Medan Kota

overloaded….

traditional transport used in one of the world most modern city…

it was real tempting with an empty stomach… after a hearty meal and..  it’s like, oh,  please….

though its a mock up town… but I love it…

beautiful Jade Temple Buddha

French Concessions... funky shops… restaurants with expensive drinks… art galleries… boutiques selling over priced items… yet it’s my favourite place of the whole trip… and I must have been under-dressed or something… several times I picked up an item, the salesperson will inform me of the price without me having to raise my voice… and nothing beat having a salesgirl telling you… ‘oh..  the dress is too small for you and I have no bigger size coz we make only one size!’... well, I was just picking the dress up to look at the design… and ouch.. it does hurts till today.. BUT there is an accessories boutique selling all things Pearls.. as in Farm Pearls and not South Sea Pearl… very very reasonabley priced and hand made by the owner herself...

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things I find interesting…

ICBC is one of China leading bank … I was being recommended to buy their stocks in fact… I was seeing the logo everywhere I turned… but each time we see one… hubby will say ‘ICBC = ai xi bei xi’ which in hokkien translates to ‘ICBC = want to die cannot die’… and since there is one right opposite our hotel… I went in there to change some money… as I was being given big 100 notes… I asked for some to be changed into smaller ones… the clerk guy said that he had not enough on hand for other customers… !! I was like… comeon this is a bank and you gave me that excuse??..

I skipped my breakfast for this famous restaurant at Yuyuan… one word ‘disappointment’… the queues were long and everyone was talking about it… so I have to try… the big bun with straw.. it was just plain soup inside… and I couldn’t understand why it was oily since it was simply filled with soupbase …

we went to the pudong side to have a better view of the full Shanghai Tang… along the river bank.. I saw this set up photography store… and I really have the urged to have one taken… but because 1. there is no changing room so I have to slip on the costume over what I was wearing…2. the camera that they were using was a lot much worst than mine.. 3. lots of people were starring… so.. I didn’t have the guts to do it…

at the Zhuangzhou Watertown… the food came in HUGE portion… it was enough for at least 6 people… obviously we managed to eat just 1/4 of it… tastewise… just only ok… but most interesting part was when you see how the vegetables were being pre prepared….

one of my most disappointment was not seeing the BUND… the whole stretch is having construction going on to prepare for the Shanghai Expo in 2010…

but one of the fun part was experiencing the automated toilet in the lounge of the Shanghai Airport… I have tried many of the semi automated ones but not like one of this …. and all along I have always wondered about why the Japanese all have such a big fuss over their toilet seat until now…. for this one, as you opened the door, the light is automatically switched on… the toilet seat cover is then automatically lifted up… then on the side.. instructions and a panel of functions you pressed .. high or low, front or rear, different types of spraying methods… and it comes with the DRYER function!!… I am NOT at all ashame to admit… but it was really cute and I was like a little kid finding excuses to go in again and again…

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It’s obvious that I have not been writing much… well.. not much was going on around me… and I prefer to write when my instinct said so… else I can sit in front of my comp screen all day… waffled through the post and ended deleting the work… though I have no major story to tell… I do have some of the shorter version to share…

I was at Mango (the boutique at Sun Plaza Medan) yesterday… while I was being served by the salesgirls… 2 relatively tall LOCAL ladies with their boobs practically spilled out from the new TIGHT nicely tried out tops were well served by the male persons whom were obviously blushing with glee… I was standing beside them seeing the male reactions and was thinking ….. how did Indonesia be known as one of the world most populated Muslims country… and what’s with all the fuss about Syriah…?

At Marriott male’s locker room…hubby often overheard… ‘there are more cah bor (pretty woman) at Cambridge than here’…. in fact I can write a post of the gossip going around this male room… but naahhh… ‘respect’… is the word…

is it the Indonesian culture or what… but I find it real rude to have people opening a sentence with ..‘ooii’… ‘yo’… ‘woii’…  and I get that a lot with the Medanku Blackberry users… and mind you.. the screenshot clearly stated… ‘Vic@MedanKu.com’ …

am considering an online degree in Journalism… then it became.. many of the known writers or the top bloggers definitely has no such title behind their great name… but well.. I think I am persueing it anyhow anyway…

Spent Rp 600.000 on a Lunch for 4 at ‘Gelato’ resto one afternoon … the more I think of it… it’s like.. ‘what did we eat???’.. it’s an absolute ripped off…!! .. well.. what saddened me was the fact the food were nothing to be thrilled at….

I have been married for almost a decade… apart from our honeymoon… hubby and me have not been to anywhere without work or the kids… i.e .. pure traveling just the 2 of us exploring new city with no work and no kid attached… and he finally agreed to a week at Shanghai after all these years…

I was going through my Aug/Sep credit card bills and am absolutely astonished to see ‘Trattoria’ and ‘JW Marriott’… dominate my payment list for this month… and I can see more to come with the Marriott discount card…

From year one that I have moved to Medan… I have the vision to open a restaurant… (who doesn’t huh..) … I’ve gone through like 5 major readings purely on guides to opening a restaurant… simulating countless amount of calculations like budgeting, P&L account… miles spent on road scouting for the best location… hours spent calling up property agents enquiring about the Ruko… one idea lead to the next… and NO… nothing works… and NO.. I have no regret… as it is undeniably that my tastebud will definitely not work with the local Chinese… but in contrast… I am finding a gap that will suit the local Indonesian… Chinese consumers in Medan? … I have raised my white flag up long long time ago…

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I have been following some Medan’s teen blogs for quite sometimes… it dawn on me that most kids in Medan… by the time they finished their SMP or secondary 3 or about 15 y.o (years old) … many of them choose to just go abroad to further their studies…  so I went about searching for the reasons behind…

1.    the local SMA system… i.e secondary 4-6 or Junior college years are terrible… stories have it that.. schools will actually help you to cheat during the final exams…
2.    the local university.. apart from USU… there aren’t proper one around…
3.    local graduates are not being highly recognized…
4.    to continue in some foreign franchise schools in Medan, the costs may worked out to be about the same if they choose to go abroad..

next.. I also found out that… some Indonesian students can purchase their SMA certificate… with that in hand… when you go overseas like UK, US, Canada to further your studies… you will only need to attend the University foundation years.. i.e short courses that prepare you prior to doing the actual university degree… and this foundation years are only like 1 or 1.5 years… hence.. by 17 y.o (the minimum University entrance age), he/she will be in their first year of University… i.e cut short of about 1.5 years in their student life…well.. do note that the normal university entrance age is at about 18 yo or 19 yo .. that is… if we followed the normal education procedures….

when I first found out about all these… my first reaction was… that’s so cool… imagine you saved 1.5 years of education costs… which can easily be at about US$ 20.000 or more..!!!..  next… it became… “ok.. JD and ES will do that only if they are smart enough to cope…”… coz when I reflected back to my Uni years in the UK… I have always wondered about why the Indonesian students were always so young… among the youngest in the course in fact… some of them did ok… but for some.. you can see that they were struggling… and for some… at 17 y.o and entering Uni, the life and the influenced… well… let’s just say… some didn’t turn out alright…

as for my plan for my 2 boys… initially… I wanted them to go Singapore to start their primary 3… then hubby refused… saying too young…!! .. several arguments after… he agreed on after primary 6… now that JD is almost 7… seeing that he is doing well in Piaget … the father feels that kids should be by his side so that he can teach the boys about the values in life … of what’s right and what’s wrong… so he now said ‘No’ again…

after that seminar which I attended 2 months back… I too felt that … may be the boys should be by our side… then.. next.. I found out about this International school in Singapore… www.uwcsea.edu.sg… (I love the fact that the school do a lot of overseas field trips for the older classes… great way to learn stuff)..  and seeing how the whole local education systems are like… I am now thinking… may be I will just put them in uwcsea after SMP…, after 2 years… they will then go straight to UK for their Uni life… with the arrangement… the boys will not have to go through the Singapore stressful ‘O’ as well as ‘A’ level… instead they will follow the IB system…. and with 2/3 years in Singapore… it will help prepared them for the independent life that they will be facing in UK… while us the parents are still be able to see them every now and then…

aiii… sometimes I do wonder if I am thinking too much about my family future …? .. but again.. if you count down.. it’s like just another 5 to 6 years and the time will come…… 2 boys with overseas education….. can’t imagine the number of zeros behind the US dollar sign……  hhaaaiiii @…@ …..  I’m kind of prepared … but am I preparing enough?…

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I have said many times how I dislike banks… I disheart the way they operate their businesses… and yes.. we need them and they need us the consumers… no denying…

credit cards… there is no argue over the convenience it provides to all of us… over the last few years… where ever we go… be it the shopping malls, supermarkets, mailbox, telephone calls, airports, hospitals… in fact practically in all public places.. we will find these freelance marketing people from all sort of banks….  approaching you to apply their credit card with first year complimentary annual fees….

well… from my past experiences, whenever we applied… we are being approved… BUT we never use… simply becoz we stick to the one card that we use regularly to accummulate for points… hence, these freebies ones are only there if any promotion crip up.. which usually.. hardly any…

one year later… we will then received a statement… stating the annual fees that we need to pay…for me and hubby… we normally ended cancelling it… it’s like… why pay the Rp 200.000++ for the service that we will probably not going to be using…

for the last 18 years or so that we hold credit cards… regardless whether we are in U.K or Medan, whenever we need to cancel… we simply need to place a call to the call center….. and of course after several phone calls to all the silly people from different departments, they will accept our request and void the card… well…

3 weeks back… we received a statement from BCA Indonesia – ‘Bank Central Asia’ … to be exact! …. requesting us to pay for the cc annual fees of Rp 247.500… we have been holding their card for the last 3 years… 1st year being complimentary… 2nd year, we paid 1/2 the rate and we used the card only once at Starbucks ….. for this 3rd year… I was telling my hubby how we NEVER use the card at all … so asking him to simply cancelled it for this 4th year…

hubby made a call to the Medan center…. was told he couldn’t cancel coz its already being charged to the account ..!!! … oh.. he was real mad!!… he then placed a call to Jakarta headquarter.. telling them of his intention and reasons… this time…. the operator told him that he needs to go down to the Medan branch, placed a request and have it cancelled from there…

alright here’s the thing…. ‘what rights have the bank got to have it auto renew!!!’… ok…. if the banks feel that it’s for their convenient that they want to auto charge for the auto renew of the subscription, … then us the consumers should have the right to cancel it too!!!! ….. like I said… other banks allowed you to cancel over the phone…. but with BCA system… not only you have to go down to the center… but we were told how … we need to pay the annual fees first!!! … from there, placed in a request for the cancellation … after which.. it’s a wait and see situation if the HQ will agree to the cancellation request !!!…. if ‘yes’…. the account will be credited back… if ‘no’…. well.. we have paid to the service earlier anyway!!!… gosh… to me it’s like… what kind of service is this!!! …

well… we have been using their services for the past 5/6 years and we hold the priority banking…. let me tell you… BCA is the only one bank that still charged their priority customers for their annual fees… NO other banks do that with their clients at the level…. in fact.. even while we were students in UK… with our credit rating… the UK banks are constantly upgrading our cards to the next best….. and we never have to pay for the service!!!..

I don’t know if any of my readers work for the BCA bank… but if you do… please raise this super duper silly issue to your senior coz it totally not right….!!!

and I have also found out that… banking records are sort of centralised in Indonesia… i.e if you have late or owed payments with bank 1… bank 2 will be able to trace and know of your bad credit rating….

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