Dewata Anton Festival 2015

I went to Bali on early October to attend an anime festival called Dewata Anime Festival (DAF) 2015.

The festival claimed BABYMETAL will come. Amuse SG confirmed BABYMETAL won’t. (ಥ⌣ಥ)

The venue changed in short notice. ಠ_ಠ

I paid. The ticket didn’t come. ಠ▃ಠ

And at last…the event got cancelled… (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

But the flight and the hotel was already booked, so I still had to go. (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞

A more detailed and complete version of the adventure has been written by my friend over here and here, so I’m just going to share some trivial things that I found noteworthy on my trip. If you can slack, go slack, right? XD

Day 1

At Terminal 3 Soekarno-Hatta Airport, I rode on a bus refitted for vertically unchallenged sentient beings to reach the plane.

When I got to Ngurah Rai, I found free Japanese brochure and magazine about Bali; titled API magazine, if I’m not mistaken. They were surprisingly very helpful. They are mostly in Japanese, but I advise you to bring it with you. They got map of Bali; detailed map of interesting areas like Ubud, Jimbaran, etc, including the location of shops, restaurants, and points of interest; and they also got discount coupons for selected stores. You really should take it the first time you arrive at Ngurah Rai.

I drove a rented car far from my father supervision for the first time. It was a Daihatsu Agya and it used automatic transmission; I have driven an automatic only once before and it was for less than an hour. So, the experience was quite new for me.

The drive to Ubud was long and tiring.

Arrived at Bebek Bengil. For those who still look at the price of food in the menu, this place is probably not for you.

You don’t have to buy food just to take photos

 

Spent a lot of money here. Should enjoy it optimally.

 

Went to Puri Saren Agung together with Chinese horde.

Unexpectedly, it’s not a statue of a god. It’s a trophy of a Legong Dance Championship.

Went to Budamarket, kind of store for organic foods. There’s a lot of interesting snacks there.

That’s the sign in case you got lost

Continue driving to Mount Batur.

We got lost and stumbled upon this view

Day 2

To the peak of Mount Batur, we went.

That’s Nekoton on the peak of Mount Batur with sunrise as the background.

Fyi, I still bring my cosplay gears.

We also went to a nearby hot spring

Then, another long drive to the south. We were going to Uluwatu, since our hotel was there; thx to DAF 2015 who moved its venue to Garuda Wisnu Kencana. Out of curiosity, I went to GWK to take a peek. To anyone of you interested of going there: don’t. You have to pay just to get in and there’s not really much to see there. Go spent your money somewhere else.

At night, we traveled around the hotel by foot and I literally lost my balance and fell, probably due to fatigue.

Got a “couple” bonus yakitori at Kiwami Yakitori. Yey!

The hotel where we spent the night has a nightclub on the roof. It was very noisy and the sound got into our room. My advice: don’t choose hotel with rooftop nightclub.

Day 3

I hate sunburn and heat. I hate beach. Oh yeah, we went to Lembongan Island. And then I knew I also hate snorkeling. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go there though. The sea was beautiful; the marine life was lively; the corals were colorful. But I got bad sunburn that’s not going after a month and a scratch mark from a coral. I always prefer mountain.

Look at how happy I am: not really

The scenery around Lembongan Island is great and I wanted to take underwater photos but the camera just couldn’t do a good job for it

Day 4

We went back to the mainland. And since we returned the rented car the day before, we had to rely on other transportation mode. We were made to believe that taxis in Bali were expensive by some blogs and traveling websites, so I tried Uber for the first time. The driver was very helpful and drove us to a “piesusu” factory which we did not know before and he also escorted us to a restaurant near Ngurah Rai called Budesa.

Of all the meals we had at Bali, I think this one was the most satisfactory

Then we used GrabCar to drove us to the airport (also my first time) and rode on an iron bird once more to Jakarta.

That’s my experience travelling to Bali. How’s yours?

Similar in a Funny Way

Have you heard about Jesus, my dear reader? And no, I’m not trying to christen you, at least not directly through this post. He admitted he came from heaven, he knew what’s it like; a lot of room for everyone and very comfortable for everyone, he also knew how to get there. And somehow, he was so eager to persuade people to come with him and live there with him.

You know what, I realized Jesus’s behavior has a similarity with a particular phenomenon around me. I was watching a news about mudik, a term used to describe an exodus of urban population back to their hometown, since many urban population comes from rural area or another town, especially Jakarta dwellers who have origin from many corners of Indonesia. These “I’ll be home for Christmas or Lebaran” people tend to bring their relatives to Jakarta with so many reasons: Jakarta is a big city, there’s a lot of job around, a lot of money to make, a lot of facility and luxury and technological awesomeness to enjoy, yup, and I, your dear relative, am the witness to all of that and I have a house there where you can stay temporarily and I know how to get there and how to live in the environment, so, just come with me and it will be fun, I promise! And that, my friend, is how Jakarta got overpopulated.

Now, don’t you think those people have similarity with Jesus in a funny way? The big point is, I think, both of them have really get to the better place (Jakarta or heaven), and that good experience drives them to ask people they loved to come over. What do you think? Share it with me!

P.S. Probably the last post on 2012