Sep 14 - Safari Day

Traumatized by the previous year, no more plans for Safari Night this year! Instead, we opted for the Daytime Safari.

LOL! Tempel Ban!

Luis is the best at taking photos. :'D

After religiously visiting each section, we wandered to the other side of the zoo to watch a few different shows. All interesting! Also to the amusement park area.

Look at me so beautiful and all!

I love this photo so much. Such wanderers!

Absolute fun!

Dinner at a cute restaurant to end the fantastic day. Owe it so, so, so much to Dimas, Ega, and Uty. Forever indebted.

Shout out to the cutest little girl who sat on the table next to ours and couldn't stop asking for Luis' attention. We so wanna adopt that munchkin! :3

Sep 13 (2) - Fulfillment: For the Body and the Soul

Spoiler alert: Luis and I don't drink.

We both thought this would be Luis' first plate but nope, this is his first Indian-only plate. Hahahaha, I scored so much, he loves the food as much as I do! For the sake of aesthetics, let me just summarize our dining experience: we ransacked the place till we couldn't even finish our ice creams, hahahahahaha! It was an utter craze, we were partly hurting from the amount of food and partly laughing from the silliness of us two. And the stuffed animals they gave us were too adorable!

Embarrassment-aside, to this dinner I wore a dress I had been saving to show Luis. I initially bought it for our Valentine's dinner earlier this year since I was supposed to graduate last semester; however, I didn't, so the dress had to wait, When tonight came and I got to wear this, although there's nothing really special or fancy about it, I couldn't stop smiling. It's truly an amazing feeling when you finally get to do things you've been dreaming of for so long, in my case half a year. I was right, Luis loved my dress so much and I was so proud of the impression I created. ;)

`

But seriously, who am I kidding? Luis himself looked SO handsome that night. He smelled amazing as always. He was very attentive to me during this special night of ours. He never once laid his eyes on anyone else but me, and when he did look into my eyes, it was a look of adoration, of love, of caring, of understanding, of acceptance, of trust, of hope. Without any words at all, he reminded me that I was the lucky one in this relationship. Prefaced by a wonderful day, this was one of the best nights I've ever had, both with and without him. 

PS: Special thanks to the super sweet Hotel Mulia's The Cafe manager who ushered us into this exclusive section only for this photo-taking. :)

Sep 13 (1) - Hypnotized by History

During the private Jakarta Walking Tour we did last week, our tour guide Pak Candha invited us to their monthly free walking tour for the coming Sunday (today), this time to Passer Baroe area which we hadn't been, too bad we already had made plans to go to Bogor although we had pretty much seen last year what the city has to offer. So when Galuh bailed on us last night, Luis and I texted Pak Candha that we were so participating today!

Armed with stroopwafel and Dutch Koetjes Reep for Pak Candha unlike the last time (hehehe), we arrived at Juanda Train Station as the meeting point for the large group. By large, I mean around 75 members and at least 5 guides! After briefly talking to Pak Candha, they assigned a tour guide for each small group and luckily we were the first ones to arrive (read: on time, since most of them were late) so they put us into the first group. The guide's name was Mas Farid, younger than Pak Candha but equally easy going and knowledgeable! Point-wise he took us to Philately Museum, Gedung Kesenian Jakarta, Passer Baroe, and Gereja Ayam, but the tour was much more than that! We visited street kiosks that still sell unique post stamps, bumped into Balinese dancers having just done their performance at GKJ, learned a history lesson of Passer Baroe's origins and the development of it on an equally historical bridge, visited a photo exhibition of the replicas of never-before-seen war photos (owned by Dutch museums), listened to a story of Toko Kompak inside Passer Baroe complex, explored an old Buddhist temple with its super nice chief, and took pictures with the church's rooster on the background, before ending the tour by a free lunch at Bakmi Gang Kelinci sponsored by Chevrolet. The group itself was so much fun and after mingling with a few different people within the route, we clicked the most with a Malaysian, a Pakistani, and a Filipino. 

Isn't she so lovely?

Filipino - Indonesian - Dutch/Spanish - Malaysian - Pakistani

Just like last week, the tour came to an end at midday. We said goodbye to the group and Mas Farid, and headed back home for an exciting night: we had a dinner reservation at The Cafe, Mulia Hotel, as a proper celebration of our second anniversary! This is my favorite buffet in Jakarta especially for the Indian station and I was beyond excited to share the dining experience with Luis, since he's just as crazy as I am about Indian food. After a nice, cold shower and a nap (at our separate places, of course, duh, LOL), he would pick me up at home and we would take a taxi to the hotel. On to the Part 2 post!

Sep 12 - Ready, Aim, Fire!

Walking to our usual meeting point this morning was not easy at all, realizing today was our last Saturday together. We go out on a date everyday, not only on Saturdays, but it was a loud alarm to yet another inevitable farewell. :(

My best friend Tegar is a busy man. It's literally impossible to arrange a meeting with him on most days, but as soon as he knew Luis was in town, he texted me saying he'd love to catch up! Luis and I had things to do in Senayan and Tegar was in the mood for Batak food, so we agreed on this legendary place, arguably the best in Jakarta. After the frustration to find the location since the navigation was so off and neither I nor our taxi driver knew where this restaurant is, we arrived and shortly after Tegar did too. He was as sweet as he has always been! It was so much fun filling in each other on updates, all the while pigging out on the food, hahaha, pun intended. It was Luis' first time having Batak's signature pork dishes, but under Tegar's guidance (I'm not a fan of pork unless it's in a form of bacon, sausage, schnitzel, and wonton), Luis grew to love it! Haha, I'm happy, he'll fit right in. Well, hopefully, at least. :D Too bad time flew by so quickly and it was already nearing 1 pm and we had to leave in a taxi. But it was really nice seeing Tegar!

The first out of two activities we planned for the day was archery practice. Luis loves archery so much, that was one of the first things he told me when we started talking, so I thought it was only perfect that I booked this two-hour session with the help of my good friend Sam (Thanks, Bro, if you're reading!). We practiced with a bunch of other people, but the instructors were attentive to each one of us and as soon as we picked up the bow and arrow, it was game on!

Luis is a result-oriented kinda guy. Proof is in the next picture. Oh but can we just take a look at that arm? :P

Luis' group's target as compared to the next group

My group was bad too but I got a few bulls-eye! Luis was so proud of me.

Luis was so, so good, especially seeing how his techniques are not according to the guide books. It was so clear that although I did fire on-point shots, I was nowhere near his accuracy level! But even so, throughout the practice, he never ceased encouraging me, giving me compliments, and overall being a good sport he is. This man can seriously do no wrong when it comes to sports and games in general. And also a lot of other things. *insert an obnoxious dreamy face here* :P

The session was up and we took another taxi to our second and last appointment of the day, also a surprise I had planned for him. It's a shooting range! Luis had absolutely no idea at first but as soon as he heard gunshots, he got excited. So now I got excited as well, hahaha. We walked into this building which is also the national training place and were led to an office where we could re-register our names and were given a ballot as a queuing system as well as targets for our scoring later. I thought since I booked for 3.30 pm, we could practice directly, but fine, we went with it and waited on the first floor watching other people on their sessions. They used the normal short caliber guns to shoot a parallel target that is held by a stand on the outdoor section of the field. It was fun at first to watch others played, but the minutes shortly turned into a full hour and the waiting game became less fun. As I went back upstairs to report this, the chief overheard my complaint, came up to me to apologize, and asked us to follow him. He led us to a room on the second floor with a sign "Athletes-Only" and the two of us just exchanged looks. When we stepped into the almost empty room, we discovered an indoor shooting range with weapons that were much, MUCH cooler than what they had downstairs! Here the targets are also pinned to a special machine that is automated to pull the target sheet back up to us as soon as one round was down. This was nothing like we expected. Blessing in disguise!

Obsessed with this photo! Thanks to our private instructor.

We took one photo holding these weapons with serious faces but it made us look too much like terrorists so here's the smiling one. :D

It was the last Saturdate, but it was the best Saturdate................. at least that's what Luis thought before I dragged him to have dinner at A&W near home. Hahahahahahaha, can't have it all, Baby!

Sep 11 - La Bilanciato Vita

Yes I don't speak Italian so I have next to zero idea if the title makes any sense but I promise the post will!!!!!!!! :P

This morning I woke up to this hilarious selfie from him (he's probably going to hunt me down and viciously impale me for displaying it here). That's the random cheap t-shirt we found in the mall yesterday after we got Fransje's present, hahahaha.. He's obsessed with Clash of Clans so he bought it in a heartbeat right after laying eyes on it. You do you, Boo. :D

Here's the rundown of today's plan: have breakfast at home, head to Depok with Adek, hang out at a coffee shop near her faculty, visit Mama's friend's sister's bakery to buy cookies he'd bring back to NL which is also in Depok, have lunch at my favorite soto restaurant also in Depok, pick up Adek after class and group work at 2, take the train directly to the Central, watch one screened movie at Erasmus Huis at 3.30, have dinner nearby, watch another movie, and go home. Compared to yesterday, today's plan sounded way more feasible although just as packed.

And here's what the title suggests (read: tries to say): sometimes our plans would work, sometimes they wouldn't. Yesterday the universe conspired with us, today the universe conspired against us. That's just how it is, the balanced life. Okay sorry, but let this girl live. :D

To start off, neither of us could wake up that morning. Not only was there not enough time to prepare to leave so early, but that would also mean we wouldn't get to have breakfast, which is a big no-can-do. Adek had to leave without us and we ended up going around 9, arriving at school around 10. Although it was such a late start, up until this point things were still looking great.

Luis always questions Asian taste in clothes, he couldn't resist taking this selfie with an exchange student

Both our drinks were super yummy, he had iced chocolate caramello and I had iced cappuccino creme brulee. For light bites, we ordered banana flame. While the drinks are self-explanatory (and pretty predictable), the snack was slices of bananas with grated cheese as topping and drenched with pineapple sauce. Really interesting. We were such in a good mood, thanks to the chill and romantic ambiance of the cafe. Again, today's quite forgiving, we were given a second chance at starting the day, that's what I thought till the moment he held my hands and we left the place. We were so ready to take a taxi and taste delicious cookies and have dilemmas on which ones to get. But that was when the disaster took place.

The hailing a taxi part was a no-brainer, obviously, but we couldn't find the address of the bakery, not even on Google Maps or Waze! Mama tried to contact her friend to confirm the address but she didn't pick up her phone nor did the husband. It was really frustrating to be just as clueless as your taxi driver, being totally lost in the rural, less developed area of Depok. People we asked had never even heard of the bakery! After what felt like years sweeping the same neighborhood a few dozen times, we decided it was not making any sense anymore. We found a random snack store to wait on the news from Mama, although all the way to this place there was no other taxi in sight, meaning we didn't even know how we were supposed to get back to civilization, but we had no other option besides winging it.

Finally Mama texted me the bakery owner's cellphone number she got from her friend's husband. Still half-munching my MSG-filled snacks, I ringed her and found out that.................... she had just started renovating the bakery. That the store had been closed temporarily. That she would not be baking anything for a long period of time. That there was nothing to buy, basically. We were devastated and felt so foolish at that time, but looking back now it's actually hilarious reminiscing that moment. :'D Luckily, there was an angkot passing by. We jumped in without thinking, haha, what more to think about anyway? The ride out was veeeeeery long, but here's where an angkot comes in handy: the maximum fare is only 5k per person in one route hahaha, I mean to compare it to what we spent for the taxi! For nothing, mind you. We couldn't be happier once we knew where we were. :') Took another angkot for a little over three minutes and we arrived at the soto place!

Soto Bu Tjondro saved our soul!

After the well-deserving, super-satisfying lunch (and a funny video I made of the full/sleepy Luis), we headed back to my school, we were meeting Adek in her faculty! She was lookin' cute as always and really proud introducing us to her friends. We were supposed to leave directly to Erasmus Huis to catch a 3.30pm movie thinking Adek had had her lunch, but she hadn't! While accompanying her, Luis, being world's biggest fruit lover in the world as he is, had a hard time ordering fruit juice from a place Adek recommended. He finally decided on strawberry-banana and how coincidental, that's also Adek's favorite combo! Luis loved it so much that he just had to go for another one. To this day I can't wrap my head around the so many things Luis and Adek have in common.

Taking the train was such a great idea! It's so accessible from school, has a route to the central, is very convenient during non-peak hours, and much faster and practical than other transportation methods we could have taken to the cultural center. It was super empty that we couldn't resist to take weird selfies. :P

Although we only needed to take one busway to Erasmus Huis, as expected, we were already too late for the 3.30pm show. But it was okay! We booked the seats for the 6 and 7.15pm shows and left to grab an early dinner. Sate Khas Senayan was nearby so of course we opted for that, hihihi.. Scrumptious! Never not.

Oh! I have a funny story. After the dinner at Epicentrum, we were thinking of getting into a taxi. However, it was exactly after office hour and Kuningan is one of the major business districts, meaning that the traffic in the area was HELL. There was no movement in both sides of the road, except for busway lanes. The problem was, we had to wait soooo long for ours! Worrying we might lose another show by being late, we jumped into the other AC bus that (illegally) also took the busway lane. This one requires us to pay more in addition to the busway fare, but even this bus was CRAZILY PACKED. We got in and literally had to squeeze ourselves so that the door could close. Not sure why but the lights were off inside the bus so it was really, really dark. It was such a new, absurd experience for Luis and naturally he had so many questions. However, the guy just couldn't wait till we got out of the heavily swarmed bus to ask me things. Literally every 30 seconds he would call me, "Sayang," followed by his question of that period. While I'm sure not a lot of Indonesians speak English, I'm also sure some people in the bus do, hahahahaha. It's not that I was embarrassed or something by his questions; like I said, it was only natural for him to ask me those questions. But he really didn't mind having a conversation while being pressed in all sorts of direction with me in almost a pitch black, super crammed bus! Hahahahaha.. I mean for me to be seen with a foreigner guy already draws in death stares, now add making him ride this pathetic bus and having a long conversation about the experience! I almost wished I could have disappeared into thin air, hahaha.. (Baby, if you're reading this, I still love you, haha!)

The movies we screened were LennoNYC and Woody Allen, two documentaries of each of the public figure's life. We absolutely loved them especially the latter, such a refreshing end of our long day! We took taxi home around 10 after both movies were done where Adek slept the whole way through. Today was definitely a lot on the challenging side, but at the end of the day, this experience is worth a lot and just adds up to our favorite memories pile.