At the time I finished this book, a memoir of Princess Masako (Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne) written by Australian journalist, Ben Hills and suddenly gloomy feeling spread all over me. I feel so sorry for Princess Masako. As a brilliant woman, a diplomat, graduated from Harvard, speaking 6 foreign languages, finally get depressed, mentally and physically, not able to appear in public, not even can manage herself. It turns out that it's so hard to adapt from a modern woman into a traditional one. How poor you are.
Living in a palace of course a totally different life compared to ordinary people's life, but it could be worse when it comes to Chrysanthemum Throne. They're so mysterious. A lot of pressure from the palace people, especially from Imperial Household Agency (Kunaicho). Stressful for not having a son as the successor of the emperor, after 9 years of marriage. Princess Masako finally gave birth of a baby girl, Princess Aiko, with the help of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization).
This book is prohibited in Japan, considered as insulting Japanese people and the Imperial family.
It's already translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Pustaka Alvabet on March 2009 (3rd edition). If you're curious about life in a mysterious palace, check this out and trust me it's absolutely not a nice one.
Princess Masako
Lovely Things
Things that made me happy lately:
1.Finally I got the opportunity to try "Bebek Goreng Pak Slamet" at Cireunde, Pondok Cabe. This place was just opened and always full during weekends. It's yummy, as a duck lover, I have to admit that it's worth to try. Hope, the menu could be added more, so we have more choices instead of fried ducks only.
2. Got Rumah Cantik Citra voucher from a friend of mine, Noni, thanks dear. I tried the body scrub and face massage (totok wajah). It's really a cozy place & nice service. Salute to Unilever.
3. As a book freak, I was so excited at Periplus, enjoying their 25% discount on all book items by using HSBC credit card, yay...I bought 5 new books ("The Winner Stands Alone" by Paulo Coelho, "In the Kitchen" by Monica Ali, "When You Are Engulfed In Flames" by David Sedaris, "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga, and last but not least "Remember Me?" by Sophie Kinsella).
4. After absent for quite sometime (got pregnant, breastfeeding, got 2nd pregnancy, and dealing with other baby's stuff),finally I got the opportunity to watch Teater Koma, "Tanda Cinta (The Metaphor of Love)" at Komunitas Salihara. I love it.
5. Curious about "Claudia/Jasmine" the movie after reading the recommendation here. Bought the VCD, watched it and eventually enjoyed it.
6. Enjoying a four-day-holiday (Thursday-Sunday), having quality time with my girls.
7. Planning to start traveling again (after off for quite sometime). So excited about it.
Botchan
A modern classic novel written by Natsume Soseki. This novel actually released in Japan long time ago, back in 1906, translated into English in 1971 and finally PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama translated it into Bahasa Indonesia on February 2009.
This is a story about a young man, a very-honest-sometimes-naive teacher. His character puts him mostly in difficult situation. Since Botchan always says the truth and very frank in everything, people around him feel uncomfortable. He is eventually known as a rebellious teacher.
The writer wrote the story in a humorous way, though still with classic style. This story is very popular in Japan. People love it.
A Tiring Week
I just finished joining a-3-day-training at one of the biggest Finance Consultant in Jakarta, it's conducted from Friday till Sunday, at 8.00 AM - 06.00 PM, yep...it's true no weekend this week, no leyeh-leyeh day, no time for playing with my girls, no time for blogging, unless for facebooking as the only one relaxing thing for me *excuse*.
The topic of the training actually were so interesting, the facilitators were also great persons, they're all experts in their field, therefore they presented their material in such an excellent ways, but...one thing that I learned and it's so important that every human has limitation, after 5 days of working, we need a day off.
Since the topic is a bit serious, we supposed to be in our best condition in order to easily absorbing what the facilitator conveyed, but on our second day, our body and mind were not so 'cooperative' anymore. In fact, I ended up at Bersih Sehat, had a one hour massage to recharge my self, I was afraid I would not be able to attend the last day of training.
I dont't know what crossing my Japanese boss' thought to create such a weekend training, doesn't he learn that he will not get a maximum result since he forced human capacity? Even, the Consultant Office Staff said that this is the first time for them to conduct a weekend training.
Well...being a leader is not easy after all...that's what I learned in the training.
Kitchen
I wonder why almost all of Japanese writers always having excellent things to write. Unpredictable, beyond belief, weird things, and stuff like that. Were they born as a genius or what?
Kitchen was actually written long time a go, back in 1988, by Banana Yoshimoto, but it's just translated into bahasa by kepustakaan Populer Gramedia on April 2009.
The book divided into 2 (two) separate stories: Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow.
Kitchen tells about Mikage Sakurai, a lonely girl who used to live with her grandma and when her grandma passes away, she has no body to rely on. Her parents already died long time a go.
Mikage loves kitchen very much. She's happy every time she spends time there. But the kitchen she loves most is Tanabe's kitchen. Tanabe is one of her friend. As soon as the pasing away of her grandma, Mikage agrees on Tanabe's offer to move to his house. She has good time there with Yuichi Tanabe and his transsexual mother, Erika Tanabe. When Erika's murdered and died, Mikage and Yuichi drown in their deep sorrow and try hard to overcome it.
While Moonlight Shadow tells about Satsuki, a girl who feels depressed at the time her boy friend died in a car crash. One day, she meets a mysterious woman, Arura, who knows how to deal with Satsuki's despair and sorrows.
Both stories are sad stories, but Banana Yoshimoto (her real name is Mahoko Yoshimoto) could present them in a very interesting way.
Kitchen was her first debut and awarded with many prizes and already translated in more than 20 (twenty) countries.
What The Dead Know
In the old days, I used to be a huge fan of criminal fiction books. I was familiar with Agatha Christie and Marry Higgins Clark books. From time to time, my interest to criminal fiction books was getting less, I didn't know. I didn't feel they are interesting anymore. I found new genres, about love, family relationship, weird things and others but criminal books and I enjoy them more.
I bought this Laura Lippman's book by accident. Curious about the synopsis, so many prizes awarded to the writer, plus 30% discount at the time Gramedia bookstore at Grandy launched. It turned out that I didn't enjoy this book. I am not too crazy about guessing the murderer anymore, the reason behind the criminal act and stuff like that.
The story itself is actually good enough. About 2 sisters who suddenly disappeared in a shopping mall one afternoon. No dead body found. No murderer arrested. They're just gone. After 30 years, a woman showed up and declared herself as one of the missing girl. The detectives, the psychologist, the lawyers, all works hard to investigate this case and found out the truth.
This book already translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Penerbit Edelweiss.
The Lonely Planet Story
Every traveler loves Lonely Planet. Their guide books become a-must-have-item for traveler, especially for backpackers, although according to Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet, their traveling books actually not designed just for backpackers but also for businessman, family trip and all kinds of travelers. Still, it seems that backpackers love them most.
Yep, this book is a story about Lonely Planet, the biggest, the most successful and the most lovable traveling guidance book on earth. They have offices in 3 continents with 400 employees, 250 writers, more than 600 books published in the market and yearly sales reach more than 6 millions books. A great business? Absolutely. It's all started in 1972, Tony and Maureen Wheeler started their journey to travel around the world within one year. Returned back from their journey, they got a lot of questions about it. How could they go there? Where to stay? That's the reason behind the establishment of this company.
This book tells in detail about the Lonely Planet, their struggle from writing the books, printing them, publishing them, it all needed a lot of hard works. If people said that it's so enjoyable to get money from their hobbies, in fact it's not as beautiful as we thought. Once you decide to make this hobby as your way to earn a living, you start to deal with deadline, places to visit, report to prepare,no time for fun. All must be done in accordance with planning, schedule, and stuff like that.
They not only experienced the good times, there's also bad times, e.g. 9/11 attack, SARS, Bali bombing, Iraq invasion, those things turned the traveling business down. The selling of traveling books dropped drastically. Finally they had to lay off their Lonely Planet's employees.
Other interesting thing that people curious is where the name 'Lonely Planet' derives from. It turned out that this name came from a wrong song lyric from "Space captain" by Matthew Moore sung by Joe Cooker in classic movie "Mad Dogs and Englishman". Tony sang it 'once while traveling across the sky, this lonely planet caught my eye', Maureen corrected, "it's not lonely planet, it's lovely planet."
Since the name Lonely Planet sounded much better, finally they used it as their company's name and sure it's the right choice. I love the name 'Lonely Planet',it sounds unique.
This book already translated into bahasa Indonesia by Penerbit B-First on March 2009.
A truly inspiring book. Love it.
Sepeda Zea
Zea (2 thn): "Ayah, tolong gambar sepeda untuk Zea"
(menyerahkan buku gambar & pensil)
Ayah : "Oke"
Zea : "Itu apa, Ayah?"
Ayah : "Roda sepeda"
Zea : "Kok seperti telor?"
Ayah : @#$%^
(selesai menggambar, lanjut dengan serah terima buku gambar & pensil)
Zea : "Zea tambahin ya Ayah gambar sepedanya"
Ayah : "Zea mau tambahin gambar apa?"
Zea : "Pintu, Ayah"
