Ice Cream Sandwich, Singapore Style

In Singapore, the ice cream sandwich is quite literally a block of ice cream sandwiched in a slice of bread.  

When Tim and I were wandering about the city this weekend we stumbled on a cute elderly couple selling ice cream out of a cart... there was a line in front of their cart, which is what initially drew our attention, but what reeled us in was the fact that people were walking away from the ice cream cart looking ecstatic over something wrapped in pastel colored bread.

The bread is a little bit Wonderbread-esque, but pink and green pastel-colored and pandan-(and maybe a hint of durian?) flavored...  The ice cream is cut off of a giant block (hence the name of the treat, "potong ice cream," which means cut ice cream... check out the video link for the ice cream cutting in action), and the flavor options run the gamut from those you might recognize (chocolate, vanilla, et al.) to some truly SE Asian flavors (sweet corn, purple yam, durian, red bean...). 

Here's me, taking my first bite and trying to decide whether I am on board:

It was definitely refreshing! The bread part was better than I thought it would be- it sort of compresses in your hand and soaks up the ice cream as it melts, eliminating drips.  Definitely worth trying for the novelty factor, but perhaps not my absolute favorite way to eat ice cream... I still love the crunch of a sugar cone.

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:

Gili Air: Logistics

Since the Gilis are three tiny, relatively arid islands just off the northwest corner of Lombok, they have some interesting logistical necessities.  As an aside, "gili" actually means "small island" in the local language, Sasak, which is spoken on neighboring Lombok. 

First, there is no motorized transport on the islands, so walking, riding a bike or taking a "cimodo" or horse-drawn carriage is your only option for traversing the islands.  When we first arrived on Gili Air, Tim and I hopped on a cimodo with our luggage rather than try to roll it down the sandy street... bumpy and a little stinky, but we got to our hotel quickly.  The cimodos all seem to have bell-covered harnesses for their horses, maybe so that they can be heard by pedestrians at night when the Gilis go dark.  The bells kinda make the whole island, incongruously, sound like a Christmas sleigh:

One of the other logistical challenges for the Gilis seemed to be supplying the islands with food and drinking water (the water on the island is exclusively salt water, from what I understand.  Our shower was not quite ocean water, but definitely a little salty).  It seemed that grocery runs to Lombok were made regularly.  We watched each day as folks unloaded all of the essentials from wooden outrigger boats, carrying the heavy loads of groceries up the hot beach:

Mantis Shrimp = Awesomesauce

I realize that until I use an underwater camera or am able to mooch photos and video from other divers like I did for our Komodo dives, my photo-less posts on scuba diving and laundry lists of cool underwater sea creatures (like this one I just posted from Gili Air) are probably pretty sleep inducing.  I try to link to photos or info on the different creatures so stimulate your interest if you're inclined to do some clicking, but that's probably not enough to keep your much sought-after attention.  

Photo from Manta Dive

Luckily, one of my favorite web comics, The Oatmeal, recently did a fun informational comic on one particularly awesome undersea creature that Tim and I have now glimpsed twice (once in Komodo, once last week in Gili Air): the mantis shrimp.  Please do check out his comic, "Why the mantis shrimp is my new favorite animal..."  Funny and informative!  Definitely check out all of the links and videos at the bottom of the comic, too.  You'll find out just how amazing and totally badass this little lobster tail with eyes (mmm... lobster tail) is... beautiful, dangerous, talented, inspirational...  I wish I had seen it in action underwater, but I also feel pretty lucky to have seen it in the wild at all.

Gili Air Sunset

Tim and I took a relaxing sunset walk around Gili Air... it would be far too hot to walk the island's perimeter during the middle of the day, but after 5, it was just right. 

I love all of the colorful wooden boats used at the Gilis to transport people and goods around:

Some stretches of beach on the far side of Gili Air are practically deserted:

Self-portrait FAIL:

Better, except for the mullet-look my hair has achieved:

Strike a pose:

Boats and birds:

You can just see the top of Mt. Agung on Bali peeking through the clouds in these westward facing photos:

We liked the cool blue hue of everything once the sun set: