Short Escape to Medan

After finishing my master degree and coming back to my hometown, I think I had been so afraid to take a chance to travel until two days ago. It was a brave short escape journey, yet the expensive one but I don't mind. At least, I gained my bravery again, and it might cost more than what I paid for the journey if I didn't do that. So, in short, I was happy and I plan to make it aregular escape every two or three months.

I went to Medan by plane. From Aceh, I took JT 305 flight at 4:30 pm. However, it delayed about 20-30 minutes and it's okay since I know the habit of the company. While waiting for the journey, I wrote a post on another blog of mine.

It's time to be on board and I sat beside a man that came to Aceh for a national event. We talked for a while and I knew from our conversation he is from South Borneo and his journey would be long that day. He appreciated me that I was so lucky, so young and beautiful and I am a lecturer now. My mom would be so proud of me. :)

The flight was okay, no turbulence and arrived at the Kualanamu International Airport at 6 something pm. Then I directly went to the train ticketing counter to exchange the voucher I bought from traveloka. It was IDR 10,000 cheaper than buying at the location. My trip would be an hour later so I chose to have a meal first.

On the train, I could connect to a Wi-Fi provided. The connection was fair. The train stopped several times and I worried a bit since I had to be in time for movie time. My friends already waited me in Medan. Alhamdulillah, the train arrived on schedule and the location was just right next to the mall; Centre Point Mall.

I used escalator to go to the cinema and watched Critical Eleven with my friends. After movie, we walked to the hotel that we booked online before. It was Karibia Boutique Hotel that located behind the mall. We discussed about the movie and our personal lives before bed at the hotel. It was indeed a 'girls' night out'.

The next day, we woke up late and we left the hotel at 11 a.m. We checked out yet we still boarded our luggages out there. We had brunch at Nelayan. We ate a lot. Then we headed up to the cinema for 'Unlocked'. It was a great movie but I could guess the plot so I gave 4 out of 5 stars. The movie also reminded me about my postgrad life in the UK since the very first scene because the location was in London.

After movie, we went to a shop. I bought a novel by Nicholas Sparks, a backpack for my sister (she will be 17 soon), and a lego for another sister of mine in Jakarta (She will celebrate the birthday soon, too).

Our mission was complete and we didn't know where else to go. Starbucks was the choice to sit and read the novel for a while before heading to airport. Starbucks in the mall provided a nice spot to spend the time for reading or just sipping your coffee with friends.

We'd been there until 4:45 pm. We left the mall, took our luggages, and booked a taxi to airport. The taxi driver was a nice person. He even didn't ask us for the highway fee. At the airport, we directly went to check in counter. Beside us, there was a man who was late and the it was the boarding call for the flight, however, I amazed with the service of the officer at the counter. He still talked softly to the late man and guided him well to be on board soon.

It was dinner time already and we ate dinner at AW restaurant after buying cakes for souvenirs. Our flight was delayed about 20-30 minutes. So we managed to read some pages of our new novels at the gate. On board, I sat behind no one. It was an empty seat in the middle of the row. The weather was not so good, we did experience small turbulence but the pilot could handle it well and we arrived at Sultan Iskandar Muda safe and sound. I went home with my friend.

That is the story of my new traveling chapter. It was simple yet it leaves a lot of thoughts for me that I didn;t write here. During the trip, I thought a lot, about my life. I was drawing lists on my mind what to expect next, how to do those, how should my life be, and so on and so far. So, see you on my next journey!

Short Escape to Liverpool

Last Monday, My friend and I visited Liverpool which is only one hour journey by coach from my current city, Greater Manchester. We travelled by National Express, one of famous transportation companies in UK. The coach has a cosy chair with a small table and a footrest in front of you. For safety reason, the coach also provides the seatbelt. Moreover, if you want to pee, the toilet is available on the back side of the coach. There are plenty of time preferences for the journey from Manchester to Liverpool. Since we just wanted a day trip without staying overnight, we prefered to choose the morning out and evening return. The coach came on time so our itinerary in Liverpool was almost all checked.

We started our journey from the bus stop near the coach station. We hopped on the stagecoach bus and bought a day rider ticket (GBP 3.80). This ticket will allow you to travel around Liverpool and Wirral on that day with the stagecoach bus only. So you are free to hop on and off the bus by showing the ticket. Well, actually you don't need to take the bus so much if you want to walk around liverpool since the city is not that big and you can reach many places on foot.

First place that we visited was the blue Everton stadium. To be honest, I had no idea about this football club but since I traveled to Liverpool, why not I took some pictures there..:D

Just five minutes walk from Everton, there is a park called Stanley Park. I recommend this place to visit in Spring if you want to see a beautiful daffodil farm, or just want to sit down and have a peace of mind in front of a lake. However, don't forget to wear jacket or wrap yourself with warm knitted sweater if you can't stand the Spring wind.

Not far from the park, there is Anfield stadium, home of Liverpodian. We visited the museum of Anfield and the official shop. My friend bought so many things in the shop since she is a fan of Liverpool FC while I just bought a piece of postcard.

After taking tons of pictures in Anfield, we took the bus and then walked to the famous cathedral. We passed the University of Liverpool before arriving in front of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The building is cool but don't ask me about the interior because I just passed by without coming in.

 Since it was noon already, we had to pray so we went to Al-Rahma Mosque. The mosque is very peaceful and made me want to stay longer there. However, I could not for I had to continue my journey to Albert Dock. Before getting the dock, we took some pictures in front of the other huge famous cathedral in Liverpool and also took several pics with baby Lambanana. Lambanana is like an icon of Liverpool, the shape is just like the lamb with the banana tail, super cute!

Around the Albert Dock, there are ships, museums, shop, the beatles, pier head, and liverpool wheel. All in one place and we reached them just by walking. I also bought a postcard in the souvenir shop of The Beatles.

 

Since the sunset had come, we'd to chase the coach coming back to Manchester. The day was awesome even I was tired of walking. :D

And here we go... I am not a fan of Liverpool nor the Beatles. Therefore, the postcards I bought will be given to the fans who win the giveaways . I split the giveaways into two parts:

1. Anfield Postcard Giveaway

-You must be a liverpodian. Please be honest to yourself.
-You must have a facebook account.
-You must have a picture of you and the thing that proves you are a Liverpodian. It can be jersey, keychain, or anything you have which is related to Liverpool FC.

-Upload the picture to your facebook account and start to gain "like" as many as you can.
-In the caption of the pic: put the hashtag #AnfieldPostcardGiveaway and a link to this post.
-The link of the picture must be posted on the comment box below so I can see and like your pic as well.

-The time of gaining "like" will start today until 4 p.m. 25 April 2015 (UK Time).
-The two people with the most liked pictures will be the winner. The first winner will get the official postcard that I bought in the official store and the runner up will get a postcard of anfield that I bought in the souvenir shop (without official hologram).

2. The Beatles Postcard Giveaway
-You must be a fan of the Beatles. Please be honest to yourself.
-You must have a facebook account.
-You must have a video in which you sing a song of the Beatles. The length of the video is 15 seconds to 1 minute, so you don't need to sing a full song.
-Upload the video to your facebook account and start to gain "like" as many as you can.
-In the caption of the video: put the hashtag #TheBeatlesPostcardGiveaway and a link to this post.

-The link of the video must be posted on the comment box below so I can see and like yours as well.
-The time of gaining "like" will start today until 4 p.m. 25 April 2015 (UK Time).
-The two people with the most liked videos will be the winner. The first winner will get the official postcard that I bought in the official store and the runner up will get a postcard of liverpool city that I bought in the souvenir shop.

Now, let's start the contest! Can't wait to see your creativity! I will contact all the winners after 25 April 2015 for asking their addresses and send the postcards!

P.S.: This contest is free, you don't have to pay anything, even the postage fee of the postcards will be on my own expense, not yours! :)

Don't forget to pray! ^^

Brief Old Journey

Ah, finally I created this blog. I have been dreaming about having a travel blog since 2 or 3 years ago but I never did it. Now, as the new year begins, I have to force my self to make it comes true.

As the first post, I would like to share about me. I am a girl named Ana and comes from a small village in Aceh, Indonesia. When I was a small kid, my parents took me along with them to go to some cities outside Aceh like Medan, Jakarta, and Bandung. However, it was really hard for me to recall that memory since I was still a 4 or 5 years old at that time. I just remember some pieces of the journey such as I once had the a furry brown doll when I was traveling on the train, I visited my parents' colleague, I was lived in a small house with the narrow path in front of the house and I loved to see the Satria Baja Hitam movie.

When I grew up more, I always wanted to follow everyone I know who planned to visit my parents' hometown which is about 400 km far from my house even I knew that I would troublesome them because I could not stand with carsick and always vomitted. What a desire to travel!

Then, my very first journey that I had to take was when I nominated as the representative of Aceh to compete in a national contest in Jogjakarta. I was in a team so we went to Jogja together by a ferry. I was 12 years old at that time, what I knew was just practise harder to win the contest. I even did not so interested in seeing sunset over the ferry, neither enjoying the view from the bus window nor walking around Jogja. However, I visited Borobudur at that time and the rest was just make me regret it now because I did not travel as much as I could. Nevertheless, I got the first runner up at the contest so at least I reached my goal to win the contest. After that journey, I travelled again in my Senior High. I went to Bandung and Jakarta joining the study tour program. It was my first journey by plane. I was so excited and really happy.

I had travelled a lot in my college life and after, so I will post each of them as a single entry. This post is just about an introduction, a short explanation about my travel story.