See you later, Jakarta!

Today is my last day living and working in Jakarta. I'm leaving for Singapore tomorrow morning.

Oh, also, my working permit has been issued.

YAAAAY!

I'm super nervous though. Although I gotta say I handle it much better than I thought. I thought I would break down on my last day at the office. I really love it there. My bosses and co-workers are amazing. We all have gotten close. But the opportunity in Singapore is too good to pass up. I owe it to myself to try.

Thankfully they understand and they have been very supportive. Big boss sat me down for a talk, told me about his own international lawyering experience (So cool! He's Australian, graduated and started working in Sydney, moved to Hongkong, then Singapore, and finally resided in Jakarta where he became an international partner), and gave me these valuable tips:

1. Don't let anyone treat you like a paralegal/assistant/strictly Indonesian law interpreter
   
2. Go home if you are not involved in any important transactions
   
3. If anyone treats you like a 2nd class citizen, throw a punch
   

I love that guy. He, a few other partners, and associates also told me whenever I want to go back, the door is always open.

That made me cry.

My practice group threw me a farewell dinner and made me a huge banner filled with sweet messages. All I can say is: wherever I go, they're surely irreplaceable.


Fingers crossed that my co-workers in Singapore are nice too. Here's to a new beginning!

Ready to Rumble

Bags are packed (60 kilos worth of stuff).

Current office desk is cleaned.

Pending assignments are assigned.

Farewell note to partners and fellow associates is written.

3 more days...

Let's have some fun, Singapore!*

Obvious Touristy Marina Bay Sands Photo, Courtesy of Nashe

*Oh and before we have all the fun in the world, can my working permit please be issued IMMEDIATELY? I'm freaking out here.**

**Speaking of working permit, I think it's refreshing that someone in the Ministry of Manpower asked my soon-to-be office on why my bachelor of law certificate is in Indonesian language. Last time I checked, I didn't go to a law school in Suriname.

Smile of the Day

You get what you give!

I think it's not a secret how much I love reading travel websites.

If fund is not an issue, I definitely will venture to far, exotic places all the time. Capturing pretty sights. See what the locals do daily. Writing it all up for people to read. However since I am a regular person, I have to save up like everyone else to do so while thinking of what place to go next. This changes all the time. Hence reading travel websites.

There are things that annoy me when I read them though. One of them is visitors from all over the world who visit Asia (South East Asia particularly) and complain that they lose things or how unsafe it is, when they actually pick shitty budget hotels/guesthouses/backpacker places to stay.

Look I get it, traveling is expensive. People want to stay longer at places because you have all these touristy popular places to see. But what do they expect from a room/place less than 30 bucks a night? An in-room deposit? A security? A nicer surrounding area where no shady people lurk in corners and probably plot to snatch your backpack/cellphone/whatever?

A lot of countries in South East Asia are developed, but a lot of their residents may be not THAT developed. There are still poor people everywhere and they may not be as educated as us. Not this justifies what they do (believe me, I had the 'pleasure' of losing my bag and its entire content, passport included, last June when a thief on a bike just snatched it out and I felt like I wanted to die) but this should make people be more careful and take preventive measures, such as NOT STAYING AT SHITTY UNSAFE PLACES, especially if it causes them to generalize the whole country (and probably the whole region) when something bad happens to them.

Last night I was googling Cambodia and read reviews where one of the tourists complained on how ghetto and unsafe Phnom Penh is. Well to be honest, it is one of the least developed places in the whole South East Asia region, but still I wanted to laugh when I read that he stayed at a 25 bucks/night hostel. He also complained about the less than clean water, sellers who hassled him to purchase souvenirs, and the nasty smell of the sewer. He then had the NERVE to say he couldn't expect anything from South East Asia and the whole region is pretty much poor.

Pretty interesting thing to say when you just visit one country and are too cheap to stay in one of the safer, nicer, odor free places (you can get a more than decent room in most 5 stars hotels in Phnom Penh for less than 100 bucks!).

I had the urge to personally email him, called him something nasty (cheap ignorant d*ckhead?), and told him if he took the time to travel outside of Cambodia to the South East Asian neighboring capital cities, he would see that a lot of them are probably way more modern, vibrant, and interesting than wherever it is he is from. Jakarta? Modern. Bangkok? Flashy and not at all like what people see in Hangover 2 where they only shot the slums. KL? Pretty. Saigon? Fun. And don't get me started on how Singapore trumps most of the capital cities in the WORLD in terms of modern technology and architecture, most likely one of the cleanest and safest too.

Anyway, in my opinion, people shouldn't expect all the countries they visit to be super clean, safe, and modern like the way they think a place is supposed to be. Beside, all the cities and towns in the world must have those shadier, less safe and less pretty places right? Plus, shouldn't a person be aware on how their destination is like before he or she decides to go there? With google and endless travel websites, everything is so easy to make necessary preparation.

So that guy, shouldn't he know from the very beginning that he visited Cambodia and read up on it? Did he expect Cambodia to be like, I don't know, The Carribbean? Shouldn't he expect the less fortunate but happy people (and hope that he does not meet any weird characters e.g. street thieves), exotic language, streets full of cyclos and motorbikes, crowded markets, hot platters of local food, and gorgeous temples? Those are part of the charm. That's exactly what makes a lot of people, including me, want to go there, to see a place absolutely different from where we live.

He and a lot of ignorant people just like him should really shut up.

On Boyfriend's Birthday and Shooting Things

I just came back from a week leave for my boyfriend's birthday
.

It was a really chilled week. During his working days, I mostly chilled watching TV or read books at his place, shopped, and walked around. The latter two activities can be such a challenge because my Vietnamese vocabulary is shamefully limited. The only sentence I can say correctly up until now is "em thich mông bự", which is the equivalent of "I like big butt".

I was wondering if I said it to a local, they would lead me straight to a prostitution area in downtown Saigon.

Ahem, anyhoo...

Quan likes my gift, which is a watch. I've been wanting to get him a serious lawyer's watch, you know, that compliments his everyday suits and tie. After all the lunch breaks window shopping and comparing items in the nearest malls, I finally found one that is classy but not too much. For his birthday celebration, we went out with his friends for a barbecue and drinks.

Later in the week, we went to a countryside around two hours outside of the city to shoot guns that apparently were used during Vietnam war. I was pretty scared when I got there, coming from a country where gun possession is definitely prohibited and almost no one I know ever comes close to even holding one (beside my grandparents, great grandparents and their friends who fought the Dutch before Indonesian independence day, of course). The sound of the shots were crazy and the guns are almost as big as me. Quan and his friend were having a ball trying some of them to shoot the targets then he looked at me and said I should try it.

At first I said no.

He assured me it would be okay. Although the gun might bounce back a little after I shoot.

I shook my head like a little baby.

He pouted.

Oh well let's just say I'm a sucker for that pout. And I'm curious. So I tried shooting two different guns.

Here is one of the hilarious videos:



And this is why my country will never pick me to go to war.

Have you tried shooting things?