Old city area in Jakarta - Fatahillah Museum

In our company some of people who love photography create a club. We invite some professional photographers to teach and share their knowledge, also we go together to some places to practice and share skills or even we volunteer to cover company's events/activities. I joined them to the old city area in Jakarta on Saturday morning. At 07:00 o'clock in the morning we went directly to "Museum Fatahillah"; An impressive, classical-style building, surrounded by several other museums also in classical style, the former City Hall is now a culturally protected historical treasure. The records show that it took three years to build; construction began on 25 January 1707 under Governor General Jan Van Hoorn and was completed on 10 July 1710 by Governor General Abraham Van Riebeeck.




I'm still amateur, I don't know how to use manual mode in camera. I use a pocket camera, Canon Powershot S50. At that time, I didn't dare to play with manual mode, just playing with angle and objects using auto mode. The sky was clean and blue, there was no cloud at all, so it's a good time to take pictures. Although the museum was closed, there were quite some people on the yard. We'd just known that there would be a parade to celebrate Jakarta's birthday.


Some "ondel-ondel", Jakarta's trademark were also prepared for making the parade merrier. Ondel-ondel is a big doll with ± 2,5 meter high and ± 80 centimeters diameter, made of bamboo which is enable people to carry from inside the doll. It's wearing very colorful clothes. Formerly it's only used to refuse danger or ghost, but now it's common for launching new office, welcoming guest or celebrating a traditional party.


One of our colleagues became a photo model, she had to take some poses under sunbeam, it's quite exhausting, hot and also wasted some energy. Thanks to her that she didn't complain and she enjoyed it. One of my friend bought her an ice cream to cool down, but you know what happened; he selected the colorful ice cream, so she should pose too during eating the ice to get a wonderful picture, poor her :-)

After taking pictures from different angle of the building, we continued walking to explore the old city area along the river. Quite surprising that the river was clean enough, although it's rather smelly. At least when we took pictures, people won't smell it through the picture ^_^


We were surprised that we met other photographers group. It seemed that most of them are very professional, they brought a large screen to manage the sun light, also some professional models with many costumes. A couple riding a bike in front of the building described a western man costume with a chinese woman costume. The other group had a beautiful woman with a cute boy around 4 years old. Also two girls which took each other pictures and took turns as the model for the other.

Although some buildings were not used anymore, but the scenery is still quite good to explore by whomever wanted to feel the history. A good cafe, called Batavia still operated in front of Fatahillah Museum. The ambience of the cafe is quite nice, if you go to the restroom, it's quite surprising. All the waiters are wearing traditional costume, so if you want to feel old Indonesian environment, you should visit this cafe.