Nikko is Nature

Nikko offers wide range of beautiful nature attractions. Actually it is best to be visited during autumn but Hiro said he might not go there during that time because there would be too many people and too many cars. But visiting Nikko in this winter satisfied me already. It's only two hours drive away from Tokyo but it showed us totally different view.

After visiting the famous Toshugu Shrine, we drove to Lake Chuzenji. We must pass the Irohazaka Winding road. This road 48 needlepoints curves uphill which made me almost throwing up (@_@).
This photo is taken at one panoramic point in the middle of the Irohazaka Winding Road. We could see a beautiful waterfall from there with Irohazaka winding road beside it. I bet this viewpoint is full of people with cameras in Autumn!!



We didn't make a stop at the Lake anyway, but continued our journey to Nikko National Park where our hotel is located. I felt good and relaxed playing with snow again.



I used to hate onsen but this time I loved it. I think it's because I went there alone. My mind and body got relaxed and my skin became very soft afterwards. I enjoyed being inside the very hot outdoor bath surrounded by thick snow. I really wished I could take photo, but those naked ladies will definitely kill me and police will catch me (seriously) if I dared bringing camera inside. The wet towel I put on the rock outside the pool turned into ice when I finished bathing!. Actually I wanted to get inside the onsen at night, after iki was asleep. I wanted to see the night sky with stars from the bath. But I was too "busy" that night with papa-chan hihihihi.
This is me after onsen.



Iki enjoyed this trip too. He happily played with the rented slide:



And trying to make snowman



I drew railway on the snow and Iki excitedly ran on it while shouting "uuuh uuuhhh"



Papa-chan claimed that he was a professional cross country ski player and showed it off



And of course Iki-chan also wanted to try



On the way home we passed this beautiful frozen lake



And visited a small waterfall. There's famous waterfall nearby Lake Chuzenji but there were too tourists coming that we didn't make a stop.



It was my first time getting on a car on this thick snowy road.



Look at those benches. I was tempted to lay down there actually hehehe



We were all happy. I love nature, and Nikko offers more than that.

Toshogu Shrine

Ever since we moved to Japan, we always spend EVERY weekend with my parents' in laws. They can always find reasons to come here or to bring Iki home. I actually don't mind, and Iki loves spending time with them too. But somewhat then I got a bit tired and really wanted to spend at least one weekend only the three of us. Especially now that we MIGHT live separately for sometime due to Hiro's job (either for few months or few years!). That's why last weekend Hiro arranged this Nikko trip without them.

It took about 2 hours trip drive from Tokyo. At first we visited Toshogu Shrine, one of UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the biggest and most decorated temple in Japan, dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu. This is the main gate of the temple:



This is the pagoda at nearby the entrance gate:



There were three most famous carvings in that temple, but we only visited one. The three wise monkeys who hear, speak and see no evils.




This temple is amazingly gold decorated!



I especially adored this carving. Beautiful!



Besides sightseeing, many people also come for praying. They wrote their wishes on a piece of wood and hang it together. That way they believe that their wishes would come true.



Iki was excited to see those big stones inside the temple complex and intended to take one home hahaha. Hiro then explained him that taking home something that is not his stuffs is considered "stealing" :))



We didn't spend much time in this very famous site of Nikko. There were too much stairs!!! Either little Iki or Hiro (hugging Iki) might be black out climbing all those stairs :))

Nikko

Lying on the bed of white clean snow at Nikko. A relaxing weekend getaway only the three of us. Stay tuned for the complete story(^_^)

My name is SHIERLY :p

As long as I could remember, except my teachers or my bosses, or my co-workers at CDU; no one calls me with my real name: Shierly.

I'm "elly" at home. No one calls me Shierly there.

When I was in elementary school in Woloan, a small village in Manado, my friends called me "potot". Which means "short". My uncle then made me popular as SPG - Shierly Potot Gode. I've told you the meaning of potot, while "gode" means "fat". Yeah yeah...I was short and fat at that time (>.<)



After grade 4, I moved to Banjarmasin where I spent the rest of my elementary school there. I was called "kucil" there :(

During my Junior high school period, still in the same city, I was called "acuy". A strange slang for the word "small". This "acuy" nickname followed me until high school then.

After graduating from high school I moved to Surabaya to obtain my university degree. Oh and I "graduated" from "acuy" nickname too *phew*. But I got another nickname: imoet. Which means "cute". I don't complain to whoever gave me this nickname. This nickname has the best meaning after all hahaha

Then I got married and moved to Korea. No one called me Shierly either. I was "K***o si waipu".

Now in Japan, I'm "Iki-kun no mama". No one bothers to know my real name, let alone my complete name.

My official inkan (Japanese stamp used for signature) uses kanji character SHIERI (詩絵里）. Which will make me using "shieri" to sign legal documents with inkan in Japan forever.

And my family in Japan?! hahaha no one can call me "Shierly" as Japanese couldn't pronounce "L". Even Hiro calls me "Sheri-". And everytime he tried to pronounce "Shierly", he would produce weird "sherwwiii" sound (_ _o).

Perhaps I just miss to hear someone calling me "SHIERLY" :p

Mysterious package

I was about to go out yesterday afternoon when the bell rang. A package for me. I didn't expect any package and the sender's name written on it didn't ring a bell to me. I opened it anyway, found a "ticket to a ride" game box inside. The question mark in my head got bigger. Though the game is in Japanese (from what was written on the box), I didn't know if anyone I know here played that game. My birthday was just a week away so I thought it might be another present. But...from who?! I sms-ed Hiro right away to ask if he sent me that mysterious package and he said that he didn't know anything about it. I was in a hurry for a date lunch so I tore off the sender's information and off to the station.



I met Hiro an hour later at Ikebukuro and showed the paper to him. It was supposed to be a romantic lunch but he got pretty disturbed because I opened an unknown package. The sender's name was "Matsumoto Kenichi", a guy name, and he interrogated me if I had a friend or a "friend" with that name. I could only insisted that I didn't have any friend or "FRIEND" (if you get what I mean) named Matsumoto Kenichi. In addition there are many crimes by sending packages in Japan nowadays so he was worried too.

Then he called that guy based on the information from the paper.
"This is Shierly Motulo's husband. She got a package from you. Who are you and why did you send that package to my wife?"
They had short conversation when suddenly he mentioned one name and Hiro asked me.
"Kusuma. Do you know Kusuma?"
I was like, "Ha? Kusuma?"
Hiro remembered something
"That girl in Germany. What was her complete name?"
"Weis? Yunita Weis?"
"No! The SMALL one!"
"Oh...Sheila? ARRGGHH Sheila Kusuma!!!"
Then Hiro talked to the guy on the phone back.

I didn't get it. What? What is the relationship between Sheila and that Matsumoto guy and that package?

Seemed that the little Kusuma girl ordered that game from amazon.co.jp and sent the package to me. And seemed that she didn't know proper Japanese to put her own name on the package in order :p

Calling her was the first thing I did when I reached home. I got answered by a machine instead (Hiro then yelled reminding me what time would it be in Germany at that time!) :p. This morning I read an sms from her. It was really from her, a birthday gift. Thank you sooooooo much!!!!!!! This really is a mysterious gift hahahaha. Thank you for the big question mark you sent us along with that package too. This is really sweet. I could imagine how puzzled you were ordering a gift through a website using a language you are not familiar with. I'm so touched, Ms. Sheila Kusuma!!! *hugs hugs*

28

I'm 28 years old now!

I baked chou cream the day before, but it was a total failure!!! (>.<). The custard cream tasted good though. They didn't look good (I think high photography skill also won't be able to make them look good :p), looked more like dorayaki than chou cream :(. What a terrible breakfast :p



Spent the whole afternoon gathering at a friend's house. Oh yeah, I'm making friends already now from Iki's swimming school (^__^). Nice lunch, nice people, nice talks. The kids enjoyed playing with each other too that it took sometime for them to agree to go home hahaha

Had Wagyu steak for dinner. Really delicious one. It simply melted in my mouth. Definitely the best (and most expensive LOL) steak I've ever had in my life. I just realized that we always have steak for celebration dinners, with almost the same side dishes!!!! (fries, boiled veggies, and potato salad). Next time I'll try to be more creative and think of other meals :p.



Got a birthday cake from papa-chan.



With a bunch of roses. First flowers I got after 2 years :))



And a "massage" at the end of the day *grin*

Look at me, 28 years old, stuffed, happy and drunk :))



Special thanks to Yun for the phone call; Tina and Carla for the sms; Valens for the email; Nyo, Pei, Vanie for the YM. Nova, Intan, Anas, Mihane-chan, Julian for the friendster messages. Stephanie, Adnan, Misao for the facebook messages. You guys have special place in my heart (^___^). If you're here I'll kiss you all like this:



I hope to be more patient and think more positive about everything.....my two birthday wishes :)

A Thai Dinner

I was dying to eat something sour and salty and spicy so one Saturday we went to a Thai restaurant named E-san. It took about 1.5 hours drive from our place, but Hiro chose that restaurant because he knows the food quality already (despite that the owner is his friend :p). The cook was a Thai woman so I believed the originality of the taste. I was too excited to eat that I didn't pay attention to the name of the meals. If any of you knows it by chance, please let me know (^__^)

At first came this traditional pancake-like kind of meal (or martabak?). It has rich amount of oysters inside with bean sprouts and nira as toppings. Boy, it tasted really good. I had to remind myself that it was an appetizer and I must spare my stomach for the upcoming meals.



Then came this spring roll. Dipped in sweet and spicy sauce, it was a fresh and rich of vegetables starter. It helped washing away the oily taste from the previous fried meal.



This is my favorite Thai food ever: Tom Yam Goong. And that restaurant served us the best Tom Yam Goong I've ever had in my life. This is not exaggerating. I finished it until the last drop of its soup. The seafood amount was enormous. The sourness was perfect. Not too salty but salty enough to satisfy my need. And spicy. Really spicy as we ordered so. This soup really gave me food orgasm :p. God, I'm drooling now; and swallowing my own spit in the middle of the night is dying! :((



And this spicy Kangkung (watercress) was the star for my dinner. I had never expected to eat any Kangkung in Japan before. I ordered extra spicy one, and finished it all by myself with a big portion of steam rice. It was KANGKUNG, for God's sake!! And It was very spicy. I was like half dreaming eating that in Tokyo :)).



Iki also needed to eat so we ordered this duck in noodle soup for him and Hiro. The soup was thick and very tasty, the duck was soft, the noodle was chewy. Too bad I only tried some bites since I was too excited with my spicy meals and my stomach was too full for non-spicy food :p. Next time I might order this meal again to satisfy my "noodling" needs :)) (I also looooveeeee noodles!)



And I thought this meal was supposed to be an appetizer but it came almost at the end of our dinner. Spicy papaya salad. Hiro loved this meal, it was not too spicy for him. It was like eating rujak without petis sauce for me hehehe, or like eating gohu (Manado style spicy papaya drink) without palm sugar taste. But overall this food is definitely what I will order if I go to a Thai restaurant again.



And Thai seafood fried rice. An additional meal Hiro ordered for him and Iki. This time I was waaaay too full I couldn't even try for one bite. No photo, unfortunately. My camera was out of battery (>.<). It was almost covered with seafood!! Wished I had extra space in my stomach to try :(

It was really a great dinner. It was Thai food but the taste somewhat reminded me of Indonesia. I was satisfied and ate really a lot. I had to unbutton my jeans to be able to sit and breath :p.

Happy Valentine!! (^___^)

Happy Valentine, papa-chan :p



Happy Valentine, Iki-chan



Happy Valentine, hippochan..! (Iki happily shared his cookie with his lovely "friend", meanwhile I was not allowed to bite it at all :p)



And happy Valentine to you all (^____^)


Chocolate Marsmallow Big Cookie

The recipe was taken from my cooking bible: Orange Page. Very easy (even for a beginner like me), and the taste was surprisingly satisfying (though I have to reduce the sugar based on Hiro's preference). My both men were having their Valentine's cookie orgasm :p

Damn Tantrums!

These days Iki has been throwing his tantrums for like the 8 hours out of 12 hours a day!! I am trying hard to keep my patience level to the highest right now. He wakes up at midnight every day and crying for like half an hour. I don't know what he wants, and I ended up sleeping on the floor in his room. I don't have good sleeping quality lately and my back is killing me now. I don't want to sleep there actually, I just can't help not to fall asleep after he screamed at 4 o'clock in the morning.



He is a nice boy outside the house, e.g during visits to his grandparents house or at his swimming school, but once we arrive home he would change into this little monster who cries very loud while shouting "NO NO NO". What I hate the most was when he took of all his clothes and continued crying nearby the big window, the coldest part in the living room.



Today he got a bit cold. He sneezed a lot and got a little runny nose. It ruined his mood the whole day. I tried, really really tried my best today not to blow up. Being angry doesn't solve the problem, he would just cry even louder. I just can't understand what he wanted and what was in his mind. This morning, for example, he had a very strange menu combination. Tempe and strawberry, must be eaten together in sandwich style. EUGH (>.<).



He didn't want to play by himself too, and I was not allowed to do any house chores. He hung on my leg and pulled me out of the kitchen. At last I took some of my kitchen utensils and asked him to separate the spoons, chopsticks and forks. It made him busy for like 15 minutes when I could wash the dishes and boiled some beans for his snack. But then he got bored with the game and spread all the spoons, forks and chopsticks all over the living room. When I told him to stop doing that, the tantrum started again (#_#).



And tonight he wanted to have dinner in darkness. He insisted to turn off all the lights! Of course we couldn't see well. He spilled his tea onto the chair and all over the floor, and spread his food on the table. Again after some words came out of my mouth, he started screaming again. I got terrible headache and had to take painkiller.


angry Iki

Finally it was time for brushing his teeth, the last thing to do before going to bed. But it took forever and he didn't want me to give final cleaning on his teeth. When I gave up and told him to sleep instead, he got angry again and wanted to finish his teeth brushing, WITHOUT opening his mouth to let me do my thing there. It was just too much, I lost my patience and burst into tears. I was so tired emotionally. Tired of listening to his cries, tired to control my patience, tired to control my mouth and my hands (of not doing something harmful), and tired of being with him ONLY for the whole day (Hiro had to come back home very late these days due to his job). Iki was surprised to see me crying. He finished his brushing thing quickly, went to bed and fell asleep in a minute while hugging me. Then I couldn't stop crying for another hour, but I felt better afterwards. And now I feel even better after rambling here :p.

Hhhh......how would he be tomorrow....?!

Sapporo: Food Paradise

I love this city. I had Japan's most delicious food there. All the food we had there was satisfying. If you ask me why would I go back to Sapporo beside it's Snow Festival, then it must be the food!!
It has the best farm and dairy products: sweet corn, potato, milk, cheese, butter.
It has the freshest seafood I've ever had in Japan
It also has the best grilled lamb
It has addictive sweets and snacks
And It has one of the most delicious Ramen I've ever had

So let's follow my culinary journey during our last trip to Sapporo (^__^)

Hokkaido's specialty: Kani or King Crab. The meat was so tender and sweet and really really fresh!



Kegani. This smaller hairy crab is somewhat tastier than the King Crab. It just needed more effort to take the meat out of the shells :p. The best part was eating the "Kani Miso": the crab's stomach parts inside the main shells.



Sashimi. God!!! These sashimi were heaven!! They were really really fresh and tasty and soft and tender and delicious and I got multiple food orgasm eating them. There were hotate (scallops), maguro (tuna), sanma (only VERY fresh one could be eaten raw, otherwise it's poisonous), kujira (whale - hmm didn't really fond of it, too hard for me), aji, shrimps, and abalone. Boy my mouth is watering again now. Do I have to go to Sapporo again to eat them or does the famous Tsukiji market in Tokyo offer at least the same freshness level?! :p



Ika no sashimi. Alive Squid. Poor animal. It was still alive when cut into thin slices. The tentakels were still moving when served on our table. The sliced squid were still transparent, showed that it was really sliced when it's still alive. This kind of squid is Hakodate's specialty.



And I got honor to eat the head area!!!! I couldn't believe I ate them (>.<). I must be under beer and Sake's influence :))



Hotate Corn Ramen. We had ramen at Susukino area for lunch. Sapporo's specialty is miso ramen, and because I love hotate (scallop), I chose this ramen. For me it was Japan's second best ramen after Kyushu's Tonkotsu ramen



On the last night we had grilled lamb in Jenghis Kahn style for dinner at the famous Sapporo Bier Garten, former factory of the famous Sapporo Beer



It was an all you can eat style restaurant. Very famous and full of foreigner. The restaurant was highly recommended by Hiro's friend who lives in Sapporo so I believe that local people are also fond of it. The meat came together with a plate full of vegetables. This grilling style reminded me of the similar ones we usually had in Korea. The meat was tender and juicy, and the dipping sauce was a perfect match. This was my early birthday celebration :p



I ordered Hokkaido boiled potato dressed with Hokkaido butter as a side dish. Hmmmphhhh.....it was really really delicious!!!



The next day we had lunch nearby Sapporo tower after scrolled down some statues we haven't seen yet at the Snow Festival. Hiro had this Uni (sea urchin) Gohan. I never liked uni before because I felt some strange smell and taste from it. But Hiro said his uni gohan was really fresh and delicious that I was "seduced" to try a little. I was so surprised that it tasted really good!!! Now I fell in love with uni, but only the very fresh one!



And of course I ordered my favourite ever Ikura gohan



Accompanied with a small plate of pregnant Shisamo fishes



I bought this snack to be brought back to Tokyo. I guess almost everyone visiting Sapporo were bringing back this snack. The famous SHIROI KOIBITO. Thin white chocolate in thin crispy biscuits. We saw everyone at the airport bringing this thing, and when we bought, the man beside us bought 50 packages!!



I also bought the new product from Shiroi Koibito



Hokkaido's butter raisin pie. I love this snack the most!



Dried Hotate (scallop)



And smoked salmon chips



And of course delicious Ikura :p. No photos, they are now safe in a bin inside my refrigerator hehehe

God, I'm drooling....Sapporo is definitely a food paradise!!