Kemilau Nusantara Fest 2009

Festival Kemilau Nusantara 2009 (literally: the glitter of the Indonesian archipelago fest 2009) was opened today by the governor of West Java Province Ahmad Heryawan (the man in the middle in the inset photo) this morning.

The festival is an annual event whose purpose are, among others, to showcase the Indonesian rich cultural heritage and to promote tourism. This year the representatives of 14 (out of total 33) Indonesian provinces and 18 cities and regencies in West Java take part in the festival.

To encourage quality documentation of the event, a photo contest was also held. A large number of photographers took part in the contest. I was one of them. For this reason, I will not be able to post my best shots because entries must have never been published prior to submission and judgement.

The top photo here is of some dancers waiting for the opening ceremony at the back stage. I'll post some more photos and stories about the fest tomorrow.

Colors in the sky

Slowly but surely rainy season is setting in. Some days the sky is just dark and grey. But that doesn't mean that there are no colors anywhere. In fact, there will be a lot of colors in the city in the next three months as we are gearing up for the Helarfest. More than 70 events and festivities hosted by more than 30 creative communities are going to take place here from this month till the end of December. Sunny or rainy, it's always a perfect time to visit Bandung - and this week's skywatcher blogs.

Covered in Snow

On that car, it's not the real snow, of course. We live in the tropic, and the only real snow we have here is the eternal snow glacier at the top of Jayawijaya mountain on the Indonesian province of Papua (see inset picture courtesy of the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism).

"Snow" is a term used for the snow-like soapy foam sprayed from a special machine called foam injector that is used in a car wash like the one in the top photo. Snow wash, as it is called here, is very popular.