Category: Overseas

all about my travels overseas

Posted on

(Traveling) Kenapa Kyoto?

kansaitrip_20140313082330_00552_lgg2

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Tanggal 8 Maret kemarin akhirnya saya berkesempayan berkunjung ‘beneran’ ke Jepang. Tujuannya adalah Kyoto.

Lha? Bukannya Oktober 2013 kemarin sempat ke Jepang juga?

Iya, tapi itu kan cuman transit doang. This one was a week full time. Umm, ga full seminggu juga sih.

Kenapa Kyoto? Kenapa ga Osaka, atau Tokyo?

Sederhana saja sih alasannya.
Saya ini suka sejarah, i love anything about history. Semakin tua sejarahnya semakin saya suka.
Dan jika kita berbicara tentang -sejarah- Jepang, maka hal pertama yang ada dalam wishlist saya adalah KYOTO.
Saya sudah di Jepang kalo  sudah mengunjungi Kyoto.

kansaitrip_20140310104941_00206_lgg2

And believe me, spending a week alone in Kyoto is not enough!
There are so many spots to see, so many shrine-temple to visit.
Dan berkunjung dalam kacamata saya bukan sekedar datang, foto selfie ala turis lainnya, trus lompat ke spot lainnya.

I wanna know the detail about it, I wanna know the stories behind every wood, window, rocks, anything part of those places. Sayang karena kemampuan berbahasa Jepang saya yang minus, akhirnya lebih banyak ngandelin materi online. But that’s OK. Saya jadi punya alasan buat lebih serius belajar bahasa Jepang, karena saya ingin ke sana lagi. (sebelumnya kan biar sekedar ngerti baca manga or nonton anime/dorama)

kansaitrip_20140311115640_00428_lgg2
Kinkakuji, The Golden Pavilion

Saya ga habis pikir. Dengan iklim seperti itu, kondisi geografis yang hobi gempa, perang dan lain sebagainya,  gimana caranya orang-orang Jepang ini mempertahankan bangunan-bangunan kuno tersebut. Kalo melihat ke kampung halaman, kok kayanya ngenes banget kondisinya. Ga sekedar bangunan sih, budayanya juga kurang lebih terefleksi di orang-orang Kyoto nya.

Saya pernah nyeletuk ke Rara
Kalo kamu mau lihat bangunan kuno yang megah, arsitektur yang menawan kamu bisa datang ke Paris. I’ve been there, i like it.
Tapi kalo kamu ingin merasakan budaya kuno itu sendiri hidup di sekeliling kamu, saya bersyukur Alloh SWT mewujudkan mimpi saya untuk bisa berkunjung ke Kyoto.

kansaitrip_20140310173204_00382_lgg2

Makanannya juga enak ;)
Butaniku wa dame desu…
Jadi jangan nyobain ramen, gyoza apalagi tonkatsu dah jelas itu :P
Yang lain masih grey area unless makanan vegetarian, syukurlah saya tinggal ga jauh-jauh amat dari warung sushi ^_^

Yayyyy…..

Insya Allah saya akan ke Kyoto lagi dan beberapa kota lain yang memiliki sejarah kuno.

Berikut adalah foto-foto ala kadarnya yang saya ambil menggunakan ponsel LG-G2 (D802).
Ya ya ya, iPhone5 saya masih di TAM yang ga jelas proses perbaikan sleep buttonnya sampe sakarang kaya apa. Busuk emang kualitas pelayanan iPhone resmi di Indonesia.

Sisanya plus foto-foto dari Fuji X100s nanti diupload ke Picasa – Flickr deh :)

Picasa Kyoto – LG G2 album

Posted on

If You Could Only See

just a little flashback from karaoke night at #mozsummit 2013 #santaclara

If you could only see the way she loves me 
Then maybe you would understand 
Why I feel this way about our love 
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says ...
When she says she loves me
 Well you got your reasons 
 And you got your lies 
 And you got your manipulations 
 They cut me down to size 
 Sayin' you love but you don't 
 You give your love but you won't
 **back to reff**
 Seems the road less traveled 
 Show's happiness unraveled 
 And you got to take a little dirt 
 To keep what you love 
 That's what you gotta do 
 Sayin' you love but you don't 
 You give your love but you won't 
 You're stretching out your arms to something that's just not there 
 Sayin' you love where you stand 
 Give your heart when you can
 **back to reff**
 Sayin' you love but you don't 
 You give your love but you won't 
 Sayin' you love where you stand 
 Give your heart when you can
 **back to reff**
Posted on

Clarke’s Charcoal Broiler, Mountain View

since 1945, august?
since 1945, august?

Do you know that place?
It’s near the Mozilla Office at Mountain View and i can tell you the burger is so good.

clarke_map

It’s not a big place, rather basic IMO, yah but cozy enough for us. They have set of menu with plenty of choices.
When I asked, the waitress couldn’t give me any recommendations. Well, maybe because of queue line behind me or it is like many people said about the Service at Clarke’s is 1 star where the food is 4.

It’s getting dark, we’re hungry and i didn’t want to be late at the hostel again. We had a flight to catch the next day. So i just pick something that ‘save’ for me to eat.

A burger with chicken (forgot the name) + french fries + a bottle of strawberry juice. After my order served up, i went to (tiny) condiments bar. Put BBQ sauce, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and a little bit of mayo on it.
For me who knew only franchise burgers (Wendy’s, A&W, McD-KFC, BK) it was [highlight]de-li-ci-ous[/highlight] :)
Getting a charcoal grilled burger at an old school burger joint, that’s a real burger IMO :)

We’re lucky it was not their busy hour. The review about the service is not that good during the busy time :)
You better selective about when you wanna go there :)

Getting a charcoal grilled burger at an old school burger joint at US, checked
Trying in & out burger, missed. Nah, it’s just another McD/BK style of burger.
Trying hotdog at a hotdog stall/joint at US, missed. Should’ve had one at Pier 39.
Having home made udon at a traditional udon restaurant at Japan, checked

615 W El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA 94040
(650) 967-0851

Posted on

1981 Landings Drive Building K

 

Mozilla Spaces around the world
Mozilla Spaces around the world

That is the map of Mozilla Spaces

For some point, I assumed those are also Mozilla Offices.

But before all of those stars on the map above, there was  this building.

Building K

if you open the wikipedia entry about Mozilla Foundation, you could see that photo also (from different angle). It’s located on 1981 Landings Drive, Building K.

1981 Landings Drive Building K, Mountain View - CA
37°25’6″N 122°5’15″W

And we are very grateful to Pascal that has brought us there. He told us stories about the building and the people. About the highway 101, the Google canteen across the street and many other else. I’m sure the team that’s been long with Mozilla  will have many stories to be told about that time :)

at the starting point :P
at the starting point :P

The building was the former office shared by both the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation until July 2009. It could be the Netscape building, but I think this is the place where everything ‘Mozilla’ (not just the browser) was started

ps:

This a blogpost from Justin Dolske telling the history about the bay area where Mozilla San Francisco Office is now.

Mozilla office history

Posted on

[SF Trip] Downtown San Francisco in less than 8 hours

ciplaz_20131029110058_92418

Afternoon already, we have no much time to explore The City by the Bay.
We didn’t even have enough time to find and buy some souvenirs nor have a proper dinner :( So lets go through the checklist then.

  1. Union Square
    The area got its name because it was once used for rallies and support for the Union Army during the American Civil War, earning its designation as a California Historical Landmark.There is a wide variety of hotels, cafes, bars, restaurants, shops, etc., that are unique to San Francisco. In Union Square you will have a mix of locals, business travellers and vacationers. It’s like a transit area. Transportation is quite easy in here because you have subway or bus stations around you.It’s also an expensive area. You can see famous brand stores/restaurants in every corner. It’s like a collections of department stores, upscale boutiques, gift shops, art galleries, and beauty salons in the United States.And what we did there was … enjoy the afternoon, when the sun is calming down, warm with cool breeze, watching the activities around the square.

    After that, @Rara79 need to find a post office to buy postcards and stamps. So we go to Macy’s coz it has one. Nope, we didn’t buy anything, see the keyword “expensive”. Need to save more bucks for other things he he he he.Chinatown actually is about 1-2 blocks away, perfect place for hunting souvenirs in a budget. But like I said, we don’t have time to go there.

  2. Cable Car
    This is a must have attraction my list. So we took one next to Macy’s down to the Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s nice ride actually, but since the cable cars was kind of full, i only got a place at the rear. The best spot at the front and side of the car have already been taken :(

    There are some souvenir shops around here. It’s cheap, sort of. Well you could have 5-7 postcards for only $1 before tax. Some key chains and many other stuff. I’m sure you’ll get cheaper and more options in Chinatown.

  3. Fisherman’s Wharf
    Fisherman’s Wharf gets its name and neighborhood characteristics from the city’s early days during the Gold Rush when Italian immigrant fishermen settled in the area and fished for the Dungeness crab. From then until the present day it remained the home base of San Francisco’s fishing fleet.It’s getting dark when we arrived, so basically we spent very short time here. Just walking around the corner, we miss the chance to see the sea lion, only watching the Alcatraz (closed due to the government shutdown).In addition we (me actually) also need to catch the time to take photos of the golden gate bridge at sunset. Since we taking bus will take forever to go there, just missed the sunset taking a taxi was the only option.
  4. Golden Gate
    You are not in San Francisco if not visit the Golden Gate . That’s what we did, visit the 76 years old bridgeNobody warned us that the wind around the bridge was so cold. I should have known about that when I was at same situation at Eiffel and The Great Wall.So, my camera remote were basically dead coz the battery was too cold to operate. It also needed a moment to set up the gear for long exposure shot properly. I just couldn’t stand the cold wind and it made everything worse since i have to push the shutter manually with my trembling cold hand :(Don’t have much time since the taxi meter is still running.

    After spending about 15 minutes around the bridge, I’ve got nothing worth to be published :( With a huge disappointment, I ask the taxi driver to take us to Pier 39.

  5. Hard Rock Cafe SF at Pier 39
    I went here because one of my colleague asking me to buy a city tee for his collection. Bought some souvenirs also for people at #Room41. It’s dark, it’s windy and we’re hungry. Dinner around here is quite costly, so we took Finnan suggestion to go back to fisherman’s wharf.The food stall mentioned by Finnan was closed already, so we pick random restaurant.Geez, the American food portion is crazy!!I ordered normal pasta (well just look the menu and it seems to be face for me to eat) with a shrimp salad as appetiser. Haven’t finish it yet when the pasta came.
    OMG, the plate is like 30cm long (no, not you @naivee) with 2 chicken fillets size of my palm each. It’s for 2-3 people here!!

After dinner, me @Rara79 and @Eriskatp back to the Caltrain Station to get the last train back to Santa Clara. It’s a day that we spent most of the time on foot. I hope my lil sis Eriska was not feeling tortured. Well this is the way we enjoy the new place. Sorry sis, but I’ve warned you before he he he he.

Moral of the story:

  • Start explore downtown SF early in the morning since most of the place are nice to be visited before night time (IMO).
  • Try to be the first cable car in queue, so start from the Market Street, pick the best seat.
  • Better rent a car to go to Golden Gate area and spend enough time there specially for composing the photograph you want.

as usual you can find more photos in my [button color=’pink’ size=’small’ link=’http://flickr.com/photos/nuri_abidin/’]flickr[/button] account :).

Also feel free to leave your comment here ^_^

Posted on

[SF Trip] Visiting Mozilla Space San Francisco

mozspacesf-logo7 Oct 2013, Summit over the night before. Most of us will fly back home, back to daily routine office, college, shool etc. Some will spend another day or two just for sight seeing. Let say, Jan from Holland going to surf at Santa Cruz, Ash’kary from Bangladesh have a road trip to east coast.

Me? I’ll be spend a day at San Francisco with the girls (@rara79 & @eriskatp) First stop is Mozilla Office San Francisco, @rara79 has appointment with Emily (the one from WPR tables next to Mozilla Indonesia table in MozFair day #1).

It’s kind of late. Based on my checklist we should go to SF from Santa Clara CalTrain station maximum at 9am. We board at the train around 11am. And the first thing cross my mind when inside the train is … Source Code movie. Also met Rizki from Yogya at the train.

CalTrain took about 1hr 30min from Santa Clara to SF and cost you about $9. From SF Caltrain Station we need to take a cable train to get to Mozilla SF office at Harrison St. Cost you about $2.

The weather was perfect (OK, it’s lil bit chill) for walking down the street. MozSpace at SF is nice, I wish that someday we could have one at Indonesia.

Met Emily, have a little tour inside. Josh already busy with lines code in his big monitor screen. William playing pingpong at 7th floor :) The view from this floor is amazing. I’m willing to stay overnight almost every night with this view :P I can imagine it’s getting prettier in the afternoon with all the lamps around the bridge and the building around.

From MozSpace SF, we go to Twitter office. Another $2 using subway.

That’s all for MozSpaceSF visit, as usual you can find more photos in my [button color=’blue’ size=’small’ link=’http://flickr.com/photos/nuri_abidin/’]flickr[/button] account :)
 

Mozilla Summit Stories:

Side Story: