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Daddy-Daughter’s Moment Gone Wrong

We arrived at Labuan Bajo! On a sunny 29th Sept 2019, checked in to a cute hotel called La Cecile, the hotel was only 5 mins away from the airport.

The hotel rooms are downstairs so our room were 205 and 206 and it means 2 floor below the ground and obviously no elevator.

We were just chilled by the pool and I decided to jump on the pool, Marina was reading her kindle and soon after Thorben joined on the pool. He was doing the dive and I dont know how to do that, I know how to swim but not doing that or salto in the water so he was teaching me how to do that.

I got up and do the dive many times but somehow the way I dive still wrong and the water either hitting my face, my chest or my belly and those hurts besides I dont have energy to keep climbing and do the dive again.

This is after some times trying to dive in…and still cannot do that…

For some reason we decided to take a baby steps learn by doing the dive in the shallow end #yeap the gone wrong moments started!

We practiced by keep my leg straight while I did the dive, the first and second dive I think it was better than before, Thorben hold my legs and I just dived in…but on the third try, I think this is the moment where I suddenly able to do that still with the help of Thorben but sth special happened this time and that’s…. I hit the ground! #panic!

I could feel that my head near my left eye hurts but wasnt exactly sure where… I turn around and said “Thorben I think I hit the ground” he looked at me and agreed “yes you did” he pulled me directly from the pool and we got out.

Marina was taking all of our stuff from the pool and cover us with the hotel’s towel, I was of course bleeding but Thorben said its not that much but stitches needed. The hotel staff was so nervous and they said we can call the doctor to come here but Thorben said “no, we need to go to the hospital, she need stitches”

I was either cool or scared because every time I heard stitches its bring back the memory of me hit the wall when I was 4yo and the blood was crazy so I kept asking him if theres a lot of blood or not. I dont know if its a concussion or panic or anything else apart from my childhood memories I was worried if I will have a brain damage, if I will lose my memories, if I will have a scar, if my forehead skin will got distorted etc but Thorben answered no to all of them and he recommended stitches so that I wont have scar. Hopefully there will be no scar!

Marina said it was really above my eyebrow so even if I have the scar it would be barely visible and then I was worried if my left and right eyebrows will be different but she said no my eyebrows will still be the same. The next day we will see Komodo and if I’m bleeding the Komodo will eat me so Marina said the stitches will close my wound and I’m not bleeding anymore so the Komodo won’t eat me. Okay then, more reason of why I should go on stitches.

The hotel driver directly took us to Siloam hospital, all 3 of us were on swim suits only Marina is dry, I forgot when Thorben wear his shirt because he kept covering my eyes and I can only see with my right eyes so I dont really have a clear view what I know is we arrived at Siloam hospital and I asked Marina to put pants and flip flops on me so I can arrive hospital with dignity.

It was Sunday afternoon, we were not even 4hours arrived Labuan Bajo and this small accident happened #facepalm!
Lucky me that the doctor was there and I directly went to emergency room and Dr. Koko stitched me 🙂

Thorben checked in to the hospital as my father, he said that “we need to let the doctor know that her heart rate is very normal” I asked Marina how much is it? And she said “yeah 130 pretty normal for you” When the doctor was doing their preparation he asked Thorben to leave the room. I was with Marina when Dr. Koko gave me the anesthesia and when he stitched me.

I was still on my bikini and hotel’s towel, by the time I was done with the stitches, Marina helped me to wear my clothes and she said “it’s good that my shirt is a button-up shirt” as if that I prepared for the “surgery” 😉

What worst is at the beginning I don’t want to tell my parents but I swiped my credit card which will send SMS to my mom, they said at the end of the day I need to let them know so Thorben asked me to smile on the selfie and send it to my mom.

He said “ok, now smile”

Then we were back to the hotel with my big bandage and I feel like a celebrity where everyone starred at me 🙂 Im fine, I survived! I took shower and Marina stayed in my room just in case sth happen and we figured it out of how can I take picture without being so obvious about my bandage? and we found it out, the photo has to be silhouette, from behind and from some specific angle and she instructed Thorben of how to do that haha, of course my big hat be a very important property 😉

I went to hospital again to check before we flew to Bajawa and the wound was not closed but there is no blood.

  • Day 1
  • Day 2

Hopefully I can take the stitches out before I fly back to Shanghai! Lesson learned! and now I am banned from the swimming pool #phew!

Byeeeeee pool!
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One Big Warum?

Thorben and Marina arrived Jakarta! Yeay! They had 2 days to do culinary here. I asked my parents on where to take them and what to eat and they said “easy, we got all the places, we will only bring them to the place that we like, even maybe its not famous but at least its good” so I was relax as everything will be taken care off.

They arrived 26th like late in the evening almost midnight, me and my parents picked them up and I’d to spent my birthday on the parking lot haha! But at least I got all parents complete on my bday, my biological and non biological 😉

The first day of culinary was only with my mom, we went to the traditional market, the place that my mom goes everyday to buy veggies, fruits and everything. We ate local food there, nasi uduk, lontong sayur and some drinks. They never or dont see white foreigner that much so every times they saw Thorben and Marina they said “hello mister” or “hello bule” haha people! Pleaseeee We also bought fruits like salak, passion fruits, the other type of passion fruits and mangoes.

For light lunch we want to eat otak2 and pempek (made out of fish) but we didnt walk there we took a bajaj to drive us. The bajaj driver was so happy because he got 2 bules on his ride 🙂

The original place of otak2 and pempek for some reason closed but the neighborhood told us that there is another similar shop around so we gave it a try.

Thorben tried nasi goreng pete on this shop, I dont like pete but for them its OK. Then we go home for a while because we cannot contain anymore foods, me and Marina figure out the additional luggage, east cruise komodo and who will pick us up from the airport.

Then it was somewhat afternoon and we ate more food, this one is meatball soups 🙂

We went to harvest to take my cake, we didnt have dessert here hahaha the dessert postponed for another few hours 🙂 And then my father arrived home after work and we go to Jetski cafe to have dinner with my other friends 🙂

The next day, the eating and sightseeing continues, this time my father also joined. We started to have noodles as breakfast at Mie Alip.

The same thing happened, they looked at Thorben and Marina haha like they are the only bules that came there. After we killed the noodles, my mom brought some breads for us to eat otw and Marina asked “warum??” And Ive told her to eat it later not necessarily now and she asked “when? When do we eat it? Later? When we have more foods” hahaha

This noodles enough to fill us up until kind of late afternoon. We went to “old city hall” to visit “Museum Bank Indonesia” and then went to train station. But otw to train station there was a bunch of teenagers that learn english and want to have interview with our bules and record it as their homework haha

They just asked simple question like your name, country where you come from, what is your fav food? And Thorben replied with “brain brain” which means otak2 which is definitely not the english word for it but Idk what to call it hahaha

Our two bules

Then we had lunch at Padang restaurant called Garuda. Thorben and Marina thought all of the drinks that they had is too sweet while I dont think so but I always order no sugar for them while for me? Yais please sugar bomb! Haha

We had another sugar bomb desert called Martabak, they were amazed with the amount of butter, condensed milk, chocolate and peanuts that they used to make it hahaha! And they surprised that we dont have diabetes hihihi but they like this sugar bomb desert 😉

We didnt have dinner after this, we just stayed at home but my mom cut all the mangoes and give it to them and Marina kept saying “warum??” my father said that “maybe you need to walk around and eat again” But the mango is so good so we all eat it anyway haha

When the nights come, I took shower, when I finished it my mom’s gone, I asked my father where is she and he said that she went to fruit shop thats only in front of our apartment. I was like “really? I dont think Thorben and Marina can eat anymore!” I went to tell Thorben what did my mom doing and he said “is she cutting more fruits for us?” I replied “no, she went out to buy more fruits” and Marina was “warum??” Suddenly, my mom with her barely spoken english arrived and saying “Marina, come come” #facepalm! They tried another fruit called dukuh this time haha but I’ve told them that they dont need to finished the whole dukuh.

The next morning, we all went to Labuan Bajo, its good that my father didnt dropped us to the terminal because our terminal changed! From the internet it was terminal no 1c and the reality was they closed down terminal 1c and moved Citilink airplane to terminal 2e but yeah! We made it! And here our holiday starts! And… we have another stories for that 😉

Off to Labuan Bajo! Yes Thorben I seriously took pic 🙂

I hope you have a good time in my home as I always have a good time in yours XOXO

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From Us, With Love

Marina has been here for only about 2 years but she’s been to many many tours than I do. She’s been to a breakfast food tour, night food tour and whatever tour you named it, however she still refused to be called “food blogger” 😉 and I think one day when I was at her home I saw the flyer from one of the food tour she went to and the locations are so close with my home- only around Jiangsu station and her place only one stop from it so she said to me that she wanted to re-create this food tour with herself and I’d like to join! Even though I’ve been here 6.5 years but I don’t go to the place that are listed on the food tour, she got all the pictures and I got the language so here we are! the M&M food tour established that day! #wohooo

You’re welcome to join the M&M’s

But the weather kept avoiding us to do the food tour until yesterday! We both meet up after we got off from work at Jiangsu metro station. While we were walking to the first place, we saw the same tour but we were 10 mins ahead of them haha! The reason why Marina recognizes the tour group is because they gathered at the same place and the tourguide is wearing a dumpling shirts 🙂 P.S: We should make our own shirts!

From her list there are 8 places I guess and we went to the first one which is the what I called the Chinese hamburgers! I liked to eat it a lot when I still a student, but not in this place, it’s somewhere near my lovely Donghua University 🙂

We went to the exact place at 东诸安浜路 Dong’Zhu’An’Bang’ road searched for the famous 肉夹馍 Rou’Jia’Mo but then! after walking back and forth the road like you were ironing a shirt, we came to the point where this place is gone! And there was a guy who later on we figured out his name is either Kevin or Kelvin (somewhere between these two options) told us that he was from the food tour that Marina joined #credit! the name is UNtour and now the place is closed down 🙁 #wow so sad! our first M&M tour and already greeted by a closing down restaurant.

Meh, moving on! Next place is called Golden Phoenix 金凤 Jin’Feng, we had the same food that we like and #not to our surprise, they don’t have it! whaaatttt?!?!?! they dont have the roasted pork 叉烧 Cha’Shao, so we give the benefit of a doubt to the duck, ordered 1/4 of it, the bun and mango dessert 🙂 Hope it will do!

and yes it done its job 🙂 it gave us the energy to moving on to the next place which is Jiu Kuan Ningbo Restaurant 旧款宁波饭店 Jiu’Kuan’Ning’Bo’Fan’Dian here, Marina told me about the fava beans that looks awful but taste good and the bamboo sth so I followed her. When the fava beans arrived….

Seems one M disagree with the other M

I know… it doesn’t look like legit but it got German’s approval so it should be OK

  • Marina and her pava beans
  • Bamboo

vs when the bamboo arrived!

just yummy yummy!

By the time we almost finished, the UNtour food group arrived and sitting next to us, I directly removed the flyer on the table and put it on my bag haha! and we kind of heard what the tour guide explained the group but again….we don’t care mwahaha sounds so bad but “eyes on the price (read: food)”

Next is the Sichuan place! this place got two names that confused us either 椒羞 Jiao’Xiu or Chili Makes You Ruddy, but bottom line is we arrived at the right place! and here is the time for the noodles 🙂

No matter what the name is, here’s the entrance!
  • Be patient…
  • Food is coming…
  • Here!

After this we go to have dumplings at 富春小龙 Fu’Chun’Xiao’Long when we got out, we met either Kelvin or Kevin again, he was talking to someone and turns out this guy was the General Manager of UNtour and he walked with us to the dumplings! Yeay! short walk with the GM booyeah!

  • Last stop!
  • Yes Marina, this pic is different from our internal pic 😉

Due to this dumpling is our last stop, we need to figure it out how to go home so we stopped at the intersection only to catch up again with the UNtour group and the tour guide just gave the directions to the people and he said “I’ll go here first to buy the dessert for later” Marina was eavesdropping! be careful peeps! 😉

  • Whats?
  • Dessert for later?

And she said to me “Marlyn, now you need to get in and say to the guy that we want exactly what that guy just bought” hahaha and here we are happily with our dessert!

This is just our fun activities, I believe the food is as good as the companion you share it with, and of course I believe that Marina would like to do it again with our friends if they’re keen of 😉

We are not the real tour guide, we just love food so we won’t be able to give you the knowledge about the originality of each dishes that we had, neither that we care #facepalm. Marina already forgot all the knowledge that the tour guide told her and I don’t even bother to search for it, so relax we won’t take any bit of customer’s share from any food tour 🙂

It’s just purely from us, with love <3

mit Marlyn und Marina zusammen 🙂

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Blessed The Food… I mean THE CHEF!-Part 6

Now is already September, my fav month of the year! we just had a 3 days holiday for Mid-Autumn festival (actually it’s only 1 because the holiday was on Friday and Saturday and Sunday is weekend sooooo doesn’t count)

On this short holiday, I finally went to M50- the art district and Shanghai Jewish Museum but since I wasn’t into art or museum so it took me 6.5 years in Shanghai to go to this places. It’s good that I don’t go outside Shanghai during this short holiday otherwise I would miss the very fine dine by Chef Thorben on Sunday! On the last day of the holiday, Thorben texted me that he would like to make an early dinner, as early as 4PM… and no matter how early or how weird the time is, I’ll come to his dinner! I was actually a bit afraid that I would spread the flu because I’ve been kind of having some flu for 3 days but after doing voice test I think I should be fine and my brain already switched to the amazing food that I’ll get at Thorben’s so I’m good!

Dinner changed to 5PM and here I came! Ivy and Hai Yan already there before me but for some reason Hai Yan left before even the dinner starts…tsk tsk tsk… Hai Yan said that she left so I can enjoy the wine that she brought but I said to her that I don’t drink wine and she changed to “then I can enjoy more tea” and again I don’t drink tea and she asked me “what do you drink then?” “orange juice” and she will bring orange juice for me next time! Hai Yan, I’ll remember it 😉

Me and Ivy looked at Thorben’s niece album, scan the QR code hoping the video will works but it doesn’t, Thorben check that QR code! The next guess is my one and only handsome Freddoy and he brought us kaya toast! uhlalala!

Next thing I know is the food already on the table!

There were bread and butter, potato with secret recipe, carrots and mashed potato with not so secret recipe because it’s from the video and not from Thorben’s grandma. Boramy said that it is a really German dinner when we have 2 types of potatoes served 🙂

Whole roasted chicken that lived twice longer than it should be and a 1kg beef with the bone.

And the chicken need to be cut by the knife that Thorben made it himself. But because we let the chicken lived twice as long as it should be, it wasn’t ready yet 😉 so Thorben put it back to the oven. Grandpa chicken #Freddoy said that.

I think this is already 6 ish PM and what happen on the neighborhood? I got a text, actually it’s not a text, it’s a picture from the other Germans (read: Felix and Andy) that were on the place not far from Thorben’s (read: Felix’s place) and here’s the pictures ladies and gentleman:

  • From Felix
  • From Andy

Followed by a supposedly touching sticker “You are our only hope” from Andy

Not sure why I was their only hope tsk tsk tsk and what should I reply then? They sent me pic of beef? I sent them back pic of what I am having at Thorben’s haha See what I got here!

The big question mark is: What do you have there that I don’t have here?!?!

While Thorben, Freddoy, Ivy and Boramy already finished the meal, it means only me that haven’t finished yet and Freddoy said “let’s look at her so she’ll hurry up and we can start the dessert” huaaa handsome Freddoy sorry! I was under pressure! then I cleaned my food so Thorben can serve the dessert:

  • Fruit salad
  • Kaya toast

For some reason I thought fruit salad is a salad so… veggies in the end? and I’m not a big fan of veggies but when Thorben presented the fruit salad it’s a fruit mix! yeay! this one acceptable 😉 mwahaha! and Kaya Toast from Freddoy!

Thank you Thorben for cooking, what a nice way to end the holiday and fuel myself up for the next day!

And Felix….let me make myself clear….

You’d better keep up! 😉

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“Masterchef” In Action- Part 2

BAM! This will be the second time I (read: Thorben) will make Indonesian dish 😉 last time we made it with Aggy, this time it will be solely Thorben mwahaha… we will have additional guests, they are Cher and Aaron! Ever since Cher knew that me and Aggy will cook Indonesian dish at Thorben’s, she wanted to be invited and seems the time has arrived for them to try, also for Marina 😉

Even arranging the time for 5 people was quiet hard, we kept changing the dates like 3 times haha but then the date fixed to 4th of August! The day before I went to Carrefour and asking Thorben and Marina do they have this, do they have that and to my surprise they don’t have anything! WHOAAA! what is wrong with them?!?! they used to be like 24/7 groceries stores turns out that time their fridge was quiet empty SURPRISEEE! 😀

I came to Thorben’s before archery to prepare some dish first then went to archery and then came back from archery and continue cooking.

Thorben kept asking “OK, now what do we do?” and he moved fast like chop chop chop wush wush wush and then “OK, what do we do next?” Geezzz, I haven’t even finished reading the recipe yet and he’s already asking the next step…Germans….efficient!

  • Thor’s hammer

We also tenderize the beef using tenderizer and hammer. This time Thorben didn’t give the most expensive part of the meat because he knew that I will smashed it with hammer and tenderizer for at least 40 mins. I remember Thorben said if he is in the Avengers, he will for sure be a Thor, he even have a Thor’s hammer 😉 you are good to go for Thor!

Marina was on the phone with Sandra the whole time so she’s kind of lost on our preparation, up to the point where we almost need to leave for Archery and she made me a mango-avocado-smoothie yummyyy! and her smoothie was the fancy one with chia, coconut etc etc etc and all ingredients are from Germany!

Fancy smoothie! this will give me energy for Archery

Marina expected us to win on the game…. apparently none of us won! not the first time reality doesn’t fulfill the expectation mwahaha we probably need more bowl of that 😉

Fast forward after archery we came back and opened the door and we both “WOW” because Marina has prepared the table! amazing! but for now we need to continue our business in the kitchen with the main dish, beef!!

There was a bit of the drama on the kitchen like our small pancakes aka perkedel were tearing apart, the beef wasn’t absorb the sauce so we kept adding the ketchup, rice need to be made but not enough coconut cream so Thorben finished his coconut oil and mix it together.

Thanks that both Cher and Aaron are not Germans so when I said dinner at 7PM they won’t come at 7 sharp arp arp haha which is good because we haven’t finished cooking by that time haha! By the time Cher arrived she said “Oh, turns out Thorben’s cooking not Marlyn” #facepalm!

Even though we had the drama during the process but in the end I’m happy with the result 🙂 Thorben was saying “the beef is exactly how it suppose to be and everything is fine” Marina said “the beef was flavory” YEAY! I’m satisfied 😉 and they all like the perkedel!

Marina prepared the dessert and Cher brought us stroopwafels and I wasn’t too tired because Thorben did the cooking the most mwahaha! 😀

By the time we officially finished the dinner, we used 1L of sunflower oil and 16L of water! hahaha that’s a lot!

Btw I asked my mom to make the dish for you when you come to my home so that you could taste my fav food when I was a child…or maybe I still am 😉 Thank you Thorben and Marina! I always happy to “cook” or just crash at your place 😀

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The Real Lucky Draw

On Friday 5th of July, one of food app has a treat in one of restaurants. They hold this kind of treat every month to at least 4 restaurants and all we need to do is to save the event and they will give us the code 1 day in advance if they pick us or not. The number of people that got this free treat is always below 10 and the number of people that interested in this treat is always way way wayyyy above 10. I have been trying to participate like 3 times maybe and I always not getting the invitation 🙁

At first the closing time for RSVP was at Thursday 12PM but I forgot to check the app until 10 mins before 5PM. For this Friday the event will hold in Yasmine Steak. When I checked it the list hasn’t got out yet and I contacted my one and only friend at Yasmine-Luvi! I put “pressure” to her to pick me and her response was so cool “how? to pick?” and I know sth good will happen soon 😉 when the key person participate to help you, this is where the magic happens 🙂 and really sometimes all you need to do is to know someone that knows someone 😉

Long story short, I got the code! wohoo it feels like winning a lottery! yeah finally Marlyn’s time to perform! (I mean eat) haha

I asked her what color of clothes she will wear so I’ll wear the same and we’ll look like sisters 😉 Btw, Luvi is from Philippines so we kind of sisters already- The South East Asian sisters, biatch! haha

The day is here! I was of course super on time probably let’s say wayyy to early as I need to secure my spot but I wasn’t the first one arrived, Laurens was the first one. He was looking at the newspaper / menu of Yasmine’s and I said to him “But the menu is already been set we don’t need to see it” haha

On this bon treats, I also met Rachel, the girl that gave me her backpack that I wear every day now and I think sooner or later the zipper will breaks hahaha As we need to wait until all 10 of us were here so what did we do? we took some pictures! The pre dinner pictures and we need to take pictures with Luvi obviously! and of course with the board saying I *heart* bon app! haha

Then when all of us arrived, Luvi reveal the food. The set menu was really really tempting and I guess it’s the best menu ever so for anyone that wants to eat at Yasmine’s here’s the menu that you should order 😉

Even though some food are for shared but trust me I had a meat-coma yesterday! The food was soooo sooo soooo much and on top of it its not only the quantity that was a lot but the quality was super good as well! My fav was the asparagus soup, toast shrimp , 1kg australian super hawk steak and molten lava cake! *blink blink!

Luvi was soooo nice and she really is someone that is dedicated to her work. She said “Choose your drink from whatever it is on the menu and it’s free flow you can drink anything that you want” damn! girl! I wish I could drink that much alcohol mwahaha and for me I ordered myself a Caipirinha with a very cute lime as decoration to put the strawberrys 😉

Me and Rachel was sitting side by side, she’s also from Philippines and both of us was so noisy and loud, I feel bad (read: honestly, not really just a little bit) for others Yasmine’s customer yesterday, I saw that Luvi talked to the other customer (read: two blonde girl across our table) saying that we were loud! haha #got busted girl!

When the food came, she’s reading the menu on her phone and I said “Rachel, it’s 1 RMB you can’t see what’s on the menu, we already eat way more than 1 RMB” haha and she said “No, I’m just checking which one is it because we need to write the review!” hahaha

As the night goes by the conversation was getting so vary, now we all know the story of Kevin’s sister that broke up with her bf after 2 weeks and for some reason Kevin was happy but my memory split into two when Luvi said desert is coming so I didn’t get the full story of how a 13 years old girl break up with her bf story haha

And the same Kevin aka Bon App Mattie aka the one that send me the code somehow said that “We could have a Bon App Wedding Treats for 1 RMB” and the candidate was me and Laurens, yeah, who else it’s gonna be. And I showed both of them my ring finger (mind you that it’s not a f*%k u finger) and I said “I don’t see ring here, give me the ring”

I think we were there until almost 10PM and on the last one hour I just spent my time by standing and walking around Yasmine as I was already super full, I can’t sit anymore and of course the night didn’t end with only dining food. Luvi prepare for us sausages and meat and 100RMB off for our next time come to Yasmine.

I mean seriously! I’ve never been to this 1RMB Bon Treat before but as far as I’ve heard from Kevin, this Yasmine’s treat was the one that has more food and free flow drink and then this take away gift! like Yasmine really set the high bar for the other restaurants. I’m glad my first Bon Treat was with Yasmine 😉

Thank you Luvi for all the hospitality that you provide to us. I’m sure we all very happy and had a good experience and I believe we will come back and bring more people to Yasmine PUXI! haha not sure about Pudong or Minhang 😉

I still need to have a proper picture with the background that is written Yasmine so then we went to the next door where currently it’s a hotpot area-still Yasmine’s though. Rachel took many pictures and then I changed my pose by putting the bon app board high up and Luvi said “You said you want to see the Yasmine’s written on the background and now you cover it” hahaha

But then again I said to Rachel “I want to have a normal picture one” and Luvi said “Normal? with you?” haha I mean not using bon app board again!

The supply chain of thank you should be like this: thank you Bon App for having Yasmine’s as your bon app treat, now moving on to thank you Luvi for letting me having dinner there, thank you for the cook to serve us with amazing food. I’ll make sure that I’m not an ungrateful little bastard that not coming back, I mean I need to use the 100RMB off! so I’ll be back 😉

…meanwhile…sneak peek of Luvi’s moments….

What a priviledge to know that my text was her first post on year 2019! well, unless she hide some post from me which I don’t think so mwahaha! Thanks for your help Luvi, having you is the real lucky draw for me <3

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In Pink-ish We Trust

I will not say I live in Shanghai if there’s nothing going on on the weekend 😉 yeap another party is happening… this time is for Jonathan!

So…. Dennis created a group chat (obviously) for Jonathan’s surprise birthday party, from his descriptions it will be a pink party as we all need to wear pink. If not, he will prepare pink bow tie and we just need to wear sth that will fit on with the bow tie.

I have the pink dress that I haven’t wear before but I’ll be super pink…. I doubted to wear it but then it’s the theme anyway soooo here I am, pink earrings and white hand bag with pink pattern and the next things I knew, I was otw to El Luchador Xintiandi. Dennis said that we need to be there at 7:30, I arrived slightly before 7:30 to my surprise Dennis was there, heh? I thought he suppose to take Jonathan to El Luchador but why is he doing here? turns out they living quiet close with Xintiandi so Dennis went back home, pick up Jonathan and go back here to meet us.

To my surprise! the guest wasn’t wearing pink! I was the pinkest among all! Most of them were wearing either black or white with the pink bow tie some of them wear pink but not like super pink like me! I was like damn it damn it damn it! I really take Dennis advice wayyyy too seriously 😉 But then later on there were 3 girls that wear pink wohooo yeah girls! 4 of us were the one that actually follow the theme!

Because we arrived earlier so we trying to help Dennis with the decorations, Tom tried to make a puppy out of a balloons which is at least he tried but then it didn’t work, so we saved one last balloon and put a bow tie on it and who knows turns out this balloon will be used like this haha

Cody kept saying that he’s thirsty and he wants to buy water and I kept saying no to him hahaha I said Jonathan will be here soon! so he kept holding his thirsty feeling for quite some time 🙁 sorry Cody!

Up to the point where Jonathan for real almost arrived so we gathered on the front of El Luchador, squatting! Yeah Jo, my legs hurt yo haha

and then surpriseee! Jonathan finally here! and he’s wearing PINK! wohoooo and so does Dennis, I mean he’s the one that suggested everyone to wear pink so he’d better be 😉 he really clueless and blind (quote from Dennis) he really can’t see that we were many peoples squatting in front of El Luchador #face palm!

after that….. Cody said “I’m hungry, I want to eat, let’s eat somewhere” hahaha suddenly Cody together with 6 other guys already decided that they want to eat else where and so I followed them and there we were separated with the bday boy. One of them, I think it was Henry said “Oh look at us, it looks like we were having a bachelor party” (because all of them wearing the bow tie) but then he looked at me….”plus one stripper” haha!

We walked passed Xintiandi and I pointed at Shake Shack Burger and Nicolas didn’t say anything so ok we went on to Hong Kong Plaza and I pointed at Pizza Hut and again Nicolas says nothing, finally we stopped at Xinjiang Restaurant. I’m not against it, I just don’t eat lamb so I said to not order that much lamb and… when we actually sit down and order the food and the food came, Nicolas said that he prefer burger or American food and I was “YOU DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING!” rawwrrrrr! and the following dish came one by one, Cody said to me “oh this is lamb” so I didn’t eat that. Chen was the one that ordered the food for us so he said that he only ordered one lamb dish. The next dish came and Eden said “this is the lamb, that one is beef” and I looked at Cody, “Codddyyyyyy!” haha and for the next dish Cody really asked the staff what is this and he said “chicken, beef, vegetables” hahaha yes Cody thank you 😉

Since I was with 7 guys so it looks like Snow White and 7 dwarfs and someone I forgot who had an idea of a game. And the game was “creating a pick up line to me” and since I’m the only women so I got to decide which one is my favorite and my fav was Cody’s and his pick up line was “I like honey because it tastes like you” hahaha Eden also good, “You are so hot that I’m melting” haha Nicolas was saying in spanish, yeah for sure I understand that!

While we were having our dinner, I kept looking at the time because the cutting cake was on 9PM and we were still eating at that time, when we checked the group chat, the cake was already being cut! huaaa 🙁

We were back to El Luchador again and we sang “happy birthday” as our entry 😉

  • See the background! that’s us!
  • We’re back again!

I asked Jonathan where is the cake? and he said the rainbow cake already spread and given all the way, of course! who wouldn’t want to miss a rainbow cake! #not pointing to the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. Don’t get me wrong, we (at least me and I hope they did too) really had a funny time on our dinner, disregard the food, my 7 dwarfs are sooooo funny. I think it was Nicolas the one who said “Marlyn, you can be a stripper for the gays” followed by Henry said “yeah when you and the pole came, we all gonna focus to the pole” hahaha you guys are hilarious! But I still blame on you Nicolas for not saying anything to any of the place that I pointed out 😉

Then we were split up again, some are going to KTV and some are going to another party, while me, I chose to go home 🙂 before we split, Cody said “We need to take picture with Jonathan” and Eden use his bubble gun so we had a bubble effect on our picture, nice one!

Thank you Dennis for inviting me to Jonathan’s surprise party, I am glad to meet your cool friends and meet Cody again!

Happy birthday to you Jonathan! thanks for a nice evening, you are for sure “a star is born” <3

And the night wouldn’t be complete without the group picture! Here we are! the Pink-ish crew 😉

In Pink-ish We Trust!
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Love Life

We had Rich’s farewell archery on Tuesday 🙁

He booked the hungover games for us, usually we will have 7 people in one team but this time there was no team formed it was whoever wants to play will play, so the number of people wasn’t really 28, it was more than 28.

He will not called Rich if he didn’t bring any weird stuff with him, he brought a banana floating things and a bow and arrow that made out of plastic haha

Rich has special power on that game, whoever shoot him, he or Rodi shout “doesn’t count” so he can play on haha and even another one shoot him right after the first shoot, it’s still “doesn’t count” 😉 there was one game where he just ran to the safe zone first and grab the bow and arrow and while we all run to the safe zone, he was ready to fire us, that was scary moment! wogh!

It was a really fun and relaxing game even though at one game Aaron tackle me while I was on the safe zone and getting my bow and arrow hahaha I didn’t expect that! And Freddoy shot me right on my left ass that requires me to put analgesic cream the day after #facepalm followed by Aaron again that shot me on my right ass, so I was kind of balanced in a weird way pffff.

Rich has the very climax way to close the game which is we played 10 against 10! We don’t even have the bow and arrow for 20 people so some people will have the bow and others will catch the arrow. I don’t think we need referee for this last game as one simple question of “How?” hahaha how to decide who got shot, who caught the arrow and who come back to the field like who who who?! Rich also had his special power where he just moved from opponent team, crossing the safe zone and go to other side and joining our team haha. It was just chaos in the most fun way #I’ll allow it 😉 At the end of the game, I was trying to catch the arrow from Tim and he was trying to do it for me so that I was able to catch it and Rodi said “If she catch it, we all go in” but then his shot was too high and I missed it arrrgghhh! Rodi said “washing machine, you almost did it!” haha

We were playing until 9:45 ish, then he has a movie that he wanted to show us! So we gathered in the bar to watch it 🙂

The movie is a memory of Rich and his disturbed family 😉 and there was a clip that I found very funny, when Rodi was asked what does disturbed family means to him but he was drunk and still on his bed, he just replied “roaaaaaaa” I think that is the perfect answer anyone could ever asked for 😉 There was also a sad clip in that movie, throughout the end when Rich had sth to say and he recorded it in his apartment that is already empty, we were “awww” because we know exactly what was the furniture that were there before 🙁

Please be assured that you’ll be missed by us #obviously, perhaps also by Missy, your apartment security, neighbors… I mean they will get less pocket money because I don’t think the new tenant will hold party as much as you did 😉 #if you know what I mean haha

Thank you for the movie and for the last archery farewell with you!

Here’s the fun farewell day on the video:

Look at how many people that was not willing to let him go by kept sending him off to the taxi. Even the traffic light agree with us by giving us the longest red light ever. When he was trying to pull up the window we were “Nooooo!” We all just stood there, holding kleenex tissue and waving at him 😉

I can say that Rich is someone that really loves life and life loves him back. I do know that Shanghai loves him and I believe so will Paris <3

Thanks Rich! XX
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Addition or Subtraction

Last country on our trip! France and where it will be? To the city of light and love, Paris <3 We finally stayed in a hotel with elevator! Our hotel is near Champs Elysees, the weather wasn’t so nice when we were there, rainy, cloudy but it still didn’t reduce the fact that Paris is a beautiful city- the scenery, the arc, the bridge etc. We got some hours with sun but this sun followed by a crazy wind hahaha

I was so lucky that I can meet up with my 2 friends, Vinh and Lansana. I met Vinh first and he became our “tour guide” he showed us the tunnel where Lady Diana involved into an accident and when we heard it we were “oh! we didn’t notice it’s here” and he said “it’s just a tunnel ya” hahaha but it’s historic tunnel-worldwide famous so we went there then we went to his fav bridge in Paris which is Pont Alexandre III and Arc de Triomphe.

The next day we got additional person who is not strange to us, he is my sister’s boyfriend 😉

we went to the famous Louvre, Opera building, Gallery Lafayette but at some point we need to stop because it started to rain heavily.

Then for dinner we went to Asian restaurant which called Kok Ping sth like that also near Champs Elysees and the food there was sooo good! We first ordered in a small portion but we kept adding it. After dinner I met with Lansana, my sister went with her bf to the top of Arc de Triomphe, my parents went to bed.

The next day, we went with hop on hop off bus and we visited Marina’s fav place in Paris which is Sacre Coeur and it’s indeed way way way more beautiful than Eiffel Tower- I guess hahaha but since its hop on hop off, of course we stopped in Eiffel Tower.

We wanted to go to the Dom in Sacre Coeur but after more than 1 hour waiting on the line, another rain came by and we still waited on the line but the line didn’t even move so we gave up.

Then, the wonders of the world- Eiffel Tower! My father said “Oh, I can’t believe I’m on the feet of Eiffel Tower” and I said “Let me take picture of you” but the Eiffel Tower is so big and so hard to take a proper picture and I need to make sure that I lied down completely to the ground mwahaha 😀

Last day in Paris we went to Petit Palais, Place de la Bastille, Notredame, Madeleine, Place de la Concorde, Les Invalides wogh! tiring day! We also went to the cookies place that my father want to buy. So basically, the purpose of this last day is to buy the cookies but we don’t want to carry the cookies with us the whole day so we put it on the last things to do. I checked from the internet and as far as I know the place close at 7:30 PM so when I checked it again on 6:30 PM it’s written closing soon which make sense in 60 minutes they will close and we arrived there like either 10 or 8 minutes to 7 and we chose the cookies slowly and the girl said “I need to close the shop, we closing at 7” and we asked her for 5 more mins and she locked us in so that no other guest can come. What a day! Thanks God we made it otherwise my father would be so upset hahaha

The trip ended with me going back to Shanghai, my sister and Dom continued to Barcelona and Germany and my parents went back to Jakarta. Thanks for the light and love, Paris! wait… love?

This trip also ended up with addition of a not so new person, what does it means? Hint: Look at the blink 😉

Yes peps! my sister got engaged! The ring was too big for her so she put it on her middle finger first hahaha there will be subtraction from the Praseli but addition to the Berger 😉 She told us after she came back from Arc de Triomphe so actually Lansana played an important role, otherwise I would be with them and if Dom asked me to not join then I already know what will happen! My reaction was pretty random I jumped to her when I saw the ring and yes she hasn’t told me at that time, I think she’s about to but my eyes works faster than her word 😉 so I realized it was for the best that I’m not with them in the Arc otherwise it could be another different story ahahaha They told my parents the next day during breakfast. My mom cried, my father thought that he will be there during the proposal hahaha owh daddy!

I’m so happy for both of you, I mean we all are! Looking forward for the wedding but before that you need to solve the many wedding issues 😉 haha

#Keep Calm There’s One Praseli Left 😉

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Good Things Come In Small Packages

This summer I got a chance to visit the same countries that I visited 10 years ago but of course with additional time and places. Now it’s time for Belgium. For Belgium we went to Antwerpen-Brussels and Brugge. I only visited Brussels before and according to my memory Brussels was nice back then but now it wasn’t impressive at all, not that I disappointed it just showed me what 10 years could do to a city 😉

For Antwerpen, the train station was IMPRESSIVE ! It’s an old station but so so stunning in a way that only the building itself is able to mesmerized me. We stayed in a boutique hotel called Hotel Diamond and Pearls, it was about 30-40 mins by Taxi from the station, no elevator people! because it was such a heritage building and when they built it, the elevator doesn’t even exist-at least that’s what the GM told me.

Jason is super funny! He’s so cute and helpful, he recommended the place to eat and place to visit with a very clear explanation, he said “everything is so close, to go to Friday market its only take 2 minutes” btw it’s only the name Friday market but they have it every day 😉 and I said “Yeah, 2 minutes according to your pace but my pace could be slower” and he followed “no, it’s only right-left-right and you’re there” and it was literally just there, we came back to Jason to asked if we were on the right Friday market place and he said “yeah you found it, just like I said”

Then there is a place called Big market which is bigger than the Friday market but still close by, there’s also another place that looked like either a fort or Hogwarts school called Steelplein but unfortunately it’s under construction so we cannot go there 🙁

We also visited many churches, at least there are 2 churches in this area. I saw the coolest church every which they have a “fitness” corner haha!

Besides the kind of city center area, there is also a Tunnel for Antwerpen people or so to cross the river to the other side, it’s called Sint Anne tunnel where we went at least 30 meter below and what is so special about this? It’s the escalator! Jason called it a moving stairs hahaha 😉 that made out of wood and he said it’s pretty cool place to visit just to see the escalator and we trusted him so we went just to hop on on this very special wooden escalator, we didn’t even bother to cross the tunnel as Jason said it will take 20-30 mins to go to the other side.

Finished with Antwerpen, we went on to Brussels and to my surprise Brussels are dirty 🙁 but yeah here we are, let’s made the best out of it, waffles! churros! and the peeing boy-manneken pis. As far as I know there is only a boy but there’s also a girl and a dog! We went to the girl but it’s rather creepy and better not see it and the dog, meh! we didn’t even bother to search it.

Here is the famous manneken pis!

Ooops! he’s a boy so he’s not big and tall hahaha and def he’s not peeing while holding a waffle or peeing to the waffle hey kid! behave! here is the real one 😉

So…to whom who think the famous peeing statue is big… no oh! wrong! hahaha it’s really small. At least, the town hall is good!

Another famous attraction in Brussels is the Atomium, still have no idea why this could be it hahahaha there’s Mini Europe there so it’s the miniature of the whole building in Europe. Imo, it’s not necessary, even if you have time, you won’t miss anything if you missed it. If I may, better go to Brugge or even stay there for 3 days and visited Brussels for one day that would be the smart plan! Brugge is like 40-50mins away by train from Brussels but once you step in there…it’s a fairy tale land! I love it instantly, my sister booked a walking tour for 2.5 hours from Legend walking tour, our tour guide a 68 years old named Louis is a very nice guy and he also recommend a very nice restaurant, even until my Europe trip finished, no restaurant can beat the food we had in Brugge! He said he also do night tour where they go to a spooky, urban legend kind of place with torches and stuff and that’s sounds so appealing!

He said there are only 2 homeless guy in Brugge and they were put on a nice old house which many stuff enough for their daily needs and when I heard it it’s so nice that Brugge does it to their people. As someone who loves and believe in fairy tale haha #shy, and fast forward few years after that I could see these building that I only imagine exist in the fairy tale land in real life, I was amazed by it.

He also said that only in Brugge they have a pipe line for beer! So that the truck doesn’t need to do the unloading and pass through the city center as it would damage the streets.

Owh how I can’t get enough of Brugge #eyes drooling 🙂 we also went to churches and the town hall.

Cheers to the very satisfying dinner we had in Brugge 🙂

I think the saying of “Good Things Come In Small Package” does exist as Brugge and Antwerpen is smaller compare to Brussels but they do have better things here! At first I thought the saying was “Big Things Come In Small Package” but someone told me that it’s not true because if it’s big things then how can it fits in the small package? hahaha so we searched it on the internet and turns out indeed he was right, not big things but good things 😉

After that we went back to Brussels as we will leave the next day to the city of light and love, Paris! …stay tuned 😉