The year of 2007 will end immediatelly. Facing the New Year 0f 2008 must have a brand new performance of yourself. Here I give you some tips by facing the year, new fahion of your life.
Are you searching the way on how you life in the big city. This ain’t about how you got the job as well as you wanted, but how do you performs your personality as yourself. About fashion of life, of course. What look like your appereance of being human which was socialization in your environtment, does you’ve got the best performance as well?
You need the guide? Reading magazines would helpfull to find out the appropriate direction so you can show who you are as well. But, what kind of guidance you needed. Now you steps forward after by deciding the brillion choice, found out the path of your lifestyle establishing.
A man just like woman, you have to do something that costing your price of life. How is that achievement taken for granted? At first, you may have to changes your fashion styling. See how your shirt, neckwear, accessories, shoes, etc., does Robert Talbott clothing desain was fashionable to reach your well performance? Do you like an New York fashion design, or Paris one, or London one, or which one? Chooses your self fashion design as you like. But, remember, your choice is your self price’s.
Peter Murphy in Improving Self Esteem in 10 Simple Steps, at 5th point said, “Do new things, try different activities that will help you know what gifts you have. Your talents must be cultivated and developed. Take pride in what you have.” Find out the best product and accessories for your style. For example, Bulgari products which is evolution of style following the changes in time, taste and habits. Bulgary creations is permeated with a spirit of excellence, hence the attention to detail and the research for absolute quality, typical of each product, coexist with an innate yearn to surpass oneself and respond passionately to the ever changing market's request.
The Bulgari style is, in fact, a balance mix of classicism and modernity in a continous search for innovative design and materials, with a special attention toward colour combinations. The sense of volume, the love for linearity and symmetry, and certain details recalling art and architecture are classic characteristics of the Bulgari creations.
Thinking about dress’s fashion is the same thing like you thinks about who you are. Then how you publish an image of your. This is the reason why you have to considering your fashion because that’s would be your figure when anyone else know you.
Now you’re in the experiment of life style. This is like a journey of life style isn’t it? Well, if you felt comfort on this way you may have the new vision about how you enjoying your life in the big city.
Peter Murphy said at the 9th point that you have to “Respect yourself. This allows you to gain respect from others. More than anything else, love yourself, you deserve it. It is you who should be able to value your worth, despite what other people think.” Do you?
Well you move to the place where you living now. Where is it your apartemen? Who’s your next door girl? Hahaha…I think you may have to thinking about your living lifestyle. Of course that’s important for yourself and your relation. Maybe you would visited by your friend from New York or Paris…or event from your village neighbour. See what you got in your apartement. What the composition of furniture and so on are convenient for your home? You may have looking the product catalogue of furniture or merchandise to figure out your inspiration to make your place homing. Try to follow the changes of life style evolution by reading the best magazines to help you.
Thinks about your auto too. May be you want another experience with new auto car. What kind of your taste if you decide to buy a new hightech car. Still using old car with a brilliance modification of course, or Italian sports car, the Lamborghini Spyder, taking the already exotic vehicle and adding an even greater degree of individualisation, and with features such as the wing doors and a thoroughly sporty bodykit, the fettled model is automobilia at it finest. Which is your taste?
It is important to understand that life style not just spending your money with shooping attitudes. Psycologically, mode of life style give you a space where you can explores what your ideas to collaborates with a famous brand products. Surelly, you need an apreciation from people around you, with good point of course. In fact, everybody needed the best apreciation for their personalities. Self pricing motivated your moves in your life. Meanwhile you considering your goals and a kind of self achievement in your bussiness.
For some case, many of other people take the hard way reach they mode of life style even they got a million dollar. They confusing caused by they life style knowledge. Actually, life style does not a scientific knowledge. It is a million experiences of managing they personality within they self performance.
Life style improvement is really important for you, so have to considering this as if you want got your own life just like you want to be. Man is one of the superior man kind, perfectlly works, communicated, fashionable, good performance. Are you?
Even you got older now, it is nothing to deal with the time. Do what you wanted to do. See how your baby grown up; learn to stand up or steps. How you get an insurance for they future? I mean that your whole best performance life style affected you bussiness goals. So, I think you have a step forward about how to rising your benefit for the next day.
The other side of this article I want to say that your mode of performance really affected for your bussiness deal, real benefits, or even your other activities. Because not everyone knows or realized that performance is about how others looking of you in everwhere you are.
At the second point from Improving Self Esteem in 10 Simple Steps, Peter Murphy said about accomplishments, that is, “Aim for accomplishments and not perfection. There is nothing wrong in aiming for perfection - however, most of the people who failed in this goal ended up unhappy. Aim for accomplishment and enjoy doing it.” Enjoying what you doing is better than doing nothing. Take a chances, it may will never come back.
So if you got a desire to changes your life style, suddenlly, take it and do it well. Time is running out from your breath you know. If there are come a good chance to changes when you got money, good health, and at the best situation, you better doing that well as soon as possible before anyone else take that chances. Are you dares to changes your life style at this moment? (By Argus Firmansah)
Sunday, 18 November 2007
Are You A Fan's Of Catherine Zeta-Jones
Are you a fan’s of Catherine Zeta-Jones? Here I give you a news of about her as well. This articles was tittle as “A Woman We Love: Catherine Zeta-Jones” by Mike Sager in www.esquire.com, a famous male magazine since 1933, wroten at February 2nd last 2003; http://www.esquire.com/women/women-we-love/ESQ0203-FEB_ZETAJONES_rev
Here’s this the articles you needed to know about Catherine Zeta-Jones from Mike Sager, Esquire Magazine.
Catherine Zeta-Jones has three names, two long legs, one big voice, and a world at her feet. And she was a star long before she was anything else.
Black Peugeot With Tinted Windows purred along a narrow, winding road on the south shore of Bermuda, following impatiently behind a trio of puttering minivan taxis and a shiny red motor scooter--an impromptu convoy rolling at a stately twenty-five miles per hour past old stone walls, gracefully curved palm trees, and pastel-colored houses.
Turning right into a private drive, the Peugeot gunned up a steep incline onto the manicured grounds of the Ariel Sands resort. The first British subject washed up on the shores of this island nearly four hundred years ago, the victim of a shipwreck. Settlers began arriving in 1612; among the earliest was a man from Northern Ireland named Dill. In time, Dills would come to own most of the parish of Devonshire, just under two square miles, one tenth of the island. These days, the island is a haven for tourism and offshore banking. There is no income tax; houses sell regularly for $10 million. Listed in the phone book are more than one hundred Dills. Many of them are black or mulatto: the children of former slaves who took their owner's name upon emancipation.
The Peugeot crested the hill, pulled down and around the circular driveway. It came to a stop at the front portico of the precious pink building that serves as the main house of the resort, referred to hereabouts as a "cottage colony"--a full-service hotel and spa spread over fourteen acres of beachfront that was once a cedar forest. In 1954, after a cedar blight and a hurricane devastated the forest, the land was cleared and Ariel Sands was built by Sir Bayard Dill, a prominent lawyer. He named his place for the sprite in The Tempest, which Shakespeare is said to have based on a shipwreck off Bermuda.
The manager and the bellman tumbled out through the double doors, followed closely by a number of other employees, all of whom just happened to have been engaged in pressing duties in the vicinity of the lobby. The driver's door (the right side) of the Peugeot opened. Out stepped the latest in a long line of wealthy and powerful Dills, this one certainly the most universally known, the nephew of Sir Bayard Dill, the son of Diana Dill Douglas Darrid. . .?.
Rising to his full height, Michael Douglas appeared handsome and self-assured, almost royally erect, every inch the characters he has played over the years--the president, the master of the universe, the drug czar. His hair was thick. His clothes were remarkably crisp despite the heat and humidity. His chin was unmistakable, held high like a ship's prow, the same dimpled chin as his father's. During their youth, Michael and his brother summered at Ariel Sands. Now Michael is the majority shareholder. He also owns a 180-year-old estate nearby, the renovation of which is ongoing. Pictures of him with celebrity friends--Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Danny DeVito--adorn the piano bar.
The bellman opened the passenger door of the Peugeot. A hand emerged. It was poised and graceful, with skin the color of alabaster. On the ring finger was a ten-carat diamond. The bellman hesitated a moment, transfixed. It was a gorgeous specimen, exceedingly large yet still tasteful, a horizontal marquise cut in a vintage platinum setting. It sparkled in the sunlight. At last, the bellman collected himself. He took hold of the hand. He tugged.
Grunting a bit with effort, Catherine Zeta-Jones emerged from the passenger seat. Zeta (pronounced Zeeta) is a name she shares with her eighty-seven-year-old grandmother, who herself was named for a three-masted bark to which her own father had taken a fancy. Despite the weather, she was dressed in slimming black. The blouse had kicky peekaboo slits cut into the sleeves. The slits brought to mind that scene in The Mask of Zorro in which Antonio Banderas undressed her so expertly with his épée. Unlike her character, Catherine was now quite obviously pregnant, about three months along with her second child. Her trademark mane of raven hair was pinned up haphazardly. She rested the hand with the diamond upon her swollen belly. She placed the other hand on her lower back, the way pregnant women do.
"Hello!" I called. I was ten feet behind the car, on her side, maintaining what seemed like a respectful distance. Catherine pivoted and looked me over warily. She cut her eyes to Michael. He looked me over, too. As did the manager. "I'm from the magazine," I said, issuing a fey little wave.
Everyone smiled now, and Catherine minced toward me, parting the waters of the small sea of employees who'd gathered around to gawk. Her sculpted lips formed a welcoming smile. Her hazel eyes--the eyes of a baby doll, the kind that close when you lay it down to sleep--twinkled beautifully. She offered her right hand, the one without the ring. "It is a pleasure to meet you," she said. Her voice was musical in the way of the Welsh.
Twenty feet away, on the other side of the car, Michael rocked back on his heels, put his hands on his hips like you see him do in the movies. He cocked his head to the side, and then he pointed at me. It was a royal sort of gesture, one finger, aimed. "Be nice to my girl," he commanded.
Having Finished Our Lunch--seafood burgers and crispy french fries--Catherine and I settled into a pair of whitewashed chairs on the porch of a pink stucco cottage on the crest of the hill. The sun was bright; the air was redolent of salt and earth and flowers. Tree frogs sang in the underbrush.
Every morning for months, I had awakened to her face in large newspaper ads for a telecom company; in the evenings came the ads on TV. The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery--citing her "short delicate jaw with small chin and nose" and her "lavish lips, well-developed cheekbones and prominent eyes"--had named her its "ideal face of femininity." Her new film, Chicago--an adaptation of the Bob Fosse musical--was about to open, and it was already being touted by Miramax as an Oscar contender. Yet she was virtually unknown in America before the release of Zorro in 1998. It was as if she had appeared suddenly, like Venus herself, fully formed as a superstar.
"Lots of people think you won the lottery," I heard myself say. "It's like you married into Hollywood royalty."
She looked at me blandly. She sighed. "People think I came over on the boat with Zorro."
"I Started Dance Lessons at Age Four," she began, taking the clip out of her hair, regathering it. Her skin glowed. According to one report, she rubs a mixture of honey and salt all over her body to moisturize and exfoliate. "I was always singing and dancing and performing. Obviously, it was a show-off thing. I was a bit of a clown. I liked to make my dad laugh. I was Little Miss Showbiz, you know? Anything to get a laugh or a bit of attention.
"School would end, and I'd come home, do my homework, eat something, go to dance class, go to rehearsals. But it never felt like a chore. I loved it. I always wanted more. It's like somebody who's a great swimmer, I think. I just knew that I was good at this and that's what I wanted to do. My parents weren't stage parents. I didn't need someone to put me in a pretty dress and stand in the wings and tell me, 'Okay, baby, go out there and smile.' I knew on my own that I had to smile. When I was eleven, I won the British national tap-dance championship.
"The first time I got paid, I did Annie in the West End. It was four hours by train from Mumbles, the little fishing village where I grew up in South Wales. It was grand--the Victoria Palace Theatre, and me living in a flat with all the other kids and two chaperones. I grew up pretty quick--twelve going on twenty-two. It was bound to happen. I had responsibilities, you know? I had to do my schooling. I had to turn up at the theater on time and remember my lines. Eight shows a week. We were all the same blinkin' one-track-mind kids, all of us dreaming about being stars someday. We were the country's best child performers. And, boy, did we know it! We were like Gene Kelly, you know?"
And here she spread her arms theatrically and lifted her chin and sang: "Got-ta daaaaaaaance!"
The sound was surprisingly rich and full, belted out from the gut, just this side of Ethel Merman. I may have been visibly shaken. She looked at me and smirked, as if to say, Take that.
"My first big break came when I was in 42nd Street. I was fifteen. I had quit school. You can only be a child actress for so long. I went from being the lead to literally queuing up like a cattle market to get an audition for the chorus. But I was very focused. Performing was my life. I was very athletic, dancerlike, skinny. I had really big hair--a bit of the ol' Farrah Fawcett going on, I'm afraid. I was living with a single mom who had been one of my tutors. For somebody who had been away from home for so long, there was still something very innocent about me. I wasn't chasing boys. I wasn't aware of attraction or seduction or anything like that. In my mind, I was still this kid chasing her dreams. I was a hoofer, a chorus girl. And I was the second understudy to the lead."
She paused a moment and looked out toward the horizon. The wind had kicked up. The ocean was frothy with whitecaps.
"One night," she continued, "the lead girl hurt her knee. The first understudy was on holiday in Gambia with her boyfriend, on the west coast of Africa. They came to me in the afternoon and said I was going on that night. I was like"--and here she sang out again--"This is my mo-mennnnnnt!
"It was like my life was the musical and this was my big scene. As it turned out, David Merrick, the producer, was in the audience that night. He liked me. He gave me the lead."
I looked at her and she shrugged.
"It sounds like I made it up, I know, but it's true. I played Peggy Sawyer for three years, eight shows a week. By the time I turned nineteen, I was ready to hang up my dance shoes."
The Waiter Came And Got The Dishes. He was very happy to see her. Last Christmas, Michael and Catherine arranged for his parents to sit front center at The Lion King on Broadway. He poured her a glass of warm bubbly water. Clouds began to gather in the middle distance; by nightfall there would be showers. Catherine elevated her feet. Her ankle boots were a shimmery purple-black, pointy-toed with fun little heels. She unzipped them.
"The Darling Buds of May was one of the most successful British TV shows of all time," she said. "The nation just went nuts for it. It started its run right after the Gulf war, and I think it was just a breath of fresh air for the country. It was set in the fifties; it had a nostalgia to it. It was basically a show about a larger-than-life family who didn't pay taxes, who drink and eat and have sex. I was Mariette Larkin, the eldest daughter of six kids. She was this man fantasy: big bra, big boobs, 1950s dresses, and jodhpurs. Me strutting around in jodhpurs and high boots--you can imagine. But it was very innocent and charming at the same time. And everyone always said that everything was 'perfick.' That was the punch line of the show, perfick. It fairly well got to the point after three years where, if one more person yelled out 'Perfick!' to me on the street, I'd have beat 'em to a pulp.
"I was very popular with the tabloids. Hunted would be a good term. I felt hunted. Everywhere I went, there were paparazzi jumping out of the bushes. One time they rigged video cameras outside my front door. Not long before Princess Diana was killed, the paparazzi were chasing me on motorbikes, and I wrapped my little Mazda Miata around a lamppost. I could go on and on about the British press. I'll just leave it at that."
"And then," I interrupted, "there were those well-publicized affairs with--"
"Oh, look!" She clasped her hands before her in delight. "There's my baby!" she said, chirping like a motherbird.
"There's my little boy with his nanny!"
Toddling up the hill was Dylan, age two. He is blond, with that unmistakable dimple in his chin. The nanny is a young African-American woman. She has the sunny, intelligent vibe of an underemployed college graduate working for a movie star.
Catherine swept the boy up into her lap. "You gonna come gimme a snuggle buggle?" She covered him with kisses, one hand planted firmly on his bum. "Did you have lunch?"
"I eat," Dylan said.
"Is Dada down dere?"
"Dada!"
"Who'd you have lunch with?"
"A lady."
Catherine looked at the nanny, mock serious. "His father's with a lady?" She turned back to Dylan. Her brow wrinkled. "Which lady?" she asked.
Dylan studied her a moment. He wrinkled his own brow. "Man," he said.
"A man?"
"A man that eats!" Dylan trilled. And then he threw back his head and giggled and clapped his hands, thoroughly taken with himself.
"People would ask, 'What have I seen you in?'?" Catherine was saying, talking about her early years in Hollywood. "And I would say, 'Well, I did this little show on the telly in Britain.' My plan was to take things easy and pick the right roles. I had a little money; I didn't have to work right away. Then I got the chance to do the TV version of Titanic. Goddamn Kate Winslet had the movie! But I figured I could use the experience.
"The night Titanic played on the telly, Steven Spielberg was at home, flipping through the channels. The next thing I knew I was in Mexico City, screen-testing for Zorro. Michael likes to say that Spielberg is the David Merrick of his time, so there's a nice little balance there, I guess.
"The first time I met Michael was at the Deauville Film Festival, in the fall of 1998. Zorro had been released that summer. He had seen it at a private screening; his mother and his father were with him. He says he fell in love with me the first time he saw me onscreen. The first time I saw him was in the hotel lobby in Deauville. He walked right past me, carrying his golf clubs.
"That night, at a dinner, they put us at the same table. We found out we had the same birthday, September 25. That was hilarious; it started things off. And then for a long time nobody really knew anything about us, until we were at his house in Spain. It's a beautiful place in Majorca, very remote. And yet they still find access, the paparazzi, even if they have to rappel down the goddamn mountain. They photographed me and Michael kissing. It was all over the newsstands. And, yes, I was topless and on top of him!"
I closed my eyes chastely and made a show of waving off the image.
She continued unprompted: "When my father and Michael first met, he said to Michael, 'What were you doing with my daughter in Spain and she's topless?' And Michael said to my dad, 'Well, you know, David, I'm just glad she was on top, since gravity works better for her than it does me!'?" She laughed out loud. Her hazel eyes danced. "They've got on tremendously ever since!"
We strolled together down the hill, over the soft Bermuda grass. Michael was at the poolside bar, sitting at a table with the hotel manager, drinking espresso and a shot of black rum, smoking a large cigar. Dylan was playing in the sand with his nanny and with Michael's other son, Cameron, twenty-four, wiry and shaggy-haired, with dark-framed glasses and tattoos. When Cameron's mother was asked for her reaction to Michael's engagement to Catherine, twenty-five years his junior, she told The Times of London, "Before Michael can marry, he has to divorce me--or become a Muslim so he can have two wives." News reports estimated the divorce settlement at between $50 and $100 million.
Now, with the late-afternoon sun glowing orange behind a cloud, Catherine sat slumped and splay-legged at a weathered teak table, both hands resting upon her belly, a flute of expensive champagne bubbling before her. She stared out contentedly into the middle distance. Just recently she signed a seven-figure contract to be the face of Elizabeth Arden. Chicago will soon be in theaters, a showcase for all her years of musical training. Intolerable Cruelty, with George Clooney, is due next. Not to mention the impending birth.
Sitting there next to her, I thought of something she'd said earlier, in response to something I'd asked. It was corny, I know, but I had to ask her: "Do you ever feel like Cinderella?" She looked at me straightaway, didn't stumble over her words.
"Yes," she said, "there is a Cinderella aspect to my life, but I swept a lot of cinders, too. When other girls my age were playing with dolls, I was worrying about what the local critics were going to write in newspapers about me. When other girls my age wanted to get laid or get drunk or stand on street corners and smoke cigarettes, I was thinking that I need to get to the theater on time for the matinee. It was just a constant thing, but I was doing what I wanted to do. I don't know where this drive of mine came from.
"Me and Michael, we sometimes sing to each other. We find ourselves in these moments, you know? Something's happening and we just look at each other, and it's just, like, pinch me, can you believe this?"
And then she began to sing again, raising her hands in the air like a West End hoofer selling the grand finale, the big number, singing her heart out, like her life was the musical and this was her big scene:
"If they could see me now!"
See more Woman We Love at: http://www.esquire.com/
Here’s this the articles you needed to know about Catherine Zeta-Jones from Mike Sager, Esquire Magazine.
Catherine Zeta-Jones has three names, two long legs, one big voice, and a world at her feet. And she was a star long before she was anything else.
Black Peugeot With Tinted Windows purred along a narrow, winding road on the south shore of Bermuda, following impatiently behind a trio of puttering minivan taxis and a shiny red motor scooter--an impromptu convoy rolling at a stately twenty-five miles per hour past old stone walls, gracefully curved palm trees, and pastel-colored houses.
Turning right into a private drive, the Peugeot gunned up a steep incline onto the manicured grounds of the Ariel Sands resort. The first British subject washed up on the shores of this island nearly four hundred years ago, the victim of a shipwreck. Settlers began arriving in 1612; among the earliest was a man from Northern Ireland named Dill. In time, Dills would come to own most of the parish of Devonshire, just under two square miles, one tenth of the island. These days, the island is a haven for tourism and offshore banking. There is no income tax; houses sell regularly for $10 million. Listed in the phone book are more than one hundred Dills. Many of them are black or mulatto: the children of former slaves who took their owner's name upon emancipation.
The Peugeot crested the hill, pulled down and around the circular driveway. It came to a stop at the front portico of the precious pink building that serves as the main house of the resort, referred to hereabouts as a "cottage colony"--a full-service hotel and spa spread over fourteen acres of beachfront that was once a cedar forest. In 1954, after a cedar blight and a hurricane devastated the forest, the land was cleared and Ariel Sands was built by Sir Bayard Dill, a prominent lawyer. He named his place for the sprite in The Tempest, which Shakespeare is said to have based on a shipwreck off Bermuda.
The manager and the bellman tumbled out through the double doors, followed closely by a number of other employees, all of whom just happened to have been engaged in pressing duties in the vicinity of the lobby. The driver's door (the right side) of the Peugeot opened. Out stepped the latest in a long line of wealthy and powerful Dills, this one certainly the most universally known, the nephew of Sir Bayard Dill, the son of Diana Dill Douglas Darrid. . .?.
Rising to his full height, Michael Douglas appeared handsome and self-assured, almost royally erect, every inch the characters he has played over the years--the president, the master of the universe, the drug czar. His hair was thick. His clothes were remarkably crisp despite the heat and humidity. His chin was unmistakable, held high like a ship's prow, the same dimpled chin as his father's. During their youth, Michael and his brother summered at Ariel Sands. Now Michael is the majority shareholder. He also owns a 180-year-old estate nearby, the renovation of which is ongoing. Pictures of him with celebrity friends--Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Danny DeVito--adorn the piano bar.
The bellman opened the passenger door of the Peugeot. A hand emerged. It was poised and graceful, with skin the color of alabaster. On the ring finger was a ten-carat diamond. The bellman hesitated a moment, transfixed. It was a gorgeous specimen, exceedingly large yet still tasteful, a horizontal marquise cut in a vintage platinum setting. It sparkled in the sunlight. At last, the bellman collected himself. He took hold of the hand. He tugged.
Grunting a bit with effort, Catherine Zeta-Jones emerged from the passenger seat. Zeta (pronounced Zeeta) is a name she shares with her eighty-seven-year-old grandmother, who herself was named for a three-masted bark to which her own father had taken a fancy. Despite the weather, she was dressed in slimming black. The blouse had kicky peekaboo slits cut into the sleeves. The slits brought to mind that scene in The Mask of Zorro in which Antonio Banderas undressed her so expertly with his épée. Unlike her character, Catherine was now quite obviously pregnant, about three months along with her second child. Her trademark mane of raven hair was pinned up haphazardly. She rested the hand with the diamond upon her swollen belly. She placed the other hand on her lower back, the way pregnant women do.
"Hello!" I called. I was ten feet behind the car, on her side, maintaining what seemed like a respectful distance. Catherine pivoted and looked me over warily. She cut her eyes to Michael. He looked me over, too. As did the manager. "I'm from the magazine," I said, issuing a fey little wave.
Everyone smiled now, and Catherine minced toward me, parting the waters of the small sea of employees who'd gathered around to gawk. Her sculpted lips formed a welcoming smile. Her hazel eyes--the eyes of a baby doll, the kind that close when you lay it down to sleep--twinkled beautifully. She offered her right hand, the one without the ring. "It is a pleasure to meet you," she said. Her voice was musical in the way of the Welsh.
Twenty feet away, on the other side of the car, Michael rocked back on his heels, put his hands on his hips like you see him do in the movies. He cocked his head to the side, and then he pointed at me. It was a royal sort of gesture, one finger, aimed. "Be nice to my girl," he commanded.
Having Finished Our Lunch--seafood burgers and crispy french fries--Catherine and I settled into a pair of whitewashed chairs on the porch of a pink stucco cottage on the crest of the hill. The sun was bright; the air was redolent of salt and earth and flowers. Tree frogs sang in the underbrush.
Every morning for months, I had awakened to her face in large newspaper ads for a telecom company; in the evenings came the ads on TV. The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery--citing her "short delicate jaw with small chin and nose" and her "lavish lips, well-developed cheekbones and prominent eyes"--had named her its "ideal face of femininity." Her new film, Chicago--an adaptation of the Bob Fosse musical--was about to open, and it was already being touted by Miramax as an Oscar contender. Yet she was virtually unknown in America before the release of Zorro in 1998. It was as if she had appeared suddenly, like Venus herself, fully formed as a superstar.
"Lots of people think you won the lottery," I heard myself say. "It's like you married into Hollywood royalty."
She looked at me blandly. She sighed. "People think I came over on the boat with Zorro."
"I Started Dance Lessons at Age Four," she began, taking the clip out of her hair, regathering it. Her skin glowed. According to one report, she rubs a mixture of honey and salt all over her body to moisturize and exfoliate. "I was always singing and dancing and performing. Obviously, it was a show-off thing. I was a bit of a clown. I liked to make my dad laugh. I was Little Miss Showbiz, you know? Anything to get a laugh or a bit of attention.
"School would end, and I'd come home, do my homework, eat something, go to dance class, go to rehearsals. But it never felt like a chore. I loved it. I always wanted more. It's like somebody who's a great swimmer, I think. I just knew that I was good at this and that's what I wanted to do. My parents weren't stage parents. I didn't need someone to put me in a pretty dress and stand in the wings and tell me, 'Okay, baby, go out there and smile.' I knew on my own that I had to smile. When I was eleven, I won the British national tap-dance championship.
"The first time I got paid, I did Annie in the West End. It was four hours by train from Mumbles, the little fishing village where I grew up in South Wales. It was grand--the Victoria Palace Theatre, and me living in a flat with all the other kids and two chaperones. I grew up pretty quick--twelve going on twenty-two. It was bound to happen. I had responsibilities, you know? I had to do my schooling. I had to turn up at the theater on time and remember my lines. Eight shows a week. We were all the same blinkin' one-track-mind kids, all of us dreaming about being stars someday. We were the country's best child performers. And, boy, did we know it! We were like Gene Kelly, you know?"
And here she spread her arms theatrically and lifted her chin and sang: "Got-ta daaaaaaaance!"
The sound was surprisingly rich and full, belted out from the gut, just this side of Ethel Merman. I may have been visibly shaken. She looked at me and smirked, as if to say, Take that.
"My first big break came when I was in 42nd Street. I was fifteen. I had quit school. You can only be a child actress for so long. I went from being the lead to literally queuing up like a cattle market to get an audition for the chorus. But I was very focused. Performing was my life. I was very athletic, dancerlike, skinny. I had really big hair--a bit of the ol' Farrah Fawcett going on, I'm afraid. I was living with a single mom who had been one of my tutors. For somebody who had been away from home for so long, there was still something very innocent about me. I wasn't chasing boys. I wasn't aware of attraction or seduction or anything like that. In my mind, I was still this kid chasing her dreams. I was a hoofer, a chorus girl. And I was the second understudy to the lead."
She paused a moment and looked out toward the horizon. The wind had kicked up. The ocean was frothy with whitecaps.
"One night," she continued, "the lead girl hurt her knee. The first understudy was on holiday in Gambia with her boyfriend, on the west coast of Africa. They came to me in the afternoon and said I was going on that night. I was like"--and here she sang out again--"This is my mo-mennnnnnt!
"It was like my life was the musical and this was my big scene. As it turned out, David Merrick, the producer, was in the audience that night. He liked me. He gave me the lead."
I looked at her and she shrugged.
"It sounds like I made it up, I know, but it's true. I played Peggy Sawyer for three years, eight shows a week. By the time I turned nineteen, I was ready to hang up my dance shoes."
The Waiter Came And Got The Dishes. He was very happy to see her. Last Christmas, Michael and Catherine arranged for his parents to sit front center at The Lion King on Broadway. He poured her a glass of warm bubbly water. Clouds began to gather in the middle distance; by nightfall there would be showers. Catherine elevated her feet. Her ankle boots were a shimmery purple-black, pointy-toed with fun little heels. She unzipped them.
"The Darling Buds of May was one of the most successful British TV shows of all time," she said. "The nation just went nuts for it. It started its run right after the Gulf war, and I think it was just a breath of fresh air for the country. It was set in the fifties; it had a nostalgia to it. It was basically a show about a larger-than-life family who didn't pay taxes, who drink and eat and have sex. I was Mariette Larkin, the eldest daughter of six kids. She was this man fantasy: big bra, big boobs, 1950s dresses, and jodhpurs. Me strutting around in jodhpurs and high boots--you can imagine. But it was very innocent and charming at the same time. And everyone always said that everything was 'perfick.' That was the punch line of the show, perfick. It fairly well got to the point after three years where, if one more person yelled out 'Perfick!' to me on the street, I'd have beat 'em to a pulp.
"I was very popular with the tabloids. Hunted would be a good term. I felt hunted. Everywhere I went, there were paparazzi jumping out of the bushes. One time they rigged video cameras outside my front door. Not long before Princess Diana was killed, the paparazzi were chasing me on motorbikes, and I wrapped my little Mazda Miata around a lamppost. I could go on and on about the British press. I'll just leave it at that."
"And then," I interrupted, "there were those well-publicized affairs with--"
"Oh, look!" She clasped her hands before her in delight. "There's my baby!" she said, chirping like a motherbird.
"There's my little boy with his nanny!"
Toddling up the hill was Dylan, age two. He is blond, with that unmistakable dimple in his chin. The nanny is a young African-American woman. She has the sunny, intelligent vibe of an underemployed college graduate working for a movie star.
Catherine swept the boy up into her lap. "You gonna come gimme a snuggle buggle?" She covered him with kisses, one hand planted firmly on his bum. "Did you have lunch?"
"I eat," Dylan said.
"Is Dada down dere?"
"Dada!"
"Who'd you have lunch with?"
"A lady."
Catherine looked at the nanny, mock serious. "His father's with a lady?" She turned back to Dylan. Her brow wrinkled. "Which lady?" she asked.
Dylan studied her a moment. He wrinkled his own brow. "Man," he said.
"A man?"
"A man that eats!" Dylan trilled. And then he threw back his head and giggled and clapped his hands, thoroughly taken with himself.
"People would ask, 'What have I seen you in?'?" Catherine was saying, talking about her early years in Hollywood. "And I would say, 'Well, I did this little show on the telly in Britain.' My plan was to take things easy and pick the right roles. I had a little money; I didn't have to work right away. Then I got the chance to do the TV version of Titanic. Goddamn Kate Winslet had the movie! But I figured I could use the experience.
"The night Titanic played on the telly, Steven Spielberg was at home, flipping through the channels. The next thing I knew I was in Mexico City, screen-testing for Zorro. Michael likes to say that Spielberg is the David Merrick of his time, so there's a nice little balance there, I guess.
"The first time I met Michael was at the Deauville Film Festival, in the fall of 1998. Zorro had been released that summer. He had seen it at a private screening; his mother and his father were with him. He says he fell in love with me the first time he saw me onscreen. The first time I saw him was in the hotel lobby in Deauville. He walked right past me, carrying his golf clubs.
"That night, at a dinner, they put us at the same table. We found out we had the same birthday, September 25. That was hilarious; it started things off. And then for a long time nobody really knew anything about us, until we were at his house in Spain. It's a beautiful place in Majorca, very remote. And yet they still find access, the paparazzi, even if they have to rappel down the goddamn mountain. They photographed me and Michael kissing. It was all over the newsstands. And, yes, I was topless and on top of him!"
I closed my eyes chastely and made a show of waving off the image.
She continued unprompted: "When my father and Michael first met, he said to Michael, 'What were you doing with my daughter in Spain and she's topless?' And Michael said to my dad, 'Well, you know, David, I'm just glad she was on top, since gravity works better for her than it does me!'?" She laughed out loud. Her hazel eyes danced. "They've got on tremendously ever since!"
We strolled together down the hill, over the soft Bermuda grass. Michael was at the poolside bar, sitting at a table with the hotel manager, drinking espresso and a shot of black rum, smoking a large cigar. Dylan was playing in the sand with his nanny and with Michael's other son, Cameron, twenty-four, wiry and shaggy-haired, with dark-framed glasses and tattoos. When Cameron's mother was asked for her reaction to Michael's engagement to Catherine, twenty-five years his junior, she told The Times of London, "Before Michael can marry, he has to divorce me--or become a Muslim so he can have two wives." News reports estimated the divorce settlement at between $50 and $100 million.
Now, with the late-afternoon sun glowing orange behind a cloud, Catherine sat slumped and splay-legged at a weathered teak table, both hands resting upon her belly, a flute of expensive champagne bubbling before her. She stared out contentedly into the middle distance. Just recently she signed a seven-figure contract to be the face of Elizabeth Arden. Chicago will soon be in theaters, a showcase for all her years of musical training. Intolerable Cruelty, with George Clooney, is due next. Not to mention the impending birth.
Sitting there next to her, I thought of something she'd said earlier, in response to something I'd asked. It was corny, I know, but I had to ask her: "Do you ever feel like Cinderella?" She looked at me straightaway, didn't stumble over her words.
"Yes," she said, "there is a Cinderella aspect to my life, but I swept a lot of cinders, too. When other girls my age were playing with dolls, I was worrying about what the local critics were going to write in newspapers about me. When other girls my age wanted to get laid or get drunk or stand on street corners and smoke cigarettes, I was thinking that I need to get to the theater on time for the matinee. It was just a constant thing, but I was doing what I wanted to do. I don't know where this drive of mine came from.
"Me and Michael, we sometimes sing to each other. We find ourselves in these moments, you know? Something's happening and we just look at each other, and it's just, like, pinch me, can you believe this?"
And then she began to sing again, raising her hands in the air like a West End hoofer selling the grand finale, the big number, singing her heart out, like her life was the musical and this was her big scene:
"If they could see me now!"
See more Woman We Love at: http://www.esquire.com/
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Situ Gunung, Hadiah Mbah Jalun
Pemandangannya Indah dan Hutannya Alami
SUKABUMI memiliki banyak objek wisata yang sangat menarik untuk dikunjungi. Mulai dari pantai hingga pegunungan. Palabuhanratu, salah satu objek yang boleh dikatakan tak asing lagi bagi wisatawan domestik maupun luar negeri. Namun, masih banyak pilihan lain yang lebih menarik bahkan menantang, terutama bagi kawula muda. Salah satu objek wisata yang tak kalah banyak dikunjungi wisatawan adalah Situ Gunung.
Situs wisata Situ Gunung berada di Desa Gedepangrango, Kecamatan Kadudampit, Kabupaten Sukabumi. Lokasinya hanya berjarak sekitar 15 km dari Kota Sukabumi. Situ Gunung memiliki daya tarik yang khas selain keasrian dan kealamian ekosistem alamnya. Pemandangan hutan yang menghijau dan kesejukan udaranya menjadi magnet tersendiri bagi pengunjung. Di sana terdapat danau legenda yang dinamakan Situ Gunung serta air terjun alami yang dikenal dengan nama Curug Sawer dan Curug Cimanaracun.
Selain merupakan wisata alam, Situ Gunung juga memiliki potensi wisata budaya. Ada legenda yang cukup menarik untuk diketahui, yaitu legenda danau buatan Situ Gunung.
Konon, dari keterangan Ibu Iece Mariati (nama Belandanya Helma Victoar), putri Dr. Max Bartels (pengelola pertama kawasan Situ Gunung), danau Situ Gunung bukanlah danau alami. Pada akhir abad 18 adalah Rangga Jagad Syahdana, lebih dikenal dengan nama Mbah Jalun, seorang buronan pemerintah Kolonial Belanda. Mbah Jalun dianggap penentang pemerintah kolonial di tanah Jawa.Ia dicari oleh pemerintah kolonial dari daerah Jawa Tengah, karena Mbah Jalun merupakan keturunan raja-raja Mataram.
Mbah Jalun lari dari Jawa Tengah menuju ke barat hingga sampailah ke daerah Gunung Gede Pangrango, Sukabumi sekitar tahun 1811. Untuk menghindari pengejaran pemerintah kolonial, Mbah Jalun menembus hutan rimba di Gunung Gede Pangrango. Rencananya ia hendak melarikan diri ke daerah Banten. Di dalam persembunyiannya, Mbah Jalun beserta keluarga dan pengikutnya bersembunyi di kaki Gunung Masigit. Dalam pelariannya, Mbah Jalun menikahi seorang wanita dari daerah Kuningan, Jawa Barat.
Pada 1914 lahirlah putra Mbah Jalun yang diberi nama Rangga Jaka Lulunta yang artinya seorang anak laki-laki yang lahir dalam perjalanan. Nama putra pertamanya itu merupakan simbol Mbah Jalun yang terus melakukan perjalanan guna menghindari penangkapan pemerintah kolonial.
Mbah Jalun begitu sayang kepada Rangga sehingga ia ingin memberikan hadiah kepada putra pertamanya itu. Ketika istrinya pergi ke Desa Pasir Tugu, Mbah Jalun menggali tanah di kaki Gunung Masigit. Dengan kekuatan supranatural yang dimiliki, dalam waktu 7 hari 6 malam Mbah Jalun terus menggali hingga terbentuklah sebuah danau yang kemudian dinamakan Situ Gunung. Danau tersebut dialiri air dari Curug Cimanaracun.
Danau Situ Gunung kemudian menjadi tempat rekreasi keluarga Mbah Jalun beserta pengikutnya. Menurut keterangan Dadi Sunardi, warga Pasir Tugu yang bekerja sebagai staf pengelola kawasan wisata Situ Gunung, Mbah Jalun pernah berwasiat kepada keluarga dan pengikutnya, agar danau yang dibuatnya dijadikan tempat rekreasi untuk anak cucunya.
Tahun 1840 pemerintah kolonial mengetahui keberadaan danau Situ Gunung sekaligus mencium keberadaan Mbah Jalun. Setelah Mbah Jalun ditangkap dan akan dihukum gantung di daerah Cisaat (kini bangunan itu menjadi Kantor Polsek Cisaat), kawasan Situ Gunung diambil alih oleh pemerintah Kolonial untuk dijadikan tempat rekreasi noni-noni Belanda waktu itu.
Namun Mbah Jalun dapat meloloskan diri dari penjara pemerintah kolonial. Konon, Mbah Jalun meninggal di daerah Bogor namun tempat peristirahatan terakhirnya dirahasiakan. Mbah Jalun wafat dalam usia 71 tahun karena sakit. Pengelola pertama kawasan wisata alam Situ Gunung adalah M.E.G. Bartels pada tahun 1930-1942. Pada waktu itu ia menyamar jadi ahli perhutanan, padahal ia adalah seorang ahli Biologi dari Jerman. Bartels jugalah yang menemukan spesies burung Elang Jawa (Spizaitus bartelsi) untuk kali pertama. Waktu itu ia menjabat sebagai Kepala Administrateur Perhutanan dan tinggal di Desa Pasir Datar.
**
KAWASAN wisata alam Situ Gunung memiliki keanekaragaman flora dan fauna yang dilindungi oleh Taman Nasional Balai Besar wilayah Sukabumi. Kekayaan flora di kawasan Situ Gunung antara lain pohon saninten, damar, rasamala, dan puspa yang menjadi flora kategori produktif. Sedangkan jenis fauna yang ada di sana antara lain menjangan, habi hutan, elang jawa, monyet/owa, dan lain-lain.
Kawasan ini dapat menjadi alternatif wisata bagi remaja dan keluarga. Selain mudah diakses, bagi wisatawan yang ingin lebih lama menikmati panorama alam di utara Sukabumi dapat memilih penginapan atau vila yang tersebar di sekitar kawasan wisata Situ Gunung dan kawasan wisata Cinumpang.
Bahkan bisa juga menginap di wisma Situ Gunung yang harganya relatif ringan. Wisma Situ Gunung berada di utara danau Situ Gunung, berjarak 500 meter dari danau. Suasana terasa begitu asri dengan pohon-pohon damar yang ada di sekelilingnya.
Pagi harinya, wisatawan dapat melihat keindahan Situ Gunung dengan duduk di bale-bale depan wisma yang menghadap ke danau. Wisatawan akan merasakan kenyamanan berwisata ala noni-noni Belanda pada akhir abad 18 di Indonesia.
Wisatawan Situ Gunung juga dapat menikmati kesejukan hutan produktif yang mengelilingi danau dengan berjalan kaki di Jogging Track. Pengunjung juga dapat menyewa rakit (perahu dari susunan bambu) atau perahu kanu dengan harga relatif murah. Pesona danau yang asri dikelilingi pepohonan besar, dahan yang merambat bak rambut tebal bisa dilihat dari tengah danau. Suasana romatis nan damai dapat dirasakan saat mengelilingi danau.
Istirahat sejenak di pinggir danau sambil menikmati kesejukan udara dan keindahan Situ Gunung juga bukan pilihan yang salah. Makan siang bersama kerabat, keluarga atau pasangan banyak dilakukan wisatawan di pinggir danau. Suasana akrab dan santai memang tujuan wisatawan dengan berkumpul sambil berbincang-bincang di sana. Masyarakat yang sering berkunjung ke danau ini menyebutnya botram, atau piknik. Artinya, makan bersama keluarga dengan menu khas Sunda dengan duduk di atas rumput beralaskan tikar.
Masyarakat di sekitar kawasan wisata banyak yang memanfaatkan waktu luang mereka dengan memancing di Situ Gunung. Berbagai jenis ikan dapat dipancing secara gratis, antara lain bawal hitam, ikan mas dan ikan lainnya dengan bobot rata-rata 2.000-1.5000 gram
Kawasan wisata Situ Gunung juga sering digunakan sebagai arena perkemahan bagi anak-anak muda yang hobi menjelajah hutan belantara. Wisatawan yang pernah berkunjung ke kawasan Situ Gunung biasanya akan datang lagi ke kawasan ini. Kebanyakan beralasan karena kawasan wisata alam Situ Gunung memberikan suasana alami. Keaslian alam di Situ Gunung diawasi oleh taman nasional sehingga sebagai sebuah ekosistem, Situ Gunung terpelihara dengan cukup baik. Itulah sebabnya kawasan wisata alam Situ Gunung tak banyak berubah dari tahun ke tahun. [Dimuat di HU Pikiran Rakyat, 10 November 2007] (Argus Firmansah/penulis/wartawan lepas tinggal di Bandung)
Read More on
http://www.pikiran-rakyat.com/cetak/2007/112007/10/11pariwisata01.htm
SUKABUMI memiliki banyak objek wisata yang sangat menarik untuk dikunjungi. Mulai dari pantai hingga pegunungan. Palabuhanratu, salah satu objek yang boleh dikatakan tak asing lagi bagi wisatawan domestik maupun luar negeri. Namun, masih banyak pilihan lain yang lebih menarik bahkan menantang, terutama bagi kawula muda. Salah satu objek wisata yang tak kalah banyak dikunjungi wisatawan adalah Situ Gunung.
Situs wisata Situ Gunung berada di Desa Gedepangrango, Kecamatan Kadudampit, Kabupaten Sukabumi. Lokasinya hanya berjarak sekitar 15 km dari Kota Sukabumi. Situ Gunung memiliki daya tarik yang khas selain keasrian dan kealamian ekosistem alamnya. Pemandangan hutan yang menghijau dan kesejukan udaranya menjadi magnet tersendiri bagi pengunjung. Di sana terdapat danau legenda yang dinamakan Situ Gunung serta air terjun alami yang dikenal dengan nama Curug Sawer dan Curug Cimanaracun.
Selain merupakan wisata alam, Situ Gunung juga memiliki potensi wisata budaya. Ada legenda yang cukup menarik untuk diketahui, yaitu legenda danau buatan Situ Gunung.
Konon, dari keterangan Ibu Iece Mariati (nama Belandanya Helma Victoar), putri Dr. Max Bartels (pengelola pertama kawasan Situ Gunung), danau Situ Gunung bukanlah danau alami. Pada akhir abad 18 adalah Rangga Jagad Syahdana, lebih dikenal dengan nama Mbah Jalun, seorang buronan pemerintah Kolonial Belanda. Mbah Jalun dianggap penentang pemerintah kolonial di tanah Jawa.Ia dicari oleh pemerintah kolonial dari daerah Jawa Tengah, karena Mbah Jalun merupakan keturunan raja-raja Mataram.
Mbah Jalun lari dari Jawa Tengah menuju ke barat hingga sampailah ke daerah Gunung Gede Pangrango, Sukabumi sekitar tahun 1811. Untuk menghindari pengejaran pemerintah kolonial, Mbah Jalun menembus hutan rimba di Gunung Gede Pangrango. Rencananya ia hendak melarikan diri ke daerah Banten. Di dalam persembunyiannya, Mbah Jalun beserta keluarga dan pengikutnya bersembunyi di kaki Gunung Masigit. Dalam pelariannya, Mbah Jalun menikahi seorang wanita dari daerah Kuningan, Jawa Barat.
Pada 1914 lahirlah putra Mbah Jalun yang diberi nama Rangga Jaka Lulunta yang artinya seorang anak laki-laki yang lahir dalam perjalanan. Nama putra pertamanya itu merupakan simbol Mbah Jalun yang terus melakukan perjalanan guna menghindari penangkapan pemerintah kolonial.
Mbah Jalun begitu sayang kepada Rangga sehingga ia ingin memberikan hadiah kepada putra pertamanya itu. Ketika istrinya pergi ke Desa Pasir Tugu, Mbah Jalun menggali tanah di kaki Gunung Masigit. Dengan kekuatan supranatural yang dimiliki, dalam waktu 7 hari 6 malam Mbah Jalun terus menggali hingga terbentuklah sebuah danau yang kemudian dinamakan Situ Gunung. Danau tersebut dialiri air dari Curug Cimanaracun.
Danau Situ Gunung kemudian menjadi tempat rekreasi keluarga Mbah Jalun beserta pengikutnya. Menurut keterangan Dadi Sunardi, warga Pasir Tugu yang bekerja sebagai staf pengelola kawasan wisata Situ Gunung, Mbah Jalun pernah berwasiat kepada keluarga dan pengikutnya, agar danau yang dibuatnya dijadikan tempat rekreasi untuk anak cucunya.
Tahun 1840 pemerintah kolonial mengetahui keberadaan danau Situ Gunung sekaligus mencium keberadaan Mbah Jalun. Setelah Mbah Jalun ditangkap dan akan dihukum gantung di daerah Cisaat (kini bangunan itu menjadi Kantor Polsek Cisaat), kawasan Situ Gunung diambil alih oleh pemerintah Kolonial untuk dijadikan tempat rekreasi noni-noni Belanda waktu itu.
Namun Mbah Jalun dapat meloloskan diri dari penjara pemerintah kolonial. Konon, Mbah Jalun meninggal di daerah Bogor namun tempat peristirahatan terakhirnya dirahasiakan. Mbah Jalun wafat dalam usia 71 tahun karena sakit. Pengelola pertama kawasan wisata alam Situ Gunung adalah M.E.G. Bartels pada tahun 1930-1942. Pada waktu itu ia menyamar jadi ahli perhutanan, padahal ia adalah seorang ahli Biologi dari Jerman. Bartels jugalah yang menemukan spesies burung Elang Jawa (Spizaitus bartelsi) untuk kali pertama. Waktu itu ia menjabat sebagai Kepala Administrateur Perhutanan dan tinggal di Desa Pasir Datar.
**
KAWASAN wisata alam Situ Gunung memiliki keanekaragaman flora dan fauna yang dilindungi oleh Taman Nasional Balai Besar wilayah Sukabumi. Kekayaan flora di kawasan Situ Gunung antara lain pohon saninten, damar, rasamala, dan puspa yang menjadi flora kategori produktif. Sedangkan jenis fauna yang ada di sana antara lain menjangan, habi hutan, elang jawa, monyet/owa, dan lain-lain.
Kawasan ini dapat menjadi alternatif wisata bagi remaja dan keluarga. Selain mudah diakses, bagi wisatawan yang ingin lebih lama menikmati panorama alam di utara Sukabumi dapat memilih penginapan atau vila yang tersebar di sekitar kawasan wisata Situ Gunung dan kawasan wisata Cinumpang.
Bahkan bisa juga menginap di wisma Situ Gunung yang harganya relatif ringan. Wisma Situ Gunung berada di utara danau Situ Gunung, berjarak 500 meter dari danau. Suasana terasa begitu asri dengan pohon-pohon damar yang ada di sekelilingnya.
Pagi harinya, wisatawan dapat melihat keindahan Situ Gunung dengan duduk di bale-bale depan wisma yang menghadap ke danau. Wisatawan akan merasakan kenyamanan berwisata ala noni-noni Belanda pada akhir abad 18 di Indonesia.
Wisatawan Situ Gunung juga dapat menikmati kesejukan hutan produktif yang mengelilingi danau dengan berjalan kaki di Jogging Track. Pengunjung juga dapat menyewa rakit (perahu dari susunan bambu) atau perahu kanu dengan harga relatif murah. Pesona danau yang asri dikelilingi pepohonan besar, dahan yang merambat bak rambut tebal bisa dilihat dari tengah danau. Suasana romatis nan damai dapat dirasakan saat mengelilingi danau.
Istirahat sejenak di pinggir danau sambil menikmati kesejukan udara dan keindahan Situ Gunung juga bukan pilihan yang salah. Makan siang bersama kerabat, keluarga atau pasangan banyak dilakukan wisatawan di pinggir danau. Suasana akrab dan santai memang tujuan wisatawan dengan berkumpul sambil berbincang-bincang di sana. Masyarakat yang sering berkunjung ke danau ini menyebutnya botram, atau piknik. Artinya, makan bersama keluarga dengan menu khas Sunda dengan duduk di atas rumput beralaskan tikar.
Masyarakat di sekitar kawasan wisata banyak yang memanfaatkan waktu luang mereka dengan memancing di Situ Gunung. Berbagai jenis ikan dapat dipancing secara gratis, antara lain bawal hitam, ikan mas dan ikan lainnya dengan bobot rata-rata 2.000-1.5000 gram
Kawasan wisata Situ Gunung juga sering digunakan sebagai arena perkemahan bagi anak-anak muda yang hobi menjelajah hutan belantara. Wisatawan yang pernah berkunjung ke kawasan Situ Gunung biasanya akan datang lagi ke kawasan ini. Kebanyakan beralasan karena kawasan wisata alam Situ Gunung memberikan suasana alami. Keaslian alam di Situ Gunung diawasi oleh taman nasional sehingga sebagai sebuah ekosistem, Situ Gunung terpelihara dengan cukup baik. Itulah sebabnya kawasan wisata alam Situ Gunung tak banyak berubah dari tahun ke tahun. [Dimuat di HU Pikiran Rakyat, 10 November 2007] (Argus Firmansah/penulis/wartawan lepas tinggal di Bandung)
Read More on
http://www.pikiran-rakyat.com/cetak/2007/112007/10/11pariwisata01.htm
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