Climbing Mount Ijen and Bromo (part 2) - Ijen

Sorry for a little bit of postponement from the last post however here I am! As promised, I'll be continuing my post especially for the main part here; which is the climb of Mount Ijen.

On the last post, I left with the trip from Baluran National Park straight to the lodge that I'm sleeping in. It took us around 2 hours (or 1? kinda forgot) to our lodge; which was only 30 minutes away from the start gate of Ijen's climbing point. 

We're staying only for 1 day, as we slept mostly on daylight instead at night, and at midnight we go straight for Ijen climbing. We arrived around 10.00 am at the lodge, bathe and slept, and play around until it reached 01.00 am where we finally took off for the climb.

We were told that it was "only" 3-3.5 kms of trip to the top of the mountain from the starting gate, and we thought that it should be not that hard for us beginners to climb, but HELL I WAS SO WRONG. 

Yes, the distance were not as frightening as it sounds but the degree of the steepness in each hill were so excruciating. It took us several times stopping on the edge of the road just to catch our breath. Just after the climb we just knew that Ijen were quite famous for its 45 degrees hill steepness, which even quite challenging for experienced climbers. Not to mention that the texture of the road were mostly sand, making it twice more slippery than average wet soil.

It was a definitely a heaven-or-hell moment during the climb, but guess what? The view is so worth the pain. By the way it took us 3 hours plus hiking from the bottom to the top of Mount Ijen.

Below were a little glimpse of the sunrise we took before it was fully morning.

The gradation of the sky were so perfect. One thing which was unfortunate was that when we were there it was a little bit cloudy thus we can't see and catch the sunrise very clear; we only managed to take several photos and in no time it was suddenly bright morning. 

Actually, as most of you already know too (maybe), that in Ijen it was not only the mountain that's incredible in sight, however there are 2 more spots: the Blue Fire, which is a crate that fumes eternal blue-colored fire as a reaction from the sulphur combustion reacting with oxygen; and another one is the Ijen Lake, which is its famous acidic lake.

However since it took another 45 minutes to hike down the crate to see the Blue Fire and I kinda can't stand the sulphuric smell, I gave up on that one and decided to just wait on the top of the mountain waiting for the sunrise.

Below were the photo of the blue fire which I got from my friends who went there.

Can't see much since it was very foggy that day, and WORST we can't even see Ijen Lake just behind. Oh well.

From there me and one of my friends took several more photos while we wait for the rest to come back from the blue fire. It was quite freezing at the top (around 7-8 degree-ish celsius feeling) but hell yeah anything for the photo, we will endure!

The crowd within the road to and from Ijen:

Since the sun were fully risen and it was getting hot (and I heard that it was more dangerous to stay for long during the day due to the sulphuric smell), we decided to went back to the hotel (with another 1 hour plus for the hiking-down trip). Our guide took us several more photos for us before we go back to the gate and finish our Ijen round-trip hike.

The main gate at morning, as a closing for our trip:

Now, for overall impression on Ijen: it was VERY VERY SATISFYING, even for a beginner like me. The pain during the climb were totally incomparable with the satisfaction for reaching the top, rewarded with breath-taking scenery and vast skies inviting to be captured. It was even still very memorable until the point when I write this blog post. It was challenging, yet super rewarding.

The only thing that annoyed us very much were the way the sand and the sulfuric smell stuck in our clothes; it took us forever to clean those shitty little pieces. After finish cleaning up, we slept like a dead meat for a while and continued our trip (as in sleeping in the car) to the next lodge where we will stay for our next climb to Mt Bromo.

I think that's all for the Ijen's climb (before it gets too long), and I'll see you again on the final post of my mountain climbing trip which is about Mt Bromo!

Thank you for reading and see you on the next post!

Sailor Moon Exhibition in Roppongi - Tokyo 2016

On this June 17^th I had the chance to go back in time and had a severe nostalgia time in the Sailor Moon Exhibition located in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo. This event was only celebrated for such a short time (for only 2 months I guess) so the hype was quite big.

To be honest I was ONCE a big fan of Sailor Moon however I grow up and blah blah so many things happened and suddenly it disappeared from my childhood without me knowing it. But then I went here.... The moment I saw all of the things shown on the exhibition there, it literally KICK MY HEAD OFF back to my childhood memories, damn, damn, hard.

“DAMN Yolanda, such a stupid of you for growing up...”

Said me to myself for the whole 3 hours there...

It was located on the 52^th floor of Mori Tower where they usually have art exhibition there. The entrance fee itself was not that cheap, 1800 yen for one adult.

I remember there are several sections for the exhibition:

• The main hall where they show the main artwork created by Naoko Takeuchi, the mangaka (“comic artist”) for the exhibition included several displayed knick-knacks from the past, and photo spot on the center for those who interested.
• The area that shows chronological story of Sailor Moon from the first publicity, short movie area.
• The display area for several manga sketches, toys and merchandise from the past and present, such as dolls, wands, action figures.
• Main Photo Spot.
• Artwork display plus a monitor that plays Sailor Moon songs from the past anime again and again (and I stunned there for more than 15 minutes just to hear the song and chill as in having goosebumps all over again)
• Another artwork display area that shows mostly the real artwork for this exhibition which is AWESOME.
• Shop area.

Unfortunately most of the area here were “no-photos area”, except the main hall and the photo spot area. Well, privilege for those who paid to get in!

However will keep to try my best to show you all what I see and what I managed to take.

The first thing were the main hall. The main hall was huge and the first thing I saw was all of the artwork hanged with Tokyo View seen from 52th floor as the background.

Even Usagi was like summoning the Tokyo Tower here.

Right in the middle of the main hall was the first photo spot,

and next to it was this SUUUPER BIG and PRETTY main artwork for this exhibition.

OMG. I want to take it home. Kill me.

Circling the main figures of the room were these glass-sealed knicks-knacks, several old comic books and everything else here.  

Really want the Luna and Artemis cushion so bad..

And what made me go super ga-ga was these several display of Sailor Moon merchandise scattered around the room such as this Cosmic Heart Brooch,

And this Spiral Heart Rod,

And this bad-ass Rainbow Moon Chalice.

And guess what??? I have those at my home back there in Jakarta!!! Directly contact my mom to not throw all my toys away back home as maybe someday I can auction it big on Yahoo and make a fortune out of it hehehe.

Continued from the main hall were the "no-photo" spots that I have mentioned above. It was amazing to see all the incredible sketches and artworks shown; how can one person can make such  pretty artwork by herself. Admire Naoko Takeuchi to the top. The only photo that I can take was this:

With Takeuchi's real autograph there. 

Besides the sketches and artwork (that I can never make even if I practice til I die) section, what excites me the most was the display of several toys and collectibles from the past. The funny thing is that on each every section of the exhibition I always found my toys here and there, literally everywhere! I’m going crazy as like “OMG I have this before wtf!” or “Oh gosh where did I put this card?!?! I used to have it I’m sure” or “OMG OMG I die I die I have this one played like crazy before” and so on and so on..

Such a tiring but exciting but sad but satisfying whole 3 hours of my life.

And the most satisfying photo spot was this 2 real-size figure of Usagi and Mamoru or known too as Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion here (full geek mode completely on here).

Gotta take selfies.

Scream. 

Too bad that my selfie was the last photo that I can post here as I don’t have any more photos to be posted related to the exhibition contents. Yes, the exhibition was quite strict about photo taking as they place several officers here and there to guard the visitor from recording or taking photos. 

Since I went there 2 days before the last day of the exhibition, most of the limited items that can be brought from the shop were completely sold out, I managed to buy only several post cards with the exhibition original artwork for quite a price. Japanese really know how to make me go bankrupt.

They have the Chibiusa Café too with super cute menus displayed however since the queue was very long, I didn’t went there. It was quite tempting you know. Who's not tempted with pink burgers wtf. Can see it slightly here.

Well, overall, it was such an enjoyable and memorable visit for me as all of the images and things displayed there still sit firmly on my head even until now.

I’m glad I went there as actually on the day before this visit, had quite a lot of overtime and kind of have to push myself to go here that day, but I’m so happy I can drag my ass off here and have a fantastic nostalgia time for a moment; reminding me of how blessed and happy I am as a kid years ago (and glad too that my mom bought me so much toys at that time.. seriously.)

Sailor Moon, thank you for making my childhood awesome and I promise I will make my adulthood even better. It’s time to take those moon power back to reality, and continuing my present life, more hopeful and powerful than before.

See you on my next post!

Hitachi Seaside Park: Spring's Nemophila and Tulips!

Yesterday I went to Hitachi Seaside Park, a national park in Ibaraki area which is averagely 2-3 hours away from Tokyo depends on which transport being used. It was outstandingly pretty I have to share it as soon as possible once I reached home!

Here's an opening photo for you guys, marked this post with this calendar.

Real time calendar is important for seasonal garden visit as we have to find the right time to see the fully bloomed flowers!

Special thanks to one friend who visited Japan last year and informed me about this park presence too; without him I can’t be seeing all of this magic right now. Since then I’ve been eye-ing this park and have been targeted to step my foot here in spring, where all the tulips and nemophila will be the star of the season. And I made it!

The trip from Tokyo itself was quite long and tiring; I used the train with the total of 5 hours round trip up and back. However, with only 410 yen for 1 adult entrance fee to the park, and all of the flowers that I saw (plus another wishlist crossed), it was very, very, worth it.  

The park itself was so big it kinda took all of my energy away. The full park size was around 2 km square; compared to Disneyland Tokyo which only around 0,45 km square; sure this one is gigantic. It took around 15 minutes itself from me to walk from the tulip spot to the nemophila hills spot. That’s why I spent the whole day with the limitation of only visiting all the famous spots too. I recommend people who wanted to explore every single spot of this park, better rent a cycling bike for 400 yen/3 hours, additional 50yen/30min, or using the park train trail which stops at several area throughout the garden. Didn't saw the cost though, will just leave all the details to their website here. It's in english, please kindly check as they have flower calendar too there!

I took my first step to this park via West Gate and directly greeted with a massive middle stage and a very big lake in the middle of the entrance gate.

Looked at how massive this was I instantly have a rough calculation of how tired I will be later and how far I have to walked away from one place to one place today.

Didn’t want to waste my time here on crazy thoughts, I walked directly to the Tamago no Mori (translated as “The Forest of the Egg”) area on the right side beside the west gate to see the first star of the season, tulips. Yaaay.

Greeted by them, all of my worry turned to smile and ready-to-take-photos stance in one second. Carpets of tulips, everywhere.

The white one were my favorite! Too bad it was located in the middle of the spot.

The flowers were so beautifully arranged creating one whole balanced contrast; not to mention that they put every name of the tulips type near the arrangement too. I never knew that there were so many kind of tulips before!

Reached the main spot of the tulips, the windmill!

Can see the contrast from the nearby hill too.

What mind-blown me was how can so many people were there with zero trash to be seen. So clean yet so unbelievable. Try this in Indonesia huh we’ll see.

Anyway, have cleared half of my phone battery and satisfied with all the photos of the tulips, say and see no more, took fast steps to the main star of the season to see the nemophila located on the spot called as Miharashi no Oka (Viewing Hill), 15 minutes walk away from the tulip spot. 

Once I reached there, my thoughts once again were stunned by the view. The 4,5 million of nemophila (baby blue eyes flower) had painted the hill blue all over. Well, at least until mid May. From here, taking pictures seems like the best thing to do. 

Painstakingly pretty and keep mumbling why they didn't have this in Tokyo..

Somewhat the hills become one with the sky. Thanks for the clear weather too today everything combined so perfectly.

Several last photos of the nemophila hill seen from several angles:

Aaand, done. I hope pictures speaks more than words as I didn't know how can I describe its charm anymore via sentences.

Finished with the nemophila, I visited several spots too that either once had became the main spot of the season in March or not yet bloomed such as herb garden on the other side of the park. This one below is located in the Suisen Garden, consist of narcissus flowers and several other specimen combined. Although some of them are starting to wither, the beauty still shows.

Didn't took a lot of photos anymore after the narcissus spot as the other spots of the garden rarely has any full-bloom flowers this season. And maybe I can say roughly that the narcissus marked the end of my photo session and spot hunting for the day. Spend the rest of my time just to wander around the rest of the park area which is indeed quite dull if it were not on the right season.

Out of topic but bought this pretty ice cream during the walk. It was as good as it looks!

I have to say even until the end, I’m impressed most by the nemophila hill so far; a view that can’t be seen anywhere in Japan except here. And I make a stupid conclusion (but I think its quite true) that any flowers that were beautifully arranged, bloom at the same time at a massive amount of numbers were not good for the faint hearted people, hahaha. 

On the other hand, for additional info too, the hill spot always offer the best seasonal flowers and plants the whole year. For example starting mid June there will be all the 30.000 Kochias (summer cypress) which will fill the hill with refreshing green color and it will turn all red when autumn come. Too bad I won’t be here anymore next autumn; have to try my luck some other time but definitely not this year.

The key point for a garden visit is the best timing, and this year, all of my work schedule, weather condition and the timing were all perfect; thanks for not betraying me, world.

And then, one last mandatory photos so that all of you believe that I didn't took all this photos just from the internet (LOL)

And that's it.

Sorry for the long post, thank you for reading it until the end, and see you again on the next one!!