Buat yang Muda di Batavia yang Tua

Gara-garanya beberapa waktu lalu ngomoning tentang kota Jakarta dengan seorang teman, jadi teringat bahwa gue punya sepotong memori menyenangkan di ibukota ini yang selama tersimpan di HDD. Mungkin emang sebaiknya sedikit diletakkan di sini sebagai back-up kalo teradi sesuatu di HDD, juga sekalian me-refresh memori yang tersimpan di otak :). Cerita kali ini adalah segelintir tentang Kota Tua. Sebagian besar orang Jakarta pasti pernah datang ke tempat ini. Cerita tentang Kota Tua juga mungkin sudah banyak di-share. That's okay, since this is my trash bin, I am free to do anything here..

Sebenernya ada banyak bangunan yang bisa kita kunjungi waktu ke daerah Kota. Ada beberapa museum seperti Museum Mandiri, Museum BI, Museum Fatahillah, dan Museum Wayang. I have been in the first three museums, tapi ga banyak yang bisa gue ingat, mungkin karna waktu itu kurang berkesan. Untuk Museum Wayang, someday I'll be there..masih penasaran..

Nah, yang mau gue share di sini adalah kesan gue tentang jalan menuju si kawasan Kota Tua dan sebuah kafe yang menyenangkan buat gue.

Jalan ini adalah jalan bawah tanah yang kita lalui dari halte transjakarta kota menuju museum Mandiri. Gue pribadi terkesan dengan jalan ini, karna bentuknya yang unik seperti spiral.

dari bawah ke atas

dari atas ke bawah

Pemandangan unik di atas, adalah salah satu yang gue suka. Seolah-olah, ada kehidupan lain di bawah bangunan museum Mandiri.

Sebenernya sedang apa sih orang-orang ini? Mereka sedang menikmati pertunjukan musik jalanan. Waktu itu ada seorang pemain biola dan seorang pemain gitar sekaligus vokalis yang sedang perform.

Waktu itu, gue melting banget soalnya salah satu lagunya adalah lagu Batak..yah...meskipun gue ga paham artinya apa, pokoknya terdengar keren aja gitu..hahaha...

Then, tiba-tiba ada penonton juga yang request lagu buat pacarnya, dia malah minta diiringi dan nyanyiin sendiri lagu pilihannya. Lagunya apaan ya? Lupaa...

Next, ini adalah jalanan di Kota Tua yang sangat khas. Tiap orang yang udah pernah ke Kota Tua, pasti langsung notice kalo liat jalanan ini. 

Sebenernya, ga boleh nih ambil foto mobil tua ini. Kita mesti bayar dan pake jasa fotografer mereka sendiri, biasanya buat foto pre-wed. Tapi gue nekat aja ambil nih foto..jangan dicontoh yaa,,, ;p

Daaaannn....inilah dia, tempat nongkrong favorit gue di Kota Tua. Namanya Cafe Batavia. Letaknya di seberang Museum Fatahilah atau di sebelah Museum Wayang. Tempatnya tenang, sepi, romantis, dan klasik walopun harganya tergolong mahal sih buat gue, hehehe.. Di cafe ini banyak banget foto-foto dan properti artistik yang jadul... rasanya pengen gue pelototon satu-satu tuh..

Kafe ini terdiri dari 2 lantai, dari lantai atas, kita bisa liat pemandangan halaman Museum Fatahilah.

Suasana lantai 2

Dekorasi di tangga

Bar di lantai 1

Pemandangan dari lantai 2 ke halaman Museum Fatahilah 

Susana lantai 1

Serunya lagi adalah, kita bisa foto sepuasnya di cafe ini, soalnya 2 kali waktu gue dateng tuh selalu ga terlalu rame dan tamunya juga bule-bule yang mau foto-foto :) 

Oh ya, hari ini hari valentine kan ya? Kalo lo merayakan bareng pasangan, seru banget tuh kalo lo dan pasangan dengerin pemusik jalanan yang di terowongan menuju Museum Mandiri, habis itu makan sambil ngobrol-ngobrol santai deh di Cafe Batavia :)

Tapi buat yang tidak merayakan, ga apa-apa juga kan jalan-jalan bareng sahabat atau bahkan menggalau sendirian sambil refresh your mind, mungkin dapet inspirasi keren di sini..hehe..

Just enjoy your life, because you are loved!

Pagoda Ekayana

Since today is still Chinese New Year, I wanna celebrate it by sharing about a temple that I visited in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, the name is Buddhayana Tomohon. In that temple there are many gods statue that we can see..There are also Kwan Im Temple, The Dragon Statue, and a big oriental gate where we can view rice field and mountain.. That place is so amazing!!! Here are some pictures of the gods statue and the temple ^^

Pagoda Ekayana

Nagasena

Vajraputra

Nakula

Bodhidharma

Vanavasa

Katka

Nandimitra

Pindola the Bharadvaja

Pindola

There are many statues and beautiful views those were not shared here, but trust me, it is awesome, please visit it if you go to North Sulawesi.

1 Place, 10 Experiences: Sawarna Village

Have you gone to beach? What did you do there? Hunted the sunrise or sunset? 

Okay, now I will tell you my experience while I visited Sawarna Village in Banten, West Java, Indonesia. Basically, the nature offered there was beach, but actually there are many beauty of nature that you can enjoy there.. Let me list them! Beautiful beach with white sands, trekking experience, see the beautiful rice field, hunting for sunrise and sunset, trekking in cave with big stalactite and stalagmite, surfing, hunting for big wave pictures, catching the beautiful view of coast from a high road. They are there for you! In Sawarna Village. But, there are common marine tourism that you can not do there, snorkeling and diving. Why? Because Sawarna is surrounded by big wave beach and thus it is not the appropriate sea to do those kinds of water sport. Though Sawarna has a white sand beach, I will not share it here, because it is too common and there are many more beautiful beach in Indonesia, yet I will share some pictures that show the unique of this village. Unfortunately, not all of interesting activities I mentioned before I did in my trip because it was a rainy season. So I hope, you will be luckier than me!

Enjoy it!

At first you come to Sawarna, you have to get through this drawbridge. Don't worry, it is strong enough even the motorcycle often gets through it ;)

And this was one of village view that I got while I and my friends were trekking to the beach.. At that time, the rice field was dry because the villagers just harvested it.

This cave was really dark and slippery, besides there was about 30 cm the flow of water so I have to keep my balance..

Goa Lalay

View from the road

Tanjung Layar

Laguna Pari

This is the rocky one! Becareful!

Beautiful big wave, and the sound was amazing :)

This is the icon of Sawara, these two pictures are actually the same hills, but you will get different view from different side.

Oohh, about the surfing, I didn't take any picture, because my camera was not good enough to take long distance view and it was too dangerous to get closer to the surfer. So, if you are curious just visit it by yourself! Ops, don't forget to ask your friends too :)

WARUGA, Minahasan Ancestors Crate Corpse

My trip to North Sulawesi was so memorable and particularly, there was no intention to show off about it..but my eyes were opened wider about the wonderful Indonesia, so I decided to write it down here, to remind me about the trip in the future and if you read this, I hope you will be triggered to travel around Indonesia to explore this country heritage. North Sulawesi is not only about Manado and Bunaken and this is one of the story..

Waruga is a name of sarcophagi and made of stone to store the dead body of Minahasan ancestors.  The Waruga complex is located in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The name of the village is Sawangan, the same name of an area that you could find in Depok, West Java. The local people said that it is same because the name of Sawangan area that is located in West Java was given by a Minahasan people.

The process how Waruga was made

Waruga was carved by the ancestors by using simple tools as they were in megalithic era. When you go to the complex of Waruga, you will find a relief that tells us about the process of how Waruga was made and about the living of the ancestors.

Man carried the body and the top of Waruga at once. How strong they were!

The dead was put in squatting position

At the top of waruga, the ancestors made a story about the job of the dead when he/she was alive. You need not to worry because there was no dead body again in these Waruga. It has been a long time ago, that the grave in Waruga method was prohibited. It was banned because the smell of the dead could spread out of the stone and it could be source of cholera disease. So, all of the ash of the dead has been removed and stored at Manado Museum.

Waruga of a midwife

Unfortunately, most of the visitors were foreigners. I hope there will be more local tourist will visit this site :)

 

PHOTO BLOG: BLOSSOM

"I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow"

Note: All pictures were taken in North Sulawesi - Indonesia

The Door!

This page has been suspended twice before it's finally released today and I am very glad that I can still remember how the story went..

Autism, is a such popular term that one often hear in daily for two main reasons, to mock a friend who is attached to her/his gadget and thus does not care about the surrounding, and a psychological term of a disorder based on DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder). This page will describe about a movie titled "Temple Grandin" who has Autism as the latter. Temple Grandin was a name of the main character of the film and it was a true story.

Temple was a little girl who was diagnosed as an autistic when she was 4 years old. At that age, she wasn't able to speak. She often distracted by stimulus like voice, touch, light, movement, and asymmetric object. As I ever learned that autistic child is over-sensitive. He/she feels a stimulus more than the normal one, for example when the normal one is okay with 10.000 Hz frequency of voice, the children with autism might hear it twice louder so it hurts them.

Temple also often repeated the word she heard, so her friends labelled her as a 'tape recorder'. Through this film, I learned that parents and teacher cooperation is a pivotal key to deal with autistic child.When Temple's Mom almost gave up, Dr. Carlock the teacher supported Temple's Mom and convinced her that they could face it. Dr. Calrock saw Temple as a unique individual and developed her outstanding ability, that was visualization. He taught Temple by using concrete project and gave her advice by associating it with concrete object. Here is one of Dr. Carlock advice to Temple:

"Temple, think of it as a door. A door that's going to open up onto a whole new world for you; and all you need to do is decide to go through it."

source:

Since Temple has heard that advice, she imagined a door every time she got afraid. As she finished her study in high school, she was encouraged to continue to college. She worried about friends because her interpersonal skill was very bad and she had to live with a roommate in dormitory, she also hated the French class because her linguistic ability was also poor but she considered every challenge as a door. At college, she met a blind roommate and they became best-friend and realized that they had an disability, whereas they had an outstanding talent, Temple with her outstanding visualization, and her friend with outstanding audio ability.

To handle her emotion and tantrum, Temple designed a strange machine that would coop her body up, she said that it functioned like a hug for normal kid. She was inspired by a machine that was used to comfort the noisy cow in her aunty's farm.

Finally, Temple succeeded to finish her study in college. She was chosen to give the last speech in graduation day. In that day, she sang a song by Carousel:

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark.

At the end of a storm is a golden sky and a sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind! Walk on through the rain!

Though your dreams be tossed and blown, 

Walk on! Walk on! with hope in your heart, you'll never walk alone!

After the speech, she decided to open the other door in her life, she took her master degree in animal science.

It was not easy for her, there were so many challenges she faced caused of her disability, but at the end she reached all she wanted and here was her reflection of her life:

"Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be. We owe them some respect. I touched the first cow as it was being stunned. In a few seconds, it was gonna be just another beef, but in that moment, it was still an individual. It was calm and it was gone. I become aware of precious life was, and I thought about death and I felt close to God. I don't want my thoughts to die with me. I want to have done something. I know there are a lot of things I can't understand, but I still want my life to have meaning."

It is a great movie, so if you have free time I really recommend you to watch it by yourself. Maybe you will get another interesting thing and could share it with me ;)