Apologies

Sorry for the lack of posts everyone, my computer has been on the fritz for the past few months, and it's on it's way out so I'm work from my iPad. Needless to say I promise to provide some updated post this weekend so be on the lookout!

Jakarta Surabaya Market

The weekend after Lil's birthday was preceded by the much anticipated trip to Jakarta for the Jazz festival.  Although there isn't much to do in Jakarta, Lillian and I did the right thing by taking Friday off to "explore" the sites.  We quickly learned during out research of Jakarta that there isn't much to see or do in Jakarta.  It's the capital city on the Indonesian island of Java, and there aren't too many unique characteristics to the city.  It's third world, yes, the traffic is horrible, double yes, and unless you're going there with a sole purpose, a trip to Indonesia would best be spent going to one of their tropical resort-esk islands.

While trying to find places to go we pondered going to Sea World, but they don't have Shamu, or penguins, or whales, so we nixed that right off the bat.  Then upon the suggestion of a friend living in Jakarta, we decided that going to a local market would best suit our needs.

We jet set off to Jakarta early Friday morning, and after thinking we might die on the plane ride, we landed safely at the airport, bought our visa's on arrival, and went to the money exchange.  It was pretty awesome to cash in ~100 SGD and receive 1mm buck-a-roons.  LOL.  I truly felt like a millionaire, haha, well, for at least an hour, at which point we were paying for our 120k taxi ride from the airport to the hotel.  I guess if you're a millionaire you spend bucks like a millionaire.

We stayed at the Sherton Media Towers and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was.  We were even more pleasantly surprised when we received a hotel room upgrade because Lil's mom let us book our room using sure SPG hotel points.   We received a free complimentary welcome drink, what we realized later to the greatest perk, of a free happy hapy hour from 5-7 with food and drink on the executive floor.  Lucky rats, that's what we were.  We bascially ate and rank for free the entire weekend!

But that's beside the point, Friday during the day was by far one of the highlights of the trip because we ventured to the Surabaya Local market.  I guess its best to start out with how we decided to choose this market to visit this market of all the street markets in Jakarta.  We chose to go to the market because Bill Clinton visited the market when he came to Jakarta...did I mention that was in 1994, hahaha.  Nearly 20 years later Lillian and I found ourselves in a cab on our way to the market, and we also found our way to an unforgettable experience.

It is a known in Jakarta that getting in a cab, no matter how short the distance can result in an hour long cab ride.  It was pouring when we got in the cab, so we didn't mind being out of the rain, and we hoped the rain would subside by the time we made it to the market (it is an outdoor market).  The cab ride itself though ended up being an experience in and of itself.  We pulled out of the hotel to a find ourselves promptly in traffic, with a super sappy love song from the 90's playing.  There were two "great" songs we listened to, when all of a sudden it happened...Whitney Houston "I will always love" came on.

I turned to Lillian and said "this must be the sappiest loves of the 90's radio station...I love it!"  From there it turned into a slow progression of back seat karaoke, with both Lil and I singing random lyrics and chords on and off and that's when things just escalated to the next level...the cab driver started singing.  Keep in mind he didn't understand a word of English, but was singing Whitney like it was his native tongue.  During one of his many stops due to traffic, he wiped a tear away from his eye, then proceeded to do the window washer knuckle eye rub to imitate crying, ensuring that we saw him.  It was quite possibly one of the most hysterical things I've ever witnessed, and did I mention he had a handle bar mustache.  :-)  It was 3 minutes of pure entertainment, but that wasn't the end of it...

After the Whitney song was over Lil and I looked at each other wondering in anticipation what song would be next.  It took us all of 20 second to recognize the tune, the lyrics, and the singer...Diana Ross, "If we hold on together."  It took us slightly longer to remember where we knew the song from but after a couple stanzas of karaoke, it took me no time to remember...The Land Before Time.  I will admit I know this because I had watched the movie not too long before the trip, yes I own it, judge all you'd like. :-)

It was after this song that we realized that it was not the radio we were listening to, but a CD that the driver was playing, and after those two songs he made sure that every song we listened to was just as great as the last.  Like I said earlier though cab rides can take quite awhile so after our 90's karaoke love song montage ended the cabby totally switched it up, to pop club techno remixes!  It was awesome!

About a 2 miles and an hour later we finally made it to market.  The roads may have been flooded but the rain was reduced to a drizzle and Lillian and I were revived by the cabby's music (so much so I almost offered to buy the CD's, I regret not getting it looking back on it).  We were ready to shop.  As an old colleague of mine once said "I put my haggle hat on!"

  The Surabaya is one long street with vendor after vendor on one side of the street.  The things you can find at these markets range from antique camera and typewriter, cheap/tarnished costume jewelry, pottery, lamps chandeliers, coins, metal kettles, steel irons, pottery of all nationalities, pottery encrusted in barnacles, and just plain old junk.

We walked in and out of nearly every stalls checking out all of the different kinds of babbles and junk they had to offer.  I started the haggling off early because in a market like this if you see something you want, you will most likely not see it again, so you best make an offer.

Tricks of the trade -
1. Never seem too interested in what you're haggling for
2. Know the exchange rate! They generally barter in IDR not USD (round down to make it divisible by10 and try to haggle in IDR)
3. Offer only 20-25% of what they initially offer and work up from there
4. Know your highest price
5. Don't be afraid to walk away...they will most likely chase after you
6. Try to go towards closing time, you'll find the better bargains as they try to make their last sales of the day.

I managed to do a little bit, ok well a lot of all of this!  We took our time par-oozing through all of these shops looking for things I wanted and trying to be realistic of things I'd be able to take back to Singapore (size-wise that is).  Trust me there was a lot that I wanted to get, but you have to be smart about what you bring back.  For me, everything I bought back had to be contained to a carry on, but for those who are willing to check luggage, make sure the price you're paying is factored into the baggage costs, you don't want that to negate your haggling skills.

Surabaya IS the well known market in Jakarta, thanks to Bill Clinton's visit in '94 and Barack Obama's old home being located around the corner.  Yeah, I might have forgotten to mention that Obama "grew up" in Jakarta...in this neighborhood.  That being, said unless you're a good haggler and know the value of things, you WILL overpay.  So be strong in your bargaining skills.

As we made our way back to the beginning of the strip (easier to catch a cab and Lillian wanted to attempted at haggling), we found ourselves being pursued more and more by vendors trying to sell any item we might have looked at initially, which made haggling even harder (because they knew you were interested, see haggle trick #1).  For some reason all of the items that Lillian wanted seemed to be ridiculously overpriced, even after immense haggling.  For instance there was this really cool lock, a turtle shaped with an old skeleton key used to open it, and they wanted 500k IDR, that ~55 USD for a "bike lock and key" aka NOT WORTH IT!   What helped us in the end was being there at the end of the market day.


Trust me we did not let anyone take advantage of us.  It was unfortunate for Lillian because she hadn't purchased anything yet, but end of day was upon us and we were leaving, then all of a sudden we were bombarded by the shop keepers bringing us pot after pot of blue china porcelain covered in barnacles (we had shown interest).   Some of the pottery you couldn't even see the blue but the novelty was buying sunken treasure recovered from the depths...aka they put some pottery in the sea and wait a year for the elements of the sea to provide an antiquate, historical look/value to the item.   There was a beautiful swan with this "sea integrity" that she wanted but the price was wayyyyyy to high.

They started at 1.3mm, and we countered at 75k, because we'd been in the store earlier and noticed that they'd quoted larger vases for less initially.   At first they wouldn't budge for anything less then 300k,  so we walked away.  We were half way down the street when the vendors came running after us, looking for any price that would make them money.  On top of that, every other store round starting bring out the "under the sea" vases to try and sell to me primarily because I had several bags of goods and I was helping out Lillian with haggeling.  In the long run my bartering skills got Lillian the swan for 220k IDR, ~15% of what they were asking for it,  while I resisted buying anything in the last bombardment of merchancts.  I did manage to buy myself a bunch of items near and dear to heart (listed below):


2 Pearl bracelets
1 Red Ring
2 Wood Painted ducks
1 antique iron
1 antique arabic lamp


Even if you have no intension to buy anything at these markets, they are worth visiting just expeirence some of the street selling culture of Jakarta and really see the vast amount "stuff" that people will buy.  Lillian and I sure had a great time learning this all for ourselves.

Life Back in Sg

So it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things.  After recovering from being sick for what seemed like weeks, it was great to get out and see some of my friends for a birthday celebration!
It was Lillian's birthday and we started the evening with an amazing dinner at The Screening room on Club street.

 (Eliza, Janka, Lillian, Me)

The meal was even better because Janka's roommate works there and we got a nice discount.  The night may have started out a little rocky, Janka had champagne spilled on her accidently by the waiter, but it resulted in us getting a bottle Vodka for basically free in Singapore standards.  With the beverages flowing, the rest of night was flawless.

We all moved the restaurant to the outdoor patio where I met some great new friends.  While the heat and humidity may have been a down side to the evening, and the lack of fans, the great company made up for all of that.  It was a prelude of what was to come on our Jakarta trip the next weekend.

Chingay Parade

So upon returning from India I didn[t waste any times getting back into the swing of things in Singapore. My first night back I went to the 2012 Chingay Parade. This parade signifies the celebration of the Chinese deities and in Singapore a major festivity of the Chinese New Year.

The Parade symbolizes the end of the 14 days period after the beginning of Chinese New year in which you can welcome change back into your life. So much of the preparation for the Chinese New year is getting rid of the old and preparing the prosperity and fortunes the New Year is to bring. 

 (There were some balloon floating around, dipping and diving into the crowds)

 Once the New year is rang in, it is considered bad luck to make any changes, even something as simple as getting a haircut could be considered bad luck because its deemed a change. It's only after these first 14 days that you can start to welcome and embrace change, which will lead to your good fortune. The celebration of this 14 day period coming to an end is known as Chingay.

(Below is about 200 people carrying blue and red tubs, and to all of our surprise, when the lights turned off the tubs lit up and as they ran around into place they formed two long dragons)

The parade was quite immense and elaborate, and also very long. I would compare it to the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade except with lots of Dragon themed costumes (year of the Dragon), dance performances and acrobatics, instead of large balloons...and of course it's tropical weather not freezing cold :-D

Below was a chain of men forming a dragon, there were easily 30 people making up this dragon.

 There was float after float, and all different cultural representation of what Chingay means to them.

 These were dragon's made of balloons, followed by the different Chinese calendar animals.  I think I'm a rat.  If you look closely you can see that they flooded the street.  Many of the acts involved water theatrics, using thir costume to splash water around gracefully and in sync. 

 "We are one" is the motto of the parade, as demonstrated one of the last floats to pass.

 The lighting caused an extra dramatic effect as well. It was definitely something to behold, but I will say it got quite long after a while. It was several hours longs and obviously some dances and acts were more entertaining then others. If you're ever in Singapore for this Parade I would definitely recommend going if for nothing else but the experience of a traditional Chinese New Year Event. I must also say, the fireworks at the end were quite amazing. If nothing else I will hopefully manage to make it next year for the fireworks, you know me, always a sucker for fireworks.

Tourist Attractions in Mumbai

On Thursday after we returned from our "relaxing" get away, I went on a private tour to the local tourist attractions around Mumbai.  We started out going to the Ghandi museum.  The museum is actually his old house.

There is a large collection of his books and his weaving machine.  

From the Ghandi Museum we went to the Botanical Gardens.  It was really more like a park then a Garden, but they do have a random boot, yes boot that is quite a popular tourist attraction.  The gardens are actually located on the highest elevation of the city, and there is a pretty decent view on the city and what is known as the "Queen's Necklace."  The Queen's Necklace is ultimately the bay on which down town Mumbai encompasses.

 After walking around the gardens for about 20 minutes we headed to the famous Dhoby Ghaut laundry service in India.  You can't really walk down in the facility, but from the picture below you can see that the men wash the clothes in the morning and hang the laundry anywhere possible to dry.  This laundry service is used by all kinds of local businesses, including hotels...I was seriously hoping that the hotel I was staying in did not employ this service, but who knows.

 We then moved down the colonial area of Mumbai, which I found to be the "prettiest" area of the city.  You could really see the British influence in this area of the city.  Below is Queen Victoria's Train station.

 This is city hall and the court justice building

And of course the tour guide also took me to see arguably the most notable tourist attraction in India, the Gateway of India.  The gate way over looks a harbour where you can get a carriage ride along the water front (pictured below).  This wasn't something that was apart of tour but I figured I take a picture anyways.  Ha. 

This concluded my tour of India and ultimately my trip to India.  On Friday Dhara, Vidhi and I spent the day doing all of our shopping.  It was a long week in India and I was very happy to be back in Singapore.  Arriving at Chiangi airport on saturday morning to the sound, or should I say lack there of, of the cars honking, really made me feel like Singapore was my home, and it was great to be back.

This is Turning into a Very Long Indian Vacation

Write, write, write, all day long.   And there is more to write about India.  I left off after my slum tour of Dharavi but there were still several days left remaining in my trip that definitely warrant some blog space.  Wednesday and Thursday were meant to be the "vacation" after the wedding, mainly for Dhara, but for myself and her best friend Archu as well.  We were booked in a 5 star hotel, out in the "suburbs" of Mumbai.

It's no surprise that when I think of the suburbs, I picture large homes, green lawns, golf courses, boats and beaches.  From my previous blogs, I'm guessing you can tell that the suburbs of Mumbai are not like those in the US or at least F.C.C.  The suburbs are essentially an extension of the city, however as we did make it further from city center, there was definitely less population density, and there was more greenery then anticipate; we even went through a road toll, consisting of trees as the toll dividers, and i'm sure they weren't government officials collecting toll money (oh it makes me smile in amusement).     Sadly despite being in a less central location the trash disposal was still in lawns/fields, woods, and roads; no better then in the city.  (see field above)

Regardless of trash, we were very excited to be heading to the Imperial Palace 5 star hotel.  This would be the site of yet another unbelievable Indian experience.

The hotel looked amazing upon arrival, beautiful Italian statues at the entrance, and a facade that only Hollywood would appreciate.  It actually looks liked a palace on a hill...unfortunately it was all a facade.

Oh lord, the gaudiness is almost undescribable.  This was evident as soon as we enter the lobby.  The hotel appeared amazing upon arrival, statues, gold leafed  and tray ceilings with Vatican"esk" murals plastered on the ceiling. 

While we waited for our 2nd room to be readied, we did enjoy a delicious lunch, however apparently the hotel was completely out of alcohol.  When we were given our room we were told we'd have lake view, ha, but the view was literally a stone wall.  The room was literallt soiled from the last guests despite arriving late mid afternoon, so we promptly requested a new clean room with a "better view."  The pool had broken glass scattered around, and all of the chairs had wholes broken through them, and when I asked for a lawn chair there said they didn't have any...no lawn chairs by a pool.  It was only after calling the head manager where they able to find a lawn chair that I promptly broke when sitting on.  Oh well, my relaxing by the pool was cut short but the flyes hover in all direction.

So its quite obvious the hotel absolutely sucked.  In fact they tried to charge us an obscene amount of money for them to hire a cab to take us to dinner.  As a result, they offered us a ride to the local market, where fortunately Dhara and Archu managed to barter our way onto a public bus.  Indian public transportation...quite an experience.

But we did have an amazing dinner in town.  We went to a delicious Asian restaurant that had amazing drinks. haha

We needed this drink after being told at lunch our hotel was "out of alcohol". Yeah a 5 star hotel with no drink!! WTF doesn't describe the feelings.

 The ride home from town however made the evening unbelieveably more entertaining.  We took a ricsah back and we were pleasantly surprised to find that our ride home managed to make it up the long up hill slope to our hotel.  All I could think during our ride home, was " I think I can, I think I can."  lol.

And now our hotel...it really reminded me of the Shining.  I was just glad that I didn't see two girls at the end of the hall looking at me or I might have truly freaked out.

 Holes in the ceiling... classy 5 star abode.

 The winning moment was when I saw...not a dead, but a dying cockroach in our hall.  That's right it was twitching, definitely not dead... AWESOME! 

 I think it was between the dead cockroach and the horrible breakfast service that lead to us DEMANDING we be reimbursed and send to an actual 5 star hotel.  

A brief reenactment of our breakfast....We place our orders... I order an omlet with mushrooms and tomatoes and cheese.   40 mins later I get my order, but it might as well have been frozen.  So I ask for them to bring it back heated, which really only entail putting in the microwave...but instead they bring me back an omelet with onions and mushrooms.  Where I promptly asked, why are there onions??!!.  And the response was "well we ran out of cheese so we used onions instead."  HAHA This was my breaking point.  Where I promptly DEMANDED for the manager and my friends were in the exact same position as me.

No Cheese, lets use onions, awesome decision! Oh man.... I was so unbelievably happy that we were relocated to the Orchid hotel in the city central because I can't honestly ever imagine any hotel/human making the decision that cheese make look or taste like onions and be used as a substitution for on another.  I'm still laughing about it! SERIOUSLY.  Oh boy

It was aweomse that were scanned upon leaving as well.  HA

My tourist travels to continue