As discussed the previous evening, it is agreed that we would focus more on good eating for today.  So, first thing first… eat!

First stop – Warung Kopi Kong Djie (Kong Djie Coffee Shop)

A tiny place on a street corner in downtown Belitung island, serving good strong local coffee, and happens to also serve a favorite breakfast item of mine, half boiled egg.  The coffee shop, serving mostly working class male adults, also provided several kinds of home-made local pastries, including sugar-coated deep-fried dense cake-like donuts.  Perfect with their coffee.

Second stop – Shopping.

Afterward, we continued on to a wet market located within a walking distant from the coffee shop, solely to get some local steamed cakes we couldn’t get enough of the previous day.  Then we moved on to a souvenir shop to purchase some dry snacks, such as the famous fish crackers and various things seafood related. Then back to our hotel to check out, before we off for more beach exploration.

Third stop – Pantai Bukit Berahu (Berahu Hill Beach)

The sun was mighty high and bright.  I lathered myself with many squirts of SPF50+ just to keep myself away from getting baked.  My only wish was that we should have been there after 5PM, as the beach is actually known for the sunset view.

Fourth stop – Pantai Tanjung Tinggi (Cape High Beach)

We were overheated by the sun at the previous beach stop, that by the time we got here we were in need to chill.  At the opposite side of the beach entrance there was a food vendor that sells freshly cut coconut, and so we stopped by to quench our thirst and to get a fix of rujak buah (fruit salad).  This fruit salad consists of cucumber, kedongdong (ambarella), mango, papaya, pineapple, and watermelon.  All topped with spicy-sweet peanut sauce, made with palm sugar and chilies, and served with peppered salt.

Properly fueled, we crossed the heated sandy street and greeted by large boulders at the entrance to the beach, with enough gap in between to allow us to slip through and to discover the beauty hidden on the other side.  Located on the north-west part of the island, this beach is the crème de la crème of Belitung.  It is THE spot people come to this island for.  It is the shooting location for the famous 2008 local movie Laskar Pelangi, which made the island of Belitung famous, including this beach in particular.

Fifth stop – Rumah Makan Sian Lie (Sian Lie Restaurant)

Alas, the trip won’t be complete without another finger licking feast.  Different in concept from the seafood restaurant we went for dinner last night, this place offers a less Chinese influence on the cooking part, despite its Chinese name.  It specializes on the spicy and sour fish head soup, which I devoured happily while sweating a bucket.  Other dishes we ordered include grilled chili fish, braised sea cucumber with pineapple, steamed crabs, deep fried calamari, and three types of local veggies.  All served with steamed white rice and local tea.

Last stop – Airport.

Our flight got delayed.  Apparently, we had to wait for our plane to bring in the Minister of Tourism from Jakarta, for her visit to Belitung.  Upon her arrival, there was a big welcome paparazzi going on.  I don’t know what the big deal was.  Minister or not, it wasn’t right to keep a whole flight on a delay for two hours!

Anyways, aggression and grudge aside, I’m glad to have agreed on joining this trip.  I have always wondered what Belitung looks like and now I know.  Now I’ve seen the beauty, bathed the sun, walked on the sand, swam in the water, and tasted the food.  And I would gladly recommend anyone to do the same.

Two short days.  Too brief to fully explore the beauty of the location.  Cramping a tight itinerary in an overnight stay last month at Pulau Belitung (Belitung Island), on the eastern coast of Pulau Sumatra (Sumatra Island), turned out to be the best stress reliever weekend getaway I’ve had this year.  Hands down.

With the earliest morning flight to Tanjung Pandan (Cape Pandan), a lack of sleep was to be expected.  The 7AM arrival was hectic and full of anticipation for what lies ahead.  Wasting no time, bags are dropped off at hotel, and then straight to Pantai Tanjung Kelayang (Cape Kelayang Beach) to catch a motor-run wooden boat for the day’s island hopping.

First stop – Pulau Pasir (Sand Island)

Started out nice and easy, we roamed patches of sandy islands with their shallow clear water, and explored the vast ocean view and the star fishes laying around, oblivious to the passing of eager two-legged visitors.  The location was so spectacular that we just had to take a group photo.  The star fishes made their cameo in our picture too.

Second stop – Pulau Lengkuas (Galangal Island)

The main attraction of the island is the 132 year old lighthouse.  It was quite a hike up to the seventeenth floor, before we reached a small opening that would allow visitors to take a peek outside at the incredible view from up top.  Luckily, we had plenty of bananas on the boat to fill our tummy earlier, to store up energy to combat the heat of the sun and the climb.  Let’s just say the lunges routine at the gym got nothing on the many steep steps leading to the top of the lighthouse.

Third stop – Snorkeling.

Between this island and the next, we stopped by at a couple of spots for some snorkeling fun.  Afterward, we devoured our boxed lunch right on the boat due to hunger.  The blazing sun and the exhaustion from the snorkeling prevented us all from having some patience to wait until we get to the next island to sit down and eat.

Fourth stop – Pulau Gede (Big island)

Upon arrival, we showered and chilled for a bit with some fresh coconut water and local sweet snacks, which include fried bananas, as well as steamed mung-bean cake and steamed palm sugar cake, both served with shredded coconut.  Feeling all energized after having ourselves recharged twice, we roamed around this island before heading back to the main island, where our car is awaiting to take us back to the hotel.

Fifth stop – Rumah Makan Sari Laut (Flavor of the Sea Restaurant)

It took a while to get back to the main island of Belitung.  Everyone was famished by the time we did, and so dinner must happen before we get to our hotel.  This restaurant caters a Chinese-Indonesian style cooking with seafood.  Fortunately for us, sixteen cranky tourists mean dishes to be placed on the table in a jiff.  This evening meal started out with several bags of fish crackers, then followed with fish ball soup (their specialty), beansprouts with salted fish and tomatoes, sautéed crabs, deep fried chicken, silken tofu with prawns and black bean sauce, and spicy kangkung (water spinach).  All accompanied with heaps of steamed white rice and local lime juice.

Sixth stop – Dessert.

As if the dinner feast wasn’t enough, on the way back to hotel we decided to stopped by elsewhere to get ourselves some dessert from a street food vendor.  We got ourselves a local favorite, Martabak Manis.  A thick batter pan-cooked to a crisp on the bottom, with a buttery and dense spongy consistent on top.  Topped with sweet goodies such as chocolate sprinkles, crushed nuts, granulated sugar, shredded cheese, and condensed milk.  Folded in half and cut in pieces, makes it look like thick spongy sandwiches.  I opted for a cheese topping, lightly drizzled with condensed milk, because everything else just tasted overly sweet for my liking.

Oh, this time we were civilized enough to bring the dessert back to the hotel, where we could enjoyed it sitting down, with some wine.  YUP.  We had ourselves a bottle of Chilean Shiraz and a bottle of Aussie Chardonnay, flown in with us all the way from the capital city.  Not exactly the best accompaniments for our local dessert, but everyone seemed content with a plastic cup of wine in their hand, gazing away at the evening sky by the pool side, while some chit-chatting away about what to eat the next day.

A relative of mine is a big fan of the world cup.  So much so that he recently went to Brazil to watch a match there.  In his return, he got me a souvenir.  This…

I do think it’s very nice of him to actually thought about getting something for me, and put that thought into action.  But… this?  What am I gonna do with this?  I mean, yeah it’s from BRAZIL, yes it is made of ceramic, and yes it’s only available there because of the world cup and all.  But, seriously?  I don’t even have a little private garden of my own where I could station it to scare the birds with.

Oh, I know, I’m being insensitive.  After all, it’s the thought that counts, no?  He actually had to spend money on it and brought it back all the way from the continent of South America.  He probably wanted to share his love for soccer with me.  And to his credit, he did get me something edible too.  Something from the airport’s duty free zone.  This…

Too bad I’m not a fan of chocolate candies.  I tried one.  Way too sweet for my liking, as most chocolate candies are.  Now not only I’m insensitive, but I’m also ungrateful and picky.  Sigh… someone please kick me and send me to hell already.  I’m so the opposite of what the whole country is about in this spiritual month.

He works for an insurance company and I got my medical insurance through him.  The gift is probably a little token of thank-you for agreeing to top-up my insurance plan just this past month.  He is a sweet guy.  But boy, is he clueless when it comes to shopping.  I mean, I could do with a simple t-shirt or a cap.  But he probably wanted to be a little creative.

Could someone provide me with a suggestion as to what I can do with it?  Apart from hiding it in the cabinet and giving it away to someone else as a present later this Christmas?  It comes with the colors of red and green, after all.  Any takers?  Anyone?

It’s fasting month.  Commenced from this past weekend, ongoing for a whole month.  The weekend seemed so dead.  Many shops are closed.  The roads that are normally packed and jammed, suddenly showing empty lanes more than a usual Sunday.  Where did all the people go?

The past week was surprisingly frantic and crowded everywhere I went.  The traffic was just impossible.  I missed my gym classes for days in a row because of the major traffic.  It was so dreadful that I had to turn back to go home instead.  Now the streets seemed deserted.  I wonder perhaps they were all accumulating food supply in a rush, so they won’t have to head out during the weekend, when they would feel lethargic due to fasting.

The start of Ramadan signifies the beginning of self-refrain.  But a celebration is about to be on display everywhere pretty soon, exactly a month from this past weekend.  But for now, the atmosphere is mellow.  Very mellow.  Productivity is also at its lowest, although theft and other similar criminal activities will be on the rise, as it always does annually this time of the year.  Go figure.

It’s a new month, and so it’s time for me to also look forward to a change.  A change of ink color and fountain pen to be used for the whole month of July, to be exact.  A change that I regularly do on a monthly basis.  However, instead of using a particular ink color from the array of selection I have in my ink cabinet, I decided to do something different.  Something that I have not done in a while.  Ink mixing.  Besides, I need to get rid of that purple ink I dislike anyways.

I took out my least favorite ink I have, the purple one, and combined it with leftover brown ink I have not touched in a while.  The property of this brown ink is comparable to that of the purple ink, a rather dry one.  So I would not to miss them if I was to fail on this experiment.  I was hoping to get a new color that is appropriate enough for an everyday writing, other than my usual black, blue, and brown.  Unfortunately, the color of the purple ink was so strong that the ink blend still looked rather purplish, as you can see from the stain I got on my fingers.

I then started to imagine what color I would wish to get to start the month of July with.  The colors of Ramadan are green and yellow, which are appropriate for summer season.  But I disapprove of those colors.  Certainly not for a daily note taking.  Then it occurred to me the one color I have always desired to write with, but yet to exist in my ink collection, is the color of red wine.  So I took out my red ink, which I have an excess of, and poured some into the first ink mixture, already in a bottle.

I jiggled the bottle for a little bit.  I was hoping to get a color similar to a Cabernet Sauvignon, or a Merlot, or maybe even a Shiraz.  Holding up the bottle of the second ink blend close to a light bulb, the ink liquid inside the bottle presented a rather nice purple-red hue.  I was hopeful.  But the color of ink inside a bottle almost always never matches exactly to how the color will appear on paper.  And so a writing test is essential.

I filled up six different pens with the final ink concoction, knowing how different pens with different nibs would result in a different shade of color with the same ink of choice.  I chose two Germans, three Japanese, and a Taiwanese.  From the six fountain pens, two came with a medium sized nib, while the rest all came with a fine sized nib.  The result, however, was not exactly how I envisioned it would be.

It seems on a regular paper the ink color looks more on a brownish side.  Depending on the pen and nib size, the ink color may be thicker and darker or thinner and lighter.  The finest result came from the final pen I used to test the ink with.  A German special edition fountain pen that I have acquired not long ago.  With this pen, the ink color radiates a shade close to what I was looking for in a red wine color, and it is a joy to write with daily now.

Being that it is the holy month of Ramadan, one is encouraged to think about the meaning of things, instead of focusing on the feeling of excitement over a new possession.  With this in mind, I looked at my much-needed-of-improvement penmanship and wondered if my handwriting can really reveal my true personality.  Having previously blogged about handwriting back in 2013, I decided it’s now time to research on the meaning of one’s handwriting, for real.  And here’s what I found…

Article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2380858/What-does-handwriting-say-Study-finds-5-000-personality-traits-linked-write.html

Video:

It’s official.  I found that I am withdrawn, skeptical, overly self-critical, lazy, impatient, and very private.  OKAAYYY… looks like I have a lot to mend on my personality traits.  Not exactly a positive characteristic to retain in this spiritual month of Ramadan.  Well, maybe it’s just my penmanship that needs an improvement.

So, what does YOUR handwriting says about you?  Care to share?