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 🙂
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!
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 😀
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
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 😉
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
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
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 😉
Finally this time we were having Paella for lunch! And the menu was pork ribs Paella. We were 6 people and Diego’s colleague Carmela brought a Chistorra. Yes we had a starter this time!
Like the Sausage so this was our starter! #yummy! While Diego prepared for the Paella and he said that we can start to make the sausages and Thomas suddenly remembered that he has bread! But still very frozen so we need to postponed the sausage for about 30 mins as we need the bread to be on the oven first
Idk what happened with Thomas kitchen because he can only turn on one stove on so they were kind of “OK, stop this one first and use the electricity for the oven and then continue” and they had kind of changing cable situation on the kitchen mwahaha
Thomas and Diego kept opening the oven to see if the bread
got warm as they or should I say everyone wasn’t that patient to wait 😉 and
when the bread kind of warm enough they started to make the sausages and eggs
and here is our starter 😉
While the boys busy with their own cable and starter, me and
Sara was busy on ordering a cake. Last time it was Dutch Pie, this time we need
to give other bakery a chance and I suggested that we ordered from Cake Home,
the famous Russian bakery 😉 and there was a tie between carrot cake and red
velvet cake so we ordered half and half. I asked the cake home guy to write
“Happy Birthday Sara” but he said “No, only happy birthday” and I was “what is
going on with this guy? He can write Happy Birthday but he cannot write Sara?”
and he said “when you receive it you’ll understand” okay then! Make the cake
and deliver it to me and let’s see if I can understand 😉
I still hold my previous job as tasting the salt but
Carmella and Thomas also had this job so there were a different opinion
regarding the salt and the cook choose they opinion instead of me booooooo
mwahaha but it still turns out good 😉 Here’s the pork ribs Paella!
And then our dessert arrived! Cake home had a really cute box which is a pink ribbon and turns out the “happy birthday” was a sign so that’s why they can’t add Sara on it and yes I understand 😉
When we received it we were doubting is that even carrot cake? or Tiramisu? I know their carrot cake is not like typical carrot cake but it is!
Unfortunately they were running out of candles! So Thomas took out his best candle which I am so reluctant to put that candle on the cake because it doesn’t really match but Gianna just put it like bam! Here’s the candle haha
Happy Birthday Sara! Hope your thumb heal very soon! Hahaha
I think that’s the most realistic wish ever 😉
I think that time was already 5-6ish and Carmela had to leave first so there was 5 of us left at Thomas’ and somehow we keep talking about random things until suddenly a big brainstorm idea came hahaha it was about opening a Taekwondo class but the teacher will have to be Diego, he just need to go back to Spain to earn his black belt and come back hahaha. At first I thought Thomas and Gianna was just joking just put this as an idea but then the conversation getting more and more serious and they were really tried to convinced Diego to be the teacher and Sara said she can teach Flamingo dance and what can I do? Hmmm I can be the admin! Hahaha Thomas and Gianna can be the investors 😉
This was going on until it’s about dinner time around 8-ish and we went to eat Pizza and Fiona joined them for after dinner and Thomas and Gianna told her about their plan of opening a Taekwondo class and she seems to be on board also haha I didn’t know that you guys are serious about this, it’s just so funny watching you brainstorming without any written agenda, Gianna said “it’s all on my mind” mwahaha Well, well, well, let’s see how it goes… Meanwhile, everybody get back to your own job 😉
Even though we had Paella as a lunch this time but we ended up until late evening haha the same things as if we had Paella for dinner 😉
Thank you Diego for making the Paella but my fav still either the rabbit or seafood and Happy Birthday for Sara! and really hope your thumb get fix soon so that we can start doing Via Feratta!
It was started when Thorben posted the pic of me and him with the “adoption” title and somehow 6 of his colleague congratulates him on the adoption, they don’t think that Thorben legally adopted me but they thought that Thorben supported my education or whatsoever haha and then Children’s day is coming and his company has a family day where the company allowed their employee to bring their children, spouse, girlfriend to Disneyland! When Thorben said it he wanted to take me as a child to Disneyland and of course I said yes! I mean it’s Disneyland for free, what can you expect but at that time they haven’t set the date or if it will be fixed that they will have family day on Disneyland…. until this message came up:
But in the end I couldn’t get the kid ticket because of course I didn’t fulfill the requirements of a kid 😉 but since Marina and Thorben are working in the same company therefore they can bring a +1 soooo here’s our family experience! Featuring parents: Thorben and Marina, kids: brother Freddoy and sister Marlyn 😉
We were supposed to arrived at Thorben and Marina’s home at 7:30 but since the day before was a Hungover League day and somehow I woke up late so I arrived at their home at 7:45 and we arrived Disneyland exactly when the park open at 8:30.
Marina is sooooo well prepared, on the taxi she’s already make a fast pass account for all of us so by the time we arrived at the park we can get the fast pass, she downloaded the APP so that we can see the waiting line for each attractions, she knows where we need to go etc etc. 30 mins before we arrived the FP for Soaring already at 3-4 PM and by the time we arrived it was sold out! so we got FP for another roller coaster 7 dwarf something like that and they were like “Marlyn it’s because you’re late” 🙁 huaaa Marlyn got blamed#1
We arrived! and there was a line of course what else can you expect and Freddoy made a documentation of every queuing that we did haha Thorben was the one that least excited, dunno why.
My goal was just to ride the Tron! so that’s the first things we did! We waited for like 50-60 mins for Tron and it was so cool! I really like the idea that we sit in a motorcycle kind of ride and Freddoy was scaring me he said that I need to talk to the staff because I can still moved my upper body and he said that my lock wasn’t right and for some seconds I believed him until the ride is finished and he said he was joking, I was holding to the tron so tight! haha We were all thinks that Tron is so cool because we have the indoor and outdoor roller coaster so we wanted to ride it again but wait until the sun came down so it’s kind of dawn and with the lamp and so on must be so good! so we decided to come back again before the fireworks, meanwhile we went to other attractions 😉
Because Woody’s attraction and Peterpan’s was kind of close with Tron then we also visited them, we wanted to visit Woody’s first but somehow we found Peterpan’s first so here we are for Peterpan’s. From the app it was written waiting time 45 mins but turns out it was 90 mins! Sth must happened with the machine because it’s just too long. We realized it too long after we played so many games and the line wasn’t really moving! And yes people, Marina and Thorben prepares the game as well! haha Thorben brought card game Dobble and Marina’s got a game on her phone called heads up where we need to “Act it out” whatever’s written on the phone and one person guess it. There was a very funny act when the things that Marina need to guess was “Making OREO” we tried to demonstrate it until Thorben just made us on a line, Freddy-Thorben-Me. Freddy is Latino so he’s got a tan skin and me is from South East Asia so I got a yellow skin and Thorben is from German so he’s got a white skin and to make it worse Marina understood it! mwahaha she said “oh, oh , making an OREO!” and we were just laughing 😀 Freddy said “Idk which one is worse, that Thorben did this demonstration or the fact that Marina understands it” but I found it was really really funny! We really attracts the attention due to we were loud and they also videotaped us while we were playing this game and I wish they could record the oreo things haha
Then we went to Woody’s Ranch 🙂 it was a funny attraction and we were kind of get it directly really really less time in waiting. It was funny in a way that the cart really bumped us to left and right and we even jumped in to Woody’s twice!
After woody’s there was a parade! We didn’t watch the beginning of the parade, it was toy story-Zootopia-Finding Nemo-creepy Prince and Princess and the one that Freddoy’s like MULAN!” I couldn’t see the parade that clear because there was many people in front of me and I said “What is this that I’m seeing?” and Thorben hold me on his shoulders so I can see what is going on and I did say hi to the characters 😉
After watching the parade we just walking around the park on the way to have a very late lunch or very early dinner, depends, on the Cheesecake Factory. But we were taking pictures first on the famous castle 😉
Then in front of this castle there’s a very funny Donald duct statue, the grumpy one and Thorben said “Take a pic of me with grumpy Donald” why oh why you need to be grumpy?! #puppy eyes
Grumpy Thorben
Smiley Daisy and Grumpy Donald
And we also taking a picture of a Laowai that take a picture for Laowai’s 😉
Next one was Pirates of The Carribean! OMG! There is no words to describe how cool is this attractions! The effect, the sounds, the way they made you feel that once you were underwater and then above the water was amazing! Thorben said to me that we were really under the water but meh! don’t believe it 😉 It is really really amazing guys, you need to go for it! Either with or without FP, I think it’s still worth the wait, well we were lucky the waiting line for this wasn’t so long maybe also 40 mins-ish.
I think we went to fill ourselves with corn and turkey leg and before our real food from Cheesecake factory! Owh we still able to watch Tarzan shows 🙂 I like the shows, Marina said Thorben was sleepy and he almost slept but I always scream so he woke up and started to clap his hands automatically mwahaha come on Thorben, Tarzan is a good show! you need to wake up 😉
Then, it’s time for the real food 😉 Our stomach is calling! When we sat down finally on the restaurant, this is the moment where I really feel that I’m so tired, my legs and back was aching and when I ate the bread it’s kind of a realization that I was hungry! the whole time! but I didn’t fell it on the park.
Then we came back in, we wanted to do Tron again but after we fill ourselves it’s not a very wise idea to sitting on the motorcycle like that so we went to Pirates again! and still amazed even though I already know what happened. Then we want to a buzz world sth like that where we need to shoot the Z target, I was sitting with Freddoy he shot 1Million stars and I was only 830,000 ish but not bad 🙂
We went to the 7 dwarfs and it was also a funny roller coaster ride 😉 Freddoy was holding his phone but I’m afraid that at some turn the roller coaster will get crazy so I was like “Freddoy! hold your phone” haha
Then the sun is kind of gone already so we went for our TRON! tarararam! but due Tron was on the other side of the park and I need to have a pee break for a while, only me 😉
The waiting line for Tron wasn’t that long and I was so happy that I can get the first row, Thorben and Marina was on the second row and with all the excitements and ready to scream! the lights on the side of the rail was on and it was time for accelerate and suddenly we got stopped and the lights on the side already on the end of the rail so we think it’s time to accelerate! prepare to shout! but…. we are still there…. I looked at Freddy and asked “Were we stopping on the first time we got to Tron” and maybe it was stopped for few seconds… but it changed to minutes… and up to the point where there was announcement that sth wrong with the machine and they want us to wait. So Thorben use this moment to take picture of us, we got a really cool picture though.
And we said “save your phone Thorben” be careful we might accelerate after this like a surprise attack! But after few more minutes….. there was nothing going on until another announcement saying that “this ride is temporarily suspended” I was like NOOOOOO huaaaa I was on the first row! and Thorben said “Marlyn, it was your pee break! otherwise we would have gone to the train before this one” huaaa Marlyn got blamed 2#2
So the staff manually opening our safety equipment and ask us to stay on one line because the rail is narrow and we got out one by one.
As a compensation, they gave us a FP to go everywhere and at that time it was 20 or 15 minutes to 8PM and the fireworks was at 8:30 PM and Soaring was on the other side. So we ran like hell and it was rainy also, so dramatic! Freddoy gave us direction but it took us longer and Marina kept saying “I’m the one that have the map, it’s the wrong direction” mwahaha well, kids you know 😉 and our last queue for Soaring! we were on the first row also for this one! wohooo
Finally it was fireworks time! We didn’t get the spot of the main entrance castle, we got the side spot but I think it’s still cool! And Thorben got a task for me, he said “Marlyn, you need to shout as loud as possible to ruin all of these people’s video” mwahahaha and then there was a time for Frozen song and everyone was singing it 😉 And after few minutes of watching the shows I asked Thorben if I can go to his shoulders again mwahaha so I kind of blocked other people behind me #sorry for not being sorry 😉
The laser show, fireworks and real fire flame was amazing! Rest in peace environment #quote from Marina’s 😉 but it was magical! Thank you Marina and Thorben for taking me and Freddoy to Disneyland 😉 not only that you choose us to be your +1 but also during the whole time we were on the park, you already planned where to go and what to do during the waiting line, I’m sure if I don’t go with you I probably wouldn’t do half of what we’ve done…#ooppsss also our mother’s Disney expert analyst Boramy! haha We did quiet a lot in one day and I think I can say that my pee break also give us the blessings mwahaha otherwise we wouldn’t watch Soaring 😉
