Cikelin Chronicle

Our favorite annual Sydney Uni’s event is The Book Fair. Here we could purchase a used book as cheap as $1, or even less. We prepared for this ‘important’ event, saved as much as possible to buy lot and lot of books. We also learnt from last year event that we must come in the first day for better choice. We came early to avoid dissapointment. To our surprise, when we arrived there, fifteen minutes before the door opened, there was already a giant line, around 100 meter. All ready with their giant shopping bags, boxes, and even shopping trolley. This madness was just like when the final Harry Potter released. This bookfair was held in one of the room at Quadrangle (Sdyney Uni’s Main Building). As we entered, the room was already packed with people. It’s so hard to move, especially when with a stroller, and 5-year-old daughter. Fortunately, Nino was one of the volunteer in this event. He could choose the books he wanted to buy before the fair was officially opened. Since h...

What's in your mind when you hear the word 'jemunak'? Jemunak is a traditional food, a snack, made from steamed cassava and sticky rice, garnish with sprinkled coconut and palm sugar sauce. It's soft, melt and just delicious. Yum! Suddenly, this world pops up in my mind. I used to eat Jemunak to break my fasting in ramadan, when I was a child. You can't find Jemunak anywhere but in Muntilan, a small town where my mom grew up. In my village, Karaharjan, there was only one person to make jemunak: Mbah Mul. He is my late grandma's neighbour. I really miss it that I googled it. To my surprise, I found two articles about it in local newspaper. Yup, it is about Mbah Mul and his jemunak. You can read it here and here . Now he is so old and nobody else can make jemunak. I'm afraid this yummy snack will extinct soon. Argh, better call my mom to ask about Mbah Mul. A.K.

I love spring for its warm air and the smell of wild flowers along the street. But mostly I love it because it's the festive season. We got several festivals here at Spring, mostly were local festivals, held by a city/council (such as Marrickville, where I live). This last two weeks I’ve already been in three festival: Haldon street festival at Lakemba, Malaysian Festival at Darling Harbour and Marrickville Festival. Lakemba is known as 'the moslem region'. Lakemba residents are a mixed of moslem from middle east such as Palestina and Lebanon, South Asia such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and also South East Asia moslem from Malaysia and Indonesia. No wonder it is easy to find halal food here. And women with hijab are common. Festival is actually a market, or you say 'pasar malam' in Indonesia, it just that it's held at day time, not at night. There are so many stall: from food stall, fashion stall, and organisation stall. It also has some stages for p...