Grocery Games: Ham and Mustard

Ham and mustard... the chip flavor combination that is sweeping the nation (of Thailand). Second in popularity only to hot chili squid flavor.

Fire Drill: Thai-Style

In Bangkok, a fire drill is neither a demonstrative exercise of what to do in case a fire strikes one's building, nor is it an excuse to grab a cup of coffee with one's colleagues... no, no, no... this is Thailand, where a fire drill is a show!!!

First: there is a clearly announced time for the fire drill. No surprises here.

Second: the promotional fire drill posters have a spokesperson/mascot/"Guardian of Safety" and include some confusing instructions/acronyms/hand gestures:

Third: Once the fire drill has commenced and you reach the safety of the parking lot, you're treated to a spectacle, led by a rainbow spandex-clad MC...

Gas canisters are set afire and audience members are pulled from the crowd to step up to the place and extinguish the flames:

Success!

Songkran 2014, Part 2

Later on Sunday evening, after our daytime Songkran playing, we headed back out into the fray.  This time we grabbed a tuk tuk to the Silom area, one of the biggest Songkran waterfight areas in Bangkok.  

The scene at Silom is a bit hard to describe and my video doesn't really help elucidate much, but here's an attempt: pure craziness.  People, water, wet chalk: everywhere.  Absolutely everywhere.  Blocks and blocks of wet, soggy, chalky people spread across a 6 lane road, all having fun, dancing, cheering, smooshing wet chalk on each others faces, squirting each other with water guns, pouring cups/buckets/whathaveyou of water on each other (that water ranged from creepily warm to searingly ice cold).  So much fun!

Here's our arrival on one of Silom's side streets... a few sprays of water and chalky faces here and there at first, followed by the overwhelming sight of all those people on the main drag:

Here's what I mean about people smooshing chalk on each others faces... people bought little bags of chalk pellets along with a small bucket, mixed the pellets with water and then walked around (or stood still as others passed by) and gently touched the faces of the other people, usually saying "Happy New Year" or "Happy Songkran." I read somewhere that the chalk custom is derived from the chalk blessings that monks put on houses, shop windows, and the ceilings of taxis.

Anywho, here's the chalk application... we think a lot of dudes were targeting this girl in front of us because she was cute:

Here are some shots of Tim and Mr. Ben, all chalked up:

And a video selfie:

After all of that chalking, everything was covered in a slick wet paste of sorts... motorbikes, people, the ground...

More craziness, including firehoses, strange guys on motorcycles popping wheelies and getting cheers from the crowd...

There were some characters out that night, including big fat guy dressed up like a baby as well as a two person, baton-throwing parade making its way through the alleys:

And, finally, a stroll down Patpong alley, one of Bangkok's girly bar/red light districts.  It was pretty much just Songkran shenanigans, there, too, as opposed to the type of shenanigans that normal happen in that area.  Also: you can catch a glimpse of Mr. Ben filling up his water gun resevoir at a very sketchy barrel partially full of water of unknown origins.  Gross. 

Songkran 2014, Part 1

First off, a Songkran greeting: 

Second, Songkran selfies:

Thirdly, our experience during the day on Sunday at the designated waterfight area in front of one of Bangkok's big malls, Central World.  Craziness!

We had a lot of fun getting soaked and soaking others at this Songkran party (see below), but compared to the shenanigans later in the evening, this was quite tame.  No chalk, no booze... just water and fun!

We definitely had fun later in the evening, too, at one of the other major Songkran sites closer to home, Silom, but I am having trouble getting my video to upload.  Consider it coming soon(ish)!

Grocery Games: Chips Ahoy

Grocery games back in the hizzouse!

For some reason I thoroughly enjoy perusing the aisles of 7-11 for interesting local snacks.  While potato chips themselves are not exactly "local"- yep, they're Lays- some of the crazy flavors I've seen here are pretty unique to Thailand.

You've got your perennial favorites in the shellfish family, lobster hot plate and hot chili squid:

Not-so-standard BBQ flavors... Mexican BBQ?  In Thailand? Questionable. 

Extra BBQ?  Please explain what makes it "extra.":

More meat-flavored chips... meatballs of some sort and salmon?  Hmmmm.  Maybe it's wise they left the English off these.  But the spokes people certainly look jazzed:

 These flavors are pretty Thai... sweet basil (one of the three basil varieties here in Thailand, according to the folks at Silom cooking school):

And these two, with no English translation... one looks like a combination of dried shrimp, chili, lime and mayhaps squares of diced ginger?  The second one looks like Thai chili paste, delicious sweet and smokey stuff:

You're welcome.

Our Last Car Free Day in Jakarta

Since we're moving soon, we wanted to squeeze in one more Car Free Day bike ride here in Jakarta.  Car Free Day has been one of our favorite things to do.  You can't go wrong a little exercise and a lot of amazing people watching.  I just love looking at all of the people on their bikes, the various lima kaki (which means five legs: the nickname for street carts, three legs on the cart, two on the guy pushing it), etc.:

But I also love that Car Free Day never fails to produce someone doing something kooky or interesting, whether for my entertainment or their own. This week was no exception, as we stumbled upon a group of civet cat enthusiasts parading their animals around near Bundaran HI amidst the chaos of hundreds of bikers/rollerbladers/pedestrians as well as an ondel-ondel performance. 

Remember civets?  The raccoon-like creatures that literally shit out the world's most expensive coffee?  Yeah.  (Also, please take note of the guy's civet cat t-shirt.):

And remember ondel-ondel, the big sparkly-haired street-performing puppet guys?  Yup.

I'll miss you, Car Free Day!

Miscellaneous Singapore

Besides eating our hearts out and wandering around the Gardens by the Bay, Martha and I saw some of Singapore's other sights...

The colorful and elaborate Sri Mariammam temple in Chinatown:

Some of the beautiful shophouses, also in Chinatown:

 

The Buddha's Tooth Relic Temple, where there was a ceremony going on, with monks chanting, ringing bells and passing around what looked to be offerings:

There is also a collection of thousands of tiny Buddha statues, as well as a massive prayer wheel in the garden on the roof:

Post Gardens tour, Martha and I took a river taxi from Marina Bay Sands up to Clarke Quay, where we were staying, and thus got to see Singapore's skyline from the water:

The Flower Dome, Cloud Forest and Supertrees from the water:

Marina Bay Sands:

We also walked over to check out the spitting Merlion... we had to brave throngs of tourists, several busloads full, who were all trying to capture a goofy photo like the one I made Martha pose for below:

Another funny pose... arms crossed like Sir Thomas Raffles... whut whut!:

 

Airport Fun

 Some fun quirks of the various airports we visited en route 'round the world....

Woe be to all child smokers, for Tokyo's Narita airport only has smoking rooms for adult smokers:

Narita also has several ice cream vending machines, which is amusing in and of itself, but made even more amusing by the fact that one of the ice creams stocked within is called "Crunky" and another "Coolish."  I don't know about you, but when I dream of ice cream, I never want it to be frozen or even cold, but merely cool-ish.

 And finally, in the ANA Lounge in Narita there are some pretty sweet massage chairs that we took advantage of... awesome:

And for some Frankfurt fun....  airport personnel use bikes to traverse the long halls of the airport:

 He he.

The Amazing Big Durian Race

This weekend Tim and I joined forces with our friends Zhenyi and Gladys, entering a team in the third annual Amazing Big Durian Race here in Jakarta.  The race, which is loosely modeled on the Amazing Race concept, is organized by the American Chamber of Commerce Indonesia's Young Professionals Committee and sponsored by a bunch of local businesses, with proceeds and book donations going to various local charities.  Basically it's a four hour long Jakarta-wide scavenger hunt in which teams compete by earning points taking photos with certain people, locations, activities across the city, gathering specified items and generally exploring/being goofy while wearing matching t-shirts:

We had a blast doing the race.  Our team didn't win, but we had a good time tooling around Jakarta in a taxi.  We lucked out with our driver, who was totally game for helping us get points, taking short cuts when necessary, making random roadside stops when we yelled out and generally being amenable to our bizarre requests over the course of the 4 hour race.  I'm bummed that we forgot to take a photo with him...

PS: MVP award goes to Zhenyi for her superior Bahasa Indonesia communication skills... we would still be sitting in the Amigos parking lot were it not for her.

Anywho, here's a sampling of some of the tasks we had to do and photos we had to take as we wove our way across Jakarta:

A photo of our team stuffed in a bajaj:

A drink and a photo in front of the eponymous statue at Aphrodite, one of the race's sponsors:

Cooking our own street food:

A photo with the statue of little 10-year-old Barack "Barry" Obama at his elementary school in Mentang (interestingly, the statue was originally erected in a public park on the eve of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, but was moved to the school grounds after outcry). 

Us, with a baseball bat (not a common sight in Jakarta):

Looking like idiots jumping in front of the fountain at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle (bundaran HI)... how we failed to coordinate our jump three separate times is beyond me, but the resulting photos are pretty hilarious.  Scuba Steve, we may need a lesson in jumping photos when you arrive in Indonesia in a few weeks!!

In front of a burnt out building in kota tua, Jakarta's old city (you may remember it from when I visited with Liz and Meghan last year).  We were able to tick off several items on our list in the old city, particularly at Fatahillah Square:

Operating a pedal-powered kampung amusement park ride (which looks like a rickety tetanus delivery machine to me!), also in kota tua/Taman Fatahillah:

With one of the vintage cars in Fatahillah Square: 

In front of the Wayang Museum (Javanese shadow puppet museum):

 

With some (quite creepy) marionettes:

 

Playing chess with a local:

 

Taking a photo of someone else taking a photo of food:

 

 At Sunda Kelapa, Jakarta's old port, in front of the old-school wooden boats that are still hand loaded and used for inter-island shipping:

With an entrepreneur and his "micro business on a bike," selling instant coffee (packs of coffee on the handlebars, thermos of hot water on the back...:

In front of an empty fountain (I can't say I know the significance of this task, but here it is):

My favorite (although the jumping photos are a close second): with a snake blood salesman on the side of the road... we assured him he did not need to take the cobra out of the box for the photo opp, but he insisted and the cobra was not happy.  You'll notice how far we are standing from the cobra:

In front of one of Jakarta's many Lamborghinis...  how is it that there are multiple Lamborghinis in a city notorious for its crippling traffic, a city where it is virtually impossible to reach speeds of over 15 miles/hour, a city with roads rife with potholes...?  I have never seen one of these cars actually driving anywhere, but strangely I can tell you where at least 4 Lamborghinis are regularly parked in Jakarta.  This one is front of Plaza Indonesia mall:

In front of Monas, the national monument:

With a cat with a full tail (Lincoln!!)... most of the street cats in Jakarta have stubby and/or broken tails, so a cat with a full tail is somewhat of a novelty:

Eating rice at an American fast food joint (McDonald's in this case)... we were also supposed to wear Burger King crowns while ordering food at McDonald's, but the Burger King we chose was habis on crowns, sadly:

At a TransJakarta bus station:

Drinking under a pedestrian foot bridge:

On an elevator that has a fourth floor button... many buildings in Jakarta don't have fourth floors, only floors 3, 3A and 5.  The Chinese word for "four" apparently sounds similar to the word for "death," so it's considered an unlucky number (tetraphobia!!):

And, our last task before heading into Eastern Promise for the post-race happy hour, ye olde human pyramid:

Some of the tasks we didn't get to, but wish we did (although some of them we've done before!):

• making batik
• on stage at a dangdut bar
• riding a becak (like the ones I showed you from Jogja... they're less common in Jakarta)
• at an ondel-ondel performance (Tim and I have seen this before!)
• eating bat (Tim has done this!  He says it's boney.)
• riding the train (been there! done that!)
• sporting ibu-ibu style big hair (a giant, teased bee-hivey hairdo favored by wealthy older women in Jakarta)
• busking on a Kopaja bus
• mini deer (remember the ones we saw in Bogor?)
• getting kerok (the coin massage treatment for masuk angin!)
• photo opp with a koteka (a penis gourd/sheath from Papua!... we asked our taxi driver what it was and he was too embarrassed to explain)
• pictorial about proper toilet usage (there are more of these around town than you would imagine)

And finally, tired and sweaty, but enjoying post-race beers: