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Greetings to all...

Lauren and I are currently in Manila safely but we spent most of the past 72 hours in Jakarta. Jakarta was certainly a bit overwhelming at first. We took a local bus from the airport to a local train station and a taxi from there.

Lauren and I laid low Sunday night and set out to explore on Monday. First thing Monday morning we went walking to a local antique market. It was set along a local street and consisted mostly of sets of booths selling luggage followed by one selling golf clubs, one selling good ole' fashioned records and then another set of booths selling luggage.

Following that we set out for the Museum. The Museum looked great from the outside! Unfortunately the inside was closed on Mondays. Haha Oooops. So it was off to SeaWorld!

Now when I think of SeaWorld I think of Killer Whales and Dolphins. So for about the equivalent of $4 it seemed like a great deal. Well SeaWorld Jakarta is a bit of a toned down version. It consisted of a completely indoor park with glass tanks. It may not have been SeaWorld USA but it was very fun and Lauren touched a Turtle!

After SeaWorld we headed to the National Monument. The National Monument was in the middle of a very large park. It was certainly a nice quiet escape from the traffic jams and constant chaos of the city of Jakarta. The Monument is an extremely tall peak as shown in the photo.

We polished our day off at a great restaurant called Blue Erawan. It was a really great traditional Thai restaurant. The service was wonderful and we happened to be the only people in the restaurant since it was a Monday night. The food was great as well! After that it was off to Manila. Our flight left at 12:30 that night and we arrived here in Manila this morning at around 6:30. All is well...More on Manila to come!

So long for now!

-Aaron

Singapore: Days 2 & 3

We've really enjoyed our time in Singapore - I can't believe we're already leaving in the morning !  It has really been a unique experience, as the city doesn't seem to fit in Asia.  As Aar mentioned in the previous post, it is extremely clean, organized, and efficient.  It's also a very international city and there are people living here from all corners of the world.  

Yesterday (Friday) we slept in a little since we were quite exhausted and had breakfast in our hotel.  Unfortunately, it was raining buckets so we weren't sure what we wanted to do...especially since I seemed to have gotten Aar's cold.  We decided we'd just deal with it and stuck with our original plans.  Our first stop was Little India, which is one of the parts of town that has not been effected by the west as much as the rest of town. It was quite bizarre, as it was basically a cleaner version of the real India.  Having just come from the real India, we weren't really as impressed as other tourists probably were.  We could easily find everything they were selling in the shops back in India and for probably a third of the price!  It was still cool to walk around and see some temples.  After Little India we walked to another part of town to view a mosque.  Thankfully, it wasn't pouring quite as hard as it was earlier, but it was still hard to take a lot of pictures and enjoy everything.  The nice thing about the rain, however, was that it cooled the temperature down immensely.  We walked around an arab part of town and then continued to walk down to the Raffles Hotel, which is an immaculate hotel that is several years old.  We had a delightful lunch at one of the restaurants at the hotel called the Empire Cafe.  It was a bit pricey, but reminded me of cafes in Paris.  After the hotel, we went across the street to a place called Chijmes, which is a converted cathedral turned restaurant area. After having walked all around town for the majority of the day (in the rain!) we got a bit sick of it and decided to see a movie.  We had both been dying to see Inception so we decided to go for it since it was raining anyway.  After the movie, we headed back to our hotel to freshen up before meeting Saranta (one of my girlfriends that I met while studying in Paris) who is from Singapore.  We had dinner with her and then headed to a restaurant that one of her friends owns.  All in all, it was a good day!

Today we slept in again and spent a little time relaxing in our hotel room before going out in the 90 degree heat.  We walked to China Town and walked around for quite awhile and saw a Hindu temple and two Buddhist temples.  I find it quite fascinating to see the way that different people worship around the world. Culture, in general, is quite intriguing.  I got a fresh squeezed pineapple/orange/banana juice (which was SO refreshing in the hot weather) and we had lunch at a delicious little Thai restaurant in China Town.  We then walked (seems to be repetitive, doesn't it?) with the destination of the Fullerton Hotel and ended up stumbling upon the practice for Singapore's National Day Parade, which is on August 9th.  There were countless military tanks/trucks/large vehicles that were lined up and down the road.  Apparently the Singapore military doesn't do a whole lot (even though it's required for all male citizens) and this is the highlight of their year.  We then walked to Clarke Quay, which is a   strip right along the river filled with restaurants.  Next, we took the MRT to meet with a new friend, Venky, who will be one of my future classmates at LSE.  We talked with him for a couple hours and he directed us to an American diner that was near by where we had burgers and milkshakes for dinner.  After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to workout and now we're just getting ready to start packing for Jakarta.  Our flight is at 9:45 am tomorrow, so we have to get up moderately early to take the MRT to the airport.

Although it's quite expensive, we've loved Singapore!


p.s. I also uploaded the majority of our photos onto picasa so you can check those out here.

The Land of No Chewing Gum...?

Howdy from Singapore!

Stop number 2 on the so-called maatventure is over half way. The contrast between Bangalore and Singapore is certainly a large one. Singapore is known as being one of the cleanest cities in the world and it certainly has appeared that way. How this is accomplished is laws of course. Laws such as; no littering, no spitting, and yes, no chewing gum. It indeed, up until recently, was illegal to even possess chewing gum in Singapore. Though talking with a friend of Lauren's last night it sounds like that ban on possession is no longer in effect.

So we got here early morning on Thursday somewhere around 6:30 AM (6:30 PM in Mich). We both slept a bit on our red eye but we were a little spacey. We used Singapore's MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) Train to get from the airport to the hotel. This was a good experience, as it was a very simple system even though it was rush hour when we were on it and the trains were packed. We made it to our hotel around 8:30 or so, checked our luggage in, and headed out for the day.

First stop was the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The Gardens were beautiful. The grounds were extremely well kept and admission to the main gates was free. Laur and I spent about an hour wandering around exploring and taking a few pics! After this we headed for the Island of Sentosa.

We decided to take the cable car ride to Sentosa which was a very cool experience as we got to survey the skyline and the greenery from an elevated perch. The ride took only about 10 minutes but we took many pictures and let our legs rest a bit. We found Sentosa to be quite a tourist trap. We were apparently the only people on the island that after riding the cable car to the island didn't want to pay $10 each to ride a street luge to the bottom! We did however end up

walking down and we made our way to the beach. We went to a little beach restaurant called Coastes and grabbed a little snack and just relaxed and gazed upon the sight of about 30-40 ocean freighters sitting off the coast. At this point Laur and I were exhausted so we headed back to the hotel to rest up. It was a good first day we were hot, sweaty and tired and when we finally cleaned up and hit our beds we rested extremely well. I am going to pass the baton on to Lauren for the next portion of the blog...so long for now...

Off to Singapore!

Hello everyone...

Well just a real quick note here before we take off to Singapore. I am feeling much better today perhaps it was the eucalyptus oil steam treatment that Auntie and Uncle had me undergo yesterday and the day before. As you can see by the picture I simply placed my head over a hot pot with a small amount of eucalyptus oil and the steam rose from the pot and I breathed it i

n. The blanket was to contain the steam. After about 5 minutes I was sweating like crazy and breathing clearly! Of course the stuffiness usually came back after an hour or so but then this morning I woke up and it was gone. So with me feeling better and no signs of Laur getting sick its off to Singapore! Our flight leaves at 11:30 PM which is about 4.5 hours from now. Which means I need to finish packing! Everything else is going great so...Good bye until Singapore!

laying low

We've been laying low for the past few days, as Aaron has been a bit under the weather.  Nothing too serious, just a bit of a cold/sinus issue, but it has kept us from being too adventurous.  Once again, here is a brief synopsis of what we have been up to lately:

Thursday:

Aaron and I headed to Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore.  It was a lovely escape from the hustle and bustle of the city and we were able to see lots of greenery in the middle of Bangalore.  The garden is HUGE - we only spent about an hour in there since it started raining, but you could easily spend a whole day wandering around the numerous different paths.  It was nice to just walk peacefully and not have to constantly be worrying about where we were walking, what we were stepping in, or what might be coming our way.  After the gardens, we caught a rickshaw to Forum Mall, which is essentially the same as a mall you might find in the US.  I had been to the mall on a previous trip and my initial thought was to find a cute indian store to buy a ready made salwar, but the mall had mostly western stores and it was a bit hard to find.  However, I did end up finding one :).  We started to get hungry and ended up being lame and getting Pizza Hut for lunch.  We've eaten almost all Indian food since being here,  so it was nice to have a little taste of home. On Thursday evening we went back to James and Anita's house with Aunty and Uncle and spent the evening with them.






Friday:


A girl from the US came over (her sister had previously met Aunty and Uncle and wanted her to meet them as well) and we went on a little adventure to a Hindu Temple.  It was pretty far away from Aunty and Uncle's home and we arrived at 2:45, only to realize that it was closed until 4:00.  We decided to wait since we had gone all that way and it was an interesting experience.  I had been to several hindu temples before so I wasn't as excited about waiting, but I'm glad that we did, as I think it was a good thing for Aaron to see.  It was quite bizarre, as we were in a never ending line.  It wasn't like most temples that I had visited where you could essentially wander wherever you wanted.  There was only one way in and one way out and you were in the middle of a crowd the whole time.  I prefer my own personal space so I didn't particularly enjoy the close quarters, but it was still interesting to see the way that other people worship.  After you leave the temple, there is an endless zig zag of little tables set up selling various things that they force you to walk by.  It's basically a scheme to try and make you buy things.




Saturday:

I think Saturday was when Aaron first started feeling a bit under the weather.  In the morning, Uncle took us to City Market, which was insane!  We arrived around 11am and Uncle said it was one of the slowest times of day.  However, if you would have asked Aar or me we would not have thought that to be the case.  There were people EVERYWHERE.  It was really fascinating to see all of the bright colors and you can buy anything from pots and pans to flowers to fruits.  We spent about 45 minutes walking around and taking pictures.  As with the hindu temple, I thought it was nice to see and experience another aspect of the Indian culture, but I much prefer the smaller markets around Aunty and Uncle's home.  In the afternoon Aaron and I went to the Coffee Day (coffee shop) around the corner again and enjoyed chatting and spending time together without worrying about being anywhere or doing anything.  It was a nice relaxing day!

Sunday:


We went to church in the morning, but Aar was feeling even more sick so we pretty much laid low in our apartment most of the day.  We went on a walk last night and ended up at a grocery store, where we found a few American food items.  We bought snickers, a kit kat, and pasta/sauce (which we made for lunch today).  I don't really even eat Snickers at home in the states, but it definitely tasted fabulous yesterday!


We leave for Singapore on Wednesday already - which is so crazy!  I can't believe how fast time is going by.  We've been having a great time with Aunty and Uncle, but we are also very excited for the next leg(s) of our journey.  Please pray for Aaron that he gets better before we leave and that he doesn't pass it on to me!

Rickshaw Adventures...

Hello again...Aaron Here...

So one thing so far critical to the Bangalore experience is transportation in auto rickshaws.  Lets just say it's not your average taxi ride.  The adventure begins in acquiring a ride.

So lets be up front here, we are white, we are American, we are targets and everyone knows it.  Rickshaw drivers may not know we are American but the first one alone qualifies us as targets, the target of course is our pocket book.  Each auto rickshaw is equipped with a meter similar to the one shown on the left.  These meters start at a minimum of 14 rupees (around 50 rupees to the dollar) and after 2 kilometers starts going up at 7 rupees per km.  This as I said is the minimum and the first thing almost every driver will try to do is squeeze more out of you...sometimes the offers are relatively outrageous...100 rupees for a ride that should only cost 30 or 40.  Sometimes the driver simply wants another 10 rupees thrown on to the meter at the end.  Our goal each time is the meter and the meter only.  I would say we are successful with this about 90% of the time.  However, it usually does take around 3 to 4 attempts before drivers behind see you walking away from other autos and realize that you aren't as easy of a target as you may look.  (All this being said certain events do dictate higher rates for everyone such as nighttime, rain, heavy traffic, or many other reasons)  So after hiring the auto, hopefully only for the meter, the real adventure begins!

In my estimation, rickshaw drivers as a collective bunch are fair, safe, and honest.  However there are some bad apples in the bunch.  The following stories will help illustrate that.  Already while in Bangalore we have had the following; a driver from "The Fast and the Furious," an attempt at the classic bait and switch, and a crooked meter.


"The Fast and the Furious"
So Monday night we spent the night at James and Anita's and the following morning James helped us hire an auto.  He was a young driver maybe 20 years of age with what looked like some pretty trendy jeans.  We made record time.  The driver flew down straight aways blowing by cars and bikes with an extreme herky jerky lane change method.  He would get really close to something (a person, a cart, another vehicle, etc.) and make it appear like he was going to hit them, and swerve out of the way at the last second.  Each time I noticed him looking at me in the mirror trying to gauge my reactions, which I am sure were not mundane.  At one point we hit a speed bump so fast that both Laur and I went airborne in the back seat!  So Tuesday morning got off to an adrenaline pumping start!

An attempt at the classic bait and switch...

On another occasion Laur and I were walking around commercial street (a market/shopping area) and decided we had had enough.  Having expended some energy walking there we decided to get an auto to a coffee shop at another location.  We followed the usual attempts at the meter at which point a young man, dressed far to nicely for a rickshaw driver in hindsight, approached and asked where we wanted to go.  After we responded he waved us in his direction.  After weaving in and out of a few rickshaws he booted a driver out of his and pointed us towards the seat at which point he said he would charge only 10 rupees for the ride (no meter even) this obviously raised red flags.  Lauren and I both hesitated for about 1 second and decided to get out.  Later after talking with James he told us this is a scheme used to bring people to shops to try and get them to buy some things.  Your destination has nothing to do with the price.  This was in fact a deal to good to be true.

The Crooked Meter

Yesterday Laur and I spent some time at a shopping mall called The Forum.  Afterwards we once again went looking for an auto.  After one attempt a man approached us and seemed to agree upon the meter until we were in the back seat at which point he looked at us and said "double the meter".  After a few exchanges and attempts at leaving the rickshaw he agreed to only the meter.  So after cruising along for maybe 30 seconds or perhaps 1/2 a km the meter started ticking away. Remember the meter isn't suppose to start until the 2 km point.  I pointed it out to Laur and we both watched as the meter then proceeded to click away at at least double the normal rate.  I told the driver his meter was wrong and he responded with "correct, no?"  From talking with him earlier I knew he knew more English than that. After saying "correct, no?" 3 or 4 times we told him to stop we got out of the auto, I gave him 20 rupees (which I probably should not have done) and waved him on his way.  While driving away he maintained a very unhappy glare at me which I returned :).  Immediately after we got out a man who looked to be about 60 and incapable of hurting a soul pulled up.  We hopped in and found our way home safely and with a story for only the price of the meter!

So those are just the first of many Rickshaw adventures that I am sure we will experience in our remaining time in India.   So long for now...

P.S.  I have seen Judith (Jame's and Anita's Daughter) at the end of two rickshaw rides.  She was sound asleep.  So apparently some people find them very relaxing : D

Funny sign near Auntie and Uncles...See JP if you want to see many similar examples...

life in bangalore

Well, we are finally feeling settled and adjusting to life in Bangalore.  Things have been going well the past few days and I think Aaron is beginning to see why I love India so much.  In a nut shell, here's what we've been up to lately:


Saturday:


~There was a WCOI board meeting so Aaron had his first encounter with the traditional Indian dish of biryani, which is often eaten during celebrations/important events
~We went to the near by shopping area, Commercial Street, but it was even more congested than usual, as it was a Saturday afternoon
~I caught up with one of my friends from my last trip, Raja, who came over for the afternoon with his wife


Sunday:


~We went to church at Bethel Baptist - also the same church I attended during my last trip
~We fully engaged in "the day of rest" and took a two and a half hour nap


Monday:

~We started working for WCOI by cleaning out the library, which I don't think has been touched in the last 25 years.  Lots of dust and bugs and I don't think we'll finish anytime soon!

~We took an afternoon break and walked over to Cafe Coffee Day.  Here's the view of Ulsoor Lake from the coffee shop:

~We got caught in the pouring rain on the way home from the coffee shop, but luckily it's only a short walk

~We headed over to James and Anita's house after work to spend some time with them.  We went for a walk and their daughter, Judith, ended up getting her ears pierced.  Anita made a delicious dinner and we ended up spending the night at their home

All in all we've been keeping busy and having a great time!