Tim Hangs in Hanoi

After pursuing excitement through unforgettable moments in Singapore, Tim headed to Ha Noi, Vietnam for some meetings.  Luckily, in between meetings, he had a little bit of time to bump around town, sample some of the local cuisine and see the sights.  He took some photos with the trusty iPhone, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much, mostly of food and random streets scenes:

The above photo is the view from Tim's hotel balcony of the Ha Noi Opera House, one of the major pieces of French colonial architecture in Ha Noi.   Tim's great view was courtesy of the Hilton Hanoi Opera Hotel, which should not be confused with the Hanoi Hilton...

He saw the cars below outside the French colonial Metropole Hotel:

Tim and his coworkers went out to dinner and ordered the spring roll appetizer.  What arrived at the table was not what they expected.  A mango topped with a pineapple cut into the shape of a turkey with spring roll wings and a carrot head, surrounded by heaps of fresh herbs.  Awesome.

While eating, they watched the waiter bring a live lobster to the table next to them and proceed to poke the lobster's underbelly with a stick, extract the lobster's blood and mix it in a glass with rice wine for the restaurant patron to drink.  Apparently this is fairly common in Vietnam!  We found this video of the live lobster blood extraction for your viewing pleasure.

Tim got the chance to go hawker food court and try some food traditionally from the central Vietnam town of Hue (which we'll be visiting later this month!), bun bo Hue (see above).  It's a noodle soup made with pork knuckles, beef shank, oxtail, lemongrass, and sometimes congealed pig's blood (when we looked it up online and Tim saw that congealed pig's blood was an ingredient, he said "Oooooh, that's what that was!").  

Unfortunately the above photo is pretty blurry (I promise to try to capture a better photo when we head back in a few weeks), but Tim said it's pretty common to see streetside barbers in Ha Noi.

Tim saw lots of sports being played streetside, too, mostly badminton and a badminton-esque game called đá cầu that involves kicking a shuttlecock over a net.  Crazy.   Apparently it's Vietnam's national sport.

 Ok, more photos from Tim to come later!

Mr. Ben and Mr. Tim Go Mountain Biking

Mr. Ben and Mr. Ben's wife (aka Erin) are moving to Bangkok this week and Tim and I are quite sad to see our Jakarta besties go.... we are excited to visit them in Bangkok soon, though!

On a lighter note, Mr. Ben and Mr. Tim took one last wild ride (a la Mr. Toad) a few weeks ago down Gunung Pancar near Sentul City, a suburb of Jakarta (it's the same place we went hiking last fall).  As they traversed the mountain and kampung, Mr. Ben took a ton of video with his trusty head-cam and got some great footage:

Please take note of Mr. Tim slow-mo leapfrogging over the handlebars of his bike at minute mark 00:55 and Mr. Ben biting it soon after.  At around 6 minutes you can see the transition from the kampung into the pine forest.  To me it looks more like the Pacific Northwest U.S. than Indonesia!

Sink Lizard

Sometimes it still freaks me out a little bit to turn the light on in the kitchen and see a lizard skitter across the counter.  I know they're supposed to be good luck, but it still makes me jump a little bit.

This guy was actually stuck in the sink.  While I was making my trusty banana shake, he tried and failed twice to climb the steep wall, so I stepped in and gave him a hand.  By "a hand," I mean that I draped a paper towel over the edge of the sink to give him some grip so he could climb up on his own.  He did just that and headed straight for his sanctuary under the microwave.  Good deed for the day, done.

PulSAting with Life

While watching cable TV in Indonesia, we've been inundated with repetitive and seriously overly dramatic commercials advertising the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.... it's a super fancy hotel downtown on the marina (hence the name), topped with a structure resembling a giant curved boat.  According to the commercials (which sound suspiciously like someone used a thesaurus for every other word when writing the script, never getting it quite right), the hotel and casino complex has:

a) a promenade pulSAting with life

b) a choreographed spectacle of light and water

c) an oasis of possibilities

d) a sumptuous journey that promises to tantalize the senses

d) every moment rewarded

Anywho, Tim got to stay at the hotel this week for business, thus getting the opportunity to check out the "Skypark" (aka giant boat thing), which has 360 degree views of Singapore and a crazy infinity pool.  Here is the hotel website's description of the Skypark:

"Stretching longer than the Eiffel tower laid down or four and a half A380 Jumbo Jets, with an impressive 12,400 square meters of space, the Sands SkyPark can host up to 3900 people. The gravity-defying cantilever is one of the largest of its kind in the world. From this privileged observation deck, hundreds of visitors at a time can feast their eyes on the unforgettable panoramic view of Singapore."

Subtle, eh?

I haven't had a chance to talk with Tim in depth about his experiences there, but I'm sure he "pursued excitement through unforgettable moments."

Observe:

Huge ships dot the harbor in the distance.

These things in the middle are Singapore's massive man-made "Supertrees."

Marina view from the hotel side of the hotel.

The interior of the complex apparently has a canal running through it...  ?

The rooftop infinity pool.

Grocery Games: Chicken?

4 chicken heads for 83 cents???!!!  Shut the front door!

12 chicken legs for 91 cents?  Sold.

A quarter of a kilo of chicken intestines: priceless.

Belated May Day Post

This is a little belated, but May Day is a pretty big deal here in Indonesia... thousands and thousands of workers were bussed into Jakarta for the protests, which were, luckily, peaceful (unlike last time).

Like I did for the last protest, I got some bird's eye shots from my office of the protesters gathering and heading on their way to the Jakarta's government buildings.  

I don't know if you can see from these photos, but this is like a mile and a half by three lanes worth of people... massive!

Bali: Other Assorted Ubud Shenanigans

While in Ubud, we participated in a lot of activities, but we also did our fair share of lounging around in our relaxing suite at Alam Jiwa.  Here are photos of some of the other leisure activities in which we partook:

Looking shiny, drinking Bintang besar and eating some excellent sate at Kafe Batan Waru:

 

Taking a break from our power shopping around town to watch the cute local kids play soccer in the main square:

Eating lunch (and taking terrible photos, see below) at the famed Ibu Oka's babi guling (roast suckling pig) restaurant.  Made famous both because it is delicious and because Anthony Bourdain stopped by several years ago to indulge in the porky heaven and record a segment for No Reservations, Ibu Oka's is an Ubud institution.  I've tried babi guling before in Bali and enjoyed it, but this experience was above and beyond that.  We ordered the "special" and were served a mound of rice topped with large slices of super tender roast pork covered in an awesomely fragrant spice mix, some fresh long bean and coconut salad, caramelized crispy pork skin, some blood sausage and these amazing  spicy crispy bits (I don't really want to know what they are) that are to die for.  This place was hilarious, too.  Overrun by people every day (I read that some days they go through 8 pigs at lunchtime), it has developed somewhat of an attitude and the surly service associated with U.S. diners and the Soup Nazi.  I'm sure it's a turn-off for some people, but I actually found it amusing because service in Indonesia is usually so over the top.

Continuing on our "treat yo self" quest, we indulged in massages and manicures at the Alam Wangi spa.  The massages were lovely and the manicures less so, but the tasty tea and snacks at the end made up for that:

Getting our cultural fix at the ARMA Museum, a large museum devoted to maintaining and making available to the public Balinese artwork, both traditional and contemporary.  The museum had a dizzying collection of beautiful and detailed paintings and sculptures depicting life on Bali and various Hindu tales.  I would recommend the museum to anyone visiting Ubud...

My favorite part of the trip to ARMA was actually at the ticket booth.  We had a little bit of confusion about whether the entrance fee quoted to us by the ticket seller was for all 3 of us or just 1 of us.  In the confusion, Meghan had paid for all of our tickets, so Liz and I handed her change to cover our portions.  The ticket seller made an attempt to convince Meghan to give him the small bills we had handed her in exchange for the 100,000 rupiah bill with which she had just paid him.  She quickly shot him down, basically telling him (with a wink) that she had been in Indonesia long enough to realize you don't just give away your small but highly-coveted bills.  Bravo, Meghan!  Small bill hoarding is necessary here, as many shops, stands and taxi drivers will not have change for the larger bills (or will claim to not have change even when they do, which results in a stand-off/stare-down at each transaction, both sides waiting until the other breaks and looks for change.)

We weren't allowed to take photos inside the museum, but Meghan captured the great detail in the carvings on the outside of one of the museum buildings:

Eating a tasty dinner at Cinta Grill (where we had sparked the interest of the bartender and a random dude from Boston earlier in the week) on our last night in Ubud, followed by drinks with all the long-haired locals and aging hippies at the Laughing Buddha next door.  The cover band was pretty good (somewhat of a rarity, I've found), doing twangy and bluesy versions of Superstition and some Rolling Stones tunes.  However, they confirmed my suspicion that the '80s-era Sting song, Englishman in New York, is Indonesia's favorite song.  I have now heard at least 4 separate Indonesian cover bands play this song.  So random.

We were excited because they were the first bar we'd been to in Bali that actually had Storm beer in stock...  we drink it all the time in Jakarta, but seemed unable to find it in Bali and I wanted the girls to try the alternative to Bintang.  Also, Meghan got a really fancy looking watermelon mojito that she enjoyed: