1st Hot Air Balloon Festival at Indonesia

What do you think about the picture? Cool, isn't it? But it doesn't represent what I saw at 1st Indonesian Hot Air Balloon Festival at Sentul City, West Java.

The festival was held from 26-28 March 2010. First time knowing this festival, my friends and I really excited. Must see event ! So we planned to see this festival on 28 March, last day. We went there with a full charge battery and empty memory camera. LoL. We wanted to take looooooooooot of pictures.

But unfortunately, when we arrived around 1 PM we saw NOTHING. Nothing..? How come? People told us that the weather wasn't good enough to support the balloon to fly. We were little bit unlucky. It was cloudy and light rain there. We stayed there about 1 hour, but the sun was still hiding behind the grey cloud. So, we decided to go back home without any pictures, without any experience about hot air balloon. But I still have a simple story to share with :)

Yes indeed, it was disappointing. But it's okay. The 2nd festival is coming next year and I hope I get the chance to see it. So, nothing to worry about :)

Happy New Year 2009

I think it's my favorite quote. "Time goes so fast". I don't know whether that's really a quote or something that just made by my imagination. Hahaha. But It's true, isn't it ? It's been 2009 now.

It feels like yesterday, that exactly last year I was surprise it'd been 2008. And I do it again today. Surprising the new year has come. I bet I will do the same again in every new year for all my life. LoL...

My new year eve is awesome. I spent it with my friends from Formasi, my boyfriend and also my little sister. The city was very crowded, everyone tried to celebrate new year with their own way.

We went outside a little bit late, so we were trapped in a fu**in' crazy traffic jam. It made my new year become so special. Exactly at 00.00 am, January 1st 2009, I was in the middle of thousand cars being trapped in those traffic jam while seeing unseen new year fireworks. How lucky I was. Hahaha (I supposed to say how poor I was, LoL) But it's fine. Spending new year with people that I love was more than everything for me.

illustration of my new year eve. Hahaha

2008 was great. I got almost everything I want, more that my expectation. Alhamdulillah. I made some resolutions for last year. And thanks God, I got 'em all. I haven't made my 2009 resolutions yet. I'm thinking of it. But for sure, I want to be a better person, get a better life, a better career.

Happy new year everyone... Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu..!! May a better year be ours

my Last Weekend in Miyazaki

This Saturday I will leave this lovely city, with lovely peoples around me. I know I`ll be sad. But life`s must go on. I will miss every single thing that I found here. I will miss every single moment of my sadness, loneliness, and bunch of happiness. I will not forget all the kindness of great peoples and my lovely friends here.

In my last minutes in Miyazaki, I`m still busy finishing my journal. I`m still preparing my presentation for Inter Cultural Meeting on Tuesday : Tomorrow. Ganbarimasu !!!

I`m lucky having great peoples around me. They made farewell activities for me in my last week in Miyazaki. Last Saturday Aiki Sensei invited me to see Yamabiko Hanabi Taikai (山彦花火大会)　or Mountain Echo Fireworks Festival in Nishimera. Needed 2 hours by car. The fireworks was awesome. It was the best fireworks that I ever seen.

a simple one

Then on Sunday everyone invited me to have farewell activity. I had lunch with Indonesian Families in Carino and than had interesting conversation, finished at afternoon. Then directly went to have dinner with Sayaka, Moemi & Asaki. Continuing with karaoke. Both of Indonesian Families and Sayaka`s family only have time on Sunday. (Pat-san & Wan-kun.. I`m sorry, I wasn`t able to go to AEON with you guys)

Today I go to Miyazaki Governmental Office to close my Insurance. Reserving the seat for my international fligt. Than continuing my journal & my presentation. I`m so tired today.

For the rest days in Miyazaki I need to do :

• Clean up my room
• Packing (aaarrgh.. !!!)
• Sending my suitcases to Narita
• Closing my Mobile Phone account and also bank account

Enough for today.. Need to continue writing my journal. Yosh.. がんばれ！！

Great Weekend With Great Peoples

Weekend again. I only have 2 more weeks here. I will leave Miyazaki heading Tokyo at 9th August. Then I will reach my hometown at 14th. I`m sad leaving Miyazaki, great friends, great activities, great new family.

This Weekend, we visited somewhere in Miyazaki (I forgot the name of the town, hehehe) to see Kayaking Tournament. Great !! But it was soooooo hot. It was raining when we were leaving Dormitory in the morning, so I only brought my rainy umbrella, and no Sun screen lotion. And you know the result : I was totally burned. T_T

Then Sayaka`s mother invite us to eat Kaki Kouri (カキ氷). Another special Kaki Kouri. Not like this one that I tried before, what we tried today was full with fresh fruits and japanese red beans. Nice choice in this hot summer :)

Moving to Miyako City. We ate Okonimiyaki, Japanese vegetable pancake. Thank`s to Sayaka`s funky grandmother. She was so energic and funny.

Next destination : Erikocha Matsuri at Tachibana Douri. A famous summer festival in Miyazaki. It was looked like a rush hour in Tokyo train station. So many peoples everywhere. Actually, I don`t really like the situation like that.

Before going back home, Sayaka`s Mother brought us some Yakiudon, and Pizza in the same Okonomiyaki house. I couldn`t eat no more. I was soooo full.

That`s all for today. I`m tired. But I`m happy. Thank you my lovely friends, for giving me this greet weekend with great peoples. It makes me hard to say good bye. T_T

MUFSA Sports Day

Last Saturday was MUFSA Sports Day. MUFSA belongs to Miyazaki University Foreign Student Association. This annually program was held in University`s Sports Hall. From 9.40 I did Badminton with Jillian as my team mate. And then there was Volley Ball match, I didn`t play bcoz I`m so bad playing Volley :p

Next was Basketball. It was horrible, boys and girls played together. And boys from Egypt, China and Libya were too big comparing to the girls. Once, one of them played unfair. I decided to be supporter, I scared. Last match was Futsal, I really didn`t want to join this one.

And then we went to river, relaxing. The river was so clean, we tried to catch up some small fishes, tiny crab and also cute river prawn. But we failed. Hahaha...

Next destination...105円 Sushi Restaurant for dinner. Ooow.. I`ve told you before that I loooove Sushi very much. At that night I ate 4 plates there and one more plate I ate at home. I Still, aburi salmon mayo was my favourite one.

At the next day I woke up, i felt that all my body was so hurt. Maybe, I did sports too much hehehe...

Tired.. Need massage chair or anyone would like to massage me..? v(^_^)

ICC Activity : Cooking Together

ICC = International Conversation Club. But for this week, it became International Cooking Club. LoL.. We cooked together in Dormitory`s kitchen. Very interesting.

My Japanese friends made the food very seriously. Hahaha

The menus : Fried Rice by me, Cheesecake by Pijah, Jemput-jemput by Husna, Daikon`s Food by Delphine (Ghana), and Daifuku by Japanese members.

Jemput-jemput? in Indonesian may be like bala-bala, bakwan or something. You can put in your favourite things. What we had : Kabocha (yellow pumpkin), banana, daikon (Radish), nato (fermented bean).
Daifuku ? Like mochi, the filling was Red bean, marshmallow, banana and Chocolate.

Here we are (minus me, i was taking the pic)

From left: Minoda, Mido, Akiko, Yuko, Husna, Marie, Pijah, Yang, Delphine
Pay more attention to the hair of guy wearing glasses, Mido-san.
He needs almost one hour to create that hairstyle. LoL

Oke.. That`s all. Owarimasu. Need to keep my energy for aother parties. Jillian, Rina & Shoko`s bday party for Friday. And Sayaka`s bday party for Saturday. What a busy week. Hehehe...

Fireworks and Volleyball Match Just for Fun

My weekend usually started from Friday`s night, like this weekend. My friends and I did our own firework festival at Aoshima Beach at the midnight. In Japanese Language we call it Hanabi (花火). The Kanji is consist of Hana (花), means Flower. And Bi (火), means fire. In Japan, we can buy firework equipments easily.

Some of our fireworks. I don`t have the pic of our skyrocket fireworks

In the next day, Saturday, we had Volleyball match. I played for ICC team. ICC belongs to International Conversation Club, not International Cooking Club..haha..I didn`t know that it was a big match, I thought it just only for ICC member. But in fact, there was many teams from various Club in Miyazaki University.

I also played. For the first time in my lifetime, I was succeed doing Serve. It was passing over the net. Really, for the first time in my life. LoL

I didn`t play well. All ICC`s players tried hard to do the best. Otsukaresamadeshita (Good Job). Even our score was only twenty something and the opponent score was fifty something, but we were very very happy.

Photo Courtesy of Pijah : How happy it was ^_^

Finished? Not yet.. My Taiwan`s friend, Rina, had 15% discount card at Joyfull Restaurant. So, all of us went there to eat. We burned not more than 100 KCal at volleyball match. But then we ate more than 500 KCal at Joyfull restaurant. It`s one of the reason why I`m getting fat here. hahaha...

Again... Great weekend with great friends. Thank`s everyone ^_^

BBQ Party and Hotaru Matsuri

Yesterday I had BBQ party, held by an International Community at a very very nice park of Amago Castle, 1 hour from my Dorm. The participants was about 83 peoples, 30 of them are foreigners (I didn`t count.. hahaha).

I paid 1000 yen (Rp 85.000) for this BBQ. All you can eat, if you want and you can ^_^ What I got from 1000 yen was : All you can eat Seafood, salad, snacks, fruits, drink, fun games, a looots of fun, new friends,and a bunch of priceless happiness.

Situation of BBQ Party

The weather was nice, not too hot, cloudy. Then it was raining for a while. No problem, we had finished eating the foods. Hahaha...

I loved Ika Yaki. Special menu : Onigiri Yaki (baked Onigiri Rice)

Then we moved to Kobayashi, to see Hotaru Matsuri. Hotaru (ホタル) = Fireflies, and Matsuri (祭) = Festival. Kobayashi was about 45 minutes from Amago Castle. Another awesome place.

Imagining I was sitting on that chair with my boyfriend T_T

The night came, and it was going dark. I could see the fireflies. Woooooow... It was sooooo beautiful. Don't know how to express that feeling. It just like seeing a millions of stars flying arround you. My camera couldn`t capture the pic well. So I try to find a similar pic from a search engine. Here it is, fireflies...

Almost 85 % same with the situation that I saw.

We finished at 9 PM. Then going back to Dorm, back to normal life again. I arrived at 10.30 and directly turn on my laptop, since I know someone was waiting for me ^_^

I`m so tired. My backbone is painful now. But I`m happy. What a nice weekend...