all i need is a fire station now...

in visiting what i've been consistently referring to over the past 24 hours as the holy trinity of public safety establishments (police station, fire station, hospital), i've officially gone 2/3 in singapore...im pretty sure i havent even done this in my hometown, much less my own state or country. if you remember reading an earlier article, i've already visited a police station to bail a buddy of mine out of prison (feels so cool to be able to say that lol). yesterday, took a friend to the hospital after he took a digger and sliced open his ankle...i'd totally have pictures, but unfortunately didnt have a camera with me. boo to inopportune timing of bloody accidents.

either way, i spent an hour or so in the waiting room, watching the mummy on HBO on the tv they had without sound, but i did have the handy chinese subtitles. needless to say, it was as good as me reading a book...i just looked at the pictures. however, among the vending machines was a sandwich machine. yes you heard me, a sandwich vending machine which spits out piping hot sandwiches for a couple bucks. now, seeing as i've come here to have as many new experiences as possible (within moral reason, you sickos) i decided it was imperative i try a sandwich. having discovered pepperoni recently, i decided to go with the pepperoni-mozzarella sandwich over the chicken-cheese sandwich, having discovered pepperoni quite recently and falling in love with it. though in reality it was pepperoni-flavored chicken slices, i can honestly say that i enjoyed the sandwich somehow. i can now officially add "ate sandwich out of vending machine" to my list of firsts in singapore.

the last week has been quite hectic with me leaving for thailand on next saturday. have got some things to get done, as well as...uhh, school? is that what its called? ive done zilch for any classes aside from my research project with a UConn professor since i've been here, and to be honest, even though im stressing quite a bit right now, it really couldnt possibly be any better. we got assigned stuff kinda late, and ive been going to class so its not that i'm behind on acquiring information. the stuff i have to do before i leave just kinda came up late. either way, at times i feel like im legitimately freaking out, esp with one of my comp sci assignments...we'll see how that goes.

i talked with my parents for an hour and a half today, the longest continuous conversation that i've had with them since i've been here, and it definitely felt good to take a break from the work and to have them on the phone/skype. yeah, the homesickness is hitting, finally...it might be a little worse when i get back from thailand. however, homesickness does not equal regrets of any kind, dont get the wrong impression. i knew full well what it would be like and how i'd probably end up feeling, and so far its gone according to plan more or less. i just hope that in the end, this turns out to be as much character building and maturing episode in my life as i hoped it would be.

okay, its quite late...and this was a completely useless post, i'm aware. i leave you with a slice of paradise, yet another beautiful photo taken by yours truly. in the words of the wise Nas, "you can hate me now, but i wont stop now." cheers!

i didnt really need those malaria pills

new facebook albums!! in dough knees yah, in dough knees yah too



greetings from the texas chicken mascot! but one of the many awesome western-esque encounters i had in indonesia during my trip last week. as the title of this post says, the malaria pills were useless, but i guess it was better safe than sorry...turns out on my trip to indonesia, which i will detail in a minute, we were more or less in very safe areas in terms of mosquito populations. with a very minimal application of bug spray (twice i can remember, and even those, in cities), i came out with zero mosquito bites. good deal, if you ask me.

okay, so onto the actual adventure. didnt start out on a great note, as our first flight got delayed, which pushed into the timeslot for the second flight...long story short, a little deliberation and a very costly 45-minute phone call to air asia later, we had things settled, but the best solution cut into our trip time by about four or five hours. it was okay though, at least we were still going!

the first day we spent travelling quite a bit. we took a ferry to the island of batam (part of indonesia). from there, a flight to Jakarta, the capital of indonesia. from there, another flight to surabaya, another big city in indonesia. our eventual first real destination was the city of malang, so after an overnight stay in the seemingly dead surabaya, we got to malang in the midafternoon and found a hotel for about $6 or $7 US, which is more or less an average price for hotels in these types of countries. these are more or less fully furnished rooms, mind you, with two beds and a bathroom and some furniture. dumped our stuff there and decided to explore the area a little bit, just to see what was around. we found another quite upscale hotel (with rooms starting around $70US) and spoke to the clerk for a little while. turns out she was quite instrumental in arranging the first part of our trip...i had actually called this hotel for some information before coming to indonesia and they were real helpful in finding ways to get around the area and finding hotels nearby. either way, after talking to her we booked a tour bus to take the six of us that went on the trip to Mount Bromo, an active volcano in the area. We had a grand dinner at that same hotel at night with some drinks, which ended up with oli getting on stage with the live band that was playing (for our group and another table of three lol) and singing "i feel good" along with him. we finished up, went back to the hotel to freshen up a bit, then embarked on our journey to Mount Bromo around 1AM. The drive there took a while, but we wanted to get there for a sunrise we would never see on account of the fog. after our 4AM arrival, we waited for nothing for a while then eventually got around to climbing the volcano itself, but im so glad we did. The view was simply *spectacular*. After we climbed it and looked into the smoking crater, our driver took us to the other side of the valley on another ledge to get a view of the actual volcano itself, and there i took the most breathtaking picture of the entire trip.


from there, we had the driver drive us 9 hours or so to the city of Yogyakarta, another major city in the south-central region of the island of Java. on the way, we stopped at an absolutely stunning waterfall...it literally was in the middle of nowhere, but somehow our driver knew exactly where it was lol. it was a gorgeous area, all natural. it had a small group of food stalls and a makeshift souvenir shop, but other than that, desolate all around.


on to yogyakarta! here, we stayed 2 nights. the first day, we visited two temples nearby, both of them very well known. The first one was the buddhist temple of Borobudur (wiki) and the second the hindu temple of Prambanan (wiki). both were equally grand in their own ways. they both are quite old, its incredible that they're still standing after so much time, braving the elements and whatever mother nature has to throw at them.

The Borobudur Temple

The Prambanan Temple

the next morning, after our second night in Yogyakarta, we took a drive to the nearby city of Solo to catch a flight back to Jakarta to wind up our trip. stayed in jakarta for the night, then flew home the day after. all in all, an amazing few days! its crazy how much you learn about the people youre travelling with, bc they're the only people you have sustained contact with for the entire time...this can be a good and bad thing, but by the time its over, youre just more informed, which is never a bad thing.

last but not least, the humorous tidbit for the trip...im sure there was more than this check my facebook pics for a few more, but honestly, i'd say this was the best one. i think the photo is pretty self explanatory. cheers!

my first trip!

more facebook pics!!

so, good times this weekend. we left on friday afternoon, a couple of us skipping a class or two, and took a train to Kuala Lumpur (henceforth referred to as KL), the capital of malaysia. the trip was more or less a spontaneous decision--we'd only thought about it for a few days or so. luckily, there was still space in the hostels that we booked on hostelworld.com (fantastic site if youre looking to travel for cheap, even in the US). either way, we trained it up there which took 10 hours or so (4 more than the purported 6 hour trip it had on our tickets, to our dismay). got there around 1AM and had our first meal -- McDonalds. im just as disappointed as you are, honestly. we go to a foreign country from a foreign country and are greeted by the world's food ambassador as the only place open in the train station that late at night. anyway, we proceed to our hostel, the Pudu Hostel, from there and take a night's sleep.

next morning, three out of the four of us (the fourth hanging back to gather a spare key as she'd locked herself out lol) went to the Petronas Towers (wiki) to get the free tickets they give to take a trip up to the skybridge in the towers (on the 41st floor out of 100+). just as background, these towers were completed in 1996, sponsored by corporate oil giant Petronas Oil, and they are the tallest twin towers in the world and among the tallest buildings as well. either way, i've been dreaming of coming here for ages now...when i was younger, a friend had a book about skyscrapers and these were easily the two coolest looking buildings in the book and im SO happy i finally got to see them.

anyway, after getting the tickets we collected our fourth member and headed off to the Batu Caves (wiki). these were def cool. took quite a few pictures. the caves were beautiful, and a couple were decked out in indian statues and paintings. its apparently a really big hindu attraction, drawing quite a large religious crowd. the caves themselves were beautiful, but there was definitely some questionable material....

we ate some lunch there (south indian food--dosa!! shown below) and took the half hour cab ride back to KL to see the towers before we caught our bus and headed to Melaka, anothr city in malaysia.

Melaka is one of the oldest cities in malaysia, settled circa 1406 by an exiled hindu prince. as a result, its had quite a bit of influence from plenty of different cultures, including indians, portugese and dutch. each of these cultures has their own little area where you can still see some of the historic buildings and things left behind, so we explored those areas a bit. the chinatown was quite interesting--we went during the night market. to our surprise, there was a live performance going on, some four girls and a dude in chick's clothing singing in chinese. either way, good times. we spent some time here, took a tour of the city in a boat that ran on the river through the city, and eventually caught a bus to come back home. at the bus station, i saw something i didnt expect to see at all...a taco bell! i couldnt believe it...i know exactly where it is and how to get there now, so i expect that i'll make a trip DAMN soon haha

i figure nows as good a time as any to introduce my friends, or a few of them anyway. below, from left to right: Thuy (belgian french speaker), Raymond (the dude who owned the hostel in Melaka), Noura (canadian egyptian), Olivier (or Oli as i call him, french canadian), and me. likely you'll see some more pictures of these guys if you keep up with the blog or my facebook photo albums.

all in all, the following picture pretty much sums up the entire weekend.

off to indonesia until next monday tonight!! will definitely have a good story by the end of this week :D