Directions

A sign post attached to an "alternating alternates" amber traffic light near Ledeng Bus Terminal indicating the directions to Sapulidi and Imah Seniman (lit. Artist/Artisan House). Both of them are cafes, resorts, and galleries owned and managed by the same company.

Sapulidi is located at Graha Puspa, Cihideung Village, on Sersan Bajuri Street. Imah Seniman is located further away at Cikahuripan village on Kolonel Masturi street.

Many direction signs in this city are what can probably be called "commercial directions" because they don't give you direction to a general area or location, but to a specific commercial venue. I don't know if this is quite common in other cities. I also don't know if this practice is being regulated here.

Road Side Shoes

A vendor selling shoes on the road side of Jalan Gunung Batu in the western part of the city. Different models of shoes are offered here. According to the seller, he and his friends came all the way from Sidoardjo, an industrial city near Surabaya in East Java. They claimed they had brought the shoes directly from the factory and therefore they could sell them for a lot less than any shops or supermarkets.

I once bought a pair of walking shoes for a little more than six US dollars. They looked good, but did not feel as comfortable as those that are more expensive. They did not last long either.

Delman

Delman is a horse-drawn carriage or buggy like the one pictured above.

You would probably think that delman is no longer in use as a means of transportation in a big city like Bandung. But it is. In several parts of the city, particularly on streets/roads that connect the city with its suburban areas, it is still very much in use as a popular means of transportation. The one pictured above, for example, serves the route of Cimindi and Gunung Batu area.

A delman looks like an environmentally friendly means of transportation. It burns no fuels and hence produces zero carbon emission. However, without a special lane allocated to it, it often causes a long queue of motor vehicles behind it. In small roads and during rush hours, a single slowly-moving delman can turn what is already a bad traffic into an even more annoying congestion. Hence, what on the surface looks like an environmentally friendly means of transportation can actually be a significant - albeit indirect - contributor of air pollution.

Photo by Agus Wahyudi (a freelance photographer and Bandung Daily Photo contributor).

Dancing Orangutan

Can orangutan really dance?

While it is known to be one of the most intelligent primates, there are no references that I know of that say that orangutan can dance. Atim - a captive orangutan at Bandung Zoo shown in this photo -, however, would sometimes display what looks like a dancing act when asked to pose for a photograph.

Atim has been placed at the park in the center of the zoo by his caretaker/handler every Sunday to entertain visitors and those who want to have their photos taken with him.

This photo was taken and contributed for Bandung Daily Photo by Alda Agustine, a teacher at TBI Bandung. Thanks for the contribution, Alda.

'Sol Patu' - The Traveling Cobbler

This is a traveling cobbler at work with a customer in an alleyway.

A cobbler is called 'tukang sol sepatu' here. A traveling cobbler usually travels from place to place shouting "sol patu!" touting the service he's offering. A customer who needs his/her shoes or sandals repaired would then halt him and both negotiate the fee for the work that needs to be done.

Most traveling cobblers in this city come from Garut, a regency about 60 kilometers to the southeast of Bandung.

Tall Iced Cream Caramel Latte

Summer or dry season is in full swing here. It's been warm and sunny with a lot of clear blue sky these days. It's great to be out and enjoy the outdoors. But when it gets too hot, you can always hop into a cafe and have something cold to drink, just like what I did.

A tall iced cream caramel latte, everyone?

"Kukuyaan" at Cikapundung

If you are not Sundanese, chances are you won't have any idea what 'kukuyaan' means.

'Kukuyaan' is derived from a Sundanese word 'kuya' which means 'turtle'. Hence, 'kukuyaan' means playing turtle. Of course it's not a real turtle that's being played. It's just the name that the Sundanese gives to playing inner tube in the water.



The mass and national record-breaking 'kukuyaan' in these pictures was held last Sunday (19/6/2011) at Cikapundung river as part of the campaign to clean up the river.



Photos were taken by Sudarmanto Edris, a local photographer, and were used with his permission. Thanks Pak Sudarmanto.

Telephone Booth

This bright red telephone booth in front of a store on Jalan Sulanjana is very eye-cathing. It looks somewhat like a British phone booth, a kitsch of it. Our ordinary telephone booths don't like this, of course. It has probably been placed there to attract customers to the store.

Like in many other countries, phone booths have become a rarity here since the boom of cellular phones. With more than 180 million cell phone subscribers (that's about 80 percent of Indonesian population) according to 2010 statistics, most people here now have and use cell phones more than they do fixed phones. Hence, most phone booths or pay phones have now become obsolete.

Reading and Creativity Cafe

Today I was invited for a photography exhibition and discussion at S-28, a bookstore cafe and an 'oleh-oleh' store (oleh-oleh = gifts/presents one brings home from a trip) on Sulanjana street.

The exhibition displayed the works of very young photographers aged between 8 and 15 years old. The discussion was on how children express themselves through the medium of photography and how photography education could benefit and help them explore and express their creativity. It was an interesting discussion.

But no less interesting was the place where the exhibition and discussion were held. It was filled with young people who came there not just to enjoy the coffee or snacks but to do some serious stuff too. I saw a couple of groups engaging themselves in what looked like creative project discussions - one over a laptop and the other over some posters of some sort. Then I also saw quite a few 'loners' reading books and scribbling what looked like some serious academic notes.



Frankly speaking, I was surprised and pleased to see this. The scene reminded me of some American university towns that I have visited, where cafes were not only a place for relaxing and socializing but also a place where students would come together to read books and have some serious discussions about their academic projects.



Then it came down upon me that this cafe was located near ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology) and a couple of other university campuses. That might explain why many of its visitors are engaged in what looked like some academic activities.

That aside, I was once informed by some students of mine that there were actually quite a number of cafes in Bandung that are quite popular among the creative youth communities: musicians, bloggers, web designers, and photographers. I have yet to explore them. But this and a couple of other cafes that I have often visited convinced me that cafes in this city are the nursery of creativity. It is part of the engine that makes Bandung one of the most vibrant creative cities in Indonesia.

By the way, here are some of the children's photographic works exhibited at the cafe.

Vila Isola at Dusk

Some buildings are called an architectural heritage not for nothing. They are beautiful from whichever angle you see them, whatever the time of the day and whatever the season is. I think Vila Isola is such a building. I have photographically explored this building from many different angles and time of the day, and I never get bored with it.

I took this photo from the front gate of my office, which is located just across a small in-campus road from it, at dusk a couple of days ago just as I was getting out of the office. The the light of the early evening sky shining upon it gave me another photographic opportunity to marvel at its beauty. The silhouetted arch framing is that of the entrance columns (?) into my office building.

Since some of my friends and this blog visitors have sometimes asked me what camera(s) I use, I'd like to this opportunity to say once again that I don't usually use fancy or expensive cameras. I took this photo (and many others I have posted here) with a small, inexpensive pocket camera that I always have with me where ever I go. I'd rather not say what the brand is, but if you want to know you can email me.

This post is Bandung Daily Photo's participation in this weeks Skywatch Friday meme. See more sky-related photos from participating blogs from around the world here.

Villa Isola Fish Pond

A father with his daughters enjoying the fish pond at the southern garden of Vila Isola on a Sunday morning.

I have previously posted several photos and stories about this villa before. As you may remember from those posts, Vila Isola is one of Bandung's most iconic art-deco architectural heritage. Built as a private residence in the early 1930s for an Italian-Dutch media tycoon Dominique William Berretty, the founder of the Aneta press-agency in the Dutch East Indies, Vila Isola was turned into a hotel just after his death in 1934. Then it became the Bandung headquarters of Japanese occupational army in the early 1940s when Japanese Imperial Army occupied the Indonesian archipelago and an Indonesian resistance army militia headquarters during the wars for independence. After the Indonesian Independence, it was renovated and made as the central piece of the newly established Teachers' Education College or PTPG campus in 1954.

The name of the college in which this building stands has changed several times since then: Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (Faculty of Teacher Training and Pedagogy) or FKIP of the newly established Padjajaran University in 1958, Institut Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (Institute of Teacher Training and Education Science) or IKIP Bandung in 1963, and Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia University of Education) or UPI in 2004.

Since 2010, the building and its surrounding gardens have been renovated to revive its past grandeur. The renovation of the park that you can see at the background of the picture was completed this year and is now designated at Vila Isola Heritage Park.

Bandung Daily Photo's 3rd Anniversary - Interviewed and Featured by The BBC

Today Bandung Daily Photo (Bdg DP) is celebrating its 3rd Anniversary and also an honor which it has recently received from the BBC World.

Early last month, I received an email from the BBC's correspondent in Jakarta stating interest in Bandung Daily Photo and its resourceful content and asking if I would be interested in having an interview with their crew who was making a documentary film about Bandung for one of BBC's documentary programs, One Square Mile.

The filming took place a week later and the film will be aired worldwide this week. What an anniversary gift for Bandung Daily Photo! Thank you the BBC crew for having this honor of helping you in the making of the movie and for being featured in it.

Like in the prevous years, I would like to use this anniversary celebration opportunity to also thank our friends and visitors who have commented on Bandung Daily Photo's posts, given links and other kinds of support to make it more visible in the cyberspace. Last but not least, of course, I would also give a special thank to City Daily Photo for linking us - city daily photo bloggers - together and Eric of Paris Daily Photo who started this wonderful community.

Here are some photos I took of the film making.

Ciroyom Railway Station

Passengers waiting for the train at Ciroyom Railway Station.

Ciroyom is one of the smaller railway stations in the city of Bandung. Located about three kilometers to west of Stasion Hall - Bandung's main railway station - Ciroyom mainly serves economy class and commuter trains that connect Bandung with its suburban areas and neighboring towns.

Ciroyom is also the name of one of Bandung's largest central wet markets, which is located just behind the station. Many farmers from the neighboring towns and villages often use the train to carry their produce into the market.

Bandung's Trraffic Jams

Long weekends and holiday times are especially difficult times to get around in Bandung. Like I said before, traffic congestions can be very bad at those times that even the Pasupati flyover - which on a normal day would be quite free of congestion - would sometimes be jammed packed with motorists.

Flier-man

A man distributing fliers to motorists on Jalan Cihampelas, a street in Bandung that was once known as Indonesia's denim capital and now a street packed with stores and vendors selling different kinds of apparels and fashion accessories.