My Vacation Blog

Play with Clay!

2009-12-20T10:44:00.010+07:00

Rumah Keramik Tanah Baru - Depok.

This time it’s a bit unique. We came down to this place due to invitation of our Business Partner for Family Gathering. I decided to join the invitation almost without thinking to long due to this clay stuff, since I strongly confident that this is good for children and also for my wife that has interest on handicraft stuff.

So here we go, long the way down to Depok, with bit confusion and several times got lost on the way to the place, finally we reach to the destination. A warm and very tidy place with bunches of trees and surprisingly, there are lot of endangered trees around the place.

We got very warm greetings from host and lead us enter the main “Pendopo” that seems become their main building in this entry area. The building it self build from wood and bricks with Javanese architecture that has several set of wooden dinning table, which has Ceramic tile on top of it, combined with candle ceramic bowl side by side with ceramic vase that hose a bunch of flowers. Very nice setting. One of the unique thing is the lighting that been setup in the middle of the building that made from lot of “silk cocoon” stuffed with tiny Christmas tree light every one of them.

We got choice of “The Sereh” or “Gula Asam” combined with very nice “Pisang Goreng Kalimantan”, “Singkong Goreng” and traditional glutinous ball in Coconut Crisp or “Klepon”…. Especially for me, “The Sereh” is very erotic ……. It has been claim by the host that The Sereh may restore your freshness in a short while after you have it. Regardless what he say, for me the combination of “The Sereh” and “Klepon” look very nice indeed.

One thing about Pisang “Kepok” Kalimantan that meant to make a very nice “Pisang Goreng” is very unique, since it may not be able to eat in raw form like the other banana, it has to be fried before it unique sweetness and a bit sour taste appear. Because if you may eat it in raw, it will taste very rough and dry. Again, this “Pisang Goreng” is their special chef recommendation menu.

Back to the main activities, we have to wait for a while before the venue begins with some introduction why this place builds and what meant for? So, this place called Rumah Keramik Tanah Baru, belong to F. Widyanto a maestro in a ceramic or clay craft, and especially this place build to introduce clay to younger generation, and it has open house every weekend and has several clay stuff fun program to try out.

Well, in short speech, we’ve been brought for in-house tour to introduce several places, seems they have several “traditional bungalow” for the one who wants to spend the night here, but need to understand that they do not provide TV, but you may still have to surf the .net since they have WiFi around the place. This in-house tour may takes about 30 minutes before we reach the final destination, the Clay Workshop.

First they brought us to a house, well this is actually a “buffalo stall” but now converted into a nice bungalow that you may stay for overnight, but no TV around …… There are several interesting detail in this bungalow since some of the items made creatively from tradional unused things, such as batik stamps made for light decoration.

The very interesting thing is the light that I thought was a Christmas light chain that used to be found in Christmas tree, but it doesn’t. Once you were closer to that thing you will notice that the light was made from silkworm cocoon! The tiny bulp were creatively stuff into silkworm cocoon, each of them, very creative, and according to the host that this is one of the masterpiece that may not be sold even though they often to receive very high offer from some guests.

Now, back to the workshop, after small tour we not seated in three long table and we have a tennis ball size raw-clay in front of each of us. After short guide presentation what and how, and a little demo, we may start create any form we want from clay. And it was not easy after all ………..

But it is very nice experience yet very unique …..

Last but not least, The activity closed by very nice lunch, several kind of traditional dishes.

Oh, you may free to visit this place since they have open house every weekend, just to see around or to taste their unique “Teh Sereh” or other traditional dishes that you may not be able to find in other places.

Pecel Madiun @ Bogor??

2009-06-24T15:34:00.004+07:00

Madiun dish but has to be found in Bogor? How come? Yup, we found this “Warung Pecel” just because we wanted to avoid traffic Jammed just before enter Jl. Pajajaran, Bogor from Jakarta – Bogor, Tol-Gate.

According to the owner, Pak Pardi, It just new open couple months ago since from his observation Bogor has not “proper pecel taste”, so he wants to show Bogor & Jakarta people what the real Pecel is ……… Oh my! He is a successful “warung pecel” entrepreneur in Madiun, seems he sees some opportunity here in Bogor that may have many sundanese “makan place” around.

He run his “Warung Pecel” with his wives, and some relatives (it seems), in small but clean enough “baboo construction” footstall in front of one house in Jalan Bina Marga. Like the common house surrounding, the place is quiet convenience and has some spacious space for car parking in front so that you may reach this place easily.

The “main stage” is a large food display table just right after you enter the main stall, with “Ibu” sitting there surrounding with all pecel attribute, equip with their various side-dish that you may chose and ask them to grill a bit just to make it warmer. You may found “Tempe”, “gepuk”, “jeroan” and many more that may not be mention one by one.

The main dish it self is “Pecel Madiun” which is rice that placed on top of “rottan” dining plate on top of banana-leave, with several boilled vegetables with spicy peanut sauce. But unfortunately, the sauce has been modified to reduce “authentic spicy taste” and a bit sugar added to increase sweetness. This is the part that I do not like, the taste is less authentic rather than if you buy directly in Madiun, but the rest is perfect. They also has other side Dish like Rawon or some other authentic east java spicies, that we do not have opportunity to test it.

But in overall, this dish may be good to try out ………………..

Location : Jl Binamarga No 24 Bogor.
Phone : 0251 7 139 139
mobile : 0811 139 139

Saung Mang Engking, Depok

2009-03-02T09:36:00.022+07:00

Heard this place many times ago. But never got a chance to visit it since it located in Yogjakarta. Seem my parents love it to much seem it always become regular place to visit every time they were traveling to this city. Well, it’s only maximum three hour drive from Semarang, so it’s more like you drive from Jakarta to Bandung only.

Few months ago I knew that they open their branch in Jakarta, somewhere in Depok, but again, there are two places that I always try to avoid them in Jakarta, one is Bekasi and the other one is Depok, why? Because their heavy traffic Jam, and I have it to much! But this time I can not resist since it is a Sunday, and from few ‘googling’ and ‘Muliplying’ found that every pictures I found is very hard to resist. So here we go ……

Found the place is in the outer complex of Universitas Indonesia, the largest University in the country, and found the facts that It located just next to UI lagoon, so it bring our imagination to the very nice & clam place with lot of ‘Saung’ next to the lagoon, lot of fish pond like always traditional saung place, very large backyards, bunch of trees so that we may laying down rest our self and not need to rush to finish our meals …..

And it did! Just exactly the same as we were imagine about, just like my description on the previous paragraph, but only one miss, the place is very crowded in the lunch time. We need to wait almost 30 minutes before we have our ‘cabine’ or ‘saung’. Lucky there’s lot of interesting place to see before we can start to order our meal, so there’s no further complains to made ………………

Build on about 3.500m square meter of land, this makan place belong to “Engking Sodikin” a culinary businessman from Tasikmalaya, this place is build from about 13-15 palm leaves roof gazebos on top of very large fish pond or we may call it lagoon. It’s quite common “Sundanees” style of “kuring”.

One interesting place is a wooden bridge across the small artificial stream made from a bunch of stone that separate two lagoons, and have lot of red-carper fish, hundreds and you may feed them with fish pallet that you can buy in the cashier counter, so it will makes our kids busy for a while.

I and my wife also have a chance to sneak around in their kitchen for some photograph, just so see how they prepare food.

Now it’s about the dish itself, from my parent’s recommendation that we should try “Udang Galah Bakar Madu” so this is the first thing that we need to order, besides Gurame Cobek and Kepiting saus Padang, and few other side dishes.

The BBQ udang came in shaslick style, so you will find 3 stick of blue-prawn shaslick (four prawns each) covered with red sauce, nice, sweet but a bit spicy …

But from my opinion, the prime dish is their Gurame Cobek that a deep fried Garupa fish with spicy mixed red onion and various type of chili padi gravy pour on top of it. Very delicious but ‘Hell’ you can imagine how spicy it is, it will burn your tongue but will keep you eat it until the last fish bone. Very nice indeed.

Kepiting Sauce Padang is standard, quite similar with some street-stall seafood sauce padang except the freshness of the Crab it self is very good.

The deep-fried cumi and udang is also nice & crispy.

Well, more over, the dish cost is quiet cheap compared with what you have eaten. The place is good & clean, the dish is delicious and moreover your damage-rate would not so heavy, except the location is quiet far from our home.

One tip, just avoid to be there in the lunch time, since they are very busy, you may chance to have very chaotic dish delivery, your meal will be interrupted since you may have to wait your partial dish that may not be arrive in the right time.

Just be there, make sure you know what you want to order and make it in a single run!

While you wait your dish, there’s a lot of waitress running around bringing appetizers that you may call such as ‘Kaapertart’, ‘brownies’ and many others.

I forgot to record their address, but I have their GPS coordinate
Coordinates: 6°20'56"S 106°49'53"E

But it is very easy place to find, if you came from TB Simatupang TOL, just get out in pasar minggu gate heading to Lenteng Agung, follow the road until you find the UI Flyover, follow the flyover turn to Pasar Minggu, and just you head down from flyover there’s a small junction in the left side of the road you’ll find a small signboard about this place, just follow the direction and you may enter the security gate to go into the complex. It located inside the UI Complex next to University Dormitory.

Ciputih, Ujung Kulon

2008-12-18T09:48:00.014+07:00

Found this place from searching the net – googling, not much information found except few personal blogs in multiply that try to tell how beautiful it is. Curiosity, yes that’s the exact word that drive me to search little deeper.

Start with very little information got from the net, and equip with the only map got from “Pulau Umang” website, we decided to go there just to have a look on that site, who knows we may bring our family or friends here.

It’s a medium distance drive from Jakarta, about 5 hours drive. Depart on 4.30 in the morning, we took Jakarta-Serang Tol then Exit in Serang Timur then facing to Pandeglang trough inland route. It is not an easy road actually, since it is a primary economic route from Serang to Pandegelang, we have to struggle against large trucks and Intercity Buses. Many people said that taking this road is the shortest path to go to pandegelang, but for me, it is unpleasant drive compare with another route if we took Anyer-Carita-Pandegelang, at least there lot of Sceneries to see. For the one who like easy drive, I strongly suggest to take Anyer-Carita road rather than this one.

Passing Tanjung Lesing junction, the road was getting worse, it’s not too bad actually, if you have sedan car, then you may got some trouble, it will slow you down up to 10-20km/h, but if you have higher ground clearance car like MPV or SUV, it should not be a problem, except you’ll have much bumpy journey. This road condition will continue for next 1-2hours drive, up to a small town called Cijulang, before it getting better. You’ll find lot of “Pulau Umang” signboard that you may use it as navigation point up to another small village called Sumur, there’s a junction that you have to take a straight choice, rather than the right one (which lead you to Pulau Umang harbor front). Start from this junction, you still has to drive about 6km further before you reach the resorts.

First impression, the resorts complex is huge, but build “as is” with letting the original environment grow like they should be. No fancy artificial garden or water fountain or whatever that you may find on several resorts. It just a bunch of trees grow on top of white sands ……… yes! It is real white sand!

The beach it self is very wide sand beach, white sands, blue and clear seawater, it reminds me to Dreamland or Nusadua Beach in Bali, and it has almost no sea waves. Very calm beach. Very beautiful ………………. According to local people there, this is the only one beach that has such kind of sands. We are lucky, since the weather is very clear so that you may watch the blue sky, blue sea and white sands very clearly.

Next to the beach, there’s a large swimming pool in front of the main building which is a restaurant, well, it is not a well managed restaurant, they serve very minimum level of food choice, but at least you may have “Udang goring a’la Ciputih” or “Ayam Masak Kecap”, but the unique thing about the place is, you may enter up to the kitchen to talk with the cook even you may borrow their equipments to mess with your stuff.

Facing the beach, there are unpopulated isle called pulau mangir, you may have to go there by renting a boat from “Sumur”, if you like snorkeling this isle is a good spot for you. It has a wide white sand beach, mixed with very clear water with lot of live corals beneath. It’s about 1m deep and you may have very fun snorkeling there, but have to be cautious since you will find difficulties to step on it.

One thing that you should prepare is about food, since the place is very remote, they do not have proper logistic, more over the room rate is not include breakfast, the best way for you is to bring your own logistic, instant-noodle, preserve food is very recommended, otherwise, you may go to sumur in the morning to go to “Fish Market”, you may buy some fresh-fish just landed from “Bagan” and ask the kitchen to cook it, they will charge you Rp. 15.000/kg, fried or BBQ. But no prawn and crabs, just fish and Squid. If you may want to have prawn, you have to buy it once you enter panimbang long the way before you reach Sumur.

In Overall, this place is marvelous! It has been our favorite destination recently; we’ve been here three times just in less than 6 months, even though we have to take 6 hour drive from Jakarta, it doesn’t matter!

A little tips: do not go there during Nov – Mar since it has west wind seasons, you’ll find larger sea waves that usual and (off course) rain, not recommended!

"Begor" Suryo

2008-12-17T19:11:00.004+07:00

Bebek Suryo, that’s the name that look so usual especially for common Javanese name, Suryo is quiet common. But, Bebek Goreng Suryo came with different signature. It is a restaurant that put their specialty in traditional “Deep Fried Duck” Located somewhere in Jalan Senopati, Jakarta Selatan.

Once you reach the place suddenly you will know that this is not a cheap thing at all. The restaurant actually a typical large house that quiet commonly found in area, converted into a cozy café style “makan place” that has open terrace in the backyard. That is the most favorite place for most visitors, and hardly vacant during lunch hours.

The place has lot of traditional ornament and furniture that shows where the owner came from. But that’s not the main concern right now, but the “Bebek Goreng” it self that very special. It well deep fried, very crispy and very soft duck-meat that you may peel the meat from the bone easily. The spices is so “perfect” so that it will match very well with hot rice, off-course they will serve the dish with very well decorations and most important thing is the yellowish Gravy that straightly remind you to the “Street Bebek Goreng” that you may find every Street Stalls in Surabaya.

One minus thing here is, for the fancy restaurant like this they only accept cash, no credit Card at all. So be prepare to bring enough money here, since you will most likely have additional orders for very delicious “Bebek Goreng”

Pondok Suryo
Bebek Goreng Surabaya
Jl. Suryo No.16 Senopati
Jakarta
Ph. +62(21) 739 3358

Cariu, Last visit

2008-11-24T16:34:00.016+07:00

Cariu, last visit
The Deer Sanctuary .............

A bit surprise when we revisit this place last month, some changes has been made, especially for the small forest next to the hanging bridge, now …… no more. 

They cut down the trees and change it become a farmer plantations, plus a couple of farmer house mixed with some open air “Bale-bale” in the riverside.

I’m a bit disappointed finding the place has been changed, now more close to civilization compared with a year before that it was used to be. But well, what can I do? Probably they wanted to make this place more commercial, since the sanctuary is also need big fund for their daily operations.

The deer them selves are about the same, except there’re more male deer may found in this place than before, but seems that our favorite ‘Asep’ has died according to the local ranger there.

One thing that very interesting we found of, by the time we would like to return to the carpark is that the farmer house is selling BBQ Freshwater Fish, this is the thing that we have to try ….. imagine, the original country-style Freshwater Carp
Fish, fresh from the river …………….

So here we are, the taste is not expected to be similar with famous “ikan bakar” restorant but the “Pecak” and “Sambal” is marvelous, made from from Mountain Chili that picked-up directly from farming.

Yummy …………………………….

Warung Bancaan Mang Barna & Bi O'om

2008-09-25T18:32:00.005+07:00

Last week I went to Bandung on Official duties to have some meetings with some customers. Nothing special with the meeting it self unless it always talks about how you may offer better solution to the customers and maintaining relationship with them. But the interesting part is about lunch.

Having lunch in a “Ramadhan” like this is a bit un-easy since some of out colleague are Moslem and they are not able to company us for lunch. But well, we still need some lunch don’t us? So, after getting some good reference from our local staff, we decided to try-out on “Warung Bancaan Mang Barna & Bi O'om”, located on Jl. Trunojoyo 62, Bandung, just next to sambara Resto, one of fine-dine Sundanese Restaurant.

It is a bit contradiction seeing two sundanese restaurant side-by-sides, while the first restaurant offering modern atmosphere and the other one offering the original sundanese. We are not to keen to go into Sambara at this time, and straight go into the other one.

It is a really traditional, the interior is quiet modest, with lot of long dining table that may accommodate about 10 people each, you may find few “lesehan” place in the corner, go into the edge of the restaurant is the main attraction of the place. This is where the preserve sundanese food ready to eat were display in attractive manner. In the other edge you may find a ‘salty fish corner’ where lot of dry-marinated fish display in a table, and you may pick-up what you want and ask the butler to fry it for you. There also a “Es Goyobod” and “Es Cincau” corner that will made by order.

The other unique things are we have to use tin plate & cup to get our meal. This tin thing was quiet rare to see recently, it was very popular when I was a kid.

So here we are, we pick-up what we want and have to go to cashier table and they will record all things that you take, before you may go for meal. You do not have to pay it that time; they will ask you for having your meal before paying.

That’s the hospitality of this place.

Anyway, there’s too many ‘unusual sundanese’ dish that I do not know the name, but you may see it on the photograph. But one thing that I can say, It is a good meal indeed.

WARUNG NASI BANCAKAN
Mang Barna & Bi O'om
Jl. Trunojoyo no. 62
Bandung
Ph : 022.420.3650

Lorry Ride ......

2008-09-22T16:42:00.007+07:00

Train is one of my favorite things when I was a kid; don’t know why I like it the most, besides all military tings. There’ are two places that I quite often to visit in this little town, One is This train museum and the other one is the “Palagan Ambarawa” which is a memorial park build to remind the Battle of Ambarawa, 12 December 1945 when the Great General Soedirman ordering large scale offensive to drove Allied forces back to Semarang.

Now days, we always pay a visit there every time we went to Semarang to see my parents. Usually we start from “Kerep” which is a devotional visit place that has Mother Marry Statue.

This is the third time we here, but it still become one of our kids favorite place. An old train stations, a bit less treated, probably because of limited maintenance fund, that may happened to most of Indonesian museum, and only small numbers of museum that has proper maintained such as one in Bandung, the Geology Museum, but not this one.

Trash everywhere, mixed with many stalls scatter around the place, thick dust in some corners has become proves that the place is not well maintained. But still, it is an interesting place to see since it has lot of vintage locomotives display.

This time we took lorry just to go to “Tuntang Train Station” to have some sightseeing next to “Rawapening” lake. It took about 30 minutes ride on single way so that it spends a total about 1.5 hours before we get back to the museum.

The ride is a bit tricky since the machinist refuse to drive the lorry at the first place, before we have a “very understanding deal” with him before ride. Totally we have to spend about Rp. 200.000,- to make the lorry up and go! But it is a nice ride, we ride next to the lake and saw some exciting scenery, green rice padi field, chicken and duck stall, up to fisherman boat and pier.

Fisherman boat Quay on Rawapening Lake shore

One thing that is very funny is because the train is very noisy and bumppy, it is very difficult to have still pictures on that conditions. I have to use continous shooter to get several pictures. It is not easy at all, moreover the machinist did not want to stop the lorry since he wants to went home earlier. Oh boy ........

Kepiting Nyoto Roso - Ungaran

2008-08-20T20:10:00.005+07:00

The other famous “Kepiting resto” that we visited is this legendary “Kepiting Tauco” Roso Nyoto that located in Ungaran, a small town about 29km away south of Semarang. This traditional resto is very popular so that we may have to make a call at least 30 minutes before arrival to make sure we may get our order, unless you may willing to wait for another 30 minutes before they serve the dish you wants.

The place is a actually small house that has moderate yard that they change to restaurant extension side by side with parking lot that may accommodate about 4-5 cars inside, the rest you may have to park on-street near the place. Although the place is small, but it is very easy to identify since it has large billboard and moreover there’s too many car parking outside that won’t be miss.

We get our table after several minutes and may have to wait the other people finish their meal, My Dad has to go inside to confirm the order, and we still have to wait for another 5 minutes before the dish arrived.

For the first glance, the look is not to interesting, very traditional like dishes. One portion is containing 2 (two) fresh crabs, cooked in very think “Tauco gravy” But when it comes to your mouth you may feel the difference, the taste will left in your mouth for sometimes, very delicious!! Definitely we may have to go back there once we go to Semarang.

Besides their crabs, we order “Swie Kee” which is frog in “Tauco gravy”, Butter Prawn, and “Mendoan Penyet”.

In short, this is “yummy place that need to be visit ……..!”

Kepiting Prima @ Comal, Part Deux!

2008-08-20T19:33:00.004+07:00

One of our favorite restaurants is Restaurant Prima at Comal, a small city between pekalongan and Brebes, in Central Java. I wrote about this restaurant years ago in details. This time I just want to update about the dish.

We try to order “Kepiting Asap” it comes from curiosity about the menu compare to the one that “Saung Rasane” has in Jakarta, and it seems it quite similar. I wonder is there any correlation between these two restaurants? The other dish is my favorite “Kepiting Telur Asin”, and also several side dish like Udang Satang kremes (Blue Prawn / Udang Galah – this one is not recommended) and “Pecak Terong”

All those kind of dish only worth for Rp. 88.000, alamak!

Rumah Makan "Tegal" @ Semarang

2008-08-20T19:11:00.004+07:00

Tegal is a City in Centra Java, but Teal terms here is a restaurant name in Semarang.

One restaurant that we always visit in Semarang is R.M Tegal (Rumah Makan Tegal), which is located in one of “Ruko or Rumah Toko” inside Thamrin Square – Semarang.

"Udang Kremes" & Shark BBQ

It is a Seafood Restaurant, but the interesting part is because it’s price is relatively cheap, and their “Srimping Goreng” dish, which is scallop – in Javanese language. It is a bit difficult to find this clams in Jakarta, we may found it Bandar Jakarta, but it is only seasonal.

We have “Welcome dinner” here with my parents, besides our favorite “Srimping Goreng” we order “BBQ Shark”, “Udang Kremes” (very crispy), “Tempe penyet”, “taoge ikan asin” and my wife favourite “Sayur asem”.

The Legendary "Srimping Goreng" & "Udang Mentega"

In overall, for Semarang scale, this place is recommendable! The food taste is OK, the place is clean, food delivery is fast enough, and off course the price is cheap.

"Pisang Penyet" @ Semawis

2008-08-20T18:35:00.009+07:00

Last weekend we got opportunity to visit this recent people talked about this Semarang Icon Culinary festival, called Semawis or “Semarang Wisata”.

It is located in Semarang Chinatown Central, Jl. Gg. Warung Semarang, every Friday afternoon till end of Sunday, every week. Started by a group of Semarang’s “Hua Qiao” or Overseas Chinese people who lived in Semarang for many generations.

I do not want to discuss what is “Semawis” is, it’s to many blog or website since it may found in some internet websites:

Indonesian version in Wikipedia
About Semawis - English version

What I want to share here is one of my childhood favorite “grill banana” that I found yesterday there. Since it is very rare to get this kind of dish now, especially in Jakarta. It is made from grill banana, with Butter and Pineapple garnish, so it will give you very strong sweet and sour taste. It Is very nice!

Indeed we have dinner in this “hawker center like” place, we try to get some “typical” Semarang food such as Soto, Mie Titee -Which is traditional egg-noodle cooked in brown gravy with spinach and …………… Pig Leg!!!!

There’s also Semarang “Ca Kue” that a bit heavy compared with their similar “sibling” from medan, and more over, Semarang people like to have this salty traditional cake with a glass of coffee milk.

One thing that I miss is the famous Es Cong Lik (word came from “Kacung Cilik” or little boy), this is traditional “es puter” made from assorted seasonal fruits.

There’s several street store offering “pig dish” such as “pig satay” and “nasi campur” that is rice with various things of pork BBQ and many other things.

Nikon D60 First Try Out

2008-08-11T20:13:00.002+07:00

I just got my new Nikon D60 DSLR few weeks and can’t wait to have it try, and yesterday the day has came, coincidence we went to “Taman Buah Mekar Sari” Cibubur after we fail to visit our primary target which is “rumah makan ibu Endah” that sells “masakan Betawi”. Perhaps next time, we will have another chance to try out her famous Gabus Pucung.

But at least, I can (finally) test my DSLR, and this is my first result, still using AF-S Nikkor DX VR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G Standard Lens. Not bad for the color result, but a bit difficult to exploit. Perhaps I should move to 18-200mm lense on the first chance!

Rumah Makan "Bu Entin" - Pandeglang, Encle

2008-07-28T09:08:00.003+07:00

I know this place from searching on multiply.com when we would like to go to Ujung Kulon by Pandeglang, As far as I’m concern Pandeglang is a bit remote area and a bit difficult to get “good” meal. That’s why before we go there, I’d better have a peek on what Pandeglang may offer for “good” meal for us, then I found RM “Bu Entin”, one thing that make us curious is about the size of the dishes, all reference we got said that they have “super size satay”

So here we are, very easy to find this place since it is located on Main road between Pantai Carita to Pandeglang, on the left side of the road. It is a small place but very crowded, lot of car park in the front of it, so it is very easy to recognize the place.

There’s a large BBQ pit in front and always busy to grill their “super sized Otak-otak”, once you enter inside, you may find assorted raw BBQ from Fish, Prawn, Squid, Baby Squid and others that they put on several large tin bin, all of them are stuff on a large “bamboo satay stick” so you may call it “giant satay” They also have several “typical” sundanese dishes like Oncom and sayur asem.

After picking some “satay” we just sit on one of several tables there and waiting for the dish coming out, plus off-course “rice bakul” and “Sambal” that uniquely put on rice plate.

The dish is delicious, especially the squid and baby squid are so tender, but one thing that may not be to convenience is the place it self, it is to dark and not to clean. Perhaps next time we go there is to get the dish and take it out to have’em outdoor, well there’s lot of public beach that we may drop by to eat this “bizarre” dish anyway.

Green Canyon - Cijulang

2008-06-30T18:41:00.014+07:00

This is our primary target to visit, long way to go from Jakarta just to have a look on this beautiful canyon.

It has a name as Cukang Taneuh which has meaning as “Soil Bridge”, don’t know whay they call that but I was not able to see that Soil bridge or perhaps I was not able to understand the meaning, but what the hack ………. I came down here not to discuss about the name, but want to see the schenary.

The place is about 45 minutes drive from our hotel, we drive along the road that has evidences of tsunami disaster 2 years ago. More about 2 – 3 km along the beach has wiped-out. Indeed it has very high waves, even though in normal conditions. It is a pity I do not have chance to take a picture on this area.

So We keep driving heading to Cijulang, Surprisingly it has an Airport in the neighborhood, that Mr. President SBY used it to visit tsunami evidence last time, called Nusawiru Airstrip.

Journey to the Sacret Place

We keep driving until we reach what they call “Dermaga Green Canyon” A small jetty place to start our journey with small boat. We have to pay Rp. 70.000/boat and has to use two boats since the boat is only has 5 passengers capacity with 2 crew. Then the Journey begins.

At the first time, I already impress with the river that have very clear water, even though the water has green color but it won’t stop you to see the underneath till the bottom of the river. If you lucky you’ll see fish running around in the shore, and perhaps one or two “giant lizard” is swimming in the river. It’s like a journey in the middle of “Latin America” jungle, Quiet River, large trees; green water except off course there would no crocodile and Packs of piranhas around here.

After about 20 minutes ride, we arrive in the final destinations, with a large cave as like as a gateway to this place, then we found our selves be inside in the cave it self, facing not to large very greenish lagoon inside. This is actually called the Cukang Taneuh. The boat has to stop here, and we have to get out from the boat standing on top of the rocks to watch this beautiful place. Lucky we are departing early in the morning, since it will become very crowded if there are more than 3 boats around.

Next, everybody can not resist jump-in into the water, so here we are, swimming in the natural pool giving us very unique experiences. Even Nathan & Tasha are very excited to swim, off-course we have to wear our life-vest and goggle.

It is very beautiful place ……………………………………………………

Pangandaran, next morning

2008-06-30T15:13:00.007+07:00

Wake up in the most earliest morning to watch the sunrise, after I miss the sunset the day before, it is worth enough. We found that there’s much to see inside the sanctuary, waterfalls, underwater scene etc. Probably we may go back here to stay longer than one day, since our current destinations is actually to go to Green Canyon – Cijulang rather than the Beach it selft.

But at least we knew that we may have cheaper seafood if we bought from wetmarket just next to hotel building, we knew that if we want to go to the “pasir putih”beach it’s just 10 minutes walk from the hotel. Next time we will come back with better preparation then.

Pangandaran, Post Tsunami Era

2008-06-29T16:06:00.013+07:00

Sunrise, taken from East Cost Fish Market

It takes almost 8 hours drive from Jakarta before we reach this place, it’s indeed a long distance journey. That’s why we planned this journey very carefully, with several days research on “google earth” to get the route, and also get some feedbacks from “Jalansutra” miling list, and also several discussion with some friends that has to be there, so Here we go …………..

We take the same route to Garut, except we took the left side road heading Tasikmalaya City. Well this is the only way I knew so far, up to Rumah Makan “Asep Strawberry” that become our first stop to have early lunch, about 11.00 am. In fact, we miss this place very much, the place that has the best “Nasi liwet” we ever knew so far.

Restaurant Asep Strawberry - tanjakan Nagrek

After get some meal and rest, continue the journey further to final destination, Pangandaran, Lucky the road is in very good conditions, even after Banjar climbing on “Pengunungan Seribu” before we reach the destination.

Complete Attribute of Nasi Liwet

Pangandaran it self, after Tsunami tragedy two years ago is in good conditions, lot of hotels has renovated their property, so that we may stay in a good and clean place, even though there’s no stars hotels around.

Surprisingly, Pangandaran is very similar with Kuta or Seminyak in Bali, lot of souvenir stores, beach wear stores and …………. Bule’s company with local ‘escort-guide’ !!! Except, off course the beach has no white sands arounds.

Pangandaran has two beaches, east and west, Tsunami evidence still laying around in east beach, even there’s a large shipwreck that sitting in the middle of the yard caused by Tsunami. Accoding to locals, this place is one of the most heaviest damage place, the Tsunami waves is up to 7m high!

Laut Biru Hotel

We stayed in Laut Biru Hotel, according to several sources this is the best hotel in town, they just build just after the Tsunami two years ago, so it is still brand new hotel, with minimalist and large two king-size springbed that become a standard hotel equipment in this neighborhood.

For me, there’s not much to see, The beach is full with Fisherman boad, to crowded and lot of ATV rental around. It’s a pitty since they told me that the sunset is very nice.

Damn …….. I think I just miss the good scenary to shot! I don’t know why my passion to hunt some nice pictures is gone somehow, I just spent my rest of the day with Nathan in swimming pool. Perhaps I just to tired after 8 hours drive from Jakarta.

Moon over the sea

One thing interesting is “makan”, we went to what they called “Pasar Ikan” by becak, it is not really pasar ikan but more to “Seafood Center” or something like that. An area that has lot of “Seafood Place”, not fancy place, just a standard “makan place” to have fresh seafood, like the one you may find in Jimbaran – Bali, except this one you have to sit inside the restaurant rather than having dinner on the beach sands. The interresting part is that there was full moon appears on top of the sea level, so I take the opportunity to stop by and take some shots.

The dishes is typical, you may have Fish (Sea Bas our Groupper) , Pranws, Squid, Crabs, various of Clams, styr “kangkoong” or water spinach made with “padang sauce”, “black pepper sauce”, “oyster sauce” or just standard BBQ nothing more fancy here.

Since we do not know anything about who is the best in town, we just pick the most crowded place that time which is “Rumah Makan – Risma”. It’s simple, go in, pick your raw dishesh, choose your table and sit, wait until your dishes ready for next 30 minutes, and have your nice Seafood dinner.

Back to Hotel, there not much to do except having a deep sleep, But the things it different in the next morning, a short walk on the beach just before sunrise, I got several nice shoots with my one and only model - my wive!

Curug Panjang

2008-06-29T12:10:00.010+07:00

Got SMS from Marsel, about Curug Panjang – not to far away from Mega Mendung …

Mega Mendung?? No joke! It’s quite near from Jakarta, so what are we waiting for ….

What we need is just to wait until the weekend, and here we go ……

Departing in the morning to avoid traffic jam, we spent only about 1 hour plus to reach the famous mega-mendung junction (famous –because is one of the several heaviest traffic Jam in Puncak Main road), lucky we have not face that traffic jam since it’s still early in the morning.

Driving following the road up to the hill, up to police intel school up away following the Bank Mega Training Camp sign board, go straight up to pass the Training Center it self, then you’ll find smaller road that may caused problem if you may face opposite car in the middle.

After several minutes drive, finaly we arrived at the parking lot. It’s just an open space on the ground, there’s still only two cars besides ours sitting on the ground.

So we here, we have to tak a short walk, around 300m to find the first waterfall. According to the area map, they have at least four waterfall, the easiest to reach is Curug Panjang, the rest are Curug Barong, Curug Bunder and Curug Ciblao. We do not have chance to go there except this one. The one that has best facilities among the others.

Before you reach the main Waterfall, you have to cross the stream that give you the ‘first wet’ experience, then you’ll find a middle size pond right in the bottom of the waterfall. The water is very clear with greenish color and ………..very cool!

The place is well prepared, they have lifeguard, they provide life-vest for the one who wants to swim into the pond, trash-bin everywhere so that you do not have to worry about where you want to dump your trash, the lavratory facilities is ‘relatively clean’, and there’s also a street-store who sells Cup-Noodle, Coffee, “Bandrek” it would be more nice if they also sells “gorengan”, “pisang, tape & jagung bakar”.

But in short, this place is worth to visit, especially with this kind of distance from Jakarta. It is a nice place to have a short escape from Jakarta.

Tokyo - a City without Trash Bin

2008-05-26T17:26:00.007+07:00

Can You belive that this is 5:00am in the morning?

Everybody know what is Japan or Nippon the home of the raising sun, indeed it is the home of the raising sun – The Sun that very eager to show up by himself long before it should be.

My God! ……………. Doesn’t U have any graciousness to let visitors like me have a longer sleep?

How could it already appear high on the sky on 5.30 in the morning? I just have less than 4 hour sleep last night. ………….

Well, that’s the fact – night is very short in this country. Anyway, in my opinion, Tokyo is quite similar with Singapore especially the MRT system, except they have up to 24 lines – multi operator, except the weather, and the more important thing is ………..

I Hardly Couldn’t find Trash Bin along the road ………………….

The only Trash Bins you can find is besides the soft-drink vending machines, where you can buy your free-selected soft-drink in machine, drink it at once, and put the empty bottle or can to the trash bin right besides it, otherwise you may carry your bottle every where you go.

Variouse Scene in Tokyo City

It is a City without Trash Bins, no wonder the city is much-much cleaner, since everybody not able to leave trashes unless they carry their trashes back home!!!

I was there almost the whole week partly for official duties, and the rest is more to what we called “getting to know more about Tokyo”, and I want to share a bit about the “non official” parts.

Far beyond my imagination, Tokyo is much-much “green” compared to Jakarta, you can find lot of Public Park & Trees along the road, even up to the main business district like nipponbashi or major shopping Area such as Shinjuku or Ginza Street. You may find “Ginkgo” and cherry trees along the road, nicely organize to provide shades for the pedestrian trail in the both sides of the road. It is very nice City after all.

Morning eve at several places

The major difference is, there is not too many parking area even though lot of apartments scatter all over the City. Here, parking lot is one of main issue to have private owned car. Unlike Singapore, Car is relatively cheap, you may have the latest Porsche convertible just for 4.8 million Yen, but then you may have serious headache to find your car since it is very-very expensive to pay a parking lot for it. The cost is about 100-300 Yen per 30 minutes! Or 60K-100K Yen/month, Can you imagine that?

Similar to other Major cities, Space is always problem, may be when they re-build this city after WW2, they may build lot of residential apartment but not for Car Park, since it was designed when Car has not become major requirement for common people.

Living space is also very expensive, I heard from locals that you have to pay about 75K-100K Yen / month just to rent 9m sq living space, which is only single tiny studio room, with 1m sq Shower room and tiny kitchen. It is a tough live isn’t it?

Tokyo Shinoji Temple & Tokyo Tower

I Do not have much pleasure time to explore the city, I just have short visit to Shinjuku, Harajuku, Meguro neighborhood (since we were stay at Sheraton Miyako Hotel nearby) and off course Akhiabhara Electronic City, and also 2 (Two) visitors object, Tokyo Tower and Shinoji Temple).

To be continue .........................

The Pinewood Resorts & SPA

2008-05-02T11:08:00.010+07:00

It’s about a month that I’ve been absent in my own blog. What a pity, but lot of work to do in office keep me away from my blog.

This time I would like to write about very nice place, not to far away from Jakarta since it’s on Puncak neighborhood, but it is very deep hiding inside far away from main road, just next beside Gunung mas tea plantation. It is a perfect place to have some little escape from daily routine.

The Pinewood Hotel Main Building

This resorts is probably designed to provide maximum privacy with retreat-like environment so that you may have nothing to do and just killing time by relaxing your self between SPA and your cabin beneath the large tress, facing a nice valley just in front of your eyes.

I was staying in their Chinese Cottage that situated just bellow their SPA, and facing the valley so that we may watch a nice view such as we may sit on a tree house. It is a real tree inside of our cottage intentionally left to provide natural touch in the cabin.

Inside the Cabin - Chinese Cottage"

Very nice wooden family room in each cottage, fully equip with Dining table, set of sofa bed, even a kitchen,

There also a large bathroom with both shower and ………….. Whirlpool!!! Wow!

Morning @ Pinewood

There’s a friendly open space restaurant that facing a large family room with one vintage gramophone that may turn-on freely, an also lot of magazines and books in their main family rooms even though there are an old magz but still may give you ‘home-like’ environment.

Breakfast time .................

The main building it self is design like European style bricks house, with artificial firewood in the main living room, and have lot of colorful flowers everywhere.

The surroundings

Seems that one night stay is definitely not enough for our short escape few weeks ago.

If you come up from Jakarta from Jalan Raya Puncak, Once you reach last Gas station few hundreads meter away from KFC outlets -just after hotel Pardede, you may find "Drugs dependency Rehabilitations facility" on your left side, you have to take a small road on the opposite that has "Wisma Departemen Perhubungan", just go straight ahead until the end of the road and you may find this very nice place.

Jl. Gandamanah, Desa Tugu Selatan-Cisarua-Puncak
Telp (+62 251)256 432 - 256 776
Fax (+62251) 256 433
Website:www.pinewoodhotelspa.com
Email:sales@pinewoodhotelspa.com

Desa Bumbu

2008-03-19T11:47:00.005+07:00

One of our favorite places to “escape” is one restaurant called “Desa bumbu”; we’ve been here so many times so that one of the receptionists recognizes my wife straight away once she appears in the front desk. As usual, before we arrive on that place my wife give them a call to reserve a gazebo to secure our “booking place”.

Departed a bit late from Jakarta, and have very heavy traffic jam after “Bumi Rancamaya Gate” up to Tapos Junction caused by “heavy road damage” made us arrive a bit late, but just nice since we came down after lunch time so that the place is not to crowded.

We got very nice gazebo, just at the edge of the yard corner, facing the small wood that has bunch of large tree and small padi field at the other end, just on top of the fish pond that may used to have fun fishing. But unfortunately, we may not get the fishing rot; everything is use-up since the morning.

Well, we may not get a change to fishing, but still lot of other activity can do, so here we are. Lay our back and do the best for relax in the gazebo while watching our kids play running around from Forrest to the Rice-padi field, trying to catch some grass hopers.

As usual, we order their specialty of “Ikan Bakar” that you will never found in other place, very unique, “pepes peda”, “tumis bunga papaya” this is a new stuff, we never found this menu before, “Ayam bakar” – standard for Nathan and several “sundanese dish” plus traditional “pisang goring” and the unique “pisang goring saus nenas” – this one is very delicious.

It is a nice place for take a short relax, except you should have to pass the ‘tapos junction’ that has heavy traffic jam, but you may have another alternative road trough “Batu Tulis” Bogor, off course you will facing another traffic jam once you get-out from Bogor Tol Gate along Pajajaran Road.

The Choice is yours. ………………………..

Meal Fiesta!

2008-02-17T13:51:00.008+07:00

Between Jl. Binamarga Bogor to Bumi Aki Puncak

Curiosity! I think that’s the right word for me since I was inspire with pak Bondan Wisata Kuliner show about Ny. Yenny’s Place. So here we are! After spending a nice weekend in Seruni Hotel – Cisarua, we intended to drop by to this place, specially for what pak Bondan Say about their reported dish!

The Old Fashioned Style Chicken Steak

Tumis Daun Raja, the primary target, since we were very curious about the dish, and what it would like compared with “Daun Ginseng”? Finally we may have a chance to taste it. It’s very similar with “Daun Ginseng” even our kids are may recoqnise it as “Daun Ginseng” once it was appear in our dine table. It’s very nice indeed, crunchy, fresh and “mak nyusss ……..” indeed!

The second dish, “Udang Gulung Sagobang” as referred! It is more like what we called “Kekian” rolled in thin egg omelet like Rollade; “Kekian” is an old fashioned Indo-Chinese dish made mainly from egg, minced pork-lard, prawn sometimes mixed with minced chicken chilled before it went to final cook stage – boiled then fry!

Udang Gulung Sagobang & Tumis Daun Raja

The Third one, It’s Chicken Steak – or Chinese style chicken steak, the most interesting of this dish is the sauce, very special – it’s like the old days when my grandma still able to cook during her Chinese New Year eve family gathering.

In summary, yes …. This is an old fashioned Chinese Style restaurant and worth to visit, especially if you are looking nice restaurant in Bogor.

Jala-jala Seafood Front Yard

Not to far away from Ny. Yenny Place, there is “Jala Jala Seafood” restaurant. It is a large seafood place for Bogor size City. But then, I think they have “miss” decoration that may mislead people to make them came over to their place.

They decorate their place with “Sudanese” style bamboo instead of putting their “Fresh Seafood Market” and Seafood BBQ in front of their place like the others did.

We were almost decided to leave that place if we are not to late to went out for dinner, so that we afraid that we won’t get other “proper” place to eat – since we were carrying our kids along.

But actually, their dish is not bad at all, it is an old style “Chinese or more like Singaporean Seafood”. We order BBQ Stingray, Fresh Blue Prawn in butter sauce, fried soft skin shell crab mixed with some stir vegetables.

Large Blue Prawn with Butter Sauce

But I think, they way they serve Blue prawn is a bit miss, since they split the head into two pieces instead of let the head like it has to be. This is actually the art of having the “Blue Prawn”, you have to uncover their head carefully to get the whole head in single piece – then suck their juicy inner head, very tasteful ………… it’s like … .oh my!

Anyway, this is a bit fancy restaurant, so do not expect you will have cheap seafood over there!

Bumi Aki Assorted Juices

The Fascinating Pencok Kacang & Sop Kambing

Next spot, Bumi Aki – one of our favorite. I wrote about this restaurant previously, but can’t help my self to re-write this report.

This time we went there in very ‘cold-wind’ and not dare enough to stay put on their “lesehan” place outside the restaurant. So we stay put in one of the indoor table. This time, besides our regular ordinary favorite dish, I order “Nasi Goreng Kambing” as recommended by one of “JSers” member. Mean while we were order 3 cups of “Skoteng” just to make our body warm before the main dish came in.

As usual, the dish came in few minutes, so here they are, the exotic “Pencok Kacang” made from fresh “green bean” & “Basil leave” in traditional sour sauce, our Favorite “Sate Jeroan Kambing”, “Sop Kambing”, Orange Juice and Strawberry Juice.

Nothing more than like pak Bondan say “Mak Nyuussss ………….”

Hotel Seruni @ Cisarua

2008-02-10T19:06:00.001+07:00

Seruni #2 - View from Seruni #1 Swiming Pool

If we looking into the name which is “Hotel Seruni” there’s nothing that may not attract us nor brought up our curiosity to take a peek on this place. It is too common, like the ordinary villas that scatter around puncak area, it is very common and very typical, such as “Villa Mawar” or “Villa Kemuning” or whatever that may drive us to imagine a private own modest building with sober facility, in “a bit” quarter from main street.

View from Seruni #2 Hotel Main Balcony

But this one is different, It is a “huge” complex consisting two hotels which is Seruni #1 and Seruni #2 has at least three stars quality or equivalent, you may find a hotel with clean guestroom, four stars class amenities, two large resto, one of them is Japanese restaurant, two large swimming pool, Jacuzzi, sauna & spa with large function rooms, equip with very huge, well prepare and very decorated garden with colorful flowers.

Hotel with Unique decorations, it’s mixed between Balinese, Thai and Modern Chinese style – that remind me to large houses around mangga besar or surroundings. I say is a “flustering Style”, hehehehe …………………

The most fascinating part of this hotel is their park, seems that They want to dump everything that they though are intersting here. It is what I called an "Es Shanghai Concept", You'll find a large pond with waterfountain equip with big Swan statues in each corners - that will be good if the fountain has music and able to dance like the one in front of Bellagio Condominium in Mega Kuningan, there are two large artifical running water falling from top of the hill going through the valley with very unique design, mixed with scatter small padi fields mixed with several fruit plants and colorfull flowers, some gazebos that may be use for open air SPA, eventhough I wonder who wants to be massage in such openess just next to children playground?

We just spent our weekend here, just to get a bit escape from daily routine, a day after Chinese New Year, but unfortunately it is a rainy day and has very thick fog almost all the time. So here we are, stuck in the hotel, but I managed to get few pictures during “clear weather” that we can have several times, just few minutes each.

In summary, this hotel is very recommended! Specially for Puncak area that you may not have to much choice unless you go to Puncak Pass Resorts or Taman Safari Garden Hotel. It is located in the same main road that heading to Taman Safari Indonesia from the main road, but there will be a small road climbing to the left after you go for about 1km from Jl. Raya Puncak (the main junction to Taman Safari Indonesia). There is a signboard that pointing to the small road to the hotel. You have to follow the concrete road about 700m before you reach the hotel gate in the left side of the road. In a glance, the hotel gate is not interresting – only a small building with a medium size parking lot in the front, but don’t worry! You may find a huge Hotel Complex behind.

One more thing, they have "Barongsai" attraction during this Chinese New Year that may attract lot of hotel guests.

In Short terms, this hotel is very recommended!

You may find the hotel information here.
Jl. Pirus, Kampung Baru
Tegal Cibereum 16750

Seruni I - Pangrango
Telp. 0251-251111 (hunting)
Faks. 0251-258171
Seruni II - Gunung Gede
Telp. 0251-259988 (hunting)
Faks. 0251-250575

Telp. 021-8305877-79, 8281093
Faks. 021-8299002
reservasi@serunihotel.com

JAKARTA "Banjir lagi!"

2008-02-02T21:35:00.000+07:00

there're some people has look at the "bright side about flood"

The opening day on First day of Feb 2008 bless with “heavy rain”, some people said that this is the “mother nature call” for Soeharto funeral, our former 2nd president, some others said that this is a “Jakarta yearly ritual” happened in the rainy days, and lot of versions spreading around over the years about this “Jakarta yearly occasion”. I think it is a good reason to promote Jakarta such a way?

“Welcome to Jakarta, the city of flood? You may watch the annual occasion of spectacular rain and flood during January and February every year, have your un-forgettable moment during our flooding seasons, honeymoon package is also available, please contact your nearest travel agent to get more detail information or visit http://www.jakarta-annual-flood.com”

Well, the show must go on, this time I wrote this blog about the seasonal occasion. I went to office as usual even though there’s a medium-sized rain since dawn. Driving to kids school drop-off them in front of the school yard as I did many times almost everyday, then continue for another hour drive to my office, and have normal daily activities in office.

But then the rain was getting worse, and I got a call from my wife asking about our home condition made my jump-out of my “deep joy of work” back to real world, and yes, I found out that water has been filling into our house, like a years before like a spring water spread out from underneath of our house ceramic. At the same time some of my work colleague seems a bit nervous and started rush back to their home. So I decided to follow their move, in case there’s something’ worse at home.

My Neighborhood during the flood!

It’s a hard way to back home, traffic-jammed almost all the way, I took almost 2 hours before arrived and find out that I have to park my car in front of our neighborhood just to walking’ in the rain, walkthrough the 30cm high water to reach my home.

By the time our kids back home from school, I asked them to “help me up” to wash out the water from home, just to give them the experience, I let them play around with the water, just like my old days ………….

Well, this will happened annually, so I try not to complain about it, and try to get the bright side of it. Lot of funny things happened, watching my kids playing around with water, walking across the flood to reach home, screaming and laughing in the middle of the rain. Oh My God, you are so kind to me, you give me such a joy that the others may not have, watching my kids playing around, while other parents may not let their kids do the same thing, just like our old days ………………

Food Stalls, Jl. Binamarga Bogor

2008-01-27T11:07:00.000+07:00

This actually a row of traditional food stalls in front of Jl. Binamarga Bogor, and visited by pak Bondan Winarno just few weeks ago, on 10th of January’08. Once I watch the show suddenly I remember that we’ve been visited this place not to long ago, on Christmas Eve during Our stay in Novotel Bogor.

We’ve been here few times, but never got a change so try out the famous “Sup Kaki Sapi” like pak Bondan did on his show. But yet, there are still many interesting food that quiet good to try. Like “Taoge Goreng” and “Es Cincau Hijau”

We really do not know which food stall is good, so we just pick one of them that has “temping look” and fortunately it’s very “strategic place” since it is located near two of them. Like I said before, one of our favorite food is sundanese food, so that’s why were here.

While My Lovely wife took her meal, I order “Taoge Goreng” and “Es Cincau Hijau” for my Kids, and this “Taoge Goreng” is sooo nice …………………. Very delicious. It’s like you have your “Tauge Goreng” with meat sauce although there’s no meat at all but lot of “oncom”………

It is very interesting place to visit.

"Indoor Winter" @ MTA

2007-12-31T13:34:00.000+07:00

MTA = Mall Taman Anggrek, Jakarta

This mall is always has "spectacular" decorations during some events, such as this Chistmas, they made a huge winter diorama in their centercourt.

Imagine if they wear some winter gears, who would expect that they are standing in the middle of centercourt in the tropical country?

Nasi Uduk "Mpok Rohaye"

2007-12-29T09:55:00.001+07:00

One of our fave places for breakfast is “Nasi Uduk Mpok Rohaye”; it is located in Jalan panjang Jakarta Barat, between Kebun Jeruk Tol Gate to Joglo – Simprug.

If you coming from Kebon Jeruk Tol Gate, head to Jalan Panjang in lef side, right after you pass the underpass turn right and go straight ahead, after you pass the traffic-light about 2km ahead, the place is on your left side. Becarefull, it is a small foodstore and have small signboard only. It is right the opposite of “Nasi Uduk Kebon Kacang” on the other hand.

It starts from a small food store or called “warung” but then they manage to occupy the concrete building behind to put their extension meal tables. It is a complete set of popular “betawi style cuisine” such as “nasi uduk”, “Soto mie”, “Soto Betawi” and “Sate Kambing” (I’m not recommend the last one).

The “Nasi Uduk” it self has broad range of “topping” such as standard “semur kentang, tahu, telor” and off-course “jengkol”, “bihun goreng”, “telur dadar”, and more advanced such as “Opor ayam”, “pindang bandeng” and so on as you may free to chose”

In the dine table, they also serve broad range of snacks such as “gemblong”, “pastel kentang” (those two are marvelous), also “Dadar gulung” and many more.

The place is quiet crowded in lunch-time, since it is a well known place in the area.

NOC Year End @ Izzi

2007-12-27T23:30:00.000+07:00

Dec 27th, 2007 I managed to gather part of the team in this place for several purpose, but as usual, not all of member may attend to this occasional gathering, since one of them should stay to watch the net, Kalpin is on his leave and Faizal somehow not able to attend. Sugi says that his wive is waiting at home with her sexy lingerie, so he rush back to his home....... :-D

It is a rare occasion for him since he has to leave his lovely wive back in Majalengka. So it is forgiven by the team! :-D

first reason is because this is the last team routine gathering for the year 2007, secondly, Is to celebrate my new NOC Manager – Gede, you are the most tough guy in team, congratulation!

Second, I would like to thank to all my team for their support while I was became their NOC Manager.

Third, it is a routine occassion that I'm trying hard to facilitate this informal gathering to get in touch with the team, and to have some 'more' casual moment to share each others among the team member about anything especialy work related, but in a more relax moment.

As usual, our lucky guy - Roesgani always appear in such occasion on purpose. I may use his talent to become our photographer anyway.

So here we are, 2008 NOC team having dinner at izzy@oakwood, mega kuningan.

Novotel Coralia Bogor (Again!)

2007-12-27T16:00:00.000+07:00

It is a nice sanctuary place, to have little escape from routine thing in Jakarta. Just an hour drive from Jakarta you will reach this hotel deep inside on of luxurious real estate outside Bogor.

Novotel Coralia Bogor has been there since at least 8 years ago, and this is not the first time we steal our holiday in this place. Standing with lots of big trees, the low-rise 180 room hotel and large landscaped gardens are most beautiful, and have tropical environment design resorts next before Bogor Lake side golf course.

This time we may stay in Deluxe plus room, that have own private open-air bathtub in its terrace. Oh my ….. It’s very exotic, imagine that if you’ve been there with your soul mates, or you are a new couples on the honeymoon, but this time we may been there with our kidz ……..

There are several favorite place in this hotel, one is off-course the swimming pool, even though is not big enough for that size hotel, but still very tempting for our kidz to go in there, meanwhile we are sitting in the club next to the pool to have a cup of coffee and a plate of hotel style banana fritters.

Second is what we called “rumah pohon” is actually a “Watch tower” in the edge of hotel, that has a set of sofa, but then since it’s rainy day so we have no chance to go there.

Third, is the “circle track” around the hotel that may give you felt about nature walk, and again it’s raining and no chance to go there.

The last one is their Veranda restourant, the place when we took our breakfast. It is a restourant in open space facing the main hotel backyard. Very nice.

So, we just spend much time between our “private pool” in our room terrace and swimming pool, back and forth. But then, our purpose to come down into this place is to seek a "little escape" from daily routine activity in Jakarta, and we made it.

Note: click on this URL to go to Novotel Bogor website.

Candi Gedong Songo

2007-12-22T08:54:00.000+07:00

note:picture taken from id.wikipedia.org about Candi Gedong Songo

It’s been a long time since I left my semarang in 1987, now I came back to this place, in overall still the same like I left, except now they has a ticket-booth before you enter to this area.

It is a stone-temple complex in a wide region, the unique thing in this place is about 9 temple scatter around the place, not concentrate in a single area like the others. You have to walk from one temple to another, and the last temple is on top of the hill, and you may see it from the first temple down below.

You will have amazing view from here, very beautiful scenery, dominated with pinus forest and you may see the legendary “rawa pening” from here.

Another interesting part is In the middle of the journey to 9th temple, you’ll find an active-crates and hot spring water, but unfortunately they made that place become a public hot water public bathroom that makes that place a bit messy (from my point of view).

In overall, this is a nice place to visit, and you may have to try “sate kelinci” there and also “Jagung bakar” in lot of local food-stalls there.

Dinosaurus Meat Everyone?

2007-12-20T15:31:00.000+07:00

Got this funny Ad Sign on the way to Jakarta from Puncak several weeks ago.

I wonder what it's look like? Sop Iga dino? Oh man .........

It's smart enough to attract people ...........

Layar Resto @ Surabaya

2007-12-16T10:55:00.001+07:00

Just came back from Surabaya few days ago from Official duty that make me stay for several days there. Frankly speak I do not really like to be here, probably because of the climate and the environment, for me it is similar like Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta to me but much-much larger.

But then, once it comes to the food discussion, Surabaya has lot of mouthwatering dish that makes me forget everything about undesirable from the city. I’ve been invited by one of my business associate to have dinner and he brings us to “Layar Seafood Restaurant” Somewhere near Golden City mall and Carrefour in west Surabaya.

It’s a typical Chinese seafood restaurant like Sarang Kepiting, Rasane or Saung Green Ville, we arrived there around 7.30 and very-very crowded during this prime dine hour. We have to wait for at least 30 minutes to sit on one of the table. Then, we start order, “Kepiting Telor asin”, “Kerapu Tim ala Hongkong”, “Baronang Bakar”, “Udang Windu Bakar”, “Kerang kampak cah Tausi”, “Kailan Cah Bawang Putih”, “Cah Daun Ginseng” we made fun with one of the colleague that currently become a “temporer bachelor” since his wife is studying in Japan for years and make him stay away from this “Ginseng leaves”, quiet funny …………

In Overall these are a good food, “Telor asin” was made such a way that made it melted on top of the prime-crabs, very delicious, The Steam Fish is perfect …….. As expected, BBQs is good and the big Axe Clam is very tasty, a bit slimy but delicious. It is a mixed between “Oyster and Pau Hie” and very big.

This is a good meal after all, and I will recommend to everybody who wants to go to Surabaya to have a nice dine in there.

I heard that they open their branch in Jakarta, somewhere in Jl. Juanda, need to find it someday.

My God! Its start to make me hungry again while I write down this report.

Resto Profile:
Layar Seafood
Jl. Raya Bukit Mas 109 Surabaya
Phone: 031 5683716

Pan & Cook @ Neighborhood

2007-12-10T00:23:00.000+07:00

Last Saturday is unusual, since we do not many activities. Nathan has to attend “his boy scout “Pesta Siaga” that gonna took at least half day from morning till afternoon and Tasha has to attend her regular ballet course that she do not want to miss. So, here we are, just fooling around between Puri Indah and Kemanggisan, back and forth dropping one and picking the others, till both of them finish their activities.

Then by the lunch time comes, we decided to have a try-out on this new pancake restaurant. It’s most similar with the “Pancious”, the one which in “Permata Hijau” area, but this one named them self as Pan&Cook.

It located in the main boulevard of Puri Indah, at the opposite of “Pasar Puri Indah”. It use to be a large residential house, but now the use it as a nice eating house. The atmosphere is very welcome, you’ll find a nice fishpond before you enter the main building which has nice minimalist decorating. Their waitress will greets you and bring you to available table, and we choose to sit in the corner, just next to large glass window facing the fish pond.

A bit surprise that the items they offer is not ‘to expensive’ for such typical of menus, and finally I choose Crepes de Suzette – a nice very soft French crepes with Fruit Cocktail and unique orange juice for its topping. Nathan choose Traditional Pancake with Maple Syrup, Tasha has smart pick on Chocolate Fondue with Fruits – it’s a mix fruit self dipped in melted chocolate and her favorite beef lasagna, I also select a Lemon Ricky – it’s a mix lemon juice, a bit soda and mixed with minced mint leaves that remind me to Kudeta Café in Bali.

Overall, the dish and drink are nice, environment is cozy, price is reasonable. It’s a nice place to have some light meal, especially on the weekend.

Sate Kambing Bumi Aki @ Puncak

2007-12-01T09:40:00.001+07:00

It’s located in ‘puncak’ jawa-barat, and it’s one of our ‘fave’ sate-kambing restaurants. We have chance to re-visit this place after several years back. Now it becomes cozier since they have renovated the place, and its look quiet nice and very clean.

If you drive from Jakarta to Cipanas after passing puncak tea plantation and Puncak Pass, the road will start declining and further down after passing “botol kecap” and Police station not far away you’ll find the place in right side of the road.

There are two main building with ‘wooden rancho’ style and connecting each other by a flyover cross bridge. You may choose “lesehan” or sitting in the main building in restourant that has smaller space rather than the open space “lesehan” outside. This restaurant is specialist in “Kambing” stuff, even though they have some others.

This time we order the famous “Satay & Sop kambing”, “Ayam bakar” for Nathan and also “pencok kacang” that made by fresh veggies with peanut sauce, a bit similar with karedok – very nice, but very spicy.

You may also have ‘skoteng’ from the local street stall that sitting outside the restaurant, and it is very nice too.

Not much to say, this is the best place to have “Satay Kambing” in PUNCAK area.

Kepiting Cak Gundul - Kelapa Gading

2007-11-19T15:13:00.000+07:00

Curious of his name made us decide to visit this place. We heard from people that this name is well known in East Java region.

I can’t remember the place exactly, as far as I can remember it’s on Kelapa Hibrida Raya, Kelapa Gading. If you come from “Mall Kelapa Gading 3” take North destination and the resto. is located somewhere in the left side of the road, with large recognizable billboard. You can identify the place by their Kitchen that placed in front of the restaurant.

It’s a unique resto. since hardly sell “Crabs” as their prime menu. As common “Crabs menus” they have “Black Pepper Crab”, “Butter Crab”, “Oyster Sauce Crab”, “Padang Source Crab” and the unique one is “Curry Crab”. The only other thing that you may choose is the Crab Size it self, they have normal crabs (Small) up to super size (Papua Crabs) that may cost you more than Rp. 300.000. Minimum order is two Crabs. Plain Rice, “sambel lalap” and “Sayur Asem” is included on the package.

Since only two of us, we decided to choose two regular Crabs to cook with Butter Sauce, the result is ‘a bit sweet butter sauce’, it is not so spectacular as expected, perhaps next time we may order “Curry Sauce Crabs” that may be more unique compare to others.

From our opinion, “Saung Rasane” is still the best…………………………………….

"Pepes Bendungan Walahar"

2007-11-04T11:42:00.000+07:00

As I mentioned before, one of our favorite dish is “Sundanese”, so here we are back to “Sundanese” food that is very popular in Kerawang. It’s called “Pepes”, it may made from several things like Carper Fish, Jambal Fish – some people call it “Bread Fish”, “Marinated Peda” Fish, Chicken, “Oncom or fermented soya”, even Mushroom.

Today we visit the most talked “pepes footstall” in Kerawang, east part of Jakarta. We drive from Jakarta through “Jakara – Cikampek” highway and exit in Kerawang Timur Gate, follow the road until you find a big junction with traffic light, turn left and go along the way up till you find another junction (the first junction) with “Texmaco” signboard. Follow the road until you find a river and turn left, go further down until the end of the road. You will find two Dams, first one is smaller and the other is the big one. You have to follow the road lead to on top of the Dam, it’s a narrow road which only able to handle one car at the time. But don’t worry, you’ll get help from local with a bit “appreciation” to them, about Rp. 1000,- / single pass. Then after you pass the bridge, you’ll find the place right in front of the end of the bridge.

There’s a Yellow sign board says “Rumah Makan Pepes Jambal H. Dirja”, they have a narrow space for car park in the front, but have plenty space inside, just bring your car down bellow, you will find Hugh backyard with several Gazebo or “Saung” scatter around the place in between of mango trees. It’s a nice place after all.

I manage to get a peek on their kitchen to see how they cook the Famous "Pepes" and it's quiet amazing to have a look on that. They have big firestone made from bricks and they burn their "Pepes" on top of it.

They will serve in “Full Heavy Metal way”, they will bring you all the kind of “Pepes” plus a plate of “Fried Prawn” that has to be purchase if you occupy the “Saung”, that’s the game rule. The additional dish you may order such as “Sayur asem” but “Lalap” is in the package. It’s a complete set of it, typical of “sundanese lalap”. The dish it self is very recommendable ……………”mak nyossshhh” said pak Bondan! And more over, you’ll be surprise when it comes to the bill ……………. You’ll leave the place with a wide happy smile ………..!!!

Crab Fiesta @ RM Prima Comal

2007-11-04T00:04:00.000+07:00

Comal is a small town between Pekalongan and Pemalang, almost nothing special there except this town is located on the main “Pantura” that become primary economic road in Java Island.

But then ……………. There’s a place, a restaurant who has “Crabs” as their speciality somehow become very popular, part of the reason because it has it own “Crabs Farm” so that they always have a fresh and Prime Crabs as they use “Prima” for the their Brand Name.

If you drive from Jakarta to Semarang, it’s located in the right side. Somewhere a bit before you enter the City, you’ll find traffic Light on a Junction and you’ll see large Signboard with their name “Restaurant Prima – Specialis Kepiting”, turn right and follow the sign about 500m you’ll find the restaurant in the left side of the road.

Although it seems very small place from outside, it actually a huge place with spacious parking lot, they have main building as their primary restaurant and you’ll find large ponds fill up with lot of Crabs behind.

But if you want to have some short break after driving all the way down from Jakarta or the other way around, you may choose lot of “Saung” or “Gazebo” in the back yard. The unique of this place, they have several animals like “Bats”, “Fox”, and several numbers of “Birds” even “Giant Lizard”.

But there are not my main concerns but the Crabs did! We choose “Kepiting Special Prima” and “Kepiting masak Telor Asin” as our main dish, with other such as “Tumis Kangkung”, “Sayur Asem”, “Ikan Bakar” and some others. You have to wait about 30 minutes before the dish came up, but it is a worth thing …………….

The Crabs is very big, you will spend about 150-200 thousands rupiah for such crabs in Jakarta, and here just about 30 thousands only …………!!! Amazing! Very fresh and very tender and very delicious ……. I’m talking about Crab it self, not about the way that they cook, talking about the recipe “Rasane” in Jakarta still the best for me. But talking about a Crab Resto in a small town, it is a worth thing to try ………. Spend your time to visit this place if you may be able to.

"Toko Oen" the Old Fashioned Resto

2007-10-26T11:54:00.000+07:00

This was my favorite place when I was a boy. I was born in Semarang and my parents quit often brought me to this legacy restaurant. It was the fanciest Ice Cream and Steak Restaurant besides the one in Dibya Puri Hotel in Semarang (I don’t know whether this hotel still exists). I brought my Family to this place last June during our children School holiday.

The location it self is in Jl. Pemuda at the opposite of "Sri Ratu" Department Store. It is a well known Department Store in Semarang, so don't worry about getting lost there, every Semarang people know where it is.

It is an old fashioned restaurant; serving old fashioned dish mostly “Holland” style like "Huzarensla", "Wiener Schnitzel" and their specialty is “Ox tongue steak”, besides the dish this restaurant is popular with their old fashioned Ice Cream like “Tutty Frutty”, “Napolitan” and many others.

In the one of the corner they also have old fashioned style pastries like “Nastar”, “Kastengel”, “Schuimpjes “, “Speculaas” and many more. I even can’t remember their name.

The interesting part is because they put their first Cash Register machine in display as a decoration in there. And it keeps my Kid very curious of it.

The restaurant it self was not too crowded during our visit, it also has a VIP room separated from the main hall. When it comes to taste, hmmm …… seems that nothing special there. I think because our appetite has changed with lot of new fancy comers coming in. But It is a historical place ……. It worth to visit.

Bali, see yaa next time ............

2007-10-23T16:30:00.000+07:00

After long ride from Padang Bay, we have dinner (once again) in Jimbaran, and finally we know that There are three different places for Jimbaran Sea Food, the first one is the one which we had dinner in the first day, that the most expensive one. Second, is where the famous Manega Café is resides, and the last one is the one who my Jakarta office guys quiet often to have dinner on it. This is the real cheap one. We eat a Grouper Fish, Crabs and 1/3kg of Tiger Prawns with all accessories is about 300 thousands rupiahs, it is quiet cheap and you can eat up till loaded.

From Jimbaran, we go straight to Airport. Our Flight is 23:00, so that's plenty of time to wait in the airport,

oh well ...... But it is worth price anyway, We can wait in the caffee. Good by Bali ….. see yaa next time!

Bali #10, The Blue Lagoon & Tj. Jepun

2007-10-23T15:23:00.000+07:00

After spending about an hour in Goa Lawah we continue to our final destination, Tanjung Jepun. According to information we got we should go to Padang Bay to find some tourist information center. So as been told, we found one of them, but they offer us very high price……….. Just forget it.

Lesson #1; do not make a deal on the first run. So we decided to look around asking some locals about where the Blue Lagoon is, and finally we found that place.

So before you enter Padang Bay Complex, there’s a junction and you have to turn right to follow that smaller road, about 500m you will find another junction, take the left one to the Blue Lagoon.

It’s not a wide beach, just about 200m wide. The name it self is actually the name of small footstall or ‘warung’. It is the only ‘warung’ that facing that beach. But then suddenly become a very well-known name …… just a lucky guy I supposed!

The Beach it self is …………. Fascinating! White sands, blue and clear water. Unfortunately we came in the wrong time. According to local people there, we should arrive on this place by morning, around 8 O’clock in the morning. So we would not have any strong wave like the one we have. But at least we found this place, and next time we will have better preparations.

Next Destination, we have to lease a ‘Jukung’ to go to Tanjung Jepun, it is about 10 minutes ride from there, but because the strong wave there, we have to take a ride from Padang Bay.

It is a very nice place to have snorkeling, the location is about 100m offshore from the beach, and you will find a wide coral reef about 6-10m down below. So here we are, after the long ride we should have this experience whether you like it or not. So, I am the first that going into the water, swim a while but ……….. I can’t go far away from the boat since the wave is quiet strong. But it is okay, and the most enjoyable view is once you put your head into the water and see what’s in down there. IT is a fascinating view, like you watch a very big Aquarium with …… and Hugh numbers of fish.

After a few minutes to get along with the water, Nathan went in. He is quiet enjoy with it, and do not want to end up. But then, I have to grab him all the time he went into the water since it is quiet deep water even tough he can swim well, but still it is open water not a swimming pool.

Next turn is my Wife, I ask her should go into the water, She wears a life jacket to keep her afloat and we spend few minutes before we decided to end it. We have to end it since the waves is getting bigger.

It’s not an easy ride to went home, we were facing waves about 1.5m high quiet often, and it was scared experience for some of us ……… but it is a unforgettable experience either.

Bali #9, Hotel Check Out to Goa Lawah

2007-10-23T14:08:00.001+07:00

This is our last day in Bali, before we flyback to Jakarta. After morning breakfast in Hotel we checked out from Novotel Benoa (the last two days we spent in Novotel Benoa) and rush to Tanjung Jepun.

Surprisingly not too much people know where it is, and finally we got the ‘more precise’ info from the guy from Water Sport Company which we got their banana boat a day before. So, based on my recall to Candidasa that I visited more than ten years ago we start the journey. But now, Bali has new bypass road to go the east region, from Nusa Dua straight trough bypass road to Gianyar <> amlapura. This road is reduced your travel time a lot. The bypass road ended on the Junction just before you enter to Kusamba. You drive along the road and you will find a Large Hinddist Temple Goa lawah which build inside a large cave that become a large Bats nets and as people says there are large snakes settled inside the caves as well.

People believe that the caves, bats and snake are sacred. Especially the snakes … there are two occasion that snake found dead in two different occasion, first before ‘Second Bali Bombing’ and the other one before Aceh Tsunami.

You have to follow certain ritual if you want to enter the Temple, and have to be company with their guide, since this is sacred place. You have to wear ‘sarong’ and not permitted to harass everything inside. Women within their menstruate period are not prohibited.

The Temple it self is one of nine “Pura Sat Khayangan” in Bali, whom follow nine direction of swastika. It is a temple that has to be visit after ‘ngaben’ ceremony before continue to Pura Agung Besakih. But the one that interesting us actually is the Bat Cave it self, not the Temple off course.

Bali #8, Sunset @ Kudeta - Seminyak

2007-10-23T09:06:00.001+07:00

Kudeta, is a popular café in Seminyak, why? Since it is a best spot to watch the Sunset. It is a café with minimalists style, besides they have a small pools for children. The rest are café that provides sunset view. I think this is the main affinity of this place, and definitly it is a hard time to find ‘strategic’ spot during sunset time. The rest, since this exotic nature occurrence it often be use for pre-wedding photos as well.

I’m not recommending this place for heavy meal, since the food price is meant for ‘bule’ consumption. But their light meal, coffee and mock tail and are worth enough to try. Their cappuccino is a bit heavy, but tasty, And there is a popular cocktail made lemon, sugar syrup and Bacardi mixed with chopped apple and lot of ………….minced mint leaves, but for somebody who do not want to take alcohol you can replace Bacardi with Apple Juice, very nice …………………………….

We just killing time sitting there, having light chit ... chat, fooling around and waiting the sunset meanwhile our kids are playing around in beach sands before finaly they went into the water.

Bali #7, Benoa Watersports

2007-10-18T17:17:00.000+07:00

There is lot of activity in Benoa; the most popular is watersports such as banana boat, Jet sky, Parasailing, Snorkeling, Scuba Diving, Flying Fish and Glass Bottom Boat to Pulau Penyu. And we picked banana boat and Glass bottom boat to pulau penyu, since we have planned to go to another place and do not have sufficient time for another games.

First we picked Glass bottom boat to pulau penyu, since some of the recommendation is to go to pulau penyu before noon time to avoid low tide, otherwise you will have a long walk to the island. Is not really island actually since is located on the delta on the other side Benoa peninsula.

Tip: There is lot of Waterspot company scatter along Benoa Coast, and you may free to pick one of them. Some of them are working as hotels partner and some of them are working alone, but once you go out to the benoa hotel beach most likely you will find at least one of their agents. In average they are professional, and according to Bli Komang Website, it’s been already 4 years run without any accident. So it is quiet safe to play with them.

So, back to Glass Bottom Boat, we got very good boat, very clean and dry. The boat bring us to the first destination ,which is where the Benoa Coral reef belong, there also snorkeling area but today we do not want to go for it. So just have a look on the glass bottom to see the reef and indeed ……….. It is very beautiful. The interesting part is, you dump bread pieces and lot of fish will came over to fight about. It should be more interesting there down below.

After spending few minutes on the fish, we start rolling to next destination, which is pulau penyu. The boat start increasing it speed and passing benoa harbour, before arrive at the final destination.

Several local guides welcomed us aboard, and bring us to the turtle pond. It’s a large pond with lot of big turtle fooling around; they will approach if there’s somebody in. Seems That this buddy has been trained very well ….. Eh??

There also few other beast such as a large Python, a bat, an Eagle and others. The interesting one is the local guide is able to speak in four languages Spanish, Japanese, English and Russian ………… woowww!!!!!

Bali #6, Suluban Beach, Uluwatu

2007-10-17T15:07:00.000+07:00

Pantai suluban is very near with Pura Uluwatu, it’s been talked a while among us and I do know that there’s a place for ‘bule-bule’ surfing below pura uluwatu but don’t know how to get there.

The place is very near from Pura Uluwatu itself, but before you enter Pura Uluwatu parking lot, there is a junction that you may have to turn right and follow the road up till the end of the road. You have to park your car and take a walk down below. It’s not a far distance but you have to go down by concrete stairs about 100m further down. I can imagine how it will be when the time we should go back to the cars.

The concrete stairs end up in the small village that more like to ‘surfers village’ where lot of modest café or drink house and surfboard stall scatter around the place, and we have to take the left way to go down, and here we comes …………..we found a very ‘strange’ stairs down to the beach ……. It is a small staircase but quiet deep down below without any stair support like ‘sky stairs’ ………… a bit scary!! This stair leads us to the rock gap that becomes a gateway to the beach, and once you pass that gap you’ll find beautiful scenery ………

Lucky we arrived during low tide so that we may go for coral hunt! There’s lot of niche left that can to be explore which has lot of coral fauna trapped there during the low tide.

Nathan is the one who are very eager to swim on it to see underneath, it is a coincidence since I want to bring him to go for snorkeling for the next day, so that he will have it as a first try here ………. Check out his move on these small lagoons…………….

We spent almost the rest of the day in this beach, before move on.

Bali #5, Bali Zoo Park, Gianyar

2007-10-17T10:45:00.001+07:00

Last destination today is Bali Zoo Park, just to accommodate our kid’s request, still in Ubud area, the exact location is in Banjar Seseh Apuan, Sukawati, and Gianyar. It is a small zoo but very well maintained and has quality collections, such as Bengali Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), Black Panther, Sitatunga (Tragelaphus spekeii), African Camel and lot more. There is about 350 species there in 3.5 ha very well maintained area.

The place it self remind me to the combined between Baby Zoo in “Taman Safari Indonesia – Cisarua” and Singapore Night Safari in Bukit Timah Reservoir, but off course in smaller size. You’ll be walking’ through the ‘jungle’ like with scatter animal cages and a medium size aviary.

Aviary is the interesting place you’ll see the true White Peacock, I don’t ever know that there is kind of bird, since the day I met this beautiful bird. But then, it is a reality, and I found some reference of this bird on the net.

This is a private owned zoo and in my opinion this zoo is an asset for the local government, but then they have to compete with “Taman Safari Indonesia” that just open nearby, also in Gianyar area. I personaly doubt that this zoo may survive if they are not forming a alliances with other foreign zoo or make a differential attraction to attract people.

Bali #4, Tegalalang - The Rice Padi Terasering

2007-10-17T09:39:00.000+07:00

Next destination is Tegalalang, it is the place for seeing Terasering view. It is a padifield that created on the side of valley so that it has to be build like a staircase. That’s why lot of foreign tourist intend to go there to see. It is a unique sightseeing for them, but for me there is more interesting place to see such padi field in bali around candidasa to amlapura, but We do not have to much time to see them, maybe next time.

One thing that I feel upset is because there to much souvenir stall around the place, and looks very unbalance since the place it self is not to big, so it seems a bit unbalance between numbers of souvenir stalls compared with the size of the sightseeing place.

Bali #3, Bebek Bengil @ Ubud

2007-10-16T13:27:00.000+07:00

Bebek bengil is our first destination in Ubud, It has been planned long time ago that if we are able to go to ubud then Bebek bengil is the most visited place, and here we are.
And after we drive for about an hour we arrive at the place. As usual, we have to surrender the car for vale parking since they have no parking lot nearby. So as usual I surrender the key to him, and let the guy take my car to the parking lot.

We have no plan to have heavy lunch, just take a peek on that famous café and have light meal such as cakes and mocktail and off course a cup of coffee.

The place still as is, cozy, quiet and fortunately not to crowded as usual. I feel very lucky this time since we depart to bali a week before ‘lebaran’ Bali is in off-peak seasons not to much ‘bule’ or ‘asians’ or ‘domestic’ either, the crowd will be coming at the first day of lebaran according to the hotel guy …….. Lot of ‘jakartanese’ that just lost their maids ….!

Anyway, we pick a most top end of the café, a large bale-bale sitting on top of their last buildings at the back end of the yard, facing a just corpses padi field with lot of ‘ducks’ fooling around. I wonder, this is the cause they pick ‘Bebek Bengil’ as their name, which mean ‘dirty duck’ since the duck is covered by mud! …. Funny name.

I recommend strawberry breeze to choose, Nathan pick Slow Down breeze that made from mixed Guava, Orange and others with two slice of …….. Banana!

The others choose Coconut Cheese Cake, Original Chocolate something …. I forgot the name, and I choose my Favorite Mocha Tiramisu with a cup of Cappuccino, just perfect! Their Cakes is very delicious ….. But don’t worry, Ubud is the place to spoil your appetite, there’s also several café such as Ary’s Café or Murni Café or Ibu Rai’s Café whom has very famous cakes, off course there are several famous traditional footstall such as Babi Guling Ibu Oka and Nasi Ayam Kedewatan that very worth enough to be ignore.

We spent about an hour before proceed to next destination, Tegal Arang .... the Famous Rice Padi Field, and once again we have to wait for our car to be vale before we can depart to next destination.

Bali #2, Babi Guling Pak Dobiel

2007-10-15T15:03:00.000+07:00

Today we plan to go to Ubud, But First we want to have “Suckling Pig” for breakfast. I know the place near our hotel in Nusa Dua named “Warung pak Ketut Dobiel”, I had lunch there on last February 2007 when I was in APRICOT 2007. I had lunch there with my Boss and my Boss Colleague in the middle of conference. We steal our lunch time to hunt this excotic dish that only may be found in Bali.

So today I bring them back to this place. It’s a small foodstall called ‘warung’, It’s not a fancy restourant at all. You may have to queue to get pak Dobiel ‘special service’. One thing that very interested is because you may go into the backyard to see them how to make suckling pig. It is very unique experience indeed.

Sucking Pig is very popular in Balinese society, like if you talk about “warung tegal” or “Warung Indomie” in Jakarta. Very nice dish at all …………..

It’s located in Jl. Srikandi - Nusa Dua, if you came from BTDC go out from gate next to Novotel Nusa dua you’ll find a cross-road turn left, follow the road, that’s Jl Srikandi and you will find the foodstalll in the right side of the road with small signboard Wr. Babi Guling Sari Dewi/Pak Dobiel.

It’s not a fancy foodstall, just a modest foodstall with several long wooden dining table. And a large glass cabinet which the dish is been placed into it. There is pak Dobiel taking care his customer orders. The special thing is ………. He prepare the dish with his own hands ....... whooaaa!!! Sounds Good isn't it??

One thing that very interesting is the way that they make the Suckling pick it self. Lucky we may seen them grill the pig, and I brough the children to saw it.

Bali #1, Check In to Novotel Nusadua

2007-10-15T11:11:00.001+07:00

After have a ‘fine dining’ in Jimbaran, next destination is The Novotel Nusadua. We arrive at hotel very late, and very tired. This hotel is quiet brand new, with combined minimalist in the tropical landscape, plus several gazebos next to large fishponds scatter behind their Front Desk Area facing their main backyard which has very large lagoon-like swimming pool.

After some administration procedure in front office that took about 15 minutes, we may go into our room. a young buttler fetch us to go into ‘Flamboyan Tower’ and …………. My God! The place is so spacious, it is a fully furnish condominium with nice and large living room, a set of very big sofa facing a closet with 32” Flat Screen TV plus DVD Player, a nice dinning table with full set of fine dining equipment like Knife and Fork, Wine Glasses plus a few candle with a large flower on top of it and next to it is a large fully equip kitchen set and you may find all of kitchen equipment. The only one missing there is a microwave oven.

So, definitly we will have very nice sleep tonight ………………………………

Bali ..... Here we Come!

2007-10-15T10:34:00.000+07:00

This is the day, Bali Here we come …………………!!!! We’ve been booked the place long time ago, the Hotel, the flight everything! Seems that this holiday has been planned very seriously ….. But you know what? This is the first time we going to use LCC (Low Cost Carrier) Air Asia, we have no ticket – just booking confirmation print out from their web. A bit strange for me, since this is the first time we took LCC flight.

Airport Activities before & After boarding

It’s been so stressful knowing that we have to rush to fight about our seats (My God! it's remind me to PPD Bus in Jakarta, you have to rush to go on board and another rush to get an only piece of seat), since this LCC does not has seat number, first come first sit ………, but then we know that we can buy an Express Boarding for Rp. 55.000 / persons for round-trip ticket just to make us avoid the crowds and get the priority to claim our seat before the others boarding. So, we decided to purchase that facility. Not bad, we do not have to fight about the others to claim our seats. Suddenly we become a ‘special’ passengers walking trough the crowd with our nose up high in the air ………

On the fly to Bali ...............

We arrived at Bali at 18:40 local time, straight away to Jimbaran to have dinner that has planned long ago to have romantic dinner by the beach. There’s a several ‘Café’ along the beach, and finally we pick the Caviar Club and here we are ………… Sitting on the dinner table under the sky before the beach, on top of beach sands and make an order, “Oyster Sauce Crab”, “Fried Blue Prawn with Butter”, BBQ Cuttlefish and “plecing” made from water spinach with mix chili & minced Tomatoes.

Seafood a la Caviar Cafe @ Jimbaran Beach ............

The Food is very delicious indeed; it’s more to Fine Dining Dish except for the environment. Frankly speak, I can not remember the restaurant name, but there are lot of them, according to locals, there are use to be more than 60 seafood restaurants but only 23 of them survive. But when the time comes to pay the bill. ……………. My God! It’s a real fine dinning price that we have to pay. I don’t understand, people say that Jimbaran Sea Food is very cheap, but what we got is the other way around, it’s similar price with Jakarta for Fine Dining Sea Food in fancy restaurant, except ………… you will have sea food with your feed step on beach sands.

Shark BBQ ala "Babe Lili"

2007-10-05T00:17:00.000+07:00

Yesterday, due to heavy traffic jam around Harmoni area, we decided to hang-out for a while for dinner, First thing we would like to hang-out in Thamrin chasing for Burger King, but then seems all route to Thamrin jammed I decided to find another destination and after looking around for a while we decided to go to the famous “Ikan Bakar Babe Lili” in Wahid Hasyim, somewhere near patung Tani.

Like ordinary “ikan bakar” footstall, It is a modest “makan place” that occupying a spacious front yard that may be able to accommodate around 100 people, it’s a bit massy and moreover lot of BBQ smoke came from large fish grill.

Their speciallity is “Ikan Kambing Kambing”, I don’t know what it is exactly so we decided to order “BBQ Shark” ………. That become more popular recently, actually it is a baby shark or more known as “Ikan Cucut” in local market, don’t know what species it is, probably from “Black Tip Shark” or “"Carcharhinus limbatus” that very easy to find in Indonesian water.

The Dish it self is quiet delicious, it meat texture is very tender mixed between tenderness of Stingray and “Patin”, very tasty, moreover you won’t be bother with much fishbone like you’ll find in other fish. It server with their style sambal that is “very sweet”.

One thing that I concerned is about their food servants and captains, seems that they are not too excited with new customers arrival. In a glance, they more often to flock around in the back-end rather than to approach their customers. The captain who serving us seems quiet rush and inpatient to wait for us to choose some menus. Well, actually it may happen on traditional food store like this.

But the recommendation for their food is good, but a bit sweet dominating their species.

Rumoh Makan - Raja Melayu @ Bandung

2007-09-28T11:33:00.000+07:00

It is a cozy place in Bandung with minimalist architecture in black and white color, mixed with light modern wooden table with nice liquid candle in a small bowl sitting on top of each table and nice and unique water pool and ornament in the middle, very romantic indeed.

There will be a warm welcome from several nice Malay style stewardess, it remind me to Malaysian Diva “Siti Nurhaliza”, they will ask you to choose the table and take your time to take a look on the “life-menu” display on a long serving table but it is not a buffet. They will help you to take that dishes and warm it up before serve to your table. Most of every Sumatra traditional dishes is serving on that table except from tapanuli off-course. This is the wrong place if you are looking for “Sak Sang”, “lomok-lomok” or “Panggang” here, since the restaurant is a halal restaurant.

There also a cook corner serving well known “murtabak”, “roti prata”, “mie goreng kepiting – aceh” and some other traditional Malay style made on order food, and a small table display for dessert such as “Pulut Durian”, “Serikaya”, “Roti Jala” and “Roti Cane tabur gula”, very mouthwatering food.

After taking some time to choose what to eat, then we decided to select “Ketam Lado Hitam”, “Daun ubi Tumbuk”, “Gulai Patin”, “Gulai Jengkol” (yumy …….), “burung dara goreng” and some dish from Jambi I can not remember the name, made from local smoked fish and cooked with various ingredient such as chili, petai and more, plus several kind of sambal like “Sambal Hijau” and “Sambal Ganja Aceh” that is very sour and very spicy (don’t know why It called Ganja, even though definitely it is not made from “Ganja” leave off course) and “Pulut Durian” as dessert.

Once you sit on the dine table, they will provide you with a tiny bowl of “Rojak Aceh” which is very spicy for me ……… oh my! My tongue is burn, and the spice feel goes trough your nose and your head and makes you sweating, but very delicious ……….
It is a very delicious meal, server with very nice warm white rice.

Tt’s worth place to visit, since it has a strategic place in Jl. Citarum Bandung, still within walking distance of Outlets Store in Jl .Riau area.

If you want to see more about it, just click this URL link.

Situ Patenggang - When Love is Eternity

2007-09-27T18:37:00.000+07:00

Once upon a time there's couple named "Ki Santang" and "Dewi Rengganis" whom love each other and swear that their love is Eternity, someday this couple was separated for a certain time and they are desperately seeking each other until they finally meet up on the place called "Batu Cinta" and "Dewi rengganis" mentioned that she wish she can sail together with her beloved lover, so that her lover fulfill her wish with creating a lagoon and a boat to sail on it. The boat then somehow become this "Batu Cinta" a small island form like a heart if it being see from the air and called "Pulau Asmara" in Indonesia, or "Pulau Sasaka" in local Sundanese or Love Island.

The local tribes believed that we sail to the island with our beloved couple, and then we will have an Eternity Love like "Ki Satang and Dewi Rengganis"

"Oh boy ........., how romantic it is!"

Anyway, from my Point of View, this lagoon is very beautiful indeed, regardless of the superstitious story on it, it is very........ Very beautiful lagoon, very quiet, calm, hidden in the edge of the road, across very wide Tea Plantation, just perfect.

Kawah Putih, The Spill Heaven ......

2007-09-21T09:00:00.000+07:00

“God is smiling when He creates Bandung”

For me it just a words that may shows Bandung people are very bigheaded, even though in my heart I admitted that Bandung has always have ‘magical’ appeal to me. Old style City, Fresh Air, The environment, big trees ….. Quiet and Calm Neighborhood ..... Oh My!

Now I know what the say that, once we arrive in Kawah putih Ciwidey, the words has meaning thousands …………. “God Forgive me, that’s only you who able to create such a beautiful place!”

Some other people says “It is a Spill Heaven” some others say “It is a lost Heaven” and I say “this is ……..wooowww!!”

Stunning ... Very exotic and also …………. Mystique.

It’s like you are in the middle of nowhere, stunning, speechless don’t know what to say, then after you wake up …………..you’ll be realize that your body is freezing (hehehe ….), it is very cold out there. It’s about 10” Celsius degree daytime and about 5” Celsius degree nighttime. But you wont get such beautiful view in other places.

It seems that you are on another sub-tropical country

Ciwidey is located in the south part of Bandung about 46km and roughly 2 hours drive from the City. The road condition is good, but not to wide enough to handle medium size bus that quiet lot running around on it and the traffic is getting worse since you will find lot of wet market in the both side of the road. They really … really slow you down. But then once you pass Ciwidey then you’ll have very nice driving. But remember, before you get there you have to make sure that you have your meal properly, since there’s not to much proper food-stall on the locations, especially if you bring your family with you. I suggest you drop by to Sindang Reret Restaurant on the way there since as long as I can recall theirs is only nice restaurant with guest house facility around.

After Sindang Reret you will find lot of Self Service Strawberry Farm or “Kebun Strawberry Petik Sendiri” along the way to Kawah Putih. The Rates is around Rp. 30.000/kg and if you have it below that they will count it prorate. They are selling lot of strawberry stuff such as “Strawberry juice”, “Strawbberry Syrop”, “Dodol Strawberry” and even “Sambal Strawberry” can you imagine that? Sambal Strawberry?

Once you reach Kawah Putih Complex there’s a ticket box run by local authority or whatever, and you have to buy your ticket here. I can’t remember how much is it, but reasonable enough. Then you’ll be driving up to the mountain trough the woods. I suggest you to take it slowly and take an short drop if necessary just to play around in the forest. It’s about several km drive before you reach the Crate complex.

Road in the Forest up to Kawah Putih Complex

The Kawah Putih it self is on Gunung Patuha or Gunung Sepuh, about 2.434m high from sea level, it has two crates: “Kawah Saat” in the west side and “Kawah Putih” next before it on 2.194m above sea level. Kawah Putih it self is no longer active, is more like a dead lake with in the middle of ……….desert! Very exotic and also …………. Mystique.

But then, we do not have to much time to enjoy the view since the weather is not cooperating enough. We got myst very and even rain, so it force us back to the cars. First because we do not want to be wet, secondly because it is very cold. But at least we have been there, and we intend to go back there someday.

I found several blogs that may describe what Kawah Putih looks like with very nice photos on it, some of them have Professional photo result; just have a short visit there.

Archiaston Musamma Family
Kawah Putih on Vibiznews.com
Kawah Putih by Irsan Photography

Makan Ditengah Sawah

2007-09-20T12:57:00.000+07:00

One thing that may interest before we reach Garut is about “Makan Ditengah Sawah”, there is a Traditional Sundanese nasi liwet restaurant near Garut. We found this place by accident when we have site survey visit to Garut few weeks before Nathan Birthday occasion.

It’s about 1 km after the Junction, I can’t describe exactly the place since I’m not familiar on that areas, but I as long as I can recall, if you drive from Bandung to Garut, you will find a junction with a Police Post in the middle, if you go straight it will goes to Tasikmalaya, if you turn right there where is Garut is. If you want to go there, take the Tasikmalaya destination, the place is on the left side of the road about 1km from the junction.

Build like a traditional bamboo house with lot of traditional gazebos build from bamboo with “rumbia” roof – made from coconut leaves, called “Saung” with “lesehan” inside each of them. This traditional restaurant is manage by “Rumah Strawberry” a big famous garden Restaurant in Bandung, I believe anybody form Bandung or Jakarta will know this place very well since it is located next to the Famous “The Peak” Café.

The restourant complex is facing the valley, that has a nice terasering view. It's realy nice .... you do not have to go to Ubud Bali to have such nice view.

What is very interesting is about their “Nasi Liwet”, a way of traditional sundanese people cook the rice in a bowl mixed with “Belimbing wuluh” (Averhoa carambola), who can produce sour and nice aroma, a bit whole red Chiles and several traditional ingredients, serve with a set of (again) traditional “Friend Chicken”, tempe, tahu, and marinated fish plus (a must) fresh Vegetables called “Lalap” with “Sambal”, yummy …..

It’s nice place to visit, very convenience so that our kidz can have R&R. Since the restaurant concept is “pedestrian meal” there’s also a traditional fishpond, and vegetable garden what I called “Touch Garden” when we can have a closer look to lot of Vegetable varieties in “real”. I mean ….. well, not every City Kidz can have opportunities to see what is Tomatoes or Strawberries to be plant. Well, it might not as big as little farmer, but is a nice place to visit.

hhmmm ........ I think I will write about Little Farmer later.

Kampung Sumber Alam

2007-09-20T12:03:00.000+07:00

Picture taken from www.kampungsumberalam.com

Kampung Sumber Alam has become a hot arguing topic between me and my wife before we decided to go there. It’s a nice place after all, located in a place called Cipanas, if you drive from Bandung, just after you enter the Garut City border, right side of the main road. The way to the place is giving a quiet unique scenery, since you’ll see a mountain but without to much Trees on it. Seems it’s like a Sabena view but on the mountain.

Picture taken from www.kampungsumberalam.com

The Resorts Complex it self is quiet big, with lot of traditional “rumah panggung” bungalows, restaurant, meeting room and hot water swimming pool, the uniqueness is all of them build on top of very large freshwater fish pond which have unlimited water supply from Gunung Gede hot spring water. It gives us very unique experience, sitting on top of the pond when you can see lot of “Nila”, “Tawes” and “Carper or Ikan Mas” swimming around below, and even you may fishing or “mancing” and ask the hotel butler to cook your fish.

We went there on Nathan birthday event on 25 June 2006, it’s not exactly on his birthday but we manage to go there during celebrating his 8 years old birthday, and seems he’s quiet enjoy it, especialy for fishing part when he manage to get his own catch.

“Papi …. Papi …. Look, I got one ….. I got one” he yell to me!

Very nice place for family to have a little escape. But I'm not recomed this place for honeymoon place, Maybe Kampung Sampireun is more suitable for that.

For you who wants to find out more information, Garut authority has very comprehensive website that provide everything about Garut dan the suroundings. It's very usefull information.

Pusat Produksi Susu Laktasari @ Padalarang

2007-09-17T17:54:00.000+07:00

It’s one years ago since we went to Laktasari “Farmhouse” in Padalarang, 25 of June 2006, but I think it’s a worth thing to put the report here.

We found this place from milis “ibu-ibu” I can’t remember what is it; my wife got it from one of several milist she joined. So, we went there in conjunction with our vacation to Kampung Sumber Alam Garut (I will put in a separate report).

We drive from Jakarta to Bandung through “TOL Cipularang” and exit in Padalarang TOL Gate, I can’t remember where exactly the locations, but roughly before Ultra Milk Factory around there if you drive from TOL Gate, in the right side of the road.

Just ask the locals and they will give you the right direction to it.

As long as I Can remember, the farmhouse itself is a big house, but changed into a what I called “workshop” that include a guest sitting room that is not well threatened, a kitchen, a Shop that related to what they produced such as Fresh Milk, Ice Cream mixed with small drinks and snacks, you can have their Fresh Milk here with several flavour such as Cocholate, Strawbery, mocca and etc.

The house is facing a big farmland, this is the interesting part, there’s a lot of Cattle placing in their Shelters, hundreds of them, combined with several cages of (I thought they are Siberian Husky Dogs) .... Alaskan Malamute (Thanks for the correction Marsel!), Deer and few others animals. And there’s also lot of Farmer shelters around it. It seems that they keep their workers in that land too with their Cattle.

We can go down there to take a look in the close distance to the Cows, and really nice cows, well treated … I think is Friesian Holstein that very popular in Indonesia, I don’t know exactly what kind of Cow it is, I’m not a Cow expert, just a Milk Consumer .. ;-)

Anyway, here is a URL link realted to Cow that you may visit.

Well its nice place to visit, especially if you want to bring your kidz to show them what Cow really is ………………..

Warung "Riris" Kampung Sundanese Dish

2007-09-14T13:33:00.000+07:00

This is one of out favourite place to have lunch, a Typical Sundanese “lesehan” small restaurant in west of Jakarta, if you drive from Jakarta to Tangerang via Tol Road, exit on Serpong Gate, drive straight through BSD City you will reach BSD Junction, go straight to Belatinos and The Green Cluster, go any further you’ll reach outer section of BSD City, until you reach Pertamina Gass station on your left side, you’ll find a small “Warung” called “Kedai Riris” or “Riris Café” next few houses from it.

It’s a humble place with several “Indoor lesehan”, but recently they build several lesehan on the backyard as extention. Seems that their business is going well, eh? They put all the dishes in a single “Indoor-foodstall” so that we may pick what we like. Our Favourite are "Oncom-leunca", "Tumis Genjer", "Pepes Ikan Peda", "Oseng teri daun pepaya", and standard poulty meat – "ayam goreng" for our kidz, and for me, I allways looking for “Daun Sintrong”, a fresh green leaves who has a bit sour aroma, but very nice to consume, my wife prefer to have "Green Terong" as her favourite "lalap".

For somebody who like traditional pedestrian food, it is a worth place to try, but remember, the place is a bit far for they who do not have their own cars.

Sundanese Food is one of my Favourite, it’s quiet surprise since I came from Semarang (Jawa) but I prefer to have Sundanese rather than Javanese dish that taste “to sweet” in my tounge, some people says because of my wife influence ……. Maybe they right, previously I do not like vegetables on my dish, but then ….. now, It’s very hard to eat without something green and fresh mix with a bit “sambal” on my plate.

NOC Team Dine-out @ "The Bandar Jakarta"

2007-09-14T10:07:00.000+07:00

2nd of September 2007, we went to The Bandar Jakarta in Ancol area. This is the place that I want to bring my NOC team to dine-out. It is a cozy place, I quiet often to spend the night here with my beloved and lovely wife, just spending time facing the sea, have a little chit-chat! It’s the one of several ways to keep our 10 years marriage life become an always honeymoon day ……….

Its quiet romantic place after all ……………

Well, on 2nd September I got different mission, I want to bring my work-team, all of them to have rare enjoyable and fun night with treat-them a nice dines-out. Just to make them getting more involve I intended to ask them to collect some money from their own pockets, just a bit that I understand that won’t bother their financials at all, I will take care the rest. Unfortunately, Faizal the most new comer can’t come since he has to leave her family in Majalengka earlier, and It seems he’s quiet hesitate to do that. Okay, I understand, It’s tough to live alone with family leaved behind. Don’t worry, next time we’ll have another chance.

Well, this is the second time we have nice fancy Seafood together, I mean Reeeaaaally nice one ………, We got King Tiger Prawn – really big ones, Super breeding Crab that have lot ….. I mean really lot of eggs, Fresh Steam Grouper (I believe this dish is very odd for them ….. hehehehe, it’s a very expensive dish in Chinese restaurant), Bamboo Clam, Lala or known as “Kerang Tahu”, “Taoge cah Ikan Asin” and the Odd “Pakis cah Tausi” and also big BBQ cuttlefish.

But then, we got a guest ….. hehehe, a person who is not in our team, but very close to them and we remember that several months ago he mentioned that he wants to go there, but no chance since he won’t go alone, so we pick him in Kemayoran Roesgani you are such ………….…. Lucky Guy!

The Background why I have been doing this, is because I want to share with them, I want to have some casual moment that makes them easier to talk, easy to speech that I believe that going to make us bound each other. NOC environment is un easy place to work, extreme environment, 24 hours works, you have to watch the net while the others have a deep sleep, you have to work while the other has their holiday, and more over by doing this They may understand why I can’t be with them most of the time, even though I am their Manager until now. It’s a tough job, for me and for them. And I am very highly praise them for that.

Well …… that is it, Next few months I intend to bring them to Bumbu Desa in Sukabumi, just to get different environment, They can have meal in the middle of Rice-Padi-field and have some light outing games such as flying fox ……….. well, we’ll see …………!

Nasi Kapau Jl. Kramat

2007-09-02T12:45:00.001+07:00

Because of heavy traffic jam last Friday we decided to drop by to these most talked foodstalls, moreover they just be in "Kompas" news, so here we are, we pick"Warung nasi kapau Sabhana Bana" as mentioned in the papers, choosing itik lado ijo and Rajungan goreng mixed with common padang style veggy and gravies, excep their rendang baby potatoes that look special. Conclution : not bad for the first try, but if we reffering to pak Bondan idiom, still a bit further from his magic word "mak nyoossh!".

Penangkaran Rusa - Cariu

2007-06-11T09:41:00.000+07:00

It is not a well known of favorite place to visit, not much people know that somewhere around 40km from Cibubur has this facilities.

I don't remember when exactly we visit this place, perhaps about 6 months ago I can't remember. But it is very interesting place after all. We drove from exit Cibubur long the way to Cianjur. Actually this is alternative road to puncak, but I think not too much people want to use this route. Its look like we drove into nowhere place, the road seems never end.

Finally we arrived to the gate, there's a humble wooden signboard "Penangkaran Rusa", I turn the car into a 50m rocking road that ended next to Cibeet river. We can't drive any further since the road was ended in a bridge.

We have to take a walk about 1 or 2 km into the woods, before we reach the exact place. It is a nice place, still relatively clean and has several gazeebo just to take a break after about 20 min walk.

The sanctuary it self is about 2 hectre area and has several Deer species like rusa totol (Axis Axis), rusa jawa (Axis Timorensis), and rusa bawean (Axis Kuhlii) about 70 of them.

We may feed them by buying a sweet potatoes chopped into a bin for Rp. 2500,- each, and by the time you enter the cage, those deers will approach you to get the food.

There's an axix deer who called asep that may be regarded as their elder, and he is very frendly and like to be tuch in his neck by people. it is very cute .....

It is a worth place for kids, and before we going back to Jakarta, we spend somtimes to play around in the cibeet river.

Taman Nasional - Gunung Halimun

2007-06-07T18:28:00.000+07:00

Last May 17th 2007 we went to what it called Taman Nasional Gunung Halimun, just want to check out whether is worth enough for our kidz to see. We depart from Jakarta a bit late around 06 o’clock in the morning. I presume that since that place is near to sukabumi, it won't take to much time to go there, even though I've been warned that it gonna took around 5 hours drive.

From Tol Ciawi I took destination to sukabumi, long the way to a place called Parung Kuda then turn right to Kebandungan to reach the authority office, the distance is about 50+ km from Bogor We have to register our self to this authority office before we may continue to the site. Then........ The really journey is start from there.

We have to follow the only 'purposely' un-finished rock-road long the way across the country. And have very beautiful pedestrian scenery, combined between rice padi-field terasering that may very common in 'Ubud' area, surprisingly you may find it here without have to fly to Bali, then start changing to vegetable plantations, before we entering the tropical Forrest.

My God..... Finally we found it is really 5 hours drive from Jakarta before we arrive on their shelter. There's three main building there, one is their office, the other one is their guest house and the last one is open space function shelter (pendopo).

Me and my lovely wife, she is pretty isn't she .........??

We don't have enough time to go over the place, so we decided to see the famous canopy trail that unfortunately can not be access since it still under re-construction, then we going to the river and the 'Curug Cimacan' waterfall. According to the guide that company us, this waterfall is the place for Tiger to take a 'R&R' :-D

There's a cave that suspected to be his shelter but we do not want to spend our time to find out ;-)

I took several pictures here and there, before we decided to come back. It's is a nice place, almost untouched and they keep it that way on purpose. There's not enough time to see all over the place, may be next time we will come back to see the the other place. There should be around more than 10 places to visits, around 5 curug or waterfalls, hot spring, tea plantation, and loop trail that I believe is worth enough to try.

Canopy Trail, picture taken from www.dephut.go.id

But this is nice journey after all, at least we may get some nice pictures over there ..... ;-)

You may find information about this lovely place in the following URL:

Mount Halimun official website
Indonesia Ministry of Forestry

Last scene in Mega Kuningan.

2007-06-03T14:57:00.001+07:00

This is the last days scene I accidentally saw from bellagio apartment lobby facing Ritz Carlton,
Before our office move from Mega Kuningan to Gatot Subroto Disctric.

Taken from my mobile camera. Pitty I Didn't bring my cam with me, the rainbow between the water fountain dan the Ritz Carlton twin towers

seems to blur :-(

I'm gonna miss this nice view area ...........