Derawan, Sangalaki, Kakaban island trip - April 2011

Arriving in Juwata Airport Tarakan after one hour flight from Balikpapan, we were chased away by the security guy, apparently we looked harmful while all we wanted was taking pics! 

Backpack and Fedora 

We had half day to spend in Tarakan, we decided to visit Tarakan's Mangrove Conservation, woohoo with Proboscis monkeys too!

Mbak Lili and Tya, we deliver a message here... "Be Careful, the wood path is slippery" :P

Garuda, Indonesia's icon, such gorgeous birds!

The Proboscis monkey, himself! 

Help me up, what kind of bird is this? 

the whole crew ^-^ 

After lunch, the guys went somewhere else, while the girls went nuts in front of the mall lol people shouted at us. None knew us anyway :P 

After midday, it is time to cross over to Derawan Island, attraversiamo! We were waiting for the boat to arrive. 

This is the front part of our boat, turned out that it was a medium sized boat. On our way back to Tarakan we had a small boat, and the science says "the smaller your boat is, the easier it is to be shaken by the waves". And there were some jackpots!

The weather changed so fast, suddenly it rained and then stopped. This is the rainbow that welcomed us in Derawan. 

Everyone jumped off of the boat to take pics on gusung (that lil sand island) 

jump!

sillykweee's jump :P

No we didn't stay at the resort, but it didn't stop us taking picture at the gate :P

At Sangakali island where the sea turtle hatchery was, wicked awesome!   

Me and Tukik (baby sea turtle) 

Hot day, obviously I sweat like a pig lol 

so cute!

swimming in Sangalaki 

I have posted a picture like this before, but this time I took the picture myself baby! Still in Sangalaki 

got drifted away by the current in Sangalaki, still happy lol 

Clearer water in Kakaban Island

jumping into the ancient lake where the jellyfish live

not a Supergirl, you can also swim with the jellyfish ;) 

Going down to the shore after swimming with jellyfish :)

heading back to the motel happy and groovy :D

then we found this huge shell, wings-like. 

Introducing The Jungle Girl!

Make You Feel My Love

Bob Dylan is surely one person with great talent in writing a song, I love love love this song Make You Feel My Love. Among all singers that have sang this song, my fave and actually the first singer I heard singing it was Adele. I adore her voice, strong and unique. Hope I do her justice singing the song at the karaoke one night, recorded my iPod and as dark as I wanted it to be lol. 

I told my friend it would be my wedding song haha, I still got lots of time to practice thank god :D

And oh you're welcome to leave a comment or just click whether my post is interesting or ... I should make "bad" option! Thank you for visiting at the first place :) 

Hey JUNE!

June 2nd 

Finally comes the day I can enjoy the long weekend (yupidu, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday). Thursday morning I flied to Jakarta to meet my friends. Herry a.k.a Bear picked me up at the airport, it had been 5-6 years since we met the last time and it felt so.... fast! 

After dropping my stuff at Bear's, we bounced to meet the others at Senayan City. There we met with Nova, Febri, Iin, Mas Oke and their spouses. So happy to catch up.

June 3rd

My birthday! Problem came as Bear had to work, so I had no one to hang out with ON the DAY. I asked Nova if she was free that day, she offered me to join her going to Bogor where she would meet a co-worker for a discussion. The co-worker's son was sick, so he had to be stand by at the hospital and there we went! 

The plan was to meet Nova at this street Bear explained to me about, I was sure I knew the street as we walked pass it the previous day so I said I could do this. Well FYI, I was in Jakarta, the beast of confusing roads. 

Bear and I took the same angkot, as he jumped off the angkot he told me to stop at Karet. Noted! However I said stop and got off the angkot WAAAYYY too soon lol. I realized then the road was still long as I walked, while I was supposed to get to the END of the road. So then I got on another angkot and this time I made it! Now I just had to find Nova at the busway shelter which made me walk around to find out just how to go across the street. With a little doubt of actually finding her, I heard someone called my name (I sometimes don't see my surroundings lol) and there she was! Thank god! 

We then asked around how to get to the train station, after some confusion we got on the metromini and asked the kondektur (one who collects the money and screams around telling us the destination) how to get to Pasar Baru station, and he fooled us.... we had to go across the street AND asked some other people until we got on another metromini.

Eventually arrived at the train station and we paid ONLY Rp 2500 each (around 25 cents) to go to Bogor. But later I learned the price of the ticket was equal with the space and privacy we got in the train (read: TINY!)

Amazingly you can move without you realizing it when you're in a train full of people lol, and you have to ignore anything or anyone that touches you! Nova was asking me, "What's touching me from behind?" Hahaha I said it was a guy's something, FYI they were facing the same direction :P I made her a funny song there on the spot, which now I have no recollection of whatsoever. She laughed out loud and everyone must have thought we were crazy.

Then finally BOGOR! This city is so nice, green and the air is so fresh unlike Jakarta :D

We went straight to PMI Hospital where then Nova spent an hour or so discussing with her co-worker while I played games on iPod lol. 

We girls just couldn't leave Bogor without going to a famous spot, of course, MALL! 

So off we go to Botani mall, looked around for Blackberry charger since .... oh I forgot to tell you I forgot to bring charger, my Blackberry died and that made me going around Jakarta on the beginning of the day without cellphone! No sign of addiction intends to be showed off, just the absence of "phone a friend" option while getting lost in the jungle of sky scrappers is just .... lethal. 

There we found these stands of ethnic products, fabric, jeweleries and... henna tattoo stand! Of course I got that rush of excitement to get myself tattooed. Then I got these :)

My birthday (temporary) tattoos 

Then we went home happily to the embrace of cruel Jakarta, meeting Bear and Ulfa for dinner 

Thats my report for now, attraversiamo! 

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 ;)