Wow.

Twelve months of 2017 have passed like a lightning.

So little had happened during year 2017, yet it gave me so much learning and emotions roller coaster.

Before we start to breathe in the fresh air of 2018, allow me to feel the remaining air of 2017 and share with you my reflection on 2017. This post will be quite personal, but it's okay to have this kind of post once a year :)

By the end of first quarter of the year 2017, I no longer tick the 'student' box for my occupation status whenever I fill in some identity form and also lost all the magical student privileges of my student card. I started to tick the 'employee' one instead and played a new role as a dutiful taxpayer. Everything seems exciting yet terrifying with the new responsibility that I have. I felt the excitement of earning things from my hard work, yet it was terrifying as I need to ensure I cope up with all the new expectations everyday.

There were times when I felt like 'Oh, I'm so loving this' and 'Wow these whole things are interesting', but sometimes I can be so down and think that 'Oh, it's not for me' and 'I don't think I belong here'. However, every time I started to fill my self with negativity and doubt, I kept on reminding my self that it was just the beginning and nothing comes easy at the beginning as everything requires time and effort. Journey of thousand miles must begin with a single step, right? I should not stop crawling my way, if I want to start walking and running to the top. With that in mind, I set my eyes on the prize and dedicate my effort to deliver my best.

Managed to tackle my insecurities, I created another unnecessary issue. With the new overwhelming routines that I have to do everyday during and after work, slow but sure I became one of the worst version of me. I became too self-reliant. I kind of shut off myself from the outer world and made myself feel like I'm on my own, fight my own way, bear all the pressures by myself. Without I realized, my so called independent attitude has made people who really care for me feeling uncomfortable, which is painful for me to see.

My surroundings and I need to experience a lot before I can take a deep breathe and finally realize: 'Hey, let's chill a lil bit. No need to over stress yourself. No need to compare yourself to the others. You are who you are. And you are not alone. No need to think about everything on your own. It's OK to ask for help, it's OK to be not so independent. Let's talk with others, let them know your issue, let them help you.'

With all the small things and big things happened to me over this year, I grew bit by bit and figured out myself better than before. Twenty seventeen had taught me about being persistent and resilient in pursuing my dream, along with the needs to balance life by allowing some imperfections and that it's OK to share my thought with others.

Twenty seventeen may not be the best year for me, but I've made it to the very last page of the chapter, and I am (perhaps) so ready to flip into the next page called 2018.

Hope 2018 is filled with bright days for each of you and for me. Hope every day in 2018 is our best day of the year.

Happy new year everyone!

“The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year.

It is that we should have a new soul.”

-G.K. Chesterton

If you notice, posts in this blog are dominated by activities and food that I did and ate overseas. Don't get me wrong, it's not because I don't appreciate my own country. It's just simply exciting to explore things abroad! I even started this blog when I was in HK, right?

However, to compensate my long hiatus and commemorate Indonesia's Youth Pledge Day on October 28th (read the reference here), this post will be about one of the city in Indonesia. It won't be about our glam capital city Jakarta or our beautiful sunny island Bali. It's the city where I was born an live, SURABAYA.

Surabaya is located in East Java province and being known as the 2nd biggest city in Indonesia. The number of citizens is said to be around 3 mio during the night and 5 mio during the day, since there are many people from suburban come to Surabaya to work. With the private cars and ocean of motorcycle used to commute within the city, high traffic and air pollution are inevitable. Thanks to our Mayor, Tri Rismaharini, under her strict leadership Surabaya now has plenty of open space with trees, flowers and gardens to generate clean fresh oxygen.

The name Surabaya itself is derived from the Javanese (our local language) of 2 different animals: Sura fish (shark) and Baya (crocodile). Thus, it's not surprising to have both the shark and crocodile as the icon of the city. The icon shows the two animals facing one another as if they are fighting. The statue can be found during your visit to Surabaya Zoo in Darmo street. No worries if you'd like to take picture with the statue but bring no camera, there are some instant photo service ready around the area. With just IDR 10k, you could bring your printed picture home.

Surabaya also played a special role in Indonesia's independence story. Therefore, there are plenty of statues or memorial places to remind us about the past battles. One of the statue is called as Bambu Runcing or the Pointed Bamboo Monument. Due to the limited resource to modern weapon during the colonial period, Indonesian fighters utilized the available resources around them. Bamboo was common to be planted by the citizens, so they have plenty of it. By sharpening the bamboo spear, the fighters use it against the colonizers.

We also have another statue called the Tugu Pahlawan or Heroes Monument. This statue was specially built to commemorate the battle of November 10th 1945, one of the biggest battle after Indonesia's Independence Day against the colonizers from the UK that took place in Surabaya. This monument is 41.15 meters tall and is phallus-shaped. Under the monument, there is 10 November Museum that showcasing reproductions of documentary photographs and are dioramas of 10 November 1945 clashes. I remember I went to the museum once during my elementary school field visit in the third grade. It was always fun to learn our history outside the class😉

I don't like cheesy love, but I love cheese! As a cheese lover I was sooo excited when cheese started to build its hype in the recent years. Many restaurants and stores level up their food by using cheese as the main focus of the dishes or just to complete the food as nothing can go wrong with cheese🧀 I love cheese on main dish (hamburger, steak, chilli fries), but I love it more when cheese goes to DESSERT!

If you notice, the world is conquered by various cheesy dessert creations from one country: the Land of the Rising Sun a.k.a Japan. Coming in different forms, different textures and of course, different price range, the Japanese-cheese wave (like Korean-Pop wave lol) arrived in many countries and being craved by many people, including me! I've tried some and let me share with you the three top Japanese cheese dessert that I ever tried and share my most favorite!

B A K E  C H E E S E  T A R T

We could buy it per piece (serve on a tissue paper for direct consumption or put it in paper bag) or in a box of 6. The design of the box is simple yet functional. The lower level of the box can be pulled to take the cheese tart and pushed to store it back. The box is then sealed with rectangular sticker. The packaging really gives 'Japanese vibes' which promote simplicity and functionality. I love it!

I tasted my first BAKE in Hong Kong during my exchange program, and I INSTANTLY FELL IN LOVE. The crust is crispy, the texture is fluffy, and the filling is smooth and cheesy. It's major love! The cheese tart can be enjoyed warm, chilled or frozen, but for me, it is best to enjoy it fresh from the shopkeeper ;)
It costs HK$ 20 per piece and HK$ 110 per box of six. Unfortunately, on my last visit to HK, the stall in Sogo Causeway Bay was no longer there due to renovation. Luckily, I bump into their store in ION Orchard Singapore in my last short holiday to SG. The price is about the same, for S$ 3.5 per piece and S$ 19.9 per box of six.

The cake supposed to be stored in the fridge and enjoyed cold. Unless you want to eat frozen cake, make sure to allow some time for the cake to moist a bit in the room temperature. When I had my first spoon of the cake, my heart melted along with the melting cheese in my mouth~ The soft base cake blended perfectly with the cream cheese layer and mascarpone coating. I know it sounds exaggerating, but once you try it yourself, you will understand my exaggeration! It's a major love!

I believe you all agree to this one statement: Korean food are undoubtedly irresistible!

Samgyeopsal, bibimbap, jjinmandu, samgyetang, gimbap... even the simple yet unique chili pickled cabbage or Korean kimchi is something that you will fall in love into once you arrived in Korea.

There is a wide variety of restaurants in Korea that we can try, but sometimes to dine in in a restaurant requires lots lots of time: time to travel to the restaurant, time to queue for seats, time to wait for the food to be served, and so on. While actually, we also have very tight schedule as there are many places to explore with super limited time. Therefore sometimes, it is a wise decision to skip the dine-in breakfast, lunch or dinner, and opt for to-go-meal.

In this chance, allow me to share my typical on-the-go meal while I was in Korea!

B R E A K F A S T 

The one and only saviour for your growling tummy when you can not find any restaurant open at 7 in the morning is definitely the convenience store. Salute to Korean convenience store as it lives up to the title: super convenient! No mater whether it is 7-11, GS25, or CU, they have everything from white rice to bento set, grilled chicken wing to boiled egg, AND everything is ready to eat. Just pop everything into the magic microwave available in the store and voila! your morning fuel is ready to fill you up.

My picks from the convenience store to start up my day are the nation's favorited (and super famous) flavored milk, Bingrae Banana Milk, and onigiri🍙 

The milk comes in original, chocolate and melon flavor as well, but I think the banana is the best one.

For the onigiri, GS25 has various fillings and my fave is the tuna with mayonnaise fillings! At first I was confused on which fillings to pick, so I just pick the one that being mentioned in a Korean drama titled My Wife's Having an Affair this Week😆 So glad that I picked that tuna mayo fillings because it was super yummy!

L U N C H

It was my first time eating cream cheese bagel and I really loveee it! The cold cream cheese melts in the mouth and it pairs perfectly with the rather hard warm bagel. The portion was enough to gain me extra energy to snap more pictures!

S N A C K // T E A T I M E

Later in the afternoon, around 3 PM, it is the critical time for our tummy when it march for another nutritious supply lol. I managed to try Korean twisted doughnuts, kkwabaegi, during our visit in Seokchon Lake. The texture was quite hard, but maybe because the doughnut was already cold.

When we were looking for something sweet to drink at the convenience store, I fall for this coffee milk in a cute minion packaging plus the cherry blossoms illustration. I literally bought it due to the packaging lol. I'm not sure if they have this packaging available along the year or only during the cherry blossoms period, but I'm sure Korean product will always launch more adorable products and packaging!

My best choice for tea time is this Osulloc top notch green tea roll cake and and black roll cake. It's a major loooove! Osulloc is famous for the tea, thus no wonder they have this unique tea flavor in their cakes. The green tea roll cake filled with vanilla mascarpone cheese cream, while the black roll cake (chocolate flavor) topped with green tea cream. If I went straight home from Korea, I will definitely bring one whole cake with me home. Omo now I'm dreaming of this cake!

D I N N E R // S T R E E T F O O D

D E S S E R T

The fourth day in Seoul was our last day in Korea before we fly to Hong Kong in the next day. Our itinerary for today was to visit the half-moon shaped isle, Namisoem island! Namisoem island is very famous among international tourists for the photogenic tree lined road and among all Korean drama lovers for the Winter Sonata statue❤️

For the transportation from Seoul, we can take the subway, but we opt to take the shuttle bus service provided by the Nami island's management. The shuttle bus ticket for round trip was 15,000, but they also offer a package of shuttle bus + entrance ticket for foreigner with price 23,000. The bus departs for Nami island from Insadong or Namdaemun at 9:30 AM, and take you back from Nami island to your departing point at 4:00 PM (check the latest update about time in their website). If you only plan to visit Nami island (not the other surrounding spots such as Petite France and the Garden of Morning Calm), I think the bus is really convenient. My only drawback is their site to do the payment only accessible from Internet Explorer and it was quite troublesome for me. Just try to contact their customer service, they were really helpful to settle your concern!

As Namdaemun was nearer from our hotel, we booked the tickets departing from Namdaemun and found ourself headed to Namdaemun on that Monday morning. We arrived too early (so we grab our morning coffee in the Starbucks nearby) and the bus was only available around 9 AM. Once the bus was there, we showed the booking confirmation and the man exchanged it with the bus tickets and the 'entry visa'. Before the bus departed at 9:30 AM, the man scanned all the passengers to ensure everyone's wearing the safety belt. They really emphasized on safety!

With the happy full tummy, we left the restaurant and headed to the 'immigration' area a.k.a the entrance. As we already had the 'entry visa' with us, we just directly went straight inside the Gapyeong Wharf and queued for the ferry ride to cross the lake.

As soon as we stepped our feet on Nami island, directly went to the information centre to take the island map. However, we ended up neglecting the map as the ambiance there were really enjoyable that you would prefer to not skip anything. Everything was also photo-worthy that we took many pictures!

Our bus back to Namdaemun will be at 4 PM, so at 3 PM we slowly made our way back to the entrance to take the ferry back to Gapyeong Wharf. We were so surprized to see the very long line of people waiting for the ferry! We were relieved that we came earlier and had enough time to queue and got into the ferry. If we just come close to the departing time of our bus, maybe we will miss the bus and need to find another way to back to Seoul. Time management is really important to anticipate such condition!

I was super ugly but you were so cool so let's just put emoji on my face and focus on your handsomeness

The late dinner with Geunwoo closed my Korean trip perfectly. So far, Busan and Seoul live up to my expectation of what should South Korea looks like according the Korean drama lol. Yet there are still so many places I need to see and explore in both Busan and Seoul, and also in other cities. Not to mention the foods and snacks that I missed in this opportunity, for either the fancy-instagramable dishes or the traditional-conservative food. With that in mind, I will definitely come back to South Korea again in the near future!🇰🇷

Hope you guys enjoyed my Spring trip posts series and hope it helped you to plan your trip to Busan or Seoul! Make sure you don't miss any👇🏻👇🏻

1. Transiting in HK before off to Busan

2. Busan Day 1: Yongdusan Park, Lotte Department Store

3. Busan Day 2: Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival, Dalmaji Hill, Gamcheon Culture Village, BIFF Square

4. Seoul Day 1 & 2: KTX, Nanta Show, Hanbok in Bukchon Hanok Village, Gangnam

5. Seoul Day 3: Seokchon Lake, Lotte World Tower, N Seoul Tower