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The Triumph Of Making New Friends

After being turned down by Thorben and Aggy- they chose to do archery because they both will play on the league wohoo then the one that wasn’t get drafted for the league which is me and Gordy we went with one of travel agency to do a day trip to somewhere located in Suzhou… supposedly (I mean, I don’t even bother to search where was the location and nor does Gordy hahaha) to do “paint ball” BBQ and “hike”.

We were about 27 people on the group and I only know Gordy and so does he and he asked me on the bus “Are you ready to make some new friends?” and I ‘enthusiastically’ said “yeahhhh” ahaha then we both know what does that “yeah” implies to 😉 therefore we have kind of our own competition of how many new friends can we make, not that the numbers matters the most but at least we will try haha

The ride took us for about 2 hours, and I was so sleepy because I am on the way to get cold, I got runny nose and I sneezed every time and Gordy he went to KTV the day before until maybe around 2am, he said he was sleepy but I don’t think he sleep on the way. I mean this is not a sleepy person would do… pffff…

And then we arrived to the “paint ball” and BBQ place, the weather was awesome! I was able to only wear a shirt! This place was kind of hill or something, you can walk around or you can play the paintball which is what we do but it’s not the real paintball like I was expected. It was only bubble water gun, no color and even if you got shoot you still can play it just pretend that you don’t get shot, and we don’t even wear the full body costumes, only the body protection and a color shirt to differentiate which team we are playing. So this wasn’t exactly what I signed up for but yeah we already there anyway, and while on this hill there was a plant that when you touch them they will stick to your pants, so…. after the game I got this seeds all over my sports pants which is not very favorable 🙁 but I still had fun in some way 😉

Then it was a noon time, it’s time to eat! In this BBQ I met Elle and Wesley! Elle and I bonded because of the seeds that was all over my pants haha, she’s helping me to pick it one by one aawww 😉 but me, Elle, Wesley and Gordy we didn’t really do proper BBQ because the smoke was everywhere! like we need a gas mask to do so haha so we just put our food and then go behind the tree or somewhere else to hide from the smoke.

When the tour guide said that we can add some more food then we add more bread, corn, beef from the so called pantry andddd! while I was eating my corn, I saw something wasn’t quiet right, and I asked Gordy “Gordy, what is this? Is this what I think it is?” and he said “It’s a bug”, Wesley and Elle did what a supportive person would do especially when they were not the one that ate that “It’s protein, it will be healthy for you” and I stopped eating the corn after that 🙁 but I continue by eating the other food ahaha. From all 2 hours of our BBQ time, Elle only made one bread haha that she was very determined to cook it by her own because she was so busy hiding from the smoke 😀

Next destination is only 5 minutes by bus from this hills, we went to what so called “hike” but I know it wouldn’t be a real hike, more like a brisk walk with steps and so on. Gordy was expected it to be less people but I think the people on the hike was OK, not super crowded. Two guys was trying to talk to Gordy but because they can’t speak English so I had to translate it in between, and when he asked “帅哥来自哪里?” Gordy said “加拿大” and they said “Oh your Chinese is so good” while to me they just said “Yours are OK” I was like heloooooo, I was the one that doing translation the whole time, he just said one word! and I said mannnyyyyy….. pffff white privilege hahaha and with this it’s motivated me to go hike either faster or way slower to make some distance from them hahaha and long story short we lost them 🙂

The hike was actually pretty good and when we reached the top the view is amazing! and the temple itself its very nice decorated! thumbs up! When we kind of reach half of the top, I tried to sing “The Climb” from Miley Cyrus but then Elle said “It took me a while to realize what song it is” haha I know my voice is not like Mariah Carey but pleaseee hahaha

I was soooo happy when I arrived at this temple, and after the tour guide said that Gordy can use his drone then this is when he had his bonding time with Wesley haha and the picture from the drone is amazing, this temple is surrounded around the greens! *Slide for more awesomeness!*

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On this drone video, you can see that Gordy caught a group of birds flying around the temple.

Well well well, then it is the time for us to ride back to Shanghai, I think most of us slept on the way back. When we arrived we wanted to have dinner at Bar Centrale because it was BOGO pizza but we need to wait for more than 1 hour so Gordy decided to go to Barbarian and I was so heartbroken that I cannot eat the pizza 🙁 but the food at Barbarian was so good as well, me and Gordy had the proper BBQ skewers while Elle and Wesley had a burger, Elle said she doesn’t want to have BBQ again and she ordered a salad as a side dish just for her dignity 😉 haha.

In the end, Gordy revealed the question to Elle and Wesley, a question that “Will we make a new friends from this trip?” and they were laughing. Gordy, I think we did make new friends with them 😀 and this make the whole drama of eating corn with worms, getting seeds all over my pants, the torn was stuck on my finger, the very uncomfortable feelings on my leg was worth it 🙂

Gordy won the what I called “moment of truth” we need to see whose the one that got added on wechat first haha and Wesley added him first but he was humbly enough to say “it was my drone that won the moment of truth game” Way to go, champs! 😀

 

 

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“Masterchef” In Action

HA! The cooking days finally arrived! After so soo sooo many days of planning and 3 of us keep changing the date, finally 27th October is the day where me and Aggy will cook Indonesian dish for Thorben. I mean, after 4 times steak, it’s time to pay back ahaha but since it will be my first time to cook this dishes then it will only be a “trial” dishes therefore I won’t invite anyone else. And if we failed well….. this is the halloween dish haha 😀

Thorben has been very German since Tuesday,

T: Ok, what’s the plan for Saturday?

M: Aggy and I will come to your home and we will cook.

T: What about the ingredients?

M: Aggy and I will go to the market in the morning and then bring it all to your home.

A: Thorben, Marlyn kept saying “Aggy and I” but in reality she didn’t consult it with me.

M: Aggy, we need to stick it together all the time! haha and relax Thorben, this is Indonesian style we will do it only few hours before.

T: I can’t, I’m German I need to have some plan.

Meanwhile between me and Aggy we were like “OK lets go to carrefour to buy the veggies in the morning blablabla” and in the end we met at 2:30 and just go to wet market near Thorben’s haha

I came to Thorben’s home carrying a bag and many plastic with all the ingredients and also halloween costumes insides because after this dinner we will go for halloween party and so does Aggy and we unstoppable knocked the door and Thorben bumped the door from inside haha and I was “tarammm we are here” and we went to his kitchen and put all the stuff on his fancy kitchen set.

The menu for today is bistik, tempe (from fast season food-not from scratch), perkedel, gado-gado (also not from scratch). I was actually more nervous because Thorben made such a good steak, and my dish will be sweet and he can’t really eat sweet stuff and when he took out the tenderloin beef and I smashed it he said “did you just smashed the best meat from the whole cow?” 😀 hahaha Thorben, it has to be like this!

Aggy was sleepy at that time, she was trying to fall asleep on the sofa but she felt bad so she helped us to cut the onions blablabla

because actually Aggy’s part was making the gado2 which is the lasssttt part as it is such a fast salad haha but she helped me to cook the meat because it’s easier for me to explain how to do so and so in my own language although Thorben said “hey, English” 😉

I need to put the sweet ketchup all over the meat and Aggy said “Thorben, I’m sorry there is no medium well option, it will be only well done and Marlyn just ruined the whole good meat, don’t see it or you will get hurt” and I just laughed hearing that but honestly nervously laughed because I don’t think Thorben ever saw somebody pour out sweet sauce over a tenderloin meat haha 😀

There was a slight issue with this meat which is the cutting way it wasn’t as thin and as wide as what my mom said but Thorben said that I should have told him earlier if the meat should be so thin and he can’t cut it thinner especially after I smashed the whole meat for 20 minutes haha

I tried the meat and for me it wasn’t sweet, for Aggy it’s sweet and for Thorben it was too sweet haha so we put salt on it to make it less sweet for him. We need the vegetables for this dish which is carrot and potato, and Thorben cut it, I’ve told him how to cut it, but it still slightly different than my mom’s and he said “did I cut it wrong again?” haha

Thorben kept saying “OK, what else will we make? There are a lot of things on the table”

I said “Well Thorben, we will crash your kitchen, I’ve told you before” he was slightly nodded haha did we really made your kitchen dirty? *puppy eyes*….. but we also cleaned it!

Next is the “tempe” which is directly from the package but Thorben fried it idk too long or less oil or sth like that so the surface is seems like a burnt tempe but still the taste was good! 🙂 , this one wasn’t really impressive to him because we don’t need to do anything else hahaha we just directly open it from the package. Next we made “perkedel” we made a team, at first me and Thorben made the perkedel for the size of small pancakes (that’s how he said it) but then we improved, we became more systematic, I made the perkedel size and Thorben fried it. Ha! efficient German 😉

Then… Aggy and Thorben had a little bit of back and forth conversation of how to make the rice, we said in Asia this is how we make it but Thorben kept changing the way to how he made it in Germany anddd in result we got burnt rice 😉 hahaha! Well, I can’t say anything about the rice because we are suppose to make coconut rice but I forgot to bring the coconut ahahaha

Then Aggy made the very fast gado-gado which also too watery because Thorben apparently pour out more than 150cc of water hahaha but the peanut sauce still taste great! according to my opinion haha everything is great!

While I opened the chili sauce from the packages, I accidentally touched Aggy’s shirt hahaha and Thorben spray some cleaning things so it feels like Im washing Aggy’s shirt, she kept saying “it’s OK, it’s a work out shirt” but when she looked at the chili sauce stain she said “oh, this is quite a lot” hahaha sorry!

I guess, deep fried the shrimp crackers aka kerupuk was Thorben’s favorite haha. Me and Aggy kept saying the oil wasn’t enough but Thorben kept saying he already put many oil and in order to fry this kerupuk, Thorben need to keep back and flip it otherwise it will wrinkle and he said “Jesus Christ!” haha in the end he was using two tools to make this kerupuk, and we need to do it one by one because the kerupuk will get larger and larger.

Aggy kept saying “that’s enough kerupuk” but we insisted to fry more because we like it (and I need to put random facts that Aggy hasn’t showered since morning! because her hot water miraculously stopped working) so Aggy said “Can I take shower now?” Thorben said “Yes, please!” hahaha and while Aggy was in shower, we kept frying the kerupuk knowing that nobody will complaint 😉 hahaha

Finally, the whole cooking episode was finished! tadadaadammmm tarammmm,

But Aggy was still in showered, Thorben cleaned the kitchen and I started eating the crackers and Thorben said “stop eating it, I can hear you” haha and we shouted “Aggy, dinner is ready, hurry up” and then we start to eat and there was a moment when Thorben said “I like the beef” and both Aggy and I was “Thanks God” hahaha

I need to have a pride moment of picture of this day haha, Thorben said “one of you are happier than the other” 😉

Thorben said “so now, we can invite more people to make this” and I said “well, Marina, it’s already more than 3 people” hahahaha *wink wink* 😉

 

 

 

 

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Once A Friend Will Always Be A Friend

Friends…many stories behind, many gossips around, many places visited together, a little bit of misunderstanding 😉 ,sometimes rather annoying XD but still, once a friend will always be and when we meet again no matter after how many years we were apart, we still laughing at the same joke 😀 , we still laughing at the same situation, at the same teacher, at the same people it’s like nothing has been changed but yeah we grow older *face palm*

Thanks to Cepi that drove 3 hours away from Bandung to Jakarta just to have lunch with me. Just spoiler so you know that we were talking about you while dinner with Eddy and Darren and me and Eddy didn’t really get it why Darren was laughing when he knew that you drove away against all traffic from Bandung to Jakarta 😀

We were again had lunch at the mall hahaha! Jakarta is always mall, and besides it’s easier to meet because Cepi drove from the highway and then get out of the highway and there is the mall 🙂 . We had “ayam penyet” and “iga penyet” as lunch, but the standard chili was 15 pcs of chili but I am not sure if I can handle 15pcs of chili so I reduced it to 5 at first I wanted to reduce it to 3 but then Cepi said than it won’t be called as a “penyet” haha And he also gave me a ghost, I don’t know why he gave me the ghost haha but it’s a cute ghost that was painting and maybe suddenly he’s dead haha!

Dinner time! Back again with Eddy and Darren, Darren chose the place and it’s not in a mall! haha it’s somewhere close to my home and it’s a restaurant semi cafe, a small one but very cute.

Me and Eddy arrived first so we ordered and when Darren arrived, I said “this is such a good place and the food is also good” he said “well, this is because I have a girlfriend so I know what the good restaurant is, if not I won’t go to this kind of place” and Eddy said “if you are single, you will only eat fried rice everyday” hahaha. Eddy and Darren always eat fried rice in Bandung, especially behind Bandung airport, I think Eddy was exaggerating when he said “When you eat the fried rice there, you will feel chills because it seems like the airplane will crash you, the noise was sooooo loud” is it??? 😮

Follow up by seeing the mothers! Erin! the beautiful mother 🙂 some people at UNPAR said that I really look like her, once there was someone that kept shouting Erin! Erin! while I walked so that I stopped and I turned around, and he said “hi Erin” I said “Marlyn?” he kept saying “Erin” and I was like…… “I’m not Erin” and he said “OMG you look like her, are you her twins?” …. hmmm people, do I really look like her?

Baby Nina, you’re a blessed child to have Erin as your mother, what a beautiful and smart mother and also! Nina, you have the “Angelina Jolie” type of lips 😉 look at your lips and your cheeks haha your cheeks already fell down soooo cute! and I don’t know why but baby smells really nice 🙂

Continues with mother Monique, but her kids already become a toddler but still very smart and sneaky kid, I bet it’s the genes from Alvin instead from you, well… that’s what you always said haha! maybe you also have a sneaky side 😉  We were having lunch, Indomie was one of the best instant noodles ever! and we had the modern indomie shop and I can’t leave without tasting it, but…. I choose the wrong Indomie so it wasn’t my favorite 🙁

I came to her home to see the kids, her second kid suddenly just grabbed my hand and took me over to see his brother’s tent ?! I mean…..it’s your brother’s tent…. haha why you didn’t show me something that belongs to you?! 😀

And Abraham, you grew up so fast! Smart boy, still more calm than Matthew but you talked a lot already 😉 good job boy!

Monique, you are a very dedicated mother, I really believe in you that you could open your home-school preschool, you have all the curriculum and gosh for sure I would not be able to teach my kid as patient as you *4 thumbs up! 🙂

Like all holidays, it needs to end and back to work…why? Because I have bills! I gotta to pay! so I work, work, work everyday! I got mouth, I gotta feed so I’ll make sure everybody eats! hahaha

Adios Amigos 😉

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Dede with Mom and Dad…. and other relatives

I’m coming home, tell the world I’m coming home. The world?!?! pffff that’s so exaggerating haha 😀 Yais, yais, yais! I’m coming home finally for 13 days minus the flight, so I was at home for 11 days actually.

Crazy Rich Asian was so hits! and I haven’t watch it in Shanghai therefore I was so happy when I found out that it still air in the cinema here, I watch it with my mom. I was extremely happy to see Asian face in Hollywood 😉 Spoiler: I really like the soundtrack of one of the scene at CRA which is Cant Help Falling In Love, covered by Kina Grannis, OMG! that was such a very touching scene! And from CRA followed by watched Searching, gezzz! Searching is sooooooo awesome! not only because it was also another Asian face but the story itself is soooo unpredictable! 😮 My sister was the one that very very very keen about Searching, because it was aired for 1.5 months ago so she was afraid that the movie already taken down and she was right, it was almost taken down but we still managed to watched it! highly recommend!

My parents wasn’t so update about what kind of movies that new released, of course they know about Mission Impossible or another James Bond movie because these are the Hollywood Hollywood style of movie, but for the one that starred with Asian actress they don’t really know. My father didn’t watch CRA, only mom but she likes it, the three of us watched Searching and all of us like it a lot! Me and my father like the movie that was based on a true story, so I downloaded Hacksaw Ridge and watched it with them, and I also asked them to watch Lion. And maybe tomorrow we will watch Venom at the cinema haha! Yes, we watch many movies 😀 But I also learn how to cook Thorben! haha

I brought my HSK 6 book with me because in theory I will learn the HSK back home but in fact I didn’t even open that book! hahaha 😮 gosshhh I think I will have to postponed the test otherwise it will be the same as I’m tossing RMB 650 registration fee to the window hahaha

First weekend, I met the family from my mother side (not all only 2 uncles with their family) and OMG my cousins all are grown ups already! These 3 are the ones that still shorter than me but I’m sure next year they all will be taller than me huaaaa 🙁 but yeah what do I expect anyway 😀 They were 10 yo, 15 and 16yo….. and me… 27! haha!

We went to Abuba steak to kind of celebrate my birthday

But honestly speaking, it was nothing compare to Thorben’s 😉 and I’m serious!

Fast forward to the next weekend, we were at the mall and yes! We as Indonesian went to mall often haha something that maybe European or American cannot relate to that *face palm* and my father saw an orange squeezer on discount to only Rp 20,000.00 which is around RMB 10 and my father said to my mom that this is on discount, let’s have a look on this shop. And we bought that orange squeezer and my mom bought something for the bathub and while we want to pay to the cashier inside, we found out that all the furniture there was also on discount! I mean BIG SALE! and my father just asked the shop assistant “Are you getting to close down so everything were on discount?” anddd! She said “Yes, this is the last day, we will close tonight!” And suddenly out of nowhere my father got all the energy to checked the furniture hahaha! and in the end we came home with a new dining table + 6 chairs, and a new shelf 😀

At first, the reason why we need to buy the new dining table and shelf so that our home will be more neat because everything will be on the places, but not long after they finished assembled it and they started to put everything on the table and I was like “The table and shelf now is bigger and indeed has more space but you will also put more stuff so in the end it will be the same always full and not so neat” hahaha *face palm* it will be full sooner or later as my mom will bring her collections somewhere from the boxes to put it on the shelf haha 😀

Another family meeting! We met 1 aunt from my father side 🙂 we went to Central Park (also mall! don’t get deceived by the name Park and Central) we had lunch there. She was my most realistic aunt! She said she just had a high school reunion, for about 40 years they haven’t met each other and she said all of them they still recognize her, without a doubt, while everyone was still guessing who is who because all of the changes that happened within 40 years but to her, everyone could guess it was her. And I was a bit confused of why? she said because when I was in high school I was already 62kgs and now I’m 70kgs so it was only small differences, while the other was 35kgs and now become 80kgs of course nobody would recognize them. HAHAHA! I was laughing so hard, she said it very relax XD.

And I remembered my highschool, I was between 40-42kgs let’s see in 40 years how much weight I will be 😉

Next family meeting is my uncle from my father’s side but I only meet his kids which is my cousins. They are the youngest cousins from my father side which is 18 yo and 15 yo and kids…. you grown so fast! haha I’m the smallest one then 🙁

Out of the sudden this is the last weekend I’m here 😮 and I’m flying back to Shanghai again on Tuesday morning another 😮 Also, I will see next time I’m coming back home again, how full our shelf will be 😉 haha

Stay healthy and happy Mom and Dad! ‘Till we meet again, hopefully next time we will have full Praseli’s clan 😉

 

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Blessed The Food… I mean THE CHEF!-Part 4

And here it goes the quadrilogy of Thorben and Marina’s dinner!

This time we almost had the full house except we miss the handsome Fredoy 🙁 so we were 7 people with Julia and Frank haha my guess about your name was right 😉 , and then Tim and Ben. Ben is always bring something for the host but he was the last one that arrived. Me, I was the first haha I don’t think you don’t need to ask about that but I wasn’t so German, I came 5mins late from the German dinner time.

Marina made the appetizer of salmon and ham rolled by spinach? or something I don’t know but it’s just soooo good! at first I thought it was kind of sushi but nope it ain’t sushi, and we also had bread! and some special things for the bread which I don’t even give attention to the name because I just busy eating it, but I remembered this things came from Marina’s garden or sth like that mwahaha 😀

Thorben made a different style of steak, mashed potato, different cutting of carrot style, still the same mushroom and salad. But spoiler! none of us touch the salad! huaaa poor salad 🙁 my very honest reason was….. I’m not a rabbit hahaha I need meat! 😉  He texted me and Aggy while he still prepares for the feast, he took picture of the ingredients and it was so tempting already. Cooking for 7 people indeed needs to start waayyyyy earlier.

Ben brought wine with him, and since it’s white wine so I had it as well. He bought it somewhere close by Thorben and Marina’s apartments and he ran into Italian people that asked him to have a drink but then he said “I was actually 15 mins late for a German dinner” and Ben said those Italian were like “Then go, go, hurry up” haha and we were just laughing there.

Frank actually ate quiets a lot. And it was so funny when Tim said “Actually we still have salad that we haven’t touch and I’m not even planning to touch it, there are so many good food here, I’m sorry Thorben” and I was totally agree with him haha! So I think it was Thorben that ate most of the salads hihihi!

Then, the desert always the jackpot! Marina made 30 cheesecakes! She said “Relax everyone there is enough cheesecake for everyone” and she made the new one was the one with nutella and oreo gezzzz! that cheesecake was seriously EPIC! * 4 thumbs up*

This house has EVERYTHING! Once second Ben said he needed tissue and then BAM! Tissue was there, I mean what you don’t have there Thorben? hahaha

We definitely need to play the Ben’s game, up until now I don’t even know what is the name of the game haha. I was using my name, obviously Marlyn and I guess it was Frank and Ben the first one that used the name of Also Marlyn and Not Marlyn and then somebody used the name of Marina, and Marina was “Who’s Marina?” haha. Ben didn’t stay up for long, he left after a while.

I was not the winner of this game that night! huhuhu the winner was Thorben all the time! besides, we all were so sucks at drawing so in the end we decided to play another game.

The second game was faster because we don’t need to draw, we just need to answer the questions. Two people will get the same question and we need to choose which answer we like, and the username of Frank and Tim was: Not Marlyn, Super Marlyn and then Very Marlyn haha!

I don’t know how there was a question like this:

If MARLYN had an underground club, the secret password would probably be……. hahaha I was confused and also wanted to laugh when I read the question 😉 I wanted to choose “Yes, I will cook steak for you” but then it’s too long for a password, so I choose STEAK and all of us chose it and Thorben was like “WHATTT?” hahaha turns out Thorben wrote the second answer and all of us commented because it was too loooonngggg 😉

And it was the best answer so far during the game 😉 If I’m not mistaken, Never Marlyn was Tim? ya? Just like the previous trilogy of the dinner, we always left their home about midnight because it was soooo cozy over there so I personally don’t want to leave 😉

I know there will be a time where I need to cook Indonesian dishes……well, let me put it this way, it won’t be Indonesian dishes but it will me my mom’s signature dish 🙂 So you will have to try the food that I grew up with 😉

Of course I am having a bit of pressure because Thorben’s dinner was and always epic! Therefore we agreed that on the first trial, I will cook for a small group of people to try and to calculate the time that we need to cook. And yes it’s a “we” instead of an “I” because first, Aggy will help and second, Thorben will also help haha! I cannot do this on my own but I will bring all the ingredients from Indonesia because me and Aggy never really cooks so we don’t know if we can buy the ingredients here which I do believe we could… but yeah I just want it to be like more dramatic that I’m bringing all the ingredients from back home hahaha!

Maybe the pentalogy edition will be my dishes..who knows! Meanwhile…… to be continued 😉

 

 

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From UNPAR-ians Bandung to Jakarta

Friday nights, catching up with some of my university friends, the newly weds couple Evan and Susan- which btw I came to your wedding last year, the only reason why I went home is to attend your wedding and just a reminder that you promised me to come to my wedding wherever and whenever it will be 😉 and the one that always have idea to hang out every time while we were still in Bandung- Darren. What makes you so busy that you only able to meet us after 9 huh? haha 😉

Susan called me yesterday to asked where should we meet for dinner, she suggested Chinese food and I said “No, I came from China and I don’t want to eat any Chinese food here, I want to have bakso” So here we are! they brought me to the famous bakso place according to go-food app. Butttt! Because I’ve been away from home for quiet some time, I didn’t get use to how spicy the soup was so I’d had to ask for another clear soup to be able to kill the meatballs haha

And then she said there was another very happening snack called “Banana Nugget” there were many copy of it but we went to the authentic original one according to Susan and Evan haha! And it’s like a chicken nugget but instead of nugget it is a banana duhhh! We ordered Susan’s favorite Almond, Cheese and Chocolate. At first I want to order the Nutella and Milo but she said it will be giung which is too sweet so OK we went to her choice and the taste was surprisingly delicious!

And our busy Darren was still somewhere in Central Park, so we went to another Cafe called High Ground. When we arrived, there was some game tournament going on. We didn’t know what kind of game tournament but it was pretty serious one, and we found that there also have many many many board games. We don’t know how to play the board game but me and Susan just choose the one that was quiet funny from the boxes.

We picked up some board games and read the instructions but in the end we didnt play the board games. Susan picked up poopyhead, from all the game…she need to choose that and I read the instructions and still had no idea on how the games works, besides Evan was eating so we’d better respect him 😀

Instead we played some kind of detective to search where was Darren, it will only takes 20 minutes to go from Central Park to where we are but idk Darren took quiet some time and always said otw, and yeah otw since 40 minutes ago haha!

And finally Darren came! he came to us, he brought a paper bag and he gave to me saying “this is your independence cake, I can give you the lighter but you gotta light the candle yourself” pheww it’s very surprising that I will have to light my birthday cake by myself haha and he need to have additional sentence: it will be more independence if you chip in on the cake haha such Darren! I was like gezzz we met once a year yo! 😉 and he said “at first I wanted to give a surprise but it will be awkward if I just came by myself and sing a song by myself and my voice is so bad” haha

We were talking about our nostalgic time in our beloved university where all of us met which is UNPAR, we talked about our teacher that looks like a Korean boyband named Edward, the handsome computer teacher which Evan was so sure his name was Fernando while 3 of us doesn’t even know it, the hepatitis diseases that was spread suddenly and Evan was one of the victim that got hospitalized, the one that will get married soon. And by the time we realized these all happened like 10 years ago! We became……. experience haha not old, bitch please! we never grow old hahaha 😉

And then Darren sent me home but since we were so busy talking about the past time like how funny we were and by the time we reached my parent’s apartment, I’ve told him that I still have the same car that I drove on my university time, but he remember most about the previous car before this-my sister Honda City car’s. I was sooo sucked at driving car and every time I always asked Darren to help me park the car, one night it was a rainy day in Bandung but we were going to our accounting lessons and I couldn’t park it so I just parked randomly on the slightly middle of the street and I called Darren to help me parked the car, but the when he got in he said “your glass is covered by 80% film and I can see nothing, it’s just my feeling to park your car” and yes my father put the 80% glass film so it will be dark haha! Darren knew my ability of driving car, he once called me that I forgot to turn on the lights haha! how can I survive driving without you Darren 😉

The day was not over yet until I arrived home and realized I left the cake at his car! Arrghhhh I feel sooo bad that he bought it for me but then I left it but I was genuinely forget about it, it wasn’t my intention, so Darren need to come back again and bring the cake, lucky he was still close by 😀

Thanks for the “independence cake”, thanks for the time that you guys share with me, thanks for all the stories. For Susan and Evan, have fun in Russia I guess you will celebrate your 1st wedding anniversary there yeah? haha! and I will count the time if we will have an additional family member after your Russian trip * if you know what I mean haha 😉

See you when I see you friends!

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Blessed The Food… I mean THE CHEF!-Part 3

Yuhuuuu the trilogy of Chef Thorben’s and Pastry Marina continues :D. This time we had a full house! with guests: Leyfa, Dominic and wife + kid on the way (read: on her tummy), Stefan and another colleague from Italiano.

Thorben bought a different beef I guess… right? and he said “oh I should have grilled it more because some part of the beef was uneven” anyway something like that I can’t remember it clearly because I was just focusing on the beef. And Stefan said “this is a very typical German when they cooked a perfect beef and they always ‘humble’ by saying it can be improved in some way” haha. I guess it was Leyfa that brought the cheese and grapes so it’s a cute starter, idk what the other brings but for me I always bring my empty stomach. It’s such a waste if I don’t come with an empty stomach. They always have foods!

I was the last one that arrived because I just went from factory visit but that time they weren’t so German which is they also started the dinner late and when I arrived, I got my plate ready (minus the beef) but I saw Stefan’s plate has more carrots than I do! and those carrots are amazing! and I said “Why Stefan’s got more carrots than me?” and the voice from the kitchen which is Thorben said “Don’t worry I have a full pan of carrots here just for you” buihihihi I have a special carrot storage somewhere. Idk how he made it but the taste does sooooooo good and carrots is good for improving the eyesight haha I think I need to have unlimited supply of carrots from you Thorben so maybe I can shoot the target better in archery!

Marina made two types of cheesecakes with rashberry and oreo and also two types of avocado ice cream with something and something hahaha Stefan has allergic with milk…ya? is that correct? so he didn’t eat the cheesecake, but I ate his portions and also few other people portions because I ended up ate 2 rashberry cheesecakes and 2 oreo cheesecakes. RELAX people! It was a small cheesecake 😉 But then we lost our dinner crew, Stefan need to leave early because of a birthday party and Leyfa also need to leave for Markus’ farewell.

So here we are 6 people with baby on the way and what did we do???? We played the CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY!  But some cards are only understandable for US citizen because most of the jokes or everything that’s written there are related to USA and which btw none of us are from USA so we switch to play a magic cards! haha! Thorben got the very cool deck of cards from Las Vegas and I played out my dad’s old time card trick, but come on I’m not David Blaine of course it’s a trick, just enjoy the show 😉 And Thorben played the only 2 card tricks that I knew how to do it since eearrrllyyyyyy ageeee! ahahaha! and those 2 specific card tricks I only performed it to a kid haha :D. Dominic’s wife had quiet a few card tricks that I knew my father will be able to played it out, I need to learn from him again how to do those tricks so that I will have another back up card tricks and I will be like Helllooooo! BAM let me show you some magic 😉

And I guess one week after that Dominic’s wife delivered the baby! I think Happy Tummy dinner edition is really a happy tummy because I do believe they are excited that the baby is coming out from the mother’s tummy and me… I will always be happy to have dinner at Thorben’s home it’s kind of “improvement of nutrition” for me ahahaha 🙂

But here is another random funny fact! I never had dinner at Thorben’s with Aggy! Aggy had dinner with Leyfa and Stefan but somehow I was always not been there when it happened! haha but for sure both of us will be there when we do the Indonesian Feast *determined emoji* 😐

 

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The Not So German… Germans

Thorben and Marinaaaa!! Time is running up!! tsk tsk tsk September is almost over and we are not going to Hangzhou…yet *wink wink* 😉 Seems like the German plan doesn’t really works this time, another *wink wink* 😉 We had unexpected things happened that caused us to do some detour, but I still have faith in our ex-“Hangzhou in September” group, current “hangzhou wohooo yeah” group 🙂

However! They are still very German in some way (please be assured not because they are 100% made in German and are Germans haha) like I guess around 2 weeks ago we had Restaurant Week where all famous, fancy and expensive restaurant had a deal for either RMB 188 or RMB 288 for some set meals of appetizer-main course-dessert.

Marina went everyday so she could try 14 different food from fancy restaurant wooooo so cool. We should asked her real opinion of which restaurant she will suggest if there is no restaurant week deal. I don’t know how many times Thorben went but I knew for sure he missed 2 times, one with me and Marina and the other because he need to put his foot on the whirpool 🙂

Marina booked a table for 6 of us at Azul Tapas @ Ferguson Lane 8th floor but the elevator only goes until 7th floor and I never been there before so I was like “hmmm Im sure it was on the 8th floor” and we need to walked up to get to this fancy Azul Tapas. Bam! here we are!


The Menu indeed so interesting! I was very curious about the Egg 65 degree, I mean what does that mean anyway, you have to see the egg on 65 degree or what? haha while the other girls are more consent with the chocolate world. And when the food came, the egg 65 degree was rather weird I guess haha and we couldn’t finish it because it wasn’t my favorite pfffff but the other we finished it clean!  

And then I also went with Thorben, Marina, Julia and ……. (i’m sorry I forgot his name haha but at least I know his name starts with F right? haha) to The Cut also for restaurant week, duhhh when will I go to a fancy place if they don’t have special deal haha! But the menu of the Cut was too many “OR” choose this or that, bla or bla, lalalala. And on dessert I wanted to eat both and I couldn’t choose but thanks to Thorben he didn’t eat dessert so I can eat both! wohooooo

I arrived late at The Cut, and Thorben said that my Carpaccio already arrived but since I am not there yet and they were hungry so they had to take a bite and I was already at iapm mall, I just haven’t reach the 6th floor yet and I came as fast as I could to only find out that there was no food yet on the table 🙁 huaaaaa I arrive the cut with sweat because of running fast (please be in mind that the cut located in iapm, in a fancy mall with AC so if I can sweat that means I really ran 😉 )

And we finished the dinner and went to Thorben’s home with a happy tummy to play the Idk what is it called but it was the game that Ben wanted to showed us before and it indeed such a fun game!

Random facts, I will have to go to Vietnam on November because my Vietnamese best friend-弟弟 will get married XD! Let’s see if Thorben and Aggy could join or any other people are also welcome 😉 I will play the cards of Germans by planning on where I would like to go and hope Thorben and Aggy will be German Germans by able to have their holiday somehow and got a perfect plane for us 😀 (yes its a plane not a plan, because we kind of checked already that the flight to Vietnam wasn’t really comfortable one in terms of timing).

I really wish this short Vietnam weekend trip will end up in the most German Germans way possible 🙂

 

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Daddy’s Rules Number 1

“You can’t never be the last, this will be too painful to me, in everything you do you have to be at least second from the last, then I will be OK”

Yeap that’s my dad’s number one rule, when I was still an elementary students, junior high school and high school students every year my father always asked me “are you the smallest one in class?” and my annual task is to find somebody that is smaller than me, we don’t care if that someone will be taller than me next year but at least at that moment I’m not the last one, he said if I’m the last one then I’m in danger. If I had a bad grades, he always ask “is there someone that is worse than your score?” and of course there will always be someonesssssss (with the s which means its plural haha) and anyway with this rule I carry on with my life 🙂 my “I can’t be the last” attitude haha!

I think it was Aggy that having an idea to do Camel Pop Quiz on Tuesday and I was available to do that on Tuesday and so were Thorben. The Quiz starts at 8PM, Thorben had company dinner before so he might arrives late, I asked Miguel, David, Gordy, Andy, Yves, Thorben texted Rich but everyone couldn’t make it, including! the pioneer! AGGY! phewww you gotta organize your schedule because you were the one that always go to Camel, we need your help! But in the end, Stefan (which Thorben claimed really good at music and movie) came and also James from UK. And Thorben arrived at Camel way early that the quiz and I arrived exactly 8PM German Time.

At first, I thought the pop quiz will be like in the old broker way like the DJ asked question and we need to answer it as fast as we can like raising up our hand or ring a bell etc haha but turns out we need to write the answer on the paper quiz which gives us more time to think about it.

We picked up a name, Thorben said we will be so bad Marlyn, we only two people, lets write our group name “No Name, No Shame” so if we lose we won’t be so embarrassed anyway (German mentality that always prepare anywhere anytime, he even knows before the quiz starts that we will lose haha! do I look like someone that has no knowledge?!?! haha)

The very first question on the camel and the one that I know the answer was:

I knew it was INDIA! Because both my sister and me are the supporter of LGBT and she posted it on her IG that India finally legalize same sex marriage and that’s actually how I know it. And!! Thorben didn’t know about it! Booyah! I suddenly full of knowledge, and I’m quiet happy that I can answer it, I’m ready to go home hahaha!

But then it’s just go went all the way down, giving all the credits to Thorben haha! But at least I know the first one yo! And because that Tuesday was 11th September, so they asked the history about 911, like how many hijackers on the plane- which is 13, how many people died, what was the name of the attackers etc.

And then the pyramid questions came like:

name 6 largest cities in Germany which is easy because we have Thorben and Stefan, and then name 5 personnel of one direction which is easy because we have the UK representatives-James and MOI obviously! haha. And getting more serious, name 4 countries that start with D but the democrats doesn’t count I guess or sth like that we only knew 3-Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, and we put…. Deutschland! haha technically it wasn’t wrong people! And….I was so sure that Indonesia was one of the largest producers of Brazil nuts, we have a lot of fertile soil….so why can’t we be one of the producers? see the logic… haha!

And there was 4 pictures of men and we have to write down who are they and what was the connection. But during this time, Stefan’s mind occupied by something else which is the fact that we can’t take Didi taxi anymore from 11PM and he couldn’t take his mind off it….

And the questions regarding the second most spoken language in some countries for 10 times and Stefan got so bored, he came back to the Didi’s driver issue. What is the second most spoken language in Australia? I was so sure it was Indonesian because they taught Indonesian language in schools and there were many Indonesian stays there, but turns out I was wrong, it’s mandarin.

The first page of the paper is done, we have to exchange it with the others and!! tararammm this is our score!

I was sooooo proud when I see the score! haha I’m not the last! at least the way the DJ put our group name was on the second from the last 🙂

And there here we continues, with Stefan’s area of expertise! MOVIES! but it was the movies that Burt Reynolds played, it was hard! haha. We need help from Rich and he knew the answer! awesome! apparently it was too late for us to write it down.

And somehow out of nowhere (well, we know where you suddenly got the “inspiration”) Stefan and James “knew” 2 of his movies title.

 

And then the music section came! we were so sucks at it, we (well, I guess it more Stefan’s) only knew one which is from The Beatles, he said it the title was “Shake It Up” and somehow James got “inspiration” to change it into “Twist and Shout” and I like that song sooo much! I was wondering why I never heard my dad played that song before….hmmm father please!

And the era of 1991 music arrived! I knew one which is “More Than Words” but I knew it from Westlife instead from Extreme haha!

And here was our results:

We WERE NOT THE LAST! Gosh, I’m so proud of myself that I could fulfill my dad’s number one rule! We did everything we could just to fulfill your requirements dad!

I think we can go to the next pop quiz, but we will recruit more people to join haha! But maybe the next pop quiz will happen somewhere by the end of October or maybe even November, let’s see if we can still be obedience to my father’s rule or not ;p

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Unicorn Attraction

Probably around July or early August or so somebody (I suspect it was David but I honestly can’t remember) posted about color run on the Spartan group. And I was ssuupppeeerrrrr excited to join this color run however because it is still a long way to go so I didn’t register right away, but when the deadline for the discount almost over, then I finally registered. I asked Aggy to join as well but she will have volleyball tournament the next day so she wouldn’t sure if she would like to join the run. After the archery game I asked Miguel if he would like to run and without a second hesitation he said he would like to participate only Aggy that was quiet hard to be convinced because she usually make decision very last minute so I’d have to remind her from time to time before the discount deadline is over and finally she also decided to go for the run, YEAY! We have David, the first one that was registered and he is the most athletic one among all of us so he will finish this 5km distance in a sec and he doesn’t really need to practice running as he is already fit anyway. The next day Miguel sent me a screenshot of him practicing running for 6km for about 30 mins or so gosshh! he also doesn’t need to practice that serious haha!

Four days before the real run, me and Miguel practice our running in the West Bund, we met at Shaanxi Nan Road metro station wearing a very colorful sport clothes which is somehow we were matching each other haha Miguel wore black shirt with very colorful yellow pants, and I was the other way around, very colorful yellow shirt with black pants haha! this is so good because we met like 7:30 PM and we arrived West Bund at 8PM which is already dark but with our super bright outfit we can see each other, well, obviously because we were running together but you know what I mean haha!

We did exactly 5km not more not even 1m more haha Miguel set an app on his phone and when we reach 5.00 we stopped and the time was not bad either 37:58 wohooo but it was honestly too fast for me haha poor Miguel he need to reduce his speed and it hurt my knee on the next day, both of my knee and I’d have to use Dennis’ German Cream to reduce the pain.

One day before the run, we just realized how far actually the run takes place, it was on line 6 洲海路 metro station and I checked from our places (all four of us was living quiet in the same district as I would say) will takes 1 hour by metro to go there, and Miguel said “shit, what are we getting ourselves into” it’s so far and the time we travel there is probably longer than the time that we would finish the 5K distance.

And while I was not in a very fit condition, I got flu and coughing and the way I know how to prepare this run was by having my beauty sleep and for the first time I slept for almost 11 hours haha it’s mainly because of my medicine that made me feel drowsy. 

They gave us a drawstring bag with a very cute bibs inside, like so many stuff and we will have to put it on everything to be very in style for the color run, the drawstring was kind of cute, we have a tattoo of happy and flash, bibs, headband, shirt of course but what was the main attraction at least for me and Miguel was the UNICORN MEDAL! Once we finished the race they will gave it to all of us which is suddenly doesn’t feel so special as everyone gets their unicorn medal hahaha! but at least this will be my second medal after the Xiakers! I would like to quote what Tim said, “unicorn medals are for earning, you can’t buy the magic” wohoooo but to be honest it doesn’t really looks like a unicorn, more like a pegasus

I thought David will go by the wind when the run start but actually he stays with us until the end, he did need to wait for couple times though haha but at least he said “no soldiers left behind” he was the one that I guess get more colored than us.

This is while we were still clean on the start line.

There were about 10 powder ponder guys in each km and while me and Aggy ran the powder was kind of get into our mouth so while we passed those powder ponder guy we were like “pwehh pwehh” this is very uncomfortable feeling but at least we learn our lesson and on the next km we will hold our breath haha

I was of course exhausted and they didn’t give water at least until 2.5 – 3km and while I was running I kept remember Thorben’s breathing advise and I breathed out slowly, it does help though and my “kidney” wasn’t that hurt haha I know it’s not a kidney problem so that’s why I put the quote “” 🙂

But after they gave me the water I was kind of having the energy again, while Aggy said “don’t drink too much” but I thought that I need to drink more because otherwise I will have to carry the bottle so I drink more so I have less weight to carry but this logic doesn’t seems to be true haha! Anyway most of the 5k I was running there was ofcourse some distance that I walked probably about 500 meters, I did stopped to use an excuse to take picture but since these guys are not interested of taking pictures David said “do you really want to take picture or you just want to catch some breath?” haha is that really obvious?!?!

Anyway when we passed the last powder ponder guy, there was the finish line and THAT’S IT! 5KM we’re done! I think we did it for about 42 minutes, and Aggy did documented me getting the unicorn medal, this is very important!!!

We also need to make sure that we have the pictures on the finish line! See the different?! we all are in colors!

Buuuttt…. our sports didn’t just stop there, phewww please! David somehow had a brilliant idea to cycled back to the city! yeap from Pudong to Puxi! I took Ofo and these guys took Mobike and basically only Miguel and David that decide the route and me and Aggy just followed them, and they were pretty serious! We need to take the 2RMB ferry to cross from Pudong to Puxi together with all the scooter I suddenly felt like in a kind of Mission Very Possible movie when the boat came we just storm off to get in (yes you need a very high imagination to imagine this scene haha)

David parked his bike and he said “let’s go upstairs” but I was a bit concern of leaving the bike unlock, I said to Aggy if we should lock it but she said if we lock it then somebody will open it, and Miguel came and he said “nobody is gonna take the bike out of the boat, we just need to get it before it reach the shore” and I was like “ah! why I didn’t think that!” haha! And I think it was also already quiet some time when we reach the ferry and our muscles was kind of having a bit of reaction.

David was so persistent to go on the bike lane on the side of the river but we kept get rejected by the 师傅 because we were using public bike instead of personal bike and they don’t want we just leave the bike there which is very make sense but it caused us to cycled in a normal, un-smooth road pffff. Somehow long story short we were hungry but that time was already close to 2PM and David wants to eat somewhere where he can sit outside so we choose to go to Fumin Lu and Miguel suggested Bistro Burger because they have burger duh! and also Monkey Business milkshake. We finally arrived there, parked our bike and according to Mobike, we have been cycling for 151 minutes! We sat outside, just like what David’s wants but the sun was so shinny

in the end we moved to the other table behind us which is still outside. And the guy that was sitting there was super sporty guy, there were 3 guys and the shirt that they wore was iron man, triathlon and half marathon or real marathon in Singapore I forgot and here we are the color runners! haha! Well, I guess at least David will be the same as one of them, go David! We had a burger and 3 monkey business which was so good especially after the bike that we did. After the very late brunch, me and Aggy cycled back again while Miguel and David walked home. Miguel said he needs to walk because his muscles for walking were less used so he need to use it now haha!

Aggy and David were actually planned to study some coding and I was very interested to join them but then in the end we didn’t study haha we just go back with sore muscle haha

And with this sports that I did, I think it’s enough sports until the end of this year 🙂 Time to chillax!