Surabaya oh Surabaya

Just came back from Surabaya this noon. I attended the 13th annual Java Overland Varsities English Debating championship.. It's held in Universitas Airlangga.. Surabaya is one of Indonesia's bustling metropolis-es (i think 2nd or 3rd most populated), so it was quite a thrill to be able to visit :)

I took the early train to Surabaya, at like 3 am in the morning @.@

Since I'm one of those people who would be better off not to sleep than to just get 1-2 hours of sleep, before going I decided to just continue with my Sims3-a-thon, which is quite fun.. I noticed that after sitting in front of you computer screen for quite long hours you tend to develop butt cramps.. this i know because the moment i stood up because the taxi's honking its horn up front of the house (i have a neighbour that throws rocks in response to noisy people at night, so you can imagine my immediate reaction) i dont think i can feel my butt as if it fell off.. haha apologies for the pun :D

Anyhoo this is the second time in like 1 week that I took the excecutive train ride to Surabaya, and I personally think it is pretty fine! It's seatings is wide, comfy, much from what you'd get from a budget class plane, but with more legroom and no bumpy turbulence that makes you vomit.. oh and some actually have flat panel screens on them.. You'd probably be raising your eyebrows at my keen appraisal in this, but you must understand I usually prefer not taking trains in Indonesia due to many many cases of unfortunate incidents, and just an uneducated prejudice due to never having travel by trains before.. but point proven wrong! ^^ for those intending to take the bold step like me (first timer in train travelling), do it! From jogja to surabaya is about IDR 75.000 (which is like USD 7 so you can imagine how ridiculously cheap that is :D)

JOVED was fun, competition was pretty good. I'd prefer the food they had in the competition before though, had better composition. Albeit due to my recent eating habbits, it really doesnt matter much what they serve for food, I cant enjoy it as much anyways..

For some who usually judge a competition and receive the title of breaking adjudicators (those who get like in the top 20 marks in the adjudication accreditation), not getting "breaking judge" would be distressing.. But not me hahaha.. This was the first ever competition in which I judges but didnt manage to get into the breaking judge.. I think its fine though, you dont always get to maintain a good rythm of things right? maybe I didnt do so good in the tests, oh well :)

As I'm writing the competition is still running, so no reports on the results yet.. But I am now back in Jogja since I have many work to do, mostly taking care of the online trainings for Team Indonesia *sigh, it will never end*

But overall, another tiring yet pretty satisying weekend in Surabaya.. (above pic is the people representing many different universities from Jogja chanting the usual "Jogja! Jogja! Jogja!" yell before each match - magical group of people)

Hope you've had good travelling opportunities as of late, share them! :D