thoughts escaping my mind
It was bright and sunny today, a far cry from the greyness of yesterday.
Woke up at 6am – still dealing with the time difference. Last night, the sky was bright up till 9pm. Today, 10pm, it’s like 7pm in Singapore.
We took a bus into town. The number 36 took a rather circuitous route to town. When we got off at the Waverly Station, we headed up Cockburn Street, following the walking map from Walk Highlands.
So we had a couple of days between work in March and decided to head up to Mono Lake.
I’d wanted to visit Mono Lake from the last time I visited Yosemite.
However, in winter, the road that connects Yosemite to Mono Lake is closed. It was spring this time, and the road was still closed. Luckily though, I was coming from Burbank.
Okay, so I just got my luggage. At 6:30pm.
I asked the courier guy to please write down the time that he handed the bags over and he refused. And he wanted his pen back, he tried to take it from me and I refused to let go and he was threatening to walk off, so I snatched the paper on which I’d written my name down. And he grabbed it back.
It was all quite ferocious and I thought we would get into a fight.
Okay, I realise that I have abandoned documenting my last visit to the USA. And of course I had another visit in between then and now to Mono Lake in California, that I also need to document.
But here I am, in Edinburgh.
This morning, I headed to the Pulau Tikus Market in Penang.
I heard some ang mo who was carrying her Tesco cool bag in one arm and a re-useable shopping bag in another, say to the stall owner “How are you?” before paying for her goods.
So, I spent a lot of money to get a Kanilea Tenor Ukulele. It’s made of koa. I’ve been talking about it with the maker for some time now and it’s finally here. All the way from Hawaii.
Our last day in Sulawesi found me starting it off with another pisang goreng and then heading off toward Bitung.
Here is the map of our route.
In the early part of the day, we headed to the Jengji Market and finally found the Manado coffee beans that I’ve been searching for.
There is one thing worth mentioning here in Manado, and it’s the goreng pisang, or as the locals say it, pisang goreng.
I like the way they cut the banana and fan it out. The ratio of crust to banana is that much better. I can imagine a very ripened and sweet banana cooked this way. Crust and sweet. Heaven.
Today gave us clear bright blue skies, heat and humidity.
Yesterday, when we visited the Hill of Prayer, when it rained, the mist rose up the mountains and it got so cold, it felt like we were in some other country in winter.
We basically covered the same area. Today, I have a more accurate map.
We went further than yesterday and visited Lake Linow, the traditional houses of Minahasa, looked into some Japanese caves, snacked on local pau at Kawang Koan, visited the Hill of Mercy which is set up to represent all 5 religious groups, etc etc.
Yes, I’ve not even finished updating my travel logs on the USA and I’m now here in Manado, a city in the northern finger of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
