Mermaid

I remember when a was a little i watch a sad love story movie from Hans Cristian Andersen. A lovely mermaid, youngest doughter of The Sea King, sacrificed her beautiful voice to a wicked witch to have a pair of  leg becouse she’s in love with a human prince. She should win the prince love or in other way she will turn to foam. But the prince didn’t know about her secret, he didn’t know the young beauty mermaid has saved his life from drowning cause she can’t talk. The prince proposed another woman, the neighbourhood princess who just walk by the shore near the unconscious prince after saved by the young mermaid, and about to marry the princess in a sailingship.

The hopeless young mermaid sisters sacrifice their hair to the witch to help her. They give her a sharp knife and before the sun rises she must plunge it into the heart of the prince, when the warm blood falls upon her feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish’s tail,  and she will be once more a mermaid.  And return to her family to live out her  three hundred years before she die and change into the salt sea foam.

The sun is about to rise, but the young mermaid love the prince so much, she bent down and kisses his fair brow. She flung the knife a way to the sea  then threw herself from the ship into the sea and turn to the salt sea foam or sea bubbles.

I was realy fond to the story,  every time i go to the sea n play with sea bubbles,  i always think it’s the young beauty mermaid.
Afterwards i watch Disney’s Little Mermaid with a happy ending story.  It tickles me to find more about mermaid.

The word of mermaid is a compound of mere, the Old English word for “sea,” and maid, in its usual sense. The male equivalent is a merman.

The idea of mermaids and merman, could be based on creatures from Greek and Babylonian mythology:  Sirens and Tritons of the Greeks, and the fish gods, who were half human and half fish, from the Babylonians. 

The first known mermaid stories appeared in Assyria, ca. 1000 BC. Atargatis, the mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, was a goddess who loved a mortal shepherd and in the process to killed him.  Ashamed, she jumped into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine beauty.  Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid.

Tales of mermaids are nearly universal.
Various cultures throughout the world have similar figures, but there are tales from all over the world. In India, for instance, there are the Apsara, beautiful water nymphs. However, most of those tales were told by sailors who “saw” them on their long journeys.  This marine creature with the head and upper body of a beautiful young maiden and with the lower body of a fish. Can be found in seas and lakes, or lying on a rock and combing her hair with one hand while holding a mirror in the other.

Mermaids sometimes foretell the future and are often accompanied by seals. According to myth, they lure sailors by singing and with lovely music. They live in a kingdom on the bottom of the sea,  and it is here they take their prisoners to.

Sri Lakshmi

 Lakshmi (“Good Fortune”), sometimes called Sri (“Prosperity”) is one of the most popular and widely worshiped Goddesses in Hindu tradition since pre-Buddhist period. She has a considerable body of mythology and history.

 

She is the wife of Vishnu, and was born from the Sea, fully grown, gorgeous and she represents ten qualities and objects, namely, food, royal power, universal sovereignty, knowledge, power,holy luster, kingdom,fortune,bounteousness, and beauty.

The tale goes that the Gods were in need of renewal, and a plan was made to churn the great Ocean of Milk to make soma, the divine food that grants immortality. This was done on the requisite grand scale by using Mount Mandara as the churning paddle.
The great snake Vasuki was wrapped around the mountain and pulled by the Gods on the one side and the Asuras or demons on the other. This produced a lot of heat and eventually, though the poor serpent was pretty uncomfortable being yanked this way and that, many great treasures were produced: the hoped-for soma; Parijata, the Tree of Paradise; Varuni Goddess of Wine; the Apsaras; the Sun and the Moon; and finally Lakshmi Herself, seated on an open lotus. Vishnu fell in love with Her immediately and They were wedded.

She is called the “Lotus Goddess” and is often shown holding one as Her emblem. She is also Goddess of abundance, fertility and wealth. 

 Holly basil is sacred to Her and said to bring children. Lakshmi is sometimes represented as a basket full of rice and is depicted on coins, or with coins falling from Her hands. 

Lakshmi and Vishnu are bound together in love through time.
As Vishnu is descendent in His avatars, Lakshmi is also reborn as His wife. As Sita, wife of Rama and as Rukmini, married to Krishna.

Orangutan

Aming is 3,5 year old orangutan. He lives in Taman Safari Cisarua Bogor. He is a shy baby but as mostly orangutan, he likes wrestling, play chasing, or tickling. Orangutan can live their age to 80 year old.

Photo by Hendryanto

The name orangutan is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang meaning “person” and hutan meaning “forest”, thus “person of the forest”.

Orangutans spending nearly all of their time in the trees. 65% of their food is fruit.  They are more solitary than the other apes, with males and females generally coming together only to mate. Mothers stay with their babies until the offspring reach an age of six or seven years. Females can grow to around 127 centimetres and weigh around 45 kg, while flanged adult males can reach 175 centimetres in height and weigh over 118 kg.

With arms are twice as long as their legs and fingers and toes are curved, it’s easier for them to better grip onto branches. Unlike gorillas and chimpanzees, orangutans are not true knuckle-walkers, and walk on the ground by shuffling on their palms with their fingers curved inwards.

According to recent research psychologist Robert Deaner and his colleagues, orangutans are the world’s most intelligent animal other than humans, with higher learning and problem solving ability than chimpanzees, which were previously considered to have greater abilities.

Orangutan species is critically endangered from around 10,000 years ago until the middle of the twentieth century, this sharp decline has occurred mostly over the past few decades due to human activities and development.

The most recent estimate for the Sumatran Orangutan is around 7,300 individuals in the wild while the Bornean Orangutan population is estimated at between 45,000 and 69,000. These estimates were obtained between 2000 and 2003.

Recent trends are steeply down in most places due to logging and burning, there is also a major problem with hunting and illegal pet trade.  In early 2004 about 100 individuals of  Bornean origin were confiscated in Thailand and 50 of them were returned to Kalimantan in 2006.

Several hundred Bornean orangutan orphans who were confiscated by local authorities have been entrusted to different orphanages in both Malaysia and Indonesia. They are in the process of being rehabilitated into the wild.

Taman Safari Indonesia

People who lived  in a big city like Jakarta, with crowd traffic and polution everywhere, have a great choise like Taman Safari Indonesia to refresh and relax their soul, or within, introducing  their child to be familiar with nature and animals.  Yet giving some moment for the big city her self  to breath and renew the air.

  Photo by Hendryanto

There are three Taman safari In Indonesia. The first one located in the highway between Jakarta and Bandung, Cibeureum village , Cisarua – Bogor , West Java. The other one located in Arjuna mountain, Prigen, East Java. And the third one is in Bali.

Taman Safari Indonesia I – was made at nonproductive tea plantations  in 1930. It was called Radio Safari Garden. But in 1948 they’ve changed to Taman Safari Televisi Indonesia. This Park becomes Taman Nasional Gunung Gede Pangrango’s buffer. The location lay 900-1800 altitude above sea level, and the temperature avarage  16 – 24 celcius.

At Gianyar Bali, Bali Safari & Marine Park is a home for hundreds amazing animals representing more than 50 species  in 40 hectare land near Lebih beach Gianyar since 2007.  With the conservation mission, they provide wild life educations and holiday in fun ways.

You can find many of the Taman Safari features in http://www.tamansafari.com & http://www.balisafarimarinepark.com

Geisha

The growing interest in geisha and their exotic appearance have spawned various popular culture phenomena both in Japan and in the West.

Geiko as known as Geisha consists of two kanji,  gei meaning “art” and sha   meaning “person” or “doer”.
or in English would be “artist” or “performing artist”.

 

Apprentice geisha are called maiko or in English mean  ”dance child”.  They learn how to dance, sing  and to play musical  instrument.  

It is the maiko, with her white make-up and elaborate kimono and hairstyle,  that has become the stereotype of a geisha to Westerners, rather than the true geisha.

There remains some confusion, even within Japan, about the nature of the geisha profession.  Geisha are regarded as prostitutes by many Westerners. However, legitimate geisha do not engage in paid sex with clients.  Their purpose is to entertain their customer, be it by dancing, reciting verse, playing musical instruments,  or engaging in light conversation. Geisha engagements may include flirting with men and playful innuendos; however,
clients know that nothing more can be expected.  In a social style that is common in Japan,  men are amused by the illusion of that which is never to be.