Smash fear, learn anything

Today I cheat; I'm posting the same TED clip here as on NotJustAnIdea. The reason is that I'm truely inspired. What helps us to do want we want to do, is to ask ourselves: "What's the worst that could happen?". Fear is your friend, just remember that.

Parma

Cinque terra, so beautiful!


















Funny sign in Parma... thinking of creating a series. This one goes well with the 'Unnecessary noise prohibited' sign in New York.












View from the hotelroom... Great location looking out on the Sidel factory and right above the Sound cafe. Thanks for the didgeridoo, guys!

Milk

"My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you". That's how gay rights activist Milk opened his speeches to the masses that gathered time and again to protest against discrimination of gays. Finally, I have seen this highly appraised film and I fully understand why Sean Penn received an Oscar for his part. It's a beautiful portrait of a brave man.

Music all around

New York was as great as expected! Especially since there was music everywhere! The first night I went to look for it at the Blue Note, a place I couldn't miss. But Sunday I just bumped into different people singing and playing. What a city!


Jazz at the Blue Note Jazz cafe


Jazz at Washington Square Park


Mariah Carey's hero on the subway


Next backstreet boys?

New York, New York

I'm just excited, that's all... (and yeah, the Karaoke clip will not be used for demo purposes to boost my singing career :P)

Jakarta, Jakarta

This city never ceases to amaze me. One minute streets are jampacked with cars, the next the water is knee-high. Boys jump in and start messing around. They help the bajaj drivers that get stuck by pushing them forward. Great!

Asia's crazy little things

As I have been blogging for Amnesty in Dutch, I have somewhat neglected this blog. This time I'll talk about some weird things that caught my eye here. Still in Bangkok, I noticed how all the schoolgirls in their uniforms wear belts. The skirts they wear (and pull up, to make them as short as possible) however do not have straps for the belts. How do they solve the problem of their belts moving up and down? Right, by attaching it with a big paperclip - you know, the ones you uses to bundle a big stack of documents... First, I thought it was just one girl being creative, but in fact its a movement! Being very quick one morning, I took a picture of this girl at the breakfast buffet.















And then two pictures taken at a Java Jazz Hotdog stand - Indonesians do it better, or at least bigger :P