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One menu I never get tired of: noodles! Especially this one here, Bakmi GM, it’s the best restaurant noodles that I have had. When I was way younger, my parents, sister and I would often come here on family special occasions, or just because we were in the area of Pasaraya in Blok M. Whenever my mom dragged us to go shopping, having lunch at Bakmi GM would have been worth being dragged around.
Nearing the end of my tenure at my previous job, I received lunch offers left and right from co-workers who wish to spend some more time with me just before I get out of their hair and leave them in peace. 
One time the lunch offer came from a colleague of mine who was also previously my ex-boss from my job before my last. Yeah it’s a small world, we keep bumping into each other that way. 
We decided to go somewhere close, as both of us had some work to do which we needed to get back to quickly.
For a belated birthday dinner, I took out three friends of mine to Din Tai Fung, a Chinese restaurant famous for its dim sum variety and other dishes as well. We ordered chicken xiao long bao (dim sum filled with chicken – yummy and juicy), fried rice with salty fish (yummy and salty but goooood), mie angsio sapi (noodles with beef – best with additional soy sauce and chilli), kepiting soka abon (crab with floss – no idea how it tasted, I don’t eat crabs), steamed vegetables dumplings (not so impressive but good anyway), and buncis cah sapi (stir-fried haricot beans with minced meat – deliciously crispy).
It has been a long time since I last dined here so I really dug in. We all did. With all the food on the table, at first we thought there was no way we could finish them all, but we were wrong. We even ordered a second double portion of the chicken dumplings because they were so delicious. Of course it goes without saying, that I would definitely come back to this place again soon.
Today, my friend and I took leave day to accompany our visiting friend from out of town
to go to Safari Park. The park is located in Bogor, which is a city just outside Jakarta. It took us about two hours to get there. Since we had our own transport, we could go straight into the zoo in our cars. The animals were just living ‘normally’ in their artificial habitat – or as normal as it gets. They walked around freely, able to approach our car as close as they can. Some animals (luckily, the tame ones) seem to be used to being fed through a small opening of the window. Whenever they approached our car, they went straight to the top of the window as shown in this picture on the right.
All kinds of animals where there. Zebras, rhinosaurus, bears, tigers, elephants, even 
giraffes. What is more exciting about this zoo – even when this is my third time here – is the fact that they have a petting zoo at which you can have a wild animal of your choice (well actually among a very selective choice) sitting on your lap and have your picture taken with it. That’s exactly what my friends and I did.
I had my picture taken with a white lion and a tiger. Here I am pictured with the little tiger, named Tamil. I don’t know whether the pun was intended or not. But anyway, Tamil had really fluffy fur, and although it is only a little cub less than six months old (or so I assume), its paws are so huge that it covers my whole knee cap.
Of course while we were there we could not starve to death so we also stopped somewhere for some food. They had this small canteen near the elephant’s riding station (yeah you can imagine how it smells like), so that is where we went. One of my friends brought her own lunch with her, but the rest of us ordered chicken noodles or mie ayam. Of course since that is one of my favourite dish, my expectation was high. Although it was not as good as the mie ayam in Aldiron, it was still acceptable. But as you may remember, I only have two main categories for food: ‘delicious’ and ‘very delicious’. We ordered three different juices with our food, so we had a nice colourful table.
Tonight I went out with two of my friends to the mall close to my house, Pejaten Village. The main purpose was to see “Confessions of a Shopaholic”, but since we were early, after some strolling in the department store, we parked ourselves at Solaria to grab a bite. 
As always I was having a bit of a problem choosing my dinner menu – because basically I love everything and although I limit my choice based on health related recommendations I read here and there, it still leaves me with (too) many options to choose from! But in the end I chose a menu I haven’t had for a long time: kwetiau goreng ayam or fried (flat) noodles with chicken.
It turns out to be a bad choice. Not taste wise, because it did taste ok, but whoever fried it used just too much oil so that it was so greasy and in the end left my tummy feeling slightly bloated. Can you see it shine ever so brightly thanks to the oil?
