Museo Frida Kahlo

One of my dream is to visit Frida Kahlo Museum. And I'm sooo happy that today, my dream had come true. Finally, I got the chance to visit Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City.

She is one hell of a remarkable female artist, and visiting her house is such an unforgettable experience. Too bad no one was allowed to take pictures inside the house.

The house called "The Blue House". It painted in bright blue colour. The kitchen's colour is yellow. It's a nice Mexican house with small ponds and garden. The house was full with its original furnitures. Several main rooms are filled with the display of Frida's and Diego's stuff like books, paintings, sketches, letters and photographs.

Centro Historico - Mexico City

I love old buildings. Heritage architecture always fascinates me since I was little. There's something magical about old buildings. It's elegant, grande, mystical and mysterious. It hides a lot of secrets and talents of the architects. Nining and I went to Centro Historico yesterday but it was raining and we ended up freezing. So, today we decided to revisit the site once again. Thank God it's a sunny day. This is summer! This is more like it!

Centro Historico Mexico City started with a huge monument in the park, conjuncted to The Palace. It's really grande. Across the Palace the shopping arcade is standing all the way to the Cathedral Square. There are various stores there such as SEARS, ZARA, Bershka, The Body Shop and other branded stores. All the shops built in a heritage building, including the MacDonald's, KFC and Burger King. The streets made of paving blocks which gave the classic touch. There are several churches and museum.

All the way at the end of the street, the Cathedral Square is waiting. It's a huge arena surrounded by heritage buildings at its 4 corners. Three building complex are shopping arcades, another one is The National Palace and the other one is where the Cathedral is standing. On the side walk, people from the tribes in Mexico are having performances and selling souvenirs. They were wearing traditional clothes. Very interesting! Thanks to the sunny day, I could really enjoy the Centro Historico today. It was a great experience to be able to stand in such historical area.

International AIDS Conference

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Finally, I got the chance to go sightseeing. It was raining, though... but it didn't stop me from going, or taking pictures.

Mara was speaking at the session of "HIV and Mobility". She's great and I love her. She's a smart and easy going person. She's also a really good friend. I wish all the best for her always...

Speaking at the UNAIDS session on "HIV-related Travel Restrictions". I worked hard for my talking points, but at the end, I didn't even looked at my talking points and just say whatever I had in mind. I got interviewed by Radio Rumania right after I finished speaking. Sadly, no one from my country came to see me speaking here because they chose to go for a dinner at the Ambassador's house. I missed the dinner because of my commitment in this session. But, then again, I have no regrets! The session went well and I was told it was all over the evening news in all TV channels in Mexico. So, I guess it paid off the dinner in a much better way.

With Kelly [IHCW] and Serra [CHANGE] after speaking about PEPFAR at the Hot Topic Zone. It's good to see Kelly again. She was helping me with the media when I was in New York for the UN HLM.

Speaking about "Redefining AIDS in Asia - Women's Perspective" together with Jayanair. After the session, I was hungry and went to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Then, a man told me that he wants to take a picture of my T-Shirt. I was thinking it was my karma, because I've been taking pictures of people's statement T-Shirts. But then afterwards, he told me that he, and other 3 colleagues of him who sat at the table across mine, are working at Heineken. Bloody hell! Thank God they thought my T-Shirt was creative and innovative.

We went out together for dinner at a small classic diner. It was not very easy to choose what to eat because all the items in the menu were in Spanish and the waiters couldn't speak English. I never knew it would be a struggle to get our orders done. Hahaha...!

Malu and Brahm were speaking at the "Bridging Session" about travel restrictions and migration. The session was great and attended by numbers of people.

So, that massive white tent in the distance is The Global Village. That's where a lot of fun things happening. Sadly, this picture I took from right in front of the Session Room. Can you imagine how far it is? It's pretty far! And in this cool weather, you'd get a frozen lung when you reach the Global Village.

We missed the bus on the second day and just to find out that the shuttle bus has only 2 schedules in the morning: 5.30 AM and 7.15 AM. Bloody crazy committee! What about people who need only to go a bit later??? What's wrong with having the third schedule at 11 AM?

Catching up with friends on the first day of the conference. Also helping out the Asian Region's booth. Did an interview regarding migrants and HIV issues with a French journalist. Other than that, not much to do. The busy day is coming on the second and third day of the conference.

Bienvienido a la Mexico!

I was still sleepy when we finally landed at Mexico City. It was 7 in the morning and I felt like I hadn't enough sleep. Well, maybe I had, but just not a good one. Then again, the process of getting out of the airport was painful [especially for those who were still sleepy!]. We had to go back and forth from one end to another for THREE TIMES!!! Everything was unclear. And everytime we asked someone, they gave us different answer, which was VERY confusing!!! Well... we finally sort everything out and able to get out of the airport. I NEED TO SMOKE!!!!

The hotel was not bad, and not too far from the heart of the city. After freshing up a bit, we decided to explore the surrounding, find something to eat and try to find the shuttle's hub. We ended up drinking coffee at an old fashioned cafe nearby, named Cafe Grand Premiro. The atmosphere is so oldies, I felt like I was having a coffee during the colonial time. Hahaha! After that, we walked down toward Paseo de la Reforma, because I knew that one of the hub is there. The city was a bit quiet, the weather was cool, the wind was freezing. But I love it! I've been staying in the hot weather for quite a while, so, I really enjoy being in cool weather [despite the rain that come and go]. We got on to the shuttle at the Glorietta de Colon. It took us almost an hour to reach the conference center because the driver was a bit confused. Never mind.

We sorted our ID Card for the conference and got all the conference kit and the bag too. Nining was wearing a short, so, she was freezing cold! They said it's summer time... but it doesn't feel like summer at all! I felt it more like autumn already or even early spring. I'm glad I came here... =) I should've brought my leather jacket, though...! And my boots too... =(

About making an effort for IAC 2008

I knew from the start that this trip would be a long one. And as usual, before I go somewhere, something happened to the place I'm about to go. A typhoon had struck Mexico recently and I heard it's flooding. Well, never know what's real until you see it anyway! So, I chose not to worry about it. Afterall, this kind of thing happened too often to me, I got numb already =P

So, I managed to meet Nining at KLIA. We both managed to push her travel agent to put her on the same flight with me, so, she'd not be flying alone. Both of us were excited about going to Mexico, but also a bit worry about the long flight. Especially the 6-hour lay over in Los Angeles. What are we gonna do??? Six hours seems long, but it's not long enough to do a city tour or so. In fact, it's too long to sit around.

We had an amazing route for this trip: Kuala Lumpur - Taipei - Los Angeles - Mazatlan - Mexico City. And for Nining, it started from Jakarta, so her trip is even longer than mine! The transit in Taipei was not bad. They had a very nice smoking room in the airport, where we spent most of our transit time there. And then the long journey begun. Taipei - Los Angeles. It was a 12-hour flight. Geez... Thank God, I slept along the way and woke up only for meal! That trick does me just perfect!I had to skip all the favorite movies that shown in the in-flight entertainment and put on some music instead. I filled up my jukebox with songs from Moby, Ministry Sound of London and Retro Future. Those musics put me to sleep right away... Hahaha...!!!!

Arriving in Tom Bradley International Airport and getting out from there was quite painful. First, we had to go through the paranoid-USA-immigration officers. Second, we had to pick up our luggage and take them to the connecting flight drop in area. Third, we had to check in and get our boarding pass to Mexico City. Fourth, we had to put up the 6-hour lay over at the airport with absolutely boring duty free shops and almost nothing to explore. Fifth, after our boarding time has come, we had to take off everything for security check and the queue was crazy. Sixth, we had to put up with very mean ground crew of Mexicana Airlines who didn't even bother to tell us that we were at the wrong side of the airport. Seventh, we were very pissed when we find out that it wasn't a direct flight from LA to Mexico City, as we've been told at the ticketing counter. Eighth, we had to get off the plane in Mazatlan just to go through immigration counter. Ninth, we had a dreadful flight almost half way from LA to Mazatlan and from Mazatlan to Mexico City. Tenth, we had to bear with a bad landing twice [in Mazatlan and Mexico City].