Carry-on baggage
Actual date(s): October 13, 2008 – October 15, 2008
No, the title of this post isn’t a banned substance reference. This is the first in the promised series of Indonesia Trip 2008 posts, for which you can click the tag “Indonesia Trip 2008″ at the bottom of this post or the bottom of the page to access all posts in this category once I’ve built up more than one post.
Side note: we actually went to Singapore for a few days too, but “Indonesia-Singapore Trip 2008″ gives too much emphasis to the very short stay in Singapore (plus it’s a bit long), and calling it “Southeast Asia Trip 2008″ makes it sound like it was much farther-reaching than it was. Maybe “Indonesia-Singapore Trip 2008″ would work.
You’re reading the dates correctly. We really did leave on October 13th and arrive on October 15th. Our flight out of Jackson was October 13 at 6:30 a.m. local time, and our arrival in Surabaya was on October 15th at 10:00 a.m. local time. They’re 12 hours ahead, so that’s 39.5 hours of travel for those keeping score. A lot of it was layover time at airports, and we even managed a few hours sleep in an in-airport hotel in Singapore, but that’s how long it took total to get to Indonesia. Then it was another 1.5 hours or so to get to mom and dad’s house. What’s taking scientists so long to perfect the Star Trek-style teleporters anyhow?!
In the first photo above, Sofia is in her seat, which in turn is strapped to the rolling suitcase via an ingenious device designed for exactly that purpose. It’s called a “Traveling Toddler Car Seat Travel Accessory”, and we got ours from Amazon. It allowed us to haul Sofia in her seat by just rolling the suitcase with the seat attached to it. Genius, I tell ya. Getting the seat on and off planes was a huge hassle since the aisles weren’t wide enough to roll the seat down the aisles, but the seat strap came in really handy while hustling from terminal to terminal.
We went from Jackson to Houston (stayed on the plane) to L.A. where we met up with my sister. L.A. has by far the least helpful and most rude security personnel I’ve ever seen in an airport. Just thought I’d mention that. We actually met a few non-security personnel who were very nice, but we got enough rude ones to bring down the average of the whole staff by quite a bit. I know your job sucks, but please don’t take it out on people just trying to pass through.
Zune to the rescue
The Zune we brought was crucial to the success of this flight. Sofia loved watching her Wonder Pets and Backyardigans episodes on it. We also brought a USB charger powered by 4 rechargeable AA batteries to replenish the Zune’s battery.
Another rabbit trail (I’m prone to getting sidetracked, so get used to it!): Zunes are great. The world might only have eyes for the iPod, but there are other very good MP3/media players out there, and the Zune is a good alternative to those who aren’t afraid to be different. I’m glad Sofia is growing up in a house where “iPod” isn’t a synonym for “media player”. We use the Zune on long car trips now, and Sofia asks for her “Zoom” every once in a while. She thinks it’s hers anyway.
From L.A. we crossed the Pacific and made a pit stop in Japan.
"Why yes, I have been to Japan. You?"
Any doubt that we were in a foreign land vanished when we saw the Pocari Sweat in this vending machine.
Magical moving floor, a.k.a. travelator
Working off some pent-up energy during a layover
We were there for about an hour then got back on for a few more hours of this:
One of the few in-airplane shots I took
The photo above was taken while reboarding, so the plane wasn’t really that empty. Actually, it was packed pretty solid. Can’t remember what type of Airbus we were on, but it had 3 groups of seats per row in a 3-4-3 configuration. The 4 of us sat together in a middle section row.
Rabbit trail number… I’ve lost count: this trip began my now obsessive search for the perfect small camera. Or at least smallish. There were numerous times on the trip when I thought about getting the camera out but didn’t because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle. A smaller camera + lens would’ve seen a lot more action. Pentax K-7 or Olympus E-P1, here I come!
God is good. Sofia had an amazingly good trip, with only 1 fussy moment that I can recall. She certainly made the other babies/toddlers/children look bad. With this being our first flight with Sofia we were nervous about how she’d do, especially with all the traveling-with-children horror stories out there, but she did great. With the crying babies on board I was thankful for my in-ear monitors that blocked out the noise while playing music from my Zune or audio from a movie playing on the on-demand video system. Sofia, on the other hand, was a champ.
If you ever fly to a destination where Singapore Airlines is one of the options, go with Singapore Airlines. We ate so much and such good food (for airplane food, anyway) and the service was top notch. This was in economy class; we’re poor, ya know. If anything, they might’ve fed us too much! Every meal we had a choice between a Western and Eastern meal; every meal had 4-5 different “dishes”–main course, sides like bread and salad (had seafood salad in one meal), and dessert; and in-between we got snacks and drinks. And the aforementioned in-flight entertainment system was tremendous. If I recall correctly, they had 60-70 movies (Hollywood blockbusters, Asian movies, obscure foreign films, etc.), a number of games, and maybe some audio-only stations. Also, if you wanted to see how far along the plane was in the trip you could do so at any time with an on-screen map that gives airspeed, direction, ETA, etc.
So Japan to Singapore. For the 6.5-hour Singapore layover we had reserved a hotel room right there in Changi Airport. It wasn’t huge, but it had 2 beds and a bathroom and was clean, cool, and quiet. I was afraid I’d sleep through the alarm so I stayed up for those hours wandering the terminal while the ladies dozed. Really should’ve taken some photos of that beautiful airport–still not sure why I didn’t. I can’t even remember if I had my camera bag with me while wandering. A couple of food courts with a mix of local and Western dishes as well as a large number of stores were there. The stores were closed because of the time of day, but some food shops were open and all of them were open by the time we were getting ready for our flight. We grabbed some Char Siu Bao (sweet buns with roast pork filling) that was great. Or maybe it was great because it had been so long since we had it, and it was a first for both Denise and Sofia.
Finally Singapore to Surabaya in East Java, Indonesia. Too exhausted at this point to bother with the camera (again, wish I hadn’t been such a pansy about getting the camera out) so no pics from the early moments of being in Indonesia. Hey, this is my first photographic travel log. I’ll do better next trip we take. Mom and dad immediately took us to eat some Dim Sum in Surabaya, then we drove another 1.5 hours to Malang. That’s where mom and dad live and was our home base for the trip.