Month: May 2026

As you can see, I skipped a week of blogging. I was not feeling all to great mentally after a trying day and spent most of my Sunday a week ago recovering. And when you are in a negative mood it is better to just relax, put on some Korean and Chinese series and shut yourself of mentally from the world so you can cope during your working hours. Which has been good strategy for the past week.

On Wednesday my friend and I had planned to go to Beekse Bergen Safari Park but on arrival we found out the park didn’t open yet as there was a Cheeta missing from her enclosure. Instead of endangering the animal, the park decided to remain closed until further notice. So we diverted ourselves to a different zoo in a neighbouring town, Eindhoven Zoo.

The weather was absolutely dreadful with bouts of rain in between which meant the zoo was occupied by hardly anyone expect the employees. You could throw a rock and wouldn’t hit a person in a 100 feet that’s how quiet it was. The animals who didn’t hate the rain were outside, the rhino taking a bath. We did get a private feeding show for the rhinos and piggie that lived in the enclosure and had a nice chat with the zoo keeper about sustaining the species, there are only 5 different types of rhinos on this earth and they are all heavily endangered. So the educational update was very much appreciated.

Even with this dreary weather, the day was spent in a very good way. Animals and talking to my friend calms the anxiety bout I was having for a while. No photos were taken as I didn’t want my phone soaked.

On Thursday most of the Netherlands had a day off, and we spent it just relaxing at home as we had to go to the office the next day.

On Saturday I was in the mood to connect with my roots again and visit the pasar malam (Bahasa Indonesia: evening market) and eat some good food. Some Indonesian dishes are too time consuming or have ingredients that are not widely available to consumers and it gives us a chance to eat it here. Saté Kambing (goat meat) is always a staple for me and me and my husband enjoyed a bowl of soto ayam (chicken soup) together. I finished the day with a snack platter with pisang goreng (fried battered banana), lemper (sticky rice roll with chicken), loempia and a chicken pastie. My husband had nasi rames special, which can be seen as a platter with rice, two different vegetable dishes and three meat dished.

We only bought new jars of sambal and I was interested in the stand with the man demonstrating batik. He had a more steady hand than I did while drawing with beeswax. Much more learning for me to do. I love batik, the technique and the history about it. Should start with it again when I am feeling a bit better.

I am starting up a new segment next to my weekly blogs on my effort to support small businesses in the trying times of conflict and AI domination. Friends and artists alike have been sturggling lately to compete with the slop pushed out by major corporations.

We all know the news articles of teenagers being sued for millions because they downloaded 12 songs and now corporations are stealing creativity through their nature killing machine and trying to kill humans cognitivity. I won’t be part of this farce.

So each month I try to make a purchase from an artist/creator and will feature them in a monthly post with my April purchases being the start of the series.

I’m taking the rest of the Sunday to chill, do some colouring and make some sweet treats for myself. It makes this feeling under the weather a bit more bearable. Some selfcare is always a priority for yourself.

Until next time :).

What a week it has been, we were blessed with a three day weekend this time round as it was Kings Day on Monday. So lots of time to relax, bake and have fun. And baking I did, I made muffins because I had too many blueberries. And several taste-testers said they were yummy.

On Monday we did what any good subject would do, we left for another country to escape the Orange craze of the Netherlands. For weeks we had been bombarded with cheap merchandise that people will only use for one day. I hate it, I hate the colour orange and I dislike that we have a King. So we spent our time and money in a much nicer place which was Düsseldorf. It was less than a two hour drive. Didn’t have that much issue finding a parking space and the weather was fantastic. We had loads of good and yummy food and we walked 17.984 steps.

We also go for lunch at the same Kurdisch-Turkish spot called Bona’me. I don’t know what this particular dish was called but its tomato rice with grilled veggies, kofte and a steak skewer. It’s always great and this dish I will order again. They do a bangin’ mezze by the way.

To rest our feet a little we went for a Eisshokolade, my husband got a white wine. You could order any cake for their shop but I was a coward to ask. Next time I will do this.

Can’t visit Germany without ordering curry wurst or flammkuchen. And this time we had the classic style flammkuchen at Wilma Wunder. It is a wafer thin dough shortly fired up in the oven, with creme fraiche, red onions and bacon bits. I make them at home very often but my dough is just too thick. This was spot on as a quick snack with drinks.

For dinner I had a Wiener Snitzel. I just can’t image a snitzel without the mushroom cream sauce. Place was very local, and fantastic. I think my husband still dreams about his Hunters’ plate hahaha.

The reason why we like to go to Düsseldorf is that every part of the city has a different vibe. Konigsallee is just posh as hell, Ferraris and other outragious cars with people spending a lot of money on luxurious goods like there wasn’t an economic crisis going on. It’s amusing looking at this perverse display of wealth. The people don’t even look happy and I know they look down on us normies.

My favourite part of the city will be Little Tokyo where you can get a good bowl of ramen, dorayaki or tempure bowl. The down part is that the anime/manga fans from the Netherlands have discovered this place too. I stock up at the Japanese supermarket, they are a wee bit cheaper than at home, and browse at Takagi bookshop for new magazines or stationary. I spotted a group from very far, while you loud Americans there are also very loud Dutch anime nerds and they were blocking the entrance of Takagi. How inconvenient, I heard the lady scream while I was in the back of the store that maybe they were blocking the entrance. No shit, Sherlock. And with increased popularity, theft also increases. It broke my heart to see all Pokemon notepads and stationary locked away. We just can’t have nice things, I guess.

The other stationary shop I had planned to visit was closed for lunch and we never went back to that side of the city later in the afternoon. But good on you, that you take your time and close the shop for an hour. It is my dream to run a stationary or a book shop but with the real estate prices and taxes it will never come true unless I win the lottery. The Netherlands is too expensive to have a brick-and-mortar shop.

The day left me unsatisfied with the loot for my stationary hunt. Just two notepads and a kitty penholder I was gifted by my husband. Where will I go next for my hunt? Antwerp is in the cards, which I will be visiting on my day off in the future. Weekends is just not feasable to go to a popular destination when the weather is great. Everyone will go there haha.

The next just one day of work, was a bit nervous with the hypercare call for the new tool. Some issue had risen that did not have the biggest of impacts on our side of the shop but it was annoying to experience that in name we are an international company but its actually America first, fuck the rest of the customers. I Guess it fits seeing who their president is. I took an instant dislike to some people, didn’t change much of the other days we had the meeting and while they are good in ending the meetings on time, they do know how to spread same issue over three days, sheesh. The only fun time I had with the new tool was trying to replicate the issues my team was having. And it mostly boiled down to a user issue instead of a system issue. People have a hard time to let old habits die. Lucky for me it was just one week to deal with this, next week my supervisor can take over again.

A while I decided to start sending small mail packages to my friends and family for their birthdays/special days. I just love sending them a small gift, some sweets and a birthday card to be opened on their birthday. I love getting postcards myself but alas because of the digital age people often opt to send you virtual greetings. How dull. I tried postcrossing but most of the people I matched with were absolutely pedantic people. You can see them as collector instead of penpals and its not the vibe I enjoy. If you do want to become my penpal please send a e-mail with your address to mispeloe[@]gmail.com and we will exchange cards and stories. 🙂

My mother-in-law’s birthday is coming up so I went to the garden center for a small mail gift that will go well with her large gift that we will bring on our visit next week. I won’t say what we got her as she read this blog too. Got to keep the surprise, innit?
My curse is that I will never leave the garden center without a plant for myself. Usually a small potter plant as I live with a cat that never leaves them alone, the little rascal.

For stress-relief I have been either playing cozy games like Pokopia or InKombini (good game, go buy it) on Steam or colouring books. I noticed that I had absolute shit colour pencils but luckily I bought a pack on discount from an art-store a few weeks back. The cat was coloured with the old pencils, the rest with the new and you see the difference in softness of the lead. Hard leaded pencils are not fantastic to colour with. They are cheap but scratch the surface and do not spread the colour equally.

It has been a relaxing week, the weather has been toasty at times but I adjusted my pace to the humidity levels. And I can truly say I have been feeling okay mentally and physically. Managed to take a walk every day for atleast 5000 steps. Which is a win on its own.