Saturday, October 11, 2014

The Famous Merlion

Hello, there! This is my second post tonight because yeah once again I do both of these assignments (the other one is the previous post) late, so... please forgive me, Mrs. Wiwin, I really beg you :(((

OK, in this occasion, I'd like to tell you about one of uncountable amazing structures here in this world. Do you know what is it? Yep, it's Merlion Statue! Oh, I'm pretty sure that none of you doesn't know anything about Merlion Statue. Well, at least you have heard about it, haven't you?

source:
http://travelsandtours.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/
travelling-to-merlion-statue.jpg
As you know, Merlion is the mascot or icon and national personification of Singapore. Its name combines "mer" meaning the sea and "lion".  The Merlion was designed in 1964 for the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB) and functioned as its corporate logo from 1966 to 1997. There are five authorized Merlion statues in Singapore, the most well-known, which is the original one, is an 8 metres high and weighs 70 tonnes statue designed by Kwan Sai Kheong and sculpted by Lim Nang Seng. First unveiled on 15 September 1972, this statue is now located at Merlion Park, adjacent to One Fullerton at the Marina Bay waterfront. As a symbol representing Singapore, the Merlion features prominently in tourist souvenirs sold locally.

source:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4086/4833442826_1a0e64ce4b_z.jpg
The lion head represents the lion spotted by Prince Sang Nila Utama when he rediscovered Singapore in 11 AD, as recorded in the "Malay Annals", and the fish tail of the Merlion symbolizes the ancient city of Temasek (meaning "sea" in Javanese) by which Singapore was known before the Prince named it "Singapura" (meaning "lion city" in Sanskrit).




The Merlion is representative of Singapore's humble begginings as a fishing village, and is a national icon that people must visit on their trip. Anyway, I have been to Singapore. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take a photo in front of the original Merlion, so I just took a photo in front of the other Merlion which is located in Sentosa Island. Oh! However, I also got a chance to take a photo with the small Merlion Statue at Marina Bay waterfront! I have attached the photos below, hehe. Well, see you on the next post! Bye! :)

Me and The Small Merlion at Marina Bay Waterfront



Me and my brother in front of
The Giant Merlion at Sentosa Island

SOURCE:
  • http://www.yoursingapore.com/content/traveller/en/browse/see-and-do/culture-and-heritage/a-touch-of-history/landmarks-and-memorials/merlion.html
  • http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_938_2004-12-27.html

Friday, October 10, 2014

Matswapati

Me and my friends' selfie at Matswapati (1)

Hiiiiiiiii everyone! I am back! But first, I'd like to say sorry to my beloved Mrs. Wiwin because I do this assignment late. Please forgive me TT Okay! So, right now I'm gonna tell you about Matswapati.

Is there anybody here know about Matswapati? No one? Okay then. Well, Matswapati was one of my school, SMAN 3 Bandung's events. It's an culture festival that presented Indonesian culture especially West Java's. It was held on September 27th, 2014 at Lapangan Bali.

Me and my classmates after the parade
The gate was opened at around 9 o'clock. Before that, all of the 10th graders of our school did a parade for promoting Matswapati. Then, after we arrived back at Lapangan Bali, we waited for quite long time to get in to the culture festival. And after the gate opened, we happily queued and got in to Matswapati.

There was our mayor with his wife came to Matswapati to give a speech and legalize the event. He also made some short and simple games for the audience. It was really fun to interact directly because he's really humble!

Ridwan Kamil gave speech at Matswapati
Honestly..... to me, the event wasn't going so fun and interesting until there were some performances from some extracurriculars such as Musik Klasik 3, KV 3, and T'sT! Their performance were extremely cool!!! No doubt those extraculliculars are popular.

At around 3 o'clock, my best friend who goes to different school with me came to Matswapati. I was sooo excited because we hadn't met for about a month, or even more. So, since she got in to the venue, both of us were always stick together while sharing some untold stories, hahaha! We also went to the Food Corner to buy foods and beverages while having a chat X)

GLENN FREDLY!!!
The venue became more crowded since around 4 o'clock because the committees said that the gate would be closed after 4 o'clock, but it turned out to be postponed until 6 o'clock. There was a performance from Barsena. It was very nice! And finally... the long-awaited guest star came out! Guess who was he??? YES, IT'S GLENN FREDLY! Oh, come on, who's metropolitan guys in this country doesn't know him? He has a freaking nice and amazing voice, good songs, and unique style since he always wears his cap whenever he goes on stage! He started his performance at 6pm and ended it at 8pm. He sang almost 10 songs ((if I'm not mistaken)), some of them were Terserah, Kasih Putih, Malaikat Juga Tahu, Terpesona, etc. All of the audience sang along to the songs together! It was sooooooo entertaining, for real!!!!!!!! I just can't forget that exciting experience :"D

Anyway, the most amazing and cool thing of this event was that the ticket price was sooo cheap than the other Pentas Seni events that's held by other school. Guess how much it was! Oh, it was just IDR 25.000,- ! Can you guys believe it??? I mean- with so many performers and guest stars plus the costs for the decoration and other properties of this event, they managed it to be 25K only! It's unbelievable!!! Well, it proved that the committees were freaking swag, haha! but seriously XD they really did a great job!

Well. ok. I think that's enough from me about Matswapati. I really wish that this culture festival will be held again next year!

Me and my friends' selfie at Matswapati (2)