Lorin
Pratnya Valorina Joined: December 30th 2007
Logged in: March 18th 2011
Logged in: March 18th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
The Smiling Buddha
This month October is one of the moments waited by most families in Indonesia. As the Indonesian government chose September 30th to October 3rd 2008 to be national holiday related with Idul Fitri Moslem Festive Day. Most Indonesian family spent their time by having family vacation or visiting their homeland or formerly known as Mudik. Holiday places like Bali and Jogjakarta were totally full of local tourists. I spent mine by meeting my family in Surabaya, then headed to Jogjakarta to have family vacation. I was pretty excited to visit ancient temples as well as Malioboro Street the traditional shopping arcade. Excited enough to leave CNN which actively informs the latest update about US’s finance and Vice Presidential Debate. We thought that the traffic wouldn’t be too crowded we left on the second day of Idul ... read more
Lets go play Dad
A village festival. What would it possibly be? Traditional dance? Children play traditional games? Some old ladies sit down and make batik? Or village’s authentic recipe? Well, probably we would find it at the "real" village. But in Sanur, one of the magnificent beach in the world, I may say village festival is a modern event with a mixture of eastern culture and western taste. Held for the third time, Sanur Village Festival 2008 took place at Segara beach Sanur from August 6th to 10th 2008. There’s plenty of interesting itinerary to be joined including Food Festival (Yumm.. yumm!), Cycling Tour, Fine Art Exhibition, Photo Contest, Kite and Wind Surfing Parade, Surfing Competition, Golf Tournament, Jukung (Traditional Boat) Parade, Coral Plantation, Mass Yoga, and Jazz & Cultural Shows. From those choices, what interest me the most ... read more
When the Nature Calls
Menjangan? At first it sounds unfamiliar to me. I was a kind of tourist who mostly spent the weekends at crowded places such as Kuta and Seminyak. Although I have stayed in Bali for two years, I wasn’t really sure about the name. What is it? Where is it? What can I find at the place? Until one of my friends Pingkan who has visited Menjangan Resort previously asked me and my other two friends Meita and Wira to spend a weekend trip at the resort. Well, I thought backpacking is my favorite traveling style. Why not? We choose a weekend in July as a perfect time for the trip. As it was very crowded at southern Bali in summertime, we better search for a place to relax and enjoy the nature voices. We went on ... read more
You Must Be Joking!
After using coat and shawl for ten days, its time to change the holiday destination into a place with sunshine and beaches. We decided to choose Surfers Paradise which located on Gold Coast, Queensland. It took us 1.5 hours to fly from Sydney and we couldn’t wait to arrive since we keep on imagining the picturesque beach, just like we saw on the websites and postcards. We arrived at Gold Coast’s Airport. The airport is quite small and felt so tropical. As we found wooden furnish, warm sunshine, sea smell, and many tourists using beach floral blouse. Should we say, “Aloha!”? No, I think we still should say “Hawayah?” (The way Aussies pronounces How are you?). We bought unlimited three day bus pass at the airport as we found this pass is more effective and efficient ... read more
Beautiful Snow Leopard
Traveling to a new place wouldn’t be special without meeting the local animals. Looks like Taronga Zoo was a perfect place to check out native Australian wildlife. Set in a natural foreshore bush land, Taronga which came from Aboriginal word meaning “water view”, operate ever since 1916. We went to the zoo on Saturday, as the weather forecast predicted its going to be a bright sunny day. We started the trip on 9 am. Parked the car near Darling Harbor, we bought daytriper ticket which enables us using bus, train, and ferry around Sydney all day long with only one ticket. This ticket is highly recommended for tourist who wants to explore the city. We used ferry departed from Darling Harbor headed to Circular Quay. Within the trip, we chose to sat outdoor as the Sydney ... read more
Sydney Harbor Bridge
Here we are, arrived in Sydney. As I read from some articles, the most appropriate words to describe Sydney would be cosmopolitan, diverse, energetic, and easygoing. I just can’t wait to prove the opinion! My first impression of the city was unstable weather. We arrived in the middle of rain with cold and windy situation. During our trip in Sydney we stay at our friend Luki’s house, but we weren’t very sure about the location and how to get there especially with our baggage which marked “Heavy” by Virgin Blue airline. Ouch! Luckily, Luki picked us at the airport. It took us approximately 45 minutes to get to Luki’s house. Arrived at the house, we met the rest of the family, Dea and Reza, such a lovable, warm, and caring family. We had dinner with spicy ... read more
Old City
As I don’t know much about Melbourne, I trusted the guide (a.k.a our friends) to inform the “must see” places. We arranged the itinerary and prepare ourselves for the trip. On Saturday we decided to see Saint Kilda beach but previously we joined lunch at our friend’s house. Her name is Sherly and she is an Indonesian as well. She served us yummy spicy and hot fried chicken that lighted up our afternoon mood ;)) Yummm... Finished our lunch and chit chat, we continue the trip to St.Kilda beach where we planed to watch sunset. The beach is clean and there were so many Seagull birds around the beach. The sunset was truly beautiful and we enjoyed the scene by having hot chocolate at restaurant next to the beach. On Sunday, we decided to start the ... read more
Beautiful Sunrise
Finally, I am going on a trip which I had planned since 2007. My colleague Angga and I had planned to go traveling together, considering both of us never went to Australia, so why not? We decided April 2008 is the best time for us to go. Successfully got Australian tourist visa, we booked the ticket and start the journey on Thursday night April 17th 2008. We used Garuda Indonesia airlines and it took us 6 hours flight from Bali to Melbourne. We arrived on the next day, 7 am local time. The weather was nice, although I am not used to low temperature. It wasn’t windy or rainy. Just a perfect bright sunny day to start sightseeing Melbourne. I did not know much about the city. As I can’t find any traveling guide book which ... read more
The Guardians
It's always interesting to find out cultures which I never knew before. Apparently today, chinese community all over the world are celebrating Chinese New Year 2559, welcoming the new Rat year. Most of them said it would be a prosperous year, as Rat is very smart and able to addapt in various environments. At first, I was really interested to see the Barongsai. A dance played by at least 17 people using huge lion suit and also play traditional instruments such as Gong and Cymbal. The dance is very unique as the dancers form themselves as if they were one huge lion. The Chinese community believed that performing Barongsai could eliminate the Bad Aura. According to Nian Legend, the first Barongsai show held at Qing Dinasty era on a village to get rid of a monster ... read more
Victims of Hope
There’s not so much to say about the last two days. The weekend when I was plan to travel to many places. To join a test and visit my hometown Surabaya, to meet my colleagues in Jakarta, and to spend holiday in Bandung which I never visited before. Everything was well planed and booked, until the heavy rain and flood come. Heavy rain which happened since Thursday, Jan 31st 2008 at Jakarta caused flood in some places including the main road to Jakarta’s Airport. On Friday afternoon, the Jakarta’s airport was closed to all flight due to heavy rain and flood at the airport. Many fights from and to Jakarta are delayed or canceled. This situation impacted to national flight schedule. On Friday, I was on a trip from Denpasar to Surabaya. My flight normally board ... read more
