I don’t live in a walkable city or even a city with such a vibrant and inspiring scene. Think of Yogyakarta, Indonesia or Havana in Cuba or even as lively as Bangkok. Our city is as dull as it gets. We don’t have shopping malls, almost nonexistent public parks and buildings that are either dilapidated or a 5th floor tall. There’s almost nothing to do here.

But I live here now. So, I’ve got to find it interesting, right?

Maybe afterall, it isn’t about the city that’s boring. It’s me, who can’t find the unique corners of the city.

One morning, my mother and I decided to walk. We had no idea where to go or for how long, we just walked until we stopped by some interesting places.

Our first stop was actually a cemetery, where my paternal grandfather rests. We found out it’s abandoned and poor him, his grave is the ugliest of all the graves in that area. This cemetery is like a private complex, everything is taken care of and you have to buy a plot of land to be buried here. So, you get the gist. In the end, my mom and I cleaned up the area a little bit and bid goodbye. I thought about fixing it, but it was none of my concern for the time being.

Anyhow, we continued walking until we reached the city square. This is where people from all sorts of corners of the city gather. When I arrived, I even found some families having a nice picnic. To my mind, it’s kind of odd but again, if you live in the outskirts, this city square feels like you’re on a mini vacation. This place to me, is just a place I pass by whenever I travel. In front of this square is the main railway station.

But that day, walking with my mom again, I found some corners that I’ve never seen before. The city council apparently added some more plantation to make it more pleasing to the eye. They added some pathways to it, some more vegetation to make it look greener and eventually the highlight would be this mosque behind it.

When you frame your camera in a certain angle, it will show a great background of the city mosque, one of the biggest in the city. This central mosque is also the highlight from this square. Its architecture isn’t that astounding but we can appreciate its originality as it doesn’t mimic those in the Middle East. It has its own flair.

After going around the square, we sit by one of the benches in the inner part of the square. Apparently, we had walked for 2 hours and that was one of the longest walks I had been since living in the city. We planned on going back home by walking but we were too exhausted and it was too hot to walk back.

That was the walk that made us both get sick. We stopped walking ever since my dad passed away. We barely left the house and that was the first time we did. In the end, it’s one of our memorable walk just because we got sick for about a week after that 😆

Even after a few months living here, I still can’t find that sense of adventure. You know it’s weird because once I lived here for 15 years but that connection is no longer there and I feel like I am starting from scratch all over again. These days, I finally found my way around the area and it’s hard to explain to people sometimes that I could be considered local but not really. Either way, I think adventure is what we make of it.