ocean blue

우리 첫과 두 번째 말 축제. 예쁘지, 그렇지? These are our first and second language festival for our Korean class. The ladies dressed up in hanbok, their favorite attire. Usually we sell some Korean food. And the most famous one is Korean noodle, ramyeon. It will sell out right away. People will start to order once they see the noodle. The buyer hardly pays attention to the price because it only appears every language festival. The other language classes will sell the food of their own. The French class will sell French food and play French games. The Japanese will decorate the stall in Japanese style, bamboo. They also sell the food and the Japanese accessories. The Deutch class will sell their own food. Last year they dressed up in football t-shirt team due to the atmosphere of world cup. Sometimes the visitors come from other school or the students’ parents or the people from the neighborhood. The music is very various. Each class plays their own music. My Korean class...

The kids were cooking bulgogi, one of Korean dishes. It was made into two groups, so we could eat it soon. I have put the recipe and the process of making bulgogi here. Just check it out. This time we didn’t have our Korean guest to lead us. We just cooked based on the recipe we got from the internet. Eating bulgogi has a special way. After the bulgogi is roasted, you take one, put it on the lettuce leave (green or red one) then wrap it up. Next you just swallow it. Actually Korean usually adds garlic to it. You can also fill the wrap with rice and deonjung (Korean soybean paste). We love bulgogi but the price of the meat makes us think twice to cook it everyday. ^^/ Sansan

Kimpap is like roll sushi. Probably the differences are only in some of the ingredient used and the process. Here we use spinach, egg, carrot, cucumber and special sausage for kimpap. The main ingredients are of course rice and laver. For the rice we used Japanese rice because it’s sticky. But there’s Indonesian rice that almost as sticky as the Japanese rice. And besides Japanese rice is very expensive. 표 taught us how to roll the cooked rice with the vegetables inside. Actually before he taught us, he had asked his father to teach him. Nice, right? After having the experience of making kimpap, once in a while I made myself at home. I usually use Indonesian rice. It’s good for breakfast or lunch. You can put them in you lunch box. It’s a healthy food. We also cooked 자장면. It’s noodle that poured with a rich 고소한 sauce (I don’t know how to say it in English). The exact ingredient and the making weren’t taught by our Korean teacher. It was made by his father (nice dad)....

Our Korean guests. Those are the Koreans who have visited my Korean class. From the left at the bottom is 김 용 표, 신 정 은, 헤/혜/ 해 령 ( I forgot how to write her name and her family name), 승 혜 (I forgot her family name) and 이 빈. Korean is a new class in our extracurricular class. It was formed because the kids got so crazy over Korean drama titled “Dae Jang Geum”. They knew that I am studying the language, so they requested me to teach. It is probably the first class in high school. I think Korean class in high school only exists in SMA PLUS MUTHAHHARI. Korean language is still rare here even in universities. So far the universities who own Korean class are UGM, UI and the other one I forgot. That as far as I know. Those people are very eager to teach us not only Korean language but also the culture for example food. The kids love the cooking. I will show you later the process of our cooking. Actually, I am hoping that I could learn the language there, in Korea. I sti...

Do you know the song titled “A Thousand miles” from Vanessa Carlton? By the way, where is she now? She’s never been heard again. Back then the song was so famous. Most radio stations and TV played the songs. It became my favorite song among other songs that I like. Out of the blue I want to talk about the song. Maybe, just maybe it described how I am now. People said I am very picky in choosing my future man. Aren’t we supposed to do so? We have to pick the right man. The man who at least makes us feel something and ready to be committed. I am not talking about high school romance like those in movies or drama. Maybe we own the same religion, the same ideas about something but if I somehow don’t have any feelings for him, can we be united? It worked for some people, but I guess it doesn’t for me. Not that religion is not important; still the similarity of faith is much more important because that’s the basic thing. Many times I feel hopeless and lost in crowds. Many times I have open...

My favorite Korean noodles 라면 (ramyun, or ramen in Japan). Korean noodle is very spicy. For those who like hot and spicy food like food from Padang, you got to try this. The size is much bigger than the Indonesian Noodles. And the thickness of the noodles too is different. It’s more like spaghetti. So, if you cook one of those for yourself only, wow, you must have a big stomach. I usually cook 3 packs for the 5 people at home. Since I like seafood, I always choose the seafood flavor. Since it’s imported so the difference of the price is quite far from the Indonesian noodles. I am talking about much expensive. This favorite Korean noodles is produced by Nongshim. Gees, I feel like their spokesperson. I have not tried other Korean brand. It is said that it’s the famous brand there. At first, I got these noodles from my first Korean teacher who is also my friend. At home, I felt hesitated to cook them since I was afraid it would contain pork or the oil. But I a...

Visiting my grandparents in Ciamis means I also will visit the graves of the elders. My mother’s parents live in Ciamis. Our village is near Tasikmalaya that’s why people call it Ciamis-Tasik. From my grand parents’ house we can continue the journey to Panjalu which is famous for is lake (Situ Panjalu) and it’s history and traditional ceremonies call “Nyangku and Gubyag”. Nyangku is a sacred ceremony of cleaning the precious weapons such as Keris. Gubyag is a ceremony of taking out the fish. You can take as many fish as you wish with any kind of tools. Panjalu is located above our village. Those are the pictures of the trip my grandparents and I to the grave of the elders which is located in the jungle. We had to take small path. It’s very steep. Somehow those elders are quite strong. Well, that’s because they get used to walking. My granny goes to that place everyday to check her plantation or take some woods for cooking. I was almost out of br...

Our hobby is taking pictures at the changing room. One of the best spot is at Matahari BIP. It’s spacious and clean. It’s our favorite. Sometimes when we go there for sightseeing, we never miss to check out the discount items then go to the changing room to be taken pictured using the clothes we choose. The clothes that we try there is not always the one that we buy, even most of the time we don’t buy anything at all. We just try them on then take some pictures and leave. Nice hobby. Well, at least that won’t cost you some money. That’s our way of doing window shopping. I wonder whether we will be blacklisted after someone reading this ^0^. ^^/ Sansan

Ini Pasar Baru coy. Yup, this market is called Pasar Baru where you can find goods in a reasonable price of course that if you know how to bargain. If you are foreigner, you need to bring along your Indonesian friends who know how to bargain or else…. Mostly those buyers who come here are retailers. They buy the goods to be sold again. But not all of them are merchants. Some of them are housewives, students or tourists. If you don’t feel satisfied with the price at one vendor, you can just walk away and search for the other vendor who will give you the same goods but with cheap price. It’s a matter of feet here. Why did I say that? It’s because you have to do the walking a lot. You have to move from one vendor to another. If you are not a real shopper, you will get so bored and get cranky and leave right away or just buy the goods and forget about the price. That’s me. I am not a real shopper, so I always bring a friend of mine who is really good in bargain...

Korea …Korea …Korea. It’s always my passion. That day my youngest brother’s school had some guests from South Korea, 무안 처등 학교 (Muan Elementary School). As always my sisters and I got really curious to meet them, just to check our skill. Our intention was just to get to know them. When we got there, out of sudden, we were thought to be the interpreter by the school. Shocked, that’s our reaction. We told them that we were just visiting our brother to check his program with the school from the Korea. The teachers insisted that we should be the interpreter for a time being because the real ones hadn’t come just yet. We were dumbfounded. What do you expect? Our skill is still mediocre. Hihihi…we were speechless for many times because we didn’t get a clue of what they were saying. Some words might be understandable but the rest…blank. Still they wanted us to assist them, so they could communicate with their guests from Korea. We couldn’t go anywhere. We had to be with them. My sister an...

Learning Korean with Bin This is a real test. Introducing my Korean out of nowhere teacher (I met him and I instantly declared him to be my teacher), Lee Bin ( 이 빈 ).  Previously I had other Korean teacher whom I got from my sister’s friend. He tested me reading. Phew! Luckily I passed at that time. He said it’s not that bad. Aki, that’s how I called him, is very eager in teaching me Korean. I got a little awkward when he felt sorry that I had to travel for hours to meet and learn with him. Shouldn’t that be me who felt sorry for disturbing his  staying here to study Indonesian language?   Anyhow, he kept assisting me learning Korean everywhere, that even when we were in mall and among the crowds. I asked him to speak Korean, so then I could practice my speaking skill. Most of the times, I got him to repeat his sentences because I couldn’t grasp them. He was very patient in fulfilling my request.  Sudden Test One...