My Grey World

I know it’s odd to start with the last photos, but I just want to do so.

The reason why is that these photos were taken by my phone (Nokia N70) instead of my camera (Sony T70). Pardon the quality. Ahem. Anyway. I’m a big freak of categorizing I even had to separate photos taken by different devices. Heh. Don’t look at me like that.

On the last night we spent in St Petersburg, several friends and I decided to go on a midnight boat trip through the Neva River, THE river of St Petersburg. Why midnight, you ask. Well when we were in St Petersburg back then it was the season of “White Nights”. Sunsets are late, sunrises are early, and darkness is never complete (White Nights on Wikipedia). Needless to say, this is a rare event, once in a year period. After cursing the nights because we were not being able to sleep for nights (it’s always still bright!), it was only fair then to appreciate the beauty of these White Nights.

By the way, if you ever go to St Petersburg and would like to go on the same boat trip, I recommend you Anglotourismo.

We started the boat trip cruising along the Neva River (after passing Fontanka River – where we boarded the boat and Moika River). A lot of the landmarks of St Petersburg can be found on the sides of Neva River. 

We passed by Spit of Vasilievsky Island. The island was meant to be the city centre of St Petersburg, but it turned out that it wasn’t feasible to do so. As of why it wasn’t feasible, I can’t really remember. Hehe. It remains a completely beautiful island with a perfect view of Hermitage (the Winter Palace), and the architecture is perfectly symmetrical.

This is Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. Also known as Kunstkamera (Chamber of Curiosities), it originally served as a place for Peter the Great’s quirky and strange private collections of fishes/reptiles/insects in bottles and other science instruments. According to the guide, nobody really wanted to visit the museum when it was first opened (in 1719), so Peter the Great had to give free vodka and sandwich to the people just so they’ll visit!

This is the building of St Petersburg Academy of Arts. Most of St Petersburg’s best artists were educated here.

And here we go to the star of the boat trip : the drawn bridges!

They have to draw the bridges at night to let boats pass through. Just before the bridge is drawn, warning lights will light up and you can see cars quickly zooming on the bridge. That makes sense because if you don’t make it in time, you can get stuck for hours on the wrong side of the river

This is the Palace Bridge, the most famous draw bridge in St Petersburg. It has been on tons of  postcards, mugs, t-shirts, and God knows what else. I guess it’s easy to see why

Another shot. I love how the street lamps all go up too

The next bridge that went up – Holy Trinity Bridge. Unlike Palace Bridge that opens/draws at the middle, Holy Trinity Bridge only opens/draws the very last arch.

Does the Holy Trinity Bridge remind you of something…?

The company who constructed the Holy Trinity Bridge was the same one that constructed Eiffel Tower.

And that’s the end of our midnight boat trip.

On the very next day (our last day ever in St Petersburg), we went to walk on the sides of Griboyedov Canal. This canal is perpendicular to Nevsky Prospekt, THE road of St Petersburg. It also flows to the side of Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. In case you need a reminder of how that beautiful church looks like…

So let’s see the church as it’s seen from the canal!

We also went to see this bridge called “Bank Bridge”.

There are 4 griffins decorating the bridge. At that time, the griffins were being repainted so you can see some patches.

By the way, right behind this griffin is University of Economics and Finance. Located very near to the main street of St Petersburg, I can’t help to associate it with SMU

That is all today. I’ll get other pictures up and about soon (I think…….).

Bigger photos in Facebook photo album : St Petersburg June 2009 – Midnight boat trip and Griboyedov Canal. I had to resize the photos in this blog post so that it doesn’t “overflow” from my post box.

Drafts written, saved, and never being looked at again.

Logged in, logged out.

Pages seen.

Inspiration came, inspiration gone.

A month has gone by!

What can I say? Same as you, I’m effing tired of saying I have no inspiration, and that I’ll write some other time, some other day, like years from now?

I’m effing tired of not admitting that microblogging has seriously taken over my blogging.

I’m effing tired of keeping this blog.

Maybe before you know it this blog will be gone.

I can’t help to share this. Usually this is not my style to just post a video or a link on a go. But I just really want to post this up.

Check this out: Bobby McFerrin (ahem, I bet you know “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, right?) “hacks” your brain.

He gives 2 or 3 starting notes, and then voila! Like magic, the audience sang together with him. Confused? Not clear? Just check out the video

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Perhaps somewhere deep inside, we’re really all musicians. After all it’s one of the oldest form of entertainment isn’t it?

Thank you BoingBoing for the link. (and thank you, StumbleUpon! :P)

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

For some reason, this song keeps ringing in my head. It came upon midnight clear onto my head, and as a result I put it on my MSN personal message. Everytime I open that MSN main window I see the lyrics, and it’s ringing in my head again. Repeat the cycle.

This is weird, because all my life I have always been living in a city with all the modern conveniences. Oh well, perhaps that’s why. I long for laid back, friendly, happy life on a country side. I need to go to Bangka, my dad’s hometown, soon.

By the way, do you know that “Home on the Range” is the state song of Kansas, USA? Here is the list of the state songs of USA.

Here’s the (static) video of the song.

When I close my eyes, I’m there
When I fly away, I’m there
I wish I were there, my Jakarta..

Then I close my eyes and pray
That soon I’ll find my way
to place that I call home, my Jakarta..

(A snippet of lyrics of my yet-to-be-finished song)

So. Last year brainwashed people attacked Mumbai far away in India and I was upset about it.

So imagine how I felt when I came to know that my own hometown, the town that cherished and brought me up, was bombed. Again.

To say that I’m upset is a terrible understatement.

 Fine. I know that bombings are really a “usual” thing in Indonesia. Like how worse can it get? I was in Jakarta when the first bombing of Marriott occurred (yes it wasn’t the first one). Also when there were several Christmas Eve bombings. Also when the Australia Embassy was bombed. Been there done that buddy.

I think it’s particularly bad because this happened after years of peace and great economy growth for Indonesia. And of course it’s bad because it happened just right after elections. Some people say it’s a rage from those defeated president hopefuls but hey.. Don’t point your fingers just yet.

So screw you, whoever planted that bomb and thought it was a great thing that you’re destined to do (I’ve received reports that they were suicide bombers but I can’t confirm just yet – please read the news). Because you know what? Indonesia unites and we will seriously screw you.

I am angered and full of hate, but I remember that hate was the thing that started it all in the first place. So come, let’s not scoop down to their level. Resist and they’ll be gone. Hopefully forever.

Stay away from my Jakarta, my Indonesia, because it rocks and it can be better again. We’ve come out stronger and stronger after a series of unfortunate events and there’s no reason that we can’t come out stronger again.

Oh and to you Jakarta citizens who only lamented that Manchester United cancelled their plan for a friendly match in Jakarta because of the bombings, screw you too. People died and some are badly injured and you only care for that? Just how egoistic can you be? Look I know it was a hard hard effort to even get the tickets but hello! People died! Can you imagine if that happened to your family? A person’s life wasted makes all your reasons for lamenting of cancelled MU match void.

So anyway.

Come on Jakarta. We can fight them together.

In case you’re so ignorant, my dear fellow Indonesian readers, Indonesian presidential election is being held right now as I speak (type).

I should have written this piece long ago, I know. But what do you expect of me? Thank you 20 visitors who came yesterday

As I’m now over 17 (and subsequently have left the teen years. Nooooooo ), I’m eligible to vote and I WILL vote.

The golput (golongan putih – white party, the people who did not vote despite being eligible) was a shocking 29.1 percent of the eligible voters list. I do not know why. Perhaps some couldn’t do it because they live in a remote area where travel to the nearest ballot box is hard. Perhaps they have some disabilities hindering them from voting. Physical and mental alike. These are perhaps-es. But I do know some people chose not to vote.

Because (they said) one vote will not make a change. Because one vote doesn’t matter. I tell you what, my friend. Maybe it doesn’t. But 29.1 percent of 171,265,442 (that’s the total number of eligible voters) means 49,677,776 so a big HELLO! It matters! (statistics from kompas, btw)

So I don’t understand, my friend. And yes this is especially directed to you guys who call yourself my friends. If you are my friends at this stage, most of you should at least be in a university. So I have a right to call you educated. You’re educated, so I don’t understand why you will let the so-called uneducated people whose votes are dependent on how much money the campaigners give them decide your country’s president.

I know one thing for sure. I don’t want to be a part of approximately 40 million people (after substracting people who might have valid reasons – in my own opinion) who are ignorant and do not want to be a part of making a better country to live in.

Perhaps it’s not time for CHANGE yet. However I believe in hope of a BETTER place.

I’m getting off my chair now to go to the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore to register my vote.

While some of you can rot.

I wanted to upgrade my WordPress and preferably my theme (I need change!) before I start posting about Russia stuff again. I promise I won’t take a year, really.

But then I found out that tadah! This brilliant girl forgot the password to her FTP and database (phpMyAdmin) altogether.

So I’m gonna get hold of my other computer (which has saved password of the FTP, at least) and pray that skipping the database backup will be alright. Nothing has happened before, so I’m hoping that nothing won’t.

So let me observe a pause on my blog, while I search for a new theme (and upgrading the WordPress).

Hello guys. Sorry for not updating for so long. I’m safe and secure, back in tropical, very convenient island of Singapore. Seriously, you can’t appreciate Singapore this much until you’ve gone to Russia.

St Petersburg was…. not like anything I’ve experienced. I missed Singapore (and Jakarta) so badly but at the same time was charmed by the city.

I will tell you more in the next posts, but right now I want to finish my last year’s duty : to talk about last year’s Europe trip.

You know I think I’ve found a reason why I’m too lazy to blog about last year’s trip. Because in every photo album I published in Facebook, I always included captions to explain the photos. Blogging about the photos was a redundant process, as a result.

So here I’m gonna give you all the links to my photo albums on Facebook. They’re open for everyone, so you should be able to see them even though you’re not my friend on Facebook. Sorry, no random friend requests will be accepted on my Facebook though

Enjoy, and please sit back for a while before my Russia write up.

Last stuff from Poland

Ship at Gdynia

Poland 24th and 25th of May

Went around Sopot once again and visited Gdynia, a beautiful seaside city

View from my hotel room in paris

Last day in Poland, one night in Paris

A very short album, just a “bridge” to the next days’ photos.

Rome , Italy

Me in Vatican city - amazing ceiling

Rome day 1 part 1 – Vatican City

Met my friend Maegan who was on exchange in Rome. She took me to Vatican City on day 1.

Castel d'Sant Angelo (yes, the one in the Angels and Demons movie)

Rome day 1 part 2 – Vatican City, Castel d’Sant Angelo, awesome dinner.

Still containing photos from Vatican City trip, some of Castel d’Sant Angelo and other buildings around Rome, then I had an awesome dinner with Maegan in a fantastic (cheap!) place called Carlo Menta in Trastevere.

Btw, this is how (authentic) Italian pizza looks like…

Me with Colosseum

Rome day 1 part 3 – Colosseum

Do I really need to explain?

Me at Trevi Fountain, Rome

Rome day 2 part 1 – I Love Fountains

What’s Rome without fountains? Visited the ever so popular Trevi fountain and numerous other fountains. Spanish Steps and Pantheon are inside.

Il Vittoriano

Rome day 2 part 2 – Rome here Rome there

Saw the remaining must-see landmarks in Rome. Cathedral of Rome, Foro Romano (Roman Forum), Il Vittoriano, Aventine Hill.

Rotterdam/Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Me, just arrived at Amsterdam

Rotterdam/Amsterdam

Quirky architectures at Rotterdam. And of course ever so notorious Amsterdam. Amsterdam is actually quite pretty and serene! But then I didn’t come at night, so….

Paris, France

Me in front of Notre Dame church

Paris part 1 – excluding Eiffel Tower

Truth be told, I didn’t really like Paris. To me it’s dodgy, old, and uninteresting (especially area outside the touristy stuff). I much much prefer Rome. But then I visited Louvre and Eiffel Tower – and I’m glad about that! No photos from Louvre, no Mona Lisa photo, because I didn’t bring camera that one fine morning! Krishna asked me to go to a flea market so I didn’t bring my camera. And unexpectedly he brought me to Louvre. Oh wells

Info for anyone planning to go Paris : the first Sunday of every month is always free entry to Louvre! (Yes I got the free entry! )

Lights on Eiffel Tower!

Paris part 2 – Eiffel Tower

How can you ever visit Paris without visiting Eiffel Tower right??

I have a story about the trip to Eiffel Tower. Krishna and I thought that it’s not really far from this area called Chatelet (we were watching a musical in French with Spanish subtitles – needless to say we didn’t understand anything. Visualization was superb though). So we walked along the Seine river. Turned out that… Eiffel Tower is ENORMOUS, so even if it looks near from Chatelet, it’s not. I think we walked for almost half an hour hahahahha.

Then we reached, and we found out that the ticket to the top was out! So we had to be contented with just a visit to the 2nd highest point (2nd floor).

However at 2nd floor we noticed a queue at a box-like room. Turned out it was the ticket machine to buy a ticket to the top! There was a guy inside who tried to buy tickets, but his credit card got rejected. Some others tried too, but rejected as well. Krishna and I finally got to use it, and Krishna’s card got rejected as well. Just for the sake of trying, I pulled out my card and tried to buy 2 tickets to the top. And guess what! It got accepted!

So Krishna and I finally got to the top in the end…

And that’s the end of my Europe trip stories (photos)! Haha. Watch out for Russia trip stories. I promise it won’t take a year. Really.

If you’re my friend on Facebook, jump the queue and take a look at my photos. I’ve posted them all up

A teaser….

St Isaac's Cathedral, St Petersburg