up, and planned to call the business office on Monday instead.

On Monday, 27 March 2006, I called the business office, and informed the staff about the wrong beneficiary name on the cheque. The staff advised me to come to their office for me to get the refund in cash! You can imagine, $9,065 in cash! Even the staff was surprised to hear that the refund amount was $9,065. I asked her whether I can get a cheque instead, but she said it's best for me to have it in cash instead.

OK, finally I can get my money back on Wednesday, 29 March 2006, when I went to the business office at the 4th floor of the Children's Tower, in cash. After which, I immediately went to the POSB Newton Branch nearby to bank it in. Total, it takes 1 month and 9 days for me to get my money back, since the day of discharge. I was wondering whether I can claim the interests for the money they keep for the more than one month period? Even in Singapore which has low interest fees, with 1% annual interest fee, I can get $7.50 from a $9,000 amount within a month, enough for me to buy 5 hamburgers from McDonalds.

Amazing!

PS. The Indonesian version of this post can be found here.

Safari Indonesian Noodle House

One of the places I can visit in Singapore if I want to have Indonesian style chicken noodle soup, is the Safari Indonesian Noodle House stall, in Seah Im Food Court. Seah Im Food Court is actually more to a hawker centre instead of food court, since it's open air and it's not air-conditioned. It's located just next to the Harbourfront bus interchange, opposite the Harbourfront Centre. The stall is located at the eastern end, near the bus bay where the Sentosa buses depart.

The portion is quite big, and the price is reasonable. Basic chicken noodle soup is sold at $2.50 per bowl. Mushroom chicken noodle soup, meatballs chicken noodle soup and wanton chicken noodle soup are sold at $3.00 per bowl, and more combination of the above will cost more. On top of that, they also sell Indonesian-style ribs soup and oxtail soup, but I haven't tried those.

Unfortunately, looks like the stall does not open every day. After two successful trips earlier, today (Tuesday, 28/3) I tried to go there again with my wife during lunch time, and it's closed. Not too sure whether it's closed on Tuesdays, or whether it's now closed permanently. Hopefully not!

Read the Indonesian version of this post.

New shopping malls around Jakarta

One of the growing trends in many big cities in Asia, including Singapore, Jakarta and other big cities in the region, is the increasing numbers of new shopping malls being built. Looks like now, going to malls is one of the most popular pastimes for almost everyone in the region, including Indonesia, particularly Jakarta and some of other big cities in Indonesia.

I have never been to certain parts of Jakarta since I've lived in Singapore in the past 6 years. Last week, I had a chance to visit Depok, a suburb town just south of Jakarta, which I used to visit frequently since that's where my university campus is located. And I am really surprised to see the development of Depok in the past decade, especially the development of the shopping malls around the area.

Just a couple of hundred meters away from my campus, I saw a new big shopping mall, Depok Town Square, which is better known as "Detos". Across the road, there's another big shopping mall which is on the last phase of completion. Near the bus terminal, there's another shopping mall, ITC Depok, with Carrefour hypermart as the anchor tenant.

The one I managed to visit is the Depok Town Square (see left picture). It's a very big mall, unfortunately it's a bit empty, probably because it's quite new. There's the big Matahari hypermart on the basement, and some stores and restaurants on the ground and first floor. The higher the floor, the emptier it is.

A bit nearer to my family's house in Cinere, there's also a new shopping mall being opened in Lebak Bulus area. It's called Poins Square (see right picture), with the Giant hypermart on the basement floor as the anchor tenant. The location is exactly opposite the Carrefour hypermart nearby. Wow, what a great competition! The mall is quite big, almost as big as Depok Town Square, except it has more open stores compared to Detos, which is fairly empty.

Another newly built shopping mall, which is actually not really new but I only managed to visit it last week, is Pondok Indah Mall (PIM) 2, which is located just across the road from the famous PIM 1. It's connected to PIM 1 with two bridges, giving seamless connection between the two malls. Compared to Poins Square or Detos which is more for middle class, PIM 2 is more for the high class, with high class shops and restaurants, similar to Ngee Ann City (Takashimaya) in Singapore. Nevertheless, the new food court at the third floor is worth visiting, with almost all cuisines available, from Soto Betawi, Fiesta Steak to KFC.

Read the Indonesian version of this post.

Blogger/Blogspot Performance Issue

Recently, I always have some performance issues on all my blogs hosted by Blogspot. The problem usually happened during evening to night our time (or morning to afternoon US time). Strangely, I seldom have this problem during morning our time (or evening/night US time). Looks like the problem is due to more and more blogs hosted by Blogspot, causing degradation on the performance of the server(s) hosting the blogs.

When the problem happens, it takes longer for me to load the blogs, and also it takes longer for me to access blogger.com site for me to update the blogs. But the most irritating part is when I want to upload an inline image to the blog. After I click "Add Image", choose the image and then click "Upload Image", sometimes I will just get blank screen on the pop-up. Sometimes, I can get the message saying that the image has been uploaded, but after I click "Done", I don't see the image on my compose blog window. And I have to do it all over again, several times until the image is really uploaded, and it's really frustating.

Sometimes, I would just compose the text first and save the post as draft, and wait until the next morning (when I seldom have the problem) for me to upload all the images and then publish the post.

I have been thinking for quite some time to move my blog to another blogging provider, especially those WordPress-based such as blogsome.com, but up until now I have not decided to move yet, and still want to stick with Blogspot. But, if the issue keeps on dragging, I don't know how can I tahan and I might need to move to another blogging provider soon.

Anyone experiences the same problem?

Read the Indonesian version of this post.