Dancing in Dublin (cekiii!!)

Friday afternoon, windy outside, sitting in front of computer in the office, while waiting for my experiments to finish, I'm spending my time updating my blog. It's actually an old story I posted on my other blog (in Indonesian). I'm retelling the story here. Happy reading!

12 November 2009, it was 25 year anniversary of Indonesia-Ireland relationship, celebrated at Shelbourne Hotel. One of the programs showed that day was dance performance. Ireland presented the Irish tap dance and Indonesia presented some of our traditional dances. One of them was Saman dance. It's a traditional dance from Aceh, a province in north part of Sumatera island. The characteristic of the dance is its movement that gets faster gradually as it goes. The only instrument used was a wooden drum, played by one lead singer. Several times during the dance, the dancers sang too or made distinct noises that sounded like we're shouting. :D

13 November 2009. We held a fundraising event at the "Break for the Border" to help the earthquake victims in Padang, West Sumatera, Indonesia. A week before the event, we had initiative to promote the event and raise some fund at the same time. So, we danced in the middle of crowded Grafton Street on a weekend. We did it five times at two different spots on Grafton Street, not forget to show our poster as well. Overall, it went very well. We had a blast! We raised around 250 Euro and there were a lot of people coming to the actual fundraising event on the 13 November.

At the Break for the Border, not only Saman Dance was performed, but also Sundanese and Balinese dances, Indonesian martial art ("silat"), and vocal groups. We made it! All money we got was handed to the Indonesian Ambassador for UK and Ireland to be delivered to those who need it in Padang. It had been days of hard work, commitment, and of course joy. :)

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Assalamu'alaikum, Istanbul!

Hi again, readers!

I know I just posted something about Stockholm yesterday. Sometimes I could be so eager to write, write, and write. The other time, I could be extremely lazy that this blog is untouched for months. So now I'm writing some stuff I found interesting (or not) about Istanbul. I stayed there for only a week. Here are some random things I experienced while I was there. Happy reading! :)

• The tourism spots you can visit in Istanbul are plenty. Some of them are Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Mosque), Hagia Sophia, and Grand Bazaar. 
• Blue Mosque is the only mosque in Istanbul with 6 minarets, which is the maximum number you can have in a mosque. It's called Blue Mosque because of its blue interior (tiles and windows). 
• Hagia Sophia used to be a church for 916 years, then a mosque for 481 years. Now, it's a museum.
• Grand Bazaar is one of the largest covered markets in the world with 60 streets and 5000 shops. It's huge! If you go there, I would suggest you to take a picture of the gate you get into the market from, just in case you forget your way back (fyi, there are many gates). They have almost everything: clothes, tea sets, plates, carpets, jackets, sweets, pashmina, shisha, and many more. Here, you're allowed to negotiate the price, ask them to cut the price by 50%, don't be hesitate! If you love shopping, this place definitely suits you. ;) 







Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia

Grand Bazaar



• Most local people don't speak English. There were a few times when I had to use my body language to explain what I wanted to say. One day, I went to a small shop to buy a notebook. I looked around the shop and didn't find one. So, I decided to ask a man, who I assumed is the owner of the shop. At first, he thought I needed a tissue (I had no idea how he got that from my question). Then I took out a small booklet from my bag and acted like I was writing on it. He seemed to understand what I meant, but no, he gave me an envelope. :D I gave up, "That's OK sir, thank you."


• Regarding public transportation, there are buses, trams, funiculars, and boats. All of them require a special card, namely akbil card (or Istanbul card). You can buy the card at small shops around Istanbul that have the sign "akbil card". You pay 7 (Turkish lira) as deposit and then you can top it up using ticket machines. At first, I didn't know about this card. I still remember how I went back and forth asking different people at the train station in Taksim (the area where my hotel was). I was unlucky because all the people I asked don't speak English. They all pointed to the ticket machines, but the problem was I didn't have the card and wanted to know where to get one. I tried my best to explain it, but they didn't understand. After a while, one of the staff at the station allowed me to get into the funicular without ticket (I think he was a little bit frustrated dealing with me). So, I got into the funicular and there I met some people from the conference (I went to Istanbul for a conference). I found out about the card from them.


• The temperature in Istanbul was HOT! Just like in Jakarta. You will get sweaty (corn-size sweat!). If you touch your head, you can feel the heat. So, sunglasses is a must, although I forgot to bring mine. >_<


• To change currency, it's better to do it at a money exchange than a bank because the rate offered there is better.


• As far as I know, the dinner time in Turkey is pretty late, around 9pm. Even the gala dinner held by the organisers of the conference started at 9pm and finished around midnight.


• Talking about food, which is something we always want to know when we visit a country, they were all delicious! Tasty and spicy, yum! :9 Even the rice tasted good. I could eat the rice without anything else. That's how good it was. And they were all cheap! I suppose everything in Turkey is cheaper (compared to Dublin). And oh, I always got a free cup of tea everytime I had lunch or dinner at a restaurant or even take away. That might be common here.

  

  Turkish Foods



• The local people are nice and friendly. Let's just leave it that way. If you plan to go to Istanbul and want to know more about it, you can ask me in person.


• As you might know already, Istanbul is the only city in the world which is both in Europe and Asia geographically. The conference I attended was in Europe side of Istanbul. However, I got a chance to go to the Asia side (by boat). The difference between the two is pretty noticeable. The Asia side is more crowded and less organised in terms of the structure of the city while the Europe side is more artistic in terms of the architecture of the buildings. For Indonesian people, I have to say, the Asia side of Istanbul looks similar to terminal Blok M or Tanah Abang. XD However, I enjoyed the boat trip from Europe to Asia and return. :)

  

  The view from the boat heading to Asia side of Istanbul



• Did you know that the Turks (Turkish people) introduced coffee to Europe? They also gave the Dutch their famous tulips. 


• I found some words in Turkish that are the same in Indonesian. For example, "soap" in Turkish is "sabun"; "tower" is "menara", so is in Indonesian!
  
  

Those are a few stories I could share during my stay in Istanbul. Oh, I almost forgot, one place not to be missed is Topkapi Museum, especially at the Islamic relics section (I'm absolutely sure that muslims will find this section amazing!). It's full of history, mA!

ps: I didn't get a chance to go to Cappadocia. So, I might visit Turkey again some day. ^_^

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Stockholm in a Nutshell

Halo! or should I say, "gurdy gurdy gurdy!" ;)

Filling some spare time I have now, I'm writing a few things I experienced when I was in Stockholm, Sweden last week. We flew with Ryanair, and it was definitely better than the last time I flew to Edinburgh, which was shaky! Anyway, we arrived in Skavsta Airport, which is a small airport and all I could see there was only Ryanair, no other airlines.

City Hall

To reach center Stockholm, you can take shuttle buses (Flygbussarna) which will cost you around 25-30 Euro, return (valid for 3 months). Oh, if you're 25 years old or younger, you can get youth tickets, which are slightly cheaper. The buses stop at Central Station, which is next to the Stockholm City Hall. It's the venue where the Nobel prize ceremony takes place. Around the building we saw crescent, cross, and a statue of sleeping Budha. There might be some history behind those three religious symbols in the building, but we didn't get a chance to ask the tour guide.

One of Irish pubs in Stockholm

Regarding dinner time, apparently it's earlier than normal. Not sure around what time, but definitely before 9 pm as it was difficult to find restaurants that are still open above 9 pm. However, you can still have something to eat at pubs as they open until late at night. Oh, we found many Irish pubs in Stockholm (I think they love Irish). Oh, not only that, several things here are very similar to Dublin. Blue bus seats, yellow hand holds in the bus, the small equipment for pedestrians to cross the road (hope you know what I mean), and public bicycles, to name a few. However, it's less crowded than Dublin.

Classic Swedish Meatball

Now about the food. Swedish cuisine is so creamy. One popular delicacy from Sweden is their meatball, Classic Swedish Meatball to be precise. I didn't try it, but only the sauce (sweet). So, what did I have? I had salmon, which was delicious. As far as I remember, I had salmons quite often in Stockholm, probably 3-4 times, which I didn't mind so much. :)

 

The architecture seemed very artistic. I'm talking about statues decorating the buildings. They were everywhere, even above regular doors or windows of offices/apartments. Some statues made me think what they actually are because I couldn't picture it, for example a statue of half woman, half airplane. :D

What about the people? We found that Swedish people are nice and friendly. Never had a problem dealing with them, they were helpful. And oh, most of them are tall! Even the Swedish teenagers are taller than me (well, that's not surprising). Talking about teenagers, Swedish teenagers have their own celebration when they finish school (high school, we assumed). They got into a truck, turned on musics out loud and went around city. Some of them wore a white sailor hat, which is common for students who have finished school, apparently.

Seeing a movie at cinema was quite an experience. As usual, a few trailers were shown prior to the screening of the movie. After the trailers were shown, there was a lady coming into the theater and saying something in Swedish. We had no idea what she was talking about. We thought the movie had been canceled. After asking a local guy sitting next to us, apparently the lady was welcoming us! Never saw that before anywhere else. It felt like we're going to see a live theatrical act or something. Nice! :)

Closing my post, here are a few pictures of Stockholm. ;)

Overall, it's been a great experience. Tack for reading! :)

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