Day 9: To Bunaken, Night 1 Karaoke

We took a boat from Manado to Bunaken Sea Garden Resort. Once we got there and had lunch, we were free to explore the area. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach, and pier. We had a couple of Bintang beers while at the pier.

The calm beautiful sea

beautiful macaw

We also saw a couple of very beautiful and showy lovebirds and macaws.

Later, we had dinner and we went around to explore the bar scene by night.

We happened upon The Shack, where we drank some cheap local palm wine in copious amounts.

In a bad mood, get some vitamin sea

A local band was playing and we joined them in singing karaoke. They had a lyrics book from which we could suggest songs. We sang Hey Jude, Yellow, Fix You and other songs.

We started with Coldplay's Fix You and moved progressively to Lemonade Tree, Hey Jude, Iris and many other songs. This was while we drank many many shots of the incredibly sweet, but terrible palm wine mix. It was made by mixing two palm wine bottles with a coca cola.

The singing went on till about 11 in the night, when we had to leave. At this time, we were all quite drunk from the shots of devil's wine. The group was composed of Jess, Zack, Jake, Noah, Wardah, Andrea and I. before leaving, Zack, the Raja Bule aka king of Bules in Indonesia, promised the bar owner that he would bring a bigger crowd the following day. It began raining just as we left the bar, and we literally had to run home. What a night!

Comments

Opportunities and challenges presented by the AfCFTA

President Kenyatta joined other African heads of state on March 21 in signing the #AfCFTA. What does this mean for Kenya? It means that Kenya's goods and services could have a broader market to sell to. It also means that locally made goods and services will face increased competition from similar products in the African market, especially if other countries have a comparative advantage. What is the projected net effect of these two sides of trade? Well, it's difficult to predict. It depends on which goods are on the schedule of reduction of tariffs both for other countries and Kenya. Pres. Kenyatta signs the AfCFTA Image courtesy of PSCU Looking at other similar regional pacts such as North America's #NAFTA or the EU, we can see that trade between countries increases many fold. But as in the case of Mexico which saw the bankrupting of peasant farmers due to cheap corn and other agricultural produce from subsidized American farms, the aggregate effect might be po...

No one knows what it's all about

We are all in a rat race, whose beginning we do not comprehend, and whose end we cannot fathom. Therefore, in typical human fashion, we have invented systems that keep us sane, as we try to figure out what it's all about. We invented religions, economic systems, socio-cultural systems, political systems and so on, all to make meaning out of our lonely and short existence. But all this has fallen short of fulfilling us. We know we are on a journey, but don't know a journey to where. We do not know how we will know once we get there. Is it possible that the destination is behind us, but we have not recognized it? "Preposterous," we think to ourselves. Aren't we higher beings able to shape our own paths? Would we not know where our paths are headed? History does not agree. Every system that has been built seems to have been the ultimate one. Political & economic systems have struggled to lay claim to the title of the "best" and most "sustainabl...

Sensible procrastination

It is that time of the semester when all the decisions of the last 3 months come to bear on a graduate student. 4 papers are due, exams are in 3 weeks, there's internships and jobs to find. It seems as if everything decided to become due at the same time. But that's not quite the case. For me, even getting to write this blog post took a lot of, well, procrastinating. Being in graduate school requires a great deal of what I call sensible procrastination. I am not advocating for leaving only 30 minutes to complete an assignment that requires 10hours, that's stupid. In fact there are things that we cannot procrastinate for too long without seeing some negative side effects. Doctors and other personnel who deal with matters of life and death also, may not have the luxury of procrastination in saving lives. However, even in these extreme scenarios, I think that we might have more leeway on some other matters than we let on. Another thing to consider is that eventually all ...

Munene, the journey...

Search This Blog