St. Patrick's Day

I actually have never heard about this St. Partick's Day before in my life, until two weeks ago, in the PTA meeting at Iki's school. The school will celebrate St. Patrick's Day on March 17, and mothers are requested to prepare the luncheon. And I must prepare the dessert.

I browsed the internet once I got home, and decided to bake a cake with big green clover icing. I tried to make the clover then, but it was really difficult! Instead of a clover, they turned out to be either a huge abstract leaf, a green flower, or a green tree (>.<).

In the last minute then I got some ideas of green Indonesian's traditional dessert from my friends via facebook. I decided to make 'klepon', small balls of green rice cake filled with palm sugar, and covered by grated coconut. I made some modification though, I used Japanese's rice cake's powder to get a stronger chewy taste instead of Indonesian's rice powder. I colored the grated coconut in green, so here is Iki's school St. Patrick's Day's dessert :))

I didn't expect that they would love them :p

(Another) fun holiday in Bali

We stayed at the Mara River Lodge, a hotel inside the Safari Park on our first three nights in Bali. Iki loved that place. Not only that he could see zebras, and a big rhino and some other African animals from our bedroom, but because there were lots of activities there for him.



He excitedly watched the lions -though they were sleeping most of the time- from the big window glass surrounding the restaurant. Too bad the food there was not good at all, and expensive. We don't mind paying expensive food as long as they are good :)). We definitely won't consider any dinner at Tsavo Lion restaurant anymore in the future

He enjoyed feeding the elephants eventhough he was scared at the first time.



He laughed out loud and was really interested watching the elephants' show.



He rode the camel, with papa-chan.



He loved riding the ponies too. In fact, he rode them for three times, basically every day during our stay there.



And he enjoyed riding the elephants, meanwhile I was scared to death. He kept chattering while the huge elephant brought us around the Safari Park, meanwhile I could barely move because I was afraid that I would fall down (>.<). 

We could take photos with the animals too. I love the picture with the tiger the most!, and Papa-chan loved this baby Orang Utan named Roni.


He screamed excitedly when he found the fun zone and the water park too!! Mara River Lodge is a heaven for Iki except for the food!

   

We also went to the monkey forest in Ubud. Iki was really excited seeing those cute monkeys. Too bad I don't have the pictures. I was too afraid if those monkeys stole my camera :p

We thought that we want to shop till we drop on the last three days. But we met some friends instead. Which was a great thing. We live in this far away Sorowako so that meeting friends, had a good quality time eating, drinking, and laughing together were such a valuable refreshing time.

We met Sheila, Martin, Mariza, Carla, Vincent, and little Michelle for a fun dinner at Jimbaran. I was really glad to be able to meet them all, especially Sheila. Glad that at last I could meet Martin and Vincent. It was really funny to see how Martin and Vincent got along 'pretty well' hahaha!



We went fishing with Tim and Yully's family too. They are our friends from Sorowako, and their kids -Angela an Matthew- are Iki's good friends. They moved out from Sorowako already last month, so that we were really happy to spend some time with them again.


And the next day we met Annerie and Ricardo. The last time I met them was like 4 years ago, when I visited them in Schagen, the Netherlands. Carla, Vincent, Mariza, and Anton joined the lunch too. At last I met Anton!! He was really really quiet for A MARIZA!!! Happy to hear about the plan next year ;-)

Hiro was really sick then, so that we decided not to meet anyone on our last holiday. I was sad that I couldn't meet Luky, my friend from Sorowako too, but indeed we had had a busy holiday already. We just had FEW (really few....) shopping, a quick haircut for me (which is not bad but quite dissapointing...huaaaa!!), and then a great dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, Tratorria, in Seminyak area. It was definitely the best meal I've ever had in Bali hehehe.
Interestingly then after dinner Hiro suddenly felt better and wanted to join Tim's farewell dinner! So we went to Tim and Yully's house in Denpasar at 9.30 pm!! Iki enjoyed his last playing time with Matthew and Angela -last because that family is moving to Madagascar and we don't know when would we meet them again. We went home at 11 p.m. Drunk and tired and sleepy (especially Iki) yet we had to pack our luggage because we had to check out early in the morning on the next day.



It was an exhausting holiday. Now I realize that a romantic-honeymoon style holiday with a lot of shopping time has been ended. As Iki is getting bigger now, our holiday -all the plans- must be based on his schedules and wishes! But we had a great time. We enjoyed watching Iki enjoying his holiday, laughing out loud, eventhough we were mad at him a lot of time too haha!

Looking forward for our next holiday ALREADY hahaha!

Our flight

It was raining when we were about to board the plane from Sorowako to Makassar yesterday morning that the flight was delayed. The plane connecting Sorowako to Makassar is a small one, so the flight operator didn't dare to take the risk flying the airplane during bad weather. Which actually was very good, because safety must come at the first place. I don't dare risking our lives in the sky with that small plane too!!

But the thing is our next flight to Bali from Makassar would be at 9 a.m!! We were supposed to arrive in Makassar at 8 a.m but at last we started at 7.45! I felt like the 45 minutes flight took forever. But the other passanger told me that Lion Air (our next flight to Bali), would understand about our flight delayed and would allow us to get inside the plane. And anyway flight delayed for that airlines is just a normal issue' so we shouldn't be worried that much haha!

We arrived at Makassar 15 minutes before the Lion Air boarded. Hiro ran with Iki to the check in counter explaining about us, while I ran to take the luggage. The Lion Air's staffs kept rushing me to board the plane asap and leave the luggage behind (they said that they will send it with the next flight to Bali, but..... yeah right!!! :p). Thanks God by that time then I saw my luggage and I ran upstair as fast as I could. I lost my breath, but we could board the plane. I felt sorry for the other passanger who waited curiously inside the plane hehehe. 

So we are now in Bali (^____^), for our first one week holiday after 5 months living in Sorowako!