Monday, April 11, 2016

Anime Festival Asia Indonesia 2015

Hi everyone! It's been quite a long time since I posted anything in this blog. Actually these post materials are from a long time ago, but I kinda neglected it in my phone memory because of school, exam, and other annoying stuff that made me kinda lose the urge to share this one. Since it's spring season now in 4-seasoned countries, I also decided to do spring cleaning of my phone's gallery ^^
I'm really motivated to share this one since my social media feeds are overwhelming with Japan's cherry blossom.That really made me so jealous and sad because I'm stucked here with my medical school's co-assistant phase for the next 2 years. Hope God will grant my wish to witness Japan's spring season someday ( ^ヮ^)ノ*:・゚✧


Okay, enough with the chit-chat. So on this post, I'm gonna share my first experience with Anime Festival Asia (AFA) ID 2015 which was held on September 25-27. I had missed a lot of chances for going to AFA last year, last last year, and last last last ......... ^^" Mainly because I was still adapting with my uni life. So when AFA was being held again last year, I was in my last term of pre-clinic school. Although I had an upcoming exam 2 days after, I didn't bother much. Hell with exam, I'm gonna live up my life. Whether I studied hard or not, it won't change my GPA drastically since it's my last term ~

Most importantly, this was also the main reason why I insisted on going!



Super duper yeay! BCA Bank held this promotion by opening an account under Tahapan Xpresi BCA, you could get a free entrance ticket of AFA ID worth of IDR 80k. Not to mention, those cute illustration debit card! I choose the right one of course hehhe. I did dirty tricks though, after opening the account I immediately withdrew all of my money in there leaving only IDR 10k :P

Here is the scene that I saw as soon as I arrived at JI Expo Kemayoran.
I only came on Saturday, which is the 2nd day of the festival.

Super duper crowded and HOT!!

Well, as what I expected when this kind of large festival being held in a semi open venue like JI Expo with massive people = HOT!!! So little space to walk and air to breath *sigh*



Cute Merchandise
Honestly I didn't know any vendors here while my friends already went on rampage visiting booths. Some of them were owned by their friends too. So I was just following the flow~ I'm quite amazed with the products that created by Indonesian artist, but I didn't buy anything though.


Self-made Characters Artwork



Sumikko Gurashi in Indonesian National Costume!

Posing with cute Summiko Gurashi Doll and please ignore the photobomb. It's basically people everywhere so I could not take any decent photos although I was dressed in yukata. My makeup was already ruined anyway due to heat -_-
Met a friend and borrowed her newly-bought doll :D

Caught this pretty magician on camera ^^

After looking around at almost every booth and I didn't buy anything ...... I decided to visit the only one booth I want since last year. It's AFA Cafe which was divided into 2 kinds: Moe Moe Kyun (Maid Cafe) or Atelier Royale (Butler Cafe). Of course I chose Atelier Royale! Aside from cheaper foods, almost 50% of the butlers also came from another country, like Singapore. I really want to meet Yutakis in real life and I'm sooo happy when I heard that he's coming to AFA at 2015. He first came to AFA ID at 2014 though. Finally I got to see him up close hehhe.
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No kidding the queue is verrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyy LONG! I queue with Sera, my junior for almost 2 hours. But thanks to the fact I got a friend who wanted to accompany me. I wouldn't care to queue so longgg if I didn't have company. Sera and I were kinda the same. We were not really interested to buy a lot of things from booth. So while others are busy to stroll again, we decided to part ways. They strolled and shop while us in AFA Cafe.

Finally it's our turn!!! I ordered a chocolate ice cream cake while Sera ordered a the cheesecake one. The price is 150k and Sosro Fruit Tea was included in the menu. To be honest, this was also the difficulty of getting a company to visit Butler/Maid cafe in an international event like AFA. Most of my friends didn't want to visit AFA Cafe because the price of AFA Cafe was super expensive for them. People wouldn't come unless they really loved it LOL. So thanks again to Sera-chan who accompany me^^

Sera and I was served by the head butler, Hiroshi a.k.a Jeremy Hellven. Yutakis was serving another girl customer at the moment. Well, I was not disappointed though. Jeremy was from Singapore and he had a really cheerful personality. I felt quite lucky to be served by him^^ Because of his cheerfulness, it didn't make me awkward to have a conversation with him. So sad that 2015 is the last year for him to become a butler in Atelier Royale (´;︵;`)


Pay attention from right to left. Yutakis is the first from right and Hiroshi is the second one. The 2-most-handsome butlers in my opinion from Atelier Royale :P


Domo Chocolate Painting by Hiroshi ^^
After done chatting and eating, we decided to take photos with the butler at Atelier Royale Booth. We need to paid 50k though for each photo. Although I felt kinda jealous since other customer managed to take selfie at the dinner table which was FREE of course. It's just depended on the butler whether he would accomplice with you or not. Sera and I were kinda hesitant since we saw with our own eyes that some customer being accepted by them but some also not. So we didn't really understand the criteria to be accepted by them to take a secret selfie with them. Perhaps it's really depended whether the guard was really on alert or not. But since we didn't like being rejected ... just choose the safer way. Pay and take pictures LOL.


Heart Pose with Yutakis >_<
I am really glad to visit AFA Cafe on my first experience attending AFA ID. Yutakis is really kind. After taking pictures, he took and grabbed my hand. While doing so, he said thank you so much for visiting Atelier Royale. For the first time in forever, I felt like don't want to wash my hands forever hahha. At first I thought that he immediately will go away to other customer after taking pictures with us. No kidding, there was a long customer line wanting to take pictures with him. But he still tried to give maximum appreciation and service for us. Well I hope he will come again to AFA ID this year at 2016.

My main point of coming here is done so I strolled around once more and visited booths which give me free merchandise. I got a Fairy Tail Map from Animax Booth just by taking pictures with the display. It's very unique since it got a handle :)

Side A

Side B

Finally could take a nice photo (´;д;`) 
This was taken at Animax booth by Animax Crew. People who wanted it could download it in Animax FB page ^^ Well I got a nice photo and a souvenir map as well. Super yeay!

Hair was ruined *sigh*



With my junior and senior in uni. I didn't understand why I didn't look at the camera >.<


It's started to getting late about 6 PM. Another senior of mine need to go home soon but she hadn't bought her wishlist item yet. So she asked me to buy it for her as well as asked the artist to sign the album. It's Majiko and MikitoP :D



Since their booth was not crowded by the time I arrived there, I took the chance to take photos with them and chatting for a bit mainly about my last holiday experience in Japan since they compliment my pouch and yukata ^^ Thanks God although it was such a hassle putting on this kind of outfit in a crowded and hot places like this event, but thanks to this I could conversing with Japanese artist :D

With Majiko and MikitoP
So basically my friends and I were done with everything. We decided to go home at 6.30 PM since we were afraid that it would be a lot of traffic. But still, traffic was everywhere but more manageable of course.

That's it! My first AFA ID experience~ To be honest, seems like I wouldn't come again for the second time if the venue is still at JI Expo  -_- I would re-think again if the venue was held in JCC like in 2012,2013, and 2014. Beside Hiroshi is retiring and Yutakis made an announcement that he wasn't really sure of coming back to AFA ID or not. I'm also not a really big fan of expensive figurines, keychains, and others ... basically nothing for me to shop here. No gudetama also ...  so I'm likely 99% not coming to AFA ID anymore ^^"

Friday, February 12, 2016

[Review] Photobook Worldwide


My super memorable Japan Trip has ended way long ago. A lot of photos has been sorted out and edited. So one last thing to do is PRINT it. Whenever I go somewhere for holiday, I always compiled all of the photos, go to the printing office, and insert it into an album. But this time, suddenly things have changed for good when my friend introduced me to this online printing service called Photobook Worldwide.

Photobook Worldwide is an online photo-printing service with extensive area coverage. This company's service is available for 95 countries in the world. Actually, their products are not limited to photobooks only, but almost everything that could be designed personally using photos such as stationaries, home decorations, calendar, and so many more! When you open the website, please change your country region first. The link that I used is Indonesian-based but it will work for all when you have changed your country on that website :)

At the first glance, their price tag is really expensive and I’m almost given up using this service. But if you looked through carefully, they often (or should I say: ALWAYS) have a promotion offers starting from 40% to 80% OFF! A little bit tips from me: go subscribe newsletter from them so you don’t miss it whenever they had a promotion.


Current Promotion Banner *wink*

Last September in 2015, they had a 10th Anniversary Sale and send me an email about it. I’m really excited because one of the deals is just suited to my need: 70% OFF voucher for 8.5”x11” Softcover Photobook. The voucher could be used until March 2016 just as their motto in promotion deals “Buy Now, Create Later”. I just need to pay IDR 100.000 + shipping fee (IDR 40.000 for my address) instead of paying IDR 325.000 + shipping fee. Without further ado, I immediately asked my Dad’s permission and bought it using his credit card :3






There are three options when you want to create an album. You could use the readybook template or start from zero, either by doing it ONLINE or OFFLINE by using the software provided from Photobook Worldwide called Photobook Designer. You could find and download both of them on the website. I have looked through all of the readybook template but none of them suited my taste. I really want to make this album very personalized in my style, so I decided to download the software and spend most of my free time in December to design a photo album filled with photos from my summer trip to Japan.


*sneakpeek of my project design*


The software is very easy to use. There are so many choices of background and scrap item so it’s really like making an online scrapbook. All you have to do is just click and drag instead of holding a ruler + scissors, cutting here and there if you create a conventional scrapbook. You also could crop and rotate the pictures, but not for the brightness and color quality. So I suggest you to edit the photos first with photo editing program such as Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, etc.


[IMPORTANT!]
No matter how good your photos are, I suggest you to increase the brightness and drop the contrast level when you edit the photos. You will know why at the end of this post.


Finally after spending about 17 days of my very long holiday, finally I finished my design on January 4. Well actually I could finish it faster but I’m really a lazy bum. I could only edit 2-3 pages a day, with sometimes 5 pages in maximum. Whenever my design idea is off, I will stop designing and lazying around my bed untill I found some inspiration. I must admit it, I do really love designing and doing things like handicraft since primary school but my bad personality is that I also love postponing things. Guess I’m not suitable to be a professional designer LOL.

Okay, back to the main story. So after I finished it, I checked and looked through my project carefully from the cover until the end. Making sure that I haven't made any flaws since it could not be changed after the project file being uploaded. I opened the website, placed my order, filling my information details, last but also the most important step: insert my DISCOUNT voucher code before checking out. After that you will be directed and given notifications that you have to upload your project file if you use offline software like me. It's very easy and now all I'm left to do is waiting :)






Well, actually I was not waiting in a calm and silent disposition. I felt restless and excited, wondered when will my package arrived. For heaven's sake it's just 1 hour actually after I uploaded the project LOL. So 2 days later, I've got an email from Photobook Worlwide, saying that my album is done and on the way to my home. My package number was also attached on it. Of course, I immediately tracked my order. The first time I opened it, the updated numbers were only until no. 4 which is "ARRIVED AT Sort Facility SUBANG ......"

After that, every 2 or 3 hours I kept stalking my order like crazy fan girl LOL. It just made me more and more excited knowing that my package was going closer to me. Finally, the overall tracking results are as the pictures below :)



Finally the day I'm waiting for!
Yeayy, it just took 4 days from Malaysia to arrived here in Indonesia.

Neat and clean packaging





I'm quite surprised to find another layer of protection for my photobook.
Definitely satisfied with their protection and shipment care!


Protection Envelope


So pretty!

Well, overall I'm quite satisfied with the product. The only thing that left me a bit down was .... the fact that most photos inside tend to be darker and has more contrast than what I've seen in my laptop. To most of photos, it's still tolerated. But there is this one page consists of two photos which from the original quality had already been dark because of the rainy and cloudy weather in Japan, it's really become too dark T_T ... Although I had been trying to retouch it until it looks okay in Photoshop, but when it was printed ...


What I see in my Laptop after lots of retouch *expectation*


What I see in my hands *reality*


Please do note that the very original picture is a loooot worse than the printing results but I have been retouched it just like the first picture above. But I can't really blame the Photobook for this cause. To be honest, I'm already prepared for this since my friend who used Photobook had mentioned about this before. That's why I have took precaution in adding extra brightness and lower contrast in all of my photos which actually had been edited for blogs. But still only that one page above which couldn't survive the trickster. The website's FAQ Section actually also posted about this matter.

http://www.photobookindonesia.com/support/general#design


But I didn't bother much for calibrating my monitors or whatever mentioned there. I was afraid to break my laptop in process LOL. Well, for the next time I guess I just need to really take pictures in a very good condition with a good camera (#moneyproblem) so the printing will turns out good haha.

PROs :
  • Lots of promotion offers, so it's affordable and money-saving
  • Nice paper quality
  • Product packaging is clean and neat
  • Extra protection with the album envelope
  • The design software is easy to use. Plus lots of cute background and scrap items options are available
CONs:
  • Pictures tend to be darker than what you've seen in your laptop  
  • Expensive shipping fee and even if you buy 2 products, it's still counted as double shipping fee :( 


Overall Ratings: 4/5


Repurchase?   YES! (when there is another cheap deals :P)


Thank you for reading this post!
Please let me know if you also use Photobook Worldwide service and whether you also experience that "tend-to-be-darker" results :')  If not, well I guess I need to graduate really soon, work my ass off, and buy a good laptop + camera #wishlist




Friday, January 22, 2016

The End of 2015 and The Beginning of 2016

Hi folks! How are you doing?

I finally take a break from living my kind of “bum life” and so here I am writing my first post in 2016. Year 2015 has finally ended and it was the hardest year I’ve been through so far since God has taken a lot of precious people in my life consecutively. Coming through my calendar in 2016, I have marked several important dates. Oh nope, it’s not holiday dates but 1st death anniversary of my mother and other close relatives. Honestly, not something to be look forward enthusiastically.

In this year too, I will also move on to another important phase in my life: Co-Ass or Clinic Phase. Yup, it’s simply identical with the beginning of crucial phase and tortures in my life. No more carefree life at least for the next 2.5 years. So many bad things has preoccupied my mind for this year ahead, but hopefully good things will also happened to make a balance. I really wish this year to be better than 2015.

Hmm, talking about my “bum life”...... uh, yeah. Since December 8th until now, and probably until the middle of February, I’ve been living out a bum life. Playing gadgets, reading manga, watching anime and dramas, sleeping, going out only for shopping and reunion with friends, etc.

Why?
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Because I failed my last Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE), in Basic Surgery Skill to be specific. Therefore, I couldn’t move on to the next phase: OSCE-SOCA Comprehensive Exam (OSCA) which is one final selection test before entering Co-Ass Life. So here I am trapped with uncertainity, my Bachelor in Medicine Title is still floating somewhere because of failed OSCE, the campus still hasn’t make announcement when will be the remedial exam, and so as the final results....  I still haven’t studied very seriously in preparing my OSCA which will be held in March 16th for 2nd graduate batch. After I had made sure I have passed the remedial exam for OSCE and legit to be OSCA participant, there I will give my 100% in studying hahha.





The one who has succeed in last OSCE is called 1st graduate batch, therefore could move on to OSCA yesterday. Well, if they failed the OSCA, they will also fell down to my group LOL. OMG, so many uncertainities and now I will definitely make sure my children don’t enter medical school especially my school  ..... unless they have steel determination and don’t complain much :S

But don’t worry. Don’t imagine that sadness and sorrow aura around me. I have made into acceptance phase very quickly. Perhaps, it’s also because 99% of my close friends were with me. We FAILED together, and then we shall PASSED together too .... (AMEN!) There were so many things that I did in the end of 2015 and at the beginning of 2016. Here is some recap of my “bum life” and consider it as a teaser since some of them will be my next post:

1.    LINE PLAY-ing (so addicted because of Gudetama!)


Gudetama x Sumikko Gurashi Madness


Current Design of My Room ^^



SO CUUTE!!


2.    Designing my Japan Trip Photo Album



3.    Christmas Sale Shopping Galore









4.    Sleeping 12 hours a day






5.    K-Drama and Anime Marathon

Noble My Love

Marriage Not Dating

She's so Lovable

Hibike! Euphonium


Koufuku Graffiti


NORN9 !!! It's premiere on screen at Jan 7 and current episode is 3




6.    Make-Up Practice





7.    Reunion with Senior High School friends





8.    Short Getaway to Bangka




Some of them will be my next post material. Could you guess which is it?
Stay tuned until then!
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