Week Catch-up

So. It's been a week since I blogged... Oops.

This week was uninteresting. We came back from Jakarta and went to bed.

Early Monday morning I had my first phonetics class. It was super interesting, but the professor is an Indian guy with the thickest accent I've heard from any professor.  He was impressed I knew Portuguese (seems to be a recurring love of Brazil here) and wants my project to be about some of the unique vowels or something. I'm not really sure.

Anyways, then was a project meeting for social research and then globalization, where she managed to insult and just generally be obnoxious.  She might mean well, but she's just annoying and angering.

Tuesday was much of the same, except just one tutorial - phonetics, where we spent the hour saying "ssssss" and "ffffff" and "pah" and "p-hah" and making funny sounds.  I went to the gym afterwards and ran a mile (first since my knee injury!) and then had lunch with Gabe and an Indian guy from my now-dropped photography class. It was fun. The gym isn't air conditioned very much... it's about five degrees cooler than outside, but it's  still really hot. It was weird. Also, it's a collection of rooms, so the weight room has AC, and the machines room has AC, but the gym doesn't, nor do the locker rooms or the hallways or any of the activity rooms. It's hard to get used to.

Wednesday, more classes; Thursday, the same.  I didn't go to Zumba because I rolled my ankle, but it's feeling better now.

Oh! I almost forgot... On Wednesday, Gabe and I went to the Lo Hei Lunch for the international students.  It's basically a New Year's tradition something or other.  The food was ok, but the fun part was listening to the quizzes and watching these guys play with tops on strings. I forgot what it's called, but it's two sticks attached with a string and a double-sided top (kindof like an hourglass) suspended on the string, and the people do tricks with them. It was really cool. Then they did a "Lucky Draw", which is like a raffle, and I won first place! Here's the goody basket:

I don't have classes on Friday, but I wasn't feeling well so I slept in most of the morning.  Then I went to do laundry, but it was drizzling.  By the time Gabe came back, it looked even more overcast, be he went and did laundry anyways.  This is what our front window and back room look like: 

Then we went out to Boon Lay Place and looked around.  The mall wasn't very exciting, but they had a good hawker stand.  Gabe got interesting food (Kway Tow Mee, which is basically anything they have, fried) and I got fried rice and chicken, which I ended up not eating because I didn't feel well.  

We also got new bikes!  And heavy-duty locks instead of normal ones, this time.  Mine's light blue and Gabe's is black, but we spray-painted them so they wouldn't get Ali-Baba-ed (what the bicycle shop owner calls it - it's bad luck to say "stolen").  Mine's now turquoisey and Gabe's has green highlights. They look pretty cool.

Unfortunately, I feel really bad, so I went to bed early and slept pretty much all day today.  We did go to the mall for dinner.  Gabe had a mini-steamboat, which is a pot of lemony chicken broth on top of a metal rack that has a sterno fire beneath it (to keep it warm) and then a plate of raw food that you cook in the pot.  It's kindof like personal fondue.  I had satay (of course) and then we had a delicious banana split.

Tomorrow we're going to go to Orchard Road.  Hopefully I'll feel better.

Goodnight-lah.

Gabe's Post - Jakarta, last day

Last day in Jakarta. We check out of the hostel, and make our way to only tourism related thing suggested to us in Jakarta, the National Museum. We end up walking half the way there and decide to take a taxi. Our decision cost us 30 cents each (it was Michelle, Shreyas, and I). The museum itself is located in 2 different similar looking buildings connected by a glass walkway. Both buildings are conveniently labeled Museum.

It costs 3 times as much for a foreigner to get in. Locals can enter for only 3,000 rupiah, while foreigners pay 10,000 (1 dollar). To our surprise, flash photos are excepted. Also the middle of the building was a courtyard, and in the courtyard was probably 100 or so Hinduism related statues exposed to the elements. You could also touch all of them if you were so inclined.

Next was a European room, which contained a couple of tables, some chairs, a dresser or two, and some cannons. It reminded me of the random culture rooms in the Singapore Asian Cultures Museum.

The rest of the first building was basically just cool wooden models of houses and random cultural things of the native Indonesians.

The second building contained pots and random tools and various things you expect to find in a Museum.

After a few hours we became tired and hungry so we decided to leave and just go to the bus station. There we ate at a hawker stand like place. I had Mee Goreng (fried noodles) which was the spiciest I have had. Michelle and Shreyas got satay, chicken and lamb respectively. It was all quite good and about the same price as Singapore actually.

We then bought bus tickets and just went to the airport, which was clean but oddly layed out. They accidentally gave Michelle's ticket to someone else, but it was ok, they gave her another one and her old one turned up later. Our flight was also delayed by an hour, but its ok because they fed all of us.

We flew back and were fine. Singapore is nice.


Things to remember from Jakarta:
Watch your step: Jakarta needs some civil engineers, the sidewalks have chunks missing from them, giant holes that fall into the blue-gray drainage system. Raised walkways over roads are usually flimsy cement that shakes and crumbles as you walk on them, or metal plates that have rusted all the way through on several important looking places revealing them to be paper thin.

Donuts: There are donuts everywhere, as a street food, in super markets, they even have a higher density of Dunkin Donuts then any other city I have seen.

People are nice: They smile a lot and are nice for the most part. Even when they are making fun of you they arn't doing it aggressively. For how big and dirty the city is, during the day I felt very safe. They also love having pictures taken of them and often ask for photo until you take one.

You will be ripped off: And not know it, because to you a couple of cents doesn't make a difference.

Gabe's Post - Jakarta/Bogor

Hello. Yesterday our goal was to attempt to escape Jakarta in the most convenient way possible. This brought us to the train station, ready to purchase tickets to go to the town of Bogor. It is a smaller place known for its botanical garden and lack of being Jakarta. Its an hour away by train and the tickets cost 2000 for the sardine can train or 7000 for the Singapore MRTesque commuter train. We took the commuter train.

It was a fun ride. We stood most the way there, but Michelle got to sit in the female only compartment in the front of the train (it was pink). Other people rode on top of the train. On the sardine can trains, people hold on to the people at the door so they don't fall out. The Indonesian country-side slowly changed from the color of the blue gray water running down the streets of Jakarta, to a lush green of the hilly-rain-foresty-country-side.

After about an hour of travel and having to get off at a station to wait for another train, we made it. It was raining, but not much. Basti, who was with us, had to turn around to go catch his plane. We got some food first, a green fried egg looking crepe. After a brief foray involving me and michelle wandering in a clothes store, while Shreyas sat in a tiny cubicle with a computer, advising his loved ones that he is alive, we made our way to the Botanical Garden. Well not really, we hopped in a green tiny van with a few benches in the back, that serves as both the buses and taxis of the town, and paid 2000 each.

We wandered a bit in the gardens and made our way to a cafe which was nice but a little pricey - 30,000 a meal -- by the way the conversion here is 10,000 Rupiah to 1 USD. Shreyas had a nasi goreng and a tea tarik, I had some bockwurst and an avacado juice, Michelle had fish and chips with ice lemon tea. It was pretty good and the avocado was delicious, as was the tea and the tea. We then split a fried banana plate (fried bananas, ice cream, nuts, cheese, chocolate) and walked around a bit more.

After, we basically just reversed the trip and made our way back to Jakarta.

The rest of the night was basically me and Shreyas chucking 6 darts at a time at a dart board in the Hostel, while Michelle had ramen and chatted with an Aussie. Then Shreyas and I decided to go out with three guys here and head for a bar. We had some beers and some steaks and some satay and another beer, and paid less than 50,000 each. We started to lose our group 1 by 1 to tiredness, until me, Shreyas, and one other guy decided to just walk back. The last member of our group never came back, so I am assuming he is still out having fun.

Then I went to bed, because it was late.

Goodnight-lah.