Today is Indonesian Presidential Election Day!!

This time's election is really interesting. A lot of people take it seriously. Most of them know exactly who they want to vote for and for what reason. Well it's not surprising, considering we have 2 exact opposite candidates.

To summarize is quickly, the first one is the bad guy with track record of human rights violations. Just like most thinga related to Indonesian politics, there's no solid proof that he was really involved, but he's the main suspect and USA even banned him into coming to USA.

The 2nd guy is the good guy. To the people who hate him, this guy is ugly looking village guy who doesn't have a president charisma. To those who hate him, they believe if he becomes president, he would be a disgrace to Indonesia in front the world. However, to his believers, he's the only hope to Indonesia. They believe only with him, Indonesia can move forward. He's the people person who doesn't mind to sit within commoners, doesn't care who's at the top and who's at the bottom and still serves anyone below him. To them, he's the only leader who actually does some work instead of just saying bullshits.

IMO, Indonesian are not nationalists. We don't usually care about voting for election. If it's convenient, we would vote. If it's troublesome, don't bother. That's the spirit usually. However, it's different this time. During the campaign, people actively shared articles both to make their choice looks good, and to smash the opponent, and they also bravely shared their own opinions (which of course got a lot of comments and sometimes caused them fighting on their facebook wall). I myself had to unfollow some friends due to them spamming my newsfeed.

Last Saturday was the time for us who live overseas to cast our vote. I personally haven't yet since I registered to cast my vote via post, but until today haven't received my paper. I called and texted the overseas election committee, they said I would get it this week, but what caught me was, they said they received 200 calls asking about it! I'm pretty sure handling election was an easy-peasy to them in the past, well not this time :)

But at the election places, wow man... The queue at Masonic Center Sydney was like queueing for the new iPhone @_@ my friend and his wife queued had to come back due to the line was so long, and even after they came back, they still had to queue for an hour to cast their vote. My auntie and cuz queued twice, and still didn't qualified, but they didn't mind coming back and queue again. A few of my friends casted their votes for the very first time this year, eventhough they were already eligible to do so since 12 years ago. Food vendors at Melbourne election area sold out all their food. And Hong Kong couldn't finish their election due to the high number of voters and the voters were very upset and disappointed for not being able to vote after hours and hours of queuing under scorching Hong Kong sun. They even suggested to move and continue the election at the embassy though it wasn't agreed by the committee who wanted to go home -_-

Indonesia is really making history this year. Thanks to those 2 candidates, a lot of people now want to have their votes counted and make sure the the other candidate doesn't become the President of Indonesia. I googled yesterday, and found all about Indonesian election at news.com.au, britainnews, and so on.

Well today is the time for people living in Indonesia to cast their vote. Hopefully all goes well, and may the best candidate win. Our overseas votes only count towards 2% of the whole Indonesian citizens, but see how we have tried :)

 So help us God.

Super excited VS Hot Chips!

My special boss is in the mood lately. Seriously if he's a woman, I would think he is on his period or even maybe pregnant!! Honestly I've never seen this kind of behavior apart from pregnant women. He came to our area last week (kalo indo, kita bilang tergopoh-gopoh dateng :p), saying "What smell is THAT??? It's terrrrrrrible!!". No, it's not my durian lollies or snacks, it's.... HOT CHIPS!! -_- then he found out it was hot chips, and he said "It stinks! Don't you think?? I think we have to ban strong smelling food! What if client walks in and smell it?" Man... Seriously everyone in the office was looking like this @___@ everyone was thinking in their mind, hot chips smell AWESOME!! Wait till I bring real durians in, you can then define stink -_-

Tap water bought the chips for lunch, he didn't finish it and left them on the kitchen table. You might think it's in the office area, but nope, it's in the KITCHEN!! I can understand if we have our lunches at the desk, but no, we can't have lunches at our desk which btw, most companies allow staff to have lunch while working except ours. And no, no, not for our health and wellbeing sake, but for the sake of the desks, keyboards, and carpet.

He asked whose chips were those, and said to finish them or chuck them because THEY STINK!! So I went to the kitchen to check, and there were still quite a lot left. Slitherin came too, and had some. Then I called Little Missy, and together we ate them. They were still warm and tasty. Superexcited appeared in the kitchen, when he saw us eating, he said "Yes, finish them Little Missy, and once you're finished, make sure you chuck the box and bury it at the bottom of the bin. Okay???". Little Missy said "Yea...", I ignored him.

After that, of course our group bitched about it. And we found out that he's been complaining about Little Missy's homecooked food too, saying Little Missy always bring smelly lunch! But you know what, when superexcited pops in to kitchen, he NEVER says bad things about it. He ALWAYS says "Whose lunch is that?? Smells fantastic!! You always have great lunches!!". But behind you? It's completely different story.

Anyway, we were saying, knowing his character, he might actually ban food with strong odor. And guess what? We got an email yesterday from ante meridiem. However, after reading it, I was 99% sure it was written by the special guy ;) The email said that we're going to have important meeting tomorrow and next week, so please everyone refrain from bringing food with strong odor I.e. hot chips and curry -__- I understand if it's curry, eventhough I don't agree in banning it, it's everyone's right to eat the food that they usually eat. However HOT CHIPS?? Where in this earth do hot chips considered smelly?? Everyone apart from him loves the smell of it :/

Luckily today the whole office apart from the boss are going out for lunch -_-

Just some background information to consider:

1. Superexcited doesn't come to kitchen unless for coffee.

2. Our kitchen is an enclosed kitchen area, not open area. So whatever smell of food only lasts until door area.

3. You can't smell anything from the kitchen in the meeting room.

I think you get my point -.-

Review on Kashiwa Yakiniku Crows Nest

I don't like reviewing restaurants on this blog and prefer to do review on Trip Advisor, however, I couldn't find this restaurant on Trip Advisor :( But I really really really want to share my experience!!!! So, I have no choice but to do it here :((

Okay, firstly I didn't take any photos when I was there. I'm really not a food photo taker. Every time my friends take photos of our meals, whether shared of not, and I have to wait for them to finish before digging in, I'd be like "are you done yet??? no?? quickkkkk". Long story short, I can't stand having food in front of my eyes that I can't eat. So, please go to their website for their menu and photos: kashiwa.zashiki.com

I've always loved coming here to have barbeque. Of course I smell like smokes when I finish, but I don't care!! My tummy and mouth are happy, that's all that matters :) I love their ox tongue, beef ribs and yukke.

It's a very small Japanese BBQ restaurant. They have maybe 5 or 7 big tables, which guests have to share with strangers most of the time. You better book if you want to come for dinner, coz even if you book, you would still need to queue a bit. It's a quick turnaround restaurant, not a place where you can hang out after you finish your meal. So expect your BBQ grill be taken off your table, and your bill delivered to you right after you finish.

The food however, is usually excellent. The meat is tender, and the marinate is tasty. They have 2 kinds of marinate base, salt based and miso based. I'd suggest to order the salt based, they are my favourite :) I think with the salt based marinate, you can taste the meat flavour, rather than drown the meat flavour with other flavour. Oh and their yukke is great too, though the size is small. But it's what you would expect with that price, so no surprise there.

Service is good and fast. As expected from a quick turnaround restaurant.

Okay, I've kept the review as unbiased as I can. That's the justice I want to give them as that's what I usually get when I visited Kashiwa. However, my review for my visit last Saturday was not as good as I usually get.

First, I'm used to sharing table with strangers, nothing new. However, I have noticed on my last few visits that they squeeze more and more people into a table. The size of their tables in my opinion, fit 7 people if you want to give them plenty of space to move around, If you want to fit as many people in but still reasonable, I'd say 10 people. Their tables are pushed to the wall on one side, so only 3 sides usable - 2 long sides which fit 4 normal/skinny people each, and 1 short side which fit 2 skinny people. On one occasion, I remember squeezing 11 people AT LEAST in one table. 2 of them were XL size guys. Imagine having those many people on a table, and they are not a group of customers. Each group orders different sets of food. Where do we put the plates of food? Remember it's a BBQ restaurant? We have to cook first right? You get the idea.

Last Saturday, our table was shared among 9 people. Not too many. I personally didn't complain. 5 people in my group (3 small girls, 2 XL guys), and 4 people in the stranger group (2 small girls, 2 L guys). I sat on the long side with my XL guy, and 2 Small strangers. So 3 Small and 1 XL. Opposite to me, 2 L strangers and my XL guy. On the short end, my group's 2 small girls. The strangers group came after us, and straight after they sat, the 2 girls next to me started complaining about space and asked me to move a bit. I already sat right next to my friend's butt, I could only move my purse to my back which they said it was alright. But then, those 2 girls complained to the staff saying the table is too cramped. Do you know what the staff did? He asked me and my friend IF WE CAN MOVE A BIT! God! He actually HAD the nerve to ask us that??? From whichever way you look at it, they are 2 skinny girls occupying half of my side, and I was with my friend who was BIG! (sorry my friend, i don't like saying you're big...) I'm not a patient person, and being asked TWICE in a night is one too many for me, but my friend is a very patient guy, and he answered this "I'm already sitting at the edge. WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?". And that staff only said to the other group "Sorry, they can't". What the... blaming it back to us. And I thought Japanese customer service is good. I should have complained to them in the first place so we were not the bad guys, Gee!

Okay, the food was still okay that night, but not that great. The beef ribs were not as tender as usual, and the yukke (both of the yukke we ordered) was lack of seasoning. I almost couldn't taste the sesame oil flavour.

Now, would I go back there? Yes I would. BUT, I won't be as eager as I used to be. Let say someone said to me on Saturday, "Let's have dinner at Kashiwa!". Instead of saying Yes straight away like usual, I might say "Umm.. they're busy on Saturday, we can go there on weekdays when it's not that busy. Let's just go to other restaurant tonight." And will we actually go on weekdays? I don't think so. We all have office jobs and have to work during weekdays, so really, the chance of us going to have BBQ on weekdays is almost 0. So the month after, 1 of us might suggest Kashiwa again, and that time, we might actually go, since we haven't actually gone since last time we planned it. So our frequency going there will decrease by half at least.

They really should think again about their idea of getting as many people in as possible. I get the idea of eat and leave, but not being squeezed to cook and then eat. You don't know how many times that skinny girl's ponytail poked my face every time she turned around, and how many times her elbow almost hit my face when she was cooking her meat -_-"

Hope next time I visit them again, it's a better experience than this.

You can really bright up their day :)

Have you ever seen those people who give away brochures or free paper on the street? I was walking to the station to catch my train home this afternoon when I saw a bunch of people standing just at the entrance to the station. The crowd was bigger than what I usually see, I thought something happened. But apparently it was nothing. 2 women were chatting, and the rest were actually queueing to buy train ticket from the machine.

However, the one that caught my attention was this guy wearing red jumper handing out mX paper. MX paper is free paper distributed every afternoon on working days. This poor guy was standing at his usual spot, next to the ticket machines, however today he was completely surrounded by those people. The 2 women were chatting on his right, the queue was so long, completely circling him. He looked very uneasy and uncomfortable. He couldn't give his papers to people.

I'm not that nice of a person, but seeing that guy I really felt for him as I used to be in his situation. I used to hand out free magazines some mornings of the week back in my uni days. Still remember those quiet days or rainy days when people didn't want to take my magazines eventhough they were free. Or when I had to cover for sick people at the quiet spot. Everytime I smiled to a guy handing out the magazine and he shaked his head, I felt like oh.... :(( but when that someone smiled back and took my magazine, I would be so so so so happy. And relieved I guess? :) The longer it takes to hand out everything, the longer it is to my home time ;) You guys who have never done this sort of job don't know how 1 random person taking a magazine from me can make me smile for the following 15 minutes.

I went back and took his paper today, though I don't usually do. Though I had to ask one of the guys queueing to get 1 for me. So next time you see those people on the street, having no one taking their papers, just go and take one. You can really literally brighten their day :)