Facebook is a good source of news. A month ago someone has sent me an invite to attend the Indonesian Food Festival 2009 here in Winnipeg. Since I am off during the weekends, I asked my father if he’s interested to go. To make the long story short, my family (sans my mom) went there this afternoon. It would be nice to learn something about my Southeast Asian neighbouring country, Indonesia.

It was a well-attended event. The location’s small, but just enough to accomodate the people who went there. The food’s good too. I shouldn’t be surprised that a lot of the food served there were similar to some Filipino dishes. I tasted my very first Indonesian coffee (coffee’s free btw). It’s actually good, but surprisingly the coffee grains don’t melt on the water. Hmm.

Since the Indonesian Student Group of Winnipeg’s a big part of the event, I saw some of my Indonesian friends. Like Adrian. We get to talk, and then I learned that the proceeds for that event will go to the Red Cross in order to help the people of Sumatra.

There was also a small table there for cultural displays. Surprise, surprise, I saw a traditional board game called congklak, similar to the Filipino game Sungka.

I find it a bit ironic that I got exposed to Indonesia while I am in Canada (considering that Indonesia’s just below the Philippines), but I still find myself fortunate enough that there are people who are still attached to their grass roots and find ways to give back to their motherland. Good stuff.