Japanese Viertel in Duesseldorf

Have I ever told you that I was crazy about Japanese food? It was absolutely frustrating for me that I could not find any authentic Japanese food in Dortmund. Lucky me, duesseldorf is the neighbor city from Dortmund! Every time I am craving for authentic sushi or ramen, duesseldorf is the answer. Aunthentic Japanese food created by japan people. can not asking for more!

So, if you go to duesseldorf , there is this small area that was called Japanese viertel located in Immermann strasse. It was area where you could find anything about japan. From restaurant, cafe, supermarket, bookstore, saloon to MAID CAFÉ and manga Café. And all the menu was available in 2 language, German and Japanese, ton of kanji and  hiragana katakana everywhere along the street. The first time I was here, I got this strong atmosphere that I was not in German but in Tokyo! Every little bit of corner was screaming JAPAN out loud.

I had tried several restaurant here and I will write my review:

1. TAKUMI (ramen)

Everytime I googled what is the best ramen restaurant in Dusseldorf, the answer is always between takumi and naniwa. So I tried them both.

Takumi has a sapporo style’s ramen. The soup base was available in shoyu, shio and Miso. NO TONKOTSU based T_T too bad

The soup was amazing, the meat was big disappointment. It was too dried.

Gyoza was good, crunchy and delicious.

2. NANIWA (ramen)

Also no tonkotsu soup based T_T sigh…

The soup was similar with Takumi but the tasted is stronger

The meat was much more better!

Gyoza was better than takumi, but the appearance was a bit strange.

So in my side, I prefer NANIWA!

3. NANIWA (sushi)

Right in front of naniwa ramen is the naniwa sushi. The sushi is absolutely delicious!!!! I could not asking for more. Totally authentic Japan.

4. Maruyasu

They sell many variant of japan food (bentos, sushi, soba and other cooked food).

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

The onigiri was delicious! And cheap LOL

Sushi was so-so. Still better than the one I had in Dortmund though.The price is very friendly.

the karaage was no-no. it looked amazing but no, it tasted really average.

5. Café cerisier

I had tried Japanese cake before in Japan and it was the best cake I ever tried in my life. And I had big disappointment with this one. Does it taste delicious? Yes, absolutely. But does it taste like the one I had in Japan? No.

The store was joined together with the mod’s hair saloon and quite hard to noticed. It is a small store and yet very cozy. Love the atmosphere.

The guanaja schokomousse was much much better than the mont blanc. The schoko cake tasted absolutely delicious with a mixture of bitter chocolate with vanilla cream. The gold leaf makes the appearance really beautiful.

The mont blanc, it tasted so-so. To be fair, I am always a big fan of chocolate and not a big fan of nut. Maybe that is the main reason I don’t liked this one.

For the supermarket, I visited 2 supermarket, Dae yang and Shochiku. Daeyang is a hybrid between japan and korea, so you could find some of the korea authentic stuff here and they provided many variant snack and stuff, more than shochiku. But in other side Shochiku sold fresh fish (sashimi quality) and beef that was typical stuff for Japan market such as sukiyaki beef and unagi (YES UNAGI!!!). I also tried a cheese cake? I don’t quite sure but it tasted so GOOD!

Buy furikake and pasta sauce too. It was soooo delicious! I will buy the mentaiko pasta sauce again!

Totally in love with this city! I totally recommend you readers too visited this small street and enjoy Japan in German.

Japan Tag 2016

Japan tag!!!!

Honest, I was really surprised when I found about this festival in Internet. It just show up from nowhere in my facebook timeline, and I was extremely thrilled! Japan festival in Germany!

So I booked my ticket and went there to enjoy my japan tag festival.

When I arrived in the train main station (hbf), the festive atmosphere was already spread to the entire city and the station! I could see many people walking in the street with costume (cosplay) and it was really a culture shock for me.

I had many experience with anime/cosplay festival in Indonesia and never ever I saw so many people with their full costume walking around happily in the street as if it was normal thing to do. And no one starred at them with judgmental or pervert eyes. I could not imagine what will happened if people with their costume walking in the street in Indonesia LOL

My entire plan was spend the day in the festival area near the river. BUT. That day was quite hot and I was occupied with so many delicious food in the street toward the main stage, and I ended up arriving too late to the main stage T_T seriously Dusseldorf is definitely a heaven for japan’s food lover! The sushi and ramen are very authentic and delicious. I will post about it in my next post.

There were many booth that was already closed and I could only enjoyed a few but it was really interesting. From cultural show, traditional dance, kimono showcase, to nandaroid, action figure and cosplay properties.

The cosplayer were extremely cool! Very friendly and good looking *blush*

Favorit of the day was the assassin creed cosplay team. Super mega cool!!!!!

And special pose only for me 😛

 

Have I ever told you that I had zombie fetish? If the world must come to end, please make it zombie apocalypse and I would gladly be eaten by zombie LOL

he was very friendly and posed in front of camera even though i was to shy too asked him to posed for me!

The zombie cosplayer was very friendly despite the gore appearance LOL they even play with the children

Naruto girl version and kakashi sensei, both looks very gorgeous!

Darthvader!!!!! My favorite villain ever

Many cosplayer and people wore this big sign “FREE HUG” and apparently there was free hug event toward the evening.

TONS of  people in the street!

Beautiful side of Dusseldorf

the sky that day was very pretty blue, just like a paint of brush

after this pose, strong wind blew my hat! and it falled to the restaurant below the bridge and i punched my husband eyes when i tried to catch my hat. I swear it was unintentional LOL

the closing event was the super spectacular 25 minute fireworks show. This was my first firework show that have meaning behind all those beautiful show. The theme of this year was “tree, flower, animal-world of nature”. They consist of 5 scene:

1. Opening show, thunder
2. Blue ocean
3. Plant and animal
4. Rainbow
5. Final, gold rain

It was beyond speech, everything was very beautiful and grandiose. Absolutely perfect closure to wrap the entire day.

 

my first spring in Germany

For someone who spend 28 year in tropical land, spring is something that I could never experienced before. I had experienced winter and fall before during my holiday. In my case, i never ever will be a fan of snow or winter. I hate cold. As for fall, it is indeed such a beauty, but spring is the winner. Spring is officially my favorite season of the year!

All the flowers are totally mesmerizing! But the one that really stole my heart is this pink small flower. SAKURA!

I totally adore Sakura since I was small. Reading all those manga from Japan, they always mention about how beautiful this small flower. It was quite hard for me to imagine how could one big tree had no leave and instead covered by small pink flower. But after witnessing it by my own eyes, i totally understand why so many people fall in love with sakura.

Near where I live, there was this street, and the whole street had a long array of sakura tree! OMG! The first time I saw it, I scream out loud, screaming from the top of my lung “SAKURAAAA!!!!”

 

I had a pink carpet beneath my foot!

totally envy the owner of this houses, i could not imagine the joy of gazing on the beauty of sakura direct from your window every day!

 

This spring was totally dream comes true for tropical child who totally love manga and anime like me. Everything was so pink and dreamy!

The only sad thing was, it only last for 2 weeks T_T after that it turn into normal tree sigh…. Need to wait for another 1 year to enjoy this magnificent view

4 month in Dortmund

time pass so quickly! never realized that it was already 4 month since my first arrival in Deutschland.

The first 3 month was all about Deutsch course, learning Deutsch with all the other foreigner. I managed to found 2 greatest teacher and many good friend. It was such a precious memory 🙂

And now? The next step is hospitation. What is hospitation? Hospitation is an internship in hospital, and I will work as a guest doctor but received no wages. Imagine, working in real hospital as a real doctor with a broken Deutsch? Not good, but we will fight and tried to do our best. Somehow I know that the first 1 month will full of drama, sweat, blood, and tears. It will be FREAKING hard for us to adapt with the new environtment. It will be our first time communicate and working with all native Germanny.

And lucky us, me and my husband has found a place to do our hospitation in same hospital! Yesterday, we had an interview with the chef in Internal Medicine, and he said yes to both of us! So lucky! We were so nervous during the interview, well mainly because our deutsch is still not good. But in the end, he still said yes, and he introduced us to the hospital. All the facility and the technology is so modern compared to my previous hospital were I work in Indonesia! Aw God it is so freaking cool! This is totally what I had imagined before, working in a modern hospital with all advanced technology.

The only bad thing was the location of this hospital, it was quite far though T_T I need total 1 hour (30min walking and 30min in train) to reach the hospital from my apartment, guess I need to find a closer apartment to the hospital. Hopefully for the next 3 month all is well, and we could be 1 step closer to our dream to work in Deutsch.

FIGHTING!

my 1st experience travelling without valid ticket

at the beginning of this month the condition was quite hectic for me, because i had to move to my new apartment, and taking care of all the new stuff. Couldnt believe how unlucky we were, during our last week in the old apartement 5 lamp were broken! 5!

back to the title,

when we move to the apartment, i must buy a monthly train ticket because there is no way i would walk 3 km every morning to my  language course. To celebrated our new ticket, we decided to visited IKEA, just for eating their delicious swedish meatball! OH GOD SO LECKER!

then this one friend, who had live longer in German, said to us “hey with your student ticket, you could bring a companion during weekend for free!”

me “really? are you sure?”

friend “very sure! looks i even bring the information booklet and you can look by yourself”

me *look at the booklet half eyed* “well okay sure. then come with us to IKEA”

then we went to IKEA, enjoying their swedish meatball, and by the time we must took our train home, i saw the ticket officer just right before we ride the train.

I asked my friend “hey there is ticket officer inside. Are you SUREEEE you are safe without ticket?” FYI. I always feeling nervous when i saw a police man, or another officer with uniform. IDK what causing this fear. but, yeah i always had this stupid insecurities with them.

friend “its okay dont worry”

then we rode the train. sitting peacefully with innocent smile in our face.

theeen! the officer came to us. as i predicted before.

my husband gave the ticket and our id to the officer, and this friend of mine. He was smiling ear to ear and speaking with full of confidence “i was with them. Student ticket allowed to take 1 person for free right?”

the officer nod. smile. and go.

GOD. am i the only one who are extremely overreacted in this situation?see nothing wrong!!!

then we continue our conversation, and suddenly i saw the officer came back to our direction and bring a thick book.

i know. at that moment. something is wrong. very wrong.

officer “hello. can you read german?”

friend “sure” —still smiling as if nothing wrong

officer “you can read by yourself in this book that only student ticket plus could bring 1 person for free. but you could not do it with your normal student card”

me *extremely nervous. mouth gap. panic face* basicly all three of us were stunned, with stupid face, and could not saying anything.

officer “its okay. this time i would not give you a penalty but please make sure there wont be next time”

all 3 of us still could not said anything, we were too surprise to gave a human response.

officer “okay then may you have a good afternoon”

then he leaving peacefully.

and we were like..WHAT HAPPENNNEDDDD!!!!!

omg thanks God the officer was so nice to us and didnt gave the penalty, altought it was clearly our fault to not read the information booklet clearly. And he just leave like that? I didnt know whether it was because of our innocent face? or our stupid response? or he pity us? idk

but we sure were lucky! maybe it was for the exchange of our bad luck with lamp in old apartment? i always believe that when you were extremely unlucky, you will be lucky in another time for exchange. Fair Trade people.

thanks dear officer, if you by accident read this, i just want to said may God bless you and sorry for our stupidity. Cheers!

 

xmas 2015 first xmas in German

merry xmas everyone! Hope all of us had a great xmas! I will describe what xmas feels like in Dortmund. Prepared yourself for the super long post.

xmas or weihnachten in German language, is so festive! They have christmas market or weihnachtsmarkt for the entire month! The market is always full of people hanging around, drinking and chatting. But on the christmas day, the city become zombie land. From 24 until 27, you can barely see anyone, no shop or restaurant open for business. You see, christmas is one of the most important holiday for German people and they spend the whole 3 days with their family and friends. No dining outside. Instead, they have classic dinner with their loved ones. Sweet isnt it?

Dortmund christmas tree was so big and they using thousand of real tree!  and here is the final result

every day there are hundred of people hanging out in weihnachtsmarkt, even if the weather is raining!

they also sold various drink and food that were signature dishes of christmas. The most famous is gluhwein or hot wine. Is is A must drink in every xmas! A perfect drink for december’s cold weather. BUT, for me. I prefer LUMUMBA! HOt chocolate drink mix with alcohol. Perfect combination of sweet and alcohol.

for the first time ever i finally tried Eggnog. Everytime i watched xmas themed movie, there is always eggnog, the warm drink with egg and alcohol. I am an egg lover, so i thought eggnog must be superb. Here in German we called it by eierpunsch. Is it delicious? err….no. Simply just not my tasted.

and the food? Mainly they sold wurzt or sausage but there was also various kind of other food. The warm and fluffy baked potatoes with herb butter and melting cheese. My favorite is salmon baked! so good! not overcooked and the tasted was simply perfect.

and my favorite dessert, is germ knodel. or should i say..sweet bakpao? OMG it tasted exactly like bakpao! For asian people like me, to find bakpao here in the middle of bread and cake, is so special!

basicly germ knodel is bakpao with hot vanilla sauce and fruit sauce such as blueberry or cherry.

so happy to find bakpao here LOL

this is a good example, what happened when my husband take a picture of me -____- blurred!

they also had a small part of market that sold unique stuff from NEPAL, they give a different feel of xmas and yet so unique, colorful and pretty!

they also sold a cheap used books here! i bought my paulo coelho novel for 1 euro. Imagine. 1 EURO! and the book was in perfect condition!

German parents also had a tradition to buy a calendar full of chocolate inside in the form of calender, or so called by advent calendar. Each day you can open the door, and found a delicious chocolate inside.

for me? I really want to buy one but the prize is not very friendly. But then after 5 days, nobody want to buy advent calendar and they sold it for half prize! Of course i buy one for myself LOL

at the end of my language course, we celebrated xmas together! Even though some of us didnt celebrated xmas but yeah we still had fun together

there was even santa and 2 angels who came to our class!

the student, who came for all different part of the world, bring their traditional foods from their land. AND i bring TEMPEH! No one knew what tempe was, but i guess they kinda like it. Exotic vegetarian food from soja marinated in sweet soja sauce, who can resist that?

we also had secret santa games! Each of us had took another name of our classmate before and then at the final day we brought gift for that people.

i got laskar pelangi book in German version! Laskar pelangi, maybe it was the only Indonesia book i could find in German? I’m not sure, but this book was very special present for me. Thanks!

my husband got BVB flag LOL

at 24th december, there was a tiny accident. I was clumsy and remembering false hour of the chrismas eve mass in our church. And realized it only 20 minutes before the mass began. It was chaotic LOL. We arrived a bit late, about 5 minute late. But the church was already overcrowded!

FYI for the entire time i had  Mass in this church, the church was almost empty and never ever i saw so many people on that church like chrismas eve. What could i say, it also happened in Indonesia, some peopel go to church only during xmas and easter. well at least they go to the church right?

the church decoration was rather simple in comparison with the one i had back home in Indonesian, but it was real tree! People bring candle and lantern and after the mass they ignite the candle with flame from the candle in front of the baby Jesus. I wish i bring my own candle T_T well maybe next time?

on the xmas day i spend time with my fellow indonesian people in Dortmund, each of us bring a food and then we chatted and eating and chatting again till the night come.

we had salad, cupcake, sour sweet chicken, tempeh, spagetti with whatever sauce (i made them! basicly just throw whatever ingredients in fridge and voila! It looked not bad right?) and the star of the day…RENDANG! Nothing can make a group Indonesian happier than rendang LOL

this xmas was very special for me, thanks to all the new experiment i had here. I wish you all had a very merry xmas XOXO

 

lesson about karma in Koln

Suddenly in mid November, temperature was continue to dropped. The weathercast said that it would be snowing. My love for snow is limited to sitting in warm place and gazed to window full of snow. NOT spending all day drenched and freeze in SNOW.

So. I must went to Koln, because I had an appointment with mibeg, a language course with medical course. The choice was either rode train with total cost 30Euro/ person or bus 3 euro/person. Due to money problem LOL, nah, due to how clearly and how far the differences, of course I choosed bus. BUT. The time option is both very early or very late. So, I went to Koln at 4a.m and came back to Dortmund in 11 p.m

4 a.m it was minus in the outside, and the bus came late. After freezed for a while, we finally rode the megabus. The bus was, thanks God, comfortable and warm. We arrived in airport of Koln, and we must waited for another 2-3 hour, why? Because our appointment is 10 a.m jeezzz

10 a.m we finally rode the local train from airport to Haupftbahnhoft (hbf) or the main train station. The train system was different with the one we had in Dortmund. And it confused me, whether I could used the same ticket from airport to hbf, and used it for hbf to mibeg. Tried to ask for a help in information center, but the lady there was so rude. She keep told us to go to the train station without hearing what my question is.

But

In every bad luck, goodluck always come! It is my no1 life principal

When the rude lady shoved us outside, a good man saw what happened to us. He came and said “sorry I hear about your conversation, the lady is not very helpful isn’t she. Is there anything I could to help you?”

See? Goodluck!

The good man help us a lot and apparently we could used the same ticket! Phew!

15.00 a.m my business with mibeg was finished, had quick lunch, then when we tried to come back to hbf. It was raining, at first. Then it started to rain snow. A mixture of snow and rain. It was freaking cold! My clothes was wet. The wind was strong. I could not used umbrella at all. Damn. I hate snow.

At first we had this special plan to explore koln, but with this kind of weather? Nah ya.

We only spend a little time in Koln but I did manage to snapped some beautiful pictures of Koln. Unfortunately it was too cold for human of tropical country like me T_T

The super famous Dom of Koln.

Koln weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market)

Super pretty with all the light! Love it very much!!!

BUT!

Another drama happened in hbf. When we wanted to buy a ticket, two guys walked very near to my husband. And thanks to my quick response, LOL, nah it just a coincidental. I Looked behind and this 2 guys was shocked. Later I realized, they wanted to open my husband bag. Bad news for you, even you managed to open his bag, we only brought water bottle there pfft. Want to stole my old water bottle? This small accident was enough to ruined our whole mood. Cold. Snow. And now thief?

BUT! In train, this super friendly old women started a conversation with us. And we had a lovely conversation with her ^_^ she reminded us to becareful because the city is super crowded right now due to the chrismas market. And we just smiled, aww yeah it already happened to us!

And this sweet lady actually in love with Japan, and we exchange stories about our journey in Japan. See? Every bad thing will come back in another form of goodness!

And then we went to airport, the warm place with strong Wifi connection, free toilet, and place to sleep (in the chair of course). Best place ever during my entire journey in Koln. LOL

It continued to snow until all the grass was full of snow. Felt really lucky that I had place to protect myself during this cold. Why I said that? Well because in the airport I met a group of refugees. There were many small children. With only a small bag in their back, to represent what they had to leaved behind in Syria. So sad… I could not imagine how to spend time in winter with no house, with nothing, but that was their only option to survived the war in their homeland.

Thanks God there were a group of social worker that helping this group of refugees. Giving them food, water, and even the train ticket to Berlin! Wish them a good luck.

Oh ya another LOL moment, one friend of mine, 1 year ago he stayed in Koln and his wallet got stolen, and at that time we were still in Indonesia and rudely we were laughed at him.

”Come on! How come you never got your wallet stolen in Indonesia, the country with high criminal rate, and got robed in Koln”

And looked what happened to us?

Bah. Bad karma!