Theatering

The redness splashed in Gedung Kesenian Jakarta this early February. To celebrate Imlek, Teater Bejana presented a play based on novel from Kwee Tek Hoay, a famous Chinese-Indonesian journalist in early 1900-ies.  A story about a very grumpy bad old Tan Tjo Lat accidentally got in somekind of trouble with the authority because of two boys gave fake id's and address when a couple of polices caught them riding an unlighted bicycle at night.
The message was strong, when you made a mistake you have to acknowledge it big heartedly and bribing people is never right.

My thumbs went up for Didi Hasim who played Tan Tjo Lat and Endang Ayu as Ang Pauw Sian. Didi successfully woke everyone up that night when he made a spontaneous joke "I think my mustache just fell off" when his fake mustache keep flapping in a weird way every time he made dialogue, before he run backstage excused that his character need to change his clothes.  And his chinese accent was awesome.

Endang Ayu's voice was very soft and tender... even when she cried I still feel like she was singing and whispering gracefully instead.

I enjoyed the play very much although it's a bit too long - got a very sleepy eyes after that, and the chance to get a couple lovely ladies came and see it together with me (and my brother) was great.
I still have high hope that one day I could find a/some friend(s) out there who like to see this kind of play with me.  

Year of the Rabbit

This would be my first Chinese New Year with the family after years living far away and hopefully my last time to receive the red envelope before the wedding this year. Although my family from both my parents side don't have very thick chinese culture, but I could see that this year's celebration was more lively than before. This probably because we have the third generation popping out in the last 2 years; they look like some pop rock candies and cute jelly beans!

The celebration was started really early in the morning with some children from the neighborhood came and yelled out my parent's name in front of our house, then my dad will came out and gave everyone red envelope.

Then the rest of the day was full with family time, met my mom's family in the day and my dad's in the evening. Lot's of laugh, love and food; and last but not least... the gambling session - one of the essence of real Bangka people.. 

Local Wedding

If you married, you marry the whole village. I think this is the perfect sentence to describe what happening in my house right now.
No, it's not my wedding. But this is the second time for my family to get involve in a local wedding. As you know we live in a suburb area where most of the neighbourhood are Betawi. One of our neighbour have a wedding reception tomorrow, that means Sunday. Because my parents' house is the only place that have enough open space in the neighbourhood, they decided to open the kitchen here.

Our house have been full with local ladies since yesterday and hmmmmm I can smell different food flavour change every hours.  And of course the ultimate advantage is I can just come in, help a bit , but eat a lot!

It's almost 10PM but the kitchen are still cooking. They said they will stay up tonight to cook more for tomorrow.  I think I will dream floating in food heaven tonight... 

Tanah Abang

These are some shots from today. Was walking around at one of the most hectic place in Jakarta: Tanah Abang Market. Morning time was great but wait until around lunch time - the traffic just totally crazy! Sitting in a full AC cab was like drinking cold avian in a desert.
Directly did facial treatment once reached home!  

Long Weekend

There's a reason why I haven't updating my blog. Blame it to the crazy Flu. It's been 2 weeks but I still can feel those viruses stick inside my nostril and throat probably busy socializing and producing tapioca dessert.

Anyway, I had a chance to spent the whole Saturday with (again) a bunch of twenties.. with of course water bottle in hand at all time - for my coughing.

Italian, movie, huge steak - I had a slight headache after that, too much red meat and a cafe pub which more fit for purpose as smoking room rather than life music entertainment. 

Driving Mad

My brother trying to climb the social ladder by start learning to drive. We spent sometime to watch Golf Tutorial for Dummies before driving to the golf club.  I think we're doing fine for a first timer. But definitely keeping some distance from kid's driving class. Seriously those kids could hit like a pro. 10 years old! At that age I was playing with tadpoles and trying to cook grass in a can.

First attempt to drive. I think I'll stick with pilates/yoga mat.  And here are some other photos from today. 

CengBoyz

How to spend a weekend with a bunch of 20-ies:
- Life music
- Smoke
- Beer
- Nibbles
- BB
*Please pay attention to the BB part. I assume because of the music was too loud so it's a common policy here to interact through thumbs and screens.

My brothers and me have been living in this tiny street in a rural area away from the city central. It was a really quite area, where 20 years ago you could walk on the rice field and goats would stop by in front of our house just to chew my dad's trees. So, everyone grown up. All those children who used to play hide and seek every evening in their childhood now busy with their full time job. Thanks to the "advance" technology from BB, they now still keep communicating via BBM and have their own group - CengBoyz

I had a privilege to join with them (and their partners) last night and spent the rest of the night at Cafe Pisa.  I had lots of fun, mostly was looking at seven of them BBm-ing and the band singing Keong Racun -- please insert smile emoticon here --
☆ †h♌nk γ☺u ☆

Here are some pics from last night. 

Tiptoeing at Toko Tiga

It was a perfect weather in Jakarta - this means cloudy sky with temperature not more than 30C degree, and there wasn't a lot traffic yet since people are still in holiday mood.  

Here are some pictures from today just before I run out of battery.  Mom need some material and supply for the coming project, and I was just her private chauffeur.  

Old Newspaper

Look what I found when we cleaned my dad's cabinet. It feels like you were traveling back in time with Dr Who to some random road junction in Jakarta (preferably around Grogol) sitting in a non AC minivan seeing lots of peddlers when you still can buy the famous local criminal newspaper only with 200 rupiahs, whilst currently it is 2,000 rupiahs.

My chicken coops

I've been between paint peeler, plamur, sealer, paint and timber for the past one week. At the beginning of my moving back to Jakarta, I was planning to build a small unit above my parent's garage, but long story short I finally reside back in my first early childhood room - since I didn't have heart to claim my attic room and kick my younger brother out from there.

It took quite a while to make changes around in this house. Especially because my mom doesn't like "changes" - I think she just hates the process when all the messy things happen. So that time finally came, when she was happy after we successfully renovated her bedroom to be a small 'apartment'-like room and was distracted kinda busy with the tender. I brought in some paints, scrappers and with some help with my brother and cousin....

WALLAAAH!!

I now have my very own two storeys chicken coops! Complete with a couple of winter trees on the corner. I don't know where to buy vinyl wall sticker, so.. paint it is



You might ask how I could climb up to the bed (1500 high from floor). I use the small ladder for now, but planning to go out hunting for some crappy timber boxes this afternoon. At least this routine - going up and down ala tots - surely make my heart younger.

I've been seeing some birdcage lighting everywhere in the net. One of them is in Whampoa Club in Beijing. Here is the pictures.
Photo courtesy of Philipp Engelhorn

Just one would be enough for my room and I will paint it white. This will be in my to do list along with: paint the door frame, change door colour, paint bamboo tree mural in mom's bedroom. She get jealous with my winter tree.

Mom's mirror

After two days painting the walls, mom's bedroom finally done, but we still need to buy some accessories for bathroom such as shower curtain and towel rack. And of course she is planing to make the bedsheets herself tho I don't know when she will have the time to do that with all the stuff going on at her workshop right now. So I wont post the before-after photos yet.

Well, at least one corner is done. Here are some piccies of the new basin. I bought a gold-iesh classic style photo frame last time and it has been hanging there for a couple of days, but mom said the golden colour somehow bring some horror feeling every time she pass it. So, I decided to paint it white just to remind me also with my (used-to-be) vintage mirror. It turn out really cool.



Do you like our clay piggy chicken bank?

Plastergurl

Remember that my mom was doing renovation for her bedroom and ensuite? There was one old yucky very ugly old window - imagine: holes, ants, wood termites, spider webs - need to be removed. That was the same window that my red panel attached to. So.. the window was gone, my red panel has been moved to Mom's studio. Now, I end up with a naked wall at the corner of my room.

Anyway, I decided to do my own DIY - plastering the wall, since the Handymen were busy doing my mom's room and I couldn't wait anymore. I use white cement so I don't need to put base paint later on.

I'm planing to tidy up the wall but leave brick texture exposed and use the old door frame from my mom bathroom to be some kind of book shelve there or something, also re-painting the other walls would be a great project.

Rain rain

I actually love rain, especially the smell of wet ground and grass. But I hate rain IF it definitely have great potential to ruin my shoes <-- this mean outdoor and require me to walk on uneven surface, sorry I have to correct that: walk on thousands small ponds just to get to the car. Uugghhh, that would only make me look like a frog wearing tutu! Here are some shots from the car when my brother and I heading home. Everything will get ugly when you try to take picture while car in motion.
PS: shoes are save, because I decided to walk barefoot.

Mom's bathroom tiles

Colour scheme for Mom's bathroom. Previously, she wanted to have an olive green bathroom, but the local store run out of one particular green tiles (the important one!). So she I choose this colour palette for her. This should be alright, I guess.. I wanted to bring some maturity in her life - NOT because the pattern tiles reminded me with my old journal book.. hahahahaha...


ps: I let mom choose the butterfly tiles her self. They are cute, aren't they?

Baby Brother Bday Bash

My Baby Brother turned 28 this month, as usual we had dinner together like any other normal good family will do, but this one would be in a hawker stall and minus sweet prayer. Food was great -I had extra portion of fried flat rice noodle with gravy, me hungry!
Cake was cute - we had about 3 minutes looking and poked at it before he actually blew the candle and cut it. It was too cute. You should see the shoes and the rucksack..

Hhhhhh.. I remember when I was 28, life could be so unpredictable ... ok actually dont know why I said that, probably I just love the sound when you pronounce uhn-pri-dik-tuh-buhl.

Anyway, happy b-day again Welee...