SELFIES

With glasses

Without glasses

NEW BRIDGE

Sunrise view from beside the bridge

Mranggen just had a new construction around a year ago, namely flyover. I think this is one of the standout buildings that the village has. It was first built in 2020 and can be used by the public from 2022. It is very effective to cope with traffic jams that frequently occured in the railroad crossing area, especially during the busy morning and afternoon hours.

What I like most from this flyover is the view. It becomes a new place to have a beautiful view in the village. Everyone can see a hillside view in the south direction and the beautiful moment of the sun appearing and disappearing when crossing the bridge. No wonder some people go through the bridge while capturing the moment through photo or video. I personally like being in the under part of this bridge, I went there some time, especially in the morning when I cycled my ride. I think being there is calming and quiet, in addition, I can also see the moving train. 

I cannot deny that the existence of this bridge is very beneficial and good for the smoothness of traffic flow, on the other hand, it seems to make Brumbung train station, one of the oldest stations in Indonesia, become more isolated. The access to the station becomes farther to reach for those who use public transportation and invisible for everyone. There is also no signpost that shows the location of the historic station building. As long as I live not too far from the station, I did not see any real action from the related instances to make the station worth to visit.

MRANGGEN DISTRICT (DESCRIPTIVE TEXT)

Brumbung train station

Mranggen is one of the districts in Demak regency. It is located in the most southern part of Demak beside Karangawen district. It is placed in the strategic location as it separates two cities namely Semarang city and Grobogan regency.

Mranggen is the most populous district in Demak with its population around 140,000 people. The district has multiple public facilities, such as: market, mosque, hospital, public health center, school, etc. In addition, there is a train station named Brumbung train station, despite a small station, it is the only station in Demak that still actively operates and where local trains stop to transport the passengers.

Mranggen is well known with its islamic boarding schools, therefore it is a common sight there where a number of men walking while wearing the sarong and cap along the road. The district also has an authentic culinary called pecel lodeh, a combination between pecel and lodeh, usually added with rambak krecek. Pecel lodeh is mostly available in the morning, that is why Mranggen people like to eat pecel lodeh for their breakfast. 

THE SOUTHERN MRANGGEN: HILLY VILLAGE

Weekend is perfect time to do our hobbies.

In the last week of September, it was Sunday, My friend and I cycled around Mranggen (Mranggen is the village where I am living in). This was the second time we cycled together, after previously we had ever cycled together to follow a fun-bike event in Semarang.

On the day before, my friend sent me a message on Whatsapp. The message was he invited me to cycle to the Marina beach in Semarang, but I recommended him another place nearer to go: “How about Banyumeneng?”. For your information, Banyumeneng is a village which is situated in the southern Mranggen district (perhaps the southernmost). 

My friend agreed and said he would follow me because he had never gone there. We started from house at around 05:15 AM, the traffic was still quiet and the air was still fresh to breathe. But on the road we had to go alongside the dump trucks (mining trucks) that forced us to be more careful and inevitably had to look back because the road was narrow and a little bit slippery due to spilled sand falling from the trucks. On the way, we also met some cyclists and greeted each other by ringing our bell. For me, that is one of the most interesting parts from cycling. 

After around 15 minutes, we finally arrived in Banyumeneng. My first impression on people in this village (on Sunday) was that people here were more active than people in Mranggen. Many people invaded the road to walk together or to jog with their peers, which is something hardly found in my village. Another interesting thing from this village was a Sunday market was there every Sunday morning, opened above a bridge, although the sellers were not too many. 

This village was surrounded by hills and portrayed the countryside scene. Full of trees and fields grew on the sides of the road. There were both uphill and flat road yet in a good condition despite far from the downtown. At the end of the uphill road, we would see a gate which was the border between Demak Regency and Semarang Regency. We decided to only stop before the border gate as the road after the gate becoming steeper ahead.

On our way home, we also stopped at a place, I was not quite sure with the name of the place and which city it belonged to. But, clearly, it was an alternative way to Semarang where you will be in Rowosari after going through the place. This place offered us a scenic route, it was surrounded by terraces, plus still rarely houses around. We could also enjoy the view of mount Ungaran and hill with a neglected unique structure like “Egyptian pyramid” on its top from that place. Ironically, the area behind the terraces was a mining, well known as "Brown Canyon"- it was where the aforementioned trucks getting their dump filled. 

After being tired of cycling in adequate distances. I invited my friend to eat Pecel Lodeh. It is a native food from our village. As far as I know, It only exists in my village and is difficult to find such a food in another city, even in other villages around Mranggen. I prefer to call it the daily breakfast menu for Mranggen people since they often eat it for breakfast and it is mostly found merely in the morning. 

We went home happily, safely and fully

The scenic route

Uphill road

SOCMED

Hi. How is your day? awesome today?

May happiness always surround you and sadness go away from you 

In this opportunity, I will discuss about social media. I admit this is so "mainstream" topic, but, please understand me, I just want to keep this blog alive. I strongly believe that almost people; whatever their age, their sex, their religion, their profession, use social media. Let's mention: friendster, instagram, twitter, facebook, path, and blah blah blah. They use social media for many purposes:

- a single man might use to find their couple

- a businessman might use to promote their business

- a public figure might use to share their daily activities

- a musician might use to inform their stage schedule

- and with all due respect, a you exactly use it only to stalk. Aren't you?

Talking about social media, it is not fair if the owner doesn't have a chance at all to tell a few of his experience about it. Among those of I mentioned, by far I only used three social media.

1. Friendster

This is to be said as the old and the legend of social media. Friendster was a social media that pioneered me the Blue Nowhere (Cyberspace or Dunia Maya). One thing I can't forget from this social media is the features, it enabled us to insert graphics and animations into our own profile and it gave such a real freedom to us to customize our page. Friendster's currently not social media anymore, it's turned into an online game web.

2. Facebook

I'd say that I was so late to become a facebook member, perhaps around a year after it was launched in Indonesia. To be honest, I could not move on from friendster at that time because I am still interested with the features. By the way, I was entirely helped by an online friend to create my facebook account, he made me  an email and also registered me into facebook. I still remember him, his name was Chan, he is a Chinese who lived in Surabaya. By the way, thank you bro, I owe and learn a lot from you. To help someone knows no bound. 

3. Twitter

This is simply the best source of information. However I do not remember any specific things of how I started it, I started tweeting near before my schooltrip to Bali, it's on the same schedule with the event of AFF Suzuki Cup 2010. The first one I followed is Irfan Bachdim, he was very booming at that time because he became the first naturalized player in Indonesia and my first favorite tweet is Ryan Babel's. His hashtag tweet showed a support to Indonesia Senior National Team which was playing in AFF Suzuki Cup 2010.

However I am really tired of the living in social media nowadays. It really sucks, it has lost the essence of social media itself, which is to build our social life. The attitudes of social media users currently are annoying and so wild, especially attitudes toward others. Social media is such a place of freedom. There you can speak out as you want. Unfortunately when there's a freedom, the freedom itself is wrongly interpreted and misused by a lot of people. They become over and over with it. Insult and bullying have become our daily consumption in  social media. Attacking others verbally is something common, even though they do not know and never meet each other. I would not say that all users are like what I said, but this is crazy to let it happen here uncontrollable. We are the East people, we live in the place in which respect is the highest value among the society, so we must respect each other.

I hope that you can become the man of wisdom in the social media. If not you, then who else?