chicago, day two.

Five months after graduation and I'm still somewhat surviving. Well, barely, I guess. I have been taking things really slowly when it comes to career. Since February, mental health becomes the number one priority in my life, and therefore even though passion still comes alongside with that, I have to keep my mood in-check every day, week, and month. Still trying to get the hang of it but I have a good feeling about this month.

Anyways with that, I flew to Chicago to visit Abby (a.k.a. Muse No. 5) since she invited me a few months ago. A lot of my friends were surprised that someone convinced me to come this far, because I've always been reclusive and known as convenience-first type of person. I am still not sure what made me buy the tickets to fly here. Maybe it was the good deals, or the art museums, or the chance to get away from the city, or to be inspired just by having my muse around me. Maybe it's all of them. But one thing I'm sure of is that so far I've been enjoying everything.

Quick briefing; today Abby took me to Wicker Park area. Started the day by eating deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's. Then since wee both really like books and bookstores we ended up visiting Quimby's and Myopic Books. Highlight of the day would be Jeni's; for the love of every milk-producing cow in the world, the Mont Blanc Buttermilk Frozen Yogurt ice cream comes at number one of my top five ice cream flavor list.

After that we had to go back to the apartment due to a little emergency. We still took off before sundown to Montrose Park where there was a friggin' dog beach! Ended up having a small shoot and we discussed about coming back there again for the next day.

So yeap, I'll be in Chicago 'till the 8th. Hopefully this trip can give me new perspectives and rekindled some of the blown-out candles of inspirations. If not, well, at least I got out of my room for a longer while. That's always a good thing.

a day after.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all!

New York has been a little bit gloomy and warm these days. It's not depressing at all, but the atmosphere is surely unusual. It's been awhile since I brought my camera during short trips to museums or hang outs; it's heavy and I wanted to try to focus on the quality time as much as I can, whether with artworks or human beings. But today I wanted to see if I could capture the somberness of this city.

And so Diana and I went to the Morgan Library. It used to be the private library of a financier called Pierpont Morgan back in the 1800s, but now it's open for public as a museum. We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the special exhibition –we went to see Martin Puryear's drawings which were beige and beautiful– yet we enjoyed a lot of the illuminations and relics in the permanent exhibition. The library itself looks very regal and red. Rich people back in those days seemed to be so fond of velvet colors and dark oaks, but instead of darkening the atmosphere, there's a sense of intelligent festivities within every room.

Ok, surely I am going all-out-nerd explaining about the library. But if you ever go to NYC and wants to have a bit of a time travel, go and check out the permanent collection of this library.

Enjoy the rest of the year!

coffee break w/ bea.

Yuhu, hello!

Good friends of mine would know how lazy I can be when it comes to exploring or finding new places to hang around at. The only way to get me going is to really drag me out of bed and keep me off of it 'till the day ends.

Well, today marks the end of my second week in Jakarta, and Bea happened to be in town. We were in the Cipete area in the Southern part of the town, and somehow got lost. While searching for the shop that we wanted to visit, we stumbled upon a nice coffee place called Tuku. So we went in, bought iced coffee, exchanged a few coffee shop banters with Citra the barista, and sat around for awhile.

After that we continued our way to Älska, a concept store selling things that the owner has curated during her trips to places like Turkey, China, etc. The store consisted of a small café entrance, then tables and shelves filled with things, and a plant nursery on the back. It was quite amazing to see this kind of space that is filled with cultural thingamabobs, and on top of that, in Jakarta, and not exactly mass-produced --unlike other concept stores I've seen in the states.

So yeah, I had a nice afternoon, observing things.