[BackToSchool Series] Daily Productive Pouch

Several days ago, I got my opportunity to go "shopping" again. It was not like another kind of shopping, because it's different. I went to my favorite stationary store in the city and try to look something fun to buy, but also useful for my daily activities. And actually this is tricky because sometimes I don't even know how much money I'm gonna spend at this shopping day. hahaha Maybe it's the same thing to another girls who like shop a lot to buy clothing, shoes, etc. But, in my case... stationary and books. It can be as worst as that type of shopping if I didn't go there with my husband. Because he'll telling me what kind of things that actually useful for me or just for my pleasure oriented. haha

So, I found this pouch in the store. Just like my another posts about pouch that you can read in this link, I like Unicite model of pouches and bags for travelling. This one can be used not only for travelling but also for daily life. Actually you can choose which color and size you like. There are 3 options for size which are A6, A5, and B5. The color options are Black, Green, Blue, and Pink. However in this case, I choose the pink one with B5 size and it's perfect for me (it's my husband's choice by the way) because it can help me put everything I have in one place, including papers. Let me show you what's inside.

There are several pockets inside that can be used as stationary's placement. For example you can see in that picture it can be used to store colorful pens, ruler, markers, washi tapes, notes, cards, stickers, keys, even your phone. 

It means a lot for people who travel a lot, not only for pleasure but also for work and school, and also have a high productivity life. This people including me, can use this as a companion to store everything we have in this pouch. So, we don't have to worry about where we gonna suppose to place pens and papers in different place. We just put them in one place and ready to go.

Another thing that important enough for me is that the size. You can differentiate between the normal pen pouch that kinda big and this pouch which have book size. Therefore, when I put it my bag, it will easy to get and not gonna stuck under things, like I used to deal with my pen pouch. 

The price? ok if you buy this in the store you have to spend around NT$ 360, but if you buy it online you can get less than that. I recommend you to buy in Yahoo Mall, because it's cheaper, if you live in Taiwan. But, if you live in other countries, I think you can also buy one of this but need to spend more due to delivery cost.

Hope this post help you. :)

[2Days1Book][Book Review] - Taiwan Lonely Planet

Source: goldendestinations.com

I have this book since before I came to Taiwan. I bought this book in Indonesia when I was preparing myself to go. You know that I like travel so much and I need a book about Taiwan which is a guidance to travel, in english of course. I found this book in Periplus Book Store Surabaya. I was lucky because it's only one and I couldn't find this book even in Jakarta.

Lonely Planet is famous with its travel guidance around the world. That's why I want this book. All about Taiwan from North to South.

There are maps that I can look at in every city. Including with travel places like sceneries, venues, museums, etc. Several places also include festivals in specific dates which are annually.

Even there are suggestions to sleep and eat. Not only for "rich" traveler but also backpacker. Because they also provide the range price for hotel, cafes, and transportation from Taipei.

What I like about this book is that this book provide A LOT of INFORMATION needed for traveler in Taiwan. It can help traveler a lot when trying to find places that can be visit.

Talking about visit, this book provide suggestions about Things To Do in  several amount of days and specific time in Taiwan. For instance, what kind of things and where to go in Taiwan for two days, tree days, four days, and a week. Quite useful for me who like to travel randomly and mostly in my school holiday.

But, still... I don't really like this book because there are soo many information and make this book not really interesting to read. Lonely Planet wants to put as many as possible any information they have in A5 Book Size. It cause a very thick book and the size of writing are too small. Hard to see and read of course.

Even there are many maps inside, the maps also not quite good to see and understand.  The map's information are not easy to understand,

Maybe this book is good for expert traveler who already used to read physical maps.

But, for me ... I kinda choose Google Maps. haha

But I like the information about travel places in this book.

Sometimes, I will look into this book to find travel places where I've never been before and try to find those places in Google Maps and gather many information, including the price and transportation update. This way, can help a lot for traveling.

Travel Documents Preparation

This is my first time have a "tight" preparation for travel abroad. Before, I just pack my things, get some cash, and go. But, this time I wanna make sure everything on schedule and of course on a budget. Therefore, I decided to learn from other travelers about how to manage travel on a budget from many different kinds of websites.

I want to share with you guys about what I've learnt and done this whole week for my travel preparation two weeks later.

Basically, things to be done about documents are travel schedule and things to do, of course with other supplementary

I use Travel Planner template from Excel and edit several things which based on my needs. You can find many kinds of vacation planner there and just choose one that you like the most. But in here, I choose the one that have several basic things. There are 7 important basic things need to be considered for travel, which are personal details, travel details, hotel and activities, car rental, emergency details, maps, and tickets.

Personal Details

This part is all about your name, phone number, and address. You need it if there's something happen with you and somebody need to know who you are. We hope there's not gonna happen something bad, but just in case. Because in a place we're not familiar with, something surely might be happened.



Travel Details

Travel details means your itinerary. It's not have to be flight itinerary but also train or bus, depends on your travel transportation. In my case, I use my flight itinerary and put in this part. But because I use transit flight, I edit this part and put also my transit information.

Hotel and Activities

I think this part is the most important one because in here I can put all my travel schedule. You can see in the picture, this file divide base on the activity. But for me, I edit it and divide it based on the dates. Therefore, it can make a lot of easier for me to see what ind of activities I wanna do. In this file I also put money management in another column. Some kind like a budget and actual expense. So when I go travel I can barely know how much money I have and I can spend during the day and I'm not going to afraid of become bankrupt in the middle of my travel. haha

In the end of the scheduling, I can see how much money for transportation. culinary, hotel, and play. Also I also can see what kind of maps I need to find from place to place. Why map? I'll tell you later.

Car Rental

I didn't use this part because I use public transportation for my trip, of course because it's cheaper. But if you need one, you need to write down the information in case you need it. For traveler who go to "hard to find" public transportation, rental a car or scooter is highly recommended.

Emergency Details

This part is very important, in case something happen to you and somebody need to call home, even we hope there won't be something bad happen.

Maps

I know we have all gadgets in our hand. But, what if the internet is lost? or you don't have any internet access there? The answer is .... Print out the Maps. My suggestions to you to travel abroad especially and in the case that you don't have any internet access to GPS, find the maps from one place to another and print it out. You can find it easily in Google Maps including the "how to go there", maybe using public transportation, walk, or drive by yourself.

Tickets

Don't forget to print out your itinerary, especially flight itinerary. Some airline may give you the e-ticket which has QR Code that can be saved in your phone, but many others are not. So, better print it out. For budget traveler like me, I usually try to find the cheapest price ticket in internet. The venue website maybe have discount for online booking, but not all venues. You can try to find those tickets in the travel agencies or deal websites. Sometimes, if you buy it online, you will get e-ticket. Don't forget to save it in your gadget and print it out. In case, they need your print-out ticket.

Other Supplementary

Important things, of course your passport and ID. Don't forget to bring pen and book, because you'll gonna need that. Cash, yes you need cash. In case your debit card or credit card can't be used in your travel destination.

To save all of those things in one place, my suggestion is to put those in one plastic map. Why plastic? In case rain or your bag is soaked, your documents are still gonna safe.

That's all my experience in preparing documents for my travel abroad in a budget. I know it's not easy to prepare all of this things. But, it's worth so much. :)

Tips and Trick Planning for Travel Abroad

As you know I'm Indonesian but live in Taiwan, so when I have holiday and money (of course) I will go back home. I just have my winter vacation and plan to go to Indonesia in the mid February because my husband has holiday in Chinese New Year, not like me as student who have more than 1 month holidays due to winter vacation. We have this plan since last month because we have to buy airplane ticket at least 2 months before so we can get cheaper price.

But, this trip is kinda different. We will not only going back home, but also trip to another country for several days, which is Singapore. Actually, before we also thought about Hong Kong but then we realized that it's more expensive and not worth enough to spend a lot of money. In Indonesia, we also have to plan our trip because we will go to several cities in 2 weeks. We know it will make us very tired, that's why we need a  proper planning for this trip.

When I tried to plan our trip, I realized it's not easy. There are many things need to be considered before choose the exact things to do. So, in here (after my planning finished of course) I want to share with you guys how to plan your trip abroad.

Set your TRAVEL DESTINATION

Travel destination mean country you want to go. For instance, in my case there are two destinations which are Hong Kong and Indonesia. But, you have to set the "main" destination first, so that the "secondary" destination can be changed based on several considerations.

For example, my main destination is Indonesia and my secondary destination is Hong Kong. But after set other things like budget, and things to do, I choose another country which is Singapore.

Set your DATE & TIME

My suggestion for you when set your date and time to go is that find a best date you can find without sacrifice your work. If you are student, wait until holiday. But, if you are master or PhD degree students, finish your research first before go or watch out your prof will angry to you. haha If you are employee, find a weekend (if you wanna go only for 2 days) or long holiday. If you need more days to travel, you can ask leave for several days to your boss as long as it's not going to interfere your works in office of course.

Another thing about time is try to find out the weather in your travel destinations. It's important to know about it because you don't want to be like in a wrong costume party, right? 

Set your BUDGET

You have to know how much money you can spend on your trips. Remember to not spend all of your money because in case you need some when you back home. Set aside several amount of money for your living. If you have plan to go abroad long before, you can save your money to your "travel only" saving. So, you will have several amount of money when time to travel arrive.

This budget can be adjust depends on your needs. But remember to follow your budget!!

The budgeting is include the transportation cost (airflight, MRT, taxi, bus, car rental, etc.), acomodation cost (hotel and eat), tickets (if you wanna go to amusement park or museums), etc.

Buy AIRPLANE TICKET

Actually it's kinda tricky because for people who are the first go abroad, maybe don't know about tips and trick to buy cheap airplane ticket. So, I'm here to telling you how. 

If you want to go abroad, buy at least 1,5 months before the travel date. So you can get cheaper price. 

Wanna buy using travel agent? you can do it. But choose properly. There are several agents that will give cheaper price than in airplane's website but several other will give more expensive price.

Low Cost Carrier (LCC) airplane can be a solution for you who want cheap ticket. But, cheap price means not really good service. Using LCC means need to buy baggage and meal out of ticket price. LCC is good for backpacker who only have one carry-on bag that can be put in the cabin.

But my suggestion for non-backpacker, you can try to find full-service airplane with cheap ticket. But this kind of airplane, sometimes will transit in other country before arrive in destination. If you want to spend more time to search, you can find several airplane which have transit time not too long. 

For example, last year when I went back to Indonesia from Taiwan, I choose Cathay Pacific which is full-service airplane (including 20kg baggage, 1 bag carry-on, service is good, the plane is big, entertainment included, and meal - Halal of course) and transit in Hong Kong for 3 hours. But 1,5 years ago I ever used Jetstar Airways which is LCC (I have to buy 20 kg baggage, no meal, the plane is small, and no entertainment) and transit in Singapore for 9 hours. Yes, I was sleeping in airport!!-.-" It's because I arrived in Singapore at 9 PM so I only can go to Merlion then go back to airport due to the MRT closing hour.

In my case, because I wanna go to 2 countries, we decided to buy 2 different airplane tickets. Taiwan-Singapore and Singapore-Indonesia. The result is we will stay in Singapore for two days after arrive from Taiwan, then go to Indonesia, then go back to Singapore again, and back to Taiwan after that. Seems complicated but we can get cheaper price for that.

So, be wise to choose airplane. :)

Find THINGS To DO for SCHEDULE

Even you know what you wanna do, it's not easy to make a planning. Sometimes, people only focus on the "main" things to do in the destination. For example, in Singapore maybe people only think about "I wanna go to Universal Studio and Singapore Zoo" but actually Singapore has more than that. Don't waste your time while you don't know what to do there.

My suggestion is Make a Travel Schedule in each of your destination for each day, including time. You can use free apps about travel planning or make one by yourself using many templates from Office Words (if you use office 2010 above).

You can try to find things to do first. My suggestion is find in YouTube. Because it can give you more preview about your destination rather than see on picture. Sometimes, pictures can lie.You also can find travel review from people around the world from websites like tripadvisor.com or lonelyplanet.com 

Don't forget to find cheap tickets, if you wanna go to museums or parks, in their websites. Sometimes they will have Package which is cheaper ticket for 2 places. In my experience, if you want cheaper ticket price you can find several promo in specific dates in that places' website. But, you can also find the  cheaper one than that, in coupon's website like groupon.com , livingsocial.com , or ensogo.com . If you are lucky, you can find the most cheapest tickets around the world. 

Travel means not only go to "luxury" places but also experience the culture, right? I suggest you to go to many areas in your destinations which have good review to go. For example in Singapore you can go to Little India, Arab Street, China town, etc. 

Another considerations to think about are the opening and closing time of the place you want to visit, transportation to go there, and the most important thing especially for woman that the places are not in the "red" area.

For Muslim traveler, don't forget to find Masjid there.  Not only because you can pray there, but also you can find that Masjid in each country have different architecture that you can see its beauty. And sometimes, near Masjid, there are may stall that sell Halal Food.

Not only try to find Masjid and Halal Food but also try to find the Prayer Times. I think many websites can provide prayer time for muslim around the world. You can easily find it in Google.

Find HOTEL

Try to find hotel that near your travel places destination. Because you don't want to walk around to far way right? Maybe you can find a hotel that not really far from stations or bus terminals. But, if you go to Singapore, I think no need to worry about hotel place because this country is kinda small.

If you want cheap hotel, you can find in Booking.com or AirBnB.com which is in my experience, the best place to find cheap hotel. I wanna remind you that not all hotel can have "Pay Later" option. You have to carefully look at the hotel description and review. Pay Later means when you book, you will not going to pay at that time. But you can pay when you arrive at the hotel. Using those websites also can help you compare many hotels in your destination,

Don't forget to read the review!! It;s important!!

Don't you ever get an hotel in "red" area which means when night comes many prostitutes around. 

PACK your THINGS

After you know what you wanna do in your destination, of course you know what you wanna bring, right? But in case you forgot, I will give you some tips. I always forgot little things but important.

Important things to bring of course clothes, but what other things?

DOCUMENTS (passport, ID, cash), Shoes, Flip flops, underwear, hijab, pins, toiletries, laundry bags, make up, electronic things (smartphones, laptop, charger, etc.), swimsuit (if needed), etc.

My suggestion, print out your travel checklist and while you pack your bag, check on your list. You actually can find printable travel checklist in many blogs or pinterest. Maybe later I will post about my own travel checklist.:)

That's all my tips for you who want to travel abroad. In other post about travel tips, I can show you how to pack my travel things. 

Hope you will have a nice tips and trick to plan your trip. ^^

If you have anything to ask, please comment below. I will be happy to help you. :)

Travel Pouches for Organized Muslim (Travel Series)

Today's post is all about pouches that I use for travelling and what's inside those pouches. As a Muslim, we have to keep all our things clean. Because Allah love everything clean. Not only our body but also our stuff. That's why since last year I started to organize my stuff for travelling, so they will not going to be dirty or mixed up with everything in my bag.

Now... I will show you what kind of pouch I have for different things when I travel. :)

First... the most important one... don't forget to bring your Al-Qur'an.

I have a small pouch that I use for keeping my Al-Qur'an save. Because sometimes, if I go travel, the day changes so much, rain can make my Qur'an wet. Even if I use water resistant bag, sometimes wet can't be expected.

My friend gave me this Al-Qur'an several years ago and I love this Al-Qur'an so much. Because it has translation (Indonesian translation) and also Tajwid. So, I'm just recite but also study the meaning and tajwid. Therefore, I can improve my understanding of Islam.

Second... the second the most important thing is... Mukenah (I don't know the english of this) or pray clothes for Muslimah and Pray Mat.

I have this small pouch that was given by my mom a year ago. She got this from her friend who went to Taiwan. It is funny that she gave to me who live in Taiwan, now. hahaha

But I like this puch so much because it fits perfectly with my mukena. The material of my mukena is paracute. So, it can be folded until very very small. And it is also cheap if you buy this mukenah in Indonesia. In Taiwan... ohh so expensive. Because the store need to order from Indonesia first. -__-"