FAMILY TIME

As much as it's great to visit another country and see great exhibitions, the best type of holidays is the one you spend with family. And Amal is the one who always reminds me that when we go on holiday, we should relax more, just enjoy spending time with each other and not go from one place to the other. Very wise kids at such a young age :)

ART GARDEN AT SINGAPORE ART MUSEUM

I know the school holidays are coming to an end, but for some schools in Jakarta, the kids will once again be on a long break during the Idul Fitri holidays. So here's an idea of where you can bring your kids: the Art Garden exhibition at Singapore Art Museum. It's still open until 1 September 2013 so you still have almost 2 months to go and check it out. If you want your kids to experience art, and unfortunately it's not that easy here in Jakarta, take a short plane ride here cause it's worth it :)

Walter the bunny - probably the best part of the exhibition if you ask me :)

Hansel & Gretel malay style in the "Enchanted Garden City"

Doing activities in "Around the Day in Eighty Worlds" - felt like being in Alice in Wonderland

LANDscape in the box - boxes filled with familiar landscapes of Singapore

SINGAPORE ZOO

Yet another small getaway to Singapore, and this time we decided to go to the Singapore Zoo. The last time we went there was about 4 years ago, after I had a small operation in Singapore, so my memories are a bit hazy.
This time around it was way better because there's a new exhibition with Kai Kai and Jia Jia, the giant pandas and also red pandas! Absolutely the highlight of the visit of course :)
The pandas were only on preview at the Singapore Zoo until March 30th, but will be part of the River Safari, which will be opening on April 3rd.

Another highlight of the day was the food: a really good chinese food place called Mama Panda, right after the panda exhibition, where we found a really cute bakpao in the shape of a panda! And also, Ben & Jerry's ice cream stalls all over the zoo. I especially love their coffee milkshake :)

GAUGUIN AND VAN GOGH EXHIBITION

So my mom's in France right now and I received an email from my uncle this morning with a few pictures of an exhibition they went to yesterday. I am super jealous! It's like nothing I've seen before: the concept is paintings of Van Gogh and Gauguin, projected onto white rocks via multimedia and so as you'll see in the pictures below, you are surrounded by the painting from head to toe!

The exhibition is situated in the south of France in the area of Les Baux de Provence, where there is a quarry of white limestome called Carrieres du Val d'Enfer. This type of stone was apparently used to build castles. However, modern materials led to the closure of the quarry and since 1977, it has hosted many audio visual shows. This is what the Carrieres du Val d'Enfer actually looks like from the outside and inside when there's no exhibition:

If you're interested to know more about the exhibition and how it's done, check out the website, which also features a small video.

TARONGA ZOO

Zoos are one of the most amazing places on earth, and they make you realize how you're actually not that amazing and cool because so many of the animals that live on this earth are absolutely gorgeous!

I think Amal and I both fell in love with a zoo situated in Sydney called Taronga Zoo. To get there, you have to ride a ferry for about 15-20 minutes so that part is already quite exciting. The place is well maintained, and the animal enclosures look cozy and approachable. I initially really wanted to go to see the koalas but I got so much more than I asked for because all the animals were amazing. I fell in love with an animal I had never heard of before called the fennec fox, an adorable cute little fox with long pointy ears. It was sleeping at the time we got to its enclosure but you can see Amal below posing between it's ears :)

Anyway, if you happen to go to Sydney for some holidays, please make some time to go to this wonderful zoo.

Talking about zoos, there's a movie I saw recently that I have fallen in love with called "We Bought A Zoo" by Cameron Crowe. Check out the trailer and go find the DVD!

HOLIDAYS DOWN UNDER

I know I've been extremely lucky this year to be able to travel twice already and it's practically still the beginning of 2012. I've been desperately wanting to pay a visit to Adri & Sissy in Sydney since they moved there, more so because I've never been to Australia so when Air Asia announced they finally fly to Sydney (and also because Adri & Sissy are hoping to move soon), I thought it's now or never. Though I will be repaying the plane tickets probably till sometime in 2013, it was all worth it!!!

Sydney is an amazing city with happy, healthy people. The weather was so nice when we were there, sometimes warm, sometimes breezy. We ate a lot of nice food, had some picnics here and there, visited some museums and best of all (I think Amal and my favorite destination), we went to Taronga Zoo. I'll do a special post on that because it is quite an amazing place. 

The photos below are just a few pics I took when we were there...

2 DAYS IN PARIS

Just like the title of one of my favorite movies, I recently spent 2 days in Paris. It was so short, and I was so tired of walking everywhere, trying to see (and eat!) all the things I had missed. But it felt so good to be back!

What I miss the most about Paris:

- being able to walk around

- the smell of crepes filled with nutella

- sitting at a terrace cafe and seeing people walk by

- the art, which is just everywhere!

- my friends, of course :)

I made a selection of photos for you. Just some pictures I took while walking around: the shops I saw, the food I ate and the friends I met. I feel so lucky and blessed to have been able to go back, even if it was just for 2 days.

A DAY IN MAASTRICHT

Last Sunday, My-Lan, Luu-Ly and I went to Maastricht on a girls' trip by car... I had never been to Maastricht before and I discovered a really nice city to visit. The nice thing about Maastricht is that it has quite a big area of car-free streets where you're free to walk around, see some shops and munch on waffles... You have a really nice place to sit next to a church, if my memory is correct, where during the summer, you can hang around till late at night (it's photo #4).

I love tulips

Love the wicker basket!

My-Lan and Luu-Ly

The hangout area

Eating waffles with Luu-Ly

BRUSSELS SIGHTSEEING WITH MIMI

So My-Lan (or Mimi as I call her) and I ended up at a tapas restaurant in the Halles St Gery area, in the city center of Brussels drinking sangria and eating the best artichoke hearts and also shrimps cooked in herbs. I came back to the hotel around 11.30 at night I think; you can't rush a 5-year reunion! :)

Mimi

Yesterday, I had a meeting in the morning then a free afternoon session where once again, I met up with My-Lan and we did a little bit of shopping and a lot of walking. The good thing about Europe is that you can afford to eat good calories-filled food because you're going to burn it off walking all the way home anyway...hehehe...
Yesterday, we ate cake and had coffee at Paul, one of the nicest pastry shops I know from Paris, the millefeuille was delicious...

Teatime at Paul

We walked around Grand Place, did some shopping at Rue Neuve, had dinner at a greek restaurant eating gyros and ended up in Halles St Gery again, at a terrace cafe (freezing ourselves) having a good old belgian beer :)

A store front near the Grand Place

BACK IN BRUSSELS

You have nooooo idea how amazing I feel right now :)

It really feels weird to be back here, in Paris this morning transiting and now in Brussels... Though I was here 5 years ago with Amal, now that I'm here on my own, the nostalgia is really coming back... Nothing's changed: the smells are the same, the cold, the people on the streets, the french accent, the belgian accent.... the only thing that's changed is that I've been called "Madame" twice!! Argh,  that I still can't accept :)

The best part of this morning was the train ride from Paris Charles De Gaulle airport to Brussels... As the train left Paris, I put on the song "Holocene" by Bon Iver and it was magic! 

The scenery was all plains with fog and you could see the cold, bare trees... beautiful...

getting ready to face the cold 

Once in Brussels, I had some time off before the Engineers Without Borders contact person came to fetch me to meet the team. Since I hadn't had lunch, I decided to go find a supermarket... I found a Carrefour Express (yes, they have those here!) and bought myself a sandwich, a bottled water made in Belgium called SPA, and as a dessert, I got myself my favorite rice pudding... it's the best in the world, hands down!

Tonight I'll be seeing My-Lan and that's gonna be another story: the reunion after 5 years without seeing each other... stay tuned :)

PARIS FINALLY!

I can't believe my luck! Even to this day, I feel like if I talk about it, I might jinx it... do you ever get that feeling?... I'm leaving today for Brussels and if everything goes well (and it should!), I'll get to spend 2 days in Paris and meet friends I haven't seen in ages, like my roommate Caroline with whom I shared a room near the Luxembourg gardens (photo #2) for 2 years :)

I'm also hoping to see Dinda, my cooking mate from the Cooking Playdate who just moved to Amsterdam... Can't wait to hear her stories of the Berlin Film Festival and all about the move! 

All photos found via Pinterest

BRUSSELS HERE I COME!

I cannot believe what is happening in one week's time: I'll be leaving for Brussels!! The land that brought us Tintin and the Smurfs... and also where I lived for 6 years by the way :)

I've been dreaming of going back and seeing my best friend, My-Lan, but well plane tickets don't come cheap so I was optimistic yet realistic that one day I'll go back but not any time soon. Until the famous confirmation from an NGO in Brussels inviting me to make a few presentations about YUM and our work dealing with clean water.

The photo above is me and My-Lan in 2003 when I went to Brussels for My-Lan's wedding. I can't wait to see her 2 kids and her husband Attila... then we're planning on a girls' trip to Paris for 2 days to see some friends... Woohoo! I wish I had more time so I could go meet my family in the south of France but I'll have to come back for that one, and that time it'll have to be with Amal :) 

PARIS MUSEUM PASS

Just spent quite some time today with my cousin Sandri who will be going to Europe at the end of the month and wanted some tips about where to go, what to eat and what to see in Paris. Where do you start, right? Needless to say, I was obsessively talking about all the small streets, cafes and shops I used to go to and the day passed by really quick :)

I, of course, recommended her to go to my favorite museum, eat quiche and pies in a bohemian setting and drink the best hot chocolate in the world, and maybe try to learn a bit of French by seeing this short video.

However, as much as I gave her all the information she needed, she was the one who hooked me up with this video below about a card called Paris Museum Pass, a pass card to all the museums in Paris. The video is amazing, and makes me even more envious of her going. But as they say in France: "chaque chose en son temps" (one thing at a time)... Right now, my focus is elsewhere and hopefully one day, my focus will go towards traveling again :)

By the way, have you read my other posts about things to do, see and eat in Paris? If you haven't, here's the link --> PARIS!

BALI: SAYAN VIEW

Sayan is one of my most favorite places in Bali because of the incredible view - rice paddies, mountains, coconut trees. My uncle, who came from France, is an avid photographer and so we had to take him here. Sayan is about 30 minutes drive from Ubud and besides huge expensive hotels like the Four Seasons and Amandari, you have beautifully designed small cozy hotels like Sayan Terrace and Taman Bebek. My parents and late grandparents both stayed in these places and absolutely loved it. Taman Bebek was designed by Made Wijaya, an australian born landscape artist and writer who has lived in Bali for more than 30 years.

View from Sayan Terrace

Sayan Terrace

The pool at Taman Bebek

BALI: BELLA BEDUGUL

Bedugul is one place I haven't really been to, but my aunt and uncle highly recommended the botanical gardens there, and so we went on the 25th of December....and realized many balinese wanted to do the same so it took us ages to get there :)

But but but... it was highly worth the trip! On our way there, we stopped at a restaurant called Saranam, which is also an eco-resort, and found the most amazing view! It was really breathtaking! The resort also looked one-of-a-kind and I wished we could have spent a night there.

The Bedugul Botanical Gardens were also unbelievably beautiful. We went up to a part where we could see the Bedugul lake, then went to see the Bali Treetop Adventure Park which has some outbound games for children and adults. Unfortunately, since we weren't the only ones there, it was already full and so all we could do was walk around the forest and take pictures. Amal had a blast with the iPhone and took tons of pictures :)

View from the Saranam restaurant

The Saranam eco-resort

Another view from the restaurant

The Bedugul lake

Bedugul Botanical Gardens

Amal and Papi Guy taking pictures in the forest

BALI: KOU CUISINE

As you know, I am a hand-made freak. I love everything that wasn't made in a factory. So this little store in Ubud really caught my eye while I was going up Monkey Forest Road, especially because the packaging was really well designed: simple yet classy (and yes, very French you can add). In this small store, they sold several types of jams and also sea salt. The jams looked marvelous, like mango, grape and buni, milk caramel, passionfruit and tangerine, etc. Right at the entrance of the store, you have a long table with the jams to taste so how can you resist? 

So next time you're in Ubud, check out Kou Cuisine, Jl. Monkey Forest. I couldn't find a website for them, but they're situated not far from the Ubud market, almost at the end of Jl. Monkey Forest.

BALI: PANTAI GEGER

It's holiday season and this year we had a 3 and a half days holidays in Bali, essentially to meet my uncle and aunt who are visiting from France and spend some time away from Jakarta. 

Our first day in Bali, we decided to go to Pantai Geger which is in the Nusa Dua area. My dad had spent a day there a few weeks ago with friends and thought it would be the ideal place for Amal to play with the sand and enjoy the beach. And he was right; the beach was calm and there were not many people there so Amal could run around freely. Unfortunately, it had rained on the way to the beach so it wasn't the sunny weather that we had expected. But as you can see, Amal had lots of fun anyway... 

We had lunch in one of the small restaurants in front of the beach and it was honestly good food, especially the grilled fish with the balinese "sambal matah". I don't remember the name of the restaurant but it was the closest to the beach.

catching seaweed to make a statue

seaweed statues of mama and amal

In the afternoon, I met with a good friend who I haven't met for the past 10 years and who now lives and works in Bali as a fashion designer. Love her collection, which you can see here: The Story Of