Pasar Malam Tong2 May 31, 2009

Last friday (finally a recent post) I went to Pasar Malam Tong Tong with my friends, well technically I walked all by myself because we were separated on Pasar Besar. this event has long history from 1959 and this year celebrating their 50 years and they didn’t seem to celebrate with invite some great artist, perhaps they already get a big name so whether it’s celebrated or not it doesn’t really matter.

This is the largest festival for European-Indonesian culture in Netherland. Inside the festival  they provide the information of indonesian culture, and like heir name “Pasar Malam besar” or literally Big Night Market they sell various thing, from craft, typical indonesian food, hobby paraphernalia, massage, tropical fruit *such as durian*, and many many other stuff that I don’t think it will be available like fortune teller.

I had a great time ther, eventhough I walk alone I never walk alone, everyone speak Indonesian and I met some friends who live in Den Haag and worked as a waiter (in Dutch:Ober) there, it was a nice night, it took gorgeous photo, and eventhough I had little regret I can’t get along with my friend, at least I get new experience ofnPasar Malam besar.

kuala lumpur 2 May 31, 2009

My journey continues, on my 5th or 6th day there I went to Putrajaya, Putrajaya is new federal administrative of Malaysia, de jure Malaysia capital city is Kuala Lumpur, but the facto their administrative already moved to Putrajaya . Putrajaya is like 30 min away from KL, I took KLIA express to get me there, the interior of the train reminds me of Veolia train that took me from Leeuwarden to Hindellopen.

My first impression of Putrajaya is this city is similar with  Dubai, they build all the building looks like Persian capital city, like city on 1001night stories considering the diverse background of Malaysia, they should put something that show the people of their country. Anyway it was a nice walk with my boy friend we went to the Putra Mosque, saw the prime minister office on the distance, even more we met Indonesian student who had their excursion to KL!

Our journey continues to china town, this was a sudden change because at the first place I’d like to visit my brother, but unfortunately he’s unavailable. KL’s chinatown just like the combination between Hindu, China, and Malay culture. I went in to Sridevi temple on Chinatown *I forgot the exact name* it is beautiful temple, they deaorated the temple with beautiful statues, furthermore this temple is dedicated for Sri Devi, the one ehich I think her popularity is equal to Virgin Maria in Christian. I know that Hindu people is paternal society, I’m really proud to come to the temple that dedicated for a girl.

Not so far away from this Hindu temple there’s chinese temple, it’s amaze me how building in KL could be so diverse.

I continue my walk to Pasar Seni to buy some souvenir and to walk through the Petaling Street, the place where fake stuff of any brand is available.

My last day there I went to see Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) on that day they are showing LAT’s window to the world, unfortunately no classical music today, just some music arrangement for Charlie Chaplin’s Movie Modern Times and music arrangement to honour LAT a Malaysian cartoonist, he’s famous for his character Kampung Boy.

Nothing last forever, including my holiday, so on 5th of May 2009 I went home to Netherland, and keep ask myself when I’m gonna graduate from my study here.

Baby sitting May 31, 2009

I have to admit that I really adore a fulltime mother, I never be able to imagine myself dedicating my whole time to my family.

This month I got a chance to be a baby sitter, and these are the most frequet question that my friend asked m, and it’s most frequent story I tell to my friend.

1. does the mother working? I said no, she just busy with her activities, only his *the baby* father works as dentist.

2. then what does the mother do? Well, she’s Dutch socialite, she’s even has a schedule to visit all her friends, and she put it on the fridge, my friend will make long ‘oooh..’ and I think I knew what crossed on their mind, it is crossed on my mind too

3. Details of the baby please? Baby M, boy, 2.5 years old, speak dutch or I should say weird baby dutch *Sometimes I can’t catch what he’s saying*, I spoke to him in Indonesian eventhiugh he didn’t understand it I force him to do speak to him like that.

4. Details of the job please? I spent 2-6 hours per day with him, I didn’t work everyday only 2 days a week and it’s based on the call. They paid me 5 eur/hrs

5. How does it feel? It is kinda boring, especially when the baby doesn’t response to your word and didn’t obey what you’re saying

6. Why don’t you look for another job? Well, basicly I need the money of the job, to change the money due to my spring break vacation and I spent money on my broken camera, I have to look for a way to reimburse it.

7. Do you have any photo? Offcourse.. Presenting Baby M

Kuala Lumpur May 31, 2009

Last spring break I went to Kuala Lumpur to visit my parent (they had a vacation there), my brother (whose studying there) and my boy friend (whose working there). I took wmirates flight with stop over in Dubai, I walked through the biggest airport terminal in the World, and I mean it it’s huge, and in the middle of the terminal they put super huge duty free mall *yes. it’s a mall, not a duty free shop*

Peoples asked my why did I go there? If you want to feel metropolitan just go to Jakarta and stay in Kuningan+Thamrin area, hell yeah back there in Jakarta didn’t have my precious boy friend or should I say my fiancee *blushed*

Kuala lumpur is basically the future of Jakarta, the city defenitely has same ‘aura’ for example those cities has same temperature *eventhough Kuala Lumpur is slightly higher*, same people, same type of food, same type of shopping mall, same type of house, same type of cars, same type of plants, same type of hawkers, same type of chinese products.

For your information KL has tons of shopping mall, and just like Jakarta’s malls they put like super expensive and luxurious brand on fascinating structure with beautiful interior (ex:KLCC) and they put less expensive brand on average sub urbanmall (ex:Ampang Point), although sometimes they combine average+luxurious brand (ex:Bukit Bintang)

KL definitely has better transportation system than Jakarta, they have LRT , metro  buses, all those transportation units has air conditioner *it makes sense considering the heat of the city* unfortunately they never show the schedule of the public transportation, furthermore they don’t have ‘unified’ ticket on transportation system so everytime we take a ride we have to pay for the ticket, that’s little bit turn off but it doesn’t stop me to use it *I still need it anyway*.

Everyday when I took a walk on KL I always bring my Lonely planet book as my guide, first day I went to Kolonial walk, it’s super hot walk that cover little India, Masjid Jamik, and Merddeka Square, it should take only 2 hrs for the walk, but due to the fact that I’m always lost on first day makes my walk turn into long walk for 4 hrs. but indeed it turn to be tiring walk. I walk by myself, I spotted few tourists taking the same walking path like me, and I feel that I’m not alone, especially along the way there are plenty people wearing hijab juat like me, I felt that I’m save there the good thing from KL because it has not musc different than Jakarta, every time I felt thirsty or hungry I just stopped by on a hawker and buy cold drinks or snaks.

This walk start from Asian heritage Row and ended in Merdeka Square, how do I return to Bukit Bintang *where my parents stayed* ? I walked all the way back to Masjid Jami LRT to take another train to their place, by the time I got there my parents were so angry and worries about me, basically because we should meet each other and then walk together, but eventually we were separated on Bukit Bintang LRT station right after we came out of the hotel. O my parent, I’m really sorry to leave you guys.

On my next walk I took a trip to Malaysia Islamic Art Museum, I really recommend this museum, this is like one of the best museum that I ever visited, I have to be honest and put it on below Uffizi museum *well ok, it’s not really historical* but from aspect of collection and the explanation of the item, it was really impressive. My walk start from the old train station and walk continue to Lembah Perdana, it’s like a huge park on the hill and they built a museum complex there, if I had another time I’d like to visit all museum, unfortunately I started as late as 12.00 and I spent 3 hours on the Islamic Art Museum, by the eime I got out of the museum the time shows 16.30 I took a short walk  with Planetarium but unfortunately I missed the last show, it’s really a pity. But that’s Ok coz that night I had a date with my boyfriend *joy*, ooops fiancee *blushed* to watch movies on KLCC.

As a moslem I’m really proud to have my own art museum, it was fascinating just check this marvelous entrance.

I’m affraid this post will be very lenghty if I wrote all my experience on KL, I will write on next post or in dutch word volgende posting

Japanese cheesecake May 31, 2009

Before I went for my spring break tour I was actively baking *I wonder if I used right words* The thing is I;ve been craving for japanese cheesecake since I saw it on one of the manga.

Japanese cheesecake is different with American cheesecake, it lookslike a chiffon cake but softer and more ‘heavy’.  This cake also not using pie dough as American cheesecake and the the cake use cheesecream as part of the dough.

Anyway I made this cake on before I broke my camera, so it’s kinda faewell cake with my camera.

Here is the ingredient and instruction how to make it (credits to dianadesserts)

Ingredient

140g  fine granulated sugar
6 egg whites
6 egg yolks
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
50g butter
250g cream cheese
100 ml fresh milk
1 tbsp. lemon juice
60g cake flour
20g cornflour (maizena)
1/4 tsp. salt

*Actually I’m only able to find 200g pack of creme cheese with so I reduce all ingredient*

Instructions:
1. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler (double boiler is like you boil the mixture on separate bowl). Cool the mixture. Fold in the flour, the cornflour, egg yolks, lemon juice and mix well.

2. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form.

3. Add the cheese mixture to the egg white mixture and mix well. Pour into a 8-inch round cake pan (Lightly grease and line the bottom and sides of the pan with greaseproof baking paper or parchment paper).

*I was running out of baking paper that day, so I just grease all the surface of the pan and dust the surface with fluor*
4. Bake cheesecake in a water bath for 1 hours 10 minutes or until set and golden brown at 160 degrees C (325 degrees F).
tips:

• to build the whites until soft peak form, you have to make sure that these whites don’t mix with water or any carbohydrate, so what I did is I whisk the egg until soft peak (with high speed mixer it’ll take about 15 minutes, remember to turn to mixer only on one direction). After  soft peak formed I add the cheese mixture

The results:

Voila…

Niet slecht  right?

PS: I took this pic using my old camera, I’m too lazy to transfer the picture that i took using my DSLR