Surprise, Surprise

This week was uneventful. I already wrote about last weekend and going to Arab street. This week we didn't do much out of the ordinary - classes, eating at our hawker stand, having toast for breakfast...

The fun thing is that we're leaving tomorrow for Bangkok! We'll be there for four days, coming home late on Wednesday. We're super excited for the markets and the temples and just seeing what it's like. We both have shopping lists, so let us know if there's anything anyone wants. =]

Hopefully we'll be going to Malaysia for the rest of the week.  We want to see Panang and Malacca. They're both colonial towns that seem like they'd be really cool.  Then dinner on Sunday with Uncle Ralph before he leaves to go home for the month.

I can't believe we've been here two months! Only 100 or so days left before we come home.

So those are our plans.

Goodnight-lah.

Valentine's and Arab Street

So... This week was sorta busy, sorta not. I've been incredibly homesick and am certainly ready to travel to Bangkok next week.

We were both busy late on Tuesday, so we went out on Thursday night to an Italian place on the other side of town (well, in the middle of the country).  It was an interesting bus ride (about an hour) and we passed some buildings we think were jails, but we don't know and Google maps doesn't even have the buildings showing.

Dinner was delicious.  Gabe had squid ink linguine with tomato-based seafood sauce, and I had shell pasta with a tomato-and-cream-based mushroom and sausage sauce.  Both were delicious.  I even had a glass of wine... And learned I need to go wine-tasting to figure out if there's any I actually like very much.  The best part of dinner was actually our appetizer - prosciutto and cantaloupe, which was amazing.

We had arrived too early to eat, so we walked up and down the strip mall before dinner, and found a pet store - mostly catered to cats, hamsters and turtles.  After dinner, we stopped at a strudel place and got a small apple strudel to go.  We were too full to eat it that night, so we saved it for Friday.

On Friday, we went to Chinatown to pick up our tickets to Bangkok, and then had lunch at the mall on the way back.  Gabe got a delicious pepper rice and I got hotstone pepper steak.  Both are dishes served on hotplates that continue to cook the food even when it's served.  You get raw food, and then it cooks while you mix it up and pour sauces on it, and then it's delicious to eat.

We got back and watched a movie and then had cheesy tomato toast and some Asti Spumante (it was on sale) and our apple strudel with ice cream for our second night of Valentine's.  It was all good, but the strudel had collapsed from the humidity in our apartment.

Saturday we got up at a reasonable time and headed over to Arab street.  They had tailors galore, Persian rugs by the hundreds and some really good Mediterranean, Turkish and Arab food.  We ended up at a little cafe, and Gabe and I shared a falafel sandwich and a schwarma wrap.  Both were delicious.  I also got some silk fabric to make scarves for my sisters and we generally had a nice time.  Before we left, we went to another restaurant and ordered a Turkish coffee and baklava. I got a soda called Laziza Raspberry.  Gabe's coffee was good, the soda was literally non-alcoholic raspberry beer, and I've had better baklava at home.  It was a nice day, though.

We walked over to Little India to go to Mustafa's for some stuff that we needed, and on the way saw probably the only not-nice part of Singapore.  It wasn't bad, just dirtier, and we easily compared it to Jakarta.  There was even a street market that Gabe compared to "a real-life eBay."  We did make it to Mustafa's, and we spent almost three hours walking around.  And we didn't even see everything, still!

We went up to the roof and had a snack (dosais and drinks - I got a DELICIOUS masala (chai) tea and Gabe had a sweet lassi that tasted exactly like yogurt) before coming home.  It was a fun adventure.

Today we just studied.  We have midterms all week, but then we leave next Sunday for Bangkok! I'm also getting my hair permed on Tuesday, so wish me luck!

Goodnight-lah.

Still Here

No worries, we're still here, attending classes and eating at hawker stands.

This weekend we had a lovely time at the MacRitchie Reservoir.  We went with a group of international students - we were about 10 in all.  It was a lot of fun, but not quite what we were expecting.  It had been touted as a "jungle", when, in reality, it was a county park made in a section of rainforest. That is, there were a ton of people, a ton of tourists, and a million runners/walkers/exercisers walking on the trail.

It was a really nice trail, though. We saw a whole bunch of monkeys, which were adorable.  That was the only wildlife we saw on the 11km walk, except for a little snake I nearly stepped on... Let me just say I screamed and move on.

Is that not an adorable monkey?

I think this one's cuter though...

There was a really cool part of the walk, and that was the canopy walk.  It's about 120 feet up on a metal see-through suspension walkway, but we could see all the tops of the trees.  Most of us are afraid of heights, and even if you're not, this was a rather tremulous trek.  In the picture below, the trees in the background are in fact at eye level, and they're at least 100 feet tall....

In other news, I have a bad sinus infection, and Gabe has a mild one... Apparently it's going around school. 

Also, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

And Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

=]

Changing it up

So, I guess it's sort of apparent that I haven't been doing as well with this blog as I did when I was in Europe... Things just aren't as interesting here, as I have a more normal school schedule and we're not traveling nearly as much.

That being said, I am NOT giving up my blog.

I'm just going to post less frequently, as in, whenever I have something interesting to say or when we're traveling.  Otherwise, this will be a daily, "I went to school today. It was boring/interesting/tiring/long/etc" blog, and no one wants to read that.

You can still check out all my pictures on my Facebook, and I will  try to check in at least once a week, if not more often. Leave comments and messages - I definitely miss everyone back home!

Goodnight-lah. =]

Orchard Road

Well, despite being sick for most of Friday night and Saturday, Sunday I mustered up enough strength and Gabe and I went down to Orchard Road.  When they said it was shopping, they weren't kidding.  It was block after block of shopping malls and expensive boutiques.  It reminded me of a less-expensive Champs de Elysse in Paris...

We walked around a couple malls, took a whole bunch of ridiculous escalators to the top of another mall, and had "authentic" German food from a street stall.  The kebap ("schwarma") was not nearly as good as that in Belgium, but it was still delicious.  Gabe had a sausage when we passed the stall on the way home, and it was equally delicious.  The impressive part was the true German beer he had with it. It was particularly tasty.

The day was uneventful except for one other thing - we had a fish pedicure, but I'm going to let Gabe talk about that... (See below.)

Gabe's addition:

"We walk into the spa and are immediately directed to the foot washing station. Unknown to us, a man was making his way towards preparing himself for the inevitable. He sprayed down our feet with a red substance, it smelt like a mix of flowers and malt. I have my suspicions that it was that very substance that made our feet so appealing to the fish we were soon to feed. We were then shuffled into a relaxing room. It smelled nice. It also had light music playing in the background. Several people of the same family were already enjoying themselves there. We turn to our left and tank a seat in the flat bamboo mat and gently lower our feet into a long open tank filled with human-eating fish. They were about 1 inch long or so (that's 1/12 a foot-long) and had gills and fins and other things you expect fish to have. Their first reaction was to immediately leave the already cleansed feet of the older man sitting next to us, and attach themselves viciously to my feet. As they consumed my flesh, tickling me to very core, I watched them. They hovered around my ankles taking large bites at a time, the would scrape along the tops and bottoms of my feet like vacuum cleaners, removing layers and layers of dead-dirty skin. Yes I was tickled, and yes they did wiggle in between my toes and try to get that skin too. Michelle had my same reaction at first: being amazed and constantly tickled. Soon however, we relaxed, and came to appreciate the treatment. It was oddly relaxing to just sit there with your feet in the water and have small fish eating small bits of you. We only had fifteen minutes, but it was fun, and my feet came out white, the cleanest they have been for about 20 years or so."

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.