21st - 23rd

21st December, Sunday

Went to church early in the morning. It was the last advent week before Christmas. The sermon today was from Luke. It was about how Zechariah praised the Lord for the coming of his son Jesus Christ. He was overjoyed after 9 months of not being able to speak/hear since he didn't believe that God could make her barren wife, Elizabeth, bare a child. But during this time of silence, he had more time to think and believe that the old testament are fulfilled through Jesus Christ. 

After church, I went home with dad. Vivi and Helen had library duty every Sunday while Mom teaches sunday school. As per usual, we ordered Bakmi Cen2, it got delivered to our place which is super efficient. I love the kwetiau! . Anyway, to kill time, I played the piano, re-playing all classic songs. Then, I browsed for trips to Bangka Belitung as we were "planning" to go there. I hope we do though. But to our bad luck, all hotels were booked! 

I started to read The Elite again. I continued but still couldn't get the hang of it. We went out for dinner that night to Fairy Garden. Ate hotpot there. It was good. We went there a lot when I was little during family gatherings. But I guess, the price has inflated so much that we rarely go there anymore. I think this was my first time visit again since idk, maybe in 4 years.. I don't know. Well, who's counting anyway. We were the first ones to arrive. Apparently it has just opened. The fried prawns wrapped in hams are delicious but the price was too much though. Oh, something peculiar about the menu was there was no price written on it. The ham fried rice is to die for too! But the portion has way decreased compared to ages ago. Afterwards, we bought more durians! Why are they so deliciousss. 

love this <3 

22nd December, Monday

Finally got the chance to meet up with Ci Lisda after so long. We were planning to exercise: playing the badminton or swim, at Ci Lisda's place but then again circumstances happened (mainly laziness) and we ditched the whole idea and decided to just go to the mall. We met up at Olimo and proceeded from there on to Grand Indonesia. It was quite fun when you have companions on a boring bus ride. Vivi and Helen went on to watch the Hobbit while Ci Lisda and I sat down and catch up with one another. You guys could look at the pictures below. But I'm going to write down everything here first. It appears that the text that I have typed were gone! I have no idea why, it was quite weird since I have written everything the other day and even published it, but when I tried to upload the last picture on this post via my phone, the published was reverted to a draft again and all the text was gone. Super weird. 

I always adore the oreo mint flavor from Dairy Queen. It was top-notch! We sat down in the food court sky bridge and talked there. Then afterwards we went to Forever 21 in which I was in much contemplation in deciding which outfits to buy or not. We spent 2 hours and in the end I just bought ONE pair of jeans. Even the leather skirt that I tried on, the one that I fell in love at first sight, the one that I spent ogling at myself in front of the mirror, yep, in the end I didn't buy it, and I regretted it. It was a bit pricey and was not on sale so I just had to move on! There are plenty of skirts out there. 

At about time, Vivi and Helen finished watching The Hobbit and so we ate at pizza hut for a late lunch! It was nice and we even tried out the new pizza flavor. I forgot whether it was called the okonomiyaki or takoyaki but whichever, the concept was inspired by the Japanese treat of some sort. It was good! Great experience in the taste buds. We continued satisfying our tummies by buying bubble tea from comebuy! Bubble teas in Indo are so cheap. I don't feel guilty at all buying it, I just feel guilty of the calories though but oh well.... A girl needs to eat her daily dose of bobbas, am i wrong? LOL. #soasian.. 

Krispy Kreme has its daily Monday promo on getting a free dozen of glazed donuts with every purchase of a dozen of assorted donuts. We were aiming for the glazed donuts but we were too late in buying them and it was out of stock so we got icing donuts instead. But both donuts are equally sweet. 

Spent sometime browsing through Kinokuniya and bought Neil Gaiman's Stardust. 

Then went around the mall intending to go home straight after we bought the book but we saw a lot of offers available written on the christmas decoration display. One was for L'Occitane that if we took a picture with the christmas display and post it on twitter with mentioning it and include the hashtag, we could get a free sample set of L'Occitane. We tried it but it took us a while to post it on twitter. The reception was terrible. But we got our free samples anyway. Then we took more photos with the telephone box and other displays in which I failed completely in even attempting to keep my eyes open. way to go.. 

Then at about 6ish if I was not mistaken we decided to go home. There was a light drizzle but we made it in time before the rain poured, it didn't though. The bus stop was OVERCROWDED again! Workers have started to go home at 5ish so yeah it's packed, what do you expect. Good thing we didn't have to transit on any stops. When we reached back to Olimo we were planning to take the bajaj home. However, something happened, as because of my stubbornness, we didn't take the bajaj and walked home instead. 

Basically there was this negotiation thing going on between me and the bajaj driver. They didn't want to take my offer of 10k. I was thinking I could pay the exact same amount I paid for the bajaj like the time we used bajaj when we were on our way to the bus stop earlier that day. So I decided to not ride them and rejected 2 bajajs. So we started to walk. Vivi and Helen were complaining as they were tired and were parched. Then I came across this bajaj and this time I got rejected as he was in the middle of his break. We made a quickie stop to indomaret to buy water. And we reached home safely getting the exercise we wanted in the first place! 

ci lisda..

guess how many teddy bears are there and you could win yourself one of 5 teddy bears

L'occitane nutcracker display

look at me, i'm such a derp closing my eyes -_- 

23rd December, Tuesday

Today I had to catch up with Willdy and Sheila!! My long time buddies since Junior High! I went to Central Park to meet up with them. But since I arrived a bit too early, I hung around Taman Anggrek first since Vivi and Helen are meeting up with Vivi's friend to watch The Hobbits. So I on the other hand, just strolled around to see sale promotions. Then, when I was trying to fit myself into 2 very cute tops which I didn't buy in the end, I got a call from Willdy saying that both of them had reached the place already. We were meeting up at Kitchenette. So I told her I would see both of them and then I rushed off to the lobby to go to Central Park which was just right beside Taman Anggrek. But to my bad luck, it was raining heavily. I waited for 10 minutes but the rain would not be stopping any sooner. I tried to text both Willdy and Sheila but then again I ran out of phone credit and unable to reach them. I couldn't even call them. It was such a terrible situation not being able to contact anyone, and stuck inside the mall with a heavy downpour, despite the fact that it was located literally beside the mall I was heading to. I felt bad for hanging both of them, not to mention, they probably had not eaten lunch yet and most probs be super hungry, so I braced myself out to the rain with my small pink umbrella (good thing I brought this), and made my way there. I even turned in the wrong direction and even spent more time in the rain. By the time I reached the mall, I was half-ly drenched and my sandals were quite squeaky. I quickly speed-walked to the restaurant after asking directions from the receptionist.

Upon reaching, I thought I was expecting to other people: Ricco and Michael. But apparently, I was the third one to arrive. LOL. Then after a while they both came. It was a bit awkward for me to hang out with them since I never hung out with them. There was this friendship gap between us but then again they turned out pretty okay and friendly and so yeah the meeting turned out fine. However, I had to leave an hour later since I was trying to avoid overcrowded bus during peak hours.

Basically Vivi, Helen and I took the bus earlier that day and guess what we were aiming to arrive at 11 so that we could spend more time hanging around in the mall, but the bus didn't show up for 1.5 hour! Could you believe that! Come'on! It was super hot and in the end we arrived at around 12:20 at Taman Anggrek, just 10 minutes earlier before The Hobbits start. Lucky for Vivi and Helen. The journey was quite far since we had to transit 3 times from Harmoni to Grogol 1 to Grogol 2. Harmoni was the crowdiest place of all, people were squeezing and standing so close to you with their sweats trickling out from their pores. The odour really made me dizzy and for a moment I thought I could end up smelling like one of them if I had to spend any minute longer. So yeah, this was the reason we had to go home quickly. It was quite a shame though since Willdy and Sheila was only available during that day.

At around 3, Vivi and Helen called me up and we decided to meet up. I bid everyone goodbye and joined them. And, they had not eaten lunch yet so we made a quickie stop at Mie Laiker! They ate mie-kangkung there which tasted so good! Then afterwards we went home! The buses were not at all crowded which was awesome! We even got seats. Then when we arrived at Olimo we searched for bajaj and I have learnt from my mistake, I took the offer when he reached 15k since it was pretty far away. All in all it was such a great day.

spam fries

sheila's mac and cheese which smells amazing

aww so much cheaper than Fourfrogscreperie but tasted equally GOOD

kyaa super good

reminded me of a jack-o-lantern

willdy's

michael's dish

reunion 

sheila + willdy

mie laiker

Roppan

Today was my last "Swim-workout", did not do much laps compared to my previous "work-out". Oh, you might have noticed the quotations, Idk, I just have to use it as I am an unfit person. And guess what, I only swam thrice in three weeks. So much for an inactive person. Anyway, I had to bring back home the swimming clothes and sport shoes I had left there.

Afterwards, we went to Plaza Semangi to watch Robocop! This movie was interestingly beyond my expectations. I expected really low for this but instead I witnessed some really cool plot lines and un-boring scenes.

Then, met up with Ci Lisda and ate at a honey bread restaurant called Roppan.

ogura 

matcha

the scoops are indecent in shape. -_-

We caught up with one another and had fun.. Then we headed to her university at Atma Jaya. It was a big university and really spacious too. When it was time for us to go home, we had to prepare ourselves the threat of being "sardined" (a term Cim always uses in referring to being hung around squished inside a crowded busway) on the whole journey home. oh boy..

Wedang Ronde

Went for a muscle straining program today. Nah, just kidding, but seriously my muscles are aching after the intensive swimming I did this morning. This was also the first time I felt really hot and exhausted just swimming laps after laps for just an hour. Cim also told me that my face was burning red. Whoah, I never knew we could turn red just by swimming. An exercise that doesn't produce any sweat.

At around 11, we were done with swimming and headed back home from Kuningan. Guess what, there was a riot along the bus stop corridors. They even blocked the way in Monas, the bus I was riding on had to miss the stop at Monas and directly headed to the next stop which was Harmoni. In a nutshell, it took me and Cim two hours just to arrive home. Not to mention, I was kicked by a little kid sitting in front of me thrice while I was standing on the bus! Yep, adorable indeed.

In the evening, Cim had the intention of making ronde (glutinous balls with crush peanut fillings) and I helped in making these round chewy little things. It was a lot of fun up till the part when the balls would crush and I had to reform it again.

familiar spoon aye? 

 I ate a total of 11.5 balls today! UNBELIEVABLE. My stomach suddenly widened after exercise today. Grrr.. All hard work was just in vain.

Hello Sir

Today, I came across my WMU computer teacher, Sir Josep, in the bus! It was really surprising to see him in Indonesia. I thought he was still in Aussie. LOL. It appears that he doesn't work at WMU anymore. He's now working himself at Gajamada. We chatted for a while in the bus! HAHAH.. Really fancy meeting him there.

Hari Buruh

@ monas, sorry blurry image, but it was a major chaos out there.
I mean, there were trashes everywhere. 

Hey guys, so it's the first day of May! And today there was this riot going on in relation to the Hari Buruh Sedunia (if i was not mistaken, I saw the banners the rioters were carrying and it was written this phrase). I thought this riot was not going to be as dangerous as the BBM riot that has happened recently last month. But it caused pretty much a ruckus and even made the busway stations to close, so this riot was going to be huge, (It's still ongoing now).

My teacher even informed us to leave early after the lesson finished as the riots were going to do their demonstration out on the baseball field just across our school. I was hoping he would let us out earlier but NO, he even prolonged the whole chemistry lesson for 10 minutes. 2 hours of Chemistry was a major boredom. However, I was a little confused why I didn't yawn so much during class. I was not even sleepy.. zzz..

Anyway, tomorrow is going to be the day of my practice presentations. My teammate has not been joining us since yesterday. There is a possibility that he has left for Singapore. But who knows. He never informs any of his classmate. Day after tomorrow, there'll be math quiz ! I'm worried about this one.

By the way, the video below was me recording the whole situation as I was passing Monas.