I’m done trying to mask the ugly side inside me with smiles and bright words.

As I smiled, my heart ached and I felt lonelier than ever.

Pretty words were merely a shell to hide my pity soul that wishing to die for the umpteenth times.

So I said, “It’s enough.”

I wanna live an honest life even when the honest truth about myself might look like a terrible scar to other people.

Oh right! So just recently, Jakarta has MRT as a new option for public transportation. I was pretty late, but finally, I got a chance to ride the current hype of the city (and the country lol). We thought since it was the holiday season, the MRT will be less crowded. But shoot! Again, we were mistaken. I mean, look at this crowd!


Back to my ramen and izakaya plan, because those two were closed, we decided to get our ramen fix at Gandaria City. Where’s the best place to eat ramen there if it isn’t Menya Sakura? Mmm actually, here’s my confession. I haven’t tried this ramen chain before lol. I usually go to either Ippudo or Bari-Uma for my ramen fix. And I regretted that I haven’t tried this ramen sooner.


Yummy! The broth was so flavorful. I can’t decide whether I prefer Ippudo or Menya (perhaps I should go eat there again to decide lol) although I can say that this one tasted better than Bari-Uma. We ordered the chicken karaage as well and I think it was the softest karaage I’ve ever had—soft in a good way. If you haven’t, definitely give Menya's ramen a try.

We stopped by Kitchenette later. Still kinda full of ramen so we only ordered garlic fries and apple crumbles pie. And iced latte for me of course.


Delightfully sweet pie and tasty fries! Give it a try someday (especially the garlic fries).

On the next day, we were going to Museum Macan. I bought the tickets online and surprisingly, there were so many who don’t know that such a simple way exists to save us from lining on a queue.

By the time we visited the museum, the on-going exhibitions were “Matter and Place”, “Dunia dalam Berita”, “Days in Cicadas”, “Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room”, and “Rubberscape”. We skipped Yayoi Kusama because we’ve seen it before (plus we don’t want to get involved with the long queue) and “Rubberscape“ because we somehow didn’t notice the exhibition was also there ugh.



Not that I blessed with an artistic soul to begin with but sometimes it’s a good thing to spoil your mind by appreciating arts and get knowledge from their backstories. It’s also a good way to de-stress and be present.

My own rule for museum visit is to make sure I’ve seen and learned from everything displayed before I take some photos. If I’m going with a friend, it’s a good chance to exchange interpretations. Some thoughts could be silly and we benefit good laughs from them. Some thoughts could be deep, philosophical, and moving. We might even feel inspired after a fun yet intellectual discussion about arts. That’s an awesome thing about the art museum.


Nothing beats caffeine after an eventful day at the museum. On the same floor as Museum Macan, there’s a coffee shop named 1/15.


The last spot we visited was Kashiwa. This time, it was open, yay!

We arrived at 5 p.m and we’ve seen so many already queueing in front of the door. The izakaya opens at 6.30 p.m but it’s advised to come early just to make sure you’ll be seated. Or you can call the place beforehand to reserve the table.


I could only put this yummy okonomiyaki on this post thanks to the dimmed lightning that wasn’t really made for photography (also I only use a mere phone camera). On the other hand, we were already starving so we swiftly emptied our plates and kinda forgot to take more pictures of the food. For sure tho, I love their food so much!

So far, nothing I’ve ever ordered tastes bad. Everything was delicious, perfectly seasoned, and perfectly cooked. If you want to eat authentic Japanese food with a lot of variants, I highly recommend this place. The foods are very affordable as well, with almost all food priced around IDR 29k. The izakaya serves no pork no lard but they have alcoholic beverages. If you order ocha for a drink, kindly note that this place does not provide free refills. The atmosphere and interior were so Japanese. The television showed Japanese broadcast and there were some Japanese books you can find around. The only minus points are the cramped place and the fact that they don’t have a separate area for smokers.

And that’s it!

I spent the rest two days left to laze around (again) lol hence my blog post will stop here.

So how was your Eid week, readers? Any of you spent your week as lowkey as I was?

See y’all on my next post.

I know this update is long due but here you go.

Last week had been a big holiday week for Indonesians. Most of the migrants who live in Jakarta went to their respective hometowns, allowing the usually busy and crowded metropolitan to have it breaks.

As for me, I'm staying in Jakarta and basically enjoying my Eid holiday as lowkey as possible.

May 30 was my last day at work before the long holiday starts. Even so the next day, early in the morning, I had to check the factory with our head technician and securities to check some technical stuff like electricity, gates, keys, and such. After we made sure that everything’s safe we closed the factory and went back home. I had the responsibility to keep the keys with me and to open the factory once we’re back to work—as my place is the closest one to the factory (and since I literally not going anywhere).

May 31 to June 4 were mostly wasted with lazying all day long.

Yeah, I know I was so unproductive. I had days off, and I used most of it for something foolish like lazying. But honestly, for someone like me, it was literally heaven lol. As I’m getting older I realized that one of the blessings in life is to spend your day chilling alone without worrying about work and shit.

My stress and anxiousness give me insomnia especially during weekdays so I spent those days getting as much sleep as I want.

I was also binge-watching dramas, playing games, cleaning my room, or just lying down with my headset on to enjoy good music. My happiness is just as simple as being granted to do nothing.

Well, I did go out for a few hours to the nearest coffee shop to get my daily fix of coffee while brainstorming for a book project.

On June 5, I spent the day with my senior at Central Park to watch a movie and strolling around the mall.

We were going to watch Godzilla: King of the Monsters and we bought the tickets for the 4DX3D show at 11:40 AM. Surprisingly the mall is not open yet—well... for the most part and stores. Maybe because it was the day of the big Eid (I don’t know how to phrase it properly in English lol) but I still was surprised because I thought for a big mall like this they’ll just do business like any other days.


I mean I didn’t really get what was the story about other than the fact that it’s a great monster porn with over-the-top visuals (and effects, it’s better to experience it with 4DX3D) that’ll satisfy the movie watchers who fancy such things. And that’s definitely not me.

After the movie, we were both starving. We didn’t plan where to eat prior so we just walked around and somehow ended up in this new Korean restaurant in the Neo Soho area named Taeyang Sung. We are pretty sure it was previously occupied by another Korean restaurant but we forgot what was it called (Bingsoo?). The layout and general vibes aren’t as good as the previous restaurant but they still playing the same K-Pop MVs.

We ordered Set Menu A (Jjamjatang) and it had tangsooyook, jjajang, and jjamppong. Another menu we had was mozzarella ddeokbokki. For drinks, I had taro latte while my senior had iced cappuccino.


Let me be honest, this place is not worth your money and time. Nothing special about the food. In fact, the flavor is mostly MSG. Even mozzarella ddeokbokki tasted so so. Too much cabbage added and this one definitely disappointing compared to any ddeokbokki that I had from other restaurants. My taro latte doesn’t exactly taste like an actual taro latte. The only decent dish was the tangsooyook, but I’m pretty sure if you explore another Korean restaurant, you’ll definitely find a better tangsooyook. Above all of those cons I mentioned, it’s sad that those underwhelming meals are rather overpriced.

That was definitely will be my first and last visit.

Later after lunch, we went to Starbucks to sit and chill and get my caffeine fix. Whenever we’re getting Starbucks, my close friends know that hazelnut latte is my default pick lol.

So yeah… we were chilling for 4 hours or so. Me and my circle of friends definitely love any kind of cafe hangout where we could just converse or getting busy with our gadgets once we run out of topics lol.

Because previously we didn't get a night of good sleep (thanks to the regretful chat we had the night before over the fact that the holiday is over in 4 days, we were deeply affected lmao) we legit ended up falling asleep. My senior was the one awake first and welcomed by 2 pairs of questioning eyes from a local and his Korean friend who took over the empty seats beside us. The situation was embarrassing yet quite funny.

I’ll continue the rest of the story in my next post.

See y’all around.