From: Dan Trumble (US-Finance)
Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2006 9:32 PM
Subject: Sunday 9 Jul 2006 in Indonesia - Dan Trumble
Hey, Selamat pagi (good morning).
I’m in Indonesia and put together the little summary below.
Manado is a city of about 1 million and has a lot of Christians. The Dutch colonized this area. There are quite a few European flags flying around town showing people’s support for various soccer teams. Apparently this would not be okay in a different part of the country but it is more free here. The city was nice and doesn’t seem very dangerous. It’s very hilly and very pretty.
This morning I heard what sounded kind of like the scream of firecrackers flying through the air (but with no bang at the end). It was the song of birds…really different.
We had breakfast this morning. It was a buffet but not as nice as what we had in Brazil. There was some noodles that looked okay but sure didn’t look like typical American breakfast food. I didn’t try any of that but I did have some of the rice which was maybe like sticky rice but with quite a bit more water. Think of the consistency of kind of runny oatmeal. A lady would cook eggs and Rebeca and I each had two over easy eggs brought to us (I’m not sure Rebeca ate both of hers). Anyway, I made some toast and used it like a dippin’ egg thing (“dippin’ eggs is what I called it when I was a kid). I ended up throwing the second egg in with the rice and some toast and cheese and that was pretty good.
We went to a Pentecostal church. The service ran about 2 hours but they flashed the words up on some screens when there were songs to sing and the language is pretty easy to pronounce when you can see the words spelled out so I was able to sing along even though most of the time I didn’t know what the words meant. Yesus is pretty easy to figure out, though.
After church we went to a restaurant beside the ocean. We got in a terrible traffic jam on the way and it turned out that it was a gas station that was causing the traffic jam. The ARC won’t take our stroller for safety reasons and today I see a motorcycle with Mom & Dad and sleeping child (maybe even a baby) in the middle. There were 8 of us at the restaurant and the full bill was something like $50 before tip (if any, I don’t know). It was pretty nice stuff, too. I even had an avocado drink. Who ever heard of such a thing. It also had chocolate milk mixed in or something. It was pretty good. The food was served family style. We had prongs (which are basically huge shrimp and are a huge pain to de-leg, de-head, and de-skin). There were a couple of fish kind of flayed out. Pretty spicy but pretty good. Eyeball was still intact…I could have done without that (I didn’t eat it though, yucko!)
We stopped by Hypermarket (kind of like a Wal-Mart) and I bought quite a bit of stuff. There were dress-style shirts for under $6 and some sleeveless t-shirts for under $2 (not that I’d want one of those but the prices are pretty impressive). I apparently put my big toothpaste tube back in the cabinet before I left and so I only had a little tiny tube and needed more. I got a full tube for about 75 cents. I bought candy, pop, and other stuff. I think there is a good opportunity to take care of stocking stuffers while I’m here.
On the way out I stopped by another store very quickly and there were soccer jerseys (or something like that) for less than $5…wahoo!
I ended up taking a nap and then a bit after 7:00 PM Rebeca and I met for dinner. This place is pretty quiet. For a long time we were the only guests in the restaurant. It is quite nice but they had a TV on with some kind of local soap opera or something. Anyway, we didn’t really order and the food started coming. There was a chicken salad followed by pumpkin (or something) soup followed by the main course of rice, vegetables, and squid and for desert there were fried bananas with some kind of cheese on top. It was all quite good. My first experience with squid in Hong Kong in 2004 maybe left me with the wrong first impression…that was fairly nasty (like chewing on your shoe but the shoe would probably taste better). What I had tonight was really quite good. It was also quite spicy. Rebeca has been avoiding the seafood. I guess we’ll see whether it is safe to eat or not…I’ve been eating (which is certainly one of my gifts).
Outside (especially, but not exclusively) by the pool are a bunch of frogs or toads.
Hey, Selamat pagi (good morning).
I’m in Indonesia and put together the little summary below.
Manado is a city of about 1 million and has a lot of Christians. The Dutch colonized this area. There are quite a few European flags flying around town showing people’s support for various soccer teams. Apparently this would not be okay in a different part of the country but it is more free here. The city was nice and doesn’t seem very dangerous. It’s very hilly and very pretty.
This morning I heard what sounded kind of like the scream of firecrackers flying through the air (but with no bang at the end). It was the song of birds…really different.
We had breakfast this morning. It was a buffet but not as nice as what we had in Brazil. There was some noodles that looked okay but sure didn’t look like typical American breakfast food. I didn’t try any of that but I did have some of the rice which was maybe like sticky rice but with quite a bit more water. Think of the consistency of kind of runny oatmeal. A lady would cook eggs and Rebeca and I each had two over easy eggs brought to us (I’m not sure Rebeca ate both of hers). Anyway, I made some toast and used it like a dippin’ egg thing (“dippin’ eggs is what I called it when I was a kid). I ended up throwing the second egg in with the rice and some toast and cheese and that was pretty good.
We went to a Pentecostal church. The service ran about 2 hours but they flashed the words up on some screens when there were songs to sing and the language is pretty easy to pronounce when you can see the words spelled out so I was able to sing along even though most of the time I didn’t know what the words meant. Yesus is pretty easy to figure out, though.
After church we went to a restaurant beside the ocean. We got in a terrible traffic jam on the way and it turned out that it was a gas station that was causing the traffic jam. The ARC won’t take our stroller for safety reasons and today I see a motorcycle with Mom & Dad and sleeping child (maybe even a baby) in the middle. There were 8 of us at the restaurant and the full bill was something like $50 before tip (if any, I don’t know). It was pretty nice stuff, too. I even had an avocado drink. Who ever heard of such a thing. It also had chocolate milk mixed in or something. It was pretty good. The food was served family style. We had prongs (which are basically huge shrimp and are a huge pain to de-leg, de-head, and de-skin). There were a couple of fish kind of flayed out. Pretty spicy but pretty good. Eyeball was still intact…I could have done without that (I didn’t eat it though, yucko!)
We stopped by Hypermarket (kind of like a Wal-Mart) and I bought quite a bit of stuff. There were dress-style shirts for under $6 and some sleeveless t-shirts for under $2 (not that I’d want one of those but the prices are pretty impressive). I apparently put my big toothpaste tube back in the cabinet before I left and so I only had a little tiny tube and needed more. I got a full tube for about 75 cents. I bought candy, pop, and other stuff. I think there is a good opportunity to take care of stocking stuffers while I’m here.
On the way out I stopped by another store very quickly and there were soccer jerseys (or something like that) for less than $5…wahoo!
I ended up taking a nap and then a bit after 7:00 PM Rebeca and I met for dinner. This place is pretty quiet. For a long time we were the only guests in the restaurant. It is quite nice but they had a TV on with some kind of local soap opera or something. Anyway, we didn’t really order and the food started coming. There was a chicken salad followed by pumpkin (or something) soup followed by the main course of rice, vegetables, and squid and for desert there were fried bananas with some kind of cheese on top. It was all quite good. My first experience with squid in Hong Kong in 2004 maybe left me with the wrong first impression…that was fairly nasty (like chewing on your shoe but the shoe would probably taste better). What I had tonight was really quite good. It was also quite spicy. Rebeca has been avoiding the seafood. I guess we’ll see whether it is safe to eat or not…I’ve been eating (which is certainly one of my gifts).
Outside (especially, but not exclusively) by the pool are a bunch of frogs or toads.
[NOTE: when I said "prongs" above what I was talking about was "prawns". How should I know about all of this seafood stuff? I have lived most of my life in Colorado! ---Dan May 2, 2007]
This is a picture of me at the place where we’re staying (I took the picture myself).
Another picture of the place we’re staying
Giant Chessboard
We had a nice air-conditioned vehicle to travel in. These folks did not.
Avocado drink (whoever heard of such a thing?)
Fish
Restaurant – Lunch on Sunday
This is the pool at the restaurant where the live lobsters are kept. These are starfish.
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