Bandung Traffic Park

I took these photographs at Bandung Traffic Park at Jalan Belitung no 1

Taman Lalu Lintas Ade Irma Suryani (that's what it's called here) was originally a military training field (1915 to 1919). In line with Bandung's masterplan as a garden city, the field was turned into a tropical garden in the early 1920s, and was named Insulindepark in 1925.



After the Indonesian independence, the park was renamed Taman Nusantara (the Indonesian Archipelago Park). In March 1958, the name was changed again to Taman Lalu Lintas (Traffic Park) to mark its changing function as a juvenile educational facility that provides informal and rehabilitative education for delinquent youths. Now the park is mostly a family recreational facility with the emphasis of providing road traffic education for children.

The name Ade Irma Suryani was added to the park's name in October 1965 in respect of Gen. Abdul Haris Nasution's five-year old daughter who was shot to death by the PKI (the Indonesian Communist Party) rebels when they tried to kidnap the father in a failed Coup d'etat in September 1965 known as G30S or Gestapo Movement.

Forbidden Street Conversation

This snapshop snapshot showing some of our citizens' street behavior is part of my street documentation series.

I took the photo at Ledeng area in the north of Bandung a couple of days ago.

Bandung's Zebra Crossing

We all know what zebra crossing is and why it is named after that horse-like, native African animal. What most of us don't probably know is when and how this sign for pedestrian crossing began.

According to wikipedia, zebra crossing was first used in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1949. Originally, the stripes of the zebra crossing were not white as we now know but alternating stips of blue and yellow.

This true-to-name zebra crossing may not be the first in the world, but I personally think that, considering the name, this is what zebra crossing should look like.

I took this photo on Jalan Dipatiukur (Dipatiukur Street) at Dago, Bandung. This zebra-"zebra crossing" was painted by an artist to go with a sculpture that was put in place as part of the celebration of Bandung Creative City (BCC) project.

For your information, Bandung was named and chosen as East Asia's pilot project of crative city at an international conference of world cities with creative-industry economy at Yokohama, Japan, in July this year. The choice was made because Bandung was considered as a regional trend-setter in this kind of industry. In the past ten years, Bandung's creative industry products have set the trends among millions of young people in many other cities in the region.