Sunday morning M5.7 Earthquake felt in Jakarta

This morning around 6AM my wife woke me up as she has felt an earthquake. Accodring to her the appartment building was swaying which was fairly scary. I couldn't feel anything in my sleep so I was actually wondering if it was only a dream. However, just few minutes later I got an SMS "Moderate earthquake (M5.7) occured on 24-Dec 05:59:47 (WIB/GMT+7) 52km (SW) from Labuhan (West Java), 148km (SSE) from Bandar Lampung.". It was an SMS from Earthquake Information Service offered by one of the local companies - I subscribed to it sometime ago. It is a really useful service which informs about important earthquakes within South-East Asia region, often long time before you even hear about it in radio.

If you wish to subscribe just send SMS with content "REG EARTHQUAKE" to 6768 (works with all Indonesian operators i.e. Telkomsel, XL, Flexi, Mobile 8 etc.) - costs Rp1000 per received SMS (US$0.1). Anyway, this just shows how useful mobilephones can be in informing/alerting people about all sort of threats, thus I believe few years from now mobile phones will not only be used as a communication device, but also help to save our lives by providing all sort of threat warnings and information to citizens.

Rainy season arrives in Jakarta (Dolphins?!)

Long-awaited rainy season clearly arrives as we finally have some rain in Jakarta. This certainly brings risk of floods, horrible traffic jams caused by massive rainfalls, need for an umbrella etc. which all is obviously nothing fun. Fortunately, there are some positive aspects of heavy rains such as less pollution after the rain or cooler weather. Strangely, I've always had strong interest in extreme weather especially strange cloud formations. I'm often amazed with storms that I can observe in Jakarta and I'm pretty sure there will be lots of opportunities to shoot some interesting pictures over this rainy season. I'll try to post it on my blog if I have something interesting.

Anyway, there is something strange about me that relates to the rain. All important events in my life (including my wedding this year) were accompanied by rain. The wedding was especially interesting as hotel already prepared outdoor wedding ceremony at the beach, but frankly speaking I was already sure it will rain for the ceremony, thus I've already asked about the possibility of moving everything indoor if it rains. Not surprisingly, it started to rain just before the ceremony and we had to move everything indoor. Rain can be seen as either a blessing or a curse, and it is up to us to determine which way we will perceive it. Fortunately, in my culture rain means blessing thus I take it positively and simply look forward to see what rain brings me.

Anyway, I browsed through my photos and found one photo that I've been trying to find for quite some time.

I took it at Lovina (North Bali) while swimming around the coast and trying to shoot some photos of Dolphins, which as you can see on the photos below, was quite successful.

Siau Island: North Sulawesi (Indonesia)

Recently I've been on a very short holidays to North Sulawesi, to be precise the Siau island. It is rather remote area as it takes 7-8 hours by ferry from Manado to get there - it is very close to the Philippines. I must say it is an amazing place that offers multiple tourist attractions such as incredible white sand beaches, amazing ocean life, active volcano, hot springs, great seafood and lots of incredible views. Unfortunately, the place is poorly developed and there is not a single hotel available and not a single restaurant. However, it is possible to stay with local family who can offer room and cook meals, yet don't expect air-conditioning or European style toilet. I also have to mention that there are so few tourists travelling to Siau that every tourist who manages to get there becomes local tourist attraction. Fortunately, locals are extremely friendly and very helpful, just stay calm, smile and wave when everyone gathers to look at you. I also have to mention that there are no souvenirs sellers, thus you can truly enjoy your holiday just laying down on the beach and not having to explain every 10 minutes that you already have bought enough souvenirs. Was it worth to travel by ferry 8 hours to get there? Judge yourself looking at my travel photos from Siau.

I had a great holiday and the place was simply incredible. Indonesia is a truly beautiful country.

Note: If you plan to travel to Siau I can provide contact information to families offering rooms for tourists, just drop me an e-mail. I've been staying there with one family and really enjoyed it. I had a fresh fish every day, could go fishing with the house owner, boating around the bay, also the house owner's friend was my driver and tourist guide around the island. Overall the family provided a great service for extremely low fee.

Mo-Na-Li-Xa and 500kg Free Semen

Jakarta is such a fun place to live that I just can't stop enjoying living here. One of the things that often makes ma laugh is use of English language in advertising. In Jakarta you can often see a big advertisement in a major newspaper written in English language and full of grammar and spelling mistakes.

I'm not a native English speaker, thus my English is not perfect either, but in my professional work such as writing project reports I actually try hard to use proper grammar and try to make sure there are no basic spelling mistakes in the text. I think in advertising industry much stricter rules should apply and in my opinion companies should verify content of the advertisement with professional English copywriters before releasing an advertisement for print. Unfortunately this is rarely the case and often results in extremely ridiculous advertisements – actually highly embarrassing to the advertiser as many Indonesians speak good English.

I also have to mention about advertisements with content mixed between English and Indonesian language which often results in extremely hilarious advertisements. The most disturbing example of such poor advertising practice you can observe at Kelapa Gading area, just next to McDonalds: As you can see on this huge banner PT. Venus Ceramica Indonesia have a special Lebaran promotion which is "Free 500kg Semen"! Myself I'm very curious how they organise such massive supply of semen as I think it requires thousands of men to produce this huge amount. Maybe it has something to do with the number of "executive clubs" and "massage places" in the nearby area or maybe something to do with the Mona Lisa herself? You'll probably have to ask the advertiser.

Actually, the name of the advertised product "Monalisa Tiles" has some interesting language background. The product name sounds like the tiles are produced somewhere in Europe and definitely must be a very exclusive masterpice produced by Italian artists ... right? Well, not really. The tiles are actually produced in China by entirely Chinese company! Gosh, I think I was wrong all my life as apparently Mona Lisa comes from China, not Florence. I should also start to pronounce it correctly as I think it should be Mo-Na-Li-Xa, of Chinese painting Si-Fu (master) Da-Win-Ci.

Note: Indonesian word "semen" means "cement" in English, "free" is not an Indonesian word.

Photos: North Sulawesi

Following the previous post with photos from Bali, this time I'd like to post few photos from my trip to North Sulawesi ...

Bunaken

Island around Bunaken

Cruise around Bunaken

Fishing at Sangihe Island (7h by boat from Manado)

Beach at Sangihe Island

Manado from boat

Bunaken was certainly an amazing place to visit and corals were indeed incredible beautiful. I really enjoyed swimming by motorboat around the Bunaken and eating fresh seafood on the islands. I've also found Sangihe Island to be very unique place and taking seven hours cruise by ferry from Manado was worth the effort. I’ve had a chance to eat the best "kelapa muda" (young coconut) I've ever eaten in my life, admire the almost untouched wildlife as well as enjoying snorkelling around incredible beaches. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to visit Siau Island, but plan to go there around October 2006 and I will certainly bring some photos with me.

Update: Photos from my trip to Siau island can be found here.

Fighting On-line Scam

If you are tired of spam, here comes an idea of good revenge. In a brief summary Nigerian scammer got tricked and sent two guys to travel 1.400 miles (2253 km) from Nigeria to Chad in order to pick-up nonexistent money from nonexistent camp.

The story is ongoing and to this date two guys from Nigeria already travelled 931 miles and I believe everyone is waiting to see how the story ends.

Mr. Williams

One of the two lads sent by Barrister Kuku to steal money from Rev. Belcher

Mr. Okonji

Read the full story here.