2 April 2011, Sun Bear Conservation

My beloved city Balikpapan's mascot is a sun bear which in Indonesian called Beruang Madu (literally means Honey Bear) and I have no idea whatsoever why it's called Sun Bear in English. Winnie The Pooh is a sun bear! However the real sun bear doesn't look anything like Winnie. Wanna know more? Sneak a peek here now. 

Still with the Couchsurfers I went to Kawasan Wisata Pendidikan Lingkungan Hidup in kilometer 23 north of Balikpapan to see the sun bears in their "semi" habitat. 


Pictures by Chitra. 

Welcomed by Panic! the dog, isn't he cute?

Mr Bear's lollipop 

This is the closest we could get, but even from a distance they look so fluffy! A hug?! Lemme think million times first.

Mbak Erry, Karin, Me and Rizal at a shaddy spot. Glad it was a sunny day after having a storm on the previous day.

Karin, our future model and what on earth the guy behind me was doing? 

FluffyButt, he didn't want to show us anything but his butt.

The whole crew minus Chitra the photographer

Heading to the information spot, unfortunately we didn't take pictures of it :(

gorgeous

One corner where you can sit and enjoy the view and they have ashtray there too :/

CouchSurfers' Trip, 2 April 2011 - Mangrove Conservation

Little that I knew we had a mangrove plantation in the city, as in we don't have to drive hours to see it, and it actually very near by my aunt's house!

April 2, 2011

Have you heard of Couchsurfing? If you haven't then you better click here and check out what kind of animal that is. Or you can trust my spoiler, its a community for backpacker or traveler in general, where you can meet, ask questions to, ask for helps from, ask for accommodation from... locals.  Bottom line is about you opening your arms for fellow travelers. Why it's called Couchsurfing? As a humble backpacker we are more than grateful if someone allows us to crash on their couch, so we call all the accommodation offered as couch :)

Anyway I thank Sony who introduced me to Couchsurfing, altho I haven't provided any couch or use couch from anyone I'm so glad I met fellows from Balikpapan Couchsurfing and had fun exploring our city. I will split it to some posts for the sake of your eyes lol. All credits on the pictures are given to Chitra, the photographer :)

Mangrove Conservation  

Me and my first Couchsurfing friend, mbak Erry 

In addition to the locals we toured around with Mike

THE ---- no other than mangrove itself.

Other tree, aint mangrove. I used to play chef-wanna-be with my friends and chop the flower of this tree :D

Pretty and long walk track around the conservation area. Our timing was the best, around 8 am. The air was so fresh. 

of course I posed! with my funny pants and shoes there :D

The end of the track, a lighthouse. You see something shining up there? Haha maaf :P

We took different route on our way back and met these cool kids hanging out on Sunday morning. Nifty place you got kids ;) 

Here we found Mike's future home, what do you think? 

The Day I Made Batik

At the Team Building, we were taught to make Batik and I was doing my part. It was pretty tough to keep the wax running in the right amount as you draw, mostly they run wild or don't run at all.

This is my work, not much :P

Voila, the team work. We made what almost be perfect map of Indonesia :)

Too bad I can't put all the pictures here, I don't know if exposing my co-workers online is acceptable or not. Bottom line is we had fun making Batik ;)