Anniversary Dinner

We're not ones to announce personal celebrations on Facebook, but our little anniversary celebration turned into a little cultural experience that I wanted to remember, so it's memory will live on in this blog. 

These flowers aren't part of the cultural experience, they're just the beginning of the celebration and a display of affection from a fantastic husband. 

This was (just part) of the amazing chocolate collection that accompanied the flowers. 

The chocolate should outlast the flowers . . . but not by much. 

Our actual anniversary landed on a week day, so instead of going out to eat we tried a fun experiment. 

Our grocery store handed out some recipes last week (of course to promote their products) so we decided to try out their burrito recipe. 

It was more pretty Turkish tasting, there was curry in the meat and cabbage instead of lettuce. 

We just stopped expecting it to be a real burrito and it was good. 

But on Saturday we went to The Hague for a real anniversary meal . . .

At this family owned Indonesian restaurant in The Hague and we celebrated with a scrumptious sampling of Indonesian dishes.

But those 'samples' quickly filled us to the brim.

For those interested, on the left are your condiments, lightly sweet cucumbers, roasted nuts, pickeled veggies and spicy pepper paste. Those went on top of any of the dishes in the middle: sweet beef, savory chicken, sprouts, fried boiled egg, or beans. The brown meat on the side is chicken in peanut satay sauce -- probably one of the world's best ways to eat chicken.

During dinner the owner of the restaurant gave us a tip to take a walk around The Hague . . .

Which we did. Enjoying the views . . .

. . .  both traditional and modern. 

Until we made our way to our destination:

The Tong Tong Fair: the annual Indonesian celebration in The Hague.

Inside the gargantuan tents were countless booths and this performance that we happened upon just as it began.

A couple extra hours of rehearsal would have enhanced the quality of the performance but what they lacked in perfection they made up for with their enthusiasm for fun and the audience was pulled into the spirit of celebration. 

Of course there was ample food at this celebration . . .

  

. . . but since our stomachs were still recovering from our dinner workout, we only ingested the sites and smells. 

For the first hour or so, but looking is thirsty work, so we had to stop at we thought was a 'juice/smoothie booth'. 

What we ended up with looked like this:

Finely crushed ice with flavored syrup, topped with fruit and some sugary ice powder, it probably had the sugar content of cotton candy, but we were thirsty so we found it delicious in a liquid lollipop way.

Besides watching, smelling and tasting, we walked by booth after booth of people selling their wares. But these ladies were super efficient and decided to sow while selling.

Other vendors had also employed this technique as a way to attract attention and get something done at the same time, but what really struck me about these workers were the ages of their sewing machines.

I'm no antique dealer, but I'm pretty sure one of my grandmas has the black Singer sewing machine (in case you can't tell it's one of the kind that comes attached to a wooden table) on the left -- as an antique display piece! But there she was using it. 

A quick google search made me think that the machine was from the 1940's if not earlier. 

And the one to the right (also a Singer) is none too modern either. 

After about 2 hours of Indonesian delight we headed home with a few useful souvenirs to add to our home. 

Rice spoons, cinnamon wood coasters (we were sorely in need of coasters), and some spekkoek (rich layered cake) to top off the night. 

(Oh, and a special thanks to Mom & Dad Ridout for the anniversary card!)