Free woman

I am a free woman. To say that I'm having mixed feelings is such an understatement. It feels like a hundred adjectives, put in a blender, fused and compounded into a liquid of confusion. Hahaha! Well, above all.. I feel RELIEVED and ALIVE. It was such agony to come to this decision one month ago and having to mull over it from last Friday till Monday this week, was just reliving nightmare.

When I received the offer to be placed in another team, with another boss, it was a sign from God. It was a reminder of why I wanted to quit in the first place. On Monday, the first day I was back at work after reconsidering to stay on in the same firm, my feelings towards practice did not change. I resigned on the same day.

The circumstances did not and will not change even if I am working with another boss. That offer really made it crystal clear to me that my heart is not in private practice anymore.

I would never do anything differently. I am very grateful to have incredible parents whom support my decision with open hearts. I do not know if this is the right decision, but I do know that I believe in my decision.

InsyaAllah.

Bleeding ♥

*giggle*

A year has passed, he barely crossed my mind,
Yesterday, he greeted me with a smile,
I said "Hi!", turned away, and go,
Hoping that he won't see me turn red as a tomato.


Today, I saw him from the corner of my eye,
My skin tingled, my heart did a wheelie,
I hope, oh, I do hope he'd stop by,
He came into the room and talked to me. ME!!!!!!!!!!

The Cottage

While we were on the ferry that took us to Samosir Island, a young man approached us and told us to check out his hostel. I didn't make any prior bookings due to umm.. lack of credit card. haha! So, we agreed to follow him and he showed us around his hostel. For a room with twib bed and hot shower, he offered us Rp120,000/ night. That's approximately RM40 for 1 night. Dirt cheap. However, we decided to keep on walking and maybe take a look around before settling down.

We arrived at this 1 hostel. A middle-aged woman is the inn-keeper. When we asked her to show us the room right on the bank of the lake, she said smthg about it'll be waste of her energy if she shows us around but we end up not wanting to stay there. I was actually a bit scared of the lady, so I quickly refused her but she insisted on showing the room. We had to follow her around and she was really persistent in wanting us to stay the night. We gave up and decided to stay there for the night. She charged us Rp100,000 per night. FYI, I think we were the only ones staying in that hostel. SCARY!

Later that evening, after settling down in that scary hostel, we decided to check the neighbouring hostels. It turns out that the other hostels are much better than the scary hostel. We decided we would shift to the better hostel first thing in the morning.

Our "better" hostel, Samosir Cottage. Rp150,000 per night with hot shower. Trust me, you'll need hot shower in Danau Toba.

The reception area and dining place of the Cottage.


The view of Danau Toba from our balcony.



The view of the Cottage from our balcony.

We were officially in paradise. :)

The Journey To The Lake

As you know, I went to Medan to do a little bit of soul-searching (more like running away from the toxic air in KL) in February. I meant to put up my pictures earlier but work had been CUH-RAY-ZAY. The Bali post (my trip last year) will have to wait.. hahaha!

Now I know what will work. Piecemeal. Baby steps. Since my internet connection is a wee bit faster than an old man trying to cross the road, I figured.. why not do it small? :) Here goes..

My cousin, Kikin and I boarded a very early flight to Medan on Thursday. We planned to go straight to Danau Toba upon arrival and spend at least 2 days there. We did research on the internet and we were supposed to get a "bus" from the airport to the bus terminal where we could take another bus to Parapat, the town at the bank of Danau Toba.

As soon as we landed, we head out of the airport and the first thing we noticed was a KFC at a Petronas. We made a bee line to our target and totally forgot that KFC won't be open for business at 8a.m. Hahaha! Disappointed and starving, we tried to catch the "bus" to the terminal. It turns out the "bus" mentioned on-line is actually an ANGKUT. An angkut is a van with no doors and can fit up to 10 people at one time. I remember taking angkut in Bandung so, no surprise there. I bet org2 putih tu ingat ni "bus" because there is no ordinary bus in the city.

It was quite a long ride in the angkut to the terminal. Erase the normal bus terminal image in your mind. Picture uneven ground, full of pot-holes, thousands of angkuts and two buses. Oh, and literally people everywhere. Nope, they are not boarding the bus.. they are women selling bottled water, snacks and such. Well, most of the men just hang around the bus stop staring at the crowd, jumping around (yes, they jump), grooming each other (tolong kawan die cabut janggut or smthg). Basically nothing productive.. We were quite early to arrive at the bus that was taking us to Parapat. Thank God we were early or else we could have ended up seating on the floor of the bus. Right before the bus reach it bursting point, the driver finally turned on the engine. Note that there's no air-conditioning in the bus. I had little children screaming from all sides, XS seats and 5 hours journey ahead. We did ourselves a favour and promised to rent a car back to Medan.

Once we reached Parapat, we had our lunch and head to the Tiga Raja jetty to take a ferry to the island of Danau Toba, Pulau Samosir.

The view of Parapat from our ferry

Look at the angry sky.. It seems like we were at sea, with waves crashing and all. Bbrrr!

The ferry had 2 sections, indoor and outdoor. We did try to brave the wind, rain and cold but with ever passing minute, the wind seems to get wilder, the rain heavier and definitely colder. We gave up on "enjoying" the ride and took shelter in the gasolin-stenched covered area. After about 1 hour of ride, we finally reached our destination, Samosir Island at 3 p.m. Phew~

A preview of the beauty of the island. :)

To be continued...