Location: Istanbul, Turkey
The problem with photographing cats is that they never seem to have another expression aside from disdain or a “Get out of my face!” look.
This grey cat was found lazing in the rose bushes at the exit of Haghia Sophia.
Location: Arequipa, Peru
[The headline is a from Rebecca Black’s Friday. ]
It’s hard to appreciate the weekend when I’m not working. But taking classes reminded me WEEKENDS, although my weekends will be filled with memorizing the different past tenses.
This morning, I took a combi to school. My host mom told me to take the bus heading to BOLIVAR SUCRE. I got on one with not as much people.
The ride to school was about 20 minutes faster than what it would take for me to walk. I should have started taking the bus earlier. Dang.
School time flew by. The classes at EDEAQ are one-on-one, which I realize are more efficient than small group classes. If you are thinking about learning Spanish for a cheaper price in South America, do consider coming to Arequipa.
After class, I headed to a posh restaurant which Foursquare kept insisting I go. Chicha is a posh restaurant with a slight sticker shock, although it’s still cheaper than restaurants in the same level as in Singapore.
The bill came up to be about S$35 but it did include really fresh sae urchin and a beautiful queso helado (or “cheese ice cream”).
I took another combi back to my neighborhood. This time, I sat in the back so I could take a photo of the back of the head of the passengers.
Being on the bus meant that I couldn’t see the alpacas up close. I did see them from my seat. They have been moved to another section of the park to graze.
I went to the cinema again to see if the Superman movie was really taken off screening. It was. I had a choice of World War Z or Despicable Me 2. I chose to walk away.
After a nap back in the house (or should I say, some websurfing on my phone on the bed), I head out to the Japanese food and ceviche bar recommended on Tripadvisor.
Unfortunately, my “three plate” dish was served in tall cocktail glasses. It was too posh for me, although it was yummy.
I called mom on LINE in the evening. She asked if I had been making any friends. I told her I haven’t because I don’t mind being alone.
“Then why bother travelling if you’re not meeting anyone?” she asked.
“Mom, I’m travelling for my own sake. It’s not about making friends,” I said.
When dad took over the phone, he said that I should head back home if I’m not making any new friends. (I’ve come to think that he means that travelling along is not good. I’ve been on the road alone for 3 months, isn’t that proof that all is well?)
It’s a wonder how people who raised me does not understand why I do not go around becoming buddies with everyone. It’s not that I’m a bitch who’s “not here to make friends“, but I really like “Me Time”. If I happen to chat with people and enjoy their company, then it’s good.
At this stage of travelling, I’ve either almost used up my skincare creams or lost some while packing. In Arequipa, I realized that my skin has turned from oil-combination to slightly dry so I needed new skincare products anyway.
Unfortunately, skin care products in Peru is not that cheap. These two tiny pots of Pond’s cost about S$8 with the anti-aging being slightly more expensive.
I have been using the Garnier BB cream I bought in Greece. The cream is tinted and is supposed to give me a golden tanned look. Unfortunately, I have an orange face instead which clashes badly with the white sunblock I have for the rest of the body.
Another bad thing about the tinted BB cream is that my makeup remover wipes cannot really get them off. I usually end up sleeping in Orange Face and slather on another layer the next morning.
I didn’t want to end up looking like a Oompa-Loompa so I bought two cleansing products. Both cost about S$8 each.
Welcome to YQtravelling’s FoodFriday. The day of the week when I show off some of the lovely eats I had while travelling.
Today we’re sipping some unique tea in Turkey.
When I was in Turkey, my most memorable drink was apple tea. The drink is served in a small traditional glass and is usually pale yellow in color although there are florescent green ones too.
At first I tried to guess how they make apple tea. Do they boil the apples and serve the liquid or do they first dry the apples and then boil them?
I had guessed that real apples were involved because I sometimes see bits of solid things inside.
Then one day, at one of the hostels, mom and I discovered that apple tea is made from powder. Just add hot water to taste.
At the weekly markets in Ephesus, mom bargained with a tea powder seller and bought half a kilo of apple tea solution.
However, I was more interested in the “Sex Tea”.
PS Apple tea seemed more like a tourist-thing than a local-thing. Locals drinks loads of black tea.
Location: Arequipa, Peru
Today’s highlight was my 5 minute bus ride in a combi (mini bus). I wanted to take the bus yesterday but I was daunted by the crowd so I ended up walking to the cinema and missing the Superman movie.
I love taking public transport to save money since taxis are multiple times more expensive than the bus. Plus, I’m very allergic to dishonest taxi drivers.
The combi system reminds me more of buses back home in Kota Kinabalu because it seems to be an unruly system.
The buses have signs of destination in large signs on their windshields. The bus conductor hangs out of the door, yelling different destinations. (Back home, the conductors yell, “Keh keh. Keh keh.“)
One of the reason I finally dared to take the bus was because I realized that “SAGA” was the name of the department store near where I am staying. I won’t get lost if I hop on buses with that destination.
So I walked to the corner of San Francisco street and waited by the wall while other locals eye me curiously.
Many buses with “SAGA” on their windshields stopped in front of me. However, I didn’t want to go on them because the buses were packed almost to the brim with people.
Finally, a slightly larger bus came and it looked like not much people were inside. I walked to the bus conductor hanging out of the door and said, “Saga?”
She ushered me into the bus. Even though it was a larger bus, there weren’t a lot of seats. Almost all of the seats were taken. I stood awkwardly at the empty space in front of the seats.
I didn’t take my camera out and take photos of people in there. I didn’t want to be the traveller who treats other people as photo opportunities.
I then saw a seat between the driver and a school kid. I went to the front and plonked myself in the tiny seat. The street that I normally walk past didn’t look much different from higher up in the seat.
Then the boy had to get off the bus so I went back to the empty space and stared either out of the window or at my feet. It would be awkward looking at the passengers, some of whom were gawking at me.
When we were nearing my stop, the bus conductor repeated, “Saga. Saga.” I think it was to notify me that my stop was near.
As I got off, I passed 1 sole (S$0.50) and the lady gave me back 20 cents (10 Singapore cents) in change.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my first–and unlikely last–combi ride.
PS Mom convinced me to stay in Arequipa for another week for Spanish class. I’ll be heading to Machu Picchu later in the month. However I won’t be continuing my homestay because the walk to school is really time consuming. And I don’t feel like talk to people in the later part of the evening.
Location: Arequipa, Peru
While I love taking Spanish lessons, I cannot help but feel that time learning Spanish in schools is sucking time I can use for sightseeing.
My posts on school days lack excitement because the most exciting thing in the day is getting answers right when I blindly guess my answers.
Today, I learned past tense and imperative verbs in class. The conjugation of past tense drove me crazy and I felt that my brain would blow up.
I planned to watch Man of Steel today after class. However, the class ended quite late (to make up for yesterday’s lunch) and I couldn’t find the right minibus to board.
I reached the cinema too late for the Superman movie. The ticket guy said I was more than 30 minutes late so I cannot enter the cinema. In the end, I chose to watch Monster University instead.
I was about 10 minutes late for Monster University but thankfully Pixar likes putting cute short films in the beginning so I didn’t miss the actual movie.
As I watched the movie, I was delighted to find that they actually change the language of the opening credits and even the words inside the movie into Spanish. I’ve never seen that in other languages.
I didn’t understand 98 percent of the conversation but the movie was just fine without fully understanding the language. (I miss Boo a lot though.)
The rest of the evening was uneventful. I had a dinner of chicken and fries and headed back to the house for homework and Internet.
By the way, I have two videos of alapacas today. I can’t embed them here so check out at the brown alpaca on Instagram and the white alpaca on Vine.
Location: Arequipa, Peru
Since I was picked up from my homestay to school yesterday, today was the first day that I walked to school. Classes start at 9:10am so I started myself walked 45 minutes earlier.
Traffic in Arequipa seems to be quite bad almost all the time. Maybe it’s because of the tiny roads and excessive number of taxis zooming around.
The day was sunny but cool when I started my walk. I chose to wear flip flops today because my shoes didn’t have a good grip of the smooth stone pavements in the town center.
I immediately regretted wearing flip flops when I got out of the house. The weather was too cold for my toes to be exposed! As I walked down the road, I noticed that everyone wore covered shoes. The schoolgirls even had knee-length socks as part of their uniform.
The side of the road which I walked on had less traffic since it was the road out of town. However, the opposite side which had traffic heading into town had a really bad traffic jam. It seemed to me that walking was much faster than being stuck forever in the one-way lane.
Traffic here reminded me of Jakarta’s traffic–Bad.
Near the roundabout, the two alpacas which I saw yesterday where still there. Instead of grazing, they were just sitting around, glaring at people looking at them.
I finally reached my language school after half an hour of walking. I’m actually quite thankful that most of my path were in the shade so I didn’t have to worry about UV rays.
At school, I learned new grammar and learned that I’ve forgotten many new vocabulary.
In the afternoon, there was an Arabic cooking session by one of the students. I got to see how baba ghanoush is made in real life! The food was good and we ended with pancakes slathered with jam from Germany.
By the time I walked back to my homestay, the sun was setting so I didn’t get an eyeful of sun.
I went to the Arequipa HQ of mobile operator Movistar to purchase a new SIM card. However, the employee said I could not buy a new SIM with my foreign passport. I was very annoyed about it so I went to its competitor, Claro, to buy a new SIM.
I did eventually get my SIM card so all was well.
Location: Arequipa, Peru
[The internet at my homestay couldn’t connect last evening so I couldn’t upload this post until today!]
Although today’s main event was my 5-hour long Spanish classes (with breaks in between), I thought you would be more interested in reading about eating alpacas for lunch. I’ll get to school talk soon.
After class, I headed to a restaurant which my teacher recommended. The place didn’t have the Menu of the Day at 2:30pm so I chose something a la carte.
The most interesting items seemed to involve alpaca so I ordered one that was drenched in sweet pepper sauce with some ravioli.
The texture of alpaca is a bit like beef–slightly tough. However, the taste is very different from beef.
My dish of alpaca tasted a little like not-so-well prepared mutton. Or as someone on Facebook corrected me, it tasted “gamey” not “smelly”.
Alpaca is definitely not on my list of Best Meats to Eat (TM) and is probably down at the bottom somewhere with crocodile meat.
After my meal, as I walked back to my home stay, I saw two alpacas grazing casually by the roadside. That’s insane!
I’m taking Spanish classes again in Arequipa. Lessons and accommodation here is definitely cheaper than Buenos Aires. Plus, I get to have one-to-one lessons instead of group lessons.
I was supposed to walk to school (2 freaking miles!) today but the school coordinator and her husband picked me up from my homestay place instead. The morning traffic in Arequipa looked horrible from my view in the car.
I had two different teachers for my lessons. For the first 2 hours, I had Senorita R, the next 2 with Senor J and the last 1 hour with R again.
I think I spoke more broken Spanish in these 5 hours than the whole 1 month and a week that I’ve been in South America. Most of the time, I spoke like this: “I loves to eats Japan food.” “I have a journalist.” or something grammatically, vocabularly incorrect.
Of course it’s all about learning and I’m learning a lot. In fact, I felt like I was learning too much after 2 hours but got into the groove by the 5th hour. I hope that by the end of the week, I’ll be rather good at Spanish. Hopefully.
Location: Arica, Chile -> Tacna -> Arequipa, Peru
Ladies and gentlemen, I have reached the last South American country of this trip (unless some millionaire decides to whisk me off to Bolivia/ Ecuador/ French Guiana/ Colombia.) I am now in Peru, the land of Machu Picchu and cerviche.
Before we all head out for a Pisco Sour, let me recount my 11-hour journey from my hostel in Arica, Chile to my homestay house in Arequipa, Peru. This trip involved a lot of deserts and not so much desserts.
My Arequipa language school advised me to reach Arequipa between 5pm and 8pm. I did a bit of calculations on a paper napkin and concluded that leaving the hostel at 11am should be OK.
What I didn’t realize was that the distance between Arica and Tacna was really really far. It took about 1 hour 30 minutes for me to get there from Arica’s terminal.
I took one of the shared taxis (collectivo) to Tacna. The front seat was modified to fit two slim people and the driver. However, my big butt ended p in the front seat with a slim Peruvian girl while the back seat held three other people.
From Arica to Peru’s border, the taxi played greatest hits from Backstreet Boys. I sang along softly to songs such as “I want it that way”, “Larger than life”, “Show me the meaning of being lonely” while I watched the desert fly by.
In the desert, the sun seemed to shine extra strongly. I had my sunglasses on but the rest of my face was still affected by the rays.
After a long while, we finally reached Chile’s border. Everyone got out the car and showed themselves to the custom officer.
Then we got on the car and drove about 2km to Peru’s side of the border. Here, we took our bags out (I had 4!) and went through customs and X-ray machines.
I was given 30 days in Peru which is just right since I’m leaving on August 4.
Then we got on the car again and drove for a long long long time before we reached Tacna. I dragged all my belongings with me and changed my Chilean pesos into Peruvian soles. My 20,000 pesos turned into a 100 soles note and a few coins which depressed me a little.
I dragged everything to the national terminal just outside of the international terminal. I found the booth for Flores and bought a 25 soles (S$12.50) bus ticket to Arequipa. Everything was just too easy.
After I finished buying the ticket, I was approached by 3 Peruvian girls, who asked if they could interview me for a school project.
At first I was worried that they were a pickpocket gang. Then I remembered that I can’t even reach my important stuff so how could they?
One of the girls pointed a phone camera at me as I sat through several Spanish questions about how I find Peru, where I was heading to, what we language we speak in Malaysia and what sort of dance we do.
In the end, I was asked to say a few words in my language. I did a very awkward Chinese monologue about how I just reached Peru and Thank You Very Much.
This was all very strange.
I eventually got on my bus and sat there for the next 6 hours or so. I napped a lot as it was too hot to admire the scenery. I did take some photos for you.
The sun set completely at about 6pm. While the bus wound through the curvy mountain road, I saw stars for maybe the first time in South America. I couldn’t tell if they were satellites or stars but the sky was beautiful.
The bus reached Arequiapa at about 7:15pm. I followed the school’s instructions and waited for a cab to drive into the terminal compound instead of catching one outside.
I was ushered into a car with three other ladies who were squashed in the backseat. I believe I was charged the Foreigner price so I could sit comfortably in front.
When we reached the home stay place, te cab waited for me while I rang the bell. The host mother came out and I grabbed my bags.
So I’ll be staying with Srna G and her two late-teens for the week. Stay tuned for more home stay fun!
Location: Arica, Chile
I usually pride myself in being one of the first few people who wake up earliest for breakfast. It’s some stupid thing I think of to feel superior over others who drink themselves silly the night before.
However, at Arica Surfhouse where I was staying, I was the last to wake up at 8:30am. There were 11 other beds in my room but I the only one in the room when I woke up.
Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
I guess I have to explain a little about this hostel. It’s called Arica Surfhouse and surfing is one of its selling points. There are surfboards everywhere and people just look tanned and happy. Oh, at 6:30pm, there is a free yoga session (tips happily accepted).
Oh, a guy with a beard was doing yoga when I left the room for lunch.
I guess all signs point to a health hostel and not a party hostel which totally fits me. Plus, the Brazilian receptionist looks like a cute non-Hulk Edward Norton but is unfortunately sexist (the things you learn by being at the wrong place at the right time.
Anyway, I decided to extend one night’s stay here in Arica because sitting on a bus for several hours to Arequipa kind of scares me now.
What do I do with an extra day in Chile? Nothing, like in Kandy and Athens.
Still, I don’t want to leave Arica and tell everyone that I didn’t take a look at the town so I went out around noon for lunch and some photos.
After being in the big Europe-like cities of Buenos Aires and Santiago, I felt that I finally had a real taste of South America. Well, at least small town South America.
Buildings here don’t go too high up. Buildings are painted in bright colors but they are all in harmony with their neighbors.
I decided to tick one thing off my Things to See in Arica. I checked my location on Google Map and walked down San Marco street to the San Marcos de Arica Cathedral. This church was commissioned to Gustave Eiffel, not that I could tell.
I debated whether I should check out the beach which was about 5 minutes away. I decided not to because I don’t care much for the beach, even if there are seals.
After the walk, I headed back to the hostel for a good nap. Now it’s about 7pm and it’s pitch black. I should go out and find food but I’ll take my time.
The next time I write, hopefully I’m in Peru.
Location: Puerto Iguazu, Argentina
A regular-colored cat lying in the sun to tan its belly at Aripuca near Iguazu.
YQtravelling 