I am not dependent on my iPhone. I am not I am not dependent on my iPhone. I am not dependent on my iPhone. I am not dependent on my iPhone.
I am not dependent on my iPhone . . .
. . . or so I thought.
I’ve had my iPhone 4S for about a year and a half and I love it. I don’t care that it’s a “cool” product (or, I think it is), I don’t care that it’s a status symbol (my model is so old that it’s really not anymore), I don’t care that it has the potential to run a million apps (I only have 14). The reason I love my iPhone is because my mum, dad, brother, sister, and closest friends from home have iPhones so we can still iMessage, even though we’re thousands of miles apart. I didn’t realize how important that was until moving overseas in August.
And then my iPhone started to unravel. It grew increasingly glitchy after I installed the iOS 8 update; with the more recent update to iOS 8, my phone became even more temperamental. “I’m going to need a new phone,” I kept telling myself. I just didn’t expect that iMessage crashing would be the reason for the new phone.
A couple days ago I tried to send an iMessage and got an error message that iMessage was deactivated. When I tried to turn it back on, my phone beeped with an error – every 7 minutes. As I was trying to sleep at the time, I grew increasingly frustrated and, in fact, resentful. “Why are you doing this to me?” Silence. A factory reset and reinstalling the operating system did nothing to alleviate the problem. After a traumatic night when the phone wouldn’t even turn on and I had to download a widget onto my laptop to use as an alarm clock, I decided that enough was enough.
In moving overseas, I have learned that there are a few creature comforts and concessions to “the old life” on which I am not willing to compromise. For example, it is imperative that I buy fresh produce, no matter the cost. It is also essential that I can communicate with my family literally with the tap of a finger. (Unfortunately, cost is a factor here.)
Long story short, I am dependent on my iPhone. I’ve come to terms with that over the last few days upon feeling my heart sink every time I think of a quick message to send and realize that I can’t. Looks like this weekend’s shopping will be more than just groceries!
I turned 25 at the beginning of January and Mitch took me to Surabaya, on the Indonesian island Java, this weekend for my present! This was a very short trip for me. I landed at 8:45pm Friday night and flew out at 12:10pm Sunday afternoon. My flight was originally scheduled to leave at 5pm so I was supposed to have all of Sunday in Surabaya, but AirAsia cancelled my flight and moved me to the earlier one. Ah well, such is life and such is travelling on discount airlines. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful day on Saturday!
Indonesia is laughably cheap, which should also tell you how poor of a country it is. As a result, though, we stayed in a gorgeous hotel with a stunning pool, ate decadent food, and hired a driver to take us up to Mount Bromo, an extinct volcano. Seeing the volcano was the reason Mitch chose Surabaya as the place to visit.
Shots of our beautiful hotel in which we had a king-size bed, delicious cocktails, and ordered room service as a snack:
Unfortunately, I saw basically nothing of Surabaya itself. From sitting in traffic, I can tell you that it’s very dense and not walkable, at least not where we were. The driver on Saturday told us that West Surabaya is the expat area with the international school, so maybe it would have been different over there. We did see lots of cool graffiti, though! This is the only example of which I managed to snap a decent picture from the car:
Saturday was a dreary day, as all of the photos suggest, but the rain didn’t start until about 3 hours into the 3.5-hour journey up to see Mount Bromo, located on the Tengger Caldera. We had been warned that it was not a good day to try to see Bromo, but that’s what we get for traveling during the rainy season. The best time of day is supposed to be sunrise and even there there’s a 50% chance of clouds and rain. We figured we’d make do with what we had to work with and I’m really glad we did! Even though the drive was very long, we got to see a lot of Java that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The diver was very knowledgable and friendly, making for a pleasant and educational journey. He drove past the zoo so we could see the iconic statue of an intertwined shark (sura) and crocodile (baya). Who knew?! All of these photos were taken from a moving car, so they’re not the best. Sorry!
One of the MANY mosques we passed on the way
Surabaya has even more motorcycles than anywhere we’ve been in Malaysia, which is saying a lot. Except for the guy in the front of this photo, all other adults we saw were actually wearing helmets! We even saw a couple kids in helmets, which was rather surprising.
Along the way, the driver pointed out a community that had been utterly destroyed by mudslides. No one has been able to figure out how to stop the mud, so now it goes through pipes into a river that leads to the ocean. We saw flattened stone houses, a ruined mosque, and a new road as a result.
We drove through little villages and towns that became increasingly sparse and increasingly agricultural as we got further from Surabaya. The terrain reminded me a lot of our trip to Cameron Highlands. Different trees, though.
The kids walking home from school in their uniforms made me smile. Kids in uniforms are just so adorable.
Painted building that we passed:
Mount Bromo is easily recognizable because it has no top. We were able to see it from one of the two lookout points on the caldera. Had the weather cooperated, we would have taken a Jeep closer to the mountain and gone exploring around and up it, but we had to be contact with gazing through the clouds and rain. Despite those conditions, it was an impressive sight:
Nature is really amazing and rather terrifying if you think about it. My favorite photo from the whole adventure was this one because I think it really captures the awesomeness (and I mean that in the literal sense of the word) of Mother Nature and whoever helps her:
In addition to our volcanic expedition on Saturday, Mitch found an incredible Japanese restaurant inside the Shangri-La Hotel, which is probably the fanciest hotel I’ve ever been in. Our sushi, vegetable, and fish selections were excellent. There were French and Italian restaurants inside, too, and our dessert at the Italian place consisted of red wine and crème brûlée over which the server poured flaming rum. Wow!
Every so often I re-realize how wonderful it is that Mitch and I are traveling and going to new places and trying new things. We really are lucky. Thanks for such a unique birthday gift, Mitch!
Update: Mitch read this post after I published it and made a couple embarrassing corrections. Firstly, Mount Bromo is an active volcano. Secondly, the volcano in the foreground of my photos is not actually Mount Bromo; Mount Bromo is the one to the left with the white cloud-like smoke floating above it. I think I honestly cut it out of most of my photos while I was taking them, but I swear I saw it! I just didn’t know what I was seeing, apparently. Oops . . .
This past weekend was my third trip to Singapore. Every time I go, it gets harder and harder to come back. Every time I go, I am more convinced that Mitch and I need this to work. The type of life we could lead in Singapore is what we thought we’d find when we moved to Southeast Asia. We didn’t do nearly enough research about Seremban itself, unfortunately. Some of my friends have given Seremban a funny, accurate, and crude nickname and they’re right. (Hint: Starts with “sh”, ends with “itemban.”)
I don’t have much to show from this weekend in terms of photos because we spent quite a bit of time in museums. We saw an amazing da Vinci exhibit at the ArtScience Museum that included 13 original pages from the Codex Atlanticus, da Vinci’s largest notebooks full of sketches, inventions, mathematical formulas, and notes to himself. The exhibit itself was interactive, too, with challenges to build and think like the great Leonardo. I highly recommend it if it ever comes by wherever you are. We spent a little bit of time afterwards at the Asian Civilisations Museum but we were both pretty tired of standing by that point, so we’ll have to visit again another day. It does a really objective and sensitive job showcasing Asian cultures. I don’t think it’s supposed to be free, but it was! Finally, we happened upon the 2014 World Press Photo Exhibition. It’s true what they say, that a picture’s worth 1000 words. That’s even more true when each picture includes a caption explaining the circumstances behind its taking!
Now onto the few photos I took:
Skating rink inside a mall – I’m not convinced that’s real ice because it certainly doesn’t look like real ice!Cavenagh Bridge is Singapore’s only suspension bridge and it’s been there since 1870! This sign made me giggle.Mitch with a very reasonably priced tiramisu and two delicious glasses of wine at Boat Quay. Please note that the tiramisu came in a jar!
On a very personal note, I love seeing Jewish life in Singapore. It reminds me that there are parts of Southeast Asia where I can be myself.
The home of Singapore’s Jewish Welfare BoardSingapore’s main synagoI also really enjoyed seeing a church across the street from the Jewish buildings.I also loved seeing a church around the corner from the Jewish buildings.
We’re off to Surabaya, Indonesia this weekend to visit a volcano! I will definitely have pictures of that!
Photos, travels, musings, and ideas on education by someone trying to make the world a better and more peaceful place
By Rebecca Michelle 