My OperaI'm on holiday!
Thursday, August 26, 2004 11:39:02 AM
Wow, a couple of things happened in the past few days! It’s really crazy because everything happened in a really fast pace, like one thing after another. It just doesn't want to give me a break.
As I stated above, I’m on my holiday for a week. Initially I take this brake because I am finishing my internship programme soon and I still have 5 holidays unused. Rather than converting it to cash, I think I’ll take it anyway. This way I have the feeling of getting paid for doing nothing! Lol
In fact, I’m not "doing anything" at all!
Indonesian Party
Indonesia celebrated their independence day on the 17th August. In Newcastle the Indonesian student society had arranged a celebration in one of the public park, near the city centre. The event was held on the 22nd August. Everybody tried to take part in successing the event. Some people prepared the songs and events, some people helped preparing the main course, some people prepared deserts, and the rest thought about what games to do and getting the prizes. It turned out to be a really great event. It supposed to start at 11 in the morning, but as a tradition everybody decided to come 20 minutes late! LOL. The chairman of the society had a little speech, and then we sang some songs, like the national anthem and national songs that are only sung during this sort of events. Understandably only a few people actually sang out loud!
What followed was a 15 minutes session of photograph taking. This is getting increasingly annoying. Everybody seems to have a digital camera and take them absolutely everywhere.
Games and Food
Eventually the games can be started. We had several traditional fun games. I said fun games but it's not necessarily fun for the people who are doing it, but definitely fun for the people who are cheering for them! We had the "marble race". 5-7 racer lines up, each holding or biting a spoon in their mouth and a round marble ball on the spoon. They have to race to the finish line without dropping the marbles! We also had "four-legged race" where a team of 3 racers are tied at their legs to each other. They then have to race to the finish but the most tricky part of it is synchronizing their steps so they don't fall down. Most of the time they do, which is fun! XD we also had "pencil in the bottle" event where the racer had a pencil tied at their back, and their objective is to insert the hanging pencil into the bottle without the help of their hands. This event is devised to provide embarrassing pictures since the racer have to squat half-way and moves up and down as they try to drop the pencil in the bottle! ;D
The food was really excellent and I would like to congratulate the team who prepared the food and desserts! We had chicken satay with peanut and sweet soya sauce, traditional Indonesian fried chicken, vegetable stir-fry, and lots of nice, soft, white-boiled rice! That’s all you'll ever want if you're an Indonesian... the desserts were also Indonesian traditional beverages. They were cendol and kolak pisang. Cendol is soft and chewy bits made from boiled flour dough, the bits are then poured in coconut milk with brown sugar and ice. It’s very sweet and tasty! Kolak pisang is another beverage with coconut milk and brown sugar. The difference is it has banana and pearly balls. They are absolutely delicious and perfect to have in parties. There’s probably some recipe in the internet if you search for "cendol" or "kolak pisang" in a search engine.
That’s a little glimpse of the Indonesian party in the park
As I stated above, I’m on my holiday for a week. Initially I take this brake because I am finishing my internship programme soon and I still have 5 holidays unused. Rather than converting it to cash, I think I’ll take it anyway. This way I have the feeling of getting paid for doing nothing! Lol
In fact, I’m not "doing anything" at all!
Indonesian Party
Indonesia celebrated their independence day on the 17th August. In Newcastle the Indonesian student society had arranged a celebration in one of the public park, near the city centre. The event was held on the 22nd August. Everybody tried to take part in successing the event. Some people prepared the songs and events, some people helped preparing the main course, some people prepared deserts, and the rest thought about what games to do and getting the prizes. It turned out to be a really great event. It supposed to start at 11 in the morning, but as a tradition everybody decided to come 20 minutes late! LOL. The chairman of the society had a little speech, and then we sang some songs, like the national anthem and national songs that are only sung during this sort of events. Understandably only a few people actually sang out loud!
What followed was a 15 minutes session of photograph taking. This is getting increasingly annoying. Everybody seems to have a digital camera and take them absolutely everywhere.
Games and Food
Eventually the games can be started. We had several traditional fun games. I said fun games but it's not necessarily fun for the people who are doing it, but definitely fun for the people who are cheering for them! We had the "marble race". 5-7 racer lines up, each holding or biting a spoon in their mouth and a round marble ball on the spoon. They have to race to the finish line without dropping the marbles! We also had "four-legged race" where a team of 3 racers are tied at their legs to each other. They then have to race to the finish but the most tricky part of it is synchronizing their steps so they don't fall down. Most of the time they do, which is fun! XD we also had "pencil in the bottle" event where the racer had a pencil tied at their back, and their objective is to insert the hanging pencil into the bottle without the help of their hands. This event is devised to provide embarrassing pictures since the racer have to squat half-way and moves up and down as they try to drop the pencil in the bottle! ;D
The food was really excellent and I would like to congratulate the team who prepared the food and desserts! We had chicken satay with peanut and sweet soya sauce, traditional Indonesian fried chicken, vegetable stir-fry, and lots of nice, soft, white-boiled rice! That’s all you'll ever want if you're an Indonesian... the desserts were also Indonesian traditional beverages. They were cendol and kolak pisang. Cendol is soft and chewy bits made from boiled flour dough, the bits are then poured in coconut milk with brown sugar and ice. It’s very sweet and tasty! Kolak pisang is another beverage with coconut milk and brown sugar. The difference is it has banana and pearly balls. They are absolutely delicious and perfect to have in parties. There’s probably some recipe in the internet if you search for "cendol" or "kolak pisang" in a search engine.
That’s a little glimpse of the Indonesian party in the park
