Mobile Skateboarding Boutique

A mobile skateboarding boutique parked near Bandung Skateboard Park. A place where a community meets is also a marketplace for their needs -- a proof that the existence of themed parks is good for the city's economy. :)

Bandung Senior Citizens Park (Taman Lansia)

Under the direction of our newly-elected mayor, Mr. Ridwan Kamil, Bandung is currently undertaking some bold revitalization projects to revive and improve the city's deteriorating public infrastructure. One such programs is the revitalization and thematisation of the existing public parks and the creation of new parks in desolate and squalid areas.

Under this program, public parks are revitalized and given themes, and their management given to community groups relevant to the themes.

Pictured above is the LANSIA Park. Lansia stands for lanjut usia (senior citizens). Located near the West Java gubernatorial office mansions Gedung Sate, the Lansia Park is an existing park that has just undergone a makeover. As the name indicates, the park is dedicated to the city's senior citizens. However, as a public park it's open for everyone, young and old alike.

Today's photo is contributed by Agus Wahyudi, a photographer friend of mine and frequent contributor of Bandung Daily Photo.

Flying Bicycles

Flying bicycles at Alun-alun Cimahi (Cimahi City Square) park.

Cimahi is a municipality of about 600,000 population located about 12 kilometers to the west of the city of Bandung. It is one of the independent administrative areas that form the Greater Bandung Area(Bandung Raya) -- Other areas being Kota Bandung (Bandung Municipality), Kabupaten Bandung (Bandung Regency), and Kabupaten Bandung Barat (West Bandung Regency).

Pony Ride

Around the Cilaki Park that I posted yesterday, you can see these horsemen/ponymen offering pony ride. For a small fare, you could ride these ponies around the park and its vicinities. Because these horses are small (that's why I call them ponies), usually only children ride them. The horsemen/ponymen would run alongside the horse/pony to keep the young rider from falling over.

Cilaki Park

Cilaki Park (Taman Cilaki) is strategically located on Cilaki Street, near Gedung Sate (the historic West Java Gobernatorial office mansion), Museum Pos Indonesia (Indonesian Postal Museum), the Museum of Geology, and the Lapangan Gasibu (The Gasibu Square).

Sausage Tree

Does sausage grow on a tree?

Of course not. But there is a tree that bears the name: sausage tree (kigelia afrikana). As the Latin name indicates, this tree is originally from Africa. The tree in the picture, however, is not in Africa. It is - and there are quite a few of them - part of the collection of Taman Hutan Raya (lit. Great Forest Park) Ir. H. Djuanda at Dago in the north of Bandung.

According to the park's records, the original seeds of the trees were a gift from one of the African delegates in the 1955 Asian-African Conference. The trees grow well here that the park has been able to give some of their offsprings to other botanical gardens in the country.

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.

The Blooming Flamboyant

This flowering tree is called by many different names in different places, e.g. Royal Poinciana, Krishnachura, Gulmohar, Peacock Flower, Flame of the Forest, Malinche, and Tabachine. In Indonesia, it is called "flamboyan" or "bunga flamboyan" (delonix regia). Here it normally blooms between September and October during the seasonal change from the dry season to the rainy season.

Flamboyant is originally from Madagascar. More information about this flower can be found here.





I took these photos at Monumen Perjuangan Rakyat Jawa Barat plaza sometime ago.

Sunday at the Park

A couple of senior citizens enjoying a Sunday morning at the Monumen Perjuangan Rakyat Jawa Barat park near Gasibu.

White Rhinoceros

This white single-horn rhinoceros sculpture is placed at the fountain pond located at the southern part of the Bandung City Hall Park.

Badak (the Sundanese word for rhinoceros) is an important animal in the Sundanese culture. A native animal of the land where the Sundanese people live, badak has long held a strong cultural significance in their lives. The word badak and its synomyms are used to name a lot of things, literally and figuratively. Here are some examples:

ngabadak (v) - to open a field
heuay badak (n) - a kitchen chimney
badak heuay (n) - (literally: yawning rhino) a traditional Sundanese house architectural style in which the roof is open like that of a yawning rhino
babadak (n) - a bamboo structure that is used to dam a river or put at a river bank to prevent landslide.
ngaladog (v) - (ladog = badak = rhino) to roam far
Etc.

Many places in West Java (the Sundanese land) are also named after this animal, for example cibadak (rhino water), rancabadak or rawabadak (rhino swamp), paguyangan badak (rhino bathing place), etc.

The single-horn Sundanese or Javan rhino (rhinoceros sondaicus) has mostly vanished in most part of the Sundanese land. Currently only about 50 are left in the wild. They are protected at the Ujung Kulon National Park at the western tip of Java Island. Not long ago, however, this animal used to roam free in many parts of the island. According to the surviving notes of Europeans visiting the area, for example, this animal could still be found in what now becomes the city of Bandung up until the end of the 18th century CE.

Taman Balai Kota Bandung (Bandung City Hall Park)

This is the center piece of Bandung City Hall Park. Designed by Dr. R. Teuser, the park is one of the oldest in the city. It was built in 1885 and was named Pieterpark in honor of an Asisten Residen (the title for the city's administrator before it became a municipality in 1906) Pieter Sijthoff.

In the old days, the park was also often called Kebon Raja (The King's Garden) because it was located just across the street from, Sakola Raja (Dutch: Kweekschool, or The King's School).

In 1950, the park's name was changed to Taman Merdeka (the Independence Park), and on December 4, 1996, the park's name was again changed to Taman Dewi Sartika in honor of a Bandung-native national heroine Dewi Sartika whose statue has since been placed there.

Lapangan Tegallega

No, this is not a cemetary and these marked stones are not the tombstones. As you may have noticed, the inscription on the foreground stone reads "The Islamic Republic of Iran" and underneath it the local name of a plant and its latin name.

This is the Tegallega city forest/park where the Bandung Lautan Api (Bandung Sea of Fire) monument is located. These trees and the marker stones were planted and put in place in April 2005 to mark the 50th Anniversary or the Golden Jubilee of the Asian-African Conference. Each country that originally attended the Conference in 1955 is represented here by a tree and a stone-marker. The trees were ceremonially dedicated by the respresentatives of those countries who again came to Bandung to attend the anniversary in 2005.

The Bandung Conference, as some of you may have known, took place from April 18 to 25, 1955. Jointly organized by Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar), and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the conference - attended by representatives of 29 Asian and African nations, most of which were newly independent - was aimed at promoting political self-determination, mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, and equality. Specifically, this group of nations that later became the fetus of the Non-Alligned Movement (NAM) were also pursuing the agenda of Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and resisting colonialism or neocolonialism by the world's superpowers.

Bandung Zoo: The Elephant Safari Ride

Covering an area of only about 14 hectares, Kebun Binatang Bandung (Bandung Zoological Park or Bandung Zoo) is not very big, but it is very historical and popular. The zoo was officially established in 1933 when two previously existing zoos (Cimindi in the western part of the city and Dago Atas in the northern part of the city) were merged and their animal collections were moved to the current location at Taman Sari street near the campus of Bandung Institute of Technology.

Prior to the establishment of the zoo, Taman Sari was a botanical garden. This garden, named "Jubileum Park", was established in 1923 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, the then colonial ruler of the Indonesian archipelago.

Bandung zoo currently has a collection of 218 species with nearly 1600 individual animals. In addition to the animals, the zoo also offers a variety of other attractions, such as this elephant safari ride. I'm going to post some more pictures and stories about this zoo later.