Essen trip (30th-31th April)

  Its the beginning of the spring holidays. But the weather are changing to winter again. So its extremely cold. But this is Germany, and the weather are always changing. I am quite sad actually, because i am so looking forward to Spring , take off all the heavy coats and jackets and welcoming the sun. Gosh, I suddenly miss the SUN so much !!
   
 But anyway, last friday, my schwester and I kicked out the start of our holidays by going to Essen. Its a two hour train ride to there from Nordkirchen. Actually ,  the word `Essen´ means`eat´ in German, so the city is like the city of eating or city of food. We go there to meet one of our AFS friend , Viktor . Viktor organised a `party´ called Far East Asian Night. Viktor is actually been exchanged to Malaysia before so he organised this event by serving Malaysians food !
 
  I am quite excited by the way. So my schwester and I starts our journey to Essen at 5pm. The train station were quite crowded because all of the people rush back to their homewtown to spent their holiday.

  So when we arrived at Viktor´s house, he already started preparing the Malaysian´s dishes. And by then, two other AFS friends , Jenny and Marvin arrived. Both of them were exchanged to Malaysia too before. So , the list was complete and 4 of us started to help Viktor with the dishes. We are making Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai with daahl and Teh Tarik.

   I have so much fun with them while preparing the dishes. We are talking about Malaysia and the experiences they have while they are in Malaysia. I even talk Malay with Viktor, Jessy and Marvin with those typical Malaysian accent. So the house was full of the word `lah´ throughout the night ! I am exhilarated because this is the first time I am able to talk Malay with someone and preparing Malaysian´s dishes since I come here.

 

Viktor make his move preparing the teh tarik :{D

Haaa, finally a teh tarik. You don´t know how grateful I am to be able  to drink this. I feel like I am in heaven the moment  I drink this.

 So, after quite some time preparing the dishes, we finally had our dinner at 10 pm. But it was worth the wait. The meal was delicious , and I feel so much  like home. I am so grateful and very touched to be able to eat this. I never knew that I missed this food so much. What my mom told me before was true : YOU NEVER KNEW HOW MUCH YOU MISS YOUR OWN COUNTRY UNLESS YOU ARE AT DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. True story. I miss my home and my country . I feel so much like in Malaysia when I ate them. But what was more special during the dinner is, we ate our meal using our hands without forks and spoons!

The only lacking in this Nasi lemak was the Ikan Bilis. The ikan bilis  was not really cooked and we have some trouble frying the ikan bilis. But , its delicious anyway.

From left : Viktor , Marvin , Jojo (my schwester), Jessy and me .

  It was a wholesome meal. Everybody enjoyed it. Although the kuah daahl was toooo spicy for me. So after our meal, we went to watch a movie at the living room until 3 am.

I love this ink tree behind Viktor´s house backyard. Its like a  Sakura  tree. LOVELY.

  So the next day , we woke up at noon, and had our breakfast at noon ;). Then Viktor take us to stroll around the town of Essen by first bringing us to see the Lake Dam and the scenery. The place was not really far from his house. The scenery was breathtaking and picturesque. It was very windy and I am exteremely cold. But we enjoy the view so much.

The lake was popular for sailing and yatching activities. 

  We spent around one hour enjoying the view and then we went to the main area of Essen  for some window shopping. They have many shops and clothing departments available everywhere. The are many people around everywhere . So we bought some things and I ended up buying a novel. In English.

 So around 7:30 pm, its time for Jojo and me to catch the train and go back to Nordkirchen. And so we part our own ways. I love to come back to Essen again somedays and meet Viktor, Jessy and Marvin. They are amazing and I like meeting three of them again someday!
  Hope you enjoy my post . There´s more to come !