Bali: Trip to Lovina Beach

Hello friends, this is sylv..

I know I haven’t updated my blog for so so so and so long time. It because of one and another reasons like laziness, or I don’t know what to write, or I got no time, or else. Nonetheless, here I am now sitting and writing hoho.

Last April, I went to Bali with my friend (P), her cousin (N), and her cousin’s friend (A). So it was a short trip of four girls to Bali. We stayed at Jimbaran and rent a car. One of our destinations was to see dolphins in the open sea. So we agreed to go to Lovina Beach on our third day in Bali. It took 3 hours drive from Jimbaran to Lovina Beach, and we must depart at 2 or 3 a.m. because you can only see the dolphins at 5 to 8 a.m.

We started our journey at 2.30 a.m. and N was the one who drove. I was the one who checked Google Maps and P checked Waze just in case one of us got wrong directions. We bought coffee and bread for our breakfast in car. It all started well for the first two hours on the road. The more we went, the more remote the road and our phone signal got on and off continuously.

We started went into the road with only trees at the side and darkness around us. I mean there were no street lights at all and the only source of light was from cars. There were not much cars either on the road. When the road started to have so many meanders, we went slower and more careful. There were so many dogs sleeping in the middle of the road too. Ohh, I saw an expressionless woman with white shirt passing by our car too, and I couldn’t see her legs. But I’m too afraid to ask my friends if they saw her too. You know what I mean, right? It’s not funny if they said they didn’t see anyone. I could go crazy!! Hahaha

At one point, I felt so dizzy and had nausea. I asked my friend to keep checking the maps and I decided to take a nap. I didn’t know what happened while I was sleeping. Then when I woke up, there were many things happened all at once. As soon as I woke up, I wanted to ask where we were but I couldn’t. I was distracted because I saw the downhill road was on the left but the car went straight and there was tree in front of us. I was too shock to scream and I froze until the car hit something and stopped. Everyone froze for a moment and then started to panic afterwards. We were lucky there was gutter in front of the trees. One of the tires went into the gutter and we couldn’t get out of it. It was still dark outside and we need to get out from the car to look for help. There were motorbike and car passed by but they didn’t stop. I suggested to go to locals’ houses and asked for help. We couldn’t find any because it was still dark. Suddenly we heard traditional Balinese music around there, but we couldn’t guess where it came from.

supposed to turn left instead of going straight!

While we were waiting, there was one local people came to us. He asked us what happened and willing to help us. We were so thankful to him, he helped us to look for the local men around and they lifted our car from the gutter. While the men made their efforts with our car, we stood at the side talking to the local women. They said there was an accident before in the same spot. After our car was out from the gutter, one of the local men offered to drive us down to the Lovina Beach. It was just 5-10 minutes drive from the accident spot, but it was full of meanders. We were really so grateful to them.

Then we reached Lovina Beach, obviously we were late. We thought we were too late to see the dolphins, but there was one boatman (what should I call him?) asked us if we wanted to go to the sea and have a look. It was IDR 100.000 per person for one hour duration in the boat (we had negotiation with him in the boat to prolong until 1.5 hours lol).

into the sea with happy heart

At first, he brought us to join with other boats in one spot. There were like a group of 10 dolphins going in and out of the sea. Whenever the dolphins got out, all the boats accelerated towards the dolphins and they disappeared again. There were so crowded with boats and we couldn’t go near the dolphins. Then the boatman suggested us to go to another spot further away.

N, P, me, and little bit of A's back

While our boat went further away, I became paranoid. Suddenly my mind was on the news about Indonesians being held hostages by pirates and about human trafficking. I was so paranoid that I kept on blabbering to my friend and asked her to turn back the boat (lol). Then when I saw other boats just like ours in the distance, my heart was so relax and at peace. I really felt like “omg thankyouu finally!!”. I’m so silly! Hahaha.

calm outside, asdfghjkl inside lols

For the next 20-30 minutes, we enjoyed seeing so many dolphins around us. The baby dolphins even jumped out and turned in the air. It was a difficult task to take pictures of them as I didn’t know where they would appear. Our boat was the last one in that spot. After all the boats were gone, the dolphins made sound. I thought that was their breathing sound. I think I would not get tired of seeing the dolphins all day long, they were so cute and gorgeous at the same time.

When we were finished with the dolphins, we must head back. I thought N was nervous to drive back because of the road. We drove super slow and careful. When we were passing our “accident spot”, the local people were there doing their activities. All of them greeted us while we were passing. We opened our windows and said goodbye to all of them. It was indeed an unforgettable journey!

I haven’t told my family about this, and I don’t think I will. Hahaha.. Please keep my little adventure secret to yourself (yes, I’m talking to you my bro and sis if you happened to read this post hahaha). Nonetheless, it was really a fun and exciting trip. I mean, you don’t get to see dolphins in the open sea that easily. I was so lucky that I can see so many dolphins in their natural habitat, maybe it will be my once in lifetime experience.

Okay, I know this is a very long post. Hope you enjoy my post.

Oh, if you want to know any details about Lovina Beach, how to go there or anything else, please contact me. I will be more than happy to tell you.

Thank you for your time reading my post.

Until then, love.

sylvlam

p.s. all of us saw that expressionless woman in white shirt!! Hahahaha 

Surprise Little Birthday Celebration

Hello friends, this is sylv..

First of all, Happy Birthday to me!! Happy Birthday!! I’m just so happy right now waking up with tons of birthday greetings and wishes from my families and friends. It would be great if my happiness is contagious, so that everybody can feel it even though it’s just lasted a short while.

So what happened was that I got a surprise from my powerpuff friends (lols) two days ago. They must have prepared it week ahead. I felt it strange when a couple days ago Venti asked me out to dine on Tuesday night as she liked it better to hang out on weekend. But my thought was on bridal shower preparation so I didn’t think that much about this dinner. We even asked Sliky to dine with us, but she said that she had evening ballet class on that day.

On Tuesday morning I asked Venti about the dinner, she said her sister would be joining us. I was happy to hear it because you could order more dishes when you had bigger number of people, right? So, the plan was Venti would pick me up at 6 at Aurora right after I finished my class. She said that she would wait for me outside at the parking lot so I hurried myself out. We chitchatted and chatted on phone along our ride to the mall. I asked her where her sister was and she said that Eva would go there together with her boyfie. I didn’t have any suspicions toward her at all.

When we arrived at the mall, we went straight to Crazy Crab Seafood Market. And guess what?? I saw Sliky at the front door talking with the waitress. She looked at us and looked at the table. When I followed her eyes to table, I saw a chocolate cake, bunch of balloons and a gift. I was so shocked and surprised. They totally nailed it.

The table that are being set by Sliky

It was Sliky who set the décor while Venti was picking me up. I love ‘the’ cake, it’s not your typical birthday cake. It’s a “Bye Bye Single” chocolate cake. You got what I mean?? (just ignore it if you don’t). We got into photo session time right afterwards. I made wishes and blew the self-lit candles over and over. Then we dined and talked like usual. I just love spending time with them.

Oh, I almost forget to tell you about the gift! This is too hilarious for me. Last week, Venti asked my opinion about handbags. She said she wanted to buy a gift for her birthday friend at Jakarta. Then we went to look for handbags at Parkson, Charles & Keith, Pedro and Hush Puppies. After a long strolled, she decided on Charles & Keith tote bag. She asked me which one is better, the black one or the white one. I prefer white over black, just because the black one looks more ordinary. She grabbed the white one to the cashier and paid by card. Unfortunately the card machine was not functioning well. It ended up with me bought the tote bag first and she paid me back after went to ATM. And that tote bag actually is my gift. I feel like…, I’m speechless really LOLs.

I feel so blessed that I am surrounded with friends that care and give time for me. I can’t ask for more. I’m really thankful to you who make time for me in your busy daily time. I told you August always makes me feel good and happy and excited and grateful and and and.

Thank you for reading this post.

Until then, love.

sylvlam

Bridal Shower Honoring Jesslyn Zhu

Hello there.. It’s finally August!! It’s my most awaited month of the year. Let’s take a moment to cherish and enjoy this month as much as we can. Well, I have a very very long list of birthday people in this month, it’s a very packed month full of joy for me. But it’s a little bit different this year as I have to throw bridal shower for my friend, bestbestbestfriend. It’s an honor for me to be one of your bridesmaids XD

Now you know I’m gonna write about this bridal shower event. This gonna be a long post, please kindly bear with it darlings. It started with Jesslyn asked three of us (Vivi, Eveline and I) to be her bridesmaids. So, skip skip skip with any details till I suggested to Aline about throwing a surprise bridal shower for her. Then we had a group chat with our friend in States, we asked her to buy the lingerie and the sash. Those stuffs arrived safely thanks to her mom who visited her for her graduation there. Actually we also ordered kamasutra, but it’s out of stock and it would be so late to wait for the restock. Enough with the gift, now’s the preparation.

Three of us and couple of friends gathered once to figure and list out what kind of bridal shower that we wanted to throw. We had secrectly chatted behind Jesslyn’s back as Aline and I were not supposed to know Vivi. Then skip skip skip the details again till we got roughly idea. We contacted all the guest in the list to inform them about the event, went to the venue to reserve some place, ordered a cake and bunch of balloons, and lastly we did the decorations by ourselves. Aline did all the reservations with Wak Noer, Venti prepared the cake and banner, I looked up at google to search various designs for the invitation card, nametags, menu cards, advice columns, paper lanterns and heart shaped origami, and Vivi did all the printing and trimming.

Lastly Aline, Vivi and I met up to discuss more in detail about the bridal shower. When we had run through all the lists, we out of sudden had an idea to buy them condom. YES condom!! Can you imagine how we went to mart and asked for condom? It’s nothing wrong with us buying condom actually as we are adults, right? But I can never imagine that I actually bought condoms for my friend. As I quoted Aline’s “These boxes feel ‘haram’ in my hand” lolss.

On the night before ‘the day’, I gently reminded everybody to arrive at 6 p.m as the bride and groom to-be would be arrived at 7 p.m. Some of us arrived at 5 p.m to set the decorations and stuffs. I had coordinated with the groom to-be to let us know if they were on their way. As the time got closer, we got more and more excited. Then suddenly Vivi got a phone call from Jesslyn and we had a sudden panic. We thought maybe Jesslyn already knew about this surprise bridal shower along. Fortunately when Vivi answered her phone, it was the groom to-be who called from Jesslyn’s phone. Pheww. But the the groom to-be said that they were in the other Waknoer (jdenggg ngak sih??) and they didn’t have the car with them. Lastly, it was Vivi who acted to ask Jesslyn out to have dinner together and picked them.

We were hiding when Jesslyn and Johan walked in. It was so worth it to see Jesslyn’s surprise face when she saw us all inside Waknoer. She started to blurt at Johan about her appearance that day. To let them in, we asked Johan to say an introduction that we had prepared to the guests outside our reserved room. He finished it with lifted Jesslyn up and walked in.

Because it was so late, we ordered the food first. While we were waiting, we played a game to break the ice. We decided to speed up by giving them the cake and gifts. I think they were happy (and satisfied) with our gifts. We had our dinner afterwards. After dinner, we asked Jesslyn to change her clothes into something that we prepared which was red leotard with black tutu and ballet shoes (we couldn’t leave this out, right? After all, we are ballerinas). Then we continued with our games which were guessing bride to-be fingers and groom to-be hairy legs (I couldn’t stop laughing with the latter one). We asked couple of ‘questions’ to feed our curiousity and lastly we blindfolded Jesslyn. All of us wore a bright red lipstick including Johan to kiss her on her face. We call it a day by releasing all the balloons to the sky.

This was a very first time I organized a bridal shower. Although it was not perfect, I want to say thank you to all of you who gave us your time to take part in this bridal shower. I hope you had fun last Monday and see you again on Jesslyn and Johan wedding day.

I know this a very long post. Thank you for reading.

p.s if you’re interested where I got all the designs for invitation, nametag, paper lantern, menu and advice columns, just let me know in the comments below. I can give you the link or I can send them to your email.

Holiday Dance Class

Hello there,

I know it's so so late that I write about this holiday class now, the program even completed last month. But I just want to share with you about my experience here teaching young children. I'm not really often teach young children, so this was almost a new thing to me.

This holiday class was took place at Aurora Ballet Center where I teach ballet. The majority of children who signed up for this class was from outside our school. It meant that most of them are new to dancing. For my class, there were 10-12 children from 2.5 to 4 years old. The duration was 1.5 hours per meeting for 10 days.

So, in the class, there were 3 children who were 2.5 or 3 years old. They were so cute (but then most children are cute). Two of them hadn't started speaking yet while the another one spoke fluently for her age range. Our class started with greetings, a little warming up and then I choreo a dance for them. Well actually they imitated me all along. Then I would take them to bigger studio to have joined modern dance with bigger children. After this, I would play games with them or sing a song together and ended the class with free dance and curtsey.

She tied her own shoe laces when she saw them got out from her shoes

What i want to share with you here is in teaching young children, we must be super careful. I would like to set some disciplines in my class but maintain the fun vibes in class. Young children don't really understand things fully yet and they imitate the teacher along. So let's say the teacher does "weird" things in class, they will surely follow along. You don't want them to go home and show their mom those "weird" things, right? And although the children haven't started speaking, it doesn't mean that they don't understand what the teacher does in class. They follow along and have their own thinking and preferences.

There were one time this child (who still hasn't start talking) wanted to dance with props, she came to me, took my hand and lead me to the props' box. She looked at me with her big round eyes and smile while pointed at the box. When I opened the box for her, she would wait for me to take out the stick she wanted because that's what I did in class. They must queue and wait patiently for their turn to get the props from me. Her behavior was so different from the first time the encountered the props' box.

I really enjoyed teaching children. In class, I'm not the only one who was teaching, the children also taught me a lot. The process of learning was not one way thing. For all the time I teach, I always amazed and surprised with their attitude and behavior.

Thank you for reading. I will post about my trip to London soon.
Until then love,
sylvlam

All I Can Eat Gelato

Hello there...

Actually I wanted to write last night, but..... eerrrrrr..... now I forget why I didn't write last night (oh my brain!! help me pleasee.....) But now here I am, writing ~ ^.^

Finally my craving on ice cream and/or gelato is fulfilled today. Gelato bar at Centre Point Mall is having promotion in which you can eat all the gelato as much as you want in 2 hours for just 39.5k (price in idr) before tax. Today is the last day promotion though. They have quite many flavors of gelato to offer such as Chocolate, Mascarpone, Chocolate Mint, Green Tea, Azuki (red bean), Coffee, Strawberry, Passion Fruit, Avocado, Mango and Durian.

So, I spent my afternoon eating gelato as much as i want with my friend. I went straightly to gym after this hahhaha. Each of us ONLY had 4 scoops of gelato (I feel like I should eat more hahhhaha)

I tried the mascarpone, coffee, green tea and chocolate. i like the mascarpone best. After I took a bite, the first taste is salty and then fresh. It's kind of cheesy salty with a little splash of freshness. I don't know if I describe it right hahhahhaha am I making sense?? The coffee is a bit bitter but it's alright. Green tea! I don't know how to describe this, but it tastes like green tea Kit Kat. And oh! the green tea gelato is so smooth in texture. The last one is chocolate. The flavor is so rich and thick and it is more dark chocolate-y rather than milk chocolate-y.

My friend tried the avocado, strawberry, mango and chocolate mint. Let her tell you in jessinaugust.blogspot.com about those flavors. (SPOILER!!: the mango taste like you're eating The Bodyshop mango body butter hahhahhaha)

These are the photos of gelato we took, guess the flavors yourself XD

 mascarpone

 coffee

 green tea

 chocolate

chocolate mint

see you again soon dearr...

sylvlam..

enjoy life, gratitude, being happy and me

hello there!!

this is my first try to write (or to blog). i still haven't figured out what to write in here. i guess i would mostly write about so many random things that pop out in my head hahha

well cause this is my first post, i'll let you know some things bout me hihhi

• generally i love blue colour; it gives me calm relax peace feelings. and i always love to write in blue ink since i was at school (as you can see obviously in this post). while buying clothes, mostly i'll pick the blue one. everything blue is okay for me ^.^
• i love to procastinate HAHHA i know it's not good but i like to do my stuffs at last minutes; idk why, maybe just because i'm an 0?? maybee.... *excuses
• i don't like to do housework -.- except for cooking and baking (pstt.. i always trick my sister to do the cleaning *don'ttellherplease)
• i love playing with cosmetics; let me repeat i LOVE buying cosmetics *capslockmodeon it's a disaster; i just love it though i don't really know how to make up (just googling youtube-ing and voilaa suddenly you know how to make up hihhi)
• i do ballet YESS i'm a ballet dancer!! and i am a certified ballet teacher wohoo.. contact me if you want to try taking ballet class HAHAHA *marketingmyself
• i was a psychology student back in my uni. the most common question i got when ppl (read: friends, relations, collagues) knew i learn psychology "so can you read my mind?" oh pleasee it's psychology, not mind-reading or fortune telling =.="
• i love to eat but i'm a picky eater hehhe noodles with soup is my comfort food and i prefer salty sour spicy taste
• i love books and the scent of books or paper.. i know you know what i mean ;;)

hmm i think i won't finish describe myself so i'll just stop here hehhe and oh!! i like to make new friends and explore all sort of things out there.. maybe we can become friends and talk bout lots of things ♥♥

until then love

sylvlam