Kids after school

Here are some kids hanging out at food stall after school.

Printer

Indonesians  are very smart when it comes  to ways to try to save money.  This video shows my printer in Medan and the ink system.

 

my dishes in medan

My house in Medan already had dishes.  Funny thing is that they were Christmas plates.  I ate on special Christmas plates from mid-September to mid-January.

 

The 50s Rock Band

This band played at the same café as the traditional musician, although they were hired to play and he just played for a few minutes and moved on.   They played songs by Elvis Presley and other 1950s musicians.

 

Traditional Musician in Yogya

This is a traditional musician playing for tourists at a restaurant in Yogya.  He sounded out of tune to me, but I just assumed he was playing a different scale than  traditional western music.  However, I met an ethnomusicologist (that’s an expert in different kinds of music from around the world) and he told me that even for local musical scales, the instrument was out of tune.

 

Identify the Species 2

 

Identify the Monkeys, Part 1

Here is a challenge,  at the Monkey Shrine (see below) there were two species of monkeys, can you identify the species?  Here is species 1.  Can you identify the species?

The Monkey Shrine

In North Sumatra, outside the village of Perdagangan there is the Monkey Shrine.  Although mostly valued by Chinese, other ethnic groups come here to gain magical power.  An important part of the place are the monkeys which live there

 

 

 

Five Footed Sellers

The Indonesian Kaki Lima, literally Five Feet at are common feature of many Indonesian cities. They push carts that are mini-kitchens. "Five Feet" refers to the two wheels and a stand when parked on the cart and the two legs on the seller. They go through neighborhoods selling their wares. I did not hear them in Medan. As far as I could tell in Medan, they moved their carts to a particular spot and set up shop.

When going through a neighborhood, they make a special sound to let the inhabitants know that they are there and what they are selling. Each type of food as a specific sound.

Fried Rice: Rapping chopsticks on a wok.

Meatball Soup: a hollow "tuk-tuk" sound made by hitting a bowl with a spoon.

Wall 's(aka Good Humor) Ice Cream: a tinny sounding short song

Satay: the seller shout's "tay, tay" or "tay, satay"

Here are some other sounds one might hear(especially on Bali), as described by another blogger

• The ‘tek-tek’ sound. This is produced by the seller who hits a stick on a hollow bamboo tube as he pushes the cart. He sells chicken noodle soup (mie ayam). Locals call this ‘mie tektek’.
• The ‘ding-a-ling’ sound. Listen out for this in the heat of the day. This guy’s pushing a cart packed full of brightly coloured coconut ice cream cones (es). He rings a wee bell as he passes by.
• The ‘ek-oh’ sound. Squeezing a small horn as he cycles, the rujak (spicy, sweet and sour fruit salad) seller normally rides a bicycle so you have to be fast to catch him!
• The ‘tooooot’ sound. You’ll know this one when you hear it, because it doesn’t stop until it’s out of ears’ reach. Typically out-and-about in the late afternoon, this guy sells steamed rice cakes called kue putu, which are made from rice flour, coconut and palm sugar.

Since the one thing missing from this mobile kitchen is running water, people bring out their own dishes for food they will buy. They then take it inside their house and eat. Yummy.

To see another blog's entry on them go here

Train Travel in Indonesia

I love  trains.  I love train travel.  I have not loved train travel in Indonesia in the past because all trains travelled at night and you could see nothing.  Now, there are day trains.  Tomorrow or Wednesday I will travel from Bandung to Yogyakarta by train.  I found a YouTube video that shows what I might see along the way.  You can find it here

Mini Indonesia

Today, I went to visit a friend’s whose office is inside a themepark run by the government. No, he does not work for the themepark. It’s a bit weird, but it is what it is. His office building is being renovated downtown and the government had office space in the park, so that's where they placed them.

Anyhow, the main attraction of park is pavilions like at Epcot. Here there is one pavilion, built like a house for each of the provinces of Indoensia. The link below can take you the webpage where you can learn more about each pavilion.

Taman Mini Indah Indonesia

Roadside Monkeys

This troop of monkeys seems to be living next the road on the way to Lake Toba.  Trash and handouts seem to attract them to the spot.  This video is a mother and her baby.  I have a challenge for the older students.  Identify the species of monkey.  I honestly don’t know the species, I have a guess, but I don’t know monkeys all that well. 

sugar and strawberry juice

Fresh fruit juices are readily available here.  Yummy!  The down side is that use lots of sugar.  In the picture, is a glass of fresh strawberry juice made by blending strawberries and water.  Next to it the amount of liquid sugar that they would normally put it.

 

 

 

riding and protecting elephants

http://www.medanku.com/elephant-ride-north-sumatra/

 

Got to the website above to learn about the North Sumatra Jungle Patrol.  It allows tourists to ride elephants and be part of protecting the elephants’ remaining habitat. 

 

Christmas in Indonesia

I am always amazed with Christmas time in Southeast Asia.  Decorations rival decorations anywhere in the US.  However, often they look American too.  Santa Claus,, Christmas trees, all of it.  Taken from America with little to no local interpretation.  There are even representations of snow and “White Christmas” will ring through mall sound systems.  Indonesians are, of course, fascinated with the idea of snow and the thought that there are places in the US (like Florida) where it never snows confuses them.