..in Mandiri Bank Museum, we also saw a diorama set in a big room that was supposed to be the office of the bank in early 20th. half-up of the room were surrounded by glass wall so we could see through it. bank tellers and customers interacted through the holes made on the glass. it was told that most of the employees were chinese (well i can't help but feeling a little bit proud) because they were careful, diligent, hard-working, and accurate as a bank cashier. cool. they must be really smart, since office employee was considered a very good job be done by clever, educated people back then. now, everybody can be an office employee.
by the way i like something that is old-fashioned (in indonesian: jadul...) so i was really impressed by looking the old photograph of office employees. they had the same clothing. they had the same haircut. they even all had the same facial expression...
and the girls, wow, i now understand why they say fashion era always repeated. girls nowaday wear the same clothing with girls that time. no, i don't mean the skinny jeans thing that worn with a t-shirt and cardigan, i'm talking about dress with shirt collar, puffy sleeves, and plaid skirt. it's now really in, but it sucks because now they wear it with stupid legging...i hate legging -_-"
and the weird thing i noticed about this museum...
so this museum had a playground surrounded by the museum building. and i thought i saw something that looks like kindergarten classroom. what the...
later we moved to another museum. finally. it's museum sejarah Jakarta, or Fatahillah Museum. i never thought we would make it to here, because it's placed at the infamous location of traffic jam. busway made easy!
we only had to cross the road (like the chicken...) and walked through the old town area.
argh! those cars were disturbing the sight of old town! get out from there!the old town, somehow looked like a really deserted ghost town, as if people never passed the road there for a loooooooooooooooong time anymore. mold covers the wall, buildings remain not renovated, broken window glasses, ...ugh! really, i thought with this condition the old town would fit the requirement to be a good hang-out place for punksters at night (or maybe a place for some creepy cult members to hold their weekly cult meeting). and those cars, oh please! aren't there any other parking lots for them? why isn't there any regulation that forbid them to park their stupid cars there since it's a historical spot that has to be protected? no need to ask; that's because they pay. paying solves everything in this country, no exclusion for parking retribution. and though the old town is government's property, i'm not sure where the money goes.
actually i'm glad the government still let those old buildings stand proudly among jakarta's fast growing modernization (though they are decayed and deserted), instead of selling those old buildings to some stupid-ignorant-future-business-and-money-oriented-developer who will destroy all the buildings to build new modern shopping center. we don't need any more mall or shopping center. we need something new and different, and sometimes something old can be something new to us. history (including historical buildings and monuments or whatever) is the part of society which makes us the way we are. the government should concern more about this, i know our government should be capable to do more than just keeping the old town. they just never make it real. oh, they never make anything real. i hope those stone-hearted people in government read my writing! the heritage of jakarta interests many domestic and foreign tourists, but it's quite sad that not many old town and old buildings left now. i've never been to europe, but I do think that europe is interesting because of its heritage. people there maintains old buildings well, and that attracts the tourists. they open souvenir shop, cafe, or bookstore at the old buildings. they do their own business, but they still maintain the reall architecture of the old buildings. this is the good thing. you can use the building, renovate it, but don't change it. it's sad that not many people in here have a will to maintain the real architecture of old buildings. they're prefer to rebuild a new buildings out of historical buildings on their own lots (they need IMB to do this, and though old buildings should be protected but yes...here is the stupid birocracy system goes)
back to the old town, i would suggest the government seriously renovating this old town. make it more interesting, more hopeful, more beautiful, anything. learn from any european country. this old town has a really good prospect for being a really good city tourism site.do not leave it like a deserted ghost town. if i am a millionaire in the future, i'm positive i would do something about this. I would revitalize it. make it interesting and more lovely. I wish those buildings still remain unchanged until i become a millionaire!(by the way on the way back, we saw newlyweds doing a professional photoshot here. well. see? they still want to use the old buildings even if it's soooooooo abandoned.
and the buildings are old. the newlyweds too...)
Fatahillah Museum
this is a very famous museum. it is located at the very end of old town road. I'd seen this museum being reported by several television tourism shows, and people wrote about this museum in magazines. it's famous of its underground prisons. so we paid the retribution and enter the museum. I guess this museum building was a wealthy dutch's residence in the past. the stairs are still real; they're wide and antique. well, actually there is nothing too special about what inside the museum if you had ever been to National Museum of Jakarta. The second story was filled with antique furnitures, and there is a room that shows the view of big ground in front of the mansion. and in another room, there are the paintings of dutch lanlord and his wife. maybe they were living in that mansion, afterall...
to see the underground prisons, we have to go to the backyard. as it named, the prisons are located right below the mansion (I certainly wouldn't ever want to live above a prison) the prisons weren't as dark as i predicted, those still got sunshine to their front doors. however, the prisons are only about 5 feet tall. There are many ankle weights for prisoners shaped like big metal ball. the air was tight there. i smell the scent of violence here...I heard the prisoners were violently treated, tortured inside those small cells before they were executed in the front ground. what a colonialism.... that's pathetic.
geez, the pictures are still at my friend's camera...
and on the backyard... here it is! clothless metal boy, hermes...
there we were, trying to imitate hermes. me in the middle~
first, i would really want to ask hermes how he got such good-shaped abs while he couldn't access the gym. second, hermes is the son of Zeus in greek mithology. hermes is the messenger of the gods, God of boundaries, shepherds, cowherds, thievery, travellers, invention, general commerce and literature (http://www.wikipedia.com/) sorry but i can't remember what are written below the statue... -_-" this statue was used to be in Harmoni district before some punks vandalized him and made the real hermes transferred to Fatahillah Museum, and a replica replaced the real statue in Harmoni district. and...oh! here is our photograph with an old cannon. no information written about the cannon. i guess all we know is that is a cannon, and that is old because it is placed in museum.
since we hadn't had our lunch yet, we decided to go to Stasiun Kota. it's a train station. my friend, Shandy said there was a tasty-food sold there. okay fine. the station is always crowded, i think. and i really like the architecture of this station! probably it was made by colonial government, since the architecture is really different from any other train stations. the main building was high, and the ceiling was curvaceous. it's marvelous... but the crowd could care no more. the station is quite dirty, and the situation didn't give us any secure feelings. geez. who cares about the architecture of this station...
the food seller was near the train railway. i don't know how to say it in english, it's a place where passengers get on or off from the train. the spot she's selling her food at was not a busy place at that time, so no rushing passangers trying to get on to the train or whatever. ahoy. the lady sold fried noodles with dumplings, poured with 'sambel kacang'. i admit it. i can't stand spicy food. but how spicy this food could be, eh?
the next fifteen minutes later, my life was at stake. I had no drink. my face was bright red, and i gasped for air. good lord, i couldn't stand the spicy taste! and i ordered one full portion. that's a long fifteen minutes... this was the difference. I drank 3 glasses of water. my friends only drank one. great!
we were planning to eat dinner in Plaza Semanggi actually. so we got on the transjakarta. then this thought striked our mind. we wouldn't get off until the last stop, Blok-M station, thinking that the bus would turn the direction, give the passengers time to get off, and therefore we could go back to our start for free. but we're wrong. we had to get off at the blok-m station because it's the very last station. and we had to spend another 3500 rupiahs to go back to our start. the lesson is: don't be a cheapskate!
we ended at Plaza Semanggi, and parted away there. so then we went home......*the end*
duh too long eh!
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