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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!

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Owh Mother!

The last time I met my mom was on November 2017, and for the past few months I have been dreaming of my mom, there were 2 dreams. The first one was quite scary because me and my mom was in a disaster area, a flood in Indonesia, a real flood and I was hugging my mom and the water just took us somewhere and then I woke up. The second one was I was having a phone call with my mom saying “Oh, this weekend is a holiday, I will go home to stay at your place (in Jakarta, while me staying in Bandung)” and then I woke up from my dream and realized that my mom is in Indonesia and I’m in Shanghai. I’ve told this to my mom and she became sad realizing that both of her daughter are not with her. And then out of nowhere she knew that there was a cheap tour to Hainan and that’s why she and I got to meet again 🙂

Before she went to Hainan, she went to Thailand and she knows the only snacks that I eat back home was Pocky. But in Indonesia (or at least while I was there) the flavor of Pocky was only chocolate and strawberry, and while she was in Thailand she saw many many many different flavor of Pocky. So she bought two flavors for me mango and cookies & cream. She said I will bring it to you when we meet in Hainan and she did!

This is not the only snack that she brought, she also brought the famous noodle for us to eat it as dinner as we both landed Hainan pretty late and we did kill that noodle.

Prior to her boarding from Jakarta, as this Hainan was a cheap tour and Hainan did a crazy promotion to Indonesian therefore its not only people from Jakarta that knew it but also from another city like Semarang, Bandung and so on. And one of my cousin get married with a guy from Semarang and turns out his parents also went to Hainan! the same trip as my mom, but different tour agent as they are from other city. At first while still in Jakarta’s airport, my mom didn’t really recognize them, my mom was recalling about who is this familiar face but didn’t really 100% sure that it was the parents of my cousin’s husband, until the boarding time then she remembered who are they.

They sat on the same airlines but different rows, my mom was sitting with someone else from the same tour but mostly at first she was alone because she didn’t know anyone. While this aunt and uncle (yes we can’t call by names in Indonesia it’s consider impolite) sat quiet in front, so my mom could see them. And during this flight this couple was “ngebala” (Idk how to translate that to english but this words only use if you have too much snacks and the rubbish are everywhere). And my first reaction was “oh poor the flight attendants because they need to clean it” but turns out it’s not like they’re throwing the rubbish everywhere but my mom just use this words to describe that they have many snacks and eat many snacks during the flight! haha. From behind, my mom could see that this auntie gave varieties of snacks to the other passengers on their group, and my mom said “I was sitting on behind and drooling to see that they have many snacks” hahaha! I was laughing so hard when I knew that turns out my mom wants to eat their snacks also, and I said to my mom “had you knew they have many snacks, you would have say hi to them at the first place, instead of making sure of who these persons are” hahaha

Moving on to the next day, the breakfast at the first hotel wasn’t so great, and we have to got up early but the night before my mom’s flight got delayed for 2 hours and then she got stuck at the immigration for 1 hour and the flight from Jakarta to Hainan was 5 hours so it was a lloonnnnggg “flight” for her, that’s why we got up late, and we only had breakfast very little. My mom went to the bus first, and then when I arrived, I found that she’s eating my Pocky! hahaha! I was like “mom, didn’t you say that this Pocky is for me?” and she said “hihihi I’m hungry, but there is still half of the Pocky for you” and I ate the other half 🙂

Is it just me or do you also feel that your mom know everything? Like for example when you were a kid and you were looking for a pair of socks, and your mom said it’s in the drawer and you looked for it more than 3 times and you couldn’t find it and you came to your mom and she came with you to the drawer and then find it within a second? That’s my mom, she knows everything, including the time in Hainan when she knew it already that I will have 1 clothes less, I didn’t realize it until the fourth day that I don’t have any clothes to wear again! As the weather was hot there, and I can’t wear the same clothes twice, and she said “I have another spare clothes for you” and I was really against her to wear it, but I don’t have any other options and my mom insisted me to wear those. And she dressed me up as Luigi!

I said to my mom that I will looks like Mario Bross’ cousins but she couldn’t remember Luigi, she said “No, Mario bross is wearing jeans and red clothes, you’re wearing jeans and green” and I said “Yes! That’s Luigi!” and I will have to search for Luigi pictures and ask her to see that but in the end I still wear that clothes… pfff…. I just need to wear the hats and I become Luigi……tsk tsk tsk

And then here’s come the times where I will have to say goodbye to her, due to my flight was domestic because I’m flying back here to Shanghai and her flight was international as she was going back home. I thought that I will have to hop off from the buss to the domestic terminal but then I hop off to international terminal and walked to the domestic. During the time that we still on the bus my mom asked me “So, you will hop off first, will you turn around and say bye bye to me?” I was like “Of course I will, and it’s only 3 weeks before we meet again at home”. We both got off at the international terminal but then as I walked to the domestic terminal I kept turn around to see her until the point where the trees was too much too block our view.

Owh Mother, please don’t worry, I am super OK here and I hope you’ll be fine there too… Lots of love from me!

 

 

 

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No Electricity? NO MORE!

At first, the very first morning when we hop on to our bus, our tour guide said that there is a MUST VISIT shop that we have to go and there is a MUST ITEM that we need to buy blablabla I was already like “arrghh this could be something unnecessary” and we went to the bamboo, silver, coal kind of store. And of course the sales woman introduce to us the different kind of items, daily used item.

She said that there is two types of coal like the one that has a really high energy and low energy (like the BBQ coal kind of type) and she also tested it with a machine which I don’t really pay attention because why would I have a coal on my home to keep the energy?! I already have enough of energy within me so I don’t need any additional energy.

Besides the coal, they explained the magic bamboo stuff on the daily usage, such as bamboo water bottle that can change the PH of water into the healthier one, she demonstrated that our drinking water was not healthy (which I also don’t care because for almost 27 years of my life I’ve been drinking bad water and I’m still alive so yeah! booyah! I ain’t buying that)

And then the towel for hair that absorb water within seconds so my hair can dry easily which is interesting btw and I bought that! hahahaha. Moving on to the cream that could be use as a glass cleaner for car, bathroom anything anywhere that if you put it on the glass car and then you drive the car but it’s raining, the water will directly drop, of course there is a waiver function on cars but it’s different you don’t need to wipe it with the waiver it will just fall off directly. Next is the chop board that can hold a very heavy meat almost like 75kg (because this is the weight of the tour guide and he stand on the chopboard and it didn’t break) but who would put a 75kg meat on the chopboard?! Scarf with many tutorial on how to use it, which there’s also many people on youtube channel that does that hahaha but honestly the scarf is pretty unique and soft as it’s made out of bamboo so the material is really different.

But then, the most interesting item was!!!!! are you ready??? drumroll pleaseee! dum dum dum dum…. I called it:

EMERGENCY UNDERWEAR!

She said it has some silver and coal on the underwear, well I don’t really get it they said it’s good for the health, anyway I see it on the other way. Watch what is the 功能 of this emergency underwear and why I called it likewise.

And the most amazing is they also have SGS certificate! I mean as someone that doing sourcing the certificate from SGS is pretty hard to get and it’s the most reliable testing institution!

Pretty amazing yah?! So I think if we have this kind of underwear we don’t need to worry about suddenly electric shut off at our home because HAA! Just take this underwear and a rechargeable light bulb and VOILA! electricity 来了 🙂

 

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Definitely Wrong Benchmark

Me and my mom is in Hainan now! Tadaamm…

My mom said that Hainan do a lot of promotion in Indonesia, like cheap tour and also we don’t need a visa to go there which is convenient, but the deal is my mom cannot extend her stay at Hainan or at China. So this tour was for 5 days and 4 night and I took my holiday to meet her in Hainan as well as I also never been there. The main point is mainly to meet my mom, I’m not really interested in Hainan at the first time…untilll! this this place enlightened me for a “wrong benchmark” that I took haha.

We are now on our second day here, and it’s pretty impressive, the sky is sooo clear and sooo blue, the weather is the same as Shanghai I guess which is hot…haha…

We went to a “must visit government bamboo shop” as what the tour guide called, usually I don’t like when the tour guide planned to go to some kind of shopping place but actually this bamboo place was not bad at all, I will explain on my next blog ahahaha stay tuned readers 🙂

And we went to a deer place, I have no idea why the hell it’s called a deer place when we can’t even see the deer, oh! yes we could see a deer statue ahaha, but the view in this place is nice, and of course I mean the dear statue is nice it’s looks like a deer.

We went up to the view point where we can see the Dubai made in China building, which is shorter like waaaayyyy shorter hihihi  but instead of Dubai which is 1 very tall building, they have 5 cute short building look like Dubai-ish.

Both me and my mom really likes to watch a show, circus show like ERA in Shanghai and that kind of things. And in Hainan, they have 2 shows, one is Las Vegas Show where it was more like separates shows first is they do some dance, acrobats and magic. The second one was 三亚千古情, the translation will be Romance Park which not me the one who translate it, but this is how its written everywhere…. Both of the shows last for 60-70 mins, but on the second show at least they have only one story while on the first show they have separated acts.

Both of the shows we liked it a lot, but what is the most impressive for me from the Las Vegas shows was the last acrobats which is two men that seems boneless, but they are full of muscles.. yeasss biatchhh! While me and my mom watched the show, our feet was already feels so weak because how could they do that to their bones?!?!

And then tonight, the story from this Romance Park is something about romance duhhh! obviously! haha but also they have another boneless acts. I was wearing my glasses but I couldn’t see of where is the rope or something, I mean how can they bend their body like that!!!! there must be some very thin rope..or a magic shoes….but they moved their legs….. hmmmm… Please be assured that it’s not that I’m jealous because I can’t do it but I was just amazed by HOW HOW HOW!

Definitely they trained since they were kid, and me! what I can do is….. I can only do split and bridge and I already felt that I’m on top of the world in terms of flexibility but turns out I’m on top of nothing compare to this acrobats. Well, it’s simply because I choose the wrong benchmark! haha I choose Thorben and Stefan as my benchmark 🙂 They are pretty shocked that I can do split without warming up in front of them, while Thorben he can do 80% of split but Stefan…he can do like 0% or even – hahaha. John and Aggy was there too and they also remembered that I can do split directly.

Well this Stefan he is not archery guy he is a friend of Thorben…which… he has another 3 guys also with the same name as him at his office (yes! I paid attention to your story! including the story that somebody also have the same name with the same date of birth like you… which Leyfa thought maybe someone stole your identity while me… I don’t think so somebody would steal your identity haha! I mean why would them steal…yours? haha! #notjoking)

Anyway, at least I am still able to do split and bridge which is quiet OK but yeah definitely not count as flexible anymore especially after I see the shows performance and my conclusion is I should not take Thorben and Stefan as my flexibility benchmark hahaha!

aannddd Goodnight from 三亚果喜大酒店！Marlyn’s OUT! for now only 🙂

 

 

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Blessed The Food… I mean THE CHEF!-Part 2

….This is the sequel of Thorben’s signature steak dish…

And Thorben and Marina’s host another dinner day, which I am invited btw 🙂 but this time they both cooked the whole day, because we have another 3 people and yeah I count myself already “in” with them ahahaha, I was obviously the first one arrived, but not because I’m the hungry one (apparently I was but I made it to be not that obvious because I met Marina’s before and we went to her apartments so that’s why I was the first guest). The other guest was Tim, Yves and Ben. So in total they had to prepare a feast for 6 people (including them) but as both of them are Germans their timing was so perfect! It was all finished at the same time! BRAVOOOOO! (I know it’s Italian…but hahaha let it be). Thorben bought a 1.5kg beef! This time he made mushrooms and potatoes and they both are so good! I like the carrots that Thorben’s made I dont know how he made it but the carrots were amazingggg!!!

Look how Thorben sliced it in a professional master chef kind of way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were waiting all the guest to arrived, Marina became our tour guide of the home, but she needs to repeat it again and again as none of us came at the same time ahahaha.

And we did the best that we could to Thorben, which is we didn’t disturbed him hahaha!

And then dinners are ready! I forgot the time but I think it took us less than 1.5 hours to kill all Thorben’s dishes haha! and then we have to have rest for a while before Marina’s signature cheesecake appears to the dining table 🙂

Look how petite the cheesecakes are! But, Marina also did a back up desert which is cheesecakes with oreo on the bottom, oh yeah! and I ate that one too! I mean I need to decide which one is better so I need to eat both but even after I ate both, I still couldn’t decide, guess I need more cheesecake just to make a decision 🙂

Tim, me and Yves we were that kind of “guest” that didn’t bring anything for the host, Tim said he did offer and Thorben said no, while me…hmmm I was rejected on the first time so I didn’t even bother to ask again hahaha! But then our one and only Ben brought something with him! And of course our host gladly received what Ben brought for them 🙂

Ben was so funny, he has many idea and he wanted to introduce us the game I don’t know what it’s called, but this game needed a laptop to be connected to the TV, so Ben borrowed Thorben’s laptop butttt the keyboard is Germans! so that Ben kept typing the wrong words haha and the 麻烦 was not stop until there, turns out we need to pay for the game, and we were such a “guest” we asked Thorben’s credit card hahaha but then there was another options to pay using Amazon’s account, and we tried to use Marina’s account but still doesn’t works because she forgot her passwords haha well, in the end Tim asked them politely “if we need to get out from your home feel free to say” and Thorben just nodded haha he didn’t even say anything and we left their home.

Here we are before we finished the feast

P.S Marina…… I missed the ice cream 🙁

….To Be Continued…

 

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Blessed The Food… I mean THE CHEF!

As Indonesian, we usually eat rice 3 times a day, I remembered when I still lived with my parents we always had rice with something as a breakfast, lunch was always rice with something at the school canteen and dinner obviously another rice. Therefore I don’t have a big shock culture when I moved to Shanghai because in here we also have rice, but….. I always crave for STEAK! But in Shanghai I never really got a chance to have steak, because I was a student for 4 years and as you know student is always ON BUDGET! hahaha I don’t eat outside much maybe once a week, and the rest was on the school canteen which I can eat big portion but still affordable (read: cheap, read carefully: very cheap!)

And then now I’ve already work for 1 year, but my office located in Jingan and everything in Jingan area are expensive! for a normal food, so don’t even think for a steak. And I’m such an opportunist, when Thorben said that he will make steak for me I said YESSSSS! It’s been a loonngggggg time I didn’t have steak! And I did, as a matter of politeness and also sincerely asked “Do I need to bring you or Marina anything?” and he said “No” and I didn’t ask him again haha he said no and that’s the end of story, I came to his apartment with an empty belly that is super ready to be filled by the steak!

I think I came at his place exactly at 7PM, I met Marina downstaris, she said she didn’t lock the door so I can just sneak in and surprise Thorben’s directly, but then in my mind when she said the door was unlock it means she let the door open duhhhhh! haha so, surprised failed and I knocked the door and then…. TARAMMM! his apartment is sooooo fancy!

Thorben started to cook and I started to make myself seems like at home hahaha I looked at their photo album which is the most sophisticated photo album I have ever saw, Thorben’s took a very good pictures and put it on a very fancy style kind of photo album that looks like a magazine style.

After I saw all of their photo album, dinner was ready! what a perfect timing! I had a medium-rare steak, look at this (drooolingggg)

including the water, he needs to make it fancy water with lemon, ginger, cucumber etc.

After the dinner, Thorben gave me Leyfa’s mama’s cake, yes it is a cake that Leyfa’s mom made it, I don’t know the name and I bet Thorben didnt know either so we just called it that way, it was soooooo good! and then we had an avocado-raspberry popsicle that Marina made. And then last Thorben gave me yoghurt with berry, grapes and nuts. Oh wow, I never had such a feast before! I came with an empty belly and go back home with a family pack belly.

And what makes the after dinner much more cooler ( I know its grammatically incorrect, it’s just the way I describe of how fancy their apartment’s) is Thorben has a DISHWASHER!!!! “I’m sorry landlady, I am a Germans we don’t wash our dishes on the sink, we need to have a dishwasher” perhaps that what he said when he was looking for apartment ahahaha never ever I saw an apartment that has a dishwasher before! But it takes 3 hours and 15 minutes to wash it haha such a waste of water and energy but it was already their eco-friendly mode sooo……… I’m not sure if they are just using the sink to wash how long will it takes? hmmmm

Btw, this Thorben’s cooking series will not only stop here, it is a continuous cycle haha will have the second part, third part and so on… meanwhile this is my happy face to have Chef Thorben’s steak signature dish.

…To Be Continued…