2025 Summer Trip till Stockholm

This post might be 'violating' the timeliness structure because I'm supposed to post about my Europe trip in 2024 first, but oh well.. I think I need to write as soon as possible to catch all the emotion in its freshest stage.

After being amazed that in 2024 I finally made it to the European mainland, I never thought that I would do it again so soon. I just returned from my very short 5-day getaway in Stockholm, Sweden. The visit was so short but never intended to be so. I was supposed to pass by Sweden for like 3 days, and then leave for Italy and France with my parents. Sadly, my parents' visa got rejected. I already got my flight ticket to Europe, so might as well just extend them longer. I always wanted to go for a laid-back visit anyways and get myself really immersed with a city. This accident kinda gave me the perfect excuse for me to delve around Stockholm!

I did not have any specific itinerary or wishlist in Stockholm. It even didn't really occur to me that I will be in Stockholm, just that I will be visiting Leona in Sweden.

Why are we reading for?

Beware for another random thoughts.

As I was packing my stuffs to go back home to Jakarta for a shortwhile during summer, I packed several of my finished books to put in Dubai. Did so so that when I need to move back later on, at least I've got rid of several unused stuffs.

And then I started to think.. all these books I've read, but none of them really stuck to me. I cannot remember a memorable lines, I mean I can tell you how it made me feel reading the books, but I can barely retell you the story or the content. I read The Cultural Map. But what I can tell you about it?? Other than people came from different background and stories and how I became more 'aware' on how we say direct and indirect things, I think..

A Trip Through Time: Labuan Bajo May 2022

Moyahoo~

I've been postponing this post for months already, every week swearing that I would write this on weekend yet I did not, again and again. So here I am today! On a Sunday night finally gathering enough will to write something. If I did not, this would be like my trip in London.. which you haven't seen at all here, right? Hahaha.

(Note: Writing this again in January 31... yep, I've postponed this post for FIVE MONTHS I'm sorry)

(Pandemic came and just when I thought I'd have an abundance of time, came TWICE with their 5-year worth of videos for me to keep up 😄)

SO in early 2022, somehow Novi and I had an idea of going to Labuan Bajo. It seemed so wacana-ish the first time. I haven't gone with a friend just traveling on our own expense so it just didn't seem very real tbh. Then Novi posted the idea to her close friends hoping for someone else to want to join the club, and we have Lilian in!

Lilian joining our group trip is really a boost in the probability of actually making this trip happens (sorry, Nov ahaha). I don't know if it's us feeling wary because we are now having an ACTUAL PERSON that actually wanted to go or if Lilian is a certified adventurous traveler, but I felt that at that moment, we really needed to go.

Around April, Garuda Travel Fair was held. What makes traveling or other things become just a plan is, I deduce, the feeling of no deadline, that there is no timeline to follow. GATF added that sense of urgency to our plan and we quickly decided on a date.

A finality to the plan

There was no going back after. The tickets were booked, then we finally booked a tour for living on board in Labuan Bajo.

Life Update from The Pearl of the Persian Gulf

Hello, there!

Believe me when I say that on the back of my mind, writing a blog post always pops out as 'things-I-would-do-in-my-leisure-y-time-to-feel-productive'. However, I also know that I still have a draft post for 2022 (my Labuan Bajo trip) and 2023 (a year with too much TWICE). I even planned on writing my first Europe mainland trip in 2024, but duh, I procrastinate too much!

So as to not let this one be too outdated, let me just put it out in the air: I am now residing in Dubai!

Well, at least for the next remaining 8 months to go! :)

It's been something out of my imagination, honestly. I grow up being not very used to flying or visiting places far away from where I live. I cherish every flying experience so much, I still remember my very first experience of flying on a place (that one was also my very first experience of missing a flight, though hahaha).

I feel lucky to be an avid reader. I read a lot of books growing up. Despite having read lots of English books now, actually those that really touch young Nana are Indonesian books. I wonder do we still have strong Indonesian writers out there publishing new works?

My two most favorite books of all time are: Laskar Pelangi (Andrea Hirata) and Negeri 5 Menara (A. Fuadi). Both I read from the humble library of LIA Kalimalang, my sanctuary as a very quiet LIA student back then haha. Laskar Pelangi was a very big hit movie back then, but reading the 'heavy' novel brought a different level of richness in terms of story and value. Negeri 5 Menara was also a book that I didn't know I would enjoy reading. I remember picking up the book because I knew of a movie titled the same.

Both books inspired me so much. They basically told a story of someone from a very humble background, who through education are able to actually experience living abroad. Obviously the stories were wayyyy more meaningful than that, but that was the thing that stuck out to me the most.

I read through all the series of Laskar Pelangi, following Ikal's stories in his humble Muhammadiyah school in Belitung, to him going to IPB, and then going to Sorbonne in Paris. I swear when I visited Paris last week, I was ecstatic to find that I was staying near Sorbonne area! After all these years the story is still stuck to me. 

I didn't read the other series of Negeri 5 Menara (but I bought all 3 and gifted them to Clement hoping that he feels as inspired as I do), yet I am really fascinated with how Gontor shaped its students and emphasized the importance of learning foreign languages. I know after that Alif managed to be a journalist in the US.

Wow that was a long intro. But to cut to the chase.. now I am doing it. Thirteen years later I found myself experiencing what I read in those amazing novels. I don't know if this is the power of manifesting, longing, or whatever.. but I am very grateful at where life has taken me.

I started living in Dubai per March 2025. It was such a big move to me. I, who never once lived faraway from my family, am now living alone! In Dubai nonetheless! Honestly what made the move easier was that moving to the regional office meant there were a lot of Indonesians here who I know I can rely on. As someone who actually likes to talk and mingle when I feel like it, being able to destress by not speaking English all the time is so precious to me!

Dubai, who before I moved here sounded fancy and money money money, now sounds like home to me. Before the move, I didn't even know that Dubai hosts the Emirates airline for example, or knew that it was part of the United Arab Emirates. My knowledge about the middle east countries was practically zero I know haha.

I moved here during the chilly and okay-ish weather of spring. But not long after, the weather started to get hot. It wasn't until these recent weeks though that it has became quite hot and humid. Thankfully the very heavy AC environment is very reliable. Not thankfully, I understand that there were very few months of the year in Dubai in which the city would be a nice walkable city.

Now my empty kitchen feels like my kitchen, with the IKEA kitchen racks that I assembled myself and the sauces and spices that I bought from the asian supermarkets. Cooking is not as simple though, somehow the utensils are not easy to wash and I hateee having soapy feel leftover in the utensils. But I make do, now I know the soap dishes brand that I like and also the sponge that is good to use. And also, because washing takes half the effort in cooking, I don't cook as often as I imagined I would be haha.

Work life is also okay. There were lots of things that I haven't done and I should, I will get to it I promise.. (talking to self). But the work is interesting, I get to see things from a helicopter view. I could get more clarity, but I think this is a good start. I have a good team and a supportive boss, so all is well to me.

On weekends, thankfully I am also able to keep myself busy and productive! We are now able to rent cars and drive here (I also can drive!). We were taking trips to the other emirates of the UAE, to the beaches (never knew Dubai was such a beach city before), even during long weekends we've taken trips to Kazakhstan! Now we are also planning trips to more countries nearby, such as Georgia and Oman. More countries are coming definitely to the to-go list!

I have so much to feel and experience here. Hopefully my future self would reember that I only need 30 friggin minutes to write this piece, and this post would break my cycle of procrastination. I hope to release new posts soon! Til next time!

Random Info: Wrong name at the JR pass exchange order?

A week ago, I received the exchange order for JR Hokuriku Arch Pass and I was shocked because I found that I have input the wrong name! :( I tried to google for any resolve to my story but none seem to answer clearly. Two of my friends offered me these two answers: 1) it’s fine as the exchange order can be refunded anyway if you ended up not using it and 2) it’s fine and you can still exchange the order into actual pass.

I’d like to also offer you who may stumble upon this blog for my own resolve.

I reached out to the travel agent whom I bought the exchange order from, and it’s quite simple: I need to send the physical XO back to them, pay a little admin fee, and they sent the right exchange order back to me.

I also have asked the JR office directly via email.. the response came too late after I have resolved all my problem, but it also supported my 2nd friend’s solution: it’s fine. You can still exchange them anyways.

Hope this helps!

yes i do the cooking yes i do the cleaning

I just spent nearly 2 hours picking basil leaves, washing them, processing them, cooking pasta, washing all the utensils, eating the pasta, and then putting back all the utensils. I did that much effort just to eat a home-made pasta, guys!

harvesting my home-grown basil

blendering the basil in mixture of: olive oil, garlic, salt, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese

pesto fusilli with mushroom is done!

While preparing this after closing off work at 7.30 pm, I realized that I liked cooking so much. (Well no actually this realization has come way before this, and I already wanted to blog about my cooking but I just haven't got the time yet!)

Me and cooking

I knew that I always liked cooking. This post here is one of the example, back in 2012 I would spend my free time during school holidays to cook! The stories always ended with bad ending, though. Take that fried rice as my very first ever dish, I've made that too salty, too oily, too dry. I also tried making garlic bread, it ended up too soggy because I used too many melted butter. Also tried making fried eggs too back then and it was a trial and error too, I've always had problem with nailing the oil ratio as I was quite anti-oil haha.

If I ask myself, what do I like about cooking? Why do I cook? Maybe the answer lies in my innate pickiness towards food, but contradictively, I also like to eat a lot. I love to eat good food! I think it is a gift for me to be able to find happiness in eating good food. I'm not a big spender, but I do spend A LOT on food.

My very first experience with cooking during high school was because 1) I had too much spare time and I wanted to do something productive and 2) there was nothing to eat (that I liked) so I wanted to make the dishes myself. I asked my grandmom then to teach me how to fry eggs and make fried rice. It was tricky at first, with me being afraid with oil splashes etc but I kept on getting better!

Then came college days where I was super busy with school. The 4 years I spent at UI were undoubtedly my most productive years ever in life. There was no days without me having to do school work or internship or extracurricular work.

Then the pandemic hits.

With the pandemic, suddenly I had too much time on my plate. It was very healing for me too, because the weeks towards the pandemic, I was actually quite stressed with always having something to do on weekends. It honestly felt like my time was stolen away from me. I wanted to just laze around on weekend, but somehow the norms I had during college days had made me think that my weekend time can and should be spent on other people. The lockdown was a blessing in disguise for me because after finally realizing that my weekend time is mine and mine only to govern, I also found out that I now (then) had so much free time for ME!

All people back then did something new and tried to learn exciting things everyday. I remember that time tiktok is rising and people were making cooking videos on tiktok. I wanted to jump in the wagon! I know I like eating, I've established myself in office as a pasta lover back then, so I wanted to learn how to cook pasta on my own.

Now the reason why I didn't continue cooking after high school, aside from not having enough time, is actually about me not having the proper ingredients lol. I found that the available ingredients at my home couldn't quite cater to my aspirational menu: pasta and western food in general. During the pandemic, I've worked for a few months already and got some savings in my account. Therefore, I went straight to happyfresh (like most people did that time) and ordered my first ever groceries!

My groceries spending on happyfresh was quite hefty lol. I realized after doing the groceries, that there was reason my you should buy from traditional markets if you want to save as the price difference is quite significant. Also my very first cooking experience was basically a trial and error and I tried to follow everything the chef on youtube told me they used.

My very first experience ever (post high school)

I remember trying to replicate Willgoz's carbonara pasta back then. It was a weird fusion menu I'd say (from my 2023 quite expert perspective HAHA) as he boiled the pasta using milk while adding beef stock too. It's quite accurate in telling us to use eggs though for the sauce. I followed the recipe even to the minutes. I learned lesson 1 in cooking the hard way: always taste your cooking first.

Willgoz is using brand A pasta and he said to cook it for 7 minutes for al dente. However, I used an imported pasta so 7 minutes was too quick and my pasta was way half-cooked :) In an effort to salvage the pasta, my grandma made me reboil the pasta.. right after I've already mixed the pasta with my carbonara egg sauce... So my pasta was then al dente, but it was bland to the core as all the sauce was washed out! :(

Second try

This is quite phenomenal too. I tried making aglio olio this time. Alas, I also got it wrong this time with the pasta cooking time... I used fresh pasta and I didn't know that fresh pasta cooks way faster than the usual pasta, dammit. It should have been cooked at TWO MINUTES :))))) Since obviously the previous experience had made me worry over not cooking the pasta enough, this time I cooked it for way too long. My fettucine was super mushy and it felt like eating mushy noodles with too much black pepper T_T

After that

With my very disastrous experience in cooking pasta, I kinda gave up with creating the sauce on my own. Cooking was super tiring back then for me. I remember realizing that I clenched my jaw way too much when I was stressed, and I found that because of this cooking experience! For the few first times, after cooking I literally had trouble eating because I couldn't open my mouth properly as my jaws would get stuck. I noticed too that I would get super tired after cooking that I had to take quick naps, which would turn to hours of napping.

So I decided not to cook the sauce again on my own and turned into ready-made sauce. I like this store called Little Maria on Tokopedia and they sells various pasta cooking ingredients including the sauces. At first I bought the mushroom sauce from them, but then realizing that mushroom tend to expire quickly on sauces, I only bought their pesto sauce. To date, I still love their pesto sauce so much! However, it started to be so expensive when you think about how I needed to buy 60k a bottle sauce for 2-3 portions of pasta, when my very first reason to cooking (other than because I love doing it and I love eating) is that I wanted to save money hahaha.

So after that, I discovered three things on my cooking journey:

1. Pasta can be simple. I no longer need to buy fancy ingredients, aglio olio is very doable with just garlic, aglio olio, chilli flakes, and mushroom. Well, packaged parsley can also be added to add greenish look. These days I also like to inject more protein to my dishes by adding chicken breasts, more mushroom, or even scallops. I like prawns too but they are too frightening to process with the skin lol.
2. After learning how to make the OG pasta like aglio olio and carbonara, I became a huge fanatics of Italian original pasta. That's what you became when you watched too many "how to cook pasta as an italian" videos LOL. But I can't deny, those videos of Italian chefs sharing their grandma pasta taught me how to cook pasta way more effectively than any Willgoz/chef Arnold videos can. Back to the first sentence, so me being a purist meant I detest adding cheese to my pasta 🤣 It was fine when it's carbonara, but I super can't adding it when I'm eating aglio olio because it's just garlic + oil, just that. Now I don't give a fuck anymore and just add cheese however the fuck I want!
3. Home-grown everything! To be twice as rich (by not spending!)! Remember the price of pesto sauce per bottle I mentioned? To save on delivery fee, I usually bought up to 6 bottles per purchase. In bulk, the spending amount was quite heart-shattering. I could spend 400k just to buy pesto sauce! 🫠 I did savor the usage and they can last me a few months, but it would make me dependent on them forever. So given my now added expertise in cooking, I decided to grow the ingredients for pesto on my own! At first I tried growing basil plants from seed but it didn't work well and the basil that grows is just not the type that I wanted. Luckily, youtube introduces me to basil propagation. I knew then that basil can be easily replicated from its stems! Therefore, I tried to look for genovese basil (the type that Italians actually use!) on Tokopedia. I luckily got a very good one and currently in my home, there are probably 3 other pots of mature genovese basil + 6 new small plants! :D Yep, the one you saw first on this post are the basil leaves that I grew on my own. Mind you, the result is very very good!

Other than pasta

I obviously try to cook other things aside from pasta. But to me, pasta is just the simplest and quickest delectable dish that I can make! And yes, from only cooking pasta during the weekends, now I sometimes cook pasta during dinner for the healing part and the eating good part, and I even dare to cook it during my short 1-hour lunch break.

Other than pasta, I also learned how to cook steak. I tried cooking several high grade steaks, I always buy MB6 above btw. But the result was just always so so to me. I thought it would be very economical as usually the one we bought on resto on 400k IDR was probably just an MB2 wagyu, but in reality making a high grade pasta tasty is so difficult. I am yet to nail the secret, is it my stove? Is it my pan? Steak is tricky because every video tells you different tricks. I fell to the same rabbit hole as with my very first experience with cooking pasta: believing blindly at what the youtuber told you. I was told to cook like 30 seconds per side for medium result etc etc etc but in reality you have to really know visually what does a good steak looks like etc etc.

So I haven't nailed steak and would like to just buy steak in a high-end restaurant lol, just wanna see if it's my taste buds that just can't accept steak or if it's my cooking skills. Hoping for the latter because I want to know what's good with steaks!

Me cooking thin sliced beefs + saikoro meltique is a different story by the way. They tasted good! I think the sauce is: oyster sauce, kikkoman, garlic, saori teriyaki, and honey. It tasted superb!

Also tried chicken katsu + japanese curry rice. Tasted superb but I'm yet to nail the water level consistency to make it into the right thickness.

I once made fried rice with dashi powder topped with runny omelette added with cheese. It was one of the most delicious fried rice I've ever cooked and eaten in my entire life... but again I've yet to make another perfect one! Fried rice is quite tricky because I need to prepare the refrigerated leftover rice from even the night before.

Yes i do the cooking yes i do the cleaning

I made this post late at night because I wanted to actually publish something on this blog after a long time not being able to. My friend posted a blog of his the other day and wow I was baffled at how he really managed to write that long ass blog post despite being busy with travelling etc (he ran a travelling blog and had just came home). Maybe he wrote that during the time he spent on airport/plane? Either way, I should also just write and let the mood lead me instead of postponing and daydreaming all day hahaha.

I realized I love cooking so much and despite the challenges it brought me in the beginning (the wasted ingredients, the TMD with my jaw, the failed dishes etc), it brings me so much joy. It became the thing I'm willing to do after a busy day at work just because I like it. And I would even do the cooking even when my sister (aka helper lol) is away and I got no one to do the cleaning for me.

To think that until a year ago, I still needed to watch a youtube video before cooking (bcs I'm afraid I'd mess up the recipe! lol) and now I'm the pan-flipping cook who can create (MAINLY PASTA) dishes however I want them to be, I'm immensely proud of myself. HEHE.

(Will add pics when I have the time! I always have pics because I've made it a personal commitment to always document the food I eat and we're talking about the food I cook myself here! haha)

Review Asal 2021

Buset ya bun udah mau 2022 aja.. Kayanya baru kemaren gue bikin post 1 Januari 2021 terus mikir, "Nanti mau update lagi ah buat 2022.." eh udah 2022 besok!!! Wkwkwk.

Lagi males nulis yang gimana-gimana jadi ini review asal 2021 aja buat jadi pengingat ke diri gue sendiri kalo gue nanti buka blog ini.

Hmm 2021 tuh.. definisi kaga berasa sih. Sebenernya berasa-berasa aja, tapi ya cepet banget aja gitu? Tiba-tiba gue udah presentasi lagi, gue gajian lagi, TWICE udah comeback lagi, gue gajian lagi, gue presentasi lagi, udah gajian lagi, TWICE comeback lagi, ya gitu aja terus.. Gue pernah dengerin podcast dan emang alasan waktu berlalu cepet banget bagi kita-kita (yang gue asumsikan udah seumuran gue atau lebih haha) tuh karena hidup kita sekarang udah monoton aja. Udah dikit hal baru yang dialami, jadi otak kita ga punya banyak check point. Bayangin aja dulu pas masih kecil, kayanya gue nunggu-nungguinnn banget ulang tahun lagi dsb dan berasa lama banget, tapi ya sekarang bhay aja ya kakk..

In General
Secara umum gue ga punya kesan yang mencolok banget sama 2021, karena cenderung gak ada bedanya sama 2020 dengan masih adanya Covid. 2020 was personally quite tough for me so in 2021 I learned to really manage my expectation and.. that's it. Kalo dibikin KPI, bisa dibilang 2021 ini KPI-nya mepet-mepet di atas target lah ya. So I'm quite content with 2021. Things got better. Things got answered. I was not a huge recluse like back in 2020, I gained some new acquaintances who I now dare call as friends. Meeting people like you is a huge blessing and I'm really thanking them for it. Love you lotssssss guys!

Sleep
I am proud to say that now I get better at managing my sleep teehee. Gue sekarang bisa kayak tidur jam 10 malem gitu dan ga berasa guilty (damn work pressure, I miss college!) dan bisa bangun lebih pagi. Kalo lagi niat gue bener-bener bisa buka mata jam 6 pagi!

Going Outside
Man I miss going outside. Gue ada pergi 1-2 kali sebelum delta melanda Indonesia di Juli 2021 gitu (btw Juli juga pas banget keluarga gue ada yang positif.. so yeah). Setelah itu gue sempet hiatus beberapa bulan dari pergi-pergi ke luar dan akhirnya baru keluar lagi sekitar di bulan September? Huweee I really miss going out, meeting friends, etc. Gue merasa banget gue tuh introvert yang tetep butuh human interaction sih, lol. Gue sekarang punya jadwal main badminton rutin (buat jadi alasan ketemu aja sih wkwk but still), starting to say yes to meet-up invitation, etc. Though gue juga maintain untuk gak pake semua hari weekend gue ya, cape browww hahaha. Gue juga udah mulai pergi ke kantor seminggu sekali dan ini cukup clearing up so much confusions yang gue miliki. EYY gue juga ke Bali di pertengahan Desember kemarin, dapet tiket gratis dari DNA Pro lmao!

Songs
I'm still a big big big Koreaboo like in 2020 lol. Gue seperti sempat ada momen-momen rediscover lagu Indo yang oke, tapi urghhh the ONCE in me is too dominating guys. Hahaha. Di 2021 ini gue malah jadi being extra fond of some old albums of TWICE. Gue jadi menemukan lagu-lagu lama mereka yang sekarang jadi all time favorite gue. I don't think I will ever cease over TWICE, at least not anytime soon sih. TWICE kemarin abis online concert di tanggal 26 Desember 2021 dan KEREN BANGET!!! Sumpah gue pengen banget nonton offline concertnya dan gue akan mengusahakan banget sih kalo muncul di SEA. Meskipun begitu tetep akan complicated banget sekarang untuk international flight, jadi gue harap TWICE bisa ke Indo sih :')

Hobby
I'm back to reading again. I joined this book club dan gue mulai baca-baca lagi to-read-list gue yang terbengkalai itu. I'm still cooking though gue sekarang lagi agak males untuk explore resep-resep baru. Gue masih belom berhasil bikin cacio e pepe btw hahaha susah banget itu menu! But I find that I actually enjoy cooking (not doing the dishes one!!!) dan yah ini cukup healing sih. Gue sekarang udah di posisi di mana gue nyaman dengan masak sehingga udah gak jaw-clenching berlebihan lagi huahaha (itu tanda-tanda kalo aku stress guys lmao). Eh iyaa, gue abis banget nyobain resepnya Chaeng yang Strawberry Santa. Gue berasa kena pelet karena udah bahannya mahal, gue kaga demen bahan2nya dan bagi gue ini kayak lo makan McFlurry pake kentang pula. I'm not a sweet tooth! But I will try anyway for Chaeng haha aku merasa harus banget meramaikan hashtag dia, I'm making this my personal mission LOL.

I think that's all for now???? Gak banyak mikir emang gue pas nulis ini hahahaha. I just wish 2022 will be a greater year. I don't have any particular goal for 2022 honestly buttttt I will try to be a more organized person.

See you!