A lot of different aspects can be compared and contrasts between every cities around the world. Berlin, Germany and Surabaya, Indonesia are two metropolitan cities that has many different aspects between them. I visited Germany five years ago for a vacation; therefore, in this blog, I will emphasize on the entertainment and culture as I have witnessed the popular food and the traditional dress in both places.
One of the most popular dish in Surabaya is called “iga penyet”. The combination of fried ribs and “sambal” (chili sauce) over rice makes everyone goes crazy. No one can resists the crisp beef smell and the crunchy hot sensation from every bite of it. Sounds delicious right? That is basically the description of “iga penyet” that can be translated to smashed beef ribs. Doing a comparison to Berlin’s dish, I cannot get bratwurst hot dog out of my head. I tried that on a restaurant in Berlin, and instantly, everywhere I go like in Stuttgart or Munich, I was always looking for the same dish, even though there is no match for bratwurst from Berlin. According to magazine based website, Thrillist, the bock wurst: curry 36 is the heavenly dish that I ate on my vacation. That special bratwurst sausage bathed in an ocean of butter added with sauerkraut and mash potato makes it so satisfying to eat. However, they are two different types of food. The smashed beef ribs is an Asian cuisine because of the rice and “sambal” inside of it, while the bratwurst hot dog is a Western cuisine as it is cooked without any complicated ingredients.
Moreover, the citizen of Berlin likes to drink beer. Beer itself is already became a culture in Germany. So many places, if not all places, serves beer. I wonder how overly crowded is the brewery when a festival where everyone drinks beer called Oktoberfest gets started. Whereas in Surabaya, there is zero brewery available in the city. There are some restaurants that serve beer, but there is no place that dedicates itself solely to sell beer. The main reason is Indonesia is a Muslim country and beer is one of the many prohibited item to consume. Therefore, the permission to open a brewery is almost impossible to get as also there will be many fronts doing strike to the place.
Talking about my trips in Berlin, I cannot forget the colossal feeling visiting the Victory Column. According to Wikipedia, the golden monument was erected to commemorate Prussian victory in Danish-Prussian war. Meanwhile, in Surabaya, there is a heroic monument to commemorate battle of Surabaya. The battle happened when Indonesia was still colonized by the Dutch, they give people of Surabaya an ultimatum to leave the city as soon as possible. While the ultimatum still had not reach its due date, a Dutch general was killed in an explosion. At that point, the Dutch army began to assault Surabaya from November 10 for three weeks straight. From that moment, Surabaya acknowledges the heroes by building monumental statue for them.
Western and Eastern cities are hardly the same. Even though the type of popular cuisine, the beer culture, and the purpose of monuments in both places are different, both places will give tourists their unique taste of the cities.
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