Stick to the rice

Sorry we've been M.I.A yet again. K has been busy with work, and A has been under the weather. We've been living a fairly monotonous existence the past week and half, so we don't have any exciting travel stories to report. Instead, we'll share some of the fun(ny) things about life here in Indonesia.

BREAD

Good bread can be hard to come by here in Medan. Last week A was at the supermarket and decided to buy a loaf of bread that was topped with what appeared to be a little melted cheese. He thought that he would make himself a crab salad sandwich with some canned crab, celery, and mayo for lunch. Well, he did make the sandwich. However, it wasn't melted cheese on top of the bread; it was toasted coconut. To make his sandwich even more interesting, once A pulled a slice away from the loaf, he discovered the bread had a chocolate swirl within it. His western lunch turned out to be one of the worst he has ever had. If you're thinking of trying one of these delicacies at home, don't. Dried out crab meat, watery mayonnaise, and chocolate-coconut sweet bread aren't a combination that we can recommend. A finished every bit of it though.

PIRATED DVDs

Pirated DVDs are everywhere here. You can buy almost any movie for about $.90. Sellers may be able to get a little more for their wares if they payed closer attention to the advertising on the DVD covers. They tend to quote reviews that are tepid at best. Some of our favorites include:

Stepbrothers - "The hilarity never ensues..."

Burn After Reading - "...perfectly good but never truly great."

Body of Lies - "Less sexy than it sounds, but still the right kind of war story."

Perhaps when selling pirated DVDs, honesty is the best policy!

SUPERMARKET GIVEAWAYS

Supermarkets like to give away stuff here. We've won 2 liter bottles of coke and Valentine's Day cakes, but nothing prepared us for the water giveaway. Last week we took our receipt to the customer service desk and found out that we had won a large box of 50 miniature water cups with straws. Woo-Hoo! Wait, what are we going to do with 50 miniature water cups with straws? One sip and you're done. I guess we could always sell them to an airline or a hospital.