The first time I’ve ever tried deep fried duck was in Indonesia.
Compared to the fat (injection induced) friend chicken I’ve eaten, fried duck (especially in Indonesia) is very skinny. Imagine roasted duck but drier and tougher. Yes, that’s how it tastes like. Not that it’s not tasty that way, but it’s just special.
Unlike back home where meat or vegetable play the main role in a meal, the rice is the leading character here. (Let’s ignore the raw veg, I don’t eat raw veg.)
There’s a special chilli that comes along with the dish. Unfortunately, I don’t eat chilli too so I can’t tell if it’s any good.
#FoodFri is a post up on each Friday featuring a dish or meals I’ve had when travelling (or staying put). Happy eating!
The bookstore, along with the supermarket, was one of the unspoken “Must Visit” sites for us. On the first day, we visited the Gramedia bookstore in Malioboro Mall. It looked like a regular Popular but inside it is 50 times more awesome because there was 49 times less assessment books.
The bookstore is part of the Kompas Gramedia Group conglomerate which also has a publishing division churning out volumes of out translated works such as The Hunger Games.
I decided that I should checkout the travel section to find out what sort of travel non-fiction is popular in other countries.
At the travel section, I found a dizzying array of travel guide books and literature. Most of them were money-saving indie travel guides with strangely similar topics: “Travel XX country with YYY rupiah!” Replace XX with a country with YYY the amount of money and you have a new book. Continue reading “Read: The Naked Traveler”→
On Tuesday, reports about the Singapore police arresting a 25-year-old “vandal” trended on Twitter and my Facebook wall. I’m not sure what the exact cause of arrest was, I think she was taken in for spray painting “MY GRANDFATHER BUILDING” on a pristine white wall and “MY GRANDFATHER ROAD” on a pristine gray asphalt.
Besides spray painting, she was believed to have pasted stickers at on top of the button of pedestrian crossing lights. I find the stickers whimsical, something Zooey Deschanel would do after she checks the directions with Siri:
in Singapore
According to the Singapore Vandalism Act, enacted in 1966, those who are found guilty of vandalism “shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $2,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, and shall also, subject to sections 325(1) and 330(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010, be punished with caning with not less than 3 strokes and not more than 8 strokes”. (TL;DR version.)
It’s strange that we’re still using a law enacted in 1966 for the arrest. Back then, gloves were still a hit among the ladies.
Street art overseas
Discussing this with D, she said the point of argument should focus on “how art cannot be a crime?”
I remember being impressed by graffiti during my travels so I scoured my photo collection for some street art/acts of vandalism.
In Nantes, this caught my attention because of Darth Vader and Little Miss Vadar. in Nantes
Make love, not arrests. in Barcelona
The city of Yogyakarta is famous for its graffiti.
in Yogyakartain Yogyakarta
The Mission in San Francisco is famous for its murals. There’s even an app for that.
in San Franciscoin San Francisco
I suspect the graffiti in KL were city-sanctioned and even sponsored by a paint company.
in KL
I hope Sticker Lady would be given a lighter sentence instead of prison time.
For the Indonesia trip, we did a daring thing and booked only one hotel for the whole trip. This worked well for Indonesia but I don’t recommend you do this for expensive cities where cheap rooms run out really quick.
We stayed in different types of accomodation–five different places to be exact. The ones which we booked on the spot was done after much consultation with the Internet and Lonely Planet (most of it was LP’s help, take that guidebook scorners).
Among the room, two of them had resident cockroaches which I killed with a shoe and a water scoop respectively. One was extra posh, another reasonably comfortable. Only three had hot water while the other two were cold showers. Continue reading “S$11 to S$100, rooming in Java”→
On our last morning in Solo, we planned to visit the two palaces.
We took two motor-trishaws (becak) to Surakarta Kraton on a lovely morning. The drivers passed by batik shops but did not stop. I suspect they deliberately drive by to prove that they made an effort to turn into the street.
After paying for the palace entrance, an older man volunteered to be our tour guide. (Later he hinted for the guide tips but that’s just part of the protocol.)
Although I haven’t had a TV set since moving to Singapore, TVs hold a really special place inside my heart. I grew up in front of the TV set, watching cartoons like Mighty Mouse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tom & Jerry, Flintstone and all that crazy stuff.
Sure having the Internet and its videos-on-demand now is convenient since I’m able to watch anything I want. But I still like TV programs because it forces you to watch things that they want you to watch, not what you choose. (Well, you can choose what you want to watch but that’s an illusion of choice.)
So while we were in Indonesia, I watched more TV than I did the entire first quarter of the year. On nights when we weren’t out watching live-action plays, we were cooped up in the room with the stupid box because the public transport stops quite early.
From those few nights (and sometimes day) of TV, I had a glimpse of the wonderful world of Indonesian TV.
I love eating and food in Indonesia sure was good. I’m not sure how much weight I’ve gained during this trip. Hopefully, all the calorie intake has been canceled out by all the walking with my heavy backpack.
While we spent two nights in Solo, most of the eating was done in Yogyakarta. Here are some of the highlights of the food we ate.
Nasi Gudeg
Yogyakarta is famous for nasi gudeg which has cooked young jackfruit inside. (I had thought that the dark cubes of jackfruit was meat. I’m easy to bluff when it comes to food.)
We only had gudeg twice during this trip. The first was not as good as the last I had. The last dish was right before our plane back in a shop just around the corner of the road leading out of the airport. The dish was fragrant with coconut milk and the sides were really flavorful. Yummy! Continue reading “Glutton in Yogyakarta and Solo”→
Finally, my one week trip in the two cities of central Java–Yogyakarta and Solo–has come to an end. These seven days seem longer than they are and that’s always a good thing to feel when you’re having fun.
While my memory of Jogja and Solo is fresh, here are 10 things I’ll miss after leaving Indonesia. Items are ranked in priority and each deserve their own blog post.
1. Food
Feast at Mie Nusantara
Food in Indonesia is cheap and good. Most noodle dishes that we had didn’t cost more than S$2. Their noodles are good and the rice dishes are yummy. I even had siomay which we thought were siewmai posing as meatballs.
Surprisingly, we had Peranakan food for two (three?) times during our trip. We accidentally stumbled upon Kedai Tiga Nyonya while being lost. The avocado juice there made me think I went to heaven. Those were the more expensive meals that we had.
(Post written while still in Indonesia. Internet courtesy of Excelso.)
Taken on Day 1 at Borobudur. By the time we reached, it was about 4.20pm and I only had 40 more minutes before the gates close.
Our hotel was on the temple grounds so it was just a stone’s throw away from the temple–if you throw really really hard that is.
There wasn’t many tourists on that afternoon. One reason being it was really late and another being the rain.
I had the chance to circle some of the levels of the temple. But in the opposite of the righ direction.
When I was on top of temple, the place didn’t seem really big. Until I started circling the lower levels then I felt its vastness. But it wasn’t until I was sitting at the restaurant of the hotel, looking at it from the proverbial stone’s throw that I really realized how big it is.
I think it’s a methaphor for life. While I’m in the fish tank, I don’t feel that the world is big. It’s only until I step away from it that I can appreciate how large the universe is. Or something like that.
My first in my series of #FriFoto. Stay tuned for more each Friday.
YQtravelling 