Holiday | Family Trip to Medan, Indonesia

Hi readers!

It has been a long time since I shared something personal on my blog. But I feel like sharing this one of my core memories here so that I can see it whenever I want instead of the photos from my hard disk or my phone. Plus point that by keeping it here, I can tell the stories that are still fresh in my mind.

The trip was for 4 days and 3 nights (31/7/2024 - 3/8/2024) only, but it was worth it since my family and I planned it at the last minute and in a rush. We only confirmed the date and travel agency only 1 month before. So as you know, we actually could get much cheaper flight tickets if it was decided earlier. 🤣 Because of the undecided dates, we actually decided to take ground travel agents only (bought flight tickets and insurance separately). The real first plan was to just rent a car there but we don't have an international license and it was too late to go and get the license so we just chose to take an agent. Less worry and can travel without stressing about the itinerary. I went there with my parents so I worried that choosing a travel agency the itinerary was fixed especially with the hiking etc but lucky that we could custom the itinerary accordingly since it was a private trip.

DAY 1: KUL - KNO - LAKE TOBA

There was a funny story about the journey to reach Day 1 of this family trip. I purposely chose the date of the family trip from Wednesday to Saturday because if I chose to take leave on Monday and Tuesday it would be hellish because of my nature of work where everyone suddenly does not have any kind of Monday blues whatsoever. They usually called me the most on Monday and Tuesday and gradually went missing on Friday (Usually lose the spirit to work on Friday). So, I worked the last day on Tuesday which surely was really hectic. I even travelled back and forth for more than 200 km that day to settle my work. Then, I went back home around 8PM, finished packing my things at 10PM and prepared to sleep because I needed to wake up early at 3PM because the flight was at 6AM. But then suddenly my brother called me saying that they already arrived at my house and went to KLIA at freaking 10PM (6 hours before check-in luggage time). Just to let you know my house is only 40 minutes from KLIA so it was that early. 😂 To be honest, my mind still at that moment has not clocked out from my work 2 hours before so it kinda felt like I went for a holiday directly from work. So, that was the story where I actually slept in the airport for my cheap morning flight. Hahaha

We arrived at Kualanamu Airport, Medan around 9am and were picked up by our travel agent. We went to eat Soto Ayam + Nasi for breakfast. Tasted kinda like Lontong here in Malaysia. I am not a picky eater so everything tasted good to me.

  

After that, the road trip continues moving towards Lake Toba. The journey took more than 2 hours but we stopped at Kedai Paten (For shopping), Tiga Dolok Orchid Farm for sightseeing and a coffee break, and Kebun Teh to take some photos and straighten our back from the long journey. We ate a late lunch (nasi berlauk) before reaching the hotel to rest and pray before continuing to stroll around Danau Toba.

Around 5PM, while waiting for our tour guide, we strolled around the hotel to get a view of the area, and what I can tell you the view was majestic. ✨

  

Even though it was raining during our arrival, the view still didn't disappoint us. I can't help but keep being amazed with the view. No camera was able to truly capture the beauty of nature that I saw through my eyes. We went to Bukit Senyum in the afternoon to get a view from the top of Danau Toba.

  

And of course, I had to take at least a photo of myself at this place. But obviously, one picture is never enough. Soon after that, we went to Pantai Bebas Parapat Danau Toba, took pictures here and there and went to our hotel for dinner and rest.

DAY 2: LAKE TOBA - SAMOSIR ISLAND - BERASTAGI

Day 2 started our day at 8am Indonesia time. After having breakfast, we went to Ajibata Ferry Terminal and rode the ferry to Samosir Island. The view I saw from the ferry was so beautiful and amazing. MasyaAllah. It was already amazing that there was a large lake in the mountains, but in the lake there was another island. As told by my tour guide, there is even another small lake in Pulau Samosir which is still mindblowing. I took a lot of videos and photos, you may see it on my Instagram. I can only show some of the photos here on my blog, but if too many photos I put them in one (1) blog post, it will be too much. At Samosir Island, we just walked nearby and went to the Batak Museum and shopped around there. You know what, my mom was having a real blast shopping here to the point that I gave up and sat with the local alley nearby.

  

After that, we continue our journey to Penatapan Simarjarunjung. We stopped here to drink some coffee and enjoy the view. Here, I drank Jus Alpukat and Bakwan. It was so so so good. I can drink Jus Alpukat everyday. It was such a shame there is no exact same taste as Jus Alpukat here in Malaysia. There are few photo spots at this place but I just chose to take photos at Glass Bridge and took photos of the scenery only.

 

After that, we went on our journey and after about 1 hour we reached Restaurant RM Muslim Suroboyo Tongging for late lunch. This restaurant specializes in Lake Toba's freshwater lobster. Since it was a freshwater lobster, the size was small but the food was delicious and satisfactory. I ate special rice from Padi Huma (dryland rice). The colour is light pink to red. The freshwater fish (forgot the name) also tastes good.

 

The view from the restaurant. Isn't it amazing? We ate lunch with this view and Sipiso Piso Waterfall. The weather is also cool and breezy. After going to Vietnam during the freaking hot season, I was so obsessed with the cool and breezy holiday destination 😂 After eating we went to Air Terjun Sipiso Piso and went for a 10 minutes hike to get a better view of the waterfall. We didn't go down all the way to the waterfall because we went there with my parents obviously their physique was not like youngsters but still, there were a lot of beautiful photos to take and memories we created. Following that, we continue our road trip to Berastagi and spend a night there.

 

DAY 3: BERASTAGI-MEDAN

The sun rose on day 3, casting a soft glow over the magnificent landscape right in front of my eyes. The view from the hotel is also the best. It was a shame that the swimming pool was closed for maintenance, if not it must be to swim there with that view.

 

Later that day, we went to Pasar Buah Berastagi and since my family loves to eat fruits, we bought a box worth of fruits. I even felt full eating all the testers given by the seller. Then, we went to Taman Alam Lumbini to see the tallest Pagoda in Indonesia.

 

Soon after that, we continued our journey to Medan, we ate lunch at Ayam Penyet Cindelaras and went to the hotel to pray and rest before going out for dinner and a night stroll to the city of Medan.

 

DAY 4: MEDAN-KNO-KUL

Do you know what I felt on day 4 of our holiday? I regret not proposing to my family to have a 5d4n night holiday instead of 4d3n because it felt like everything happening so fast. After breakfast, we went to Bakery & Cake Shop Zulaikha to buy some Ole-Ole and cakes.  For me, Medan City is quite the same as Kuantan, Pahang. I don't know how to explain, but somehow it looked the same.

 

We stopped by Masjid Raya Al-Mashun and Istana Maimun for sightseeing and to learn some history of that area. Our tour guide suggested eating some Durian from Medan so we ate only 1 durian because we were afraid of not being able to stuff our stomachs during lunch later. So, we ate just enough to get a taste of it. But, it was delicious. We ate lunch at Restoran Simpang Tiga (Medan Monginsidi) for lunch and ate Nasi Padang (even though we were at Medan) 😂

 

The view is taken from Istana Maimun and you can get a glimpse of the city of Medan. By the way, I read on Twitter, that if the Gotham City of Malaysia is Klang, the Gotham City of Indonesia is Medan. Is it correct my Indonesian readers? It is because of the high crime rate of these two cities. I don't know the truth but this was what people said.

There are A lot of things happened and a lot of memories created during our holiday to Medan. It was fun and I am already looking forward to our next family trip.

How about you guys? Where did you go on a family trip that you found truly memorable?

- Nana

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Random Thoughts | This Too Shall Pass

 

Why do we tend to try to control and change things that we can't do then we keep being upset because we can't control or change it? Since we were unable to do it, we started to feel overwhelmed and upset over it. I also feel the same and it is hard to change this mindset but I really do hope that I can change my mindset and it will affect my mood on a daily basis. It is hard to change the hard and lingering feelings.

I have been ignoring my warning signs of burnout. When I did, I tried to get rid of it one by one. But it seems like I am still stuck in the same old cycle and I am rotting away. It is not that I don't seek help, I do but it seems like none is helping me much. This shitty cycle really needs to end because I am tired, my body is tired. Sometimes I do feel like the pressure I have been getting from people around me, especially during work is not worth it. Whenever I try to do something when I, myself am not in the best condition, I can't control my 'emotional self' that keeps leaking out. Because of that, I tend to do something and make a decision while being emotional. Which is obviously not good for sure.

I felt weird when people thought that I was capable of holding all those things at the same time but I think that I always make things more messy. As time goes by, it is harder to keep myself from being emotional over something that I can't control. There are some things that I can be ignorant and I feel thankful for that. But I hope that I can be more ignorant to save myself from drowning in the sea of guilt and bad feelings. I keep feeling emotional but keep having this thought "If I cry now, it can't settle anything but I only feel tired from crying instead". 

But instead of feeling negative all the time, I try to keep myself positive by trying to fight with my subconscious self and tell myself a good thing so that I can gain back my strength.

Shawn Mendes - Hold On

I don't know what

You're going through

But there's so much life

Ahead of you

And it won't slow down

No matter what you do

So you just gotta hold on

All we can do is hold on, yeah

Yeah, you just gotta hold on

Just hold on for me

This too shall pass.

- Nana

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Acenana

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Artwork | Why I love to Draw

 

Hi readers!

To be honest, ever since I started working, it has been hard to maintain everything that I have done during my free time back when I was a student. I used to draw so much to the point that my bedroom wall was full of my drawings. I used to explore many kinds of arts such as pen sketching, architecture sketching, portraits, doodles, painting, digital arts and many more. I have tried it all but I do not feel I have mastered any. Hahaha! After a lot of exploring, I found that I do better in pen and architecture sketching. But only in black and white because I do not have any good sense of colour combination. My drawings always turned out bad when I decided to colour them. So, I just let it be black and white, just like my life. >-<

Moreover, I found that doing this kind of art style really heals me and helps me to calm my mind. The more tiny my lines were, the more that I found myself healed from all the things that stress me out (Well, at least at the moment). Drawing really helped me to discover, reflect on and to express myself. There was a moment when I felt overwhelmed and started to draw, and once I started I felt like my mind went blank and only focused on the drawing. After a while, I started to reflect on myself and realise what kind of actions I should take or avoid. It feels like I have found myself while drawing and it helped me to think of something calmly. I even think that I wish that I could do it forever. But, I have decided to not work in the art field because this is the thing that I love to do as a hobby and I don't want it to change to be something that will be stressing me out.

I actually don't really like people to watch me while I draw. It feels really uncomfortable. When I draw, I prefer to completely exclude myself from the world. I don't even like to be in the same space with others while I draw. Is it an introvert thing? hahaha!

Actually, my work field is also related to what I love to do. I work in the design field. But engineering design for houses. As a metaphor, architects work to design the human exterior (i.e. skin, flesh, eyes, nose, feet, fingers, body shape) while engineers design the support of the body (bones). The architect designs the house but we, the civil engineers design the support of the house (i.e. beam, column, foundation). But the civil engineer's scope of work is actually wider than that. 

So, during work, I actually have felt in a slump. Designer slump. Hahaha! The feeling was almost the same as people in the art field felt. To get rid of that thing in a moment, we need to take five and go for a walk, go see some greens or take a shower to get our inspiration back.

How about you? do you have anything you like to do to spend your free time? I am going to share my latest drawing that I follow from Pinterest. Since I am not drawing professionally, I just search for some inspiration from Pinterest and copy to redraw for my leisure.

Thank you for reading!

Much love,

- Nana

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Acenana

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Random Thoughts | Quarer-Life Crisis

Hi Readers,

Have you ever felt stuck in a never-ending cycle when sometimes you feel that your life is just going on and on the same as yesterday? Some of us whose ages range from our mid-20s to early 30s face these issues where we start having self-doubts, constantly worrying about our future and feeling like we have yet to achieve anything. The term quarter-life crisis is happening to young adults who have just finished studying and trying to adjust to working life. The situation of the crisis varies from person to person due to their own life circumstances. 

In this posting, I am referring to the young adult with an age range similar to mine. We are reaching the age of having anxiety over the direction and quality of one's life. A common question we have been asking ourselves is probably "What is the point of everything?". Facing this kind of crisis is a good thing that it is going to be a good opportunity for us to reflect upon ourselves.

When we were a teenager, we expected that we already figured out it all. Honestly, who has thought that being in this age range feels like a teenager who has been forced to be an adult? But at the same time, it feels like we are too old to be a teenager? 

Personally, I also keep having doubts about every decision that I have made. Either I think I made very bad decisions or kept thinking that I should choose something else for better results. I feel so unsure about everything. My life is just going in a circle and I can expect what can happen day by day.

Sometimes, it feels like my body is no longer in my twenties, I am definitely in my 80s 😂 because my body is aching all over physically and mentally. For now, I don't have any conclusion that I can make from being in this stage because I am still going through it. I just hope I can go through it bravely and strongly.

Thank you for reading!
- Nana

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Acenana

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