Peace-Promoting Manga:)

Found here

Found here

See You Next Week!

Well, hello blogs! *wiping the dust and cleaning up the spiderwebs* Sorry for the quiet week. I've been putting all my efforts to finish this week's assignments so I can have one day of leave next week because I'm going to visit my grandma. Although I only take one day, I'll have four days off, thanks to the Waisak day on May 17, oh yeah! 

Before leaving the city, let's look at what we can do here for this weekend:)

As I mentioned last week, there's World Book Day Indonesia 2011. This weekend, there are workshops, movie screening and so many more. So come and have fun:)

This weekend will also see the start of Jakarta Fashion and Food Festival. Now that I'm not in Sunday desk, I need a stronger motivation to go to Kelapa Gading. 

And I'll leave you with a slogan I read somewhere in the internet: "Behind the healthy weekend, there lies the powerful weekdays."

Have a healthy weekend!

It's Either Fashion Or Book

Karl Lagerfeld's library. Source: The Selby

While gathering data to write for this article, I stumbled upon this page about the world's languages, the number of speakers and the number of Wikipedia articles in those languages. Then I spotted something...

Banyumasan language is included in the list! Acehnese and Buginese also made it to the list. There are so many languages here. And now, most people use Bahasa (with a local accent:P).

Talking about language, I should do something to put my rusty French into practice. The Printemps Francaise festival can be the right event to do it. It starts this weekend! Check the schedule for your favorite event. This weekend will see the opening of Dysfashional, an exhibition on fashion.

Or you can go to the World Book Day events held in Museum Bank Mandiri in the Old Town. This weekend has no particular schedule for competition or workshop, but you can see the exhibition on book illustration. Check the schedule here.

I'll probably go to one of those events, or may be curling in bed and finish Tash Aw's The Harmony Silk Factory. It's the fifth book I read this year. So far I've completed Leo Tolstoy's War And Peace (finally!), Naguib Mahfouz's Palace of Desire, a book on Kartini's letters and Patrick Suskind's Perfume. Those are not newly-released books, but I plan to read as much books I can this year.

Have a fashionable or bookish weekend:)

Update: Since Jakarta will be the host for ASEAN Summit during May 7-8, traffic on Jl. Jendral Sudirman and Jl. Gatot Subroto will be closed (I read it in the Twitter account of @DiKotaKita). I believe the road closure will lead to heavy congestion across the city because they are two of the main roads. So I guess, curling in bed and reading the book will be a much better choice.

What's In My Lunchbox?

Ever since I was a kid, M&D never gave me pocket money. They could just give me that, but they wanted me to appreciate money and home-cooked food. So I usually brought lunchbox to school. Some schoolmates didn't really get why I never ate at the school's cafetaria. They thought I was being stingy.

Now that I'm an adult and earn my own money, I still keep my habit of bringing the lunchbox. Since M always prepares the food, I don't have the heart to leave home without the lunchbox. She will be sad if that happens.

Then I entered TJaP. I found that besides me, there were three cubreporters bringing lunchboxes. So we formed The Lunchbox Club:). When we entered newsroom, The Lunchbox Club was officially disbanded due to our busy schedule. Four years later, two have resigned and one lives in a rented room near the office so she no longer brings lunchbox. And I still bring my lunchbox with me:).

A few weeks ago, I told M that I'd like to see some colors in my lunch menu. Here are some of her creations:). 

Yellow rice (made with turmeric)

Purple rice (made from purple sweet potato)

 Someday, I want to make my own lunchbox, and make them looking like these. So cute!

  Found in NY Times.

This Is Not A Love Story, But A Story About Love

Going Around Jakarta During May Day

Tips for tourists planning to visit Jakarta: Don't come on May Day. Come the day after.

As I said earlier, I took my friend Nhung and her friends around the city. We left her hotel at 10.15 a.m.  At first, they wanted to take a taxi, but I told them that during May Day, it would be best to stick to TransJakarta busway. And I was right. We were trapped amidst the May Day demonstrations before finally reached the Old Town at midday. The girls were very excited to see the May Day activities, though. They took pictures of the protesters and even waving their fists to support the labors.

Part of the 2011 May Day rally

"We don't have labor demonstration on May Day. There will be some demonstrations during our National Day, but it's not this big," Nhung said.

Perhaps the labor condition in the ex-communist country is better than here. Last week, I met a labor working for a factory producing German sport apparels. The apparels she makes can cost hundreds of thousands rupiah, but she can barely make ends meet. Together with her husband, she rents a three-by-three meter room, where they sleep and cook.

  The photo that didn't make it into the newspaper, because it's so blurry. But I like it for it kinda portrays the labors' blurry condition:) If you like to read the article, click here.

Anyway, back to our 'tour', I showed them the Sunda Kelapa harbor and Menara Syahbandar (the Lookout Tower). But they didn't want to either see the Maritime Museum or peek into the VOC ship dockyard (which is now a restaurant), so we returned to the Old Town, where we saw a huge crowd filling the Fatahillah square.

Sunda Kelapa harbor

Menara Syahbandar

Couples, friends and  groups of teenagers were strolling around. There were ondel-ondel effigies, fire blowers and traditional musical performance. It was a really nice Sunday. It didn't feel like a May Day.

Museum Fatahillah

I took them to Cafe Batavia, which is just across Museum Fatahillah. They also loved it. I soon saw them snapping pictures of the interior, the flower decoration and the food. Cafe Batavia patrons are mostly the blond hair-blue eyes type, and we, as the Asian girls, felt a bit out-of-place.

Inside Cafe Batavia

Nhung wanted to see the local market, but since there isn't any nearby, I took them back to the central area. It was 2 p.m., the demonstration was still on the move. At first, I wanted to take them into Istiqlal Mosque, but after seeing the demonstrations, I decided to take them to Sarinah instead. And again, they were happy to peruse and shop the items there.

After shopping, fatigue kicked in. So we grabbed a cup of coffee in a nearby Starbucks. They insisted to go to this coffee-chain. 

"We don't have any Starbucks cafes in Vietnam, so we want to drink in their cafes everytime we find them abroad," one of them said.

The Starbucks brand ambassadors

Then we walked to Grand Indonesia. They also liked it (Oh wow, either they are happy-go-lucky people or I'm such a wonderful tourist guide?). They said the weather was nice for walking (It was 5.30 p.m., the sun was setting. If we did it at noon, they would melt due to the scorching sun).

We spent around one hour there. More shopping and window shopping. Then we had a taxi ride back to the hotel, because the girls were very tired. We had dinner in a roadside eatery near their hotel, it was Ayam Bakar Ganthari. They ordered grilled chickens and rib soups, while I tried grilled duck. Yum!

Now, I'm thinking to make a complete guide to Jakarta. But I'll need several weekends to work on it. Wish me luck!

Funny Flowchart On Royal Wedding

Happy Monday, sweeties! How was your weekend? I took my Vietnam friend Nhung and her friends to the Old Town and other tourist sites. It's nice to walk around and show off my city to my friends. More photos to come:).

Anyway, I'm just curious if you watched the royal wedding last Friday? I had to interview labors for the May Day article, so I was on the field all day. But if I was at the office, I would be forced to see it, since almost every TV channels aired the wedding.

I found this funny flowchart as I went blogwalking the other day. How far do you go through the flowchart? I stop on the first question, hahaha.

Found here