The things I miss since moving in to Germany and finally I had chance to taste them again during our trip autumn this year...

Hello dear Steemians, today I'd continue my travelling story to my homeland in Autumn this year.
However this time I would spare you from my rant and would only share some pictures with the relevant narration. :-D

Since I first moved in Germany until today, I was often asked what I particularly miss from Indonesia and whether I suffer a homesick. Well, I left my hometown to work and live independently when I was 20 years old. Since then I practically only met my family once a year despite still living in the same province because in Indonesia we only get at the maximum 14 days off in a year and mostly we would take it during the Eid Holiday (And not everyone is lucky enough to even have this long holiday benefit, because generally only big/reputable companies would comply to the rules. I was quite lucky to work at a German pharmaceutical company so that I still could enjoy that. Some multinational company may give benefit of extra holidays to the white collar workers with relatively high position).
Regardless of the religion we have, in general Indonesians would prefer to take their vacation at this biggest Holidays of the moslems since the atmosphere is just like Christmas in Eurepe...
It's the kind of party of the nation, so it's the best possibility one could have to meet all the family members and old friends as well as school comrades.
The distance between my livingtown at that moment and my paternal house is not extremely far, but far enough for me to not be happy travelling by bus, if you know how bad the traffic and the road in Indonesia look like. ^_^
It's just not fun to travel all the way for hours at the weekend in the bus without AC and the next day taking the same painful route again so that you still could have a night good sleep before working again.
So... basically I just forgot how homesick feels like a long time ago since I left for Germany shortly before I turned 29. At those times internet was not yet so booming like now, there were no smartphones nor video calls so those days were harder than today for people who live far away from their loved ones.

The keypoint nowadays is just "money". If you have enough money, then you can fly home and visit your family anytime and as often as you like no matter how far you live from them.
In fact, I have visited my family more often since I moved in Germany than my school comrades who happen to marry a man just from different province.
They might still be able to take cheaper transport indeed but they just don't have the time for it, because they don't get long enough holiday each year and they need to visit the parent in laws too.

Yeah... Surely I won't claim that I never have any homesick at all, that would be a blatant lie.
At the first year I have once felt very miserable when Eid Al Fitr (sugar feast) came, because I was imagining what my whole family were doing at that moment, how fun it must have been that everyone were gathering.
I have grown up in a big loving family, we were not wealthy but we have so much love for each other. My uncle had supported my school financially as well. My aunts have taken care of me while my parents were working.
So I do not only miss (and am not only missed by...) my parent and brother alone, but also my aunts, cousins and uncles. It's simply different atmosphere with our life here in Germany.
Actually I am quite an individualist type, not typical mainstream in Indonesia, so that I suffer less than many other Indonesians living abroad for the sake of their partner. Neverthless I would still feel rather sentimental when such a big day comes, because I would definitely be the only one missing there.
Nowadays since the mobile internet getting more and more affordable/better that we could do video calls rather often, such feeling is no longer that strong.
On the other hand, I can better understand the feeling of my beloved aunts, uncles and parent since I have a daughter my self.

The next point which I miss is actually "the food" and the service especially those related to food LOL.
In Indonesia you can always get as much service as you want, as long as you are ready to pay for it. You can also get everything repaired, even on the spot. It's not like here in Germany that you are required to send your gadget first and it takes often weeks just to get an estimation of cost.
So it means, in Germany you might have to pay the delivery cost (which could be expensive if your gadget is precious and needs to be insured) and the estimation of cost, without even getting your things repaired because you might decide not to repair it there and or prefer to just buy new gadget.
You don't have that problem in Indonesia. THEY will always try to find a feasible and affordable solution for the customer.

Don't underestimate small shops/workshop with seemingly uneducated staff/technician. Many Indonesians are capable of many complicated skills despite having no degree.
My father was an excellent master builder and he didn't even get the opportunity to go to highschool. None of permanent building he worked on had collapsed, there were times when even real estate companies hired him with ease. Many computer technicians in Indonesia have no degree either, nevertheless very skillful.
You can read another testimony of a satisfied western blogger here!
I have always let my gadget repaired in Indonesia, when I need it to be repaired. Not only because of the expense, but it's often the case, that the answer is negative in Germany (==>no technician can help me), but it's an easy peazy case in Indonesia, really :-D.
So, who cares with "warranty" issue, it's more important to me, that my thing works well again. ^_^

Another thing I missed is the possibility to buy something, especially food, basically ANYTIME.
I have a bit complicated feeling about "Sunday off days" in Germany.
I find it's commendable that here the worker's right to enjoy weekend at home is protected.
Coming from a country: where the blue collar workers are often not treated properly and don't get benefit that they actually deserve..., where we often have to work like an ox without even getting overtime payment (or got at least an extra reward for working overtime but are not given the option to reject it),
naturally I could appreciate such privilege of having so many holidays in a year (+- 30 days, in average for fulltime workers) and feel glad that even a shop keeper could get a weekend holiday since all the shops are closed at Sunday.
You know what?!
I was so happily surprised, that even as an intern with a 6 months internship contract I was entitled to 15 days of vacation. I felt like getting a christmas present LOL.
But on the other hand, at some moments when you are so hungry at the middle of the night and don't feel like cooking, moreover you have nothing decent in the fridge...and suddenly you realise that it's Sunday...
Hhhh... at this moment I reeeeally miss my country. T_T There you can get anything you want 24/7, and delivered to you if you like it.
Sure you can find something to eat too here at Sunday, but only in a restaurant ==>> it means, not so cheap and you need to spare time just to eat and get dressed properly.
It's not like in department store where you can just walk around in casual outfit then make a short stop in the food court to eat something or just get one portion of take away dish.
Talking about this makes me thinking that we could actually set up a compromise between giving the opportunity to the business people gaining profit at the weekend without taking the right of blue collar workers who wish to also enjoy their weekend freely.
Perhaps the government could set a regulation that the business people are allowed to open their business at Sunday and national/regional holidays if they offer an overtime payment in a higher rate than the normal wage for those who agree to work at this time frame.
However they are not allowed to discriminate those workers who prefer to have freetime than getting more money. It would be great if such arrangement could work well. I'm sure that the turnover at Sunday and holidays are worth enough to make up for the higher wages offered to the workers.
There are people who do not have much time during the weekdays to do grocery shopping either and would be happy to have a chance doing it at Sunday.
I often realise that we're running out fresh milk at saturday evening and I have no interest to get in the bus and travel all the way to the central rail station only to get some milk, especially since the public transport in my state is getting more and more unreliable recently and it's not even sure that the shop there sells fresh milk.
There are also people who would go around with their stall to sell something: noodle, fried rice, roast duck, meat skewers etc.
I especially miss them when I was pregnant and being a fresh mommy, because my hubby couldn't cook. T_T I was still lucky enough to have some Indonesian friends living nearby (within 2 Km radius) who are so friendly and sometimes share their delicious food with me <3.

Anyway... I'm rather lucky that there are few Indonesian online-shops in Germany so that I have no significant problem to buy Indonesian spices and snacks.
There are also few Asian shops in my city, where I can buy some imported fruits and veggies which are commonly eaten in our neighbour countries in Asia.
Some other tropical fruits and veggies are also quite easy to find in common supermarket.
This way there are not many things I miss regarding food.
Nevertheless there are some particular food/fruits that I especially miss and rather hard (to nearly impossible) to find here.

You can see some of them in the pictures below:

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A. Nasi pecel khas Blora bungkus daun jati plus lauk bakwan sayur.

The dish itself is not so hard to make. All the ingredients are easy to buy here in Germany and I can cook it well because it's very simple vegetarian dish. If I was too lazy to make it from scratch, I can even buy the dried "pecel" sauce in an Indonesian shop (picture 4) and later just dilute it with hot water. You only need to blanch or steam the veggies. You can see the one I made my self in the picture 5. The dish I made looks pretty and tastes good too, but.... there is a special taste of the same dish that could only be bought in my hometown "Blora". Blora is very famous as a producent of teakwood. We have quite a big area of teak forest. So we use the teak leaves to wrap some dishes. We have dishes wrapped with teak leaves for example: "tempe" (fermented soybean cake), nasi pecel (steamed rice with veggies, fried noodle and sweet savory tempe), and "lontong tahu" (steamed rice cake with tofu and peanut sauce). The teak leaves give out a very special taste to the dish that is irreplaceable. In other cities they use banana leaves as wrapper and it also gives a special taste and definitely healthier as using plastic or styrofoam as packaging.
Banana leaves are more common since it's rather easy to plant anywhere and do not really need a big land for it. It grows really fast too so it's still possible to get one as long as I agree to pay the price here in Germany. But teak leaves are impossible to find here, it's not even easy to buy somewhere else in Indonesia outside Blora. So I do really miss it.
This dish is very cheap in my hometown but I love it so much, it costs not even 20 cent.
That's why I ask my mother to buy it for me everyday when I was there LOL. And by the way... if only people could stick on: banana, teak, coconut or bamboo leaves as wrapper... we would have had less trash problem there.
Even if people were still so ignorant and throw away their garbage wherever they like without conscience, at least those are bio-trashes and would rot in the soil, not like plastic, styrofoam and aluminiumfoil. Sadly...nowadays people always use those non-degradable wrappers.
Anyway you can see the appearance of the dish in the picture 1, 2 and 3.

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3.	4.

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B. Fresh young coconut

I also miss this fresh beverage so much. It's not impossible to buy in Germany, but the fresh one is still very rare. Most of the time one can only buy the canned coconut water and they don't always come from young green coconut either. There are many species of coconut and there is special species which tastes especially sweet and refreshing.
However coconut water in general is very good to help prevent dehydration. It contains high amount of potassium and electrolyte. An energy drink may contain more electrolyte but it's not as healthy as coconut water since energy drink normally also contains preservatives, artificial colour, sugar or saccharin. It's definitely not recommended for children.
Coconut water tastes great too, even my little daughter loves it. When we were in Asia, she got addicted to it LOL. She could finish her own big coconut...
I was worried that she would always ask for it when we got back in Germany, luckily it doesn't happen. Her favourite drink is fresh fullcream milk now. :-D

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C. This one is called "ceremai" in Indonesia or Phyllanthus acidus. .

It is very sour but so refreshing and no where to be found in Germany.

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My baby loves it too, even my Indonesian friends are very surprissed to see her eating it with relish hahaha. You can watch her expression in enjoying this extremely sour fruits here:

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D. This is called Bengkuang or Jicama

This is often used to make a spicy and sour fruit salad in Indonesia. It could still be bought in Germany but unfortunately not in my town. I never found any African/Asian shop that sell it so I miss this one too.
By the way the picture was made by my husband.

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E. Jambu / Guava

Guava can still be bought in Germany, expensive but at least it is sold in Asian shop, sometimes. However only the small sort. The bigger one like this sort in the picture below is not available. You can see that it's as big as the Ikea cup. ^_^

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F. The last fruit that I always miss is this one, called: Jambu air. In Eurepe it's called Java apple

It's very sweet and refreshing. My family had this plant at home. When I was a child (until becoming a young girl) I was so fond of climbing on it and enjoy them on the tree in the summer heat. My deceased grandma always scolded me out of worries because it's really a tall tree. I guess it's about 5-6 meter high ^_^.
Unfortunately I can't enjoy our own java apple anymore, the tree is nearly dead, can't produce any fruit. I had only the chance to have a taste of this fruits again when I was in Bangkok, @mayasiam had bought me some. Unfortunately my phone battery was running out when she got me this fruit after visiting the grand palace, so I wasn't able to make any picture. This time I had to take the image from pixabay.

Source: Pixabay

Source: Pixabay

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I guess I finally have to end my article here, it's already becoming too long. I hope my audiences haven't got too bored and decided to skip this post. ^_^
Thanks for your upvotes and see you again soon!