Mini Escapism : Gunung Lang, Ipoh

Kedah - Perak - Selangor - Part 2 :

The first place Af brought me after we checked in was Mount Lang not quite far from where we stayed. We used Waze  most of the time to shorten our time in finding ways and fast routes - so we used a lot of small roads instead of the city's busy road. The recreational park located at Jalan Kuala Kangsar, just Waze the destination and it will bring you there :D

The rocky limestone hills were huge ! Look at this one picture on the right where I stand right in front of hill. Tres petite compared to the hill, no? 

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We had to buy a RM 3 speed boat ticket to go across the lake and reach the other side of the park; between all of the mountains. So there's a park in the middle of all the mountains and the only entrace is the lake. It was so cool. It was also the spot where they shot the famous 'Sepet' movie, the one with Orked and Jason :D

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I saw one huge labi-labi taking its breath before it went down into the lake again. The hills, the birds, the big lake, the greenery, T^T I cannot tahan. This is yet another city in my wish list ! Perhaps when I'm much much older and a multi-millionaire, I'll make one mini 'The Banjaran' for my family and I.

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Here is a panaromic view from the tower we hiked :

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We headed Padang Polo right afterwards to see the field and sunset. There were hundreds of people, kids, families, friends, they were actually having their outing session on public holiday. This is a huge field with many little stalls along the road. In the KL city, we can see this many crowds probably only in KLCC and malls :p And because I hardly go out to crowded places much especially on public holiday, that was quite new to me. 

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Mini Escapism : Kedah - Perak - Selangor

Kedah - Perak - Selangor - Part 1 :

It's a long holiday !  

2 months back I received a wedding card from my colleague, Sha. AF and I always find reasons to explore new places and go on a mini escapism, so we decided to go to her wedding in Kedah. Of all the places and all the wedding that I missed in my life, suddenly I chose to go :D

We started our journey early morning on last Saturday around 6.30 am thinking that we might be able to avoid the traffic, considering it's a festive season. We were wrong. Waze's time estimation was around 4-5 hours, but we arrived after 9 hours on the road. The traffic was really-really bad. There were 4 accidents along the way, by the time we arrived at the wedding, it was almost over. We greeted her father and he said that Sha already left for her outing photo-shooting. So we went to eat and left shortly afterwards :o

The wedding took place in the paddy field area near Mount Keriang, so we took the opportunity to visit the place after the wedding. We just simply visited the recreational park to see the place thinking that we might go on a hike the next morning because I was starting to feel my 'usual' throbbing pain in my head. That 'famous' head-ache that I still don't know the cause yet. So we headed to our hotel around 20 minutes away and checked in.

I slept in for almost 12 hours.   

The headache disappeared and we decided to head to Perak after breakfast instead. We were ready for our road-trip and planned to make several stops before arriving at our next destination : Ipoh. So it was a really short stay in Kedah. I wish we have more time to take nice sunset photos alongside of the paddy field but it wasn't in the season.

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To enjoy nice scenery and explore new little kampungs during our journey from Alor Setar to KL, we used old roads instead of the highway. It took a bit longer but I'm glad we did. 

My favorites are : 

• We took almost 360' circle around Mount Jerai in Yan because I wanted to stop by near the beach right at the mountain.
• The first time I saw ikan belacak (mudskipper) in pantai Murni in Yan. I've never saw one ever in my life until that time we stopped in Yan. 
• 10 years anniversary for Hot fm brought us all the famous songs in those 10 years, it's a perfect playlist for the road-trip
• The paddy fields along side of the road from Yan to Butterworth
• The hills and mountains on our way to Ipoh were magnifique ! I can't even write enough about the magnificent view we got along the road. There weren't even pictures big enough to show how beautiful they were. Lucky northern people, perhaps they don't even notice what they are missing.
• Chatty AF - when we visited all his childhood places while he was growing up.
• Mount Rapat + Mount Lang
• Sunset in Lumut

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Our path on the 1st day :

Highway - KL to Alor Setar > Gunung Keriang

Our path on the 2nd day :

Alor Setar > Gurun > Yan > Tikam Batu > Butterworth > Bandar Ipoh > Gunung Lang > Padang Polo. 

Our path on the 3rd day :

Bandar Ipoh > Gunung Rapat > Lumut 

Our path on the 4th day :

Lumut > Sg Besar > Sekinchan > Tg. Karang > KL > Home

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Summary :

• We travelled around 1070 km on car in 4 days 3 nights.
• 3 different 2-stars hotel booked on Agoda ranging RM 70 - RM 95 per night
• We spent around RM 250 - RM 300 per person for foods, accommodation, gas and tolls. 
• Total : RM 270 (accommodation) , RM 100 (tolls) , RM 130 (gas-return)

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Sunsets :
We missed the first sunset because we were both exhausted from the 9 hours ride. We had a nice sunset at Padang Polo, Ipoh on the second day. That was the field where Af used to train for parkour during his younger years :D We got a great sunset view at the beach in Lumut on the third day. 

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Note :

If you are an escapee like us, waiting for chances to explore on weekends or public holidays or any random time because of  your commitment to work/family/school, be a part of us. We put up a car sticker; 'Eskapi' on our car's window. Promised we use the car for a great cause of exploring new places, road-trips, new destination :) It's never too near to find new places to explore.

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Work Related : Etsy Air Mails

My little hobby still picks up customers from all over the world :D

Training to improve your Wacom tablet skill shouldn't be all serious and work-work. I always find illustrating random things that I like helps me make an effort to finish up any illustration.

And to make any practice worth the time and effort, I sell it in my Etsy - because why not?  If I try to create something entirely up for sell, I would definitely be having a mental-block, just because I want to create something really perfect - which is ridiculous la kan? =.=

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It marks my 319th sales :) 

I am so happy ❤

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Little Things 215 : Sharks in Disguise

This would be the 3rd-4th year for my 40k ASB loan :

1. I've been paying around RM 250 every month since I made that loan. 
2. I just checked the balance for my loan last Dec 2015, which is : RM 38,900
3. That means for all those months + years I've been paying, I only managed to pay almost 3% - RM 1,100 only from my total debt. The remaining goes to pay the interest, which is around RM 170 per month.
4. I've been playing this game wrong.

The trick is to pay ridiculously higher than they ask for every month, the faster you pay off the loan, the better. Or you'll just be another one of the victim. Even if you never miss paying for it every single month or spend the yearly dividend. Sneaky sneaky. 

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On lighter note :

I managed to pay 26% from my education loan. 

Few more years to go.

Mini Escapism : Putrajaya + Mines Lantern Festival *video update*

I guess this is Af's way to treat my exhaustion from work. I know I've been a bit too whiny lately - now I understand why people say woman talks too much :D 

I'm starting to wonder my validity in staying as professional as I claimed I am. Whether it's true that I'm taking too much time in submitting my works, whether I do perform, whether I'm giving my full efforts during the working hours. Or not? All my hard work, almost 90% time spent focusing in ticking the finished tasks, all hours spent on the wobbly chair, those hours of missed lunches and exhausted mind were all just my imagination? 

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We went to Putrajaya last weekend. I spent some time sitting and sketching new illustrations for me to illustrate that night while Af went for a short parkour training. We've been lazying off a bit, gaining a bit of happy fats and feeling a bit 'tepu'. 

As always, Putrajaya has always been a huge spot for us to wander around. 

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That night, we stopped by at Mines. They are having the biggest lantern festival since last Dec until the end of this Feb *if I'm not mistaken. We didn't use the promotional tickets we got from the previous BBW tho. We just went around the area - it doesn't seem worth to spend RM 35 to see the lights. You will understand if you personally go there and see the area yourself. 

So these are images taken by two cheapskate jakunist outside of the place :

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And here's a video done by Af from the lantern festival :D


ESCAPISM #8 from Farikarim on Vimeo.
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And weekend spent well. 

Extended to another off-day for Hari Wilayah :D

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Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. ― Apple Inc.

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Plant Project : The Survivors

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Along side another one plant at Ma's and pothos at LGM, these two are the remaining survivor from 2014's plant project. It has been almost 2 years and MAHA is coming again - I am ready with experience and knowledge this time ! I'm most likely to buy more air plants because they are the easiest to grow and they only need twice a week of watering. Also plants that can survive on zeolites - because I can leave it for several days without daily watering. So I don't have to worry so much if we go on any random mini escapism or road-trips :D

Look at that adorable air plant in the hanging glass bubble with Chi. 

It grew so much ❤ 

Little Thing 214 : Soul Eater

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It's Friday.

There are 10 12 open tasks for UI designing and 6 more tasks for the promo and other collateral.

So I just spend my early morning staring at the monitor, thinking about how survival might disguised as a soul eater. I always thought that I'm a hard-core adaptable learner because I managed to work at online news publisher semi agency for that 2 years - until - I work in a startup as the only designer who does everything - :F

PS:

I borrowed a view from the 14th floor of Trinity Building in the city center.

We spent our morning in the other office owned by 1337v.

I'll probably miss the city vibes after this.

Perhaps, perhaps.

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Pity Af had to see my worn-out face like I survived a war everyday after work. 

His "how was today?" makes my eyes gleam with exhausted tears.

Mini Escapism : Raub - Gambang - Kuantan

Our weekend spent mostly on the road. 

It started with Raub for Af's sister's wedding on Saturday to stopping by at Af's old office in Bukit Gambang Resort and sending Af's grandmother to Kuantan on Sunday, next we went to Raub again to send Af's mom and Nani, and lastly headed back to KL the same night. We had travelled approximately around 600km in 2 days :F

I went to Af's old building where we first had our Facetime.
The places he took his photos in his instagram when he was so out of reach from the civilization. The huge clouds marching from the highest building, the strong hot wind, our yesteryears.
It brings back a lot of bittersweet memories :(

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That night the moon shone so brightly from behind the hill, it went up slowly all the way to the high sky. We were in the car all night, I can even see Nani's face in the dark when there was no lights along some of the road on the highway.

The black sky was beautiful, and the moon was magnifique.
But we had to go back to our reality.

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Little Things 213 : Muji Planner 2016

I love planners, because I love writing things down and I love to plan.

Usually there are 3 type of people : 

• people who are constantly write things down - the planner, the organized freak, the to-do list person, the writer, the doodler, etc.
• people who are not - even when they are given a new planner, they will probably give it to someone else or just keep it as a collection.
• and people who are trying - they like the idea of planning or writing their to-do list and stuffs, but it will be left untouched after the first 2 weeks.  

So this post was made especially for the Anon who asked about Muji planner several days ago :D I've been meaning to write about it but I was too busy lately - up until I got sick and stayed at home resting for the day. 

Several weeks before the end of 2015, I went to Muji Avenue K and saw a beautiful big planners - full white and another version in full black. It is a weekly planner; one page show the listing towards the whole week and another page is an empty page of squared grids. I love squared grids pages because I can draw things down quite easily compared to the one-line pages. I wanted to buy it for work & freelance planning, but it was too expensive : RM 50 :F 

So I left Muji :(

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Two weeks after the new year I went there again - just to see all those Muji planners in all sizes having a discount from 30 - 50% off ! The one I wanted was with 50% off - that means the price was only RM 25. I showed it to AF and explained to him about the planner and he said that I should definitely buy it :D Woooah, and I bought it right away. 

I thought that I wanted the full-white version but in the end I bought the other version :

It looked exactly like normal planner, isn't it?

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Except that it has grid pages on each week and more of those pages at the end of the planner. It also has several pockets on the cover jacket to keep extra stuffs like ruler, washi tapes or post-it notes. I put all my illustration research and UI plannings. The things useful for my works, and been updating it every day because I keep on juggling several tasks at once - I keep on forgetting things ! 

It is a bit smaller than A4 sized paper.

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The paper quality is quite good and thick. I've tried writing some stuffs using : Pilot - Pop'lol + Frixion + Wingel + Brush Pen and also Papermate Gel. No problem.

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If you are searching for a Muji Planner, go ahead to Avenue K, 

they still got those discounted planners! 

:D

Little House : 500sqft

We are nesting.

I think we overspent on buying little things we never thought we needed : like the place to put washed dishes, or the tiny case to put our keys and rings and pins, or the 3-plugs outlets, or hanging rods, or coaster for hot kettle or frying pans and pots. All the items we simply overlooked when we stayed with a big family for so long, those stuffs a mother prepared for us to use. I kinda miss Ma, and Awan. 

Suddenly leaving the house doesn't feel as excited as when I was single and alone, renting an apartment. I'm married. I know this is the phase when I finally detached myself from the family cocoon and start creating my own little family. Exciting, but sad at the same time.

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The colour :
We had it lucky. The owner furnished the small apartment using all natural soil colours : light and dark brown. The worned-out sofa, the wall, the brown kitchen table, all the cabinets, the floor, all in various brown colours. It matches my previous wooden furniture and carpet, and cushions :D I am very-very-very glad I don't have to see mismatched items.

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The working table :
And after a year, we managed to reattach my working table again. It was sitting behind the sofa for that long after I moved out from my previous rented apartment. I personally love-love-love the table, but the wooden texture is a bit splotchy now :(

I covered it up with a black desk's mat.

I finally have a working space again. A place to put my magical laptop, my graphic tablet and note/books to write or doodle. Big space to sprawl anything while packing for my Etsy stuffs and DIY projects. And my black desk lamp, finally useful.

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The internet :

The internet guy came and setup our high-speed internet ! This is one of the most daunting-and-exciting part, because we are committed with the 2-years Unifi's contract, it is a bit overpriced for both of us :F but we've been planning on being productive in our freelance business this year *at least I do. So maybe this investment will be a great thing. And I can have my drafts whenever I want to. I think Af is enjoying his daily Game of Throne series :F

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And we have a darling view from our living room :