"Lekker Indonesian Brunch"

Nothing beats a home made "pisang goreng" and
a cup of light "Tong Tji" jasmin tea for brunch

Home made "pisang goreng" with cheese and Applestroop made by Adibah


"Pisang goreng"= Fried Banana




Round about Deventer

A lovely peppermint tea and chocoladetaart gebak evening treat from mba Nana <3 . <3

I <3 fresh Peppermint thee

Una lasagna salmone delizioso da Vega Maki

" LADY GAGA" in Deventer

I need some new stilettos

Can't walk down the street in those

You are who you wear it's true

A girl's just as hot as the shoes she choose

Fashion put it all on me

Don't you want to see these clothes on me?

Fashion put it all on me

I am anyone you want me to be

(Lady Gaga - Fashion)

Over 300.000.000 viewers on YouTube Lady Gaga has become a trend in the music industry around the world. This Super pop star had always tried to show all her best to please her little monsters. Nowadays it seems like the weirder you get the better you achieve. Well maybe it implies on the old saying by Meredith West 

“If you want to stand out, don't be different; be outstanding.” 

And I do reckon that Lady Gaga, not just different, she also has the quality of being outstanding (well a part from the illuminati thing going on) but let’s just skip that part and just stick to her achievements. 

http://aestheticsofjoy.com/category/joyful-fashion/

Apart from her music, what I found interesting about this Lady is her sense of fashion. Well, I think it’s more than just fashion; I call some of the costumes she wears as “pieces of art”. She really wants to show her character by her physical appearance, how she interprets herself by the art fashion that she promotes. It’s also one of the thing that keeps her interesting, people will always be curious of what she’ll wear on her next video clip or performances.

Today’s writing I’m going to tell a little story during my Christmas Eve celebration. This year’s Christmas I was invited by Paul’s (A really nice friend of mine) Host family Leslie and Hinke Luiten, to join them on a Dutch Christmas celebration. Hinke Luiten is a well-known Artist in Deventer-NL. I was very surprised to see her collection of wearable pieces of art in her living room. She had one just near her front window made of unused CD’s and it struck directly in my mind of Lady Gaga’s Disco Ball dress she wore on a couple of her live performances. 

Hinke Luiten and I

I was really amazed by her very unique and unusual work. She utilized recycled materials such as unused CD’s, bicycle inner tubes, toys, footballs, tin lids, telephone cord, belts, buttons, postbags, bottle caps, computer keyboard along with the mouse, coins, surgical gloves, keys, plastics, and anything unusual you can think of. I got really excited that time to see all these wonderful design, they’re truly a very neat craftsmanship and just so finely made. She enthusiastically showed all her designs to us from movies, pictures, and she even brought us to her workshop room to see hundreds of art pieces she made from the past 18 years.

Ms. Liana Bratasida (Assistant Minister for Global Environmental Affairs, Indonesia and former Chair, SBI, UNFCCC) and Helena Molin of Valdes

She bewitched the ready-to-throw-away materials into pieces of wearable art that are sold to public and available to be rented for window shop display or exhibitions. Somehow she also contributed to save the environment; she implemented the “reuse and recycle” phrase which I consider magnificent. It reminds me of the time I attended one of a side event in the UNFCCC COP-16 in Cancun Mexico about youth as a change agent in fighting Climate Change. Helena Molin a young girl from Valdes was wearing a dress she made out of Magazines she recycled as her project. These things are such inspirational. Sometimes I think it takes more than just “brands” to be outstandingly different. It takes a good sense of concept and a passion itself to pull it off. Cheers!! =D

For more info about Hinke Luiten check out:

http://www.hinkeluiten.nl/frame_jurken_eng.html

"Fussing about the Weather"

Christmas is over; along with it the weather is getting warmer in Deventer, its 1°C outside. I felt the snow melting through my footsteps as I walk along the wide lane of paving along Rubbensstraat towards my beloved student housing.

Frankly, I personally, unconsciously often use weather as an excuse:


* OMG, it’s too hot outside I’d rather stay home than having sun burns.
* OMG it’s so cold, I think I might do the groceries tomorrow.
*OMG, it’s raining, I think I might wait for a while after the rain stops (or maybe just stay at home).
*OMG, There goes the snow, I hate the snow! I’d rather be in my blanky..


(Dear God, Please forgive me for I’ve been complaining too much recently, I know I’m such a fuss, but I’ve been falling of my bike because of the snow, GOSH I need to improve my biking skills!)


And that’s how I started to get this bad habit of procrastinating sometimes (well most of the times, but no really). You see, I tend to lose focus sometimes on certain things because of the un-conducive conditions like weather, lack of motivation or ideas, or just simply running out of inspirations. I have this mind set of priorities to be done but eventually ended up in doing other things that I mostly like and more feasible (according from my POV, which I consider less urgent) to be done. Like these couple of few days, I had a bunch of new stories to be posted but I was just way too unfocused to get my fingers on the board and ended up in doing something else (which is cleaning up my supper horribly messy room-I’ve been busy with my assignments, never ending reports, and continuous Christmas invitations). But I did end up in having all of them accomplished =D (well of course with having my first plan STILL being abandoned; BUT-OMG-I-SO-NEED-TO-WORK-HARD-ON- IT-LIKE-SOON!! =!)

Yesterday night a really good friend of mine (Adit) just called me to let me know that he was at IKEA, Amersfoort and asked if I apparently needed anything he could get there. So after a while he took some snapshots of some stuff sent it via Blackberry messenger. So he ended up transporting me this wooden IKEA bookshelf which I casted into a multifunctional rack. (I actually needed a shoe rack very much but it turned out that it was very functional, hha). I eventually got motivated to DO my room after knowing that it would arrive soon. Finally it came!! =))

My friends Adit and Adibah helped me to assemble the 2m high wooden rack, since I was busy making dinner and after seeing me pathetically fail in assembling the first two pieces (-________-). Well at first they kind of found it hard since we don’t have household carpenter gadgets such as what we call “a hammer”(BA), but eventually they found a way. It seems like “my heels” are very useful. =p

Thrift Shop Treasure and a Cactus Tea for Winter

Its -8°C outside in Deventer, not as usual as what we had these couple of few days which could reach up to -15°C. Some say the winter is a bit early here, but one thing for sure, it’s totally freezing. I’m lucky now to be smuggled up in a warm bed and a piece of purple blanket to cover up for myself.

See, I had a lot of things going on today. I went to a couple of places which my friends and I have already planned a couple of days ago (adjusting to the Dutch culture for having everything planed in advanced, it’s not a typical habit of Indonesian which are more spontaneous and flexible) but yeah, I guess planning makes life easier, ;)

What do you have in mind when you hear the phrase “Thrift Shop”? I always have in mind of a wonderland of magical things you can find. I’m not a vintage fetish, but I would definitely spare the time to go thrift-ing just to see how you can find aged pieces of wearable edgy clothing or a wonderful pair of classic leather shoes, or those uniquely contemporary designed sling bags. They’re just such a wonder!

The other thing is that, you could also find unique antiques that is historically valuable or just things that are sold in a very very veeeery cheap price. I consider thrift shopping pretty friendly, not mentioning handy too. You can always find these weird and unique things that you don’t see much in ordinary retail stores and end up having them at home without having to regret buying them (well of course it would probably only imply on me since I’m a really picky person when it comes to shopping-I don’t know but I have too much consideration in mind which I would probably mention to you latter on). Well yea!! That was one of an amusing thing I did in the afternoon.

After spending my time admiring the lost treasures I ended up buying this unusual antiquely printed Europe map (I’ve always loved collecting tourism maps) I think that was my best buy. I took it home only € 0, 15. I also bought a cute polka dot cream head band which I wore on my picture, I didn’t really feel comfy with my pink beanie which I bought at H&M yesterday so I need something to hold up my fringe. It turned out nice to match with my favorite WE cream trench coat. ;D

After a 15 minute bike ride, we stopped by at the city center (a.k.a Centrum: an open mall which offers a different variety of shops, cafes and restaurants) my comrades and I went there to meet our friend from Emmen, a town just 1,5 hours by train from Deventer. He just got back from Barcelona for his winter vacation. So we decided to head to a café to have a little chit-chat and to warm ourselves up from the freezing weather of Netherlands. Most of us ordered an Appletaart gebak (which literally means *baked apple pie), I had mine with Slaghroom (*whip cream) yum! And I was not in the mood of drinking milky beverages so I had thee (*tea) to go along with my pie. The funny thing is that I had to choose among 24 flavors of tea, I couldn’t bother choosing one myself so I had the waitress decided for me.

W: hello! @&%@%.... @&^%$* %amp;^#&%$ &%))))… ( I guess it was ummh.. something in Dutch?- like duuhh!!)
(Which I interpreted with my amateur Dutch language ability as: “what would you like to order?”)
N: Een Appletaart gebak met slagroom Alstublieft (*One baked Apple pie with whip cream please)
W: %@&%& ^# & ….%(&amp; %&^%&^$.......... (Which I started to get confused, and made the waitress suddenly knew my Dutch suck -__________________-“)
W: “What would you like to have for a drink?”
N: Een thee Alstublieft! (*one tea please)
W: #^$^& &(&%(&%,,,… ^*&%(&…?
N: (Then I got even more confused so I decided to give up the Dutch) “What flavors do you have?”
W: What flavor would you like, we have 24 flavours?
(Well duuhh!! like I’m supposed to be a tea geek or something)
W: “Fruit or herbs?”
N: “I want a weird one ;)”
W: Ok!
N: “A weird one ok, something that I probably wouldn’t find anywhere else ;)” (I emphasized)

(Then I got doubtful of what I just ordered. So the waitress left in a second leaving me with the doubtfulness having the meaningless self-dialogue of “should-i-or-should-i-not-order-another-one” kind of thing)

So, I ended up having a “CACTUS TEA” to warm me up along with an Appletaart Gebak. It turned out nice it “was” weird, smelled like a bit of banana, but… it was quiet nice (sort of) well yea, it’s nice. Hhehe

So what was YOUR weirdest tea flavor? ;)


P.S: please mind the photos,i know they're ugly,yea.. ;(

I AM A CHICKEN

A couple of weeks ago during the UNFCCC COP-16, along with the British Council Officials, Crew members, and Climate Champions we went on a boat trip to Puerto Juárez, a town in Benito Juárez municipality, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It’s located in the north-east of the Yucatán Peninsula, on the shore of the Caribbean Sea; It is 2 km from Cancún around about less than an hour drive by car.

I'm actually not that "let's snorkel!!" kinda person. I'm a bit of a chicken when it comes to sea water since I always get this feeling of "sharks will stalk me" or those unfriendly transparent Cnidarians which could sting me anytime the current drifts them I'm usually totally soo.. precautious. But umm.. I don't know, that moment I just got this inner dialogue thingy kinda going..:

N: Should I snorkel? Should I not? Should I snorkel? Should I not? Should I snorkel? Should I not?.............. (And it continues for like about 5 minutes)

(while the others have already geared up with the life jackets, Snorkel, Flipper, Scuba Mask, Swimming Goggles, Vector and jumped in the blue one by one I was still having the self-dialogue going on)


AE: Go ahead you chicken! Look at you sitting here like a coward, those jellyfish ain’t gonna eat you (well probably the sharks will!!) but what are you sitting there for??

N: GOD!! I wanna go!!, but what if the sharks eat me?! What if suddenly there’s a huge tidal wave!! Or a monster, or a snake or whatever..??!!

AE: You dork!! Who cares if there’s even a Montauk Monster swimming about (hey! you could probably appear on the headline news tomorrow!!) you haven’t even tried a single time!! This is your last chance buddy!! It's the Caribbean for goodness sake!! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO SWIM!!

N: Ok! I made up my mind I’m going! Happy now!!


AE=Alter Ego of Nadya

N=Nadya


With half a doubt in my face I suddenly asked the boat crew if I could catch the others who had already swam further 50m from the boat. So I ended up having the fun to see how wonderful the Caribbean corrals were and the cute colorful little fisihies swimming inside the water. It was so magnificent, I could see the red, blue, yellow fishes, and also the clown fish peeking through the white corrals and green algae covering up a certain area of sea bed (and of course, no sharks, nor Jellyfish). It was just awesome!! I'd love to try it again!!

So if somebody would ask me "When was your first time snorkeling? “ I would definitely say Mexico! ;D

YOUTH CHANGE MAKERS

Youth Delegation of Kementrian Lingkungan Hidup Republic of Indonesia also act as Climate Champion of British Council in UNFCCC COP-16 Nov29-Dec8 2010