The “Nightmare” Before Christmas

HO HO HO this Santa Claus laugh almost changed to Hu Hu Hu or Hiks Hiks Hiks crying voice for me hahahaha I really need to have some drama juussttttt before Christmas to make this movie title more real in life haha 😉

It all started with the very not prepare trip from my side, me and my family will meet up in Maldives for Christmas and then we will move to Bangkok and Phuket until beginning of January. My part was buy ticket for myself, going to Maldives and return from Phuket, my sister bought the middle part which is Maldives to Bangkok and Bangkok to Phuket. She will take bus from Canberra to Sydney, and then flight from Sydney to Singapore and Singapore to Maldives. My parents will take flight from Jakarta to Singapore and Singapore to Maldives. I think both me and my sister are getting lazy to check each other so we just gooooooo and when I was otw to airport I texted her to send me the other flight ticket, but she only sends me flight ticket from Bangkok to Phuket and she send it twice so she thought she also already send me the Maldives to Bangkok one and then maybe she went to sleep right after due to she’s been travelling far enough hahaha.

And when I was waiting to check in I just suddenly think “hmmmm do I need visa to transit in Sri Lanka?” and I checked on the internet and for Indonesian they need to have the travel authorization….I’m not sure about transit though…. therefore I called AGGY! haha but she didn’t pick up the phone and the waiting line got shorter and shorter and I panicked haha she was on the Christmas Eve party so of course she won’t check her phone so I texted on the group “Aggy! Pick up the phone!” hahaha the panic side of me started to use every way to be able to reach her. But she was able to calm me down by saying as far as she knew, it was only Canada that needed visa even for transit, so fiuhhh okay. First drama finished 🙂

Second drama started when the check in counter guy didn’t let me check in because I don’t have the flight out of Maldives. And I can’t call my sister using WA so I called my mom using wechat but she didn’t pick up *nervous stage 1. Then I called Aggy again to ask if she can call my dad’s Indonesian number unfortunately her phone cannot do that but since she was on a party so I asked her “can you ask somebody from the party if anyone can do that?” and she just shout “does anyone of you can make international call?” and someone saidd yes! and that someone was Hutch! yeayyy! Then I got another report from Aggy “the number is not valid” whoaaaaa *nervous stage 2! I gave her my father’s other number and she tried again but still 0 answer.

Thorben asked me “what is going on?” sorry bro, your little sister is in the middle of something! hahaha. Then I asked Gordy to call my sister on WA but she still didn’t pick up and his phone will run out of battery soon so he cannot call my sister anymore! *nervous stage 3. In the meantime while me, Aggy and Gordy kept calling my family member, the other Indian passenger looked at me and asked am I OK and I said NO! how do I look like OK hahaha I asked him “can you do international phone call?” and he said yes! sooo….the last candidate that I called using an Indian guy’s phone was…..my sister’s boyfriend hahaha! It was maybe 2AM in Australia but yeah I’m in panic hahaha and obviously he didn’t pick up either *facepalm.

In the end it was 23:07 and there was a ticketing guy that said “maybe you can buy again the ticket” I was like duhhhh! why I didn’t think of that! hahaha so I said to the check in counter guy that I will buy a new ticket and come back to you, and he said “but you need to do it latest 11:20 otherwise you will be late” and I ran with this ticketing guy to the counter ticket and I said “please buy me the cheapest ticket as I won’t use it anyway” hahahaha and then voilaaaaa! the additional ticket was printed, and I ran through the immigration. The immigration was only 1 opened and there was 2 people infront of me I felt like rrrgghhhhh this is just like in the movie “in time” when you just keep running otherwise you’ll running out of time and then security check and gate! woghhhh I finished the security check just in time when they start boarding…fiuhhh such an exercise on Xmas Eve 😉

Time to report then to everyone hahaha I called Aggy again to say that I’m safe now and because she’s my big sister she’s also panic and she texted my father saying “Hi this is Marlyn’s friend. Please ask your first daughter to call your second daughter” hahaha thanks God she didn’t mention anything about the ticket to my father 😉 otherwise it will be a longggg lecture about how to do travel preparation blah blah blah hahaha #sorry dad! I learned from my lesson, next time I will print every flight ticket and hotel reservations! *determined emoji.

I said to Thorben that I just started a TV soap opera involving Aggy but of course he wouldn’t understand so I called him to explain haha what so not German I am. And then I texted Gordy to said that I finally boarding and I saw the Indian guy again and he was glad that I made it to the plane haha I also said thanks to him.

After that I still asked Aggy can you do me the travel authorization for Sri Lanka, I give you my passport info hahaha and she said “no it’s too late, you will arrive in the morning anyway” hahaha true though and she said “how could you…” with 3 dots haha 3 dots is the official way to say that she doesn’t have any more words to say to me anymore mwahaha sorry sister! I’m in panic 😉

On the bright side…..seems this “nightmare” only happened before Christmas because now is Christmas day wohoooo! and the flight went really well, the service from Srilankan Airlines was really good, they continuously gave me water while I watched the movie without even me asking for it, they have a very tasty small biscuits and the cutest animation of the flight 😉 and I sat on the aisle just in front of the bathroom so I don’t need to wait in the line for going to the loo…nice!!!

My university friends called me 麻烦玲 (my chinese name is 李房玲-Li Fang Ling) they said because I 经常给人家麻烦 (often bother other people) hahaha and it might be right at this point, but ONLY this point 😉

Then I arrived Sri Lanka, transit and fly to Maldives.  And while on transit, my sister replied to me saying “I’ve already sent you the ticket” and I said “both of them was from Bangkok to Phuket” and she said “F#!k me” hahaha but it’s OK now the situation is under coonnntrooollllll 😉 besides, if nothing happened the night before Xmas, I won’t have this story anyway 😉

Now, everything went well, I arrived first and in next 3 hrs my sister and parents arrive so I treat myself by relaxing on the lounge, taking shower, have some snacks and life is good again! hahaha not that it was bad before, not at all but at least I can chill now 😉

Marlyn already chill

Besides, there is no movie called Nightmare during or after Christmas right? hahaha

😉

The Diary of Marlyn Praseli

The Diary of Marlyn Praseli only for Marina Kern! Yes, you Kern! hahaha I wanted to write “Yes, we Kern!” just like the photo frame on your home but then between me and you, the Kern is only you haha so I changed the “we” to  “you” got it got it? 😉

This is the things that both of us like! FOOD! *droollingggggg 😀 But of course sometimes I eat with the customer and I cannot really take picture ya because I need to behave! hahahaha so far this is the max pictures that I can documented 😉

Starter!!! We need to have Schnitzel! However, the first meal I had in Germany wasn’t German food but Turkish food as lunch ahahaha 😉 so I haven’t officially arrived German unless I had the Schnitzel haha but the Turkish food was good also, so can’t complain 😉 In Oberammergau I had some meat with potato salad, it should be a typical German food which is good also! So I don’t mind to postponed the Schnitzel until dinner 😉

Next! We moved to Poland, the city called Ustron. The highlight of Ustron was when I braved myself to eat someting called Osobuco which means knee haha and I tried the knee of the deer, I didn’t expect it’s gonna be this big!

I sent the picture to Marina and her comment was “the potato looks good” ahahha don’t you see the deer knee hellooooo lady?! Aggy comment was “It looks good, just like what we had back home, oxtail soup” Well, ladies and gents this is the moment you’ve been waiting for (hahaha suddenly remember one the soundtrack of this is the greatest showman movie) the taste was rather unique I will put it this way, but if I got a chance to do it again, I probably would choose other food hahaha so hope you got the point 😉 wink wink, no offence to all the deer knee fans out there #if there is any hahaha!

Besides this deer knee, we also had dumplings the polish name will be Pierogi which is good! The decoration of the restaurant itself is really good, it’s like the Victorian style kind of haha it’s not special in polish food but more like a fusion. We also had some polish  special shot kind of which sorry but I prefer Jagermeister more 😉 hahaha

In the office, we have Lukas that made a corn flakes with chocolate wogghhh Amazing! I always eat this when I was a kid with sprinkles and stuff so this is goood! and Julia made a vegetable train toottt tooottt! I thought its called hummus but its not, she searched it on linguee the translation of how it’s called but yeah I don’t even remember it haha.

We also had doner kebab like 10 mins driving from office, the portion is big and it’s owned by a Turkish guy (supposedly) hahaha but somehow I found the entrance to the restaurant looks like a prison haha and this is where Lukas hurried me up so he appeared on my pictures HA!

I had the very typical kebab doner with beef 😉 the decoration of this restaurant is very unique even though it looks like a prison from the outside but the inside is they have many ornaments of BVD football club.

As Christmas is around the corner so some restaurant has their own Christmas dinner specialty and I ordered the goose leg 😉 haha it was soooo good! After the dinner, our colleague order a very cute desert 🙂 the hearts and hats of the snowman was the most delicious one (hmmm sounds like a psycho 😉 ) and they also had pocky! my childhood snacks hihihi

Then before we visited Dortmund Christmas Market, we had Italian dinner, with Italian food, it really hard to go wrong. In this restaurant they had a very fancy sparkling water bottle haha, Italian, always with style 😉

And then at Xmas Market, I had Gluehwein but Julia got a Cocoa with some alcohol inside, if I’m not mistaken it’s called lamomba or something like that and turns out it’s better! I didn’t know it, I only know if on Xmas then Gluehwein is a must, maybe because they don’t have Cocoa with alcohol here so that’s why I didn’t order, but next time I know what I should order haha

After 2 weeks of Western food, the Asian part of me came out haha, we had Japanese lunch at Dusseldorf where then I bought my Yves Rocher cosmetics stocks for a year hahaha. The restaurant called Yasabe, it was a small restaurant but always packed! or maybe because the size restaurant itself is small? haha but anyway the food was yummy slurp slurp!

What is more surprising is that in Dusseldorf I found many mobikes around! but the style are different than what we have here in Shanghai, and I just wonder if I can open the mobike and turns out yes I can open it! But then I forgot the size of European and Asian are very much different, I already adjusted the seat to the very low but I cannot touch the ground, my foot was maybe 15 cm above the ground and it simply hard for me just to get on the bike itself 🙁 pfff I need to locked it again and it charged me 7.8 RMB I forgot that Euro is so expensive hahaha!

Before saying goodbye to Germany, I need to have another proper German food and the last meal that I had was a very nice beef! I google translate the main menu and it was beef something but it came with salad and so on and the salad came first and I was like “where’s the beef” hahaha I didn’t pay attention to the sides other than beef but then the beef came with potatoes, I just need to relax 😉

So Marina…. here it is! the food documents that are able to be documented, of course there were many snacks, beers and other food that I didn’t take picture of, I don’t want to surprise you with what kind of food and beverages I had in Germany hahaha.. but I’ll give you some sneak peek 😉 continue scrolling!

Then…. time to say…. Hello to Shang Hai!

P.S: I haven’t had cheese cake so far 😉

Cathay Pacific will take me back to Shanghai 🙂

Thank You Germany!..and Poland and Milano…well thanks EU!

In this December, I got a very nice opportunity to go to Germany again for 2 weeks. I mean, December, cold winter… what can I ask for more, it’s literally the best things for someone that came from tropical country to be able to experience winter in Europe, that’s just exemplary! *4 thumbs up!

Even though this 2 weeks was a business trip, but we managed to have some free and fun time 😉 like come on, it’s Germany yo! it’s not like I can go there every time I want, besides who can go to Europe as much as they like?! So, better seize the moment! 😉

We also visited customer in Milano and Ustron-Poland so wohooo I stepped my feet to 3 different countries within this 2 weeks that’s AWESOME! 😀

As always we will fly to Frankfurt but then we went to Oberammergau! I found this name is very funny haha and turns out they have the tounge twister for Oberammergau, Marina texted me in afternoon (SH time) which is morning (DE time) and when I heard of it I was like whattt?! that’s really scary tounge twister haha! it might be because she said it pretty fast but when Thorben write it down it wasn’t as scary as before. This show the comparison of real German and someone who tried to speak German hahaha!

And then meeeee!!!

It was mostly rainy Germany but then in Oberammergau the rain changed to SNOW!! This is the best feeling ever! Snowing in Europe! It’s just like seeing on the TV shows where the snow fall down from the sky and then I finally can feel it, super!

Then we drive down to Milano, 5 hours drive, we passed the Alps the view is breathtaking but the downside is the road really had many detour and I got really sick so I need to take a break first otherwise there would be another type of perfume on the car hahaha 😉

Next, we say hello to Katowice Airport-Poland! We visited one city called Ustron, the weather was sooooo wintery in terms of really cold but super cool! a quiet touristic place, the air is very clean and it’s just nice there!

Finally back again to where all the vibes begin, Germany! We watched double game! Football and Basketball. One win and one lost. Leverkusen won 1-0 against I don’t even know who hahaha and Telekom Bonn lost against again I don’t know haha. Thanks to Stefan for showing your fans club it was a really nice place with good food and good people even though I don’t speak German haha. I think this time was better than on March because Tom was there! 😀

Tom was very cute for the whole time, he was playing football game on phone while we were on Red Black Lion fans club and he kept shouting drei-null and then up to acht-null haha. On the stadium, he was also worried about the performance of Leverkusen, I secretly took picture of him 😉

At first I thought that he doesn’t want me to take selfie with him but after I found out that he was OK then all the selfies started hahaha but he always stick out his tounge hahaha funny Tom! As you can see maybe he got bored haha look at his face degradation 😉 Tom is such a sweet boy! <3 When Leverkusen finally scored a goal, I wanted to have high-5s with him but he was eating his pretzel and he put down his pretzel and then gave me high-5s, such a polite boy.

While on basketball match, the atmosphere is not as crazy as football but it’s still very vivid to watch! They had the cheerleader, singer, game for kids etc.

Besides the game, I somehow met “Chloe Moretz” made in Germany 😉 she looks really similar!

I also met another kid, Lisa! She is very calm and such a sweet bigger sister to her brother Bruno. We made some things, idk what it’s called… but we put it one by one, they have the moulding and I don’t speak German, she doesn’t speak English but we managed to communicate what color to put on and how many pieces haha we made 2 of it and in the end we were making a truck but her mom called her out to go to bed and she just said “Tschuess” and went up, very sweet! either she’s very obedience or she’s bored with me hahaha but I choose the obedience one 😉 While Bruno was going to bed with a bit upset hahaha! he also made something with this things according to his imagination haha Bruno is so small he’s only 2.5 yo, sooo cute!

Next will be another football match with Lukas! He supports Schalke team and this one is against Moscow, it was a last minute that I decided to go with Lukas and only 1 ticket left so I am very lucky to get it. Here we are!

Lukas has his seasonal ticket so he always get a seat at the same place, the stadium was in Veltins arena and the stadium was very mesmerizing, it is crazy big! There was 48,883 people on the stadium according to the number that showed on the cubes haha I became very German by remembering all the numbers. And here is why I took many pics Lukas! so don’t complaint 😉

For the whole 90 mins game there was nothing still 0:0 but then they had additional 2 mins and Schalke scores after 1 min! and it was such a nice goal and it happened really fast and for sure Lokomotive Moscow’s goal keeper tried his best to catch it but yeah they made it, congratz Lukas!! It was good that Lukas was freezing so we left the stadium after the game otherwise we would have stuck due to the fight that happened 5 mins after we left woghhh!

And because this is the season to be jolly it won’t be complete until we visit the Christmas market 😉 We went to Bonn and Dortmund, it was -1 degree but somehow I wasn’t freezing, cold yeah but it just felt so brilliant! The atmosphere, decoration, food and of course gluehwein 😉

This year can’t get any better 😉

Love Germany…well, EU! If you know what I mean 😉

Until next time 😉

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 🙂