Being 25 (part 3): The Dinner

That night we went to a restaurant named 小六汤包 (Xiao Liu Tang Bao) near the 知春路地铁站 (Zhi Chun Lu station). This was our first time coming here and the place was really nice. Once we come, they greeted us by giving us a warm towel. Then we went to the second floor where the seats were. The service was nice; the waiter was very friendly to us.

My teacher told me that if you went to a restaurant on your birthday, usually they will give you长寿面(chang shou mian)- Birthday Longevity Noodle for free. That time we were asking about this chang shou mian to the waiter, whether they have it or not. The waiter asked whether anyone is having birthday today. Of course lady! It’s me! Then she asked to be excused for a while.

Then when she came back, we asked which one on the menu is chang shou mian. She said: “I cannot say anything, but I don’t think you should order any noodles”.

We were like, why? Why can’t we have a noodle? Was it because the noodle’s here is not tasty? Was is because it took too long to prepare for noodle dish? She said,”I cannot say anything”.

Then we suddenly thought: aaaah!!! She must have prepared a free noodle for us. YAY hahaha

And it is a free noodle (plus a fruit platter) given to us later. The waiters even gathered to sing a happy birthday song to me. Hmmm… interesting. Next time if one of us faking a birthday can we still get a free noodles hahahaha

 The free fruit platter

Tang bao or xiao long bao, you name it! Yummy :9

 The garnish leftover: two rabbits

The end of the dinner. Thanks guys :)

Photos are from Fey's camera. As usual I'm lazy taking pictures :p

Being 25 (part 2): The Mission

Just when I thought I could relax for the rest for the day by replying my birthday greetings on my blackberry, suddenly another thing came up during the class break.  The same team on the midnight ambush was giving me a mission. Well this one I didn’t expect. So I was quite panicked when I read on a paper they given me. I had to give candies to certain people within fifteen minutes class break. Oh ow… I couldn’t think straight at that time. This was all come so sudden: p

Smiling and then panicked! Haha

The Mission!

The Teachers (Mission Completed!)

The Students (Half Completed haha)

I didn’t manage to give all the candies based on the instruction given. The bell has ringed already. Hahaha. But anyway it’s a fun fifteen minutes to spend on my birthday :)

Being 25 (part 1): The Ambush

I have to admit that I spent my few hours of being 24 by being worried of what will happen when I turned 25. Hahaha. The idea of being a quarter century kinda scared me, but the more scary part was I believe that some of my friends were conspiring to do something on Nov 20^th, 2012 00:00 a.m.  I smell something fishy back then and I was right!

I believe the idea was started by my roommate (you know who you are!).  On the night before I went to bed around 10 p.m.-ish, which of course I couldn’t had a good sleep. I was worried sick about what will happen. Haha. Then suddenly I woke up around 5 minutes before it turned to 00:00 a.m. My body was feeling kinda shocked and stressed out – but nothing happened yet. Then I waited till its 00:00 a.m. feeling helpless on what will happen next and there they come. They woke me up and started to blindfold me and asked me to go out them.  Actually if I want to escape and kick them out of my room, it wouldn’t be a hard thing to do (haha) but where’s the fun if I do so anyway :P Might just go with their plan.

The midnight ambush

So they took me on the elevator ride to I don’t know where, and then there were some stairs involved.  After a few stroll and two elevator ride, finally they took me to the 6^th floor. I’ve never been there before. There was a small place for students who want to rent some space to keep their belongings. Here, finally they took of my blindfold and all of them were gathered together with a birthday cake. The candles were starting burnt out, and the candles started shaped like 28 instead of 25 (nooo… please not that fast!)

Officially 25 and receiving 25 ear pulls birthday tradition

After I blew the candles, made a wish (ehm), cut the cake, took pictures and had a little chat. The party’s over. Hahaha. It’s not even a party anyway. But I’m really thankful for everyone who was giving their time and attention for me that night. Thanks a lot guys, even though your face were all very sleepy but you keep your face cheerful the entire time in front of the camera :p

The boys (clockwise): M, Nick, Jose, Peter

The girls (gone wild LOL): Riana, Fey, Christine, Sellyna

谢谢你们！

NZ Day 8: Milford Sound

Okay, I have to admit that I’ve been too lazy to finish the NZ posts series. Right now I’m in Beijing already, I left my notes of NZ at my house, so basically I’m gonna finish the NZ posts based on my memory only. Well, I think I’m just gonna post some pictures hahaha. For the record, I didn’t take all the pictures by myself (have I mentioned it before?), credits of the pictures goes to Fey and Jae. 

We started early from Queenstown to Milford Sound. It took about 3 hours drive to reach Milford Sound. Since we didn’t plan to stay overnight in Milford Sound, we took off early in the morning.

On the way to our destination, you can see beautiful scenery around you. For me personally, the road to Milford Sound offers many beautiful scenery, which are more beautiful than Milford Sound itself haha. The three hours ride offers you scenery from sheep, snow, mountain, and forest. 

 The view is like playing scenery screensaver on your computer

 

On the middle of our trip, we found this beautiful lake named Mirror Lake. Just like its name, the water is so clear; you can see the reflection of the snowed mountain on the water. Breathtakingly beautiful.

 Mirror mirror on the lake, who’s the fairest of them all?

Finally we reached Milford Sound. There, we need to take a cruise ship to see the view of Milford Sound. The trip was around forty five minutes or so (forgive my bad memory). There are many cruise line there, but we chose the Jucy Cruise, because they offers us ‘buy one get one’ ticket if we rent their vehicles. That time, the ticket price was NZD75 per person. We showed our Jucy car key, and we paid NZD150 for 4 tickets – of course one is not used, only three of us anyway.

Milford Sound was acclaimed as NZ’s most famous tourist destination. You can see some rocks and waterfalls from the boat. You can even spot some seals having a nap (what a life they have!) .It was beautiful there, but I like Mount Cook more than Milford Sound :p

Can you spot the seal?

Around 3 p.m.-ish the cruise is over, it’s time for us to go back to Queenstown, the three (almost four) hours’ drive back is very tiring. Oh ya, there’s only one small coffee shop/ restaurant near the cruise port, which means you don’t have many choice of food, so better if you keep your belly full before coming here (or bring your own lunch and dinner).

For me, it’s the road back to Queenstown is quite scary because it’s getting dark, as in very dark on the road, there’s nothing you can see outside your window since there’s no light outside. Luckily we reached Queenstown safely at night (phew..)

The First Snowfall in BJ

What do you do on the weekend, knowing that rain is going to pour down and even there’s a possibility for snow falling? Easy, stay inside the house. That’s exactly what I did last weekend. We've seen the weather forecast, saying that there’s a possibility of snow falling on the weekend. So I got stuck in my dorm on Saturday, and boy, the forecast didn't lie, it was raining the whole evening. At night, there’s even sleet falling from the sky. I was too excited; I went outside for a while to check the sleet. :p

I went to bed peacefully on Saturday night, swayed by the sleet pouring outside the window. Then on the next morning, the voice of my roommate wakens me up. I didn’t remember exactly the word she said, but it made me jumped immediately, facing the window and all I can see is the ground was already covered with snow.  As if I was still dreaming, it was a magical feeling seeing the snow, seeing how things could be different in less than 12 hours. Still full with astonishment, I reached for my blackberry, took a picture of the view from my window, update status on my blackberry “it’s snowing” –hahahaha, then took my padding jacket because my friends were already set up to go outside and experiencing the first snow. I think I was only awake for five minutes when I stepped outside seeing the snow.

Nov 3^rd: it’s raining. Nov 4^th: it’s SNOWING!

It was quite a big snow, but it started to melt in the afternoon

A Kodak moment, by  Fey’s camera. Waken up for less than 15 minutes in this pic.

In the afternoon I went back to my dorm from my church, the snow started to fall again. It was my first time experiencing the snowflakes falling in my hands. Even though I was walking alone in a crowded street towards the train station, it feels kinda romantic actually. Hahaha. Poor me, being fooled by those drama movies. Anyway, they say this weekend the snow is going to fall again. Let see if the weather forecast was right. Snow or no, I’m ready for it J

Autumn Mid-Exam

I just finished my midterm exam this week. It’s funny since it’s around four years since my last written exam on my last semester of university. The nervous of having a test is still there.  Boy I was really stressed out those few days, but actually the test itself is not as hard as I imagined. The teacher were also really helped us to get good grades by giving the questions from what we learned and discussed on the class. But still, last week I was really in a serious and grouchy mood because of the tests. Hahaha.

Now that the test is over, I can feel a big relieve, and yet feeling very lost, because once the burden was taken from you, sometimes you just don’t know what drives you next. Silly me. Anyway, my grades weren’t that fantastic so I have nothing to brag on this post haha (but I’m quite satisfied with it anyway).

Below I’m about to post my essay on my comprehensive test. It’s already corrected by my teacher.  Actually I like writing an essay, because this way, you can see how far you writing skill. What I don’t like is finding a topic to write. Just like this one, my teacher asked me to write about “my dream …”. You can choose anything, dream job, dream house, dream family, dream vacation whatsoever. At first I want to write about dream family, but considering I don’t even have a boyfriend, maybe I should start from there. Hahaha. So here is what I write… 

我理想的男朋友

我今年是二十五岁，当然跟我青少年的时候不一样。当年，大部分女人的梦想是跟学校里最帅的男人谈恋爱。现在想法已经改变了，物理外观不是最重要的。不用像明星那么帅只要他不难看就行了。可是如果有一个帅的男朋友，这样也不错！

我爸爸以前说，一个好男朋友，一要定有责任。他是对自己负责，然后再对他未来的家庭负责感。这件事我同意我爸爸的说法。我理想的男朋友也应该是一个基督徒， 不爱抽烟，不爱喝酒。他还需要有一个良好的幽默感。我觉得生活已经很难了，你并不需要在所有的时间都很严肃的。

              

世界上找到这样的男朋友难不难？对我来说， “不难”。他可能你已经认识了的人，也可能是一个陌生的人。只要你相信有一天你能遇见你自己理想的男朋友，你就不用担心。

我第一次自食其力

This is my first essay on my comprehensive class. The teacher asked us to write about “Your First Time …”, it’s up to you whether you want to write about your first meet your boyfriend, first time dancing in front of the whole country or first time caught stealing things. Hahaha. Since I don’t have any of above experience I mentioned, I choose to write about my first experience living on my own. I asked a friend about the right title I should put on my essay, and she gave me this idiom: 自食其力zi4 shi2 qi2 li4. Literally means to eat off one’s own strength – to stand on one’s own feet.

When my teacher returns my essay she said: “You’re using very good words for the title.” Inside I was like: “haha, I didn’t know it by myself until my friend told me”. Anyway so this is the corrected version of my first essay in here.  Although writing a 200 words essay is quite frustrating for me, when I read it again, I felt like my writing wasn’t that bad anyway. Jia you myself! Hahaha

我第一次自食其力

我第一次自食其力是两年前。那时侯我去新加坡工作。这是我第一次离开父母。

以前我在印尼已经工作了一年，可是我觉得在老的公司没有前途，工资也不多。 所以遇到好机会在外国工作 我好好利用这个机会。在新加坡比以印尼的工赀高，我会省更多钱。可是有时候会觉得很寂寞听不到妈妈的唠叨。自己住的生活也让我学会很多事，要洗自己的衣服，做饭，整理房间， 等等。以前妈妈做的事， 现在我一定要自己做。

工作的时候也有自己的困难。第一次去上班，我听不懂同事的英文，因为新加坡人有自己的口音。 听他们说汉语我更不明白。可是慢慢我习惯了他们的口音。

依我看，这个经验让我学会很多事。我觉得在外国工作不只是为了挣钱，而是帮我了解成一个独立的人。

How Great is our God

This is my first time visiting Great Wall. I hope next time I can bring my family here 😊

- Abeth on BlogPress from her iPod

Lai Lai Beijing Ba!

After arriving in BeiJing on August 29^th, on the next day we finally got a chance to take ‘di tie’, or the MRT of BeiJing.  We went to HaiDianHuangZhuang area and had a dinner there.

Say ‘cheese’ in front of ‘di tie’ zhan (MRT station) and Xin Zhong Guan/ Gate Mall

This is what we ate for dinner: MaLaXiangGuo. You choose the meats and vegetables by yourself and later they will cook for you in the level of spiciness you decide. In this restaurant, they have four levels. This time we tried the level 2. 

Hot and Spicy Baby!

 Cute Eating Utensils. I couldn't rotate the pic :(

Pictures taken by Fey. I'm to lazy to take photos :p

NZ Day 7: Fox Glacier and Queenstown

In the morning we went to see the Fox Glacier. What is glacier? Well, according to this website,

Glaciers are made up of fallen snow that, over many years, compresses into large, thickened ice masses. Glaciers form when snow remains in one location long enough to transform into ice.

Okay? So you got the idea? We're gonna see some ice. hahaha. It's a free entrance to see Fox Glacier, but at certain point, you will need a guidance from the expert because the area is getting rocky and slippery. I just went until the certain point that they say is safe. It's an half hour walk to see the ice, but if you want to explore some more, you will have to walk further than that.

Fox Glacier entrance

and here it is! The safe unguided spot ends here.

Some people are doing ice climbing with tour guide

Saying goodbye to Fox Glacier!

Now we're continue our journey to Queenstown. It's a five hours drive. Super long journey! I feel asleep during the ride hehe.. then I woke up when we made a stop at Haast city. We had lunch at Frontier Cafe & Bar and the burger I ordered taste super yummy!!! I can say that it was the best food I've tasted in NZ.

I will never forget the day we met 

Thanks for the great meal!

We continue driving to Queenstown. Reach there around 5 p.m. and started to look for a place to stay at night. We called few hostels, all said that they're all fully booked (it was saturday night), and finally we decided to stop at each vacant hostel. It was freezing in Queenstown that night, I think the weather almost reach zero degree. It's not fun to come and knock asking if there were any vacant room available for the past two hours . Desperate enough, I suggested we took a room more expensive than our budget. As long as I'm not freezing in the car like this. hahaha. That moment was the most miserable night of the whole journey. 

In the middle of my desperation, Ms. F randomly called a hotel, and they say they still have an available room within our budget. I could cry in tears of joy if I wasn't that hungry. A clean bed, a warm room. What could I needed more back then? 

Sherwood Manor Hotel view in the morning

After we checked in, we went to the city to have dinner (but somehow I lost my appetite) and went back to the hotel. The next day we're gonna continue the journey in the early morning to Milford Sound - another story awaits hohoho

NZ Day 6: Wanaka and Knight's Point

 Day 5 started in Wanaka. A small city (but bigger than Lake Tekapo) that also offers the beauty of it's lake. We stayed at Wanakabakpaka the night before and in the morning we took a stroll on the area around the city and the lake. 

Cute car in front of Wanakabakpaka + View of Wanaka

The other place we visited in Wanaka is Puzzling World. Inside, you can see and play with many types of puzzle. You can also play in the maze or buy tickets to get inside the exhibitions. That time we were rushed to reach our next destination, so we only took some picture and here it is:

 Trying to create an illusion from certain angle 

Then we were rushing to get to Fox Glacier. It's a four hours drive from Wanaka to Fox Glacier but on our way we made a stop at a place called Knight's Point. It's a coastal area so the you can feel the warmth of the  sun for a while.

Must do at Knight's Point: taking pictures! :p

Then we reach Fox Glacier, we checked in at Fox Glacier Holiday Park. The Fox Glacier area was very quite, not much tourist coming when we were there. Because it's getting dark and I don't know what to do in the evening, I just watch Junior Masterchef on TV that night hahaha. But the most memorable thing was how clear the sky were. You can see the stars shines clearly. It was breathtaking seeing your skyline has no border. 

Welcoming Baby Cleo!

I'm officially an aunt now. My niece name is Cleona Vanielle Tjiptono. She was born on Aug 9th, 2012, delivery via C-section. Weight 3,090 gr and length 50cm. Cleo is the first daughter of my sister and brother in law. It was such a joy moment for both big families since it's their first grandchildren from both. So lucky you Cleo, you're gonna be everybody's little princess!

Thirteen days old Cleo

Right now my sister and bro in law are staying at my parents' house (with me) til my sister is fully recover from the surgery. So everyday I get to see Cleo and watch her grow bigger everyday. haha. Well, it's been 13 days since she was born, but you certainly can see her cheeks are getting puffier. 

I have to admit that I haven't been such a good helper taking care of Cleo. I only like to play with her, talking to her and sometimes sing a song to her (today I sang 1D 'What Makes You Beautiful' hahaha), but when she started to cry and I know that she's doing the 'smelly stuff' (haha), I can only call her mom or grandma to change her diaper. 

Since I'm about to leave to BeiJing within a week and probably gonna come back one year after, she's gonna be one year old when I come back. Ahh... baby Cleo.. Ii is sure gonna miss you. (I want Cleo to call me Ii, instead of aunty, because aunty reminds me of Singaporean Kopitiam aunties :p)

But I believe when Ii come back from BeiJing, both of us are gonna be more awesome than today! So cheers to us, Cleo! (Cleo with her milk, and Ii with her Baileys hahaha)