Culinary Taste in Balikpapan

During my stay in Balikpapan, I tried some yummy snacks there. The first one was "mantau" @Depot Simpang Empat, Jl. Letjen Suprapto No. 06, Phone 62-542-743049, Balikpapan, near the popular traditional market "Kebun Sayur". I really love the crispy mantau, inside is very soft while the skin is crispy, it's rather sweet. It could be eaten with beef black pepper, as I don't like spicy food, we ordered butter fried chicken. There were 2 types of mantau, steam and fried, we preferred the fried one as we tried the steam one was not warmed first by them, so it's not nice. They cut the mantau into 4 pieces, so you don't need to worry it's too big for you. It cost IDR 4.000,-/piece, it would be better to eat while it's hot, I could finish the whole 2 fried mantau by myself :-). Beside Mantau we also ordered "Mie siram" (noodle doused with thick vegetable soup). The Chinese food restaurant was not too big and it's very simple with some table and wood benches. The chef cooked at the front near the entrance, no air conditioning, just fan, but the food was delicious, and so many guests visited the restaurant. If you would like to take away mantau for your family at home, you could order the steam one, they have a box to keep it, you could put in the fridge in 2 weeks then frying it when you would like to eat.

In the morning near our hotel there was a row of small shop, people called it "ruko-rumah toko" (usually for home on the 2nd and 3rd floor while the store on the 1st floor) which sold many kind of food. We stopped by to buy the famous yellow rice, you could select the side dish whether chicken, beef or fish. When going to the cashier, I saw some fried snacks, I selected the fried banana and megali?. I don't know the name, it's made from green bean. I never ate it before, but I like the taste, it's nicer to eat while it's still warm. My friend bought many kinds of bakpau, similar to mantau filling with chicken, pork, green bean or others.

Seafood, especially crab is one of the most popular menu in Balikpapan, you could not miss it. We had lunch at Dandito Restaurant, Jl. Iswahyudi 72, phone 62-542-764367 ordering their soft shell crab as we didn't like to have difficulty peeling the crab's skin while ordering the popular crab with sweet and sour sauce. We also ordered sauted kale, anchovy bean sprout and fuyunghai (vegie mixed with egg smothered in sweet sauce). You also could take away the sauce crab, they have prepared the special box which is safe to bring to other city by flight. Actually there are another popular restaurant for crab, called "Kepiting Kenari" restaurant, Jl. Iswahyudi 4, phone 62-542-764018 just across Dandito, unfortunately there is no soft shell crab, so we didn't go there.

After shopping some traditional accessories made of beautiful stone in Kebun Sayur, we went to small restaurants provided seafood inside the market area. We stopped by at one of them, ordered the grilled fish, unfortunately it's finished, so we had to move to the other one beside it. We could select directly for the raw fish, then they grilled for us. While waiting for the fish, the waitress automatically provided the vegetable soup and a plate of white rice. The fish was very fresh, provided with the chili if you like spicy food.

Just a few metres from Kebun Sayur, there was a stall which sold the traditional snack from East Kalimantan, called "Pisang Gapit". They grilled the bananas, pressed it within a pair of wooden bar, slice it, then giving palm sugar mixed with coconut milk including slices of fresh jack fruit. It's very yummy, but it's also made my stomach full as the portion was quite big. That's the original taste of Pisang Gapit, some seller would provide more combination for topping, such as chocolate, cheese and peanut. I still prefer the original one with many jack fruit pieces for topping.

Anyway if you like to eat in the fancy restaurant, you could go to Open House café and restaurant, at Jl. Markoni Atas 88 located at hilly, higher than Balikpapan city, so you could enjoy the sunset. It's very huge complex surrounded by tropical greenery gardening different decoration style for each building, full of antique collection items. I really like the decoration, it had multiple levels of the rooms that's connected with beautiful stairs made of mozaic ceramic. It is absolutely stunning - beautifully furnished, lots of pools for fish and swimming, also great views to the city and sea.

The higher level and different seat location had a minimum amount to be spent for food & beverage. Anyway they didn't prohibit us to take pictures from the place. Even the owner put a bathtub next to the bar table, while at the other side you could see a piano as the center of point interest. After taking some pictures, we started to select table to seat, we preferred to seat without any precondition terms. It still looked nice anyway, the table made of the cutting wood with its cambium exposed. The food presentation was very nice, the taste was also delicious. I love the yummy apple pie with ice cream as the dessert. It's worthy to visit, the ambience was so nice especially if you like photography, anyway the food price was a little bit higher than common restaurant.

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Wonderful Scenic "Subak" Rice Terraces

During our Bali visit in Jan 2014, we rented a car from Pak Iwan, 62 812 399 56562 including the driver to avoid wasting time of wrong direction. Most of the rented car in Bali has a manual gear, as the street condition is hilly. We arranged the itinerary by ourselves, this trip was to show our mom about Bali as she hadn't visited Bali at all. One of the beautiful place recommended by my elementary school's classmate was Jatiluwih.

After consultation with our driver, we agreed to go to Jatiluwih after visiting Bedugul (2 hours from Kuta), which took around another 45 minutes. Lucky that our driver knew the area, and he didn't reject us to go to this destination. The road was quite bad, it's narrow and some big holes at some places, so we could not drive fast. We felt the journey took a long time as we were starving after exploring Bedugul with its cool mountain fresh air. Anyway reaching the place, the very amazing scenic scenery of "Jatiluwih" located at Tabanan, Bali was so breathtaking. We asked the driver to stop at the edge of the street where there was a space to enjoy the scenery.

No wonder it's nominated for designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the terrace looked green and provided a very neat and beautiful contoured of rice terraces. We seldom saw the farmer and the cows, I heard the farmers already used machine instead of cows to plow the fields. The water system for irrigation developed impressively by Balinese farmers. The weather was quite mild, unfortunately it's cloudy, so we could not get a bright blue sky. Expatriates preferred to go with an open air car, while domestic people prefer a car with air conditioning :-)

As we're starving, and it's over lunch time already, we rushed to return to the car, ask the driver to go directly to the restaurant. My friend said there was a restaurant in the middle of the rice terraces that only could be reached by bike, unfortunately he forgot the restaurant name. When I searched in the internet, comparing all of the restaurants, I saw a good picture of J-Terrace restaurant, so we decided to select it.

Entering the area, we had to pay IDR 15.000/car, anyway there was no more fee for parking anywhere. Many restaurants next to each other on the side of the road where we could see the terrace view during lunch. It's very quiet, maybe the place was not as popular as other tourism places in Bali and it took a long journey to reach it. The waitress was quiet friendly, we ordered the recommended menu Balinese crispy duck served with organic red rice, we also ordered special fried rice and chicken marmite (boneless fried chicken in sweet sour sauce sprinkled with sesame). The foods were delicious, savory and tasty, the presentation was attractive too.

While waiting for the foods, we were taking some pictures from the restaurant, which was higher than the parking area and the road. The left back side of the restaurant was very beautiful, its small pond with rice terrace and mountain as the background. A small statue for Balinese praying also available at this side, the entrance of the restaurant at the end of the stairs.

After lunch, we went across the road to take more green velvet pictures with the astounding terrace, avoiding the promotion billboard and electricity cables. The largest rice terraces in Indonesia spanned in a huge area located in the middle of Bali in the plateau of Watukaru Mount which is suitable for the agriculture development. There were a young couple, not Indonesian people, took pictures for their pre-wedding photos. I tried to go down to the fields, but its embankment was muddy and slippery because of the rain, so I didn't dare to go to the middle as the slope was quite steep and nobody would be able to help me.

We love with this place, as we could relieve our fatigues from daily work with the finest imaginable view which really refreshed our mind, body and soul. The scenic drive through the quaint villages and verdant slopes of the central coastal regency of Tabanan was the unforgettable experience. Tabanan government must pay attention to repair and maintain the infrastructure to get more income from tourists, as we also saw a car was broken down in the middle of the road on the way home.

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Hemisphere Limestone Hill towards Pandawa Beach

During our trip in Bali, of course we had planned to visit their beautiful beaches. One of them was Pandawa beach near Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK), it's also called "Secret Beach". Formerly there was no good infrastructure as current, people had to walk up to the hill then going down at another side to reach the beach. Now a new road has been built through the hill, water sports especially canoeing was available, it's easier to reach.

There was Daihatsu event when we would turned to the right on the last crossroad junction to the beach. So many cars participated to the event, it's impacted to the very long convoy and we're not allowed to go through it. After waiting for around 15 minutes for the uninterrupted convoy, a policeman was kind enough to let us go through among them. Thank you for giving us the way Mr. nice policeman :-)

The cloud was so dark, it's almost raining. You would go through a beautiful hemisphere limestone hill on the way to the beach. It's very amazing with its gradation color of the stone. We had to pay IDR 15.000,- for entrance fee. Suddenly we could see the beach beneath the limestone wall. I asked our driver for stopping on the top of the beach at the end of the hemisphere. We took some beautiful pictures with camera and also smartphone for instant upload. Lucky that we had a chance to take good pictures, just right before a very heavy raining that made us running fast to the car.

We continued the journey by car going down to the beach passing the statues of a mouse and 5 Pandawa figures which were placed in the holes on the slope. The rain got harder, as we didn't want to get wet to go to the beach with umbrella, so we stayed in the car at the parking lot checking our photos and upload some pictures in our smartphone to be shared with others. The heavy rain made the parking lot flooding and some impromptu waterfalls appeared on the cliff. I took picture of the waterfall that we could not find if it's not raining.

After half an hour waiting in the car, we decided to go to the other end of the beach where there was a simple food-court selling meal and beverage. Waiting for the rain to stop, we bought tea and snacks, I kept taking picture of the beach under my umbrella. After another 30 minutes, the rain stopped, suddenly it's replaced with a very bright sun. My mom and sisters joined me to walk on the beach. It's white sandy beach located in Kutuh village where local residents make the beach as place to farm seaweed.

We took some beautiful pictures on the beach, with its unique cliff and bright clean water. When my sister posed on the beach, suddenly a big wave coming made her shorts wet. Actually she was luckier than me, as half of my body was getting wet up to the waist. We played with the soft sand, wrote our name on the sand, then taking pictures. After tired playing with the waves and sand, we decided to go back to the parking lot that was flooded during the rain.

This side was more crowded with tourist as it's the center of entertainment place for water sport. We walked to the beach through a small bridge, both domestic and overseas tourist were visiting the beach. Many busses brought many visitors, also the Daihatsu members were still enjoying the beach. So many canoes available there, also rented sunbathing chairs with big umbrella. You could play water sport there including surfing. After the rain, the sun was shining so strong, I didn't bring my sunglasses, so I almost could not see it's very dazzled. We didn't plan to play water sport as we still had many places to visit and we were hungry. We returned to our car to go to the next destination for lunch now. Although our clothes were getting wet, we didn't change, as we would still play at another beach after that.

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Natural Beauty at Oyo River & Pindul Cave, Yogyakarta

Last Sunday, early Oct 2013, when I was in Yogyakarta, my cousin offered to visit Pindul Cave, at Bejiharjo Village in Karangmojo, Gunung Kidul. It's around 1,5-2 hours driving (50 km) from Yogyakarta. My cousin's husband hadn't been there, avoid getting lost, my cousin called the provider. They sent a person to meet us at the Wonosari gate by motorcycle, it's easy for us then, just following the motor cycle to the post. We arrived around 10:30, some options were offered for the tours, 2 of the options attracted us, e.g. exploring Pindul Cave (IDR 35.000,-) and rafting at Oyo river (IDR 40.000,-) which would take 45 minutes for each of the tour. It's included the equipment such as safety jacket, a set of tube also the guide and transportation to the place. As we didn't dare to bring camera as it'll be wet, we rented a photographer. It cost IDR 75.000,-/tour, you would get the photo recorded in the CD after the trip. The photographer said that he could take as many photo shoots as we wanted as long as the memory card had enough available space :-)

As I had to catch my flight back to my hometown at 16:00, we had to rush. The provider was dare to guarantee that we could arrive to the post by 13:00 following the 2 tours. They started loading the tubes to a pick-up car, after that all of us must went up to the car, standing beside the tubes holding the iron fence around the car. We passed white oil tree plantations, and rice fields. The road was very bumpy, we had to hold tight to the iron unless we be bounced from the car. We passed by beautiful green rice fields and white oil plantation.

Oyo river rafting was the first destination, five of us walking on the footpath carrying the big tubes, while the guide could bring the 3 big tubes together at once as one of our member was a 9 years old girl. The footpath sometimes was slippery so we had to be careful, near to the river, the footpath was steeper and rocky, until the kid fell down. We walked slowly and carefully hand in hand to help each other, we also had to pass a small river around 50 cm depth, the rocks were slippery.

Reaching Oyo river, we started sitting on the tube. The water was quite cold, it's refresh after quite a difficult walking journey. The photographer took our picture, he also sit on the tube, if he sat higher, he could take better picture for us. Starting going down the beautiful Oyo river, we really enjoyed its beautiful natural cliffs and karst rock. Drifting along the river, we could hold our friend's tube, there's a red band on the tube which enabled us to go together, the guide would swim to pull us. The kid would like to swim instead of sitting on the tube, but her parents were not allowed her.

A small waterfall was beautifully running down from the rice fields above the river. If we had enough time, we could stay longer here, some people jumped from the cliff to the river. It's quite safe as the river was quite deep. Some of them were swimming or just standing or sitting under the waterfall, feeling the sensation of the massage water :-)

Before end of the journey, we passed by a bridge, the guide was creative enough to take a beautiful picture of 5 of us from the bridge. He was very fast to go up and down of the beach although the cliff was quite steep. 5 of us looked like flower, lying on the tube with our feet connected to each other. Before end of the journey, the kid was allowed to swim, she was very happy.

Continuing walking to the second tour, the car was ready to take us. A small hut was available by the river, we could buy snack or drink. They know that people would be wet and no wallet or money available, the hut's owner already provided a small invoice to give to the guide to avoid from getting wet then submitted to the post later for us to pay. It's quite helpful. To safe time, the car has a privilege to bring us right in front of the cave's entrance while others had to walk on foot from the post.

When we had to go inside the cave, again we were floating on the tube. Enjoy many chambers that had many stalactite or stalagmite, the cave had 3 different areas. The entrance, the dark zone, and the light zone. There were some cluster of bats living in the cave, that's why they could not set up lights to show the natural beauty of the cave. The guide and photographer were only bringing flash to show the stalactite's shape or the bat. The bats could dig the cave creating some holes for their nest. Although there were some brown spot/dirt caused by the bat's pee on the cave's ceiling, it's not smelly at all.

In the dark zone, no sun light could go through, it's very scary if you had to go alone. In the middle of the cave, the guide hit the rock once, it produced voice similar to the "gong" sound. A magnificent white crystal stalactite was also available there, with the flash you could see clearly. Near the crystal, beautiful rocks to be enjoyed such as hanging curtain when you see it from your position lying on the tube.

Reaching the light zone, I started to swim. There is a hole on the roof of the cave, that's enable the sunlight went through. Unfortunately it's cloudy when I was there, unless you could see the sun beamed beautifully through the hole into the cave. The kid and me were swimming, we really enjoyed it, actually we would like to stay longer to enjoy the fresh water and interesting natural scenery, unfortunately we didn't have enough time.

This trip provided a different style of enjoying activity, lying on a set of tubes, drifting along the Oyo River and Pindul underground unique cave. It is perfect for those who love adventure traveling, be ready getting wet. The activity itself is relatively safe and can be enjoyed by anyone from any different age groups. Expert and experienced instructors are ready anytime to guide the participants through the journey. It was unusual interesting trip, we got a fresh sensation.

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Nature Splendour Quebec City

On the way from Montreal to Boston, we stopped by at the Gorgeous Quebec City, Canadian where has French as its sole provincial official language. Some of our tour friends went to Citadel, while the bus dropped us in the historic core of the city to walk around by ourselves before lunch time. The city was very beautiful during fall, the trees' leaves were colorful from green, yellow, orange and red. Unfortunately it's raining, so we had to wear a hat or an umbrella.

We didn't know the city map, so we've just walked around following our heart. Tourism is the 5th largest industry in Quebec, its European feel and its history, culture and warmth have made Quebec a favourite tourist destination. The beautiful Montmorency Park National Historic Site was our first destination. The public park which opened in 1898, changed name to Montmorency in memory of the viceroy of New France, Henri II, Duke of Montmorency, and the first bishop of Québec, Monseigneur François de Montmorency-Laval. The park at Port-Dauphin and Côte de la Montagne Streets was rather tarnish because of the rain, anyway we still could enjoy the beauty of the park. Located at the top of Côte de la Montagne, it is an urban park that forms part of the Fortifications of Québec National Historic Site of Canada. Some canons facing to the river and the defensive wall was the only remaining military infrastructure could illustrate its associations with military history.

From the wall we could view downhill towards the St. Lawrence river while at the opposite was the view towards the urban center. Montmorency Park also had several commemorative monuments, and several mature trees. One of the monument was the Cartier Monument, in memory of the politician George-Étienne Cartier, in Montmorency Park, 1984.

The Château Frontenac, a national historic site, was prominently located on a cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence River, within the Québec historic district, could be seen from the park. It's an imposing hotel with five brick and stone wings and a central tower erected in seven stages between 1892 and 1993 with its massive scale and fortress-like appearance. The hotel's picturesque eclecticism and rich polychromatic surfaces reflected popular taste in Victorian architecture.

As we didn't know the way, we followed the crowd to leave the park, went down to the corner of rue Notre-Dame, we saw beautiful mural painted (around 100 meters square)on the whole side wall of house located at 102 rue du Petit-Champlain using an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that depicted objects exist in three dimensions. It showed the history of the district during 16th-18th century.

Following the street down to ancient Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, a small Roman Catholic stone church at the Lower Town of Quebec City. Construction was started in 1687 on site of Champlain's habitation and was completed in 1723. The church is a popular tourist attraction within the city, as well as a place of worship. In front of the church was quite large square with a small garden & statue in the middle including benches to rest, surrounding by beautiful houses/shops.

Reaching the historic Petit Champlain district, we saw the Old Quebec Funicular which links the Haute-Ville (Upper Town) to the Basse-Ville (Lower Town). It is located in the district of Vieux-Québec–Cap-Blanc–colline Parlementaire in the borough of La Cité-Limoilou, near Place Royale. It is the oldest commercial district in North America. The streets was narrow, with beautiful neat shops at each side, it's very clean and nice. As the time was ticking we decided to go up through the steep Breakneck Stairs or Breakneck Steps, Quebec City's oldest stairway, were built in 1635. Because of wind and rain, my recurrent knee pain occurred, I had difficulty to climb the steps, so I had to hold the wet railing steps strongly to lift my body. It made my long sleeve shirt getting wet.

As we had a few minutes before lunch, we ran to the cathedral and city hall. The weather was not good, it's still raining and cloudy. We could manage to take the picture in front of the cathedral. Unfortunately the city hall was under renovation, we took some pictures on the yard which was decorated for Halloween.

Then we rushed to the 1640 restaurants, the oldest restaurant in the city. The environment and decoration were nice, also the foods were delicious. We had a complete set, my mom and I selected pork for our main course while my younger sister selected salmon, and my other sister preferred beef. The yummy strawberry mouse was closing our lunch also ended our visit to Quebec. Someday I would like to return to Quebec as we hadn't got any chance to explore other part of the city.

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Magnificent Dramatic Cascade Niagara Falls

Four of us (my mom, my two sisters and myself) joined US East and Canada tour on 11-19 Oct 2013. Our main destination was Niagara falls that could be enjoyed from US side and Canada side. On the 5th day we arrived at Niagara Falls State Park, as the oldest state park in the US, established in 1885 as the Niagara Reservation. Unfortunately we had taken the optional tour to see the Old Fort Niagara, so we had to go further than the falls across the recreational park. Starting with a small museum to show some pictures, weapon and soldier uniform, we continued walking around 10 minutes to inside of the fort.

The green yard was beautiful surrounding with the walls right next to the sea. Shooting attraction by a funny young man was one of the entertainment before we explored the building where the soldiers had activities. The building had two level divided by some functional rooms such as for saving foods or meeting, and a dwell available in the middle of the building. We finished the visit while the sun still shone.

Back to the Niagara falls around 15 minutes later by bus, we were dropped in front of the mall across the falls. We were hurry went down to the falls through stairs. One of our friend informed that it would be better to go directly to the bridge under the observation tower to enjoy the panoramic view of the falls. Passed through an empty locket next to visitor center, we went directly to the bridge. It's awesome to see the raging white water of the wild cascades Niagara falls with its sound. After taking some pictures, we asked helped from other visitor to take our picture together.

The Niagara Falls are renowned both for their beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power, generating 2.4 million kilowatts—enough power to light 24 million 100-watt bulbs at once! This low-cost electricity saves the state's residents and businesses hundreds of millions of dollars a year. We stayed for a while on the bridge, taking some picture of the Skylon tower and the rainbow bridge. As informed the light at Niagara would be turned on at 20:00, so we hurried to go back to the mall to have dinner. Two level building contained of a foodcourt and shops selling US product for souvenirs, the price was quite expensive both for food and souvenirs.

At 19:45 we went back to the falls, unfortunately the fence to the gate was closed, so we had to go down to enjoy the falls. It's beautiful with colorful lighting. It's difficult to take picture with the crowd there. Anyway we were able to take some photos, lucky that we could watch it while there's still sunshine.

On the next day was more attractive, starting with watching movies at the giant screen Imax theater where they showed the Miracles, Myths & Magic produced by filmmaker Kieth Merrill. The myths was about a very beautiful native girl named Lelawala who refused marrying an appointed man as her husband, so that she had to leave her village. She rowed a boat to the Niagara falls and never found after that, but people said that she became the savior for people in that area. Another event about a captain who dared to bring his boat, named "Lelawala", on the Niagara falls and he could survive landing on the river at the bottom of the falls. Jean Francois Gravelet who performed the first tightrope walked over the falls between the Canadian and American side. A talkative granny, Annie Edson Taylor, with her cat also survived to flow through Niagara in a big wooden tub. Lastly a girl and a boy who could survive after accidentally their boat plunged over the fall. The amazing Niagara Falls Daredevil Exhibit was available next to the theater.

The next destination was the most interesting one, joining "Maid of The Mist" boat ride adventure. It's a very long queue, they replaced our entrance ticket with blue raincoat. The boat had 2 storeys, we went to the upper deck to enjoy the falls. My mother and youngest sister stood in the middle of the boat while myself and my sister were on the fence of the boat. It's very windy so we had difficulty to maintain our raincoat on the proper place. The boat sailed near to the falls, the first one was a calm part, the American and Bridal Veil Falls. It's amazing to feel the splash of the water and see the big falls closer. Then the boat took us into the dense mist of spray inside the curve of the Horseshoe Falls, also known as the Canadian Falls, we got really wet here till I had to hide my camera under the raincoat, but all of us really enjoyed it. It's so fresh air and water, made us feeling relax. The price US$34.5 was worthy.

Finally we had lunch at the revolving restaurant in Skylon tower cost CAD$42,75. The lift glide smoothly brought us to the 775 feet above the falls, that faced right to the falls just in 52 seconds. I selected salmon which was much better than my mom's selection, well done beef. It's really overcooked, it's not nice at all. Lucky that the salad as appetizer and ice cream as dessert were yummy. Contrary to the food quality, the scenery was very beautiful, we could see from the bird view of spectacular Niagara falls, also the landscape of Toronto city and Buffalo, New York.

We could go to Indoor/Outdoor Observation Deck as a favourite Niagara Falls attraction, just two levels above the restaurant. The outdoor floor was wet, it's only opened for the Niagara side, not for the city view. We could get better picture here as there was no glass covering the view as in the restaurant, anyway it's very windy so it's difficult to get a good picture of you with good hair style :-)

From indoor observation deck you could see the falls complete with the info about it on the bottom of the window. A souvenir shop was also available there. As we missed our mother and our youngest sister, we hurried to go down to from the tower. Lucky that they were already downstairs, so we didn't miss the bus.

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