Beautiful Hallim Park, Jeju Island, South Korea

I joined Jeju daily tour to West course on 28th Apr 2016, one of the visited place was the colorful Hallim Park. The park was divided into 9 sections, unfortunately we didn't have enough time to explore all of them as the tour guide only gave us 70 minutes to explore around 100.000 square meters park. The tour guide shared the park map then he brought us to the entrance of Hyeopjae & SsangYong cave passing through the palm tree avenue. As the time was limited, and we're more interested in flower, my friend and I decided to skip the cave.

On the way to the cave we saw beautiful cherry blossom, so we went back to the path. To take pictures under the white cherry we had to wait for a family finishing the shot. Lucky they were kind enough to help us taking photo with both of us under the tree. We also took our own picture alone for recording the short season of cherry blossom.

To save time we directly went to tulip garden which was located next to the cave in "wild grass & flower garden" section. The path was decorated with colorful tulips on the big pot and some human stone statues with stone benches to take a rest and enjoy the scenery. My friend loved the stone statue and wanna take some pictures. We kept walking until finding overlay white flower unfortunately we didn't know the flower's name.

Continue walking following the path we're happy to find bunch of tulips, the color was very attractive, bright orange combining with yellow while the other was pink combining with white. The red one was quite beautiful, the white color looked like lace decorating the edge of the flower. We took some pictures from different angle to capture its beauty. They're planted in the plastic bag, not directly on the ground.

Crossing through a wooden bridge on the pond, we took picture in front of a woman brought water to fill the big water jar. At the next area we found another bunch of light pink tulips and orange tulips. It's surrounding by some stones for decorating. On the way out from the area we passed through the line of human stone statue again.

We skipped "Jeju stone & bonsai garden", continue to the "Jae-Am folk village" where we could see Korean human stone statues to describe their daily activities such as playing with their children, also some animal stone statues such as horse, pig, etc. The house was also built from stone and wood with thatched roof. The real food seller in the traditional house were available to sell Korean snacks.

We kept trying to find cherry blossom garden, I saw cute kindergarten children enjoyed the bird park. I could see a peacock in the cage spreading its beautiful wings to attract others. An ostrich was walking back and forth near the peacock's cage. Beautiful orange combining with yellow color flowers were arranged next to the bird garden. We tried to use our selfie stick to capture it, unfortunately the selfie stick's button was not working, so I took a video instead of photo.

On the next path beautiful cherry blossom trees became shelter of a family monument. We thought it's the cherry garden, the end of our searching. I still liked to take some more pictures while my friend would like to find souvenirs in the shop near the exit gate, so we were split. 10 minutes before the gathered time, I've just realized that the cherry garden was at the other side, I met one of my friend in the trip from Singapore, she confirmed the direction to the cherry garden. As it's a very short time, I ran to the location. I found many cherry blossom trees there, I took many pictures, lucky that a woman was kind enough to help me taking my pictures on the bench in the garden. The result is very satisfying, she took three times with different layout without me asking for it. Finally I ran to the pink cherry, and did selfie pose :-)

Running to the exit gate was very tiring, actually I passed the "water garden" which must be quite interesting as it became the campaign picture of Hallim park. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to see it, unless the bus will leave me behind and I had to catch the bus by myself to the next destination. Lucky I could arrive on the bus on time. I think they should provide more time so we could enjoy the park more relax and visit all of the areas in the park.

Don't miss to visit the park, I think it's worthy to stop by there especially in spring or summer. I was lucky that I could experience cherry blossom. Jeju is warmer than Seoul, so the cherry blossom is earlier.

Read More ..

Interesting Culinary in Solo, Central Java

When I visited Solo, I've got a chance to meet my old friend who lived there. He was kind enough to accompany me and my colleagues to explore Solo specialties. I loved Solo's food, it's sweet and yummy.

The first lunch was my favourite Timlo, a traditional Solo dish, clear broth soup with Solo sausage, innards part of chicken such as liver and boiled egg cooked with sweet soy sauce. He brought us to the original place of Timlo Sastro, which was popular since years. It's located at the corner next to the landfill garbage, it's difficult to find the parking lot. No aircon inside, just a very simple diner place, but it's very crowded, even some of guests must queue to wait for seat. I really loved it, the taste was so fresh and savory.

Dinner time my friend picked me up at the hotel, he brought me to a very beautiful classic restaurant, called "Goela Klapa" provided Indonesian cuisine. I like the restaurant ambience with its colonial style decoration. I'm confused what to choose, so many things in the menu that I would like to taste. Finally I ordered and "selat solo", beef tenderloin served in thin watery sauce made from a mixture of garlic, vinegar and sweet soya sauce. It is served with boiled egg, and vegetables (carrot, potato, tomato, green bean and lettuce). My friend ordered some side dishes to eat together, e.g. satay, fried banana and tape bakar colenak (grilled cassava). My friend selected roasted rice while his wife preferred mix tofu with egg-rice. I ordered mix ice for dessert, it's very yummy, I love it. The service was good and the food was served and arranged beautifully.

The next day we had lunch at Nini Towonq which's popular of its various yummy shaved ice. As my friend said both "es teler" and "es Nini Thowong" were nice, I ordered both of them, one before lunch and the other for the dessert. Again here I ordered "selat solo", I prefer here for the taste. One of my friend ordered soto (yellow chicken soup), while others ordered gudeg, Javanese cuisine, made from young unripe jack fruit boiled for several hours with palm sugar, and coconut milk, they also loved the taste.

Finally for dinner, my generous friend brought us to "Omah Lawas", Jl. Dr Supomo 55, Solo. It's one of "HIK" (Hidangan Istimewa Kampung) means village foods which's popular lately in Solo. There are so many HIK that were crowded with guests, some of them are provided live music with nice environment to chat and gather with friends of family. They provided many kind of foods, from various rice, many side dishes and beverage with competitive price. You have to queue, taking the plate then select and take the food by yourselves, then asked for the beverage, it would be calculated at the last row by the cashier, depend on what you take. There were various beverage from hot to the cold one. I like the method as it's fast and I could take what I like based on my own portion, not too big size.

It seems that my 2 days culinary experience in Solo is not enough, it's proven that Solo has many delicious foods. You should spend more time to try many restaurants with its specialty. The people in Solo is so creative to follow the modern era, by providing different approach to enjoy the traditional food, such as HIK. Don't forget to taste Solo culinary when you visit.

Read More ..

Artistic Pohsarang, Pilgrimate Site in Kediri

Last Sunday, 27th Dec 2015 I went to Pohsarang with my family (mom, sister and brother's family). It took around 30 minutes driving from Kediri city (10 km), located on the slopes of Mount Wilis with altitude of 400 meters above sea level. It's drizzling when we arrived, so we brought umbrella. It was the first visit for my cousins to the Catholic Sacred Place, Pohsarang, all of them looked very eager and excited.

Pohsarang church complex presented the Christian faith and Catholic places of worship in the local culture. The beautiful buildings is unique and a monumental work that deserves to be preserved and maintained. It's build by Henri Maclaine Pont who cared about the environment, so the building is very sustainable with the surroundings. All aspects including local cultural and religious philosophy incorporated in the form of architecture with highly aligned. Unfortunately there was no mass when we arrived, so the church was closed, anyway we still could see the altar from the fence. There was a cross ventilation on the ceiling which could make the sun shines through the room.

At the right side there was a set of "gamelan" to accompany the choirs during mass. My cousins racing to climb the stage to try beating the gamelan to provide sound. They were enthusiastic to try different tools, anyway we forced them to go down, as it's in sacred place, not for playing around.

We continued going down to the bigger mass area, where there was also an altar with bird form ventilation on the roof. It had bigger space for the people to join the ceremony, there was a podium made from wood to read the bible and for the pastor giving a sermon. My little niece was very cute, she was carried by her father to reach the high podium, closing her eyes and clasped her hands to pray seriously.

Mary cave which was popular as "Gua Maria Lourdes Puhsarang" as the main destination to make devotion to Mother Mary, people often praying with rosary. To reach this place we had to go through a path which has many stores on the left and right side of the path. Most of them were selling spiritual accessories, some of them also sold food or souvenirs. If you don't bring any bottle for the sacred water, you could buy jerry can in the store. Also candle for praying, all praying tools are available. Some benches were available at the park.

The Mary statue height was 3.5 metres, it's imitation of Mary statue in Lourdes. You could lit the candle right below of the statues and kneel or stand in front of them. My cousins liked to blow the candle as if the candles on the tart cake when they had birthday, so I had to keep them far from the candle, and informed them that it's for praying not for birthday cake :-) Beside the statue there were some water holy water which would come out based on motion sensor, anyway there were some normal taps if you would like the easier way. The water was very fresh and clean, it's nice to drink and wash our face with the water to refresh. You may also keep some of them in the water or jerry can to bring home. Most people believe that the holy water could heal diseases.

Stations of the Cross contains of 14 stops. Golden human-size statues at every station describing how Jesus suffered long time ago from death punishment until buried. In every station you could lit the candle in front of the statue. The place was hilly, many stairs to go, my cousins loved to run up and down, we were afraid that they could fall down, we had to warn them many times to be careful. Many big trees available, we could walk under the shade of the trees to avoid sun shine. A mausoleum provided for passed-away pastors, and a columbarium to keep the ashes of cremated Catholic bodies. If you would like to stay for meditation or praying, there is also some lodges around the area. This beautiful place is not only good for praying, but it's also a good place to reset the mood as they still keep maintaining the natural green place. Not only for Catholic people, but now it becomes the popular tourism place for public in Kediri.

Read More ..

Educated Transportation Museum "Museum Angkut", Batu, East Java

During weekend my friend asked me to accompany her to a temple in Batu, then I offered her to go to "Museum Angkut", one of the tourism place in Batu that I would like to visit few months ago, unfortunately no friend to go there, and I was too lazy to drive by myself as I didn't know the way. We hired a driver to drive my car, so we didn't need to worry about the way or parking lot.

We had lunch first in Malang before visiting the museum. The museum opens at 12:00, anyway I heard that during holiday the parking lot would be difficult to find, you have to walk far to reach the entrance. We're quite lucky as we could get a parking lot near to the entrance, it's not a long weekend, it's not as crowded as holiday. It costs IDR 90.000,- to visit both "Museum Angkut" (transportation) and "Museum Topeng" (mask). If you bring a camera, you have to pay for the camera, pocket camera is cheaper than SLR camera. I only used my iphone, while my friend used her Samsung and her daughter used Lenovo.

Many vehicles were displayed, we welcome by many antique cars, including horse carriages from Indonesian palaces. The horse seemed like a real horse because the fur looked original, I didn't know whether it's fake or real. My friend's daughter felt amused and disgusted to touch it. There was also a helicopter, we could take picture in front of the cars, carriages and helicopters, but we were not allowed to ride on it. Some of them were surrounded by fence.

There was a lift to bring you upstairs when you could see cow carriages. The cows looked real too, and children were allowed to ride on the carriage. Some rickshaws and tricycles from different country were available too. On the other side you could see some ships miniature starting from Titanic to Indonesian traditional boat such as "Pinisi". On the third floor was available café and flight simulation, you must pay again to play, go-cart area was available too. You could see Malang scenery from this 3rd floor, it's very windy, beware with the wind if you wear skirt or dress.

Continue the journey by going out the city area that describes Betawi, old Jakarta era with it's china town and train station including the harbor. I brought selfie stick, as that's the first time for me, I had to learn how to use it well to grab our faces without losing the background. Then we entered area for western car, with its big and long cars. One of them was very beautiful with wooden casing on the body. Some antique motor cycles were available here too. Continue the journey to Hollywood street, some artists were performed on the street, you also could take picture with the artists as if in the jail.

The next area I liked the most, described about Europe with beautiful scenery pictures, you could take good picture in front of it as if you're there. There was also Eiffel miniature, and 3D pictures as if you're the painter or handyman. I love this area, it's beautiful. There was a small store selling snack and beverage, I bought popcorn, it's very nice. At the next room you could see a very bright and magnificent room describing London. There was a free train to ride to go around, a big royal chair available for you to take picture as if you're one of royal family. Outside the room you could walk on the beautiful garden full of flowers and shows Buckingham Palace building with its fountain.

Las Vegas area was contained with Luxor hotel landmark, Liberty statue, full of light, it would be better seeing it at night so the light would be more festive look. A very long limousine available here, I had difficulty to take the whole body. From here you could see the "Pasar Apung" floating market below. To go there you had to pass through a train wagon, where you could feel the real shaking train as if on the ride. It's rather difficult to go through it as it's shaking quite hard, you have to manage your balance.

In the floating market so many sellers offering souvenirs, foods, clothes, etc. You don't need to worry thirsty or hungry here, the price was quite reasonable. I bought crepes, the traditional snack which was sold on the boat on the small river. There was some bridges to connect one place to another, you also could rent a small boat to row around the area. Beside small restaurant selling meat ball or snack, there was also big restaurants serving western food or Chinese food.

Mask museum was our last destination, it's around the floating market area. So many collection from masks, batik from different area, weapons, ceramics and antiques. A guide was available to explain about it. It's clean with air conditioner, so it's not stuffy. A stage with traditional live music entertained the visitors with "Keroncong" music. Most of the band members were also senior people. It's getting late, so we decided to go back to Surabaya. We enjoyed the place, until we didn't feel spending a very long time there. You must visit "Museum Angkut" if you have a chance to go to Batu. It's very near to Malang, around 3 hours drive from Surabaya.

Read More ..

Exotic Nature of Klayar Beach, Pacitan, East Java

I’ve heard from my friends that Pantai Klayar is beautiful, I was attempted to visit it someday. My colleagues and I visited the beach from Solo, it took around three hours to reach Pacitan, continue with another an hour to the beach. There was no public transportation to the beach, so you have to rent a car or use your personal vehicle. Most of the road was quite good already, but nearer to the beach, the road condition was getting narrower. The lime-stone mountain was already cut to widen the street, unfortunately it’s not finished yet. You must have an expert driver to go there, as the street is enough for one car only. If we bumped into another car from the opposite direction, one of us should drive backward, as it’s not enough for 2 cars. The right side was the lime stone wall, while the left side was the cliff.

Approaching the beach was very amazing, we could see the beautiful wave from the street that was located above it. Unfortunately we could not stop as it’s in the middle of the narrow street. It seems that the government continue building the infrastructure, as we passed by heavy machine equipment to move the street material.

We’re afraid not having food on the beach so we brought lunch box from Solo, my friends had gudeg while fried chicken for me. The beach was close enough to the parking lot, ATV ride was offered right after we went out from the car. We’re starving so we tried to find place to eat first. As there was no bench available for visitors at the eastern coast, we decided to buy fresh coconut to drink and get permission to have our own lunch on the food stall location. It’s already 14:00 o’clock at noon, it’s hot and we’re starving. It’s very relax to have the delicious lunch while enjoying the beautiful wave with its white sand, and drinking cool fresh coconut which was only cost Rp. 7.000,-/pcs.

While eating we saw some people were patient enough to wait for us offering ATV ride to explore the beach. It cost Rp. 25.000,-/person for return trip, one ATV could bring 2 persons. One of my colleague didn’t dare to ride it, so I ride alone when 2 of my colleagues rode together on an ATV. My ATV guide was quite young and active, he was kind enough to take our pictures, and explain about the beach.

Reaching the western side of the beach near ocean flute, which also could be reached by walking, my ATV guide parked the ATV. This ocean flute is a term for the phenomenon where there are existing basin at the bottom of cliffs or rocks on the beach. When the basin hit by the waves of the sea, the sea water out gushes to the surface through the sidelines rocky and produce a beautiful sound like the sound of the flute.

If the tight was not high we could walk approaching the ocean flute location, unfortunately my ATV guide informed that the surf was high for the last 3 days, so the walking path was covering by the waves, and it’s not allowed and dangerous to approach it. As the alternative, he asked us to climb the small hill called ‘Bukit Indah Lestari’ to see the ocean flute from above. On the way up, we could see the other part of the beach with its small caves.

He’s right, from above you could see the ocean flute, unfortunately it’s against the sunshine, it’s rather difficult to take the picture. He was kind enough to take our picture, he was so patient to wait for the big wave to get higher fountain that could be up to 10 meters high. Although the weather was hot, but it’s so windy, I still could enjoy it.

After satisfying taking panorama pictures, we stepped down the hill, taking some pictures with the background of a giant rock such as Sphinx at the eastern side of the beach. We posed on the ATV, I wore a wrong costume, a mini skirt that made me difficult to ride on the ATV, so I had to sit sideways. It’s cool to have picture on the ATV with amazing beach.

The next stop was the black sand surround the black large rock outcrops which was divided the coast to east and west part. The sand was really black such as if bauxite. An interesting phenomenon when the waves hit this rock, it would pass to overflowing, the abundance of water would create interesting sights such as waterfalls. We had to wait for the big waves, to get the amazing scene. I really love it, it's very wonderful.

It’s time to go back to the western part of the coast where our colleague was waiting for us. My ATV guide was kind enough to let me drive the ATV. I had to step on the middle part of the ATV to able to drive. When trying handling the steer, it’s very hard, as the coast was sandy, so I asked help from my ATV guide to help. I’m afraid to get fall when it’s unbalance, so I asked him to be slowly. My 2 other colleagues were not as lucky as me, their ATV was broken in the middle of the way, loosen the chain. Their ATV had to walk slowly and I overtook them to reach the destination.

Reaching the eastern part of the cost, I took some pictures on the green rocks covering with moss. I asked my friend to take my picture with my iphone. The wave here was not as high as the eastern part, but the soft sandy was still nice to play around. I like the scenery with the green rocks. I took off my shoes to play with the wave.

We could not find our colleague who was waiting there previously, we decided to walk on the eastern hill to see the panorama view of Klayar from eastern part. There was a small bungalow on the top of the hill, you could take panoramic picture of the beach with its eastern coast part. We also could see the row of bungalows selling souvenirs, clothes and foods sheltering by coconut trees.

For facilities and infrastructure at the beach was good enough, we could find a mushola, clean bathrooms, and food stalls. I would like to stay longer, but thinking the journey to Solo would take another 4 hours, we had to leave the beach soon. Finding the driver we’ve just known that our colleague was sleeping in the car while waiting for us. Before going back, we asked her to take some pictures on the beach. It’s a pity if she didn’t have any picture on the beautiful beach after struggling for a long journey. It’s true, Klayar beach is very wonderful and amazing, it should become one of the list for your holiday.

Read More ..

Beautiful Schobrunn Palace Garden, Vienna

After a long flight journey from Jakarta, Indonesia, we arrived in Vienna in the morning. We didn't stop to the hotel to save time, directly we went to the tourism places. Schönbrunn Palace as one of the World Cultural Heritage sites, located a few kilometres from central Vienna was our first destination. A baroque summer palace built in 18th century contains the authentically furnished residential & ceremonial rooms of the Imperial Family (Marie Antoinette’s childhood & Empress Maria Teresa). It's very hot almost mid day, we walked through the entrance gate to the huge yard surrounding by long buildings.

Two beautiful fountains were decorated the yard where we could take picture with the palace as the background. As the area coverage so wide, we had difficulty to take the whole scenery, only one side of the building and a fountain could be reached. Under the strong sunshine, we took pictures in front of the fountain which has beautiful statues in the middle of the pool. The fountain was surrounding by fresh green grass, my friend stepped on the grass to sit on the edge of Danube-Inn-Enns statues fountain. The other fountain had Galicia-Volhynia-Translyvania statue.

The tour leader kept calling us to follow the local guide, he said we still had time on the way out to take more picture. Entering the building we had to wait for the local guide to buy tickets and deposit big bags and backpacks as they're not allowed to bring to inside of the palace. There was a souvenir shop that sold souvenirs, snacks and drinks, so we could shop while waiting for the ticket. I put on one of the beautiful cap from the shop which was really matched to my blouse to take picture. My friend bought one of the caps to be worn to avoid the sunshine with “Vienna” picture or letter. The local guide gave us the earphone to enable us hearing her explanation well during the journey, she didn’t need to speak loudly to the group member. Firstly the local guide spoke English, then our tour leader translated to Indonesia as some tour members didn't speak English. As it's taken longer time, I asked the tour leader to stand near the tour members to translate directly to whom didn't understand the explanation.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take picture at all in the palace, so I could not share you any picture of the rooms, painting, sculpture, statue, furniture and anything inside. Only 40 of the Schönbrunn Palace's 1,441 rooms were open to the public, they were enough to provide visitors with a sense of how magnificent the place. From the window, I could see the beautiful garden, it’s looked very neat and maintained well. The structure of the Baroque park layout was virtually untouched, the ancient techniques were still used for trimming its trees and bushes. I would like to rush to the garden as there was no photo object could be taken in the palace, unfortunately the local guide would like to share a complete story about the history. At the end of exploring the palace, there were some souvenir shops which made my tour friends excited. Actually I prefer to go to explore the garden soon, but I had to wait for the group.

A small rubber wheeled train and horse carriages could bring you around the palace if you don't want to walk. I heard it’s only operated during summer, not enough time for us to ride them. I didn’t know where the transportation route would go, but I passed them went walking on the yard. Maybe they would go to the other part of the palace which’s located crossed the garden. For many tourists, a ride with the two-horse carriage is one of the highlights, it’s called flacker. If you would like to enjoy the journey, you should ask the flacker coach for a "porcelain ride", which is a particularly calm and steady drive, it was provided long ago to transport precious porcelain safely from one place to another.

Walking to the garden was quite far, especially under the sunshine, lucky I was wearing a cap. Sunglasses would help too, unfortunately I didn't bring them. We found the beautiful roses arch aisle as the sunshine shade, the red roses were amazing, it’s very big and layering. My friend took many pictures there with various poses, until I beg them to take my picture. After waiting a few minutes I decided to leave them unless I could not explore the big garden.

The spectacular sculpted garden is called the Great Parterre. Many colorful flowers arranged beautifully on the spacious garden. Most of our tour friends were going back while I went to the garden. Lucky I met our tour guide who helped me to take picture with the palace as the background. He could not take my picture with the garden as it's against the sunshine. I ran to the middle of the garden to be able to take the garden as my background, unfortunately nobody there to help me taking my picture. With my iphone, I tried to do selfie, the result was not too good, because I was not used to it. With both my pocket camera and iphone, I took many pictures to record the wonderful scenery. One of them was posted on the top of this article which shows the beautiful garden with the back of the palace, residence of the Habsburg emperors from 18th century to 1918.
On the other end of the French garden actually was very interesting, I pushed to take the picture although it's too far and against the sun light. I’m happy as the result was quite good to see the garden axis points towards a 60-metre-high hill, which since 1775 has been crowned by the Gloriette structure. I really didn’t have time to walk or even run to the edge of the garden where we could see nearer to the Neptune Fountain and Gloriette in the background. No time for us to exploring other side of the garden such as Roman ruin, palm house, zoo, etc.

A particular pleasure is simply wandering the numerous paths alongside the park's flower beds while trying to spot all 44 of its 18th-century mythological marble sculptures. I took one of the beautiful sculptures displayed “Abduction of Helena”. The tour leader shouted to call me as I was the last one in the garden. Although it's hot, I love staying longer in the garden, I still wanted to take more picture.

I had to run back to gather with our group who had been at the front yard of the palace. On the way back to the gate, I still had a chance to help my friend taking picture in front of the beautiful pool. Near to the entrance gate, there was a 3D steel map of the palace, which described the whole area of the palace, most of them hadn't been explored. While waiting for the bus at the front of the gate, a golden man imitated Mozart was standing on the golden box. He would change pose if we gave him money, my friend put a coin on the golden tin in front of him to take a picture with him. He even kissed my friend’s hand to give honour and also posed gracefully for the photo. It’s very hot, I could not imagine how he could stand under the very strong sunshine covering the whole body with golden paint, wearing thick wardrobes. It must be very suffering, hot and burnt, what's a life.

Read More ..