This was the Ferry we road on over to Batam from Harbourfront in Singapore. It took about 45 minutes, then about a 25 minute drive to the hotel.
The kids were excited about the Fish at the Ferry station.
It was sure coming down when we got off the Ferry! Luckily these rain storms usually only last about 30min 1hour or so.
Batam was pretty tropical, just like Singapore.
So, this was pretty funny. At the beach, in the midst of putting on Brighton's swimsuit a bunch of women came over and got really excited. They just couldn't get over her fair skin. They spent probably 15 minutes holding her, passing her around, taking pictures with her.
Brighton had a constant escort the whole time she was at the beach. Surrounded constantly by little Indonesian children.
I must say, everyone was super friendly, the kids had a blast at the Ghetto beach we went to. You probably can't tell, but that's not Sand as we think of sand, but more like Grit or rocks.
The kids rounded up a bunch of "shells" that they wanted to make into a necklace.
I don't know if you can see very well in the video, but after they brought the "shells" over, we noticed that they were moving. They had the snails still inside of them.
The kids favorite thing about the vacation was the Pool. This was the lazy river portion of it. I should have taken more pictures of the rest of the pool.
Try to make out Jace in the background doing his "Water Karate", or wateratee as it came to be called. He probably spent 20 minutes fighting these water streams. There were 4 levels (4 different features to be fought, I assume with different skill levels). At one point he was saying that he didn't like the other Lazy river because he couldn't do his Water Karate, I mentioned that he could at some of the splash pads. He then told me he only wanted to do it where others couldn't see. At least he's aware that this has the potential for embarrassment. Unfortunately for him, I now have it on video to use as blackmail when he's a teenager.
ps - notice the close resemblance to the starwars kid (youtube it if you haven't seen him before).
I thought this was a very interesting side car. Not sure it would fly in the US.
Notice the awesome spoiler on this Van. Good thing, I think we got to about 40 miles per hour on the Island at some points, so you wouldn't want to have a sleek car like this one taking flight.
Here was the Mall we went to.
Pie Sand, always a favorite treat. Really helps with digestion.
I found a massage chair, it was about a $1 for 20 minutes.
It had the added bonus of a foot massage as well.
What do our eyes behold? Is that a sign on a sketchy looking alley way that says Karaoke? I believe it is! how can we resist??
We had a bit of trouble getting them to understand us, and understanding them. We finally were able to communicate that we wanted to do some Karaoke. We never did figure out how long we were going for, but we figured they'd come get us when we were done (and they did)
The setup was this: a single room (Kate was envisioning an audience, and was disappointed that there wouldn't hoards of adoring fans and possibly a recording contract out of this experience). We could also hear the other rooms when we weren't singing, which was fun.
Faith taking a turn on the Microphone.
I thought this was quite the fun capture of Jace and Kate in the background. Jace is currently working on his anger issues.
Here are some more locals taking pictures of our girls.
Here comes the Golden Prawn!!! This was the #1 recommended restaurant in Batam.
So, we were walking into the restaurant. It is open air (not enclosed). All of a sudden Brighton started saying "ooo-eee-aaa" (Making Monkey noises) and pointing. When Suzy looked over, she realized that it wasn't a monkey, but a very, very large Rat. I was taking to the bathroom at this point, so missed out on this little exchange.
At one point, Faith and Kate also wanted to go to the bathroom. Suzy took them, and realized that she was a good head taller than the Indonesians. How did she realize this? Walking in, she ran in to a bunch of cobwebs. Once she looked around, inside the bathroom, she saw that from about her nose on up, the whole bathroom was covered in spiderwebs. Also, it smelled pretty bad. Kate and Faith all of a sudden decided that they didn't need to go as bad as they thought they did.
Who wants some Crab?
We got some "young coconut". The kids were pretty excited, but then disappointed as they realized it was just weird tasting water inside. I think people drink it for health, not for taste personally.
The food was
This was the Thai restaurant at the hotel. It was honestly the best meal we had in Batam.
Jace started the Rice Cracker Mustache fad, and everyone followed suite.
Brighton was pretty excited.
We came home a day early, and because we were so close to Sentosa (where Universal Studios is) we decided to end the vacation by going there since we were so close. They were celebrating Easter. It was pretty fun.
Here's Brighton showing her mad dancing skills at Universal.
