Saku's AFK Corner

A Week in Vancouver

Saku — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:42:38 +0000

Vancouver is as beauty as ever since my last visit here which was about 2 years ago. Not much changes around Vancouver Airport… well… not that I noticed of at least. Since it’s an international airport, it’s always busy.

Gotta love the gas price in Vancouver. It was ranging from$1.44 to $1.50 per liter while I was there. Sucks for those who live in Vancouver and I guess I should not complain about the gas price here in Toronto ^^;;.

Took a picture of typical street in Vancouver area while waiting for the bus to come. One big different that I notice compare to Toronto is the trees; There are a lot of trees on left and right even on busy streets. This kind of view is quite rare in GTA (Greater Toronto Area), correct me if I am wrong though ^^;;.

A house on the same street where I was waiting for the bus. Beautiful eh ?

Metrotown is the main/biggest shopping center/mall in Vancouver. It’s very easy to get to because all you need to do is to get on the sky train and get of at Metrotown Station. It is simple enough, eh ? ^^

A small fountain just outside the entrance to Metrotown and look at the 2 dolphin statues ^^

The food court inside Metrotown. They changed the inside here and there since the last time I went here.

Riding a bus on my way back to my friend’s place where I was staying. The transportation system in Vancouver is handled and managed by Translink. Back when I was living in Vancouver in 2001, they had a really bad strike which was going for 1 or 2 months if I am not mistaken. Back then there were no bus running but luckily sky train was still running and it was free ^^;;. It sucked for those who needed to take a bus to work/school though.

Inside the Sky Train which is part of Translink. As you see, some of the passengers were sleeping including me ^^. Transportation in Vancouver can be really pricey depending on where you are going because it’s divided by zone. Click here for the vancouver translink map

During summer time, they have a night market in Richmond area. You can find a lot of food booths, small shops and even gold fish scooping booth ^^. My friends who I met through FFXI and I went to the night market. It’s really packed and never seen that many people on the same place in Vancouver because even downtown is not this busy.

This is where I bought Takoyaki and the opposite booth of this one was selling something similar to Taiyaki. We had to wait for more less 20 mins before we got our Takoyakis. Sorry no pics for Takoyaki and Taiyaki because I ate them all before I realized that I should have taken some pictures ^^;;.

A lot booths are selling clothing and handbags. Mind you that those are bootlegs stuff.

Burrard Street is located in downtown Vancouver and on this street, you can find a lot of expensive branded store , for example, Louis Vutton. It is similar to Bloor Street in Toronto ^^. You can go this street by taking the sky train and get off at Burrard station. In addition, there are a lot of expensive hotels on this street.

If you walk along Burrard Street, you will see another street called Robson which also has a lot of well known brand stores. Btw, this place is not something that an otaku would go lol because most anime merchandise and figures store are located in Richmond area. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to go there :(.

Below is St. Patrick Church in Main Street where my friend’s wedding ceremony was held. Attending my friend’s wedding is one of my main purpose visiting Vancouver aside from meeting my friends who I met through FFXI.

Sutton Hotel where the wedding reception was held in the evening.

The food at the wedding was good and delicious.

The wedding cake ^^

One week is really a short trip and I don’t have time to explore everything in Vancouver and I had been to most of the famous tourists places because I was living there for 2 years.

For first timer in Vancouver, 2 weeks would be the minimum if you want to visit the majority of the tourist spots like Stanley park, Grouse mountain, University of British Columbia, known for UBC, (believe me, it’s worth a visit), Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Richmond area for all your anime goodies, Steam clock in downtown Vancouver, Burrard and Robson street, Night market in Richmond during summer, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Vancouver Aquarium and many more. Those are just some places that I remembered on top of my head. In addition, if you don’t mind driving, you can rent a car and go to Victoria and/or Whistler (a Ski resort).

Small Loot from Kinokuniya ^^

Saku — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:56:01 +0000

Gotta love Kinokuniya and you always come back for more goodies XD. I bought 2 Death Note keychains and a FFXI comic. Well, the keychains are gifts for friends but I am keeping the ffxi comic

Most of the comic characters are tarutaru (one of the playable race in FFXI). They are just too cute ^^.

L’s keychain : $8.50 $4.25 (50% disc.)

Light’s keychain : $13.50 $6.75 (50% disc.)

FFXI comic : $15.00

First day in Jakarta……. MOAARRRRRR FOOOOOODDD!!!!!

Saku — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:29:26 +0000

Jet lag + Soccer Euro 2008 = no sleep for me. I only slept for 2 - 3 hours and yeah, I know it’s not good but I didn’t want to miss the euro 2008 matches between Netherland and Rusia. Oh and guess what ? none of the local tv stations show the match. Awesome I said to myself and I was stucked with streaming sites; better than nothing I guess.

We (me and my family) went to Church in the morning and on our way back to our car, we bought ‘Es Lilin’ (direct translation would be Candle Ice and it’s also well known as pop sickles

). It’s similar to pop sickles but not really in term of textures. There are couple different flavours: strawberry,chocolate, mocha, vanilla etc and It’s only 25 cents each :D. Gotta love how cheap the food is here lol.

After our little snack session (pop sickles), we went to a nearby noodle store for breakfast. It’s a well known noodle place in Jakarta and it’s tasty because it uses pork oil (majority people in Indonesia is Muslims so most noodle restaurants do not use any kind of pork related food products).

I ordered a bowl of Spicy Pork Noodle and it came with a soup. Total is $2 per person lol. Cheap eh ?

After breakfast, we went to Pondok Indah Mall for window shopping….. or not >.>. I got an interesting loot here ^^. Wondering around in the Mall made us tired so it’s time for lunch so we went to the food court. Btw, don’t thinkthat food court food is like in Canada where they have mostly junk food or fast food like McDonalds , pizza and those stuff and quality is low >.>. What you guys have in a food court in your country ? Junk food or good food?

This time, I got my self some real Indonesian food so I ordered Lontong Cap Go Meh and Chicken Satay, meanwhile, my mom got Nasi Uduk which is also called Nasi Lemak if you go to your local Malaysian/Singaporean Restaurant.

Lontong Cap Go Meh ($2.50) and Chicken Satay ($3)

Nasi Lemak ($3)

Typical long line up at the cinema. It’s always like this on weekends which is different from what I have experienced while living in Canada. We had to buy our tickets for The Hulk early ^^:;.

I rarely see this kind of line up when I go to a movie theater in Canada but considering the price there, it makes sense. In Toronto, it ranges from $8 to $12 per movie while in Jakarta, it ranges $3-$8 per movie. If you pay with certain credit card, you can get one ticket for free so it will be like $3 for 2 tickets >.> . Is this a typical sight at a movie theater where you live ?

GM Special chicken noodles for dinner. It has chicken, mushroom, veggies and some kind of fried wonton. Bakmi GM is a well known noodle restaurant in Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia. There are a lot Bakmi GM chains across the cities.

A Hobby Store at Pondok Indah Mall. They don’t have a lot of selection and the weird thing is when I asked if they can show me the box for Rider figure, they said they didn’t have the box anymore O_O. I was like wtf. They just gonna sell me the figure without the box ?

My favorite bookstor, Kinokuniya. I wish they have Kinokinuya in Canada

Japanese mangas and artbooks section @ Kinokuniya

Unexpected loot from Kinokuniya: G’s Festival vol 2 ($35) and Air Artbook ($30) so I am uber happy because I got the dakimakura and it’s my first ever dakimura dakimakura.

First Trip to Home in 4 Years (Food is good btw)

Saku — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:06:58 +0000

Sorry for the lack of post lately as I’ve been busy with packing and just arrived at Jakarta 2 days ago. Instead of the usual anime/figure posts, I thought I would post about my trip to back home.

It’s been more less 4 years since the last time I went back home to Jakarta, Indonesia. In all honesty, I don’t miss living in Jakarta after spending 8 years in Canada ^^. The only thing that I miss is my family and the food basically.

Anyone had a long flight before ? I was definitely not looking forward to to 24 hours flight including 3 hours transit time in Hongkong. It’s bad and jet lag pwned me basically afterward.

Waiting for boarding time at Toronto Pearson Airport

Watching people passing by and taking pictures to kill my boredom.

Can’t start my day without Tim Hortons. I got my self 2 plain doughnuts and a large tea with 2 milk ^^

I am not sure what this is for or what it is O_O. It’s located at Terminal 1 by the departure gates. It’s a weird looking structure.

More random stuff at Terminal 1 and this time are 2 tiger statues. I may not like but the kids surely love them ^^

Finally, after waiting for 2 hours, it’s time for boarding. Above picture is the aisle on my way to the airplane.

This was my first time flying with Air Canada to Jakarta because I usually use Cathay Pacific. It was a nice airplan because every seats has a touch screen LCD and there were quite a few movies that you can watch. What even better was the power outlet and what this meant to me ? I can charge my iPod and iPhone ^^. 15 hours flight to Hongkong felt so short because of things that I could do. I managed to catch up to episode 20 of Shakugan no Shana II which I hadn’t had a chance to watch so it was great ^^

15 hours later, I arrived in Hongkong Airport. My next flight was within 3 hours so it was still quite a while until the boarding time and the boarding gate was not even announced yet. It’s lunch time in Hongkong so I went to the food court for food.

After checking around the food court, I went for Ajisen Ramen because I was curious whether they taste the same as the one in Toronto.

Ajisen Ramen commercial was running on the tv and they show some samples from their menu. On the left side, it’s the girl from their mascot holding a bowl of ramen ^^

Waiting for my number to be called ^^

I ordered a beef rib ramen with oolong tea. It costed me HK$75 which is around CAD$10. The Oolong tea was HK$25 alone -.- so the ramen price is cheaper if I compare it to the one in Toronto. Taste wise is more less the same

After lunch, I wandered around at the airport since I had around 2 hours before my flight. A lot of duty free shops and some well known brand stores. I was hoping that there’s an anime/figure store but I thought it would be quite unlikely :D.

My flight from Hongkong to Jakarta was with Cathay Pacific. They still use the same LCD screen since the last time I flew with them. During this flight, my jetlag really pwned me because I was so sleepy but I tried not to fall asleep >.>

A little trick to avoid a long line up at the immigration is to run your @ss off right after you get off the plane. This way, you will arrive the immigration office before anyone else and can pass through it asap.

2nd last step before I can finally get the hell out of the airport is baggage claim. It’s nice and fast doing online check-in but since my luggage got in first, it will come out last. It took 30 mins before my luggage finally came out.

The moment of truth is finally here…. the custom. I didn’t declare anything so I didn’t have any problem. You will be asked to put your carry-on luggage through the scanning system and they rarely check your check-in luggage unless they mark your luggage with white chalk which means they will ask you to open your luggage and do a thorough search. Here is a tip; you can wipe out the mark before you pass through the custom ;D and no, you don’t hear about this from me >.>

My mom, sister and her boyfriend picked me at the airport then we all went out for dinner at a chinese restaurant called Cosy…. delicious…mmmm ^^

One awesome thing about Jakarta or Indonesia in general is street food. If I compare to Canada, I can only find hotdogs or hamburgers stands which is nothing compare to what I find back home. You can find any food that you want especially Jakarta specialities.

On the left side of the stand, it is a small river which has a very nice smell ;p so imagine this, the food stand is located right beside the river so while we were waiting for the food, our nose received a pleasant treatment from the river :). If this is Canada, public health and safety is probably going to close down this place in an instant due to hygineous reason ^^;

Keep one thing in mind if you happen to visit Indonesia, the dirtier the location is, the more delicious the food is ^^. Oh and don’t forget to get your hepatitis shots before you visit Indonesia.

Image source: Here

The street food that we bought is called “Martabak Manis” and I don’t think there is an official english name for this ^^;. It comes with couple different flavour like cheese or chocolate and peanuts

My “Normal” Room

Saku — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:28:50 +0000

After seeing bunch of members at dannychoo.com posting about their rooms, it inspires/urges me to post my room. Unlike other most Otaku rooms, my room looks pretty normal(not otaku enough) compare to other otakus’ rooms like Rin’s or James’.

I always hold back on buying new stuff for my room as I don’t have my own place and am renting a room on a basement of a house.

The door leading to the after life ^^. Don’t mind the Christmas decoration, I am too lazy to take it off and it’s been there for 2 years ++ lol. 2 FFXI fan arts on my room door ^^ which I got from Anime North last year.

I change my computer parts too often so I usually have some parts around to build another PC ^^;;. My main PC is the left one with dual monitor setup 22″ widescreen and 19″. I named it monoceros-2 ^^ and it’s used for everything but mainly gaming, folding and watching anime. Thinking of selling the 19 inch one and get another 22 inch ^^;;.

The 15″ LCD for the my other PC(named monoceros) at the bottom right which is used mainly for folding and doing some web development and as a backup in case my main PC breaks down. You guys probably notice my messy cables under the desk ^^;; and the dust clogs in between easily.

Those are the only DVDs that I have and I only buy series that I really like. Empty figure boxes at the top which I still need to find a place to store those boxes.

My comfy bed and blanket which I have been using for 10++ years ^^;;. The most warmest blanket I ever used and the only reason I survive winter :P.

I was in the middle of packing when I took this picture as I am going back home to Indonesia for a while and hopefully I can still do some blogging while I am back home. Expect something like ‘Week 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia’ andIt should be interesting since I haven’t gone home for nearly 4 years. I bet a lot of changes since the last time I went back home.

I don’t own many posters and I tend to throw posters every time I move to a new place so I don’t want to have a lot of posters. On the left side, those are the prints that I bought from the artist alley at Anime North 2008.

Another stack of figure boxes which I need to organize and clean them up.

Part of my closet where I put my soccer jerseys. I am a big fan of Arsenal and England national team so my soccer jersey are all Arsenal’s and England’s which I have been collecting them since I was 14 years old.

My small 13″ TV and my PS2 under it and on the right side it’s my lightbox where I took my recent figure photo shoot.

Most of my figures are from Fate series and Saber is my favorite as you guys can see ^^. <3 Saber.

My IKEA clear detolf shelf where I store some of my figures and Saber is welcoming every guest who comes to my room ^^.

The manga above is my precious collection as I will not easily lend them out to my friends. If they want to read them, they need to read in my room >.> . The manga is ‘Legenda Naga’ and it’s indonesian translation of Japanese manga, Ryuuroden and its english title would be something like “Legend of the Dragon’s son”. I collect them up until volume 37. Unfortunate, the indonesian publisher stop releasing them so I am shit outta luck (SOL) because I am stucked at vol 37 forever. If anyone knows where I can get/buy the original volume 38+++ online and/or what the current volume released , please let me know ^^.

Card Captor Sakura original manga volume 1 to 12 ^^. Got the whole collection for $80 a while back; not a bad deal I think.

Song of the Day : May’n - What ’bout my star