Salad Paria

Ingredients:
2 pieces of fresh white paria
2 red chillies
2 cloves of shallots
1 spoonful of small prawns
a little bit of salt

How to Make:
1. Wash paria and slice them really thin. Sprinkle some salt on the sliced paria and repeatedly mash/squeeze the salted paria for about minutes to let the sap out.

2. Throw the extracted sap out and wash the paria with clean water again, while mashing/squeezing them again with hand. Then, rinse the paria with water.

3. Cut the chillies and shallots in thin slices (a bit thicker than the paria slices).

4. Mix paria, shallots, chillies and little prawns together.

5. Salad paria is ready to serve.

Note: I found this dish when I visited Sandakan (Sabah, Malaysia), during my brother in law's wedding. The bride's mother prepared it for us on our arrival and I loved it so much that I asked for the recipe.

Enjoy!

Kids Are Fast Learners

Ever since my first son was born, I kept hearing people saying, "Let children learn as early as possible, because they can learn many things very fast!"

Ariq started asking to have drum lesson when he was 3 years old, but I was not sure whether he really wanted it, or it was just something he THOUGHT he wanted! However, I did realise that every time he was tapping his hands on solid surface, the beat he made was very rhythmic.

When he was still asking until he was 4 years old, I was finally convinced that he really meant it (that he wanted drum lesson). So, I started asking around where he could start drum lesson. At that time, people told me that music school would accept children as early as 5 years old, so I told Ariq that he could start when he turned 5.

One day, when Ariq got out of school, I decided to check out a music school nearby his school, and it turned out that the place accepted children as early as 3.5 years old! Well, we quickly decided to enroll Ariq there.

Well, being kids.. there were times that he was late to class, or getting sick and was unable to attend class at all, or he was just too tired to open his eyes after school... I did not push him too much whenever one of these things happened..

However, this is him after 6 months of drum lesson, and I am often lulled by his drum playing..

The Long-Awaited Trip to Borneo..

For years.. I have always wondering if I could step my feet on Borneo land and see the native people.. I finally had my chance when I least expect it!

Last May, Ahmad's brother was getting married to a girl from Sabah (Malaysian state in North Borneo). So, I caught up with Ahmad in KL (where he is working for the time being), and we flew together to Sandakan (a little town in Sabah, where the wedding ceremony and procession was going to take place).

Borneo (even after the big fire in late 90's) is still a very green island. The weather is humid but not as hot or polluted as big cities such as Jakarta.

The rivers were really wide that I first thought they were the ocean.. (silly me!)

Unfortunately, the tight schedule of the wedding procession did not allow us to do any leisure trip this time round, but I'd like to think of this as an 'excuse' to make a return trip one day in future to see the rain forest, orangutan reserve and crocodile farm.

I did see some native people during the wedding reception, however I did not really have a chance to actually meet or being introduced to them. I'd also like to think of this as another excuse to go back one day..

Anyway.. here are some photos from the trip.



Being Welcome by The Great Orangutan Statue


The Scenery Behind The Bride's Family House


The Happy Bride and Groom


Waiting for The Bride and Groom Getting Ready for The Reception

Little Becak Driver

For most of Indonesian at my age, the sight of a becak is part of history and childhood excitement. However, for kids at Ariq's age, it is a rare thing to see one.

Fortunately, during Ariq's school Arts Performance (Pentas Seni Al-Ikhlas 2008), they incorporated a becak into the play, so that Ariq did his best to experience driving one..

I hope he will remember this experience later in his life..

Family Photo

Talking about doing something different.... Well.. Here we are making a sudden decision to have a photo session in a photo studio, after the kids have changed into their pyjamas!

They were happy to do it, though!