Kindling Depot

Traveling Companion

2012-02-18T13:24:00.001+07:00

So when I have decided that I was going to Taiwan for a vacation, several things sprang up to my mind:

1. It will be my first time there, and there will be no local guide. Do I have to take taxi everywhere? How much should I reserve for transport costs?
2. Can't speak nor understand Mandarin. How will I communicate? Can people speak english? How can I haggle?
3. I want to move through the island. What are the good spots?

Looking back, everything went so smooth beyond my expectation. It was the combination of technology, a bit of planning, a bit of shamelessness (I prefer to call it boldness, but some people will disagree hehehe...), and lots of friendliness from Taiwanese.

So....

Where to go?
Go to a travel agency, look at their Taiwan travel brochure. Note popular spots. Ask friends that have been there.
Where to stay?
Booked all of my hotels from www.agoda.com . Quite easy to use. Pay attention to the hotel location and review. They are good references to tell how good a hotel is.
Got lost?
Bring your smartphone equipped w/ GPS. After booking the hotels, mark them on the map so you know where to walk if you use public transport.
Mobile internet
After disembarking from plane, my first objective is to get a prepaid card with unlimited internet. This is so that I can use the GPS and translation app from my smartphone immediately. Taoyuan airport have the counter that sells them. Fortunately the lady guarding the booth can speak english and can activate my phone without any problem. I used FarEastone, and the 3G signal through Taiwan was excelent.
Getting to Taipei/hotel from airport
Easiest way: Take a taxi. Expensive, but the best option if you can't lose time/walk too far.
Also easy, but way cheaper: Look for bus stand, buy ticket (the ticket seller can speak English well!), wait for bus, ride bus to town, disembark at the correct station (use the GPS or ask the ticket seller).
Getting around Taipei
MRT or bus. During my stay I find MRT and walking are sufficient enough to get everywhere I want in Taipei.
Getting out of Taipei, around Taiwan
By Train, buy ticket at Taipei Main Station (haven't tried it so can't comment too much)
By Bus, if you're heading out of town like Sun Moon Lake, Kaohsiung, etc, you should buy ticket at Bus Terminal B (there are 3 Bus Terminals in Taipei, so be careful not to be in the wrong one). The officer at information counter can speak English and help book tickets.
Shopping (IT Stuff)
For IT stuff in Taipei there is Nova Mall, K-Mall, and GuangHwa. I think GuangHwa is the cheaper one.
I also found that Kaohsiung sell stuff cheaper than in Taipei. You can go to Computer Street for IT Stuff.
If you want to haggle and can't speak mandarin, smartphones with Google Translate is all you need.
Eating
Night markets provide varied and cheap foods. But it can be very crowded though so be prepared. Every town usually have their own night markets. Some even have multiple night markets. They start to open in the afternoon.

There are still tons of stuff I want to see in Taiwan. Hope to go there again sometime in the future...

Rocking back and forth

2012-02-07T13:09:00.000+07:00

Back from vacation, several stuff comes up.

Haven't got time to put words to blog yet... not to mention I sold my laptop a few while ago so not much flexibility to write at the moment.

My target: before next week.

Back From Vacation: Taiwan

2012-01-27T19:12:00.000+07:00

Had a great week in Taiwan! What a lovely country.

Everything goes as planned even though it was my first time in the country and can't speak Chinese at all.
All credit to my brother & his iPhone.

I didn't take a tour so I missed a few tourist spots. Also, I don't think 1 week is enough to properly enjoy every tourist place in Taiwan.

Definitely gonna visit the country again if I have the chance.

Me & 101 Tower

Going to write some of my experiences around Taiwan in the next few days.

Snacks: Spicy Thailand Peanuts

2012-01-17T17:21:00.000+07:00

I love spicy food, and I love peanuts.
And then someone decided to combine them.

Crusty, Crunchy, Citrucy, Spicy, Peanuty

The result is Spicy Thailand Peanuts, a snack I can never say no to.

How can one refuse this temptation??

The orange leaves gives an aroma of... orange... which combines wonderfully with the peanut and spice.

Available from a friend of mine (Link) with 500 grams zipper bag so you can keep the freshness intact! (and don't have to chow them down in one sitting)

Food: Carl's Jr. Teriyaki Burger

2012-01-15T08:53:00.000+07:00

I just had an awesome burger at Carl's Jr. @ Grand Indonesia last night.
It was this new menu they just introduced:

Beef, Tomato, Teriyaki Sauce, and.... a slice of pineapple

I was a bit intrigued when they said that it has pineapple in it, so I must give it a try!

Carl's Jr always serve big burgers

The combination of Carl's Jr juicy & tender meat with the teriyaki sauce, plus the surprisingly sweet, soft pineapple made this burger as one of the best burger I had.

Try it if you have the chance! I think you'll love it.

Food: Cold Korean Noodle

2012-01-13T17:10:00.001+07:00

It's cold, a bit sour, a bit spicy, with noodles and beef slices.

A cold noodle. Yummy...

It is a bowl of Cold Korean Noodle (sorry, forgot the actual name). It is nice, especially when it's hot outside. The waitress cut the noodle for me so it's a bit messed up in the picture.

Stumbled upon this dish at Bornga, a Korean restaurant in Wolter Monginsidi road in Jakarta

The main speciality of this restaurant is actually the BBQ dishes. When you order the BBQ, they will serve a plethora of greens for you to wrap the BBQ with.

Eat your vegetables please!

I also liked this menu (again, I can't remember the name).

Filling for your BBQ wraps!

It is very spicy, and combines wonderfully with the BBQ and rice.

Book: The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking (How to Remember Everything)

2012-01-11T19:32:00.000+07:00

Another book that I read in 2011 was "The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking" by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler

It is a practical book containing 50 models that might help you to organize and think more strategically.

One of the model that I found interesting is the Supermemo model, which was developed by a Polish researcher named Piotr Wozniak.

The model shows that if we review what we've learned in the interval of one, ten, thirty, and sixty days afterwards, it should make you retain them in your memory more accurately and for a longer period.

Each iteration of review in that interval will make your rate of forgetting lower and lower, and hopefully, plant them in your memory permanently. (A shorter interval might be better, of course. The model just shows the effect of reviewing to our memory)

It seems that our teacher's instruction to review stuffs at home is not without merit!

The book also contains some other interesting models. You should check it out if you have the chance.

Restaurant: Ippeke Komachi

2012-01-08T19:33:00.000+07:00

The restaurant I most frequented in Jakarta is Ippeke Komachi, located in Mall Kelapa Gading 3. Almost every week me and my Family will go there. Sometimes we go there twice per week!

People are waiting to be seated @ Ippeke Komachi

This restaurant serves various kind of Japanese dishes from sushi to tempura. The sushi are served on the conveyor belt like those you can find in a Japanese restaurant. They also serve a limited selection of deserts.

Around the bar we go!

Compared to the other Japanese restaurants I've tried so far, Ippeke Komachi's sushi dishes just feels more "right" on the tongue. I'm not sure if it's caused by that hint of sourness on the rice or the creaminess of the mayonnaise. Props to Satoh-san (the chef) and his staff!

Some of the food I recommend if you have the chance to stop by there are:

For sushi:

Aburi Salmon (half seared salmon. One of the more popular sushi in Ippeke Komachi)
Salmon Salad Kungkang
Happy Salmon
Aburi Happy Salmon
Unagi Crispy Roll
Chicken/Beef Teriyaki Roll

Salmon Plate - For your salmon sushi combination

Unagi Crispy Roll - Crispy with lots of sesame

For non-sushi dishes:

Miso Ramen (tasty soup with wonderfully cooked ramen)
Miso Soup (free 1 soup per person on weekdays!)
Umino Salad w/ Japanese Sauce (raw fish/octopus slices with salad and sauce)
Jumbo Kakiagedon (rice with fried vegetable and sauce)

Miso Ramen - Thick soup with well prepared ramen

If you can't eat raw foods, don't worry since Ippeke Komachi also serves cooked (or half-cooked) dishes such as ramen, aburi salmon, donburi, bento, etc. The kushiyaki (satays/skewers) is also a good option with its variety of meat to choose from.

Another thing I like about Ippeke Komachi is that the price is relatively cheap, especially if you compare it to the other sushi restaurants.

I highly recommend this restaurant to any food lovers, especially if you want to try good sushi dishes.

What I'm hearing: Run (Final Fantasy XIII-2 OST)

2012-01-06T08:56:00.000+07:00

A very nice tune from Final Fantasy XIII-2.

Aerobic Exercises Might Boost Your Learning Skills

2012-01-05T17:21:00.002+07:00

A tiny bit of interesting information I read on the Newsweek (January 9 & 16, 2012 issue):

"Walking 30 minutes a day five times a week stimulates production of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a molecule that nurtures the creation of the new neurons and synapses that underline learing."

"Scientist led by Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois have shown that exercise increases gray matter in the region of the hippocampus that processes new knowledge and dispatches it to permanent storage in the frontal cortex"

Basically it means that exercising will not only makes you healtier, it will also makes you easier to learn.

So if you're currently studying or taking a course, spending some time to work out might help you improve on those lessons.

There are 31 ways to get smarter according to the article. The other interesting methods I read are:

Do something that requires coordinated motor skills such as dancing class, knitting, tenis, tae kwon do, playing musical instrument, etc
Play violent video games (oh really?)
Eat yogurt (Nice! I can always get down with eating something edible)
Write with your hands (It's also easier to remember something that you've written down)
Write opinions or review stuffs (Blogger yes!)
Get out of town to get in touch with nature

Source: Newsweek - January 9 & 16, 2012 Issue

Snacks: Krupuk Pedas (Spicy Crackers)

2012-01-04T18:54:00.000+07:00

One of my favourite snack, Krupuk Pedas (Spicy Crackers)

Made from cassava chips with spicy and sweet taste. It's awesome.

Photos: Yellow Sky

2012-01-04T18:28:00.000+07:00

Yellow sky taken from 2nd floor of my home with phone camera (no photoshop/filter here). Doesn't happen very often so I took a picture.

Book: What the Dog Saw

2012-01-03T19:20:00.000+07:00

One of the books I read in 2011 was Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw.

Unlike the other book of Malcolm's, What the Dog Saw is more like a collection of short research and thoughts he has collected through his career.

True to his style, Malcolm still manages to challenge the perception of what we consider "Normal/Right" and makes us rethink our viewpoint on a matter. He also tickles our mind with those connect-the-dots storytelling that has always been featured in his previous books.

Some of the chapters I found interesting this book are:

Hair Dyes and its marketing tactics
Birth Control Pill, Women's Period, and Ovarian Cancer
Enron's downfall with its surprising, low profile bits
Solving homelessness with its moral consideration
Plagiarism, which apparently not as simple as I thought before
Why some experts act like an amateur
Early Bloomer and Late Bloomer
Talents and its utilization

If you have read any of Malcolm's book before, you can expect his signature writing but in a more compact and varied package.
For those who haven't read any of his book before, and want to give a quick and varied tickle to the mind, this book might just be a good place to start.

Gaming Hardware: Logitech G27 Racing Wheel

2012-01-03T17:55:00.000+07:00

In the first post of this blog I mentioned that my gaming hobby is a dying-old one. In most cases this is true. But every now and then the urges comes to relish that hobby, especially if it is one those where-you-can-only-dream-of-before-but-now-you-can-grab-it urges.

So a few months ago I grabbed a Logitech G27 Racing Wheel. This steering wheel input device is intended to put more realism in those racing games one usually play with a standard gaming controller. The set contains:

A steering wheel with 900 degrees rotation, force feedback, 6 buttons, rpm indicator, and paddle shifter

A footpiece with clutch, break, and gas pedal.

A 6 speed H-Gate gearbox (like in those manual cars) with 8 buttons, and directional pad for menu navigation

The set also comes with an adapter to draw the electricity it needs for those intense force-feedback.

It felt like I was taking one of those arcade racing machines back to my home!

Does this device makes you play better? It depends on your will to adapt your input style from thumb-fiddling to arm-and-leg-finesse. You can opt to use automatic transmission and forgo the clutch-stick mechanism if you would like. But doing so would be a waste since there are other cheaper options out there without the manual mechanism.

Does this makes the game more enjoyable? For me personally, the answer is a definitive yes. Feeling the bumps of the road and making those gear shift smoothly just feels so satisfying compared to twiddling a rumbling controller and pressing buttons.

Complexity, however, comes with the sacrifice of practicality. Since the controller set is big, you'll need a suitable place to mount it to. Driving with the steering wheel on your lap will just make you cry (not to mention the shifter box!). If you can't have a permanent place to mount the wheel onto, you'll have to assemble and disassemble the wheel every time you want to play. The assembling itself doesn't take too long but after a while it can be tedious. This happens to me for a few months after I obtained the wheel. I tried to find something practical so I can mount those wheel permanently and store it with ease. The option was some custom made mount which works wonderfully but really pricey. I can feel those tears building up!

Fortunately, one day my brother took me to a furniture store. "Let's go find that mount" He said. And found it we did.

Bro's hunch was spot on!

A simple study desk, quite cheap, has enough width, depth, and luckily, the right height with my TV table. It is foldable for easy storage.

It is a bit on the light side, so it tends to slide around. To prevent this, I simply put the desk against my TV table, along with the footpiece. It's not 100% dead set stable but it's good enough for me.

Here's a video of me playing with the set. Mind you, I'm not the best player out there, and I'm still adapting to the wheel so expect a few mistakes here and there. Few details and quick review of the wheel's quality can also be found on the video description:

The wheel is supported by many games. From the arcadey Need for Speed series to the simulation like Gran Turismo 5 or NFS:Shift. It works on both PC and PS3 with USB connection. But before buying a game to run with this wheel, you better check the compatibility of the wheel first (PS3, PC). A few games support all the function of the wheel, some only a few, and some does not at all. I personally wish the list will improve in the future.

Considering all of the complexity and immersion this device has, it offers to improve the simulation aspect of driving games further than before.

Now we just need someone to invent a practical gravitational device with rumbling chairs to simulate the g-force and we're set for the full simulation experience.

2012 Resolution

2012-01-03T07:13:00.000+07:00

Since it's still in the early of 2012, I'll write down stuff I want to do/get this year (a.k.a. New Year's Resolution):

Obtain More Knowledge & Wisdom!
Because knowing more stuff (usually) never hurts.
Read More Books!
In lieu with No.1 above. Knowledge is obtainable by books. Wisdom on the other hand... have to be experienced to be understand-ed.
Get to Know More People!
Outside of the work circle I hope...
Run Further and/or Faster!
And be happier + healthier.
Travel Abroad (outside of SE Asia please)!
Japan for its culture, food, and gadgets.
Hongkong for shopping.

And I'm done here.

(Re)Starting My Blog

2012-01-03T06:58:00.000+07:00

It's been a while since I done blogging stuff. My last attempt was a few years ago, which ended unceremoniously. My "blogging-fire" went out since at the time I still consider blogging as a "part time obligation" that I must fulfill everyday which makes it more like a drag than a wonderful outlet (for what? try ask yourself why you write).

I was thinking of doing a gaming specialized blog like the last one I did, but I think there are lots of fascinating stuff I'd like to share. So I decided that this blog should be about stuff I found fascinating and sharing my experiences with you about it. It can range from gaming (my old-dying-hobby), gadgets, books, foods, sports, travel, etc. Mostly it will be from my personal experience, but some might come from other people's experiences or news from other websites I found interesting.

And with that we're off to a good start!