Eating Out (of Indonesia)

I never thought buying food can be this troublesome and time consuming before I came to Hungary. First of all Hungary is not a muslim country and only a few muslim live here. Halal food is rare and I haven't found any product which has halal stamp on it yet. I should read through all the ingredients before deciding to buy something. Since almost all the product use Hungarian language, it's hubby's job to scan all what are written there. We might also necessary to check the food ingredients numbers that written with the letter E in the beginning, for instance: E 441 stand for gelatin*. Complicated, huh?

**We hate you coz we can't eat you..mhuahahaa.. -kidding.

Second, we ( Hubby and I) are not muslim who believe it's ok to eat any meat but pork. That's make our problem double. We don't eat meat ( beef, chicken, turkeys..etc) from common places here which are obviously not slaughtered in Islam way. Halal butchery is rare and the place is far from home. Needless to say, I become a temporarily vegetarian. Vegetable and fish are my daily menu. Eating out is the same. Hubby has to scan all the food in the menu that has no meat (any kind) or alcohol. In a food court he just says :" haram, haram, haram, ok, haram, haram.. " while pointing to the food or image of it. But I must aware to coz he'll say "haram" to expensive thing :D.

Dreaming this was an advertisement for KFC Hungary.

Third, I can't cook. Err...ok, no need further explanation for this. :D

Be grateful for those who live in muslim country or have major group of muslim there. You can find easily halal food. But it makes us not aware to what we eat actually ( in this case in Indonesia). We just think all meat and food are halal there without thinking much about it and give all the work to MUI for halal sign. It's a nice life indeed. Well, just open your eyes and read till your eyes bleed before you eat ( nice rime...:P) You don't want to eat something without Allah blessing, do you?

* The rest of the food ingredient numbers codes can be found here
**The poor pig image is taken from this interesting blog about pig here

Culture Shock : Toilet

I notice I've written about this before. I can't help, toilet's always be my first problem when going abroad. I'm just not comfortable with European kind of toilet with no water, toilet paper only. I know it's not as uncomfortable as people are watching you while you're doing private thing in toilet.

(*A toilet in Newzealand. Wondering what kind of expression you can bear guys? :D)

My only problem with toilet is I need water! Ok, Actually, these days even in Indonesia you can find this kind of toilet especially in big mall or luxury hotels that none of them using water anymore. I can take it in occasionally event but deal with that everyday is other thing.

Can you imagine when you poo while you are in period also and what you have only toilet paper to clean your a**?! yupe that's double "eeew". I told this to hubby and we decided to find something to end my misery. Instead of finding bailer and bucket we found this:

yupe it's a jug measurement. :D Couldn't find any better to substitute those.. If one day you happen to visit me and find that thing in my bathroom..you know what's that for ; )

*The toilet picture's taken from here

Bule Poo VS Indonesian Poo*

* Don’t read this while you eat :D
Have you ever noticed that what you eat can be seen obviously when you poo? And it’s effected on how you clean it?

err.. no i don't mean this..:D

Or this:

I (literary) scream for (this) ice scream..:P

Anyway, when I was in Hungary for a bout 2 weeks, I ate potatoes, cheese, pasta and those kind of stuff everyday. It does make my poo harder and darker. I used tissue papers to clean it. I didn’t have any problem coz as I said before the poo was harder so it didn’t leave anything on my a**hole. Yet, I still feel dirty without washing it with water. I had no choice anyway. No toilet is provided with bowl of water there. And when it comes to my Indonesian poo that is softer and lighter, I need water and soap. I can imagine the mess I leave on the tissue paper if so. Eeeeww..

Not even these a lot of toilet papers can substitute water in my case.

I noticed too this differences has influenced to how we spend the time while we poo. For Instance one of my hubby’s habit is looking for a book to read first before he goes to toilet. Yeah, because the poo is hard, it takes time to go out. He can spend almost half hour in the toilet. Unlike me, 5 minutes are the longest time to spend in normal situation. I just take my position, ready, get set and done! :D

A Nintendo Wii, a laptop, a flat screen TV, an iPod...in a toilet? ok I'll spend hours in the toilet in that case :P

Oh well, perhaps, this is way we have different “toilet culture”...I was just wondering..
-2008-
-Those two shitty food are available in this restaurant here
-Toilet papers toilet image is taken from here and a lucky woman has won that pink modern toilet from here.