Splendid Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg

Visited one of the oldest and largest museums in the world, e.g. Hermitage Museum made me excited. Founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great as the winter palace, became the official residence of the Russian monarchs. Now it's as art and culture museum contained over 2.7 million collection items in Saint Petersburg, Russia, unfortunately some of the building was under renovation during my visit. It's very windy, so we wore our coat, the bus stopped at the edge of the big square in front of the museum, let us walk and take picture at the square with the background buildings surrounding it including the huge museum.

The guide distributed the entrance ticket, we had to wait for the completeness of the group member, as the museum is so huge, the tour leader was afraid of losing the member as the time was very tight, only 3 hours for exploring it. The museum build with Baroque architecture style with green-and-white three-storey building. Entering the aisle we welcome by some souvenir stores, we had to take off our coat and leave it in the deposit counter. Some tour members were attempted to shop, but our guide prohibited and suggested to do it after exploring the museum. The elegantly aisle with the white arches and pillars were very beautiful decorated with yellow light. Some huge marble statues were decorated at the side of the aisle, we're not allowed to touch them.

Guidance by the local guide, we explored the ground floor which was designed by German architect Leo von Klenze using painted polished stucco, while the columns made of natural marble and granite. The first room we visited was the Egyptian hall in the eastern part of the Winter Palace, contained of classical modest antiquities collection. The most interesting one was the mummy including its coffin which was formed as a human and carved beautifully to save the dead body. Inside the coffin was carved Anubis, an incredibly ancient God, as the original God of the dead.

After going through red aisle, full of carved stone as the wall decoration on the left and right side, we arrived in a hall made of marble from floor, wall, up to the ceiling. No plain surface, all of them were carved and painted elegantly with soft colour, although no air conditioner it's cold because of the natural marble. We entered The Cabinet of Sculpture room which were full of white sculpture with Roman mosaic floor from the late 3rd century A.D. We passed through a small hall with an immense "Tsarina of Vases", weighing 19.2 tonnes, made of grey marble. It is a symbol of the extremely high professionalism of the stone-cutters of the Altai to work on the single five-metre block of Revnev jasper.

Continue to The Hall of Graeco-Etruscan Vases, a room with two rows of pillars made of gray granites. Some ancient vases kept in this hall provide a picture of the different centres of ceramic production in Greece and Italy. The wall and the ceiling were covered with painting inspired by the decoration of ancient pottery. Acanthus ornament and a meander pattern were embellished museum's mosaic floor. I didn't hear the local guide explanation, but busy to take some photos.

From ground floor we went up to the first floor via stairs on the red carpet, no escalator or lift here :-) Some senior people had difficulty to go up, they had to walk slowly climbing the stairs. A huge green Malachite Medici-shape vase enhanced by the gilded bronze elements - massive handles in the form of snake tails and hoops was put right beside of the end of the stairs. The Russian craftsmen who worked with malachite produced their pieces using "Russian mosaic" technique. They cut the malachite into thin slices and stuck them onto a base following the natural grain of the mineral so as to create the impression of a single piece of stone.

We also visited a room displaying Armour Set for Horse and Rider. Some armour clothes style including the helmet from 15th-17th centuries were displayed inside a glass cupboard. You could imagine how heavy the clothes, and how strong the army's physic during the ancient war, unfortunately we could not touch it unless it would ruin because of the age. We also explored porcelain collection, some of them were kept in a pyramid glasses with made of glass with golden frame.

Entered the central room of the New Hermitage called Italian School room, which was full of paintings and malachite creation. The room was guided by some persons to remind and warn the visitors not to touch the painting or sat on the furniture. The immense size, the striking ceiling decoration, the combination of rich red walls and the gleam of gilded frames and furniture, magnificent vases and lighting devices made of coloured stone together create an impression of truly palatial luxury. The display covers a period from the twilight of the great age of the Renaissance to the time when Rome became the school for the entire artistic world. Presented here are large-format works by artists of the Venetian, Roman, Bolognese and Florentine schools from the 16th and 17th centuries.

The most area I like was The Raphael Loggias as a copy of the famous Gallery created in the 16th century in the Vatican Palace by the architect Donato Bramante. Its walls and vaults were painted by Raphael's pupils with Bible stories. The decoration of the gallery embodies a typical Renaissance tendency to reveal connection between Classical Antiquity and Christianity. It's very colorful and beautiful pictures surrounding with golden frame. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to see the painting one by one, also a guide was definitely needed to tell the story. Anyway the full painting on the wall and arches created a beautiful picture on the photo.

Last room visited was the Pavilion Hall, to admire James Cox’s Peacock Clock. The Golden Peacock Clock was a present from Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin to Catherine the Great. It is the only large 18th-century automaton in the world to still be functioning in its original unaltered condition. The room was full of visitors from various group tours who would like to see the peacock closer around the big glass cupboard, it's really hard to get a full picture of the peacock, as the glass was full of golden frame.

The luxurious main staircase of the Winter Palace, known as the Ambassadors' Staircase or Jordan Staircase (a celebration of Christ's baptism in the Jordan River), was led us to end of the journey. Two broad flights of marble steps lead up to a landing embellished with grey granite columns. The 18th-century ceiling painting by Gasparo Diziani depicting Mount Olympus visually enlarges the interior that is transfused with light, gleaming gold and mirrors. The staircase (retaining the original 18th-century style) was adorned with statues, some of which were brought from Italy in Peter the Great's reign. It's very magnificent, imagine you could see the guest who would go for dancing ballroom through this staircase. It's really like the palace that we could imagine the grandeur and the beauty.

One could spend days in the labyrinthine rooms and anterooms and never see all the art on display, we had to rush, some rooms were skipped, anyway we had seen many great exhibits. The palace building was awesome, the collection was plentiful and the history was fascinating. It's a must visit when you travel to St. Petersburg. If you don't join a group tour, it would be better to rent an audio tour, so you'll understand what you see and enjoy the exhibits.

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Sunset at the Peak, the Highest Place in Hongkong

One of the must visit tourism place in Hongkong is the Peak located at Victoria Gap. I had been there a few years ago, now I accompanied my mom. It's a pity I've just realized after queuing at the tram terminal that I forgot to bring the ticket that we've bought, so I had to go back to the apartment. We left the queue, I asked my mom to wait in front of the office building, there was no chairs, until she had to sit on the stone. She experienced the pain as she's just felt down from the escalator, it seemed that her bone was fractured, so she had to eat the painkiller pill to release her pain to continue the trip.

The way to apartment was climbing the hill, it's very tiring, so I could not walk fast, even I had to walk reverse as I finished my energy. After taking the e-ticket I almost run back to my mom, at that time the queue was much longer, so we had to stand longer. I used regular Octopus card to ride the peak-tram, while my mom used the senior Octopus card. The price different was quite significant. It's almost an hour to reach our turn to go to the peak, we didn't buy the ticket to the observatory deck. It's the world's oldest and most famous funicular railways, the tram rises to 396 metres (about 1,300 feet) above sea level, so steep that the buildings we passed look like they were leaning a gradient of between 4 to 27 degrees!

Lucky it's still not sunset when we arrived at the top. Mom and I had a chance to take pictures under the observatory deck. The Peak Tower, with its iconic wok-like top, offers a dazzling array of shops and sure to make for many happy hours of great dining with a view experience, leisurely shopping and souvenir hunting. There was a square among the buildings with fountain, some backdrops displayed miniatures of old Hongkong were also good objects. We entered the other shopping mall building across the tram station, we found that we could see Hongkong from top of its mall free of charge. We enjoyed the sunset from there.

My sister's friend informed that the Vietnamnesse restaurant, Pho Yummee, was delicious, so my mom and I decided to taste it for dinner. It's a casual yet contemporary Vietnamese restaurant that offers a quick respite. No other guest at that time, we ordered the warm and delicious pho noodles and the yummy Vietnam crepes. It had an exceptional warm with very friendly waiters, relaxed and convivial atmosphere, with comfy mustard-colored sofas and white-washed seats complemented with round top dining.

Madame Tussauds was our next destination, a unique celebrity-inspired attraction that connects guests with famous people, famous events and famous times. Featuring six themed areas, provided guests with the opportunity to meet their idols and did the things that famous people do! Mom was really admired the natural beauty of the legendary British actress Audrey Hepburn. She also took a picture with her favourite rock & roll musician, Elvis Presley.

The attraction features over 100 local and international celebrity wax figures with exciting audiovisual effects and interactive experiences to create truly magical moments for all guests. Although we're tired, we were so excited to take pictures with the wax statue from Hongkong celebrities, royal family, musician, athletes, and fantasy kingdom.

The last destination was the peak market, the perfect place to buy something special for friends or relatives. The market features a modern reinterpretation of traditional Hong Kong venues, such as Temple Street and the Ladies Market with vendors selling Chinese artwork, silk collectibles and curios. For sheer variety of products and brands in all price ranges, The Peak Tower offers a unique shopping experience. From street markets style to traditional Chinese product stores, you can find everything from watches and jewelry, electronic gadgets to best-value antiques and collectibles.

We had to join a very long queue to go down by tram, it took almost 2 hours, standing on a really really long queue as all people also would like to go home at that time. The weather was quite cold and it's windy. Reaching the end of the station after riding the tram, we didn't have any energy to walk back to the apartment, lucky that we could get a taxi to go back. It's very tiring, but the peak was worthy to visit with its environment, food, scenery and shopping venues.

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Ciwidey Heaven - Kawah Putih

My mom, my sisters and myself were staying in Hyatt Bandung for 3 days. Kawah Putih (White Crater) at South of Bandung was our main destination as I saw my friend’s pictures were very beautiful. My sister was brave enough to drive there, it took around 3 hours from Bandung as we had a bad traffic jam at the busy road through the town of Soreang. We left Bandung too late, around 07:00 in the morning, so the road was already crowded with people who went to work or school. The road was winding and inclining, we had to be careful. The signage to Kawah Putih gate was quite obvious, visitors won’t miss it.

Arriving at Kawah Putih gate, actually we could leave the car at the main carpark then taking the public transportation cost IDR 28.000/person including the entrance fee and vice versa transportation. Anyway we preferred to drive our car up to the top, we had to pay entrance fee @IDR15.000,-/person and IDR 150.000,- for the car. It took another 5 km more driving to reach the parking area near to the crater. The road was narrower, winding & steeper, your car must be in good condition to climb this mountain road. Some areas of the road were broken, we had to be slowly if there was another car from the other direction as we drove on the cliff with beautiful view of the village down there.

Reaching the top of Mt. Patuha, our natural obligation has called, we rushed to go to the toilet, cost IDR 2.000,-/person. The water was cold and fresh, it’s natural water from the mountain. So many sellers near the stairs to the crater. We didn’t buy it as we thought that could use our pashmina or scarf to protect our nose if needed later. The infrastructure is good enough, visitor could go down easier using the stairs which was not too far from the crater. The weather is nice, it’s mild as it’s 2430 meters above the sea level, the scenery was stunning with its bluish water of the lake. As it’s highly acid lake with 0.5-1.3 ph, it made the sand and rocks surrounding leached into whitish colours. The volcano is relatively stable, the last explosion was around 1600.

As the left side was very crowded, we decided to take the right side from the stairs. We had to walk through narrow footpath such as a bridge to the other side. There were many branches of trees without leaves. It made the scenery more beautiful, the bluish lake as background of the black branches. We passed by a cave, there was a note saying "don't stand too long in front of this cave". Maybe it's still contained high Some sellers offered the mineral powder from the crater, they said it's good for skin. I kept taking pictures, we also asked other visitor to help taking our picture together.

The north of the crater was a limestone cliff, while the other side was a forest with some trees such as pines, eucalyptus, etc, not too many animal live there. The land counter was sloping and hilly, the weather was around 8-22 degrees Celcius. The water colour could be changed to green, brown or white as the impact of lime and sulfur soil blend, depending on temperature and weather

Some amateur photographers kept following us to offer their service. It cost IDR 10.000,-/picture, they used digital camera and brought a printer to print it right away. As my sister felt sorry with them, so we agreed to take 3 photos of us. The result was quite good, we loved it, especially the one which was shown us looking at the lake with the trees and lake as the background.

While waiting for the printing photos, I took some more pictures, unfortunately the sun was so shiny, no more cloud to cover the mountain and lake. I heard it's very beautiful when the cloud covering the lake, such as we live in heaven walking in the cloud. On the other lake side we could see the white smoke sulfur, it's not too smelly, so we didn't need any mask.

As the time was ticking, we started feeling hungry. No food seller around the crater, reluctantly we had to say goodbye to Kawah Putih to go down to find food. Although the journey was quite challenging, it's worthy to visit it. Many people went there to take pre-wedding photos.

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Venetian Hotel & Historical Site of Macau

On Friday we managed to get a hotel in Macau which are very crowded during weekend. It's very tight time when we departed from apartment in Hongkong to the ferry terminal for Jet Cotai, we still needed to change the voucher with the boarding ticket. It's less than half an hour before boarding time, I was very worried, lucky that we could catch the ferry right before departure after passing through immigration post in Hongkong.

Arriving at Macau, we rode the free shuttle bus to the hotel. Venetian Macao Resort & Hotel where we stayed for a night is very luxury and beautiful. It's very huge hotel with 3000 suite rooms. Lucky there's Carnivale 2014 event starting on that day in the hotel. Check in time starting at 13:00 o'clock, so we put our luggage at the concierge for easier going around before check in time. The golden statue in the main lobby is beautiful, it's connected to the beautiful golden aisle towards the world largest casino (550,000 square feet).

We went to the Venetian canal where guests could ride a serenading gondoliers, we also met and took picture with a couple who were wearing the Spanish ancient traditional clothes for dancing party. The ceiling was like a blue sky, they could control the light, to become lighter or darker. Many grandeur shops featuring world renowned brands entertained guests to shop. After taking some beautiful pictures, we went for lunch as my sisters were starving. We had to walk further to find the food court, it's very crowded, so many kind of food provided from Vietnam, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Chinese food, etc. My mom shared her lunch with me for teriyaki chicken rice, it's very delicious.

After lunch, we went back to the main lobby for check in, it's queue already. We ordered Bella Suites with 2 Queen size beds as 4 of us are adult. It took a long way to walk from the main lobby to our room, it's very spacious, 70 sqm with aristocrat style. A sunken living room area with its comfortable sofa was facing to the windows with its own TV. An elegant huge marble bathroom with bathtub and shower completed with dressing table. A big plasma TV were provided for watching from the beautiful beds. Although the rooms were very huge, the hotel only provided 2 small bottles of water. After taking a rest for a while, we decided to go to the other side of Macau.

Asking the direction from the concierge, they were kind enough to inform that there was a free shuttle bus from city of dream which was across Venetian hotel to Sintra hotel in the old Macau. Waiting for the bus for a few minutes, it took around half an hour to go across the bridge to go to the old Macau. Reaching Sintra, we walked to Senado square as Macau's urban center for centuries. Taking some pictures on the square surrounded by neo-classical buildings, we decided to carry on the journey. Strolling through Senado we passed by the beautiful St. Dominic's Church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary which dates back to the early 1600s, when it was founded by the Dominicans.

We didn't know the direction so I kept asking the people on the way by showing the Macau map pointing to the Ruins of St. Paul's picture. Lucky we could find it before dark, the façade of the old St. Paul's Church which opened in the 16th century and served as Asia's first Western college. The Ruins of St. Paul’s was officially listed in 2005 as part of the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Historic Centre of Macau. It's very crowded, after taking some pictures with the Macau iconic place, we took a rest. My mom was very tired as she got accident in Hongkong, fell down on the escalator impacted fractured to her tail bone. She could not walk or sit too long and she had to take a pain killer medicine twice a day to be able to continue the journey.

The popular snack store on the corner was attracted us, as they provided the tester, so we could buy any snack we like after tested it. The packaging was very beautiful, it seems that we would like to buy all of them, unfortunately we had a limited space in our luggage. They also sold the nice pork meat, but I preferred the other store also sold pork meat which I had tested on the way up to St. Paul. My sisters and my mom bought the popular Portuguese egg tart, they loved it. It's nice to eat while it's hot. On the way down from St Paul, most of the snack stores providing tester on the way, so I felt full tasting it, it's fun anyway.

Still had a chance to take picture of beautiful shining Senado square at night. Finding public toilet was very difficult in Senado square, finally we found walking to the left side of the square. We went back to the Sintra hotel direction, we stopped by for dinner before going back by free shuttle. Actually I would like to bring them exploring the beautiful hotels with its free entertainment of lighting and fountain, such as Grand Lisboa, Wynn, MGM, etc. Unfortunately all of us were very tired, so we could not walk too far anymore.

Reaching our hotel, it's just in time to see the 15 minutes lightening show performance on the lagoon. There's also live music and some stalls selling food and beverages, but we're too tired to enjoy it, so we went directly to our room for taking a rest. We're quite satisfied with our trip that day.

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Culinary Taste in Balikpapan

During my stay in Balikpapan, I tried some yummy snacks there. The first one was "mantau" @Depot Simpang Empat, Jl. Letjen Suprapto No. 06, Phone 62-542-743049, Balikpapan, near the popular traditional market "Kebun Sayur". I really love the crispy mantau, inside is very soft while the skin is crispy, it's rather sweet. It could be eaten with beef black pepper, as I don't like spicy food, we ordered butter fried chicken. There were 2 types of mantau, steam and fried, we preferred the fried one as we tried the steam one was not warmed first by them, so it's not nice. They cut the mantau into 4 pieces, so you don't need to worry it's too big for you. It cost IDR 4.000,-/piece, it would be better to eat while it's hot, I could finish the whole 2 fried mantau by myself :-). Beside Mantau we also ordered "Mie siram" (noodle doused with thick vegetable soup). The Chinese food restaurant was not too big and it's very simple with some table and wood benches. The chef cooked at the front near the entrance, no air conditioning, just fan, but the food was delicious, and so many guests visited the restaurant. If you would like to take away mantau for your family at home, you could order the steam one, they have a box to keep it, you could put in the fridge in 2 weeks then frying it when you would like to eat.

In the morning near our hotel there was a row of small shop, people called it "ruko-rumah toko" (usually for home on the 2nd and 3rd floor while the store on the 1st floor) which sold many kind of food. We stopped by to buy the famous yellow rice, you could select the side dish whether chicken, beef or fish. When going to the cashier, I saw some fried snacks, I selected the fried banana and megali?. I don't know the name, it's made from green bean. I never ate it before, but I like the taste, it's nicer to eat while it's still warm. My friend bought many kinds of bakpau, similar to mantau filling with chicken, pork, green bean or others.

Seafood, especially crab is one of the most popular menu in Balikpapan, you could not miss it. We had lunch at Dandito Restaurant, Jl. Iswahyudi 72, phone 62-542-764367 ordering their soft shell crab as we didn't like to have difficulty peeling the crab's skin while ordering the popular crab with sweet and sour sauce. We also ordered sauted kale, anchovy bean sprout and fuyunghai (vegie mixed with egg smothered in sweet sauce). You also could take away the sauce crab, they have prepared the special box which is safe to bring to other city by flight. Actually there are another popular restaurant for crab, called "Kepiting Kenari" restaurant, Jl. Iswahyudi 4, phone 62-542-764018 just across Dandito, unfortunately there is no soft shell crab, so we didn't go there.

After shopping some traditional accessories made of beautiful stone in Kebun Sayur, we went to small restaurants provided seafood inside the market area. We stopped by at one of them, ordered the grilled fish, unfortunately it's finished, so we had to move to the other one beside it. We could select directly for the raw fish, then they grilled for us. While waiting for the fish, the waitress automatically provided the vegetable soup and a plate of white rice. The fish was very fresh, provided with the chili if you like spicy food.

Just a few metres from Kebun Sayur, there was a stall which sold the traditional snack from East Kalimantan, called "Pisang Gapit". They grilled the bananas, pressed it within a pair of wooden bar, slice it, then giving palm sugar mixed with coconut milk including slices of fresh jack fruit. It's very yummy, but it's also made my stomach full as the portion was quite big. That's the original taste of Pisang Gapit, some seller would provide more combination for topping, such as chocolate, cheese and peanut. I still prefer the original one with many jack fruit pieces for topping.

Anyway if you like to eat in the fancy restaurant, you could go to Open House café and restaurant, at Jl. Markoni Atas 88 located at hilly, higher than Balikpapan city, so you could enjoy the sunset. It's very huge complex surrounded by tropical greenery gardening different decoration style for each building, full of antique collection items. I really like the decoration, it had multiple levels of the rooms that's connected with beautiful stairs made of mozaic ceramic. It is absolutely stunning - beautifully furnished, lots of pools for fish and swimming, also great views to the city and sea.

The higher level and different seat location had a minimum amount to be spent for food & beverage. Anyway they didn't prohibit us to take pictures from the place. Even the owner put a bathtub next to the bar table, while at the other side you could see a piano as the center of point interest. After taking some pictures, we started to select table to seat, we preferred to seat without any precondition terms. It still looked nice anyway, the table made of the cutting wood with its cambium exposed. The food presentation was very nice, the taste was also delicious. I love the yummy apple pie with ice cream as the dessert. It's worthy to visit, the ambience was so nice especially if you like photography, anyway the food price was a little bit higher than common restaurant.

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Wonderful Scenic "Subak" Rice Terraces

During our Bali visit in Jan 2014, we rented a car from Pak Iwan, 62 812 399 56562 including the driver to avoid wasting time of wrong direction. Most of the rented car in Bali has a manual gear, as the street condition is hilly. We arranged the itinerary by ourselves, this trip was to show our mom about Bali as she hadn't visited Bali at all. One of the beautiful place recommended by my elementary school's classmate was Jatiluwih.

After consultation with our driver, we agreed to go to Jatiluwih after visiting Bedugul (2 hours from Kuta), which took around another 45 minutes. Lucky that our driver knew the area, and he didn't reject us to go to this destination. The road was quite bad, it's narrow and some big holes at some places, so we could not drive fast. We felt the journey took a long time as we were starving after exploring Bedugul with its cool mountain fresh air. Anyway reaching the place, the very amazing scenic scenery of "Jatiluwih" located at Tabanan, Bali was so breathtaking. We asked the driver to stop at the edge of the street where there was a space to enjoy the scenery.

No wonder it's nominated for designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the terrace looked green and provided a very neat and beautiful contoured of rice terraces. We seldom saw the farmer and the cows, I heard the farmers already used machine instead of cows to plow the fields. The water system for irrigation developed impressively by Balinese farmers. The weather was quite mild, unfortunately it's cloudy, so we could not get a bright blue sky. Expatriates preferred to go with an open air car, while domestic people prefer a car with air conditioning :-)

As we're starving, and it's over lunch time already, we rushed to return to the car, ask the driver to go directly to the restaurant. My friend said there was a restaurant in the middle of the rice terraces that only could be reached by bike, unfortunately he forgot the restaurant name. When I searched in the internet, comparing all of the restaurants, I saw a good picture of J-Terrace restaurant, so we decided to select it.

Entering the area, we had to pay IDR 15.000/car, anyway there was no more fee for parking anywhere. Many restaurants next to each other on the side of the road where we could see the terrace view during lunch. It's very quiet, maybe the place was not as popular as other tourism places in Bali and it took a long journey to reach it. The waitress was quiet friendly, we ordered the recommended menu Balinese crispy duck served with organic red rice, we also ordered special fried rice and chicken marmite (boneless fried chicken in sweet sour sauce sprinkled with sesame). The foods were delicious, savory and tasty, the presentation was attractive too.

While waiting for the foods, we were taking some pictures from the restaurant, which was higher than the parking area and the road. The left back side of the restaurant was very beautiful, its small pond with rice terrace and mountain as the background. A small statue for Balinese praying also available at this side, the entrance of the restaurant at the end of the stairs.

After lunch, we went across the road to take more green velvet pictures with the astounding terrace, avoiding the promotion billboard and electricity cables. The largest rice terraces in Indonesia spanned in a huge area located in the middle of Bali in the plateau of Watukaru Mount which is suitable for the agriculture development. There were a young couple, not Indonesian people, took pictures for their pre-wedding photos. I tried to go down to the fields, but its embankment was muddy and slippery because of the rain, so I didn't dare to go to the middle as the slope was quite steep and nobody would be able to help me.

We love with this place, as we could relieve our fatigues from daily work with the finest imaginable view which really refreshed our mind, body and soul. The scenic drive through the quaint villages and verdant slopes of the central coastal regency of Tabanan was the unforgettable experience. Tabanan government must pay attention to repair and maintain the infrastructure to get more income from tourists, as we also saw a car was broken down in the middle of the road on the way home.

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Hemisphere Limestone Hill towards Pandawa Beach

During our trip in Bali, of course we had planned to visit their beautiful beaches. One of them was Pandawa beach near Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK), it's also called "Secret Beach". Formerly there was no good infrastructure as current, people had to walk up to the hill then going down at another side to reach the beach. Now a new road has been built through the hill, water sports especially canoeing was available, it's easier to reach.

There was Daihatsu event when we would turned to the right on the last crossroad junction to the beach. So many cars participated to the event, it's impacted to the very long convoy and we're not allowed to go through it. After waiting for around 15 minutes for the uninterrupted convoy, a policeman was kind enough to let us go through among them. Thank you for giving us the way Mr. nice policeman :-)

The cloud was so dark, it's almost raining. You would go through a beautiful hemisphere limestone hill on the way to the beach. It's very amazing with its gradation color of the stone. We had to pay IDR 15.000,- for entrance fee. Suddenly we could see the beach beneath the limestone wall. I asked our driver for stopping on the top of the beach at the end of the hemisphere. We took some beautiful pictures with camera and also smartphone for instant upload. Lucky that we had a chance to take good pictures, just right before a very heavy raining that made us running fast to the car.

We continued the journey by car going down to the beach passing the statues of a mouse and 5 Pandawa figures which were placed in the holes on the slope. The rain got harder, as we didn't want to get wet to go to the beach with umbrella, so we stayed in the car at the parking lot checking our photos and upload some pictures in our smartphone to be shared with others. The heavy rain made the parking lot flooding and some impromptu waterfalls appeared on the cliff. I took picture of the waterfall that we could not find if it's not raining.

After half an hour waiting in the car, we decided to go to the other end of the beach where there was a simple food-court selling meal and beverage. Waiting for the rain to stop, we bought tea and snacks, I kept taking picture of the beach under my umbrella. After another 30 minutes, the rain stopped, suddenly it's replaced with a very bright sun. My mom and sisters joined me to walk on the beach. It's white sandy beach located in Kutuh village where local residents make the beach as place to farm seaweed.

We took some beautiful pictures on the beach, with its unique cliff and bright clean water. When my sister posed on the beach, suddenly a big wave coming made her shorts wet. Actually she was luckier than me, as half of my body was getting wet up to the waist. We played with the soft sand, wrote our name on the sand, then taking pictures. After tired playing with the waves and sand, we decided to go back to the parking lot that was flooded during the rain.

This side was more crowded with tourist as it's the center of entertainment place for water sport. We walked to the beach through a small bridge, both domestic and overseas tourist were visiting the beach. Many busses brought many visitors, also the Daihatsu members were still enjoying the beach. So many canoes available there, also rented sunbathing chairs with big umbrella. You could play water sport there including surfing. After the rain, the sun was shining so strong, I didn't bring my sunglasses, so I almost could not see it's very dazzled. We didn't plan to play water sport as we still had many places to visit and we were hungry. We returned to our car to go to the next destination for lunch now. Although our clothes were getting wet, we didn't change, as we would still play at another beach after that.

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