Darla!

Category: traveling

Indonesia Comic Con 2016

Last Saturday was the first day of Indonesia Comic Con 2016. It was the second Indonesia Comic Con after last year. It was affiliated to New York Comic Con and was held in Jakarta. I know I’ve always labeled myself as a geek girl, so I’m quite ashamed to say that this was my very first time going to a comic con *insert the monkey emoji here*. If I could give you a reason, I’d say because these cons (there is another annual comic con called Jakarta Comic Con) are always held in Jakarta and Jakarta is like three hours away from where I live. Would be nice if there’s a comic con held in Bandung someday. Fingers crossed, everybody!

So anyway… The crowd was so crazy! Everybody was excited. It took us about an hour just to get into the venue. The venue was Jakarta Convention Center, a big hall usually used for concerts and other conventions. It’s huge but it was still crowded, and got even more crowded as the event went on.

Brianna Hildebrand was the guest star that everybody was waiting to see. Before the special guests were announced, there was a rumour going around that Chris Evans and Tom Hiddleston were coming to ICC, but Brianna was the real kickass. People already know a lot about Chris and Tom, but Brianna brought a new, fresh face and it was very fun to get to know her. I didn’t know she could sing before seeing her singing on stage! I’m in love with her now and I really want to see her character again in the next Deadpool movie. (She confirmed that yes, there will be Deadpool 2, but no, she still doesn’t know whether she’ll be on it or not.)

And since the new Star Wars film is coming up later this year, there was a fair amount of promotion for Rogue One at ICC, like this propaganda from the Empire. Also there was a booth selling Star Wars medallion, another one showcasting the planes, and another one selling Sphero BB-8 (husband bought one for his office. I am SO jealous.) There were also like maybe a dozen Star Wars cosplayers, making me regret not going there sporting my Leia hijab style. Hahah

And of course I wouldn’t ever go home without purchasing anything! I’ve always been a huge fan of MachoMachi from Tumblr (did you know that they’re from my country? I didn’t until last Sunday lol!!) and finding that there was a booth selling some of their creations was pure heaven. I bought this Matt The Radar Technician stickers set as all the other sets were all sold out. Also, I bought my very first Funko Pop! I was so excited I found it hard to choose among Agent Peggy Carter, Daredevil, Lord Voldemort, and Dementor. Since I could only afford one Funko Pop (because expensive and also I was broke) and I’m all for girl power, I decided to take Little Aunt Peggy home. She’s so cute I can’t even!

I’m definitely going to next year’s Indonesia Comic Con. And next time, I’m going to wear my best Leia cosplay 😉

Dara | Bloglovin’ | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

4 October 2016
Roadtrip to Bekasi (+ An ONA Bag Giveaway)

Roadtrips are awesome. Remember when Vicky, Irma, and I went on a roadtrip to Jakarta? We had another chance to do another roadtrip, but this time we went to Bekasi to visit a friend. Afief joined us this time. We went to visit May who got married the previous week, but we couldn’t come to her wedding reception. We decided to visit her on Sunday. As always, Vicky was our driver because she’s the only one who can drive. Haha!

We revisited the rest area and took some pictures in front of the very same elephant statue. We took our time during the trip because we were supposed to pick up Arif on our way there, but Arif hadn’t arrived at the spot yet. So we visited some more rest areas, just because :p

We arrived at May’s place in the afternoon (that means we spent, like, six hours on the road, when we actually needed only two hours to get there. Haha!) It had been months since I saw May, so it was nice to catch up with her. We talked about a lot of things, had our late lunch, talked some more, and when the clock struck five, we headed home.

The five of us on our way back home

This kind of trips are getting hard to conduct because we’re getting busier and busier each day. We had planned it for weeks. At first, there were eight of us who agreed to go, but three bailed out. I now understand why they say that as we grow up, we have less and less friends. It’s inevitable. We’re growing up and getting more responsibilities. We should really cherish the friendships we have in adulthood. Friends are blessings 🙂

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ONA Bag and Pinhole Press are giving away one ONA Palma Bag and one FUJI X100T camera plus Pinhole Press gift card (worth $1900) to celebrate Mother’s Day! Click on the image to enter this super awesome giveaway. I know you want to win it!

*Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with ONA Bag and/or Pinhole Press. I get an additional entry everytime someone enters this giveaway through the link on this page.

Dara | Bloglovin’ | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

14 April 2015
Midday at Alun-Alun Bandung

When we were still dating, we spent our Saturdays by going out anywhere we could think of. We only had one day to spend together before the night fell and Afief had to drive me home safe & sound before my curfew, so we almost always left my house early in the morning and spent the whole day jumping from one place to another.

But now that we’re married, we can spend our weekends doing whatever we like. No more curfew and no more angry parents if I come home late (that’s one of the many benefits of being married :p). We can cuddle all day, or we can go on a roadtrip to another city (just like last week). There’s a washback, though. Like for last Saturday, we had no idea what to do. We wanted to go out, but we didn’t know where to. When it was already 11am, we decided to go to Alun-Alun Bandung (Bandung’s City Plaza). Recently, the mayor reconstructed it and made some significant changes to the plaza, i.e. putting on a huge synthetic grass there so the people can go picnic there or just sitting around. We hadn’t seen the plaza after the reconstruction, so it was a good idea to go there.

We only spent like one hour there because it was so sunny and so hot. But when we we decided to go to Ciwalk to play Pump It Up, the sky suddenly became dark and a storm hit the city. The wind was scary and it made me thankful that we had already left the plaza, or else we would be soaking wet and cold. We made it home safely, though, as the storm only occured for about one hour. The storm set aside, the day was super fun 😉

On a different note, you might have noticed that the pictures on this blog have worse quality lately. I gave my DSLR to my little sister, so I rely solely on my phone camera. So sorry for the inconvenience; I know they hurt your eyes. I’m saving for a new pocket camera, but have yet to decide what type I’m going to buy. Do you have any suggestion? Hit me up on the comment section or mention me on Twitter (@DarlaOct).

See you guys around!

9 February 2015
Taman Bunga Nusantara

The weather has been really confusing here lately. Some days the sun would shine throughout the day; some other days it would rain nonstop. We were unsure about whether to go out for the weekend or not, but when Saturday morning was sunny, we decided to go to Taman Bunga Nusantara which we thought were not too far away from our house. We left the house at about 11am. Turned out, the place was not as near as we thought. It was already 2pm when we arrived, and the sky was already gray. Uh oh…

Lucky for us, we had been there for about 3 hours when it started raining. So we had enough time to snap some pictures and enjoy the gardens. Since it was cloudy, there were not too many people. It was quiet and peaceful. It felt like we had the gardens for ourselves. Hahah

We spent the afternoon taking selfies with our phones, that we forgot to take pictures of the gardens. Haha… So sorry if this post is filled with our faces only. Maybe someday we’ll go back there and I’ll do full review of the place. Let’s just take this post as my humble brag of being married and free to go anywhere with the man I love :p

5 February 2015
Eid Mubarak!

Whoa. Look at that. Two weeks without a single post.

I had planned to write a post before leaving for the holiday and another one to be scheduled to appear on last Tuesday, but I couldn’t find any spare time in between all the Eid shopping. And then we suddenly hit the road, with Miss Molly caged between my sister and me. It was Miss Molly’s first road trip ever. It took about 15 hours to get to my granny’s house in Lampung, and poor Miss Molly was stressed. She could adjust in just one night, though. The next morning she became herself again. She took long nap all the time.

By the way, Eid Mubarak!

2 August 2014