Asakusa

We went to Asakusa -a distric name that offers traditional side of Tokyo- with my parents in law today. They wanted to show us their new bigger car. Unfortunately I got carsick because of the new car's smell, and drove Hiro mad because I forgot to bring my medicine (forgetting stuffs is in my blood! don't be surprised :p). So actually I lost my mood at the very beginning of the trip (_ _o)

It was lunch time when we arrived there so we browsed for this very famous restaurant named Komagata Dozeu. It serves "dojo" or Japanese loach, and we chose that restaurant because I haven't tried dojo in my life before. Dojo is like small version of unagi (eel) served in its whole shape.



We ordered two types of dojo. The first one coming was this nabe style (hotpot) one. Hiro said that lots of Japanese women could not eat dojo in this style because it came in a whole shape of dojo. They prefer to eat raw fish that these boiled poor dojo hahaha. It tasted soooo good thought and I really really loved it!!



Hiro also doesn't really like the nabe style dojo so he ordered this one. Dojo mixed with gobo (kind of roots) and eggs. The shape of dojo couldn't really be seen then.



There's also dojo Miso soup. I didn't take picture of it, unfortunately. It freaked me out because the dojo I ate was wet from the thick soup. I really felt like they were alive and I ate them directly from the mud. YUCK! God, I got goosebumps remembering that soup (>.<)!

Then we went to the most famous site in Asakusa area, Shenonji temple. I've been there alone in 2003, so this was my second time being there. Can you see the smokey point in front of the main temple? Japanese believe that the smoke could cure diseases so people tried to catch it to their sick part of the body. I put some smoke onto my stomach, hoping that all the fat there would go away hehehe



There were lots of small shops along the street to the main temple. From souvenir shops, snack shops, food stalls, to toy shops (so of course little Iki did some shopping there!). At the end of the row of those shops, there were hanging lanterns in front of the main gate. They must be beautiful at night!



This is the inside part of the temple where people pray. I haven't been to church for almost three years but I went to Japanese temple for three times already in less than 3 months! (two of which were in two weekends!)



There were also Japanese traditional children game stalls. Iki was interested but he was just way toooo small to play the game :)



I enjoyed this chocolate banana. It looked "good" and it tasted good (^_-)v



And this is me in front of the main gate of the temple :). Look at me.....I really need strict diet (T_T)

White Day

March 14 is celebrated as White Day in Japan. It is when women get the return of the chocolates they gave the ones they love on Valentine's Day. As soon as Valentine's Day was over, all the stores in Japan would change their display for this White Day gifts. Usually men give sweets but nowadays other expensive gifts like jewelry or lingerie are also common. This explains why I didn't get anything from papa-chan on the Valentine's day (^_-)v.

I am not used to this White Day culture yet so I totally forgot about this today. That's why I was bit surprised when papa-chan brought home a box of chocolate for me, and some cheese cakes to celebrate this day. I actually didn't expect it and thought he would be too busy to remember this :p



Papa-chan's rare blueberry cheese cake tasted really good. The cheese simply melted in my mouth.



Iki took this Orange Cheese Cake. I think it's the best amongst others. It had perfect combination of orange's sweetness and thick cheesy taste. Oh I was so sure it contained liquor which made it even tastier. Iki loved it (>.<) and didn't allow me to have any bite hahaha (but my lovely papa-chan took some for me :p)



I had this baked cheese cake because this is what Iki allowed me to eat! It tasted really good though (^_^)



And this is what were inside the red box. Orange chocolate sticks. Boy, they were heaven!. Haven't finished all, of course. I'm sure those cakes and 4 chocolate sticks and Mabo Tofu and a big portion of rice with super spicy sambal for my dinner are enough to make me doubled my Tae Bo practice tomorrow (>.<)



Thank you Papa-chan. This is really sweet *hugs*

Impossible dream

Two days ago I got information that Hiro is going to be sent to a country where he could not bring family for security reasons.
I knew it would happen sooner or later but still, knowing it myself was like a nightmare. But as a wife I must support him. He's leaving for our sake anyway. Dissapointed? Yes. But life must go on and I have to deal with the decision.
I have to decide where will I live with Iki when we're apart. Either in Indonesia or Japan. Too many things come into consideration that I couldn't decide even though I've been thinking about this nonstop for these two days *sigh*
I miss Indonesia. I miss my family, friends, and the food. But I don't know what will I face there. Where would I live? Manado? My parents are now living with my sister on a small island in the middle of nowhere. My brother lives alone now and I know he'd be more than happy to live with me. BUT I don't think it's wise to live with him and anyway I don't want to take care of him :p.

I have no place to live in Surabaya. I must rent a house and buy ALL the furnitures, or rent a furnished apartment (which is much more expensive than renting our apartment in Japan now!). I don't have any job, and don't intend to have any either. I don't want to leave Iki to baby sitter.
OK I'll be busy on the first few weeks if I moved there. But after I tried all the food I'm missing now, and met my friends, I might have nothing to do then. I don't want to spend my days jumping from one shopping mall to another shopping mall :p.

Bali? I love going there for holiday. But for living? Will I just lying on the beach, tanning myself and Iki every day?!

In other hands, I could actually put Iki into playgroups, or swimming school. But....I don't know. I just think that something is not right. Don't ask me, I couldn't explain what. I want to go to Indonesia. It's just..........

And Japan.
I just started my life here. I don't speak good Japanese, I can't read kanji, I don't know a lot of rules and cultures and habit and common senses yet. I don't know A LOT of things.
But I just start enjoying my life here. I just start making friends. We have swimming class three times a week. Iki and I love it. The food is good and Iki loves Japanese food more than any other food. We're always busy. Either for swimming, playing, surveying, traveling, and shopping. We have happy life here, as a whole family. I don't know if we would still feel the same without Hiro. I am not sure if I could manage being with Iki only for 24 hours.

My parents in law would be really really sad if I moved to Indonesia with Iki. My mother in law always said that she's old and dying and wants to spend time as much time with Iki as possible. But I'll be dying if I have to spend as much time as possible with them hahahaha. JOKING!! I love them. Really I do. They are very nice and lovable. I don't mind to visit them sometime and enjoy traveling with them. It's also very nice to see their happy faces, and also Iki's happy faces if they're together. But it's just tiring, really tiring, spending too much time with them *sorry, Hiro :p*

I couldn't let this matter out of my mind these days, that's why I think I got this very nice dream last night.......

We were packing Hiro's stuffs when suddenly Hiro got the idea to ask his boss if he could bring his family along. I was laughing out loud at his idea but honestly couldn't stop hoping. So the next day we went to his office together. We met a lot of people, and talked with them before at last we met the boss. Then Hiro told her (in my dream, the boss is a woman!) about his idea and explained how we would be able to manage living there. To my surprised, she agreed!!!
So then we went home, full of joy. We stopped by at the nearest supermarket and bought some stuffs for dinner. For dinner celebration, for exact.
Then as we arrived home I started to cook. I couldn't stop smiling because I was too happy. It was like a dream to me. Then my cooking alarm rang as the sign that my rice was ready. It was when my real "alarm" rang too and woke me up :(

I took me few minutes to realize why I was on the bed. My heart was broken into pieces. IT WAS A DREAM!! hahahaha
A very sweet dream indeed, isn't it? but it's an impossible dream.

However I tried to deal with this, from that dream I still realized that deep in my heart I still wished....I wished that we could be together.

At the park

I'm now accompanying Iki playing at the park.On mornings when we don't have our swimming class,I like to bring him here,let him playing with the slide, with ball,with the swing, or simply trying to catch the pigeons. After he got really tired then he would eat lunch a lot and then sleep easily hehehe
Then I could have little time to take a rest or do my thing (^o^)v

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