Friday, August 08, 2008

One Lake, Two Cakes

So the rest of Medan was pretty fun. I guess I had a bad impression of the city because the taxi and becak drivers were soooo aggressive and because the largest night market that was flagged by various websites and tour books as being AWESOME was SHUT DOWN. That’s right. They somehow shut down a massive street-wide festival of 500 food vendors that was in all of the guidebooks. I was pretty disappointed, although my amazing hotel room and FREE internet made up for it. Then I was off to Danau Toba (Lake Toba)

So Lake Toba was amazing. For some reason I decided to rent a bike, which was a good move. In case you don’t know my history with bikes, here is a recap:

Junior High – I rode a bicycle to school every day until my bike was stolen.

2005 (like 15 years later) – My Beijing host family let me use their 1-speed bike to get to school in Beijing every day. I thought I would die every morning amidst Beijing bicycle traffic.

2008 – I rented this bike in Danau Toba.

Long story short the bike was lots of fun and Lake Toba is amazing. Definitely the highlight of my trip to Sumatra. Well, ONE of the highlights. Another was meeting British people that I found be to ridiculous. Years ago I went to New Zealand with Colleen and me paired up with these two british girls that we referred to ask “Patsy and Edina” because they were overdressed for everything and always had a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. This time in Danau Toba I met three British girls that for some reason had been victimized in every city they went to. They literally had men peeping into their hotel room windows like FIVE times! It happened again in Lake Toba! They were good fun, especially when one of them asked me if we binge drink in America, o which I replied “no”. She also asked if we had weed, and when I pretended to not know what weed was she believed me and was like “hmmm, maybe you call it something different…?”

Good times.

Another fun thing was later that night when I got into one of those conversations that only I seem to get into (along with Whitt and Fidler and Zelenkovich and JWalker and Wendy) about which are the nastiest expressions ever used. I was fairly drunk at this point but one of the british dudes used the expression “klunge” and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was referring to but it was no doubt deliciously vulgar. Also the expression “those fertile daughters of Odin” (referring to some girls with big hips) made me smile. Yes, I can recognize poetry when I hear it.

Then I was off to Medan again, where I promptly set out for “Mie Aceh” which is possibly the best noodle dish I have ever tasted. Here is my rundown of my favorite noodle dishes:

· Mie Aceh (spicy orange spaghetti noodles with crab on top)

· Those razor-cut noodles in northern china with vinegar and the two kinds of sauce

· Char kwai teow (fatty, greasy, and amazing)

· Laksa ayam (thanks to Limmy for introducing me to it)

· Pad Thai – Seriously, it never gets old. Even bad pad thai is still good.

· Fettucini alfredo – Its noodles in a buttery, cheesy, cream sauce. Thanks Olive Garden!

· Cold somen noddles with dippin’ sauce at my parents house of a hot summer day

· Mah jiang mian – Sesame goodness with build-it-yourself veggies. Aww, I miss my Beijing family!

· Nasi goring megelangan – Like a cross between fried nice and fried noodles!

· Garlicky Korean Noodles…is that Jap Chae or am I confusing things?

Meanwhile, I bought some Lapis Legit (thousand layer cake) and bika ambon (spongy moist delicious cake) from Medan to hopefully enjoy with some B-school friends in Melaka. I bought two ½ sized cakes, but people on the flight with me left with BOXES AND BOXES of cakes! It was a spectacle, although less impressive than the boxes and boxes of dunkin donuts that I usually see on flights within Indonesia.

Anyway, I got to Melaka today and my first reactions to Malaysia: wow, this place is so clean.

1 Comments:

At 8:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great work.

 

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