Minggu, Agustus 31, 2014

Pertama kali

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Empat tahun lalu, tepatnya Agustus 2010, adalah pertama kali saya memberanikan diri untuk berpergian ke luar negeri. Sebuah proses yang cukup panjang untuk akhirnya saya berhasil melakukan perjalanan tersebut,perjalanan ke sebuah Negara berpenduduk kurang lebih 84 juta jiwa, Vietnam.

Proses pemberanian diri saya melakukan perjalanan ini dimulai dari akhir tahun 2009, ketika mendapati sebuah informasi dari seorang teman bahwa AirAsia Indonesia sedang mengadakan promosi harga tiket Rp 0,-  ke semua rute yang dilalui. Tak hayal, saya langsung semangat untuk melakukan pemesanan, dengan terlebih dahulu menyiarkannya kepada beberapa teman dekat saya. Saya dapati satu sahabat yang sudah saya kenal sejak bangku Sekolah Menengah Atas yang menyatakan keinginannya untuk ikut saya menjelajah sedikit negara Vietnam, tepatnya kota Ho Chi Minh.

Pemesanan yang tidak terlalu memakan waktu hingga akhirnya kami mendapati e-ticket melalui e-mail sebagai tanda kami telah berhasil melakukan pemesanan.

Kurang lebih sepuluh bulan tersisah waktu sebelum tanggal keberangkatan kami menuju Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, namun rasanya berjuta pertanyaan yang beberapa berupa kekhawatiran dan beberapa lainnya berupa kehebohan tidak seberapa jelas terasa terbagi rata bersemayam sebagian di otak dan sebagian di hati.

Kenyataan bahwa pada saat melakukan pemesanan tiket belum memiliki paspor adalah salah satu masalah utama yang harus kami selesaikan dalam jangka sepuluh bulan tersebut, dan mengingat status kami berdua pada saat itu adalah mahasiswa dengan uang saku yang tidaklah seberapa, mungkin hanya sebesar empat porsi bakso berkuah pada tahun tersebut, jadilah kami memerlukan waktu untuk mengumpulkan uang demi mendapati sebuah paspor, identitas yang memperbolehkan kita untuk berpergian ke luar negeri.

Dua bulan adalah waktu yang ternyata kami butuhkan setelah pemesanan tiket untuk akhirnya dapat mengurus paspor, sendiri tanpa calo, tolong digarisbawahi. Perasaan sangat bangga dan lega bercampur aduk saat pertama kali memegang buku berwarna hijau yang seukuran saku celana tersebut, ya, tampak sedikit berlebihan memang, tapi itulah kenyataan yang saya dan sahabat saya rasakan.

Paspor terselesaikan, proses lain yang tak kalah menguras tenaga dan pikiran kami adalah mengumpulkan uang demi semua kerpeluan perjalanan kami, mulai dari Pajak Bandara, biaya penginapan, makan dan keperluan lainnya selama tiga hari dua malam di Ho Chi Minch, Vietnam. Tapi, memang benar sebuah pepatah yang mengatakan “Selalu ada jalan dimana ada niat”. Perjuangan menyisihkan sebagian uang jajan dan juga penghasilan yang didapat dari bekerja lepas untuk beberapa event tidaklah sia-sia. Sampai tiba waktunya, Agustus 2010, ketika jadwal penerbangan kami sudah di depan mata, tidak ada kekurangan, justru nikmat yang sangat berlebihan dari terpuaskannya rasa penasaran bagaimana perjalanan ke luar negeri itu terjawabkan.

Oh ya, terdengar bodoh mungkin, tapi benar adanya. Saat itu, kurang empat hari dari tanggal perjalanan kami. Sebuah kebiasaan saya yang selalu menggunakan celana pendek dan sandal jepit kemanapun berpergian yang diartikan sebagai liburan sempat membuat saya khawatir. Pertanyaan muncul di kepala, terlebih ketika ada segelintir orang yang mengatakan saya harus menggunakan sepatu dan celana panjang agar tidak tertahan di imigrasi negara tujuan, entah sebuah masukan yang bermaksud menjadi lelucon, tapi secara sadar dan polos saya pun menanyuakan hal tersebut kepada beberapa teman saya yang sudah pernah melancong ke luar negeri sebelumnya. Alhasil, sebuah kepercayaan diri yang sempat terkikis karena lelucon dari beberapa orang terpahat lagi. Hari H, sebuah kaos dari Bali, celana pendek dan sandal jepit menjadi pilihan pakaian yang saya kenakan.


Agustus 2010, menjadi sejarah untuk hidup saya yang pertama kali melakukan perjalanan ke luar negeri, juga menjadi sejarah bagaimana AirAsia Indonesia benar-benar mengubah hidup saya, sebuah promosi yang mungkin untuk sebagian besar orang hal biasa, tapi promosi tersebut sudah membangkitkan keberanian dan jiwa petualan saya. Sebab semenjak itu sampai sekarang, tidak kurang dari lima belas kali saya telah melakukan perjalanan menapaki jejak di beberapa negara di Asia Tenggara, sampai pernah, satu bulan menyusuri Thailand mulai dari selatan sampai utara.


Selasa, Desember 04, 2012

Finding beautiful ‘less-tourists areas’ in Jakarta ? It’s not that really hard.

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Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia with more than eight millions of people living in it’s largest city in Indonesia. Make Jakarta, one of the most sought place by foreign tourists. You can easily find foreigner walking on the main streets in Jakarta, especially in the tourist areas.


But, is it true that very hard to find beautiful less-tourists areas in Jakarta ? The answer is really a BIG NO. I’ve guide my friends from Czech and Dutchman, and they asked me to guide them to places that less tourists, and guess where I bring them to ?

I take the Czech to animal market on Jatinegara, East Jakarta. Near to Jatinegara train station, the market was quite dirty and crowded. It’s a street market that sells a lot of kind animals, from illegal to legal, from monkey to turtledove bird. After taking pictures couple of animals there, we continued our track to marginal area behind the train station, still in Jatinegara to see another side of this big metropolitan city.  Tourists in this area ? as far my eyes rolling, I didn’t find any other tourists in the area. Not even one (at that time).

A very big canal in Halimun, South Jakarta. You can get a very beautiful sunset here. I know it can’t be compared to those in Venice or Macau, but still it’s worth to see. You can get taxi or transjakarta bus to go to this place. Just stand on it’s bridge, or you can buy some food at the food stall there and eat while waiting for sunset. Don’t forget to captures some pictures !!

What else ? Monas, The National Monument, the most famous landmark in Jakarta, or even in Indonesia. Symbolizing the fight for Indonesia’s independence, you can’t miss this place. As a famous landmark, of course there will be lot of tourists come to this place, but then again, think smart. While most of tourists come to this landmark during the day, why don’t you come the opposite timing ? come at night. That’s what I did for my Dutchman friends. Foreigner tourists ? I don’t even see one, well except my Dutchman friends.

What about food hunting ? Try to avoid Sabang, Jaksa, Blok M, Kemang, Menteng and Kelapa Gading, too many tourists there. How about try delicious food in rawamangun, cempaka putih or the morning market that sells lot of cakes and snacks in Senen Market, I bet you’ll love the place, the food and not to mention the price ‘cos it’s cheap.

I would love to give hundred recommend places to share, but then again it will be such a novel than tips. The most important thing is try to contact with local people, you know, we are know better our place than you guys. LOL.

Senin, Januari 23, 2012

Like Light Life

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"A room is like a stage. If you see it without lighting, it can be the coldest place in the world," Paul Lynde.
A light for human life is like a food, it is really important to our life, as a torch to help our eyes can look around yet help us to be able doing things for our life. Can you imagine how it would be a life without light ? our life could be the coldest thing in the world. 

We can have light from from natural sources such as sunlight or moonlight, yet we still need additional light from lamp and talking about light and lamp, and what the conjunction with energy-efficient. Actually, here in my post, I want to share couple amateur tips for saving energy with lighting. Here are some of those simple ideas :
  • Optimize the use of natural lighting during the day, it is not just because the natural light nicer but it does more eficient. You can do this using translucent glass windows that can provide as much light as dozens of light bulbs during the daylight hours.,  you also can make the transparent translucent roof that radiates sunlight during the daylight hours.
  • Turn off all the lights just before you sleep, unless you are a  nyctophobia , it would bemore efficient if you turn off the lights before you sleep. More precisely, turn off all the lights when you are not using it.
  • Use the TL lamps or CFL (Compact Flourecent Lamp) and avoid incandescentlamps. Because incandescent bulbs are less efficient, a lot of energy convert into heat instead to the light. and the rated life of a CFL ranges from 8 to 15 times that of incandescents. In fact, you can save more than 100K rupiahs on your electric costover the life of the lamp*.
  • You can do task lighting** concept which widely used in office buildings, in to your home lighting concept. The basic concepts of task lighting is used to increase illuminance on the reading area. To your home, you can Install track of recessed lights to illuminate your desk or the kitchen table where you do the crossword puzzle, and keep the ceiling lights off.

Those are four ways of things you can do to save energy with lighting. Actually, there are still many ways you can do, like buying energy-efficient lighting equipment, installing energy-saving floodlights outdoor, and many more. 

The most important before you doing all those ways to save energy, make sure yourself that you really want to change. The thing before we change the world, we change the concept of ourselves. So we can like the light of our life.

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Sources :

Save Water Save Your Life.

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Water, might be the most important thing in our life. Can you imagine if there were no water in this world ? We can have no food for more than five days, but we mostly impossible to live without water for three to five days*. Eighty percents of our body is water, that’s why we do really need water the most in this life. Not just for our body, but to this environment, for watering plants, for washing clothes, and many more things need water.

Many ways you can do to save water in your daily life. These are five of them :
  1. When you turn on the water machine to fill your bath, pay attention on it. Do not ever leave the bath while you filling it, because the water maybe spilled out if you didn’t pay attention on it.
  2. Test your water meter. Turn off all water in the house and look at your water meter. The meter should not rotate, iIf the opposite occurs, there may be leaks in water pipes. Check all your water bill to ensure there are no major surge in the use of. If those things happen to your water meter, do call.
  3. Nowadays, there seems like no rainy season or summer, we nearly can’t predict when rain will come nor predict when the summer will come. So, when the rain come, we better absorb the rain water and use it for watering plants instead of complaining and getting mad because of it.
  4. Do bring your own mineral drink water from home. It will not just save the water, but it save your money too.
  5. Many people think brushing teeth is an activity that can be resolved quickly, that’s why most people often leave the faucet in open position while brushing their teeth. In fact, a number of 4 gallons wasted**. Is  It is not that hard to turn off the faucet for a while, isn’t it ?
After you read post, I wish nothing but when you use water crazily, think it over again, there are millions people in this world still living with water shortages. Be smart, be save, be generous. Save water save your life.

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Sources :
*  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_skills
** http://edition.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/04/16/ed.water.saving.tips/index.html

Jumat, Januari 20, 2012

USE YOUR LAPTOP WISELY

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Notebook or common called as laptop, seems like a must have gadget for those who are students or officers. Either we all need this thing for making homework from teacher, doing office report at home, or just upgrading our prestige. No matter what laptop do for us, it is unbeatable we do need it.

Various kind of laptop from different brand sold in malls, electronic shops, or via online internet. We can have it from the cheapest one to the highest price, with different specifications.

Talking about laptop, and talking about efficiency of energy. I want to share what I have know in order we can still use our laptop yet keep doing go-green lifestyle (yes, I called go-green as lifestyle, it’s because I’m proud doing this go-green things, I want make it as a style of my life, and will do as best as I can).

Well, back to topic. These are things you guys can do related to electrical energy savings :
  1. First, when you decide to buy a laptop, try to find a low electrical capacity. It will save your house electrical and of course will save your money.
  2. Always charge your laptop’s battery until it reach 100 % before you want to use it. It’s not   just save the electric,  it does save your battery’s life, not to mention, it saves your money too.
  3. Adjust the lighting and contrast of your monitor. Too high lighting and contrast percentage will  spend a lot of energy.
  4. Use a full black color as your wallpaper instead a colorful one also will save a lot of energy (it is believed to save more energy in CRT kind of monitor not the LCD one). Even a website powered by Google, which created by Heap Media fade to black with blackle. Blackle claims saving more than 700 megawatt-hours per year*.
  5. Turn off other equipment such as speakers, scanner or printer when you finished using them.
  6. Last but not the least. Add more RAM !! The more amount of RAM you have, the more your laptop will run better and it will surely make your laptop last longer.
Those are six things I have done with my laptop, which you can do the same to yours. Actually there are couple things more, like using energy-saving software program, but I have not tried yet, so I can’t say much.

From now on, let use your laptop go-greenly (greenly ? okay, I just made the word. I mean use your laptop wisely, it must be the proper word in dictionary). So, you can save your laptop’s life and the most important you save the energy. If I can do those things above, why can’t you ?

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Sources :

 
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