SUNDAY VIENNA

Well hello mates! Hope you had a nice St. Valentine's day. I don't have my boyfriend here with me so I did not have the chance to express my huge love to him but I was blessed to see couples celebrating their valentines. You would think that I felt jealous but the truth, I really did not. Whenever I see couples expressing their love to their partner, they make me smile and I felt the love!:) Today, Love was in the air! So, today, after church I went to my second favorite cafe called Pick Wick's. Pick Wick's is an international cafe and what interesting is this place is not only a cafe but a book and video store too. While you're having you're coffee, you can just get one of the books from the shelves and enjoy your reading session. The books are divided into different categories and there are a lot of various books you can read there. The same with videos too. You could rent any english dvds from this cafe. I love the way they styled the cafe. The old fashioned wood interiors, the shallow pink colored walls, the leathered sofa, the smell of the old books, oh its sooo geil! (geil=cool).

There are a lot of choices of types of drinks that you would love to try. What is so good about the place is the fact that it gives you the most comfortable feeling you would ever need. Oh plus, the music that this cafe has are the oldies, chill out songs, indie songs, the kind of songs that would accompany your coffee session perfectly.

This cafe is placed in the station called Schwedenplatz, one station after and before the city centre. This street is really a perfect street for taking a walk in the day too because it makes you feel calm. I took a walk today at Schwedenplatz and I love the breeze of the wind and the trees and the birds...everything just aced my valentine's day today!

Hope you did express the love you have to the ones you love today.

Happy Valentine's day peepz.

Hugs,

G.

NO 2. VIENNA MAKES YOU FEEL OH SO GOOD.

Hello there mates! I hope you guys had a blast today because I did. I was working for a long time but my Uni friends came over to my workplace and cheered me up so its all good for me. Oh so anyway (put that aside) last Sunday, Bunch of my Indonesian friends and I walked around the city. Of course twas extremely cold (something like -14?) yet it was an awesome walk I must say!:) So yea, look at the horses! I don't really know what its called in English but in Indonesian its Delman (If I'm not mistaken). It's very vintage and mostly tourists ride them to look around the city. We went to Rathaus which is the city hall and for your information, during winter time the city hall becomes an ice skating place. Alot of people were ice skating and I wanted to do it but the weather did not support my will. There there, the Strassenbahn, which is the tram. There are old and new trams and the pic above is one of the old trams. I love the old tram because it's just unique and warmer.

This is one of the must see place in Vienna and it is called the Hofburg palace. This palace has housed some of the most powerful people in Austrian history, including the Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A lot of famous architects worked on building this palace such as; Italian architect-engineer Filiberto Luchese (the Leopoldischiner Trakt), Lodovico Burnacini and Martino and Domenico Carlone, the Baroque architects Lukas von Hildebrandt and Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach (the Reichschancelry Wing and the Winter Riding School), Johann Fischer von Erlach (the library). This palace was built from the 13th to the 20th century so this is the most famous historical place in Vienna that you have to visit. Beautiful statues of famous people back then are also built within the palace and the furnitures are stil the old era style furnitures and look at the style of the lamp, doesn't it make you feel like you are in the 13th century? gorgeous eh?

This here my friends, is my number one..no wait, NUMBER ONE favorite cafe in Vienna and it is called MOCCA LOUNGE. Ah, the wooden chairs, square tables, the cozy lamp, wooden floor, chill out songs, the ethnic colored sofa pillows...excellent. This is an ethnic style cafe, mixture of Asian and African taste. They do not serve you food or cakes, but they serve you good teas, coffees and of course, alcohol. Once you're in this place, you will definitely, like I am SO SURE that you would never want to leave this place. This cafe is very addictive and I truly am impressed by this cafe. Look at the interior design of this cafe, the colors truly match the place and the small antique lams hanging on the walls give you this warm and cuddled up kind of feeling. Perfect place for relaxation.

Ok thats it for today mates and I hope this can make you want to visit the V-town. You dig?:)

Hugs,

G.

SALIHARA, THE HUMBLE GIANT

words A.D.V. CANISTER

pictures Cerveceria

Jakarta. That word been in my mouth for more than a decade, all around rude city with a “kampong” attitude. Sure its been compared to KL , and sure we lost. Transportation system is badly done. Projects that seems to be hope for us, most likely corrupted and then gone with time.

What’s left?

Just a fistful bunch of people, creative ones. Who cares about designing functions, proportions, and identity of buildings in Jakarta.

Behind all that satire perspective, little that i know, there is this one community that gather some money to built a decent performing art centre, Salihara No.16. Where it stands between a small urban street and a typical packed Jakarta’s neighborhood. It is heavy-looking, massive, and tall. Yet, somehow it is humble, blends with the people and the block plan itself. We went there with a good friend of ours, and found excitements.

In come the giant.

Imagine you live in a huge enough room for a giant to live in, that is the block plan or the city. Let say, your size is about the size of a giant’s toe. How can the small humans get to know the nice giant?

In this case, giving a humane proportions on its toe. For example he can make a bench on his toe level, create a small stairs that slowly points toward his knee, elevator to a secret garden on his hips, make a roof all around his ankle, create a roof garden on his shoulder, etc. All visible for the small human eye. The giant is trying to pull a trick, just to make you feel anything but dominated and uncomfortable. This is what i found in Salihara No.16. Excitements.

Massive heavy concretes, hanged high in the typical urban housing of Jakarta. It can be very dominating for the people. In this case, it hasn’t been, it connects us through its welcoming scales and proportions on the facilities. The giant don’t want to crush us, he wants to welcome us to have a journey all around his body, and show off what he is really capable of. Because as quoted from the modern architect, Mies Van Der Rohe, - “God is in the details”.

No more shocking feeling of seeing huge building between small houses, if you could do it the nice way. People should really learn this because basically the sites available in Jakarta nowadays are mostly between houses. Sad. But that’s reality for you.

Architecture and fairy tale, whadyaknow. It works.

JAKARTA, AT ITS FINEST HOUR

I'm going to explain to you guys how to experience jakarta in it's most enjoyable hours. yes, you will need a car, because Jakarta is one big city and you can't really walk anywhere you want, there's no proper sidewalk and the public transport is bad. Well, maybe there are a few, but you can only find those in the main streets of Jakarta. So yeah, back to my personal 'how to' guide, here you go:

First,

choose the perfect companion that you feel comfortable with. it can be anyone, from your family members, boy/girlfriend or friends.

Second,

dress comfortably. i recommend a big loose tee, shorts and flip flops (applicable for boys and girls).

Third,

prepare a great playlist to listen to. songs that both you and your companion like. when you look at your watch and it hits 11 PM, it's time to get in your car and go.

Fourth,

after filling up the gas tank of your car, get to the nearest convenient store and grab your self a four-pack and some snacks. remember, if you're driving don't drink and drive, you can get a few sip from your friend.

Fifth,

drive around Jakarta with no particular destination, listen to some music while you're at it. get lost and see the city with no traffic, pretty lights, less coppers and great weather. for alternative route, you can always get in to the toll highway.

Ok, those steps, did those with my boyfriend. We had a nightdrive and ended up at Kota Tua (old city) and got to see all the beautiful buildings. But as my fellow Jakartans would probably already know, we don't really take a good care of what we have. There were bums sleeping on the steep of the building. Trash cans don't fulfill it's destiny, because there's garbage everywhere. The Ciliwung river is really dirty and smells. Buildings, spray-painted with not art but stupid writings. It's sad. But i'd still like to say that it was a really good nightdrive. We shared our thoughts about everything from our everyday' what-not to the city itself. You guys should try it for your self. :)

JAKARTA, A LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP

Ok, i've been going through every corner of my brain and turning it upside down inside out, to come up with at least an interesting way of describing Jakarta. To be honest, i always ended up with realizing that Jakarta isn't really that interesting of a city (wait don't leave just yet, i promise i'll have a point by the end of this post). But that's what you get from trying to describe something by not really experiencing it, you will get what your mind wants you to think. I've been turning my head every ways possible from my bedroom and google. I took the wrong approach.

I asked my boyfriend to take me around the city, so that i can take some picture of Jakarta and if i can't write anything about it, i can just post pictures. Amazingly on that brief and impromptu trip, i found some interesting things to write about Jakarta. We (my boyfriend and I) even ended up sharing our thoughts on how the city shaped us to who we are now.

HATE

- Traffics

- Bad public transportation

- Floods on rainy season

- Beggars

- A small number of park

- No sidewalk

LOVE

+ The toll highway

+ City lights

+ Various language, customs and foods

+ The old buildings

+ The new buildings

+ 24hour convenient store

+ I can find almost everything here

+ Nightdrives

+ Occasionally good weather,

that makes us appreciate a good weather even more

Those pointers was just a little bit of what you're going to get out of this blog and this city. You will see more of my love hate relationship with this city in my upcoming post. This is how i see my city and i'm not gonna lie about it.

Hope you like it :)