Hong Kong and Guangzhou

I have visited Hong Kong several times. Mostly I stayed in the Park Hotel, the picture above is taken in a park across the road from the hotel. My contact is my Mei Mei (younger sister), who makes the bookings for the hotels and who shows me around her city. Her name is Garnie and she adopted me as her older brother.

My Mei mei also books my hotel in Guangzhou, where the second photograph was taken. It is the road in front of the Garden Hotel. Next to the footbridge where I was when making the picture is the Elephant and Castle pub where I spend some time in 1998 and 1999, the last times I was in Guangzhou. I went to the busstation in Hong Kong and bought a ticket for the bus who took me in 3 hours from Kowloon to the Garden Hotel.

Bandung in the fifties

This is a picture taken in Bandung around 1950. I don't know whether the venue is The Savoy Homann Hotel or the Societeit Concordia, which is now the Gedung Merdeka. My father is seen at left stepping across the flowers that border the dancefloor.
Here is a picture, taken around the same time, and again I don't know the venue. My mother, who was a teacher is leading some children in the children's fashionshow.

Room with a view

This was the view from my window some time ago when we still had some snow in Holland. For some years we haven't had enough snow to last a few days.

Rural Indonesia

Above is the road from Lembang to Ciater. Lembang is a township near the Tangkubangprahu, the vulcano north of Bandung, and Ciater is wellknown for its hotwater wells. The road is bordered by tea.
These are some happy girls I saw on the road from Garut to Tasikmalaya. Garut and Tasikmalaya are towns in West-Java. My grandfather was stationmaster In Tasik when he died in 1912.

Den Haag 1935

My father was in Holland on leave from the Dutch East Indies in 1935. He arrived in July and left again in January 1936. I found these 2 pictures in his photobook. It is a cinemascope on the Spui which is in use as a discotheque now and the Goudenregenplein, which looks about the same now, though the tram crosses the square now and has no endstop here anymore.

My parents

My father was born on February 19, 1903 in Jogjakarta and my mother was born on June 12th, 1912 in Batavia. They married July 2nd, 1940 in Bandung. Here are some pics made when they were around 30 and 25.

The old Lamplighter

The lyrics of the song sung by the Browns are:
"He made the night a little brighter
Wherever he would go
The old lamplighter
Of long, long ago
His snowy hair was so much whiter
Beneath the candle glow
The old lamplighter
Of long, long ago"
Last week a cute little statue of a lamplighter was uncovered in the Mallemolen a little street in The Hague.
These are some pictures I made.

Jakarta

This is a picture of the Cafe Batavia, Taman Fatahillah, in old Jakarta, I had a beer or two there once. It is an old building and still has the atmosphere of old colonial times

The Hague

These are two picures of the Hague. The one above is a picture of the Mauritshuis. The Mauritshuis is situated at one of the entrances of the Binnenhof where the Houses of Parliament are. It is one of our well-known museums, and it has some beautiful paintings made by Rembrandt, Vermeer and Potter. The Mauritshuis was build in 1640 for count Johan Maurits van Nassau Siegen, who obtained his riches in Brazil. The wiki link is: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritshuis
The other picture is made near the Central Station in spring. It shows one of the places where you can see flowers blooming in the parks and along the streets.

Borobudur

The Borobudur is a Buddhist Temple in Central Java 40 kilometers Northwest of Jogyakarta on the Kedu plain. It was build in the 9th century during the peak of the Sailendra dynasty. Nobody knows why it was abandoned, maybe higher volcanic activity caused it. The Kedu plain lies between two twin vulcanoe , Sumbing and Sundoro at one side and Merapi and Merbabu on the other side. During the British administration in the period of 1811-1816 it was rediscoverd, overgrown by the jungle. On an inspection tour to Semarang, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was informed of a temple in the jungle and he sent someone to investigate. In 1835 the temple was unearthed. The Borobudur was restaurated in the 20th century with help from Unesco and it is now one of the main tourist attractions of Indonesia.
The link to the wikipedia article about the borobudur is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur

My new daughter

Since this week I have another daughter. She is called Dian and she lives in Surabaya. She is half my age and speaks Dutch. She has just been in surgery on her ankle. So I pray she will be able to walk again soon without any pain. She is a very courageous person. I haven't met her in person yet, but I trust I will meet her some day.

My daughter and granddaughter

Next to my brother and his family these are the two people for whom I wish all the luck in the world and I hope they will be happy. Unfortunately I made some stupid mistakes in my life and I can't help them to achieve it. But I pray every day that they may be free of sorrows. And I really hope to see them again soon.

Indonesia, the country I was born in.

Indonesia, I love the country, because I was born there. And when you look at the picture, can you blame me for loving it? Unfortunately my great-great-grandparents were born in different countries and therefore my parents, even though they were born there and lived there all their lives, were thrown out of the country when Indonesia became independant. I have been back to Indonesia 6 times and every time I love the country more. I hope to go back there soon. Mencintai Indonesia.