Travel Diary: Palembang 2017

A view from Chinese Vihara in Pulau Kemaro

I stayed in Palembang for only 3 days, super quick, short getaway from Jakarta around June 2017. But it was really fun, really worth it. I went there with my mum, grandma, and my two siblings, but I met my cousins who are Palembang descents there. They were also spending their vacation there.

Woke up to this, such a pretty scenery!

In Palembang, we stayed at this beautiful hotel "Novotel Palembang", it's very family friendly, they had this cooking class for children. It's quite fancy, actually. So if I had gone there without my family, I wouldn''t have been able to afford it.

Ampera Bridge on top of Musi River

My sissy looking so fine against the shadow

FILM CAMERA 

When I went there I was so eager to use my analog camera, but I didn't really develop all the films that I used I only developed one, because it really cost me a lot of money to you know, maintain this relationship with my analog camera. In this post, you will see pictures shot by my mom's old Fujifilm Camera.

Clueless

Fetus, amnesiac

Mother,

Have I gone much farther or 

have I grown embittered?

To feel this blood run towards my bone,

once they sent my soul to drown

To see this face in the mirror,

torn by torments and terror,

Mother,

Beneath everything that I don't know,

along with every breath I had sough,

this question in which I came from,

about this place I'd been welcome

Mother,

I've lived almost a quarter of century,

None of them had believed in me,

about this place we've named and called,

is never for us to name and own,

Mother,

If I could ever ask you,

about the things that once made me,

the things that we both knew,

the things that we both disremembered,

the things that we couldn't answer,

about the origin of the origin,

about the purpose of livin,

about the purpose of dyin,

Days during my Internship at CLARA Magazine

My artwork, featured on CLARA Magazine 10th Anniversary Issue

I have always been intimidated by luxurious fashion stores. I don't even have the money to afford anything there! but this internship made me enter Fendi. This internship made me almost touch Prada shoes. Yes, this internship also made me enter Calvin Klein stores and we could choose anything we wanted --- well it was the stylist's choice, not mine. But I still could watch!

P/L feb.2018

Room 243: Interior Photography Project

Hello again everyone! It might be too late to writethis post, because it's done in December 2017 or maybe late November? Back in the days, I was suddenly interested in interior photography because I spent too much time on Pinterest learning about still life contemporary photography. What I love about interior photography, well still life contemporary interior photography is that as you can see, it feels like the room is talking, or the furniture is talking. It feels like bringing the shapes, the shadows, the textures, to life. I think that's why it's called "still life".

One day, my friend called and she asked for my help to shoot an apartment located in Bandung for their airbnb website. I was thrilled because it was my first time ever shooting an interior. So I was very excited. When I got there, the apartment was so neat, it was clean kinfolk kind of apartment (if you know what I mean), the shades were black and white (mainly). I'm gonna add caption so that I can show you how contemporary still life photography seems to be talking to you. So here are what I captured (dominantly my best shots). *still learning here

Moodboard: February 2018

Hello, everyone! Okay, I promise that I will take my blog seriously. I am not sure whether it's gonna be a fashion blog... NO, obviously not a fashion blog. It will a medium for my creativity; through writing, graphic design, photography, and other things that I love. SO yeah, I promise you, dear Lebenstraum, there will be 4 posts minimum with anything I like. Because it feels so good liberating your soul through writing. Free freedom, remember? And it feels like it's the right time to do something for myself, for my OWN satisfaction, not for money, or so called business. Anyways, here's my literal moodboard for this month.

Sawatdeeka: A trip to Thailand

Do what makes you happy, really. I feel like writing a blog than dealing with my thesis today so ta-da. Back on january 10 to January 14, I had a very pleasant trip to Bangkok and Pattaya. The whole big family was going. I was with my mom, cousins, grandma, brother, sister, aunt, it's asian thing. We travel in a big group. Anyways... So here are my Thailand Highlights.  

I am not the kind of person who gets to travel a lot every year because I am so out of dime, but so far. Bangkok has been the most tourist-friendly city I've ever been. It's different than tourist destination cities in Indonesia, like Jogjakarta, and Jakarta. They're too conservative like they stare at you if you wear shorts, or when your cleavage is all over the place. Still, my favorite tourist destination would be Gili Trawangan, it's so organic, and so tourist-friendly. 

But Bangkok is different. There are many options for the tourists, you can go to family-friendly places, hipster places, or promiscuous prostitution places, you choose. 

Beautiful Statue at the Sanctuary of Truth

In Bangkok, however, you combine all of this family togetherness, religious destination, shop-till-you-drop paradigm and even hipster lifestyle in one city. The food they have here can adjust Indonesians' taste. They taste pretty much similar to our food so my family could relate really well. Indonesians have this strong urge to eat flavorful food, so the food isn't just about  salt or pepper, the food gotta have so much seasonings in it. And so do Thai foods. 

THE LANGUAGE
And oh, I even learned Thai language before coming here. I tend to get jealous when my friends had the chance to go to countries which languages I learned, and all they did was copying from google translates to make a good caption (when they couldn't even pronounce the phrase). Plus I had this obnoxious passport drama before coming to this country. So I had to make sure I got this, and I had to make sure to have a great time here, no fucking language barrier.

I also wanted to be more polite to the locals because I wanted them to you know, see that I am respecting their language and culture. So I did some research about Thai basic conversation, and I even watched videos about it, I even memorized numbers in Thai, and I would be happy if people greet me in Thai. And just for information, women can use "Ka", in the end of every sentence to be more polite, and men can use "Krap" (it pronounces like Kap /Cup) to be more polite. So even if you don't know how to say it in Thai, you can just add that.. conjugation based on your gender. So it's like, when you go to Chatucak market, and you want to bargain, you can just be like "Cheaper ka?" or "Discount ka?". It's pretty easy, really.

Socially Drained

a clip from "To be Bone" Movie

Well, this is not going to be a depressing blog post. It's more like, a self-discovery post about myself. I have been living around so many amazing people, who made me laugh, who made me smile, hell there are even those who made me cry but I am still grateful for them. As I grow up, I start to understand myself a little more. So I am going to be very straight-forward about it. I think I'm introverted.