Planetarium Jakarta

Source: WowKeren.com

[ODOP’s challenge: Describe A Place, Include The Pictures]

 

Watching stars at beautiful night, without clouds, is everyone’s dream. Look at the constellation, and you’ll get  the peace in your heart.  But, nowadays it’s difficult to find such thing since there are so many pollution: air and light pollution, especially in big city like Jakarta, so you should go to Lembang, Bandung to fulfill that human’s dream or event you must go to a place that’s still pure and it must be far far away.

But, don’t worry fellas, because in Jakarta, there is a place named Planetarium Jakarta that provides you a huge curved screen like a dome that reflects the picture of outer space. And here’s a story about my first experience going there.

Yesterday, after ushering my wife to someplace in Layur, I and my son took about Jakarta by motorcycle. The first place we visited was Pacuan Kuda (Horse Racing) in Pulomas, my son said that he was interested to try riding a horse, but I was sure that it was just his babble as he is scare of horse. Sorry to underestimate you, Son (my responsibility to encourage you to vanish your fear). We just laid over there and continued our journey to Arion Mall to have a breakfast in Mc. Donald.

After satisfied with our meal, I persuaded my son to go home, but he woudn’t. He was eager to continue our journey to new place that he hadn’t visited yet. But of course he didn’t have any idea which places. Hehehe

And finally, I just rode my bicycle toward Manggarai Station. I planned to go through Tebet road, but the way to there was blocked since it was Sunday (Car Free Day), so i turned right to Menteng, hoped to reach Suropati Park. But I couldn’t find the way, on the contraty I get a way to Tugu Tani. Suddenly I had an idea to go to Taman Ismail Marzuki, and there the story went.

Taman Ismali Marzuki is a place located in Menteng that contains several spots related to art such as Institut Kesenian Jakarta (Jakarta Art Institute), XXI TIM, Theater Building, and Planetarium Jakarta. And I was interested to go to Planetarium Jakarta since I had never entered the building after my one decade more had been living in Jakarta.

After parking my motorcycle, I saw the entry gate and  I was little bit confused about what I had to do to have a watch inside. After walking around, finally I looked at the ticket counter, and saw the schedule of performance. Here is the List:

Schedule for Group Visitor:

Tuesday to Thursday : 09.30, 11.30, 13:30

Friday: 09.30, 13.30

Monday and National holiday: CLOSED

Note for group visitors:

• you need to have reservation first.
• Total person in group minimum 100 people.  It can be accepted if the group below 100 people with adapted cost.

Schedule for Personal Visitor:

Tuesday to Friday : 16:30

Saturday and Sunday: 10.00; 13.00

Monday and National holiday: CLOSED

Note personal visitor: the ticket can be bought directly at ticket counter an hour before the show, and a person can buy maximum for 6 tickets.

 

I checked my watch and it was still 8.30, the ticket counter was still close, but the queue had been long, my son kept asking when it would open until he felt bored and slept on chair as pictured below:

Finally it had been 09.00 and the counter started opening. I was happy and so were my son and other visitors. The long queue made us little bit disappointed, but our curious on the show beat our disappointment.

And YaY, finally we got the ticket.

Price for the ticket is very cheap: just IDR 7.000 for the adult and IDR 3.500 for children (2 year to elementary school) you can watch the show.

In the counter, we can know how many seats that still available. In my case, after getting my tickets, the available seats was for 239. So my suggest is to have get the seats you must come earlier, moreover in Saturday and Sunday because the visitors are so amazing.

It was still 09.15 and the show was 10.00. There was about an hour left and I confused what to do, so I went to bathroom and after that went to planetarium hall that showing many interesting thing about the outer space, such as constellation, huge globe, and stone of meteor.

 

We had around the hall, but still 15 minutes to show..

Oh.. the time was so freezing.

My Son was so curious and so was I, but the gate still closed.

So we just sit ( I sit, my son lay down, :D) in front of the stairs as the gate to the exhibition show of outer space.

And finally the gate was opened…

The visitors fought to enter the gate and went up the stairs, so did we.

“Come on, Come on” said my son.

Reaching up the second floor, we had to struggle again to find the best seat, the most comfortable one, but because I didn’t have experience before, I decided to take seats in the corner, my son was happy, but he said “Abi, I can’t see the screen”

Hahaha

My son thought that we were in the Cinema.

“Son, it’s not Cinema, the screen is above! Look at the curved white screen, you’ll see the stars up there”

While waiting the visitors fulfilled the chairs, the folk songs of Indonesia were played. Many visitors sang along.

And finally…

The room’s light was out made the room dark.

My son was scare of dark, he asked me to keep my phone turning on. Oh, come on guys!

hehehe…

I turned it on, but it was directed to his chair, so it was not disturbing other people.

And you don’t dare to take a picture with your phone, because it will decrease the enjoyment of watching the show, not for yourselves, but for all watchers…

So sorry, I don’t have the pictures of the show.

The show itself was about 45 – 50 minutes.

To decrease my son’s scare, I always held his hand and talk a lot about what show on the screen, and I always said “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes…” he said with the low voice.

The show was amazing…

There were may visitors who applaud in part of show that contained amazing things, such as the appearance of Mars and the beauty of Constellation Shape.

Don’t worry if you don’t have background about astronomy, because there is a narrator that guide you explaining the show.

The best moment was when we were flying (not really flying) but the screen perspective was amazing as if we rode spacecraft. Until now, my son still believe that he have flied to the outer space using spacecraft.

The show was finally ended: short but WOW!

And, we made some pictures in the exhibition place, shown below:

 

The exit was as difficult as the entry, we had made a queue to go downstairs

After that, my son asked me to go to exhibition hall in the first floor again, with higher curiosity than we had before. He asked where the snake,  Where the archery person, and   Where the scorpion are.

To fulfill his curiosity, I bought him some books from the seller at the gate of Planetarium  below.

after the show, my son always speaks about his experience, to me, to her mother.

It’s really worth.

Maybe next time, I am going to go there again, with my Son and My Wife.

 

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