Pink and Undecided: seafood

Makassar Diary Day 2 Part 2 : Trans Studio Makassar and More Nom Nom!

Hey guysss :D!

How's your weekend? I had a very tiring (i actually had to wake up earlier than my usual wake-up time on weekdays during the weekend -___-, how ironic is that?) but awesome weekend! I had a collaboration with my MUA friend (well... I modeled for her, that counts as a collab, right?) yesterday, then attended a super cute themed birthday party (i just LOVE themed parties and dress codes!!! LOL) continued with an unplanned double date with Sabsab and her boyfriend (who my hunny insisted on calling Roy despite the no Roy or anything close to it on his name) which including watching one of my Hollywood celebrity crushes, Ben Barnes (i know i have too many celebrity crushes to be legit, what can i do... I love handsome guys hahaha) and watching one of my imaginary boyfie on screen always brings a smile to my face!

Today i went to hang out with #Undecided and THEN hang out with the rest of the gank plus another very old friend who's visiting from Australia so it was more of a reunion! It's a super packed and super fun weekend! I am having a quiet night at home and rightfully so since i am completely spent now haha.

Well, anyway! That's the recap of my weekend (all the collab, the birthday party and the reunion will be blogged separately so please look forward to those!) and now i am continuing my Makassar Diary! Still onto Day 2 after visiting Fort Rotterdam, we felt like we still needed to do more touristy thingy and went to Trans Studio Makassar ^^.

The Trans Studio Makassar group, still consisting of KC, moi, hunny, CL, MD, RD, SL, CP, my Auntie S and KK.

Yeah well, i might make it sounds like imma blog super long about Trans Studio like i usually do whenever i'm visiting theme parks, but since Trans Studio Makassar is almost identical to the one in Bandung and i we didn't have real kids with us *LOL*, we didn't even stay there that long. The place's not enormous and we almost didn't queue for anything so we covered the whole place quite fast. But i still snapped enough pics to be sufficient for a blog post :p.

But of course, we couldn't go from one place to another without at least one culinary stop... Of course not.

We went to try out this thing called Pallu Basa

When i first heard about the name, i was like "WTH is a pallu basa???". Well, apparently it looks and tastes a lot like coto makassar but with thicker, richer soup and

You can opt to have a (raw?) egg added

And they use serundeng as topping to add even more flavor!

How did i like it? I already told you their original Coto Makassar's too rich for me (i prefer the toned down version we can find in Surabaya :p, i guess the taste's already altered to suit Javanese tounges better!) so Pallu Basa's even more so haha. I like the "add egg" version though because my love for eggs' true haha.

Anyway, it's called Pallu Basa Serigala (serigala means wolf in Indonesian) simply because the eatery's located in Serigala road. There are all kinds of animals being the name of the roads in Makassar-yet another fascinating thing for local tourists like us. Hilarious story about the animal named roads, our Makassar driver was talking about jalan Domba (Sheep Road) and since Makassar language's so different than Javanese (or Indonesian), my mum went and ask the driver what Domba is in their language, his answer "animal, ma'am". LOLOLOL, i cannot stop laughing whenever i remember this!

Anyway, let's go to Trans Studio Makassar now!

The entrance's located in the basement floor of the mall (yes, it's also inside a mall) and and less flashy as the Bandung counterpart. It was a weekday in the middle of the low season, so we scored extremely low priced entrance tickets that were about a quarter of what we paid for Bandung Trans Studio during peak season

Narcissistic bunch, eh?

To show you the street better #excuse

Asked KC to snap this pic... Need to be so close up meh???

This was the angle i was aiming for *LOL*

When we just entered, we were so confused because the place's almost deserted, turned out most of the visitors were watching a play inside the theatre. We went in and watch the last half of the play just to find out what it was about, it was okay i guess. Very cheesy and all, but still watchable. After the play ended, the place became a little bit more alive as all of the visitors went out and began roaming around haha.

Like i said earlier, we hardly had to queue for anything... The longest queue we had to do was probably the drop-splash ride, you know... Where they make you ride a little boat then drop you from height, splashing water all around.

Every boat loads two and while we were all screeching like little girls, this boat consisted of my cousin KK and my Aunt was... Completely silent. And their expressions didn't even change, Aunt S only started smiling when she saw the camera. What's wrong with them -___-

There were some rides that are exactly the same as the ones in Bandung so i didn't bother snapping pictures. Then most of us were big babies who refuse to play anything slightly thrilling *ahem KC* *ahem hunny* *ahem RD* zzz so... We mostly rode those baby-ish rides *LOL*.

Like this rocking boat ride

We looked like we're having more fun than we actually were *LOL*. Whenever we're riding something not even remotely thrilling, CL would start shouting in "joy" because she said "We should. That's half of the real fun". Haha

I love this pic! Good job, hunny! *patronizing b*tch* *LOL*

Love these types of flying chairs, where your feet are dangling in the air and you just feel so free and child-like. Hunny, however, hates these rides like hell because he has this over-active gagging reflex and these rides never fail to make him gag (he even puked once when we rode this Rajawali ride in Dufan HAHAHAHAHA. Amateur). For me they have just the right amount of thrill and fun that won't make my heart race *like when we're about to ride a roller coaster or a dropped rides* but still give me enough adrenaline rush.

Btw, i also discovered that one of my younger cousins, DD (who joined us later so there's no picture of him above, i remember we took plenty of wefie using a selfie stick but i couldn't find it in CL's timeline so couldn't ~~steal~~ borrow the pictures zzz)-who's a DOCTOR-is a actually a huge baby *LOLOLOL*. He got scared of even the mildest rides *deep sigh*, and for some reasons he kept on sitting behind me and i had to listen to him spewing all kinds of nonsense in his fear *LOLOLOL*. I totally thought he was just joking and messing around at first, but after a while i realized that he really was terrified -___-. It's embarrassing how the girls all very enthusiastically ride the more thrilling rides while most of the boys refused whole heartedly to even attempt them!

Anyway, the kiddie section got loads of kawaii backgrounds to camwhore with

That's DD in black top and wearing glasses sitting on the far right, front row

Can i bring one of these spoons home? LOL

Gigantic bread house, nom!

Like the Bandung counterpart, they have this darker, mysterious looking section where the Dunia Lain (literal translation : The Other World, it's the haunted house ride) and a few other rides are located.

It's very photogenic

But also the reason why Trans Studio's better suited for older kids, teenagers and adults. Not to mention how mostly staffs in scary costumes roam around, young kids would be scared sh*tless!

They also seem to be obsessed with Harry Potter and How to Train Your Dragon

I must mention this : the only exciting thing about this theme park for me must be that the Dunia Lain ride's a lot better (as in scarier) than the one in Bandung. I expected it to be exactly the same, but it's not. I hate the one in Bandung coz it's so serene (LOLOLOL, one does not go to a haunted house ride to experience serenity, okay!) and not scary whatsoever, the one one in Makassar's a total step up!

I also attempted to drag KC and CL (not to mention DD, MR and RR-who are siblings btw) into it-it was no use, of course. I do know that most people who are into extreme rides like CL (and cousin L) cannot stomach haunted houses and vice versa (i'd rather go into a haunted house 10x than ride a crazy roller coaster! I do not like the thought of being hang upside down), but KC and RR have no excuse. Being scared of both thrilling rides and haunted house is... well. Sad. LOL.

They have no problem with video games, of course

Or do silly poses

We also checked out their Science Center, also slightly different than the one in Bandung.

Square-tyre bicycle, but turned out adults are not allowed to ride this PFFFFTTTT

And there's also the bed of nails, and although hunny already laid on the one in Bandung, i just had to make him lay on this one too hehe!

Then KC also gave it a try, must lay like this because he was wearing a short

Hehehe. Don't worry, hunny's just fooling around!

The our Doctor DD also gave it a try, whining and screeching too hahaha

Then we also lift ourselves

KC making fun of CL because she found it very hard to do it, in her defense the pulley she was on was heavier than the rest for some reasons

We also tried on the earthquake simulator, i was being dramatic like usual

That was it *LOL*. We were on a snack mood so we went to Wendy's to nom on some fries and stuffs, little that we know that RD would demand us to go to Mama next. Yes, the Mama i already mentioned in Day 1, told ya we went there plenty!

Some traditional cakes

Aside from the fact that i LOVE kue ku (ang ku kueh), i also find this unusually shaped one to look sooo luscious!

Es pisang ijo (which is similar but different to Es Palu Butung)

Yes, we have es palu butung/pisang ijo sellers in Surabaya but i've never been even remotely interested in them. Despite the fact that i love bananas (for some weird reasons i always imagined the green thingy to be hard, chewy and weird tasting like green bananas, which i hate-but it's actually soft and rather sweet, almost like a pudding wrap), i just don't find the green wrap appealing at all. Then i gave it a try in Makassar *coz why not*, and turned out i like it a lot *LOL*. I would never say no to an es pisang ijo or palu butung from now on :D.

We also tried fried banana (which is a common snack all round Indonesia) with sambal (now, that's NOT common at all)

Turns out it didn't taste as weird as i thought it would be. The fried banana tasted more like fried cassava, more savoury than sweet like how we're used to, making it being paired with sambal not as weird as we initially thought it'd be. Quite nice, actually!

We were quite damn stuffed after all of those heavy snacking (although we split everything), and in no time it was time for dinner -___-. We mainly go rice-less though, if you're wondering how we managed not to burst hahaha.

Dinner was... Seafood again *LOL*. I think dinner was seafood almost every single night we were in Makassar... Well, except on the wedding itself. I didn't snap too many pictures on the second night's dinner (and i cannot even remember where we had dinner), but i seemed to find these... are those sea snails??? I don't even know what they are *LOL*... Well, i seemed to find them to be fascinating.

Because i kept on snapping pictures of them

Even showing you the meat hehe

Looks like i enjoyed it too *LOL*. I seriously cannot remember!!!

Also these chilli crabs

Then i got busy eating, or the rest of the stuffs we ate were too common, or my hands were dirty because i didn't take any more pictures!

That's the end of Day 2, Day 3's less touristy and more family oriented, imma blog about it soon!

Toodles for now!

#Pink

10:46:00 PM
3 Comments

Makassar Diary : Day 1 (Nom Nom Nom!)

culinary

Hellow ^^...

You probably can guess that i'm dying to write about our Korean winter trip, but as a highly OCD person, i cannot just skip earlier trip and go straight to the next one. Oh no, that's not even remotely possible! So before i can even begin to think about blogging about Korea, i should get this big extended family trip to Makassar out of the way!

So, last August (it's at the end of August so instead of 5 months ago, it's more like 4 *desperately trying to make it sound less backdated :p) one of my cousins from my dad's side of the family's getting married in Makassar. No, we're not from Makassar, we're actually from Banjarmasin, Kalimantan Selatan (South Borneo) but the girl he was marrying is from Makassar. Actually we've never even been to Makassar prior to this (i'm talking about myself, my 'rents and my siblings. The other relatives' been there because two of my cousins *who are doctors in training* are having their internships there) so we're pretty excited (coz new places always excites us haha).

It became like a huge extended family reunion ^^.

And it's not even all of us yet haha

Combination of my mum's fussiness (she's very picky with her airlines too haha) and my kiasuness made us ended up on super early flight with Garuda Indonesia to Makassar. We were already at the airport at the crack of dawn WTF.

Our sleepy faces after barely getting any sleep at all the night before. Me, especially

I washed my hair the night before so i wouldn't have to wash my hair before dawn, but for some reasons my fringe stubbornly parted in the middle GRRRR.

Trying desperately to "close the gap" with this magic hair pad (no, it didn't really work zzz)

The good thing about taking such an early flight is that we were in the same flight with our Mayor, Mrs. Risma. I care not about politics, but after seeing her upclose and personal, plus witnessing the way she interacts with her subordinates, her demeanor and humbleness (no entourage, and she's not even sitting in the business class but at the back with the rest of us. She didn't get any special treatments either, she lined up to get into the plane and got served her food last!)-it's safe to say i admire her now (even more so after i see how much she cares and personally handle/comfort AirAsia QZ8501 victims' relatives at the crisis center later on)!

During the flight, i took the cliche up-in-the-sky pic for my Instagram (LOL)

Approaching Makassar

CL already arranged a rental car (she and KC arrived later that evening) for us to use during our 5 days stay in Makassar, and since we couldn't check into the hotel yet (but we did stopped by to drop our luggage first)-we went to pick up to bride and groom to be (coz we needed a guide hahaha) and went for breakfast.

Breakfast was a very famous local food called Coto Makassar

Personally i liked some of Makassar traditional foods, while the others were a bit too rich for my liking. Not a huge fan of coto, the coconut milk and the oiliness... That's just a bit too much for me. The bowl's actually small, btw!

Still very early when we're done with nowhere to go, so my cousin Odang (that's his nickname from childhood so let's just call him that here as well haha) suggested us to check out this famous dessert place called Mama. Yes, we spent majority of our time in Makassar eating like pigs, that's why the title's like that lah! We did make a detour to this unique underground shopping centre at Lapangan Karebosi (yep, it's underneath the soccer field-and that's why i said it's unique, as the shopping centre itself... feels more like a pasar for me zzz) for some emergency mineral water/tissue shopping (#asian #dontask) while i realized that i forgot to bring my sunnies and bought a super cheap one just for this 5 days because Makassar's sun's super bright, but then i totally forgot about the sunnies until the last day FML.

Mama is a vintage, old school little cafe (i guess it's a cafe?) that still maintain older style's charms. You can't really find this kind of places anymore in Surabaya (Malang still has plenty, though) so i found it to be quite unique. At first anyway. I didn't expect to go there 3x within 5 days...

There's an outdoor table too, in case you're those rare Indonesian who love to sit outdoor in our kind of weather haha (trust me, Indonesian are very fond of their AC...)

Just be careful, you might fell in the pond if you're too rowdy!

There's a stair leading to... i dunno what. Later we went to inspect but i'm not the second floor is for public so we immediately back down hahaha

The interior, very vintage right! With the unique blend of Indonesian, Chinese and Dutch influences

This corner makes me feel like we're in some old relative's vintage house >.<

I love these details...

There's a narrow alley leading to a very spacious parking lot. When i peeked into the building opposite, it was actually the baker's kitchen! *too embarrassed to snap a pic of them*

Mama mostly serves traditional and vintage style desserts and cakes.

Old school ice cream

Various kinds of kuih

And even their version (or should i say, attempt) of modern cakes

They seemed all very unusual for us so we ordered quite a few. Not all of them suits our very specific taste buds, but we found a few that's very similar to our Banjarmasin style kuih too.

I don't remember the name but i find the shape to be pretty fascinating

Quite pretty, yeah? I didn't try it so i don't know how it tasted like, but honestly it didn't seem like something i'd enjoy anyway *sorry, i'm a fussy eater*

They surprised me by serving the kuih we selected earlier in a very vintage looking two tierred cake tray (i'm a sucker for pretty presentations, in case you can't tell yet -___-, i love tierred cake trays because they make me feel like Alice in Wonderland!)

Obviously i cannot remember what they all were, but it's easy to recognize onde-onde right hahaha. The yellow roll thingy was durian something2 that my family claims to be yummy *i am not the biggest fan of durian*, and there were a few made of palm sugar that i did enjoy coz i have an unhealthy love for palm sugar...

Mr. Hunny enjoying his durian something2

And was fascinated by the kois

They were big and very tame! As in you can actually touch and stroke them (not that i did... I don't find the idea of touching fishes appealing... Unless they are fried...)

Cam-whored with the photogenic stairs

One more. I do realize that my top dipped crazily low here, but you can't see anything right... Maybe because there's nothing to see zzzz WTF

Mama is a pretty nice and interesting cafe, i'd highly suggest you to visit it if you're ever in Makassar! Later on i learned that people actually go there for the famous local dessert, Es Palu Butung and they're really quite nice! It's a must try. I will show you pictures of the ice in next posts okay!

When we were in Mama, we received a phone call from our hotel (we stayed in Aston Makassar Hotel) that our rooms were ready so we immediately scuttled back coz we're very tired :p. It was very nice of them to contact us so early, a few hours ahead of the official check in time (i highly recommend Aston Makassar! Great service and cleanliness!). I snapped thorough pictures of the hotel room but i would write a review on them in a separate blog post. For now, how about a little OOTD shot at the hotel room? Teehee...


Thick knitted shrug : I cannot remember the brand but i bought it in Centro Department Store, pretty sure it was from Korz Loose Vest : Freebie from a magazine >.< Paul Frank Inspired Jegging : StvShop Surabaya Sneakers : New Look Bag : bought in Taiwan

OMG my fringe! Grrrr

Since we all hardly had any time to sleep the night before, it didn't take us long to fall asleep and get some needed shut eye!

A few hours later... My mum (who's actually quite skinny but eats a lot) already demanded for some food so we went to this famous depot called Aan Ping Lau. They have a branch in Surabaya but i didn't like their signature noodles in the Surabaya branch, we heard that the original noodles tastes super nice so we decided to check it out.

Very modest and yes, vintage looking depot *LOL*. I don't mean to sound snobbish, but coming from a big city, everything in Makassar makes me think about Surabaya twenty years ago-when i was juast a little girl.

This place's supposedly more famous for its porridge than the noodle so i tried it out

Look at the perfectly cooked half boiled egg oozing out! It's SUPER yum! Probably my fave food in Makassar and i'm drooling just looking at the pictures now zzzz

Hunny tried out their noodles and compared to the Surabaya branch i'd say it's 10x better, but i still prefer the porridge!

Just opposite Aan Ping Lau, we spotted Cahaya-a souvenir center Odang mentioned when my mum asked where to get souvenirs and traditional snacks to bring home. Nothing else to do so we went to check it out. It's a bit like those Balinese souvenir stores really.

Here you can practically get any souvenir you can possibly look for from Makassar in one place

Look at those dolls in traditional garbs. I was quite a doll collector (i have hundreds of Barbies and other dolls >.<, i guess i've always been a hoarder) when i was little (and am still very fond of them, i often stare longingly at them at toy stores, wishing i have a little girl as a reason to buy them hahaha) so i'm 100% sure i'd throw a tantrum so my 'rents would get them for me back then *LOL* (yes, i'm a spoiled brat)

The second floor's dedicated to clothing and materials

I was very interested in this unique shoe-shaped bag, but the price is quite insanely high (around IDR 450.000? I can't remember, but it was more than IDR 300.000 for sure) and i don't even know if i'd really wear it so i decided not to get it even though i really wanted to :p

Then i spotted some real butterflies encased in resin and made into accessories -____-. I'm against animal cruelty (but i'm not vegetarian okay, i love my meat! I mean, just eat them not torture them. Killing animals to be turned into an accessory is a total animal cruelty in my eyes!) so i would never get this!

One more because i'm so gobsmacked, i mean... Who would want to wear a dead animal (bug!!! Ew..) on their phones? There were necklaces too and that's even creepier!!!

But i could be biased because i didn't feel so offended when i saw other bugs (ugly ones) turned into a decorative piece zzz. I still wouldn't want to own them though.

Anyway, you can get a free passion fruit (again, another Makassar specialty) juice when you spend a certain amount in Cahaya (or you can just buy it la, it's not expensive).

Love it, sweet and sour with the crunchy edible seeds!

The view outside Cahaya store, i think it was the Chinatown area and you can see a lot of temples there (btw, Makassar's so strange, they actually display coffins in front of the store-which is located in one of these packed type of townhouses! Side by side with eateries and other type of everyday businesses... Very perplexing for us!)

Like this one (i'm obviously talking about temples, not coffin stores)

Or that one

Our next destination was back to the airport to pick up KC and CL, on the way there we passed by the famous Losari beach and saw a spectacular sunset.

Hunny snapped this from our car, pretty impressive, eh?

Very artsy fartsy, yes? Haha

After picking up KC and CL we... Went for dinner! LOL. Really, spent the entire day just chowing down food, it was a miracle that i didn't gain any weight afterwards! Thankfully so, i totally cannot afford that WTF zzz.

Makassar's very famous with their seafood and the first meal with the extended family was at New Dinar (we ate there one more time at the last night in Makassar *___*).

That's my extended family-from my father side. Everybody's busy mingling while i... spaced out

Like i mentioned many times, i'm essentially a very shy person at heart. I was painfully shy and scaredy as a child and i never fully lose that side of me. My extended family only know me as this super quiet, shy girl and i revert back into that persona whenever i saw them, including this first night. Later on this trip, i... pretty much showed them my true color, thanks to my sis in law who's super loud and funny, i cannot control myself when she's around *LOL*. I don't know how surprised my aunts were when they realized that i have this loud, crazy side they've never seen before...

Busy nom-nomming

I didn't snap all of the food's pic (coz i was too shy as well la) but i did snap some of the strange looking one. Like this weird looking fish with rock hard outer "shell", the shell's not edible yah, don't break your tooth trying to bite into it!

It's for decorative purposes only haha

The black thingy in the middle is a special Makassar style cooking (sigh, i dunno the names) and my mum loved it. It's sweet but with bitter charred taste, not for me!

While i was busy snapping pics of the fried fishes, hunny was more interested in their original forms.

Ugh, ugly fishes

The weird square fish that the attentive staff immediately posed when he saw hunny snapping pictures hahaha. Look at his accusing eyes "You ate my siblings!!!!". Well, you're next, fishie!!!

One more

This one not a fish but CL acting cute hahahaha

We weren't ready to call it a night yet and decided to try out another of Makassar specialty (as if there's no tomorrow zzz), pisang epe, and we went to Losari Beach (where the pisang epe seller lined the street) for them.

Touristy pic with hunny

And CL

Candid pic that shows that i am way too attached to my phone...

My mum, aunt and uncles

Trying out the pisang epe (which is essentially a grilled banana with palm sugar sauce)

We posed so happily with the pisang epe, but our real reaction was reflected by KC below :

LOL

Yep, we DID NOT enjoy it! The banana tasted raw, and not nice at all *LOLOLOL*. It's a matter of taste, of course, i know a lot of people likes pisang epe, we're just not one of them! None of us seemed to be able to finish a single portion, and each portion's already split among multiple persons *LOL*.

My bro with my cousins (i have a lot more cousins than these haha, more boys than girls in this family though), he seems to blend in with them (three of them are my peers while the two in the far right and left are the two doctors who are younger than me) although he's much older than them :p. Odang looks suspiciously so much like my nephew D that i want to pull his hair out *LOLOLOL*

Since we have so much plan in the next day (the elders' plans including Odang's wedding preparation, which we all intended to help out hence the early arrival in Makassar, but never quite realized because we *the younger generation :p* ended up doing more touristy things than helping out... LOLOLOL, basically we did nothing to help out with the preparations!!!), which mainly revolved around trying as much local food as possible, we decided to retire to our hotel rooms afterwards.

So that's it for my day one, i will review the hotel next and please look forward for the second day-it's a lot more interesting!

#Pink