20th February - My second swim
I was woken up by Elva at the door again today, with some superb items for breakfast as always. As she was free for the rest of the day, I took this opportunity to watch Guardians of the Galaxy with her. Any time in the evening and she’s falling asleep within minutes. Morning or early afternoon is a safer bet with some people! We finally managed to watch it all without any hitches. Though she did have a quick nap after the movie, it’s a hard life.
Once she’d napped a bit, we decided to go swimming again, I love it. We got all our gear together, including my snorkel and goggles, and headed out. Due to the early time, there were only 2 people in the pool, so we had free reign again. We did a bit more training on swimming strokes, and had a bit of fun. I played around with the kids again, doing funny poses under the water, they love it.
After swimming, we returned to the hotel. Elva imparted some Islam knowledge on me, and demonstrated how to do certain aspects. It’s quite interesting to be honest. Not knowing much about Islam, I found it rather insightful, quite a lot to it. If I can, I try to expose myself to different cultures, religions, etc. That’s one of the best things about travelling, you get true authenticity. As a creature of habit, I went to McDonald’s for dinner, I loved it as always. Elva ordered some food via Grab back at the hotel, not a true cult member of McDonald’s.
We attempted to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2 whilst she ate, but she too is a creature of habit. You guessed it, she felt sleepy, so we switched it off. Instead, we just sat and talked for ages, about future plans and she told me more about Islam. We also spoke about me trying durian again after my traumatic experience in Thailand, but it was fairly late. As time went on, we decided to call it a night and she went home.
Here’s my poor experience with durian in Bangkok.
21st February - No durians for me
No wake up call today, I had a lie-in until noon. No shame. Elva was at university for a couple more hours, so I had to entertain myself. For breakfast/lunch, I decided to go to the Epicentrum. On the way, I found a nice little shack, so I had lunch here instead, fairly nice. Once I got to the shopping centre, I did the usual, walked around loads of shops, purely for browsing. Sometimes I do compare prices to back home, everything is so damn cheap here, it’s nuts. I met Elva at a bakery and we chose a cake each, proper delicious and filthy.
We returned to the hotel to have our cakes, and I also called my parents for a catch up whilst there. After an hour or two here, we decided to head out to the park. In typical rainy season fashion, it began raining, but we soldiered on anyway. We found some cover in the park to take refuge, and I tried to learn some numbers in Bahasa Indonesia. To pass time, we talked, took some goofy photos, and enjoyed the slightly cooler weather. We had to pop back to the hotel as Elva had an errand to run, then we discussed going for durian. This time, the rain proved too ruthless, and the durian would have to wait another day.
Instead, we watched Guardians 2, well, we tried. Of course, Elva was sleepy once more, so we abandoned this plan, again. Instead, we decided to go out for martabak for pudding. Martabak is a type of soft waffle, topped with your choice of toppings, I chose chocolate, peanuts, and banana. It’s then cooked, folded in half, and cut into squares. It was filthy, but divine. My arteries scream no, but my tongue and stomach shout yes. Both of us were full up afterwards, content. Once we’d finished it off, I packed my stuff and called it a night.
