another sight seeing trip at teh mall

Friday, November 14, 2014

This was a very quiet day. I didn't go out just stayed at the family home except for a little walk around the block. I thought we were going to go to a market but that didn't happen.. Tomorrow is the wedding - that will be a long hot day. I will be a fish out of the water - but this too shall pass.... I will keep busy taking pictures if all goes well. I have charged my camera batteries this morning and I still should have lots of memory on the memory card.

Enjoy a few more pictures..






















So this is another huge HUGE mall we went browsing in for our three hours walking..

feverish and shower

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Pizza Hut with some of the family.

Noni has been talking about going to Pizza Hut for a month or so now. I kept joking with her that I traveled to Indonesia to eat Indonesian food... Well pizza is the new Indonesian food....
The family does speak some English so I can be part of the conversations, but yesterday I was just as happy to stay in the back ground slightly. Jet lag is hard on me - my body does not like flipping day into night. Even before when I worked shift work I always had difficulties.
When we were at the sisters home I socialized for a couple of hours at the kitchen table then I went and sat down on the couch and had a nap.
The night before my body was on fire, my whole body was burning .. I went into a shivering frenzy when I tried to have a cold shower before bed. Lucky for me in the morning I was feeling much better. But through out the night I woke up a few times dripping wet and a little deluginal.. Weird dreams.. It is hot here feels like 33 c all the time so being wet with perspiration is normal but this was different.
Showers here ... I only know about her family homes so I assume it is the same with other common people as well - however slowly modern showers are becoming popular. So my shower consits of dipping a pail into a cistern and pouring it over me. The water is room temperature but feels cold when running off my body. I can't say I enjoy my showers... I like warn showers. The tap is turned on to fill up the cistern.
As a side note this is how they flush the toilet also by taking water out of the cistern and pouring into the toilet bowl.


- it is my Friday now early morning 8:50 am - not sure what the plan is today...
I am feeling better but still I have a very sore throat and tired and I am hot

Tradional Javenese Food

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Chicken intestines, quail eggs, tempe bacem, tofu


Nasi goreng Magelang


Sata Padang (beef)






Wedang Ronde a soup y


Otak Otak

So as I promised I am sharing my eating adventures. I was not so fawn of the chicken instines- but I did manage to eat it.
When eating the sata Padang I thought I was eating potatoes mixed in the sauce. They wer a little gummy but hey maybe a different potato - it look like a potato cubed with skins still on.. But I am informed it is a rice.. That explains the different texture. I could not eat the sauce as it was too spicy for me.

first drive Indonesia

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Leaving the Indonesian airport


Typical street side vendor


Not yet crowed or stuck in the traffic. We can still move


Tolls - we will be paying many times as we drive in Indonesia






These two pictures is the shopping mall where we'd are supper and I bought some blue jeans.




Driving towards the family home

Supper -

arrival

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

I am exhausted can barely keep my eyes open - but i wanted to say - we are safe and sound in Jakarta at Noni's family's home. Indonesia at first I was going to say is not very welcoming to visitors but I changed my mind before I got out of the airport. Every person needs to get an entry visa. There was a very long line but it is not the first line you need to line up in. You gotta go pay 35 USA dollars first at a hidden window area - and of course there is a line up for this also. You pay for your entry visa then you go to this very large line up up of tired - confused frustrated travellers. This line was not moving at first very fast - then a group of us were pulled aside and told to go directly to immigration.. Bypassing a good half hour to hour long line up. I was concern because Noni had gone ahead to claim our baggage - she is Indonesian so she goes straight to through to the immigration clearing station.. There she shows her passport and keeps going, after handing in a declaration paper.
Well I was through. And when I had found Noni she had collected all our four luggage bags and was waiting for me to come.
We had to look for her brother - he was not where we expected him but he was found quick among the crowds of people..
He took us to a mall - we ate Chinese food - it was very good.- we walked around the mall for a bit and I ended up buying two pair of blue jeans and getting a third pair free. I think it is going to cost about forty canadian dollars when all the exchanges are made at the bank as I paid for it on my credit card.
Like I said I am exhausted - I just finished having a very coolish shower and feeling clean but still so tired so off to bed I am going.
I am sure I have more to say but I am so tired it will have to wait..

long flight

Monday, November 10, 2014

First lag of flights are finished as I sit in Taiwan international airport waiting for our next flight to Indonesia. My left leg is extremely sore as it was cramped up for the last 12.5 hours. We were seated in the center of the plane even though requests were made for window and isle.
Left leg is pinned together at the knee and metal rod from hip to knee from the head on car collision years ago. To top this off I had the beepers going off at security - this has only happened once before at an airport going into th USA.
The flight was not the smoothest I have been on - turbulence most of the night with the plane shaking, simmering and rattling. It could had been worse.. It felt like a boat being bounced on a wavy lake.
First flight distance from Vancouver to Taiwan is 5870 miles / 9647 km. Noni and I boarded at 0005 hours and the plane landed in Taiwan 0215 canadian time as I haven changed my watch yet.
Tomato Juice - we ordered tomato juice with our meals and it brought to remembrance the TV show MASH when Col. Potter drank a glass of tomato juice and loved it. So the scheming of Radar began so that they could have it every morning. Major Burns would not put it on his order forms so all the scheming was done to bribe it to get done. Eventually it came and the Col Potter wouldn't drink it as it gives him hives... Anyways it made me think of this because I love tomato juice but the stuff on the plane just wasn't that good.
We were fed a spaghetti dish with cut up chicken in it with peas for our midnight meal fruit salad and something else but I forget now. Breakfast was an omelette with hashbrown potatoes, mushrooms and a dinner roll. Coffee and tomatoe juice again.

While waiting in the airport last night it was hot - I was swetting .. As time went on I noticed everyone seemed to be extremely tired like they had already been here for days.. We age and tire fast at airports I think.
We stopped to eat a hamburger at the airport... While eating I watched this man come to the entrance to the restaurant. There was food display of the burger and fries - he began to poke it and stare at it for at least three to four minutes before he came in to eat. Why - why would you poke and feel a display plate of food?
Our first going through customs Noni beeps and is searched,with the hand scanner.. I go through with no issues until my bag goes through the X-ray machine. My bag is searched - Noni makes a joke about this bag being my swimming bag and I might have forgotten to take out shampoo or soaps... I was vindicated - nothing in there that was not allowed. I knew I was careful.
Well this it it for now