Thank you Esther, sang bendahara yang sudah menghitung2 dan membuat budgetnya, Tirta – kapten Baksos ini, Wigy & Rina yang sudah jadi buyers dan bagian pergudangan. Terimakasih juga semua teman-teman yang sudah memonitor harga-harga dengan sangat jeli untuk mendapatkan harga terbaik, memborong sembako, menyumbangkan tenaga/pikiran dan mengepak paket-paketnya.

Tadi pagi juga kami mendapat surprise dari rekan-rekan di PT Unilever, 4 kotak berat-berat yang isinya : 60 shampoo Sunsilk, 60 pak Pepsodent , 1 box (entah berapa isinya, belum sempat hitung) sabun Lux, 1 box Rinso, dan 60 batang sabun Lifebuoy ! Terimakasih banyak Unilever ! Tentunya much thanks to our friends at House of Mercy aka HOME. Dewa, kak Yudith dan semuanya di HOME, terimakasih karena membantu mengorganisir event ini, ngebagiin kupon dan lain sebagainya.

Semoga bakti sosial hari Minggu nanti dapat berlangsung dengan lancar ya dan membawa manfaat bagi semuanya, wish us luck.

Kami akan berangkat dari Greenville jam 10.30 pagi (makannya cepet dikit ya guys, ga pake jam karet) mudah2an sudah ngga terlalu macet , bisa sampe Cilincing jam 12.30 siang, dan kalau ada yang mau langsung gabung di lokasi, ini alamatnya ya:
HOME
Jl Bakti no 57 RT/RW 011/006
Cilincing Jakarta Utara

What makes you proud of your country? 

My list: 

• Teh Botol Sosro ! The best bottled tea ever made
• The  diversity, I love how Indonesia is one huge salad bowl of cultures. Racial diversity is a good thing too, Indonesians can come in variety of looks so we can get conversations like : ” You’re Indonesian?? The Indonesians I met in Darwin don’t look like you ! ” (He was referring to Indonesians from the Moluccas islands). The cultural diversity also means we have lots of cultural tourism spots: ancient Borobudur temple, Prambanan temple, grand mosques, Toraja, and many more. 
• Food! Thanks to the diversity, we have  endless lists of gastronomical delights. I don’t think we can ever finish sampling all kinds of food in Indonesia. I’m quite sure that most of us haven’t tried food like Papeda ! I know I haven’t. 
• Beautiful sceneries! I’m looking forward to see Raja Ampat >< unfortunately I still can’t swim  ! (&%&*(^@%^ !!! 
• Art! 

By the way, what is HOME?? Mereka ini adalah kawan-kawan kita yang sangat peduli dengan pendidikan warga pra-sejahtera di daerah Cilincing. Aktivitas mereka bermacam-macam, dari menyediakan bimbingan belajar dan kursus, menyediakan Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini (Taman Kanak-kanak), bakti sosial tanpa henti, program kakak asuh untuk membantu menyantuni biaya sekolah anak-anak, dan masih buanyaaakk lagi deh.
Untuk info lebih lanjut mengenai HOME, anda dapat liat-liat di sini: http://dewaklasik.com/

Beberapa foto yang saya ambil saat jalan-jalan ke HOME:

Anak-anak didik HOME, di foto ini kelihatannya ga banyak, tapi sebenarnya ada 300-an anak dari usia TK hingga Sekolah Menengah yang belajar di HOME:

Dewa Klasik – pemrakarsa HOME – berfoto sama yang punya blog ini:

HOME pernah diliput SCTV juga lho (lihat di websitenya Dewa Klasik di www.dewaklasik.com)

Walaupun agak mepet, kalau ada dari teman-teman yang mau menyumbangkan dana untuk acara baksos kecil2an kami , kesempatan masih dibuka hingga tanggal 2 September 2010. Sumbangan dapat dikirimkan ke : BCA 527 02 07 563, a/n Esther. Setelah transfer harap konfirmasi ke saya – Sandy- dengan SMS ke 0813 329 598 42 atau dengan meng-comment di blog ini. Selain dalam bentuk uang tunai, sumbangan dalam bentuk sembako juga diterima (beras, tepung, minyak goreng, dll). Mau nyumbang langsung dengan menjadi kakak asuh HOME? Monggo ^^ 

Terimakasih banyakkk ^^

By the way, I thought Amy Search – the vocalist , looked really weird . But that was the 80s anyway, everyone looked weird then:

And here’s the lyrics to karaoke with:

Isabella adalah
Kisah cinta dua dunia
Mengapa kita berjumpa
Namun akhirnya terpisah
Siang jadi hilang
Ditelan kegelapan malam
Alam yang terpisah
Melenyapkan sebuah kisah…

Terbayang lambaiannya
Salju terbakar kehangatan
Dunia di penuhi
Warna berseri bunga cinta
Kita yang terlena
Hingga musim berubah
Mentari menyepi
Bernyalalah api cinta

Dia Isabella
Lambang cinta yang lara
Terpisah kerana
Adat yang berbeza
Cinta gugur bersama
Daun daun kekeringan…

Haluan hidupku
Terpisah dengan Isabella
Tapi aku terpaksa
Demi cintaku Isabella
Moga dibukakan
Pintu hatimu untukku
Akan terbentang jalan
Andainya kau setia
Oh! Isabella….

Pondok Indah around 6.30 pm, I join this long queue to go home every evening

So, just between us, be very careful when you include any of the phrases above in your highly confidential emails. The damage may be unsalvageable and you can get into serious trouble >.< . In fact, I think very sensitive issues should not be communicated via emails! That’s just so dumb.

Here’s the lyrics so you can sing along:

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A.
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear
When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even
your year, but

I’ll be there for you
I’ll be there for you
I’ll be there for you
‘Cause you’re there for me too

Good choice, Taman Mini sure was fun !

This is the ultimate Pecel Madiun, it’s located near Taman Melati. Great for your tummy and your wallet. Lunch there costs us just Rp 34,000.00. This pecel is so famous that you’ll see all sorts of awards on the wall and pictures that the owners took with former President, the late General Soeharto.

Lots of traditional houses to take pictures in, like this wooden house from North Sulawesi. Actually we’d like to take more pictures, possibly in every house from every province ! But there were so many kids running around at that time, it was hard to take photos

I wonder if there were termites living there…


This is hubby trying to break a fight ><

And we had our most fun in...

Transportation Museum !!

This is an actual old train used during the war circa 1930.

An old 19th century spotlight.

Hubby was chasing his train

This is a cabriolet aka oplet , a form of public transportation used in Jakarta from the late 50s to early 70s. I want one !

Hubby on a strange looking pedicab, a tandem pedicab?

I never knew hubby was a fan of Indonesia’s transportation minister ! He insisted that I took pictures of him with Mr Freddy Numberi’s cut out

This was a seriously fun trip. We were too tired to so we decided to watch a movie called T-Rex in the IMAX theatre.

We made a short visit to the Pecel stall again to have some snacks and icy cold drinks before going home.
For those who wants to go to Taman Mini by public transport, this is our route : we took Busway from Bunderan Senayan , transferred at Dukuh Atas 2 heading to Ragunan. From Ragunan we took an angkot (S 15A) that goes from the Ragunan Zoo to Taman Mini ! Now I think we should visit the zoo ^^ .

The not so fun part?

Financially, we are currently on a super strict budget because we’re still struggling to pay off the apartment.
Mortgage shouldn’t be that hard, no? Actually, we’re paying by installment loans. Soon after the wedding, we found this awesome opportunity to purchase a tiny apartment (40 sq.m) in West Jakarta. Initially we thought with what we have, we might have to resort to living in the suburbs and dedicate about 4 hours everyday for commuting.

They offered us to pay by 25x installments instead of mortgage, so instead of paying to the bank, we’re paying directly to the developer. At first, I thought this is crazy and kinda risky. But then, we thought, hmm.. this payment scheme also frees us from having to pay that stupid 11% interest rate. So, we jumped in anyway. Now I only get about a quarter of what I usually have every month, and I have to carefully slice it for transportation, insurance, groceries, saving and emergency fund ! We still have 16 more payments to go, nooooos ! We’ve been monitoring on the development progress and hopefully, we can move in to our new apartment by the end of this year.

On living together , finding someone willing to put up with me for his whole life is awesome , but that also means I have to be willing to put up with him. That’s the difficult part. Subconsciously, I think we all have a picture in mind on how things should be but the reality doesn’t match that.

One day Hubby told me that actually he wished I would prepare all the clothes for him to wear for work. Because his mom always prepares all his dad’s things in the morning. I never did this! It never even occurred my mind that he would want me to choose what clothes he should wear ! I always thought he knew how to dress himself . And honestly, I think he dresses better than I do, he always knows how to coordinate his attire while I’m the type that wears whatever is available in my wardrobe. I use that excuse to sorta get away from this “task” .

And day to day living is quite a struggle for me. After work, with all the traffic jam and such, I reach home by 7.30 and I have to quickly prepare dinner for both of us. It’s not exactly possible to cook decent Indonesian meals in such a short amount of time, so I have to prepare carefully. After dinner, I prepare for tomorrow’s dinner (cleaning and cutting vegetables, marinading stuffs or whatever), wash the dishes, and by the time it’s all over, it’s already almost 11 pm! Very little time left for TV or reading.

(Update on this matter: I brought up the topic that I really really need help dealing with the kitchen chaos ><, and hubby said that he doesn't mind helping , provided he's given some basic kitchen training. It was a good day ^^.) So honestly, I wished sometimes Hubby would help me up in the kitchen. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a husband that cooks together with you? Or offer to cook sometimes?

Hubby hardly ever stepped into the kitchen in his childhood, kitchen is like an unfamiliar territory for him. So I never had any success asking him to cook with me . I think he prefers to be fixated on his PS2 and Kamen Rider series.

However, he often surprised me too. When I was sick with dengue and what not, I was worrying about the dirty dishes that I haven’t washed yet. To my surprise, Hubby swept and mopped the apartment, he even scrubbed the bathroom and toilet, and he washed the dishes too. He took a day off to take me to the hospital. He accompanied me in the hospital although it was very uncomfortable for him since my hospital ward roommie was screaming in pain all the time.

Hubby also develops this rather cute habit of waking up very early in the morning to turn on the water heater so I can enjoy nice warm shower, then goes back to bed. He also fixes my blanket when I was sleeping. Hubby also endures my crazy singing, although he often complains that I’m ruining lots of good songs, and I made the bad ones sound worse. Hubby’s a good man after all, that’s why I married him ^^.

Then there’s the work-related stresses. Hubby’s job is a lot more stressful now, so there were days when he returned home looking all depressed. When that happened, whatever I did to cheer him up failed miserably and I felt terribly lonely. Thankfully, things are looking up now! No more days of depressions!

Without sugar coating anything, I think marriage is tough for both of us. Marriage has this steep learning curve, and sometimes I doubt if I’m cut out for it. But hey, we’ve made it for a year!
Congratulations !