Yogyakarta Trip 2017

Dear fellas,

It's December 31st here, the clock will striking 12 in a few hours and the year will gonna change. I'm not going anywhere to celebrate New Year Eve or whatever it is. I supposed to gather with my old friends tonight, but unfortunately one of my friends can't make it for some reasons I can't explain here. It's a bit disappointing but there's nothing I can do. So here I am, alone, sitting on my bed with my laptop on my lap, and watching the rain that is falling over from the window opposite me. To tell you the truth, although I spend the last hours of 2017 only by myself, at least I can do some kind of self-reflection of what I had done so far this year while snuggling on my bed and have a cup of coffee. Well, this would be a great night.

In the previous post, maybe some of you have known that I planned not going anywhere by the end of the year. But finally, I went somewhere, yuhuu! I've spent a couple days ago in Yogyakarta. It was such a short trip but was pretty marvelous. What I love about Yogyakarta is there are so many great culinary with a cheap price and a culture that still linger in its blood. In 2017, I've been there about three times with the purpose of visiting art exhibition and cultural tourist destination (temple, gallery, etc.). I have a huge interest in art and culture and I'm glad that Yogyakarta provides it. Yogyakarta is also a home for thousands of people from across the nation to pursue their education, so no wonder that you would meet many people from different backgrounds in this city.

Since I love photography, too bad that it was rainy seasons in Indonesia so that the pictures I've taken there were not as pleasing as I expected. Lacking of sun ray caused the pictures look pale and unpleasant so I need an extra photo-editing to make it look better. Thank you to Photoshop and Lightroom to help me getting through all of this :')

To tell you the truth, I don't have much to say in this post. Maybe you expect me to write every detail of places that I've been. I'm being honest, I'm running out of words, lol. It turns out that it's not that easy to explain detail things in English because I'm afraid people would get bored with my words, but it's kinda awkward too if I explain it in Bahasa Indonesia. I guess improving writing skills would be my resolution in 2018. I hope so.

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Japan Trip 2016

Dear, fellas.

What makes this end of the year different if compared to the previous years is I don't go anywhere. It's already a family tradition to go somewhere by the end of the year, but we decided not going anywhere this year due to some reasons that I can't explain here. It's been a busy year for each of us in my family until we forget the end of the year is around the corner, and we have no plan to go at all. A couple days ago, I tried to browse some places that at least we can go without having a lot of preparation, but most of theme are fully-booked and the price is almost killing us. Well, we don't know
whether we would go on vacation or not, let's see :)

Lesson to learn: never book anything at the last minute because the price is cost an arm an a leg unless you're filthy rich.

So, let me a throwback to my trip to Japan last year. For me, Japan has its own picturesque character among the other countries. Funny yet incredible, funny in a good way because there are some things that might not be applied di Jakarta such as 18+ magazines (hentai) in 7-Eleven, high-tech toilet (I kept pushing all the buttons, lol), vending machine everywhere, small spaces, people who dancing and screaming in front of the arcade, Harajuku style, and many more. I always admire every single thing in Japan and every centimeter in Japan never fail to amaze me. I was a huge manga reader back then in elementary school. It thrilled me that everything in Japan was exactly looked like the setting described in cartoons and mangas. It really thrilled me that I saw kids or teenagers that wore Japanese school uniform that exactly looked like in mangas, houses that looked like Nobita's house, ramen shop, a crowded crossing street, and the list is endless. I went there when it was winter. Many people suggested me that going to Japan while winter was a horrible idea, the wheater sucks, and people mostly stayed at home while it was winter. But it was completely wrong. I totally enjoyed it and you know what, everything looked prettier and magical when it was snow. There's nothing wrong with going there while winter, it was totally worth it.

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