The Buried Fortress

If not for the occasional appearance in international headlines whenever Indonesia executes the drug convicts in the infamous Nusakambangan Island, the town of Cilacap in Central Java may easily be forgotten. It does serve as the main harbor for the prison island and many people merely bypass the roads and go straight to the harbor. Indeed, the sleepy town boasts little else than some beaches, and the domestic visitors often complain about the scorching heat. But a visit to a local attraction of Benteng Pendem (lit. The Buried Fortress) will reveal just how important this town was in the Dutch era when it served as a coast observation post to the passing vessels.

Mighty Tree on Top

From the jungles of Siem Reap in the midst of the vast Angkor Wat complex, I present you Ta Prohm. People may instantly recognize the images from Angelina Jolie’s “The Tomb Raider” film. This temple is small compared to the main Angkor Wat Temple, but it is magnificent in its own right. The forest is slowly taking over the structures by sneaking in its roots among the stones and crawling its way to the top. Of course there are concerns over the preservation of the heritage and the visitors’ safety. However, some people argue that such invasion could actually strengthen the architecture.

The mighty trees of Ta Prohm sits like cherry on top of the temple and they provide some shelters and cool temperatures. Besides, the photographers and photographer-wannabes will not be short of inspiration.

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More takes on this week’s photo challenge can be found here.

Economic Overviews 2016

With the global crises still looming the regional business growth, Indonesia manages to survive the turbulence and remains confident that this year’s growth will be sustainable despite its moderate forecasts. More on this topic can be found in the following 2 articles (click the images to read):

Domain Mapping: Checked

After blogging for over 6 years and dealing with several hosters, I’ve finally made a decision to unsubscribe from all local hosting services and map this precious domain to WP.com using their seamless domain mapping service. I had actually been contemplating about this for over 6 months before making the switch yesterday, but there were some initial steps that needed to be completed before finally activating the new address. Those steps were pretty complicated as I had to backtrack all the way to the basics, such as applying for a new credit card. But now that I’ve got all of the things sorted out, I’m ready to embark on a new journey.

The URL of this blog remains unchanged and there is absolutely nothing you should do at your end as everything has been taken care of by the awesome Automattic team. As always, thank you very much for your support during all these years. I’ll be back soon with more updates.

Alphabet: The Javanese Way

According to sixtyvocab.com, there are around 46(?) different alphabets or writing systems in the world today. This is, of course, debatable, since I hardly believe that they counted all the complex writing systems that many tribes or groups of people still use in Indonesia, India, or Africa.

Thanks to Sukarno, our founding father, we don’t have to struggle with studying the Javanese Honocoroko or the Arabic-Malay Jawi scripts and learn Roman characters instead. But it is heartwarming to see that many regional governments in the archipelago are trying to revive the local scripts by putting them on road signs or government offices.

On a recent trip to Yogyakarta, I encountered a few signs written in both Roman and Javanese letters:

Malioboro Street. The Javanese writing beneath exactly spells the name (I think).

Try this one that I saw outside Ullen Sentalu Museum. The writing above is actually in Roman characters but stylized in Javanese script. Can you read it? It’s ‘nDalem Kaswargan’ (House of Paradise).

I guess we learn something new everyday, ey? 😀

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More takes on Weekly Photo Challenge: Alphabet.

So Long 2015

Let’s start today’s post by showing you the best nine pictures of my Instagram account from 2015. Pretty awesome, ey?! ☺

Thank you 2015 for having been kind to me despite all odds. Thank God for making my dreams come true. I’m far from a man who has pleased Him, but I pray that I will see Him guide me through all ups and downs.

And I wish you, my fellow bloggers, the best of blogging year ahead. Happy New Year 2016!

Eyes: The Presence & Absence

It was a sunny day in Phnom Penh and I headed to a site where one of the worst attrocities in the world happened: The Killing Field or Choeung Ek Memorial as it is known today. You know, it is amazing that every little detail matters and can drag you into a deep reflection as you walk around each point, observe each point, and try to absorb the aura of pain and peace. Even when you look back at each picture, there are certainly new meanings that you can write about. Here are a few examples:

The Presence

The Feline Quest

I found this little fellow at the local fastfood franchise in Jakarta yesterday, just sitting around on a customer chair (yep, the cleaners were nowhere to be found) and minding his own business. That was until someone came to the table to put a box of scrumptuous fried chicken and left to wash her hands; completely oblivious to the fact that that a feline was sitting about 15 centimeters away and was transitioning himself from a boyish cat to a potentially sneaky thief.

But mind you, he was no ordinary stray cat. Like a true gentleman, he pretended to look completely innocent during the ‘handover’, and he even bothered to check on his surroundings before finally gazing at the prey. Oh, I truly admired his attitude.

What? Did I warn the customer of the upcoming catastrophe? Of course not! I’d rather take out my phone to snap some pictures. Hehehe.

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More takes on this week’s theme can be found here.