Singapore Trip 3 : Things I Bought from the Trip 02

This time I managed to wake up before 4.30am. I went to our small kitchen to make hot Neslo that smells so nice in the morning and ate a banana. It started to rain. Early morning, hot drink and rain, a great combination to start a day.

I'm continuing to list things that I bought in the previous Singapore trip - because all items deserve the mention :)

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NoemoArt/Pooi Ning Chia postcard :

Her booth was located right behind my booth, so I went to look around many times. She is an illustrator from Johor. One postcard that caught my eyes was a printed illustration of her hand-drawn Pekan Nanas (1950-1960s) map. She mentioned that it wasfrom an old map of her hometown - I'm guessing in Johor. I really love hand-drawn maps so I finally bought one from all the coins I collected during the first day of the event. The postcard costed $2. 

I also asked her to sign the card and took her cute little namecard as well. She packed it in a nice transparent matte envelope. Loooove.

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Evangelione's postcard :

When I walked past Evangelione's booth before the event started on the first day, there were rows of her cute little hand-sewn dolls lined up. The next time I walked past by again several hours later, all her dolls were sold out :o This happens several times already as I met her in other previous events.

So there's nothing else for me to buy except for $1 printed postcards. I bought one as a support, 3 small ladies in teapots. It is so adorable I love it. I asked her to sign it in the back of the postcard :

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MiniFanFan namecards :

I met her ! She stopped by at my booth and told me that she recognized me T^T I was at the verge of crying + sweating nervously. She told me that she already joined the event several times and chatted with me for a few more minutes, but I can't quite remember what she asked or said because I was too nervous.

I didn't managed to buy anything at her booth because I didn't have the budget :F But because I already bought her postcard from her previous event, I guess that's okay then. I took 2 of her namecards though, because it was so nice to see and collect.

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Other links :

EEChing's Handmade (Malaysian Crafter) | Chris Chew Yi Wei (Singaporean Illustrator)

Heimlo (Indonesian Designer) | Dodolulu (Hong Kong Illustrator)

Mossery (Malaysian Planner) | Paper Therapy (Indonesian Crafter)

Muffinsaurs (Illustrator) | HappyDoory (Malaysian Illustrator)

Tiny Supplier (Singaporean Crafter) | When I Was Four (Singaporean Illustrator) 

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I saw/met a lot of illustrator/designer/doodler/crafters in this event. Quite an impressive crowd. The event was not solely focused on design + arts, but more to various of things that we can do ourselves : independent clothing lines, pottery/ceramic makers, personal coffee maker, hand-sewn items, jewellery makers and so much more. 

If you want to go to the event, please do. It's quite an eye-opening experience for me to see how many people from Asia came down here to open a booth together :)

Mini Escapism : The Owls Cafe, Bukit Jalil

We found a nice little cafe in Bukit Jalil : The Owls Cafe after we went to Wati + Asyraf's wedding in Selayang last weekend. Wati is Aja's best friend for a couple of years by now and she's kind-of like our add-on siblings. 

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Like usual, we stopped by for a little snack/mini minum2 after finish our 'main event'. We can't think of anywhere to go and we wanted to avoid the city-area as soon as possible, so we headed to Bukit Jalil near my home. We decided to go to Chatime Bukit Jalil for a drink. I haven't been to Chatime for years - and I was secretly craving for their ice-cold Cocoa Latte. Forgot to bring my wallet so I asked my brother to 'belanja' us all instead :D

Later when Aja arrived and we finished our drinks, Aja asked all of us to visit a small cafe next to Chatime. It is located on the first floor so we took the lift. It was a nice little hipster cafe with owl themed called The Owls Cafe. *I don't usually go to places like this except when I'm with my family - just because. So I was always the 'jakun' one.

And so we ordered Milo Dinosaur waffle : a combination of waffle, dark-chocolate ice-cream, mini marshmellow, koko crunch, Milo and condensed milk. My picture doesn't tell you thousand words, I wasn't fully ready with proper camera setting because we were rushing to go back. I promise I'll improve, here goes : 

Their waffle and crepe were all decent, price ranged RM 12 - RM 18 for each desserts.

Really like how they used hand-drawn murals on the logo, their walls and mini signboards. I honestly took several photos half-heartedly, I realized I changed so much from the person I was years back. 

So you can find everything that relates to Owl family here  - but not the actual one :

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Nice owls-theme mural by @Dududedoodle :

Note : I later found out that the place is quite famous among food blogger and hipster cafe hunters - so most of the weekend, the place will be packed with people. People might even queue and will have to wait for their turn to enter, so take extra note guys. We were lucky when we arrived, they have a long 6 person table was ready for us all. 

And now I'm suddenly craving for foods from IKEA. 

Why do I have PMS cravings every month ? It's ridiculous =.=

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The map to the location :

Mini Escapism : Sunset at Lumut

Kedah - Perak - Selangor - Part 4 :

Our road-trip was soon ending. We reached Lumut on the 3rd day from Perak. There was nothing much on the road because we were heading to the beach side far from all those green mountains. There were only plantations along the road and the radio signal was getting worse by then so we were both bored. 

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We arrived at Lumut after almost 2 hours, thinking that we might check-in way earlier than we thought. I was wrong - the map shared in Agoda was not updated by the hotel because they just opened it for 2 months, so we were lost. We couldn't find the hotel, we tried to call the hotel but the number was incomplete. We turned several times and I was super cranky because we were wasting so much time - I even thought that maybe it was a fake Agoda hotel =,= Until I found a number to a hotel with almost the same name in Lumut and asked about the location of the new hotel. So we wasted 2 hours because they didn't update their map and contact number.

For that, we missed Marina Island and Pangkor Island also just across the beach D:

But, the little hotel was really nice. It was located just in front of the beach, and the hotel was really new with 'congratulation' flowers still at their reception desk. All the receptionist were nice and friendly, the room was quite small but cozy - they put up a LCD tv so high almost reaching the ceiling, which was inconvenient but I guess they were saving up the space. By far, it was the best little hotel we paid for in our road-trip. It was also on promotional price : RM 84 for deluxe room with 2 free breakfast, who would say no to that :D

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For the unofficial closing for our road-trip, we had a nice bright yellow sunset at the beach :

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All in all, our 4 days, 1070km road-trip in our mini car was successful.

We will plan for our next road-trip in another few more months - to let AF collect his AL :D And in between that, we are planning for more mini escapisms on random weekend and one big escapism to Cambodia in April :F

Mini Escapism : Tanjong Sepat, Selangor

It was Shazni's aka Nerdless Art's wedding. 

I'm not quite fond of weddings but he came to my wedding last May with his friends - all the way from KL to Pekan *there were only a few friends that came, him included. So I felt the need to show up to his big day, I didn't even argue with Ma :D 

So all of us readied ourselves that Sunday morning. The wedding was held in Tanjong Sepat, around 40+km from our house. We wore our specially-made Batik from ma, the one that she made for my wedding event - *for her and my siblings. The mixture of red, purple and black, it was custom-hademade sewn into a kurung modern. We actually even got a small sling bag matched with the clothes as well.
Food was good, the event was nice.

On our way back, we stopped by at Kampung Batu Laut to take some pictures. We randomly stopped the car when we saw reachable nice view, it wasn't even the place to hangout kot because no one was there compared to Pantai Morib not quite far from the location. And air tengah surut! Even better. There were a lot of tiny crabs, the wind blown so strong and we took a LOT of pictures. Because it was such a beautiful-beautiful place :

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Definitely a place for us to do road-trips in the near future ♥ 

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Here is a picture of us :

We also stopped by at Pantai Morib afterwards for cendol and fresh coconut drink. It was packed with people spending time with families. Food stalls were everywhere, people playing roller blades and scooter, flying kites and bubbles. The view wasn't even half as good as the place that we stopped by. Too bad, they kinda missed out this :

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Event : Komik Kon 2015

It was unplanned. Something I decided we should go for the weekend. I've been spending time at home alone for a week while everyone went to work, so I wanted to go out with Af. The event wasn't so far from our house, so we just took a motor ride to Maeps, Serdang :D I love Maeps - I wrote about the place in my : Post Urbanscapes 2013 & MAHA 2014

It was a really hot afternoon and I almost had my headache attack if it wasn't for the not-so-long ride to the event. We arrived and went to the ticketing booth to see the price. It was RM 35 per person :o As someone who isn't really into cosplay, superheroes, figurines, toys and western comics, the ticket fees was expensive. But we were there already, and I wanted Af to meet Oren - as he mentioned in his Ig that he will be there. So we just went through with it :D

There were cosplayers *of course, a lot of toys and merchandizes, figurines and comics. I was searching for interesting zines and local comics/graphic novels that I might want. But I didn't found any. So I just bought stickers for my Touch&Go card to replace the old cover. We also watched the first round match of wrestling between 2 women, in 5 minutes, because it was awkward - people weren't cheering and we were all silent and awkward. Or maybe it was just me :|

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The highlight was of course, meeting Oren at his booth. We were both too awkward to try to greet and talk to him, so we spent sometime checking out his sketch book and the illustration that he was making at that time. At last, Af asked him whether if it was possible to draw both of us - the charge was RM 10 per person and he produced this :

T^T Maybe Oren didn't know how much it meant to both of us. We are both his kipas-susah-mati all this while. It was worth all the money spent for the event's ticket to just meet him and get his original illustration. I love it, we both love it. I framed it already :D

So my wall now consists of May Ann Licudine's original & printed illustration, Astronautboys super-nice illustration, Fadilah Karim's art-print, Ma's small original illustration and now Oren's illustration of us. All my favorite inspiring peoples. Waiting for a chance of Shaun Tan's and Craig Thompson's illustrations in the future :)

Escapism : Tokiyo Trip 1

I'm going to share some information about our next escapism to Tokyo. 

This would be the planning and information post.

Return flight ticket :

I bought 2 tickets to Tokyo on February this year before we got married. It wasn't from the famous AirAsia promotion, but it was from normal several days of ticket hunting. I managed to buy return tickets for around RM 900 each *not including adding extra for a seated chair next to each other and dinner. So we actually bought the ticket 7 months before the date instead of last minute plan. But I'm pretty sure they got promotional tickets to Tokyo all year long.

Money : RM 1000 each person (Return ticket, dinner, seated chair, insurance)

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Accommodation :

I wanted to try Couchsurfing, but for our first official escapism AF prefers it to be well-planned because we don't know what to expect yet. So instead of hotel and backpackers hostel in Tokyo area, I searched for available places rented by the owner from Airbnb. I've been wanting to try this for ages!

I saved in my "Wish List" since February, but we decided to book the place at least 2 months earlier. For this, we missed a lot of cool and cheap places because they are fully booked for September :( We found one nice little apartment near a public park but a bit farther from the main city and thought we should give it a try. 

We requested to the owner, during this process - our debit cards were declined from using the system, later we found out it was because of our default amount for online transaction is RM 500 and any amount more than that will be declined. So, if you are planning to use your debit card for online transaction, make sure you add your maximum amount from your online banking account. 

Later the owner replied and accepted our request, the fees was paid instantly and I received the receipt. The owner is really nice and helpful; he shared the detailed map and explained things that we should know about the place. 

Money : RM 883 for 7 days 6 nights , around RM 442 for each person. For me, it is cheaper compared to hotel but more pricey compared to hostel. But we got ourselves a nice apartment for both of us, we can cook and all. I hope it's a nice catch.

Note : Places in the main city is really pricey, 

so you can choose places a bit farther and make sure you book early.

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Maps :

We went to MATTA Fair in last March. We weren't there to see all the promotions they offered, we actually went there to see places and events that will be happening in Tokyo. So we went to a long booth with all the Japanese people - as they were promoting Japan. And we took all the maps that they can offer : The city map, the train map & schedule, the mini map, the list of places and all :D

Money : FREE maps & free stuffs

Other than that I downloaded mobile applications for : JR-East *the train, TripAdvisor *offline map. 

I'm yet to discover other useful mobile app. and I'll share this later. 

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Food :

We will be bring foods like : Maggi, bread, sardine, biscuits, instant drinks, serunding and all those easy stuffs so we can survive on our own backups foods when needed. Maybe we can try bringing sandwiches for lunch while going to places and late night food while we were too hungry but lazy to go out. Having our own kitchen should be useful.

Money : RM 100 each person.

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Other stuffs to consider :

I haven't planned on the transportation cards and whether we want to rent mobile internet while we are there. AF also haven't applied for a passport, whereas mine will still be valid until 2018. I will also need to have a power bank for my old iPhone.

I will be bringing my old Lumix LX and AF will be bringing his dLSR Canon 600D.
Which book should I bring ??? 

:D

Mini Escapism : Penang

We arrived at the bus stop at 3 am, somehow I miscalculated the time and we were there too early. I brought my little comforter out from my bag pack and slept at one of the chair. AF was awake the whole time I was sleeping. There were people like us sleeping on all the benches. It was outdoor, lighted, guarded and fairly safe. I am not a night owl, so I didn't pretend like I can stay awake. I was on and off the whole time.

By 6 am, I woke up, lights at the train and ferry stations were turned on and we found a decent public toilet near the area. A walk to the train station took several minutes, we needed to change our money *to some old coins to pay for the ticket that costed around RM1.40, if I'm not mistaken. We took the first ferry ride to Penang. Everything were dark except for the little building's light near the harbour, there wasn't much of fishy sea smell and grand landscape to enjoy.

When we arrived at Georgetown, it was too early for any shops to open. We wanted to find a mamak for our early morning breakfast, but got lost walking on the road because of the misleading tips given by the local. Phew. By the time we finally found one, it was almost 7.30 am. 

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We headed to the place we were staying by using the map we bought before our trip. It wasn't hard to read and remember certain roads after several walks around the area. My old iPhone isn't capable of handling too much 3Gs, so I hardly use it.

We found a nice looking old building that turned into a new Mc' Donald. I ordered Mocha from the Mc' Cafe and read the map once more, that's when I learned that the old building was used to be Birch's old building. We can hardly feel excited because of the exhaustion of sleeping less than 5 hours the night before and walked for more than 3km with our heavy bag to our destination.

The map wasn't used as much as intended, we hardly explored new paths because Penang was just too hot. Honestly we spent most time eating and watching movies in the mall :p I hope we'll be back for more exploration and new adventure. Even this write-up feels like soulless writing that lack of story. But it marked our first official escapism together and this counts ❤

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It's been ages since his last videos, here's the latest one :

ESCAPISM #5 from Farikarim on Vimeo.

Places : Istanbul 4

The Grand Bazaar is a place everyone talks about. A must-go place in Istanbul. One of the largest and oldest market, over 3,000 shops, 61 covered streets, more than 300,000 visitors daily. Fancy.

We got a chance to go there on our last day. I wanted to buy little trinkets that I can bring back home and that was my only chance. My mom was determined to find a good leather bag/s with a great deal because we've heard so much about the place and its leather. 

We went in from one of the entrance. I saw 2 things : people and colours. The over-whelming crowds, never-ending long paths in the maze of items and too many local shopkeepers. I can't buy things in there, that was exactly like the last time I was in Beijing and we visited the huge 5-levels building that claimed to sell pirated stuffs cheaper than any other places or while I was in Pasar Baru in Bandung. 

It's a tourist trap - waiting for people to fall in like a huge pitcher plant waiting for its victim. I knew this by the eager look on the shopkeeper's face and the smell of dishonesty. Call me a cynic or whatever, I can read human by what they portray on their outward attitude and appearance. This is a repetition to every place I've been to. Frustrating reality.

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We went in to the leather markets. Coats, bags, hats, briefcase, hanging everywhere. The place smelled like a room full with animal skins. We looked around, trying to find the price range for those things. 

"Ze bag iz 500 Lira", that's around RM 1,000 for a fake Burberry.
"I want local leather, do you have anything local?", I asked.
"Local?"
"Local, here. Leather, hand-made from here. No brand".
"No brand? No-no. Burberry you no like? Gucci? Ferragamo?"
"No, I want no brand". 

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"How much is this one?", showed him the little white bag.
"300 Lira".
"What? No".
"Yes, yes. It iz good quality, see?", he burned the leather using a lighter.
"Too expensive", we walked away from the shop.
"No, no, how much you want?", typing away the calculator fast, "180 Lira, good? Yes?"
"No, no thank you".
"Iz cheap, yes. 150 Lira", he then took the bag and put it in a cheap plastic bag.
"No, I don't want it. 100 Lira?".
Clearly annoyed and started talking in Turkish, "Ok, ok, 100 Lira".
"No thank you".

You see? It's a lying game. We bid the price. Innocent people get cheated, and I hate that. Why can't they just put a proper price tag on each item and give proper discount without having to cheat tourist? 

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I told my little group about avoiding those fake designer brands and try to find anything without those fancy brands. Maybe those things are still real leathers, perhaps local made and tagged with designer's brand just to lure customers or meet the current market's need. They looked, smelled and felt exactly like one - but the fact about buying fake brands just so you can have the tag/name written on your bag, is still wrong. 

I ended up not buying anything from the Grand Bazaar because everything was at least 100 Lira after discount - RM 200 for little leather bag isn't what I need. Finally, I bought bookmarks that looked like Turkish carpet from outside of the Grand Bazaar along the corridor of little shops. 

*I still got 1 bookmark left, avid book reader can send a comment down here to have zis. 

Thanks for reading zis long post ❤

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Place : Istanbul 1

I'm back ! 

I'm quite excited to type down all the things that I've experience so I can get it all out. So I'll write in category : the event, the weather, money, people, places, transportations, little stories, and such. Until I've had enough of talking about Istanbul. 

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About the Event :

It started when my mom received a call from Balai Seni Visual Negara during Eid. She was invited to participate in Malaysia Cultural Week in Istanbul for a week, fully sponsored; food, transportation, accommodation. She was asked to do demonstrations on Batik and teach Batik DIY to people. It was a great opportunity, so we told her that she should go. On one condition that she wanted one of us to go with her. 

On rational mind, I think spending around RM2,700 for a return flight ticket is a bit too much for me. But seeing that :

1) I was the only one with flexible time because I've never used my annual leaves.

2) I was the only one with personal travel fund i.e : money saved for traveling purposes.

3) My mom said she won't go alone - even if it was fully sponsored =.='

4) I only need to pay for the flight ticket. 

So I decided to go.

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Other than helping my mom with the preparation and booth, I taught people how to colour Batik. They were given 10 x 10 inch of fabric with waxed designs. We brought 100 pieces of Batik DIY, and brought back home only 1 piece. So you can imagine the crowd we had on those event days.

Among other participants : kain tenun, wau, potret, water colour paintings, teh tarik & roti canai, anyaman, manik Sarawak, tarian and other local specialties. 

There were people from all over the world; Kuwait, Ukraine, Turkey, China, Indonesia, Singapore, etc. English was not so useful though. Most of people that came by to our booth can't even speak English, teaching only by one obvious word per time and sign language. Kids were really easy to teach, adults can be really challenging. I should do this often.

There was also volunteers from Malaysian students in Istanbul that came to help us during our event. So most of the translations were done by them :D

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On our final day of the event, there was a protest by the local people around our event. I've never seen any live riots before. Things got bad when polices came to control the crowd, we were asked to stay in our booth, protected by the wire fence and security :F Things were hectic afterwards. Helicopters, police fired tear gases and people were running. We packed our things as soon as we can.

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The event was a success, we got overwhelming crowd and response, launching night was colourful and exciting, many new friends. Exhausting - but totally worth it. 

Read the news from Bernama and watch a short video I found on Youtube.

Mini Escapism : KL City on Foot

Remember the previous posts on my Melaka mini escapism several months ago ? 

This time it's KL city, a stranger in her own city. 

I finished my Kuala Lumpur city tour on foot. It took awhile because I only got to do it once a week, but it was definitely worthwhile. I've always wanted to do this and to see my KL map finally filled with drawn lines, the feeling is very fulfilling :D 

The last time I walked almost as much as this in the city was about ten years ago, after my high school years. Things didn't changed much and while I was exploring I saw a lot of things from my past and a lot of new things as well. I put a list in my mind on things I love and places that I want to remember. I found some places that I love sooo much that I want to go there often :F

I always thought that I need to go far to find my solace and learn about life. But I learned that it is not something in the future that will teach you about those things, it is something in the present, right at this moment. 

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KL City Tour on foot.

PS : Only for explorers and travelers by heart.

If you want to try it out, what you need to do is :

1) Buy a city map, plan ahead the route you want to use, and if you are not sure about your location or which way to go, go ahead and check your map again - like a tourist :D And if you found a precious gem like an old bookshop : Junk Book Store or perfect hideout in the city, mark the place. I know it's easier to use your smartphone, but it will defeat the purpose of exploring. 

2) You will be using a lot of public transportation, so reload your Touch and Go. I used around RM 10 each time I went out for the whole day. Public transportation is the quickest way to arrive at the destination but you'll be missing a lot more on local roads, so I prefer walking.

Plus, walking distance depends on your strong will and feet. 

I probably walked around 4 - 8 km on outing days, and it was very different from the previous running events I went to due to the awful heat and city traffic. 

3) Bring water, with a lot of walking under the hot sun, you'll be dehydrated.

4) Bring umbrella, for heat and rain. Most days were okay, the weather was nice and hot, drenching in sweat was normal. And there were hot days, my head was exposed under the heat for hours and resulted with a heavy headache until I came back home and rested for the night. So, it's Malaysia, prepare for the sun. It won't be comfortable, if you are okay with sweat and a walker by heart, it shouldn't be a problem. 

5) Take pictures, take mental notes, remember routes and have fun.

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