Karneval in Duesseldorf

Helau!!! (that's a carnival greeting in Duesseldorf). We just had a big celebration of carnival in Duesseldorf! I know there is a big celebration in Koeln, our neighboring (and also rival) city, but I only recently knew that there is also a big celebration in Duesseldorf. It's actually one of the highlight of Rhineland carnivals, together with the celebration in Mainz and Koeln. This year is my first carnival in Duesseldorf.

As other carnival celebration in other countries, this celebration is also originated from religious reason. The carnival celebration is actually started from 11th of November every year, but the real big celebration is started on the Thursday one week before Ash Wednesday, in a so called Altweiberfastnacht. The day when women take the power and the tradition is they cut the tie of men around... see more on www.karneval-in-duesseldorf.de.
After that, every day you can see a lot of people with funny costumes. I have seen the carnival celebration in Eindhoven before and I always admire the effort that all the people put for their carnival costumes. I was surprised when last Thursday in my office we sort of celebrate the carnival by having a lot of Berliner (a filled doughnut covered by sugar usually with strawberry filling) in the kitchen. It was really funny when later that day I had a discussion with Daniela at her office, Peter another colleague came by and shouted Alaaf! (that's greetings from Koeln, since they are both originally from Koeln) then they sang together a carnival song and pushed me to follow them knocking the table. That was really funny :-P

The big celebration is on Monday (we had holiday on Monday) and is called Rosenmontag when they have a big parade (Rosenmontagszug). I had an appointment with Yuko, a Japanese friend of mine from my German class. We met several minutes before the parade started and finally got a nice location to stand. It was a bit rain and cold. But the parade was great, I shouted a lot of 'Helau' today :-P I finished 1 Gb of my memory card and just realized that I was wet and almost freezing. That was after almost 3 hrs standing in the crowd :-P

Singapore - Indonesia Trip

One and half weeks after my trip to the UK (it also means that I only worked for that period in December), I started my going home trip. As I did last year also, I chose Singapore as my destination from Duesseldorf (by Emirates again...it's good for my Skywards points :-P), then continued to Surabaya by JetStar (Valuair). I like that route since I do not have to go to Jakarta and change to domestic flight to Surabaya, and also because I like Changi airport so much :-)

This year I stayed in Singapore for three days and explored it with my parents who joined me there. My flight from Duesseldorf arrived around 2am in Singapore. I decided to sleep at Rainforest lounge until around 9am, took a shower, had my breakfast at Toast Box (yummy....see..that's why I love Changi), walked around the duty free shops, and then I decided to go to the hotel, that I have been booked before, at Scotts Road. I picked up my parents at the airport in the evening and after dropped the luggage in our hotel, we walked along the Scotts road and had dinner in Far East Plaza which has quite a lot of muslim restaurants. We spent two days exploring Singapore using hop on hop off bus. We also went to Sentosa island to see Song of the Sea performance, which was okay, but it's been better if it was not that wet because of rain.I am happy to be able to explore Singapore (finally) , though to be honest, our main activity was shopping (from Mustafa Center, Chinatown to Orchard Road) :-P

We went back to Surabaya after spent three days in Singapore, then continued the trip to Malang, and finally home...
I spent 10 days in Malang, having relaxing days (the days have gone so fast for sure), visiting relatives, eating lots of foods... I also went to Surabaya at one of the days there.

I continued my trip to Bandung at 2nd of Jan. Meeting Yayan, my bro.. stayed at his place for two days. I met Remko, my Dutch friend who works in Medan, and we spent one day exploring Bandung...well actually we only went to Kawah Putih, which I have not been there before, then ate at Kampung Daun. But I was impressed with Bandung now... with the fly over, the toll road...

I returned to Jakarta with Remko and went directly to the hotel. In the evening (it was Friday) I met Eva, Aris, and mbak Helena. We chatted a lot (first, dinner at Setiabudi building then moved to Menteng to have some drinks) until almost midnight. My parents and Caca joined at the hotel that evening, and the next day, we were finally full team. Yayan arrived from Bandung, Didit and Nia also joined us in the morning from Bekasi, oh and also Hendra, Caca's boyfriend who works in Jakarta. It was nice to finally meet the whole family :-)

I spent four days in Jakarta, mostly for family gathering in the weekend, but I also managed to meet Robin, mbak Elvi, and Bing bing on Sunday evening. On Monday, I had lunch with Wira (finally we met each other :-P), then met Ocha in Pasar Festival, who was so kind to accompany me to visit Diery, and her Ira, at her house. I had my first experience using Busway by the way :-P Directly after that, I met Runi, who waited for me already in Plaza Semanggi....that was really busy schedule for my last day in Jakarta. The next day... we left early from the hotel. I had my trip to Singapore (then Dubai-Duesseldorf) and my parents returned back to Surabaya (and then Malang).

It was really nice to meet my family, relatives, and my friends in Indonesia....three weeks seem so fast. The next day after I arrived in Duesseldorf, I had to go back to work...to my real life, and I still could not imagine that I have left the office for three weeks already :-P

London - Scotland trip

It was really a surprise trip to me. I thought that 2007 would be a year without so many traveling activities. I managed to go to Provence-Cote d'Azur-Monaco last May. But after that (even during summer!) I felt that my traveling activities were buried somewhere beneath my working activities. I have admitted myself already that my other big trip this year would only be my going home trip for the year end holiday. But it turned out that I had a chance to go to UK (again!).

I went to London because of a three-day conference last week and I was really happy to be able to stay in West End area where the conference took place. I think I like London more after this trip :-P. The hotel where I stayed was in the Strand area, close to Covent Garden (Covent Garden market was totally cool), Charing Cross, Leicester Square (well I mentioned the three closest Underground stations from my hotel :-P) and Trafalgar Square.




When I knew that I was going to stay in West End area which is surrounded by theaters, I could not resist the temptation to watch one of the performance there and I was so excited when I found that I would be able to see Phantom of the Opera. I booked a seat for Phantom of the Opera in Her Majesty's theater in Haymarket when I was still in Dusseldorf :-P POTO was kind of an obsession for me. I really like its songs for quite a long time. There was some melancholic reason behind it (a ha :-P), my ex-boyfriend gave me Think of Me lyrics when we decided to separate (the lyrics is sooo touching). And actually it was my first introduction with POTO's songs. I like that song so much and I wanted to know more songs from the performance and I ended up liking most of them. So watching POTO is the highlight of my London tour this time. It was just amazing. I love their performance (the songs) and the stage decoration. It left me speechless :-P I just really really like it. No wonder the show is still running after 21 years!! I just wondering how it was when Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford played it for the first time.

After four days and three nights in London (gosh I think I miss walking through the Trafalgar Square from my hotel to the conference venue every day in those three days....it just felt so cool :-P), I flew to Edinburgh for my Scotland trip. I arrived almost midnight because of the flight delay. I was lucky that I booked a hostel close to the airport bus stop, so I do not have to put a lot of effort after quite a long day. I was so impressed with the night view of Edinburgh even when I was on the way from the airport to its city center. Indeed Edinburgh is so beautiful with its old buildings and its castle. I joined a free walking tour for three hours at 11 pm in the next day and it was worth it. Now I know more about it's unique culture and history.





Later in the evening, I met Vivi and we stayed in a very nice B&B that night. Early in the morning (around 7:30am...) we left the B&B already to join a Highland tour. We went to Trossachs National Park, visiting Loch Lomond and other Lochs (I do not remember their names :-P) , Inveraray (a nice small town, famous with its jail, later a friend of mine told me that Inveraray actually is pretty close to Oban, the ferry port for several interesting islands in Scotland), Killin (a scenic village). We also dropped by to Kilchurn castle (to take a pic) , Doune castle ( I managed to buy nice postcards and souvenir there), and Hamish (a cute highland cow :-P). It was an interesting trip, especially because I experienced my first snow this winter during the trip on the highland (and yes it's freezing). Greg, our guide tour is a good entertainer, he talked a lot about Scotland (about how they hate English people hehe....it's funny to hear it from them), about the clans conflicts (now I know that MacDougall does not get along with Campbell), about Scotland's dark history (I heard it before from my walking tour in Edinburgh). I think Scotland is beautiful and Scots have a unique culture and character (and also accent hehe, it's bit difficult to understand their English sometimes).




After the tour, we went to Dundee where Vivi lives now. I took a train to return back to London the next morning. It took around 6 hrs from Dundee to London, but it's nice to be able to catch a glimpse of UK from almost its North to South.
All in all....I am happy finally I made it to Scotland (yeeeee!), also to be able to visit London again for the second time. I was completely exhausted this week and now I have to prepare for my going home trip but it was a nice feeling to be able 'on the road' again.



Singapore, Indonesia, my next destinations...I am coming :-P

Music and Lyrics

Another movie review...
I just watched this movie several minutes ago :-P The story is simple, but I like the soundtrack, especially 'Way back into love'. You can find the video here and here is the lyrics:

Way Back into Love (Hugh Grant and Haley Bennett)

I've been living with a shadow overhead,
I've been sleeping with a cloud above my bed,
I've been lonely for so long,
Trapped in the past,
I just can't seem to move on!

I've been hiding all my hopes and dreams away,
Just in case I ever need them again someday,
I've been setting aside time,
To clear a little space in the corners of my mind!

All I want to do is find a way back into love.
I can't make it true without a way back into love.
Oooooh.

I've been watching but the stars refuse to shine,
I've been searching but i just don't see the signs,
I know that it's out there,
There's got to be something for my soul somewhere!

I've been looking for someone to shed some light,
Not somebody just to get me through the night,
I could use some direction,
And I'm open to your suggestions.

All I want to do is find a way back into love.
I can't make it through without a way back into love.
And if I open my heart again,
I guess I'm hoping you'll be there for me in the end!
Oooooooh, Ooooooh, Ooooooh.

There are moments when I don't know if it's real
Or if anybody feels the way I feel
I need inspiration
Not just another negotiation

All I want to do is find a way back into love,
I can't make it through without a way back into love,
And if I open my heart to you,
I'm hoping you'll show me what to do,
And if you help me to start again,
You know that I'll be there for you in the end!
Oooooooh. Oooooooh. Ooooooooh. Oooooooh. Ooooooh Ooooooooh. Ooooooooh.

Nice lyrics, right :-P There are several scenes from the movie that made me laugh, especially the Pop! videoclip. It was soooo 80's (but I like the song) and I could not imagine Hugh Grant did it :-P
To sum up, it is an entertaining movie...

Marie Antoinette

I knew that movie for quite sometime, at least I knew that Kirsten Dunst played the role as Marie Antoinette and I knew a bit about Marie Antoinette, that she's been killed by guillotine in French revolution. But this movie gave me something more about her.

At first I was also surprised with its opening, I mean, I do not expect a movie which portrayed 18th century setting has kind of 'funky' opening song. It reminds me of Clueless, the series :-P
But it was okay, I am more interested with the story itself. In the end, I was surprised about the story of Marie Antoinette. I ended up wiki-ed (I think we should add this new verb as we do it for 'google-ed") the stories of French monarch and French revolution for the rest of the evening (or night :-P). Interesting...how could you inspired by a movie!