Museum Fatahillah (Museum of Jakarta History)

Picture from this link

Museum Fatahillah is the museum about Jakarta history (description in English).

The building originally was a Dutch building which, apart from some necessary renovation, has been preserved to this day.

Information about Jakarta's history, starting from pre-colonialisation era can be found on the ground floor of the museum. The second floor of the museum is kept as the original design, which were rooms with antique furniture.

The museum might not look much for some people, and children might not be much entertained being there, however, the guides can provide various information about Jakarta history. Visitors who are looking to see old architecture should be able to appreciate more of the existence of this museum.

It is a good idea to read about Jakarta prior to visit to this museum, to be able to have a better 'feel' of the visit.

On Saturday (13 March 2010), there was a 3D-video-mapping show, a collaboration of D-Fuse (an English multimedia artist) and local artists. They did an amazing show which used the front part of the museum as their canvass and the museum turned back into a large swamp, just the way it was before the Dutch fort was built.

Original article about the 3D-video-mapping show from Yahoo! (in Indonesian)

Video of the 3D-video-mapping show

This museum is one of my favorites and I hope, the show can attract more visitors, while the government is going through the grand plan for Jakarta preservation program.. ;-)

St. Kilda (From Scotland to Melbourne)

I lived in Melbourne for almost 5 years, from 1996 to 2000. Throughout the time, I knew St. Kilda to be the beautiful beach with magnificent sunset..

Yesterday, I found out a very interesting fact, or history to be precise, about St. Kilda from Uist Lady, a good friend in North Uist (link). Now I know that St. Kilda is the remotest island in the British archipelago (source/link).

The island has a unique history that goes back to the Bronze Age (source/link) and when later on scarcity of natural resources forced the St. Kildans to leave the island, they migrated to Melbourne, settled in the beach area and named it St. Kilda (source/link).

Other names of St. Kilda island are 'Hiort' and 'The islands at the edge of the world' (source/link).

For all of you who love St. Kilda Beach, Melbourne as much as I do and think of it as a beautiful place, knowing a little bit of the history of the 'real' St. Kilda island would be a great thing as respect to all St. Kildans who had left their birthplace and named the beautiful beach in Melbourne the same as their home..