Verglas Blog: Manado, as seen on land

The day we did Javiers, after a heart to heart talk with a food connoisseur I just got to know.. I kindly rejected his offer to lend me his cook books, but promised to head to this place for a meal :)

Javiers is under the Astons umbrella. So if you love Aston, you should love Javier a little bit more! Side dishes are FREE FLOW for one serving! So you pile as much of your favoritestest items onto the plate!! :) It's situated at the basement of Cineleisure. So go try!

N&I decided to make good the LAST THREE days of my annual leave on THIS diving trip, out of the mannnnnnnnny that have been dangling as carrots for us. hurhur..

A different company, a different way. It was the first time we booked a dive trip directly with the dive resort at destination. Previously, we paid our dues to our school in Singapore, who made such arrangements and made sure they sent enough experts from here to provide the ultimate safety companionship underwater. Hence, I was skeptical initially. Safety measures are of ultimate importance to me, especially during diving trips!

But all thanks to fantastic planning and coordination by Jeff&Regina (it's important that you speak their language in destination land), we had a great and safe trip! :)

All was great and dandy till the day before I flew out of the country.

MENSES. WTF?!

Travelling with menses - maybe ok. MAYBE

Diving with menses - DEFINITELY no compromise! CANNOT!

Alright. It was my fault. I knew I had the option of taking The Pills 2 weeks prior to the menses date. But i had a misconception that it will delay the menses till the next ovulation month. And I dint want that to happen, cos I didnt want to be the odd one out at Shum's yatch when everyone else strips to their swim wear! *pouts*

Yet I also wanted to enjoy this trip! *pouts and cries*

Luckily there was Doctor Lai to my rescue! She prescribed me some pills and gave me a jab on the first day of my menses. It worked! :):):) The pills supposedly push back your next menstrual cycle by the same number of days as the current cycle! So I ll still be fresh and dry at the yatch :) *well, we'll see*

So ladies, next time you run into trouble, remember there are jabs and pills which are still effective even when taken on the first day! :) This is especially important for ladies who dont have regular menses! :)

Departure at Changi Airport. Got my daily beauty creams and earned a PUNCH!

So of course got the MAN to whack! While other people's boyfriends kiap the desired furry elmos/hello kitties/carebears for them, this is as far as what mine can compromise. Nothing too guniang.

He eagerly took up the boxing challenge!

9167!!!

I wonder which strong man did the 9545?!

Upon arrival @ Laracassa Resort, Manado. Jeff&Regina only flew in from Jakarta the next day, but they had so kindly arranged for an airport transfer for us :)

I wanted to eat KFC at the airport, but it was tough to communicate since they know little english. So we left that to the departure day :)

Checked out the surrounding while the kitchen prepared food for their 2 famished guests...

In Indonesia, must eat their mee goreng! So we did!

Our bangalow for the next few days...

The Island far far away...Bunaken is the small molehill you see on the right. That's how farr it was... and that was where we went to for a dive one fine day, when one of the boat's motors decided to die on us.

It took us yearrrrrrssss to get there. o_O

And the beautiful sunset...

Since we had Day One to ourselves, we headed out to town! :) The resort booked a cab for us and kept reminding us to take back the cabs from the same company.

Easy peasy.

Cos it was the called the BLUE BIRD cab! hahahaa! LAN JIAO. The most reputable cab company is actually named after the male genitals?! Not easy to forget. hurhur.

We kept that in mind on our return trip, but there was no LANJIAO available at the taxi stand right outside the shopping mall! :( The friendly security guard helped us get a cab and told the cab driver the directions from our Laracassa name card. We thought it shouldnt make much difference in price, so we got in. And the cab was on running on meter anyway. But guess what?? The charges were quadruple of what we paid for using LANJIAO!

A spew of vulgarities would have sounded like this on the spot (of course we didnt lah!):

Fucking CHE*BYE, why no LANJIAO?

Whahaha! I am still so amused! Please slap me!

We couldnt decide on what to have for dinner. We dont do ini mani mini mor. That's so guniang. So we headed for the restaurant that was showing N's FAVORITE game.

He was totalllllly absorbed. And totally ignored me.

O_o

THIS.is what I lose his attention to.

Well, all is fair in the dating game. He also loses MY attention to MURPHY :p

Ayam Penyet. This had to be the TINIEST and SKINNIEST chicken I have ever seen! Luckily, it was only the appetiser of our dinner that night...

Cos we were saving our stomach for BIGGER things!

A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W A&W

I always wonder why they didnt make it in Singapore :(

Our dinner on Day Two - with compliments from STARRY.

This had to be the most EXCITING dish! When I asked Starry what it was, he told me they were fish X. I thought I heard wrongly, so I asked again.

He repeated again. This time round, looking downwards. At that point in time, I didnt know he was looking at his phone. And I really thought he was referring to (and hence staring at) the crotch. It made absolute sense cos he said Fish X! Like penis is a TABOO word, even though the most reputable cab company is named after one!

Alright. I slapped myself already! Should totally stop the penis joke.

We got up at 530am one morning to capture sunrise. Actually I didnt. But N just gave me a slight nudge when he woke up and then he jumped out of bed. So I tagged along when he went out to do his thing lor.

Sunrise in different modes.

AND THIS. Is the BEST shot from that morning.

The calm ocean. The distinct rays from the sun.

I LOVE this picture very much!

A look at the dive spotsssss around us. Everyday was planned by Jeff&Regina. I only contributed by telling them that I wanted to see DUGONG and mandarin fishes.

We dont do our dive logs anymore, so I dont have the exact location for every underwater picture that we took ;p So these spots are just for good remembrance of the number of choices we had during the trip.

Bunaken - The island stopover we made because we had some inconsiderate family on board with us:

They totally slept in till late on the morning of departure - totally disregarded that there were other people sharing the same boat with them!

They complained that the resort didnt have enough equipment to lend them - They were late and didnt inform of equipment rental in time! Our boat was already out in the sea, what do they expect? Swim back and get equipment for them?

They compared the dives to their Bali dives - when they are not even seasoned enough to differentiate between commercial diving and leisure diving. Bali does commercial diving. Meaning you can go into the water without ANY PRIOR TRAINING! And with commercialisation, they of course have all the equipment available in huge quantities and perhaps in the latest colours! In any leisure dive resorts, people are seasoned divers and have their OWN equipment. So such resorts normally dont carry alot of rental equipment. And they tend to be more professional.

They requested to go near the island, just disappeared onto the island during one of our surface intervals (normally is about 50-60 minutes) and ordered their lunch - we already have lunch packed by the kitchen on our boat. There is enough for everybody. And we had plans to travel out into the sea for our next dive! So because of them, we had to dive right below the island, and see what a typical snorkeller will get to see. WTF. They took their own sweet time to makan and jalan jalan, and only strutted out AFTER we had our 60 minute dive AFTER our 60 minute surface interval. Freaking inconsiderate and snotty! *Blows bubbles into their face*

To top it off, their precious son was an ultimate spoilt and obese BRAT who whined during the whole dive, had the mother swooning over him like a prince, and who had multiple gadgetssssssss to play with on board - PSP, DS, Iphone....and something else....Who the fuck brings so many gadgets on a dive trip?! So YAY! His nose bled before he could finish whining about jumping into the water. But the fucking mother used a tissue to wipe off his blood, and freaking threw in onto the floor of the boat! There was a dustbin provided ok?!! She probably thought they provided a maid on board too..

So there. Because of that family, we had some island time at Bunaken. So we tried to make the best out of it. Some pictures to kill time while trying to think of ways to strand that family on the island! *evil thoughts*