Hong Kong - HKIA and AREX

My Hong Kong trip was actually on 19-22 May 2012, but I only got the chance (or being less lazy than usual) today. So I'm gonna split the story of my HK trip in a few posts just to avoid a lengthy post *I never, ever like a lengthy post*

So I have one word to describe HK Airport, and it is HUGE!
Okay okay... that may have been an exaggeration on my part since I live in Singapore and the airport here is also quite huge (it comprises 4 terminals, how can it not be huge?!?!).

BUT! The reason I got the feeling that HK Airport is huge, was due to the number of open areas in the airport, and sooooo many ways leading to different gates, which got me a little bit confused, honestly. And that confusion lead me to missing the chance to take photos because I was busy finding the right way to the darn Immigration!!!

*Ladies and gentlemen, another drama-queen action just took place, please do ignore*

Anyway, right after the Immigration, you will pass a small hall where you can buy Octopus card (it's a card that stored cash value used to ride public transport - buses, MTR, etc), and also AREX tickets (Airport Express).

And since I travelled with 2 other friends, we bought a set of 3 AREX tickets (there's discount if you buy more than one - return tickets are not considered as two separate tickets unfortunately).

Then off we go to catch AREX!!

HKIA - arrival hall

the way to AREX platform right by the Arrival Hall

Inside AREX - neat looking seats

Inside AREX - compartments to place luggages

Inside AREX - cool looking progress lights to
give hints of distance of each stations

Kowloon AREX Platform - trolleys are available

can't resist not to take a picture of
a cute Angry Bird cake!

Jogja Trip - Sheraton Mustika Resort and Spa

Finally, we've reached the last leg of Hotel Hopping!

What can be seen from the road is just a huge signage with the hotel's name on it, and to reach the hotel building, it took less than 1 minute drive or a few minutes walk.

The unique thing about this hotel is that it is actually at a side of a hill or something, so that the lobby is actually the top most floor and the rooms are at the floors below, either facing a garden, or mount Merapi.

a statue of a dancer in the lobby

We booked a Merapi view room, and were brought to a room on 4th floor (the lobby is at 7th floor). HOWEVER, once we reached the room, I opened the door to the balcony and all I could see was a tall tree right outside the balcony. So I asked for another room and given a room on 5th floor, and right at the center, giving us an unblocked view of mount Merapi, as well as the swimming pool.

the room - it's showing its age

A beautiful swimming pool - taken from lobby

Just a glance at the room will tell you that this is an old hotel. The design was of the hotels built in the 90s, the varnishing of the wooden furniture had been peeling off, the door to the balcony needed a repainting work due to worn out by weather. It's a little bit difficult to believe that this is still a 5-star hotel just by looking at the condition. Maybe since it's part of Starwood hotel chain, it still maintains its standard so that it retains its 5-star class? Well, I'm not well-versed in hotel related stuff, but seeing the elevators were being upgraded, I do hope they were upgrading the hotel's facilities.


The breakfast in the morning was not quite as expected from a 5-star hotel. I gotta say that the breakfast in Royal Ambarrukmo Hotel was definitely the best among the three hotels.

We took a stroll to the swimming pool after breakfast, and it was as beautiful as how it was seen from the lobby. I read that it was built similarly to Taman Sari Water Palace, which explains the classic Javanese style of it.

the gates to the swimming pool

Taman Sari swimming pool

Taman Sari swimming pool

 A nice surprise was waiting at the back of swimming pool, as there were bunnies!
Yes, they were real and alive rabbits!

bunnies!

I love furry animals in general, so when I saw these bunnies, it was a real delight! :)

So, overall, Sheraton Mustika Resort and Spa was a little bit of disappointment, especially after staying in such nice hotels, it was such a huge letdown. Thankfully, the bunnies kinda helped lifting the mood, tee-hee...

Sheraton Mustika Resort and Spa
JL Laksda Adisucipto KM 8.7
Yogyakarta 55282
Indonesia
Phone: (62)(274) 488588

Jogja Trip - Royal Ambarrukmo Hotel

So, here we are!
This is part 2 of Hotel Hopping adventure in Jogja! *woo-hoo~~*

After spending a great time staying at The Phoenix Hotel, we moved to our second hotel, Royal Ambarrukmo Hotel.

Compared to The Phoenix Hotel, this hotel is much more modern, posh, business-like kind of hotel. Upon arriving in the hotel, we were greeted by a nice gentleman wearing uniform of palace guard (in coincide with the fact that Royal Ambarrukmo Hotel was previously known as Ambarrukmo Palace Hotel?), and escorted to a huge lobby - typical of newer hotels - to do our check in at the receptionist counter. It's too bad that we didn't get a room upgrade this time, oh well...

Huge flower arrangement in the lobby - so beautiful~

Our room was on 7th floor, corner room, which was perfect as we got bigger balcony (~270 degree viewing angle!), and the size was quite big, maybe a little bit smaller than the room in The Phoenix Hotel, but the thing is, the one in The Phoenix is divided into 3 separate rooms (living room, bedroom and bathroom), while here is 2 rooms (bedroom and bathroom), so it felt somewhat bigger and wider than The Phoenix's.

bedroom - very room-y, huge balcony

minibar

view of swimming pool from my room

Since the hotel was quite newly renovated, the furniture is new as well. The bed was very comfortable, by the way. The room theme is minimalist - which is very "in" in Indonesia at the moment, it has been the most chosen theme for houses, interior designs, etc. I can't seem to count how many times I sighed each time I saw new shop-houses with minimalist style during my visit to my hometown (or any town in Indonesia).

On the other upside, the breakfast was EXCELLENT! It offers very wide selection of breakfast meal, from salad to Indonesian soto, bread to fried rice, fresh milk to soymilk, etc. The coffee was good, though I prefer the one in The Phoenix.

Next to the hotel building, there's a small man-made trail with few gazebos which seems nice to take a stroll in, and also an open-air Javanese-style hall, and a smaller Javanese-style building surrounded by a pond which actually looks like a swimming pool, but it's not.

There's a mall (Ambarrukmo Plaza) next to the hotel. It only takes a little walk from the hotel lobby, cross a small street, and you shall reach the mall. It can be a good place to look for food on the day you decide to spend the time in hotel room.

Ah, one more good thing about our room, in the morning, I woke up early (around 6 AM), and I got to see the sunrise and a clear view of mount Merapi, it was beautiful! - the photos don't do justice unfortunately :(

sunrise

mount Merapi

Overall, I had good time staying in this hotel. The room was very comfortable though it gave a different feeling from The Phoenix's room. At The Phoenix, it kinda felt like home-y, while here, it was very business-like, kinda cold actually. It can be a good choice of hotel as the location is quite close to airport, and a mall is basically just  right next door.

Royal Ambarrukmo Hotel
Jalan Laksda Adisucipto No 81Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Phone: (62-274) 488488, 
Fax: (62-274) 488789

Singapore - Peranakan Museum

Peranakan Museum

Being a Peranakan myself, a visit to Peranakan Museum was fascinating and such an eye-opener to the fact that Peranakan has become such a large community in Singapore, or even in Asia (or the world?).

The museum presents the history of Peranakan (the terms, and then the community) in a very interesting way. It starts from the back story of it - the merging of locals and foreigners, followed by how the Peranakans worked their way to find their identities in a country that on some level they can't say as their own home-country, to the point that they managed to survive and even contribute to the society, and made impacts in the development of the country.

Museum Lobby

There are 10 galleries in the museum, and it is recommended to start from Gallery 1 - Origins, to all the way to the last one (Gallery 10 - Conversation).

list of Galleries

Gallery 1 - Origin
Left: Photos of Peranakans
Right: Traditional Peranakan kebaya, shoes, etc

Gallery 2-5 - Wedding
Left: Wedding accessories
Right: Wedding dowry - from bridegroom

Gallery 2-5 - Wedding - Furniture

Gallery 2-5 - Wedding
Left: Wedding bed
Right: Bride, Bridegroom

Gallery 6 - Nonya
Left: Traditional Nonya clothing
Right: purses, glasses case made of beads-known to be handmade by Nonyas

Gallery 6 - Nonya - more accessories made of beads

Gallery 7 - Religion
Left: altar to worship Gods
Right: Gods figurines

Gallery 7 - Religion
Left: Christian altar
Right: Ancestral altar

Gallery 8 - Public Life
Peranakan in society, their involvement in wide variety of economy and social aspects

Gallery 9 - Food and Feasting
Top: dining tables with complete set of cutlery and dining wares
Bottom: displays of dining wares

*note: unfortunately, there is no picture of Gallery 10 as I may have missed it out - though I can't really understand how I could possibly overlook it :(

After a visit to the museum, I truly think that that 6 dollars spent for the ticket was very much well-spent :)

As mentioned the admission charge for adult is S$6; there are free admission for Singaporean/PR students or senior citizen, as well as children aged 6 years and below. Another type of tickets are group admission, and also Joint Ticket - Peranakan Museum and Asian Civilizations Museum (costs S$10 - but it has to be used within 7 days of purchase).

Location:
39 Armenian Street
Singapore 179941

Opening Hours:
Monday (1 - 7 PM)
Tuesday - Sunday (9 AM - 7 PM / or 9 PM on Friday)

FYI, Peranakan Museum is only a short walk away from Singapore Philatelic Museum, so you may consider visiting both of them on the same day.

By the way, during my visit, there was an exhibition for Emily of Emerald Hill, a play written by a local Singaporean Peranakan writer named Stella Kon that was loosely based on the life of her grandmother.

It is a one-woman monologue type of play, which has been successfully performed in its home-country, Singapore, Malaysia, and even Australia. Among few women that played Emily, there was one local Singaporean actor that played the role of Emily in a different way that it involved the audience (and also more comical), instead of a full monologue.

The play is about a Peranakan named Emily, starting from her childhood, her marriage to a man twice her age, her struggle to be accepted in her husband's family, until she managed to be a respectable, hands-on Nonya - impressive, isn't it?

What's more impressive is that the fact there's only one actress on the stage, which basically the actress tells the story about her life - from childhood to her point of her life where she is now, and the only way for her to connect to the outside world, is thru a telephone!

I gotta say that the actress playing Emily must be a charismatic lady that could pull off a whole play just by herself and tell the story in an engaging (and not boring) way - otherwise, the audience can become restless or just ignore the actress altogether.

Emily of Emerald Hill
Right: many posters of Emily's

Emily of Emerald Hill exhibition
A replica of the stage

Emily of Emerald Hill exhibition
Costumes

Jogja Trip - Ullen Sentalu

As an Indonesian, I'm very much aware that I can't expect to visit a very well-maintained, organized, informative, with attractively and correctly (as in historically, or by theme) displayed exhibitions kind of museum in Indonesia.

I've visited Fatahillah Museum (or Jakarta History Museum) in Jakarta few years back, and eventhough the museum itself boasts thousands of collection (which I found impressive at first), when I finally visited it, I was not impressed at all. Though I could totally see there were soooo many collections (that some of them were stacked together to save some space), it was messy, dusty, inorganized, lack of historical information - overall the only good thing about the museum is that it indeed houses too many collections (the ticket price was cheap too - I can't remember the exact price). And though I haven't visited many museums (government-funded ones) in Indonesia, often time I left disappointed.

So when I saw that Ullen Sentalu is a private museum, I was very much intrigued.

The location is pretty secluded, it takes around 30 mins from Jogjakarta, and since the signage was quite lacking there, we stopped at a restaurant to ask for a direction - no one knew about Ullen Sentalu, and then made another stop at a police station - this time we were lucky and given a clear direction where to go.

Ullen Sentalu is not located right by the main road of Kaliurang, we had to make another turn to a smaller road (luckily there was a sign at the main road), and then we finally found it!

the entrance - somewhat looks hidden

We paid 25k IDR each for the tickets (because we are Indonesian as opposed to 50k IDR for International tourists), and asked to wait for few minutes since the guide was not finished with the guests that came earlier. So it's a guided tour, interesting...

After few minutes, we were guided to a small pathway, passing a tropical garden and through an open door and down the stairs so that now we were directly below the garden. It was a little bit cold there - due to air-con and also the fact that it's sort-of underground.

Our guide was a bright and cheerful lady. She excitedly showed us the collections, which were owned by royal families of Jogjakarta Sultanate and Surakarta Sunanate.

The first building we were in was full of photos and paintings of royal families. She told us the history of both royal families in a way that it was like we were listening to a radio drama or a gossip show, as actually the lives of the royal family seems to be full of drama too.

Then we were guided to few other buildings full of collections after that; each building houses one theme of collection. There are 2 buildings that I particularly found interesting, they are the one where the letters for the broken-hearted princess written by her families/friends were displayed, the one with batik collection, and last one is the one dedicated for Princess Nurul, Princess Consort of Sri Mangkunegara VII (one of the board member - the owner of some of the collections).

After visiting all small buildings, we were guided to a souvenir shop - the price is definitely not cheap, but the quality seems good, and we finished our visit by having a late lunch at Beukeunhof, a European-style restaurant that is also inside the museum.

Beukeunhof - indoor seats

Beukeunhof - open-air seats

Seafood soup and grilled chicken - surprisingly pretty good

View from Beukeunhof

It's too bad that no photos allowed there as there are actually many collections worth photographed to share with my friends and family to show them that there IS actually a well-maintained, well-curated, well-displayed, and well-organized museum in Indonesia!

As precious stones are never easily found, Ullen Sentalu is indeed a hidden gem.

Od style gate near the exit gate

Monument commemorating sister province:
Jogjakarta, Indonesia - Kyoto, Japan

Pathway by the exit gate

Ullen Sentalu
Jl Boyong Kaliurang
Sleman - Yogyakarta
Phone: +62-274-895161

Opening Hours:
8.30 am – 04.00 pm.
Open Daily on Tuesday trough Sunday,
Closed on Monday
Last admission 30 minutes before close

Admission Fee:
International (adult & student) IDR. 50.000
International Child (5-15) IDR 25.000

Local visitor (subsidized) :
Child (5- 15) IDR. 15.000
Adult IDR 25.000
(Suggested to bring umbrella while visiting the museum)

Jogja Trip - The Phoenix Hotel

TripAdvisor has been the best advisor when it comes to travelling - at least for me.

I got to know the site when I was planning itinerary for my Seoul trip last year, and it has been my go-to website for any travel-related stuff, and I can't agree more that it is an AWESOME community site!

So, of course while I was looking for hotels in Jogja, I once again turned to TripAdvisor for some advice, and there were 3 hotels that piqued my interest.

They are The Phoenix Hotel, Royal Ambarukmo Hotel, and Sheraton Mustika Resort and Spa; And this very post is dedicated for The Phoenix Hotel.

I've always been fond of 'old' and vintage stuff, whether it's a building, restaurant, cafe, furnitures, stationery, bags, etc - that's why I have a huge interest in history as well. So when I first saw the pictures posted in TripAdvisor or in the hotel's website, I immediately fell in love with this hotel...

The colonial-style building and the classic furnitures mixture of Dutch and traditional Javanese style... They were like calling and inviting me to come!

It was decided almost instantly that I had to stay in that hotel no matter what!

lounge next to the lobby - love the decor!

lounge next to the lobby - love the decor!

We were greeted by a very kind and polite receptionist, and when I asked to make sure that we got the Pool View room, he said that he would upgrade our deluxe room to a Junior Suite!

And my oh my, the room was very very nice! It's my first hotel room that I have ever stayed in that comes with a separate living room, 2 televisions (21" in the living room, and 32" in the bedroom), a bathroom with both bathtub and shower room, and a nice coffee machine.

living room - with 21" TV and coffee machine

2 wardrobes by the door - with a safety deposit box

bedroom

armchair, 32" TV, fridge (inside the cupboard)

bathroom - bathtub and vanity area

bathroom - shower room

view of the pool from our balcony

sunbed by the pool - towels provided on each of them

view of the pool at night

In the morning, we took a little walk to the pool before going to the restaurant for breakfast. There are few display cabinet with a classic collection of what I presumed from a private collection of the hotel's owner. The decor is classy, elegant, charming with a touch of Dutch-Javanese style which I can't seem to stop admiring.

pool terrace

outdoor seats in restaurant

The breakfast was pretty good too. There is a wide variety of breakfast meal available, from the traditional Javanese style, gudeg, jamu, green bean porridge, to Western-style pancake, waffle, toast, sausage, salad, etc. There's also gamelan playing nearby the fountain to entertain the guests. The restaurant employees were also friendly, polite and quick without making us feel rushed - I've met that kind of waiters and it irritated me to the point I wanted to tell him to back off and let us eat in peace.

After a hearty breakfast, we went back to our room to finish our packing and get ready to Ullen Sentalu. I've been interested to go there once I read the reviews in TripAdvisor - and because I am such a history-geek (the review of Ullen Sentalu will be up soon!).

Overall, I enjoyed our stay in The Phoenix Hotel, it's one of the best hotels I've ever stayed in, and mostly due to the different feeling - there's a feeling of "home" over there. There are a lot of open spaces that allow the air-flow to be fresher than the closed air-con room, it's not a high-rise building - it's a 3-storey building, and of course, because it's a colonial-style building, which I really really like! ^^

By the way, in early evening, there was a knock on our door, and since I didn't order any room service, I wasn't expecting any one at my door at all. It turned out it was a hotel employee checking if there was anything we need or if there was any problem with the room. I've stayed in few 4-5 star hotels before (during my trip to China, Middle-east and Hong Kong - never in Indonesia though), and this was the first time that a hotel takes a step further in making sure the guest enjoying the stay by actually knocking each room's door and checking if the guest is satisfied with their room. I am truly impressed!

Ah, The Phoenix Hotel, I think we will soon be meeting again...

The Phoenix Hotel

Jl Jenderal Sudirman 9
Yogyakarta 55233
Indonesia
Phone: (62)274-566617
Fax: (62)274-566856