Mbuh...

Aku jadi bingung baru” ini… kemauanku kenapa sih… Apa aku maunya karena nggak bisa mendapatnya, atau aku bener” maunya?? … Atau yang lebih aneh lagi, nggak maunya, tapi cuma pengen mau…. Terus, kalo pengen maunya… kenapa nggak mau??

yo mbuh..

Dad's Here!

Heaps has been happening! Which probably means I’ve forgotten half of it.

I’ve been back in Jogja with Dad for 10 days now. Bali was awesome! Stayed with Rocky the first night n then Riri organised a hotel for Dad and I. Was heaps in Kuta, nice place, and cheap as $30 a night.. not bad.. Only had three full days in Bali with dad, but no time was wasted, went around Kuta, Nusa Dua, out to Uluwatu, Rocky’s warung, rented a car and did a day trip up the middle, went to a bunch of places I cant remember the names of… ok got the map… started at kuta, then, Celuk, Mas, Ubud (and monkey forest), Tampaksiring, Batur, Kintamani, Besakih, Klungkung, Kusamba, Sanur and back to Kuta… full day… heaps of fun… you know me… the photos are “coming” haha… if they ever get there… maybe one day I’ll get organised enough to post some again so this page is a bit more interesting… made it out to Tanah lot wich was nice too.. would have been good to get back to Bedugul… so beautiful, but there wasn’t enough time. It was great to take dad around Bali, introduced him to Rocky’s family and showed him where I lived when I came on holidays.

1^st of August headed to Jojga.. so much fog / smog.. it was so much clearer before I left for Bali, dunno what the story is there.. anyway, we’ve been pretty busy almost every day. Already made it to Borobudur, Merapi/Ketep/Maggelang area, saw a waterfall out there (where I fell down a cliff and added yet another few cuts to my leg… don't worry mum, they’re almost healed..) stayed overnight in ketep, freezing by the way, if you’re going up to the mountains, make sure you take a jacket! Next day we unexpectedly arrived at New Selo..(yep… nyasar lagi!) then home for some much needed sleep sleep..

A few days later it was off to Prambanan.. I’d been before, but this time it wasn’t completely fenced off, so we got to see the temples up close and go inside a few of them. That night we decided to go to Kali Code… was REALLY quiet, I think it was a Tuesday or Wednesday tho, so fair enough.. anyways… wanted to introduce dad to the local wer a wer population… we sat down to eat, lesehan on the side of the road, finally one came by and I told her that my dad hadn’t been in Indonesia long, she got down on all fours and asked if she could take him home!! Haha… semuanya bilang aku “sadis! Anak jahat. … tapi lucu!!!!” unfortunately there was no solid photographic evidence, so I’m sure all will be denied.

(for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about… well… I guess one day you’ll hear those few words “a wer a wer a wer” and you will understand) 

Which brings us to the beach trip.. yesterday (Saturday) Riri, Vando, Tika, Dita, Wawan, Heru, Sean, Kiki, Sinta, Desi, her lil bro, Dad and I went to Wedi Ombo! Once again, we left around 2 hours late (although, I was told the wrong time to begin with… not blaming anyone… VANDO!!!! *Evil laugh*) little disappointing tho, the well had no bucket, or water in it for that matter, the toilets were a lil dirty, and there weren’t enough sleeping mats… I guess we just got luck the first time… but even tho it wasn’t perfect, it didn’t ruin it for anyone. The beach was still awesome.. went back to the same karang ( I dunno what its called in english) to go swimming, wasn’t as deep, but still enough to swim in.. and yes, I added to my collection of cuts, this one on my arm tho, and not deep at all.. it was all a bit of a rush, we got there at 530pm on Saturday, spent the night there and came home at about 11 o’clock Sunday morning.

Just watched some scrubs, didn’t know what to do next and now its 5pm, here I am writing my blog… finally.. hehe.. I’ve prolly said this countless times.. but I will try to keep it more up to date… oo… I did add a few more place marks on the map I think.. and also a count down for getting back to Adelaide! (^_^ / T_T)

Ok.. well that's it for today… nothing out of the ordinary really.. uni starts on the 25^th (technically) .. still gotta do Jap study, but I’ve gotten a bit lazy since dad got here…

Oh yeah! I finally saw Sinta again!! After like a month and a half!

The danger of toilets in Indonesia!

The following post is recommended for mature audiences +18.

Ok… I’m living in Indonesia now, trying to embrace everything, so I’ve gotten used to going to the toilet Indonesian style, using water instead of toilet paper… BUT, I went to Amplaz the day after I got back from Jakarta, wondered around, looking for some sheets n stuff for dad when he gets here.. anyway, after lunch I needed to use the bathroom. 

I went in, there was no toilet paper, quite normal… there’s a little tap on the side of the toilet, when you turn it it sprays water so you get clean that way… well… I turned the tap a little bit…. No water came out… “Oh shit, don't tell me this one is broken” I thought… so I turn it a bit more… I hear water coming out, but no pressure… turn it some more… water is finally coming out, but not enough pressure to actually clean.. so I give the handle three turns… finally there is some pressure..  what I didn’t realize, is there must have been other people using water as well, cleaning themselves or washing their hands….. well.. when they turned of their taps… you can guess what happened to mine…. Yep… all the pressure that they were taking went straight back to mine! the water was SOOO FREAKING strong! I couldn’t turn it off quick enough.. painful! It sprayed that hard that water actually went inside!!!  So I had to go to the toilet again, just to get it out.

I know this is gross.. haha.. dunno why im putting this online for everyone to see… well… maybe you can learn from this, so it doesn’t happen to you…

Jakarta

Well... I told Vando ages ago that I wanted to go to Jakarta, and he said his family lives there, and so when he goes home he would invite me and I could stay with him. Sounded like a good idea to me.. So mid semester break came and he and I both caught a bus from jogja to Jakarta. the bus ride was LONG... and FREEZING... they must have thought we were Eskimo's, so they turned the aircon on full ball just to keep everyone "comfortable".

Anyway, I'd had sakit perut for a few weeks by this stage, and it still hadn't subsided.. we got off the bus and found an angkot to get to Vando's house... but on the way, nature called... no toilet in sight... we started walking faster and faster.. i thought i wasn't going to make it.. we finally got there.. saying a quick hello to his mum before running up stairs to the toilet... luckily I didn't embarrass myself.

We decided it might be fun, when I meet his friends for the first time, just to pretend I cant speak Indonesian at all..  it usually went something like this... me speaking english... them looking confused, mumbling a few words, trying to put the english classes they take into practice... not making much sense.. Vando trying to speak english with me, getting frustrated, and then reverting back to Indonesian after a few mins.. always quite funny to see their reactions, especially one of them.. who was talking about me in Indonesian,  saying how he wanted to play a trick on me... then later realizing I'd understood everything he had just said fell silent.. hahaha. Its kind of interesting tho, people will say what they're really thinking, if they think you wont understand.

All of his friends are crazy! And so much fun to be around. The entire time I was there, I don't think I saw Sam without a smile on his face! We all went to movies together, visited monas (the national monument) went to a few different museums, ocean park (similar to waterbomb in Bali) dufan was great fun, it's a theme park in the north of Jakarta. Wanted to get to taman mini and taman safari, but neither of them ended up happening. After about 10 days we stayed at Vando’s relative’s place, it was heaps of fun, Nel took us to one of the biggest malls in Jakarta (and probably Indonesia) Taman Anggrek. The placve is massive, heaps of shops, cinemas, ice skating.. and FOOD! Haha, we played timezone before watching Meet Dave, great movie, starring Eddy Murphy, funny as!

Also went to some festival thing.. I forget what its called, but like everything in Indonesia there was a acronym for it… I’m thinking JRC, but that could be totally wrong (not that any of you would know tho :P )

Spent most of the time just hanging out with Vando’s friends Daniel, Sam and Deby…

ooohh… Vando wanted to go to a history exhibition in the Dutch Embassy, it wasn’t too bad, but it was TINY, so after 2 hours on the bus, we went to this exhibition and saw everything there in like 15 mins!!  “what are we gonna do now” we thought… so he sms-ed his cousin to meet at her school, but didn’t get a reply for ages, so we decided to go to PIM, finally on the bus, he gets a reply, but its too late, we’re already on our way, so we arrange to meet his friend at Versace. Turns out the guy on the bus lied, just so we would get on, so we swapped busses and were almost at Versace, but his friend suddenly changed the plan and wanted to meet at Gramedia, now… on the way to gramedia, I saw a girl, and was thinking… I think I know her!! Turns out it was Ajeng! My friend from Adelaide, she was just home on holidays! But, how weird, if the exhibition wasn’t so small, if his cousin had been faster in replying, if we had gotten on the right bus, or if his friend had of known where Versace was, we would never have ran into eachother!!!  CRAZY … not one in a million, but one in 20 million! Haha

Turns out Ajeng’s aunt owns a school, and I was invited to teach there for a day! So I rock up, do a lil talk show type thing, then play a few games with the kids in English. Some of them were quite fluent, there were a few who had already lived in America and Australia tho. (btw internet just dropped out, looks like I wont be posting this for a while…) the school was a lot of fun! I think I will look into doing some English lessons at some schools in Jogja! This was the last day in Jakarta, we bought our bus tickets home, opting for VIP to save Rp20.000.

On the way home, Vando and I got a little lost, trying to catch up with the others we were going fairly fast through the gangs n side streets, it was night, Vando didn’t see an unmarked speedbump! .. we absolutely flew! Haha.. my whole body lifted off the motorbike and I landed in the front, when Vando landed he was sitting in my lap, still driving down the street!! Haha.. he had to stand up, so I could move to the back of the bike again, I was in stitches, couldn’t stop laughing.

The next day we left at 1pm, turns out that Rp.20.000 was well worth it… in VIP there is NO leg room! Much more space in executive! … tho the bus was relatively empty, so I just moved to a different seat. Arrived back in Jogja at about 4am...

Thanks everyone for making Jakarta so much fun!! Look forward to seeing you in Jogja!!! If not.. hopefully I can get back there sometime before I head home.

I did it again.....

Here it is.. Months down the track from my last blog... and what do i have to say for myself?? ... well... I actually have been writing.... just not that much, and haven't uploaded it yet.. its still on my laptop, which is in Jogja... Right now I'm in a warnet (warung internet = net cafe) not far from Vando's house in Jakarta... well now that I'm here I guess I'll dribble a little bit about what's been going on...

I have no idea what I've written about back in jogja.. so yeah.. this is all a little screwed up..

ok... I finished uni for this semester and am on holidays. For ages I said to Vando that I wanted to go to Jakarta at some stage n he said he was going home for holidays, so seemed like a good time to go.. been here for a couple of weeks, and despite what people say about Jakarta, its actually not that bad.. Ok the traffic is a bit of a test on your patience at times, but with a population of over 20Million what do you expect?? I've met a few of Vando's friends, which has been great. we often jalan2 bareng, watching movies, playing pool, went to ocean park, a bit like waterbomb in Bali.. heaps of fun Rp60.000 entry, not too bad.. like I said, I've only been here about two weeks, but it already feels like they're my close friends, I'm gonna miss them all when I go back to Jogja. Sam, Daniel, Deby, they're all a lil crazy! but heaps of fun.. and Karnel, in northern Jakarta, stayed at his place for the past week (just got back to Vando's today) again, just having fun, roaming around Jakarta. went to the national monument, dufan (a kind of theme park), Taman Anggrek the largest shopping centre in Jakarta... I'm sure you'd love it there mum :P especially trying to find a park in the place! haha.. its got about 6 floors, (marion probably makes up one floor... or less... just to put a scale on it) you can really get lost in that place.. was heaps of fun tho, can easily spend all day in there, we just played timezone and watched a movie, meet dave.. funny as.. must see!

oop... Vando is finished... I guess we'll be going soon... sorry this blog is so all over the place.. My time in jakarta is so much better than this blog makes it seem...

Thanks to everyone for making everything so enjoyable! gonna miss you all!!! Kapan-kapan maen ke Jogja!!! Dan kalo bisa Australi juga... santai aja, nginep di tempatku.. gratis kok.. (biasanya Rp50.000...per malam... tapi buat kalian ... freeeeee :P)


If I can be bothered I'll have to come back and fix this up.. but well.. in the mean time i guess here is a temporary update.... or not so temporary... we'll see.

finally uploaded ...

I’ve done it again… I just cant seem to help it.. there are always so many more fun things to be doing rather than sitting in my room typing out a blog of all the stuff I have done.

Well.. I’ve already had my birthday, I’m old now.. a teenager no more…  kepala dua… it wasn’t a bad day,  so tiring tho. Thursday night I had no sleep AT ALL… just stayed up talking with my kos mates and trying to put windows on my computer, then suddenly the sun was coming up, so we decided to go get breakfast. The next night I was woken up at midnight by my kos… apparently I slept through them bashing on my door, so when I woke up they were all standing around my bed, holding a cake and singing happy birthday. I went outside where I was supposed to blow out the candles… I was just waiting for the flour / eggs / water to be thrown…. I knew it was coming at some stage.. but I got lucky… not until I had sat down was a huge bucket of water thrown at me. Then I was teasing saying I wasn’t wet enough…. So there came the second bucket of water. I chased everyone around the kos trying to grab onto them and get them wet  too, which was kind of un successful. Back downstairs we cut the cake, which was also thrown at me. It was pretty fun tho, now one of my shirts is stained… buat kenangan.. haha. So got to sleep at 4am again… then woken up at 7am by friends in Australia calling to wish me happy birthday. I wanted to do something with all of my kos mates, but here, if its your birthday, you’re supposed to shout everyone, and I just couldn’t afford it. So I ended up going to dinner with all the Anak ACICIS, after that we went to movie box, my kos mates came for the movie… which I ended up sleeping through.. but can you blame me?? Oh yeah… I got a lil kung fu statue from Penyok and Abah, from Adam, Laksmi and Hera I got a mirror with a heap of photos all around it.. and from all Anak ACICIS I got a guitar! Couldn’t believe it! So now, my fingers are in pain but I still cant play anything yet..  Erika said she sent me something too, but it hasn’t gotten here yet, I still have hope tho, one of my friends had to wait about two months before she got hers. And I haven’t sent anything for her yet either!! …. I bought oleh-oleh for a few people in Australia when I was in  KL,,, which also hasn’t bee n sent… I’m so slack.

I cant remember what else I’ve done in the past month… I duno if I said before.. but I’ve joined up to Merpati Putih, its an Indonesian martial arts style, and capoeira, a Brazilian kind of martial art / dance.. both are pretty fun, but its taking it out of me.. I do both of them twice a week, and each class runs for two hours.. so 8 hours a week…  I’m still in pain from last nights MP, but tonight I’ve got capoeira!! Then two days to recover from the week.

Vando had his birthday a couple of days ago too… the 3^rd of June, I’m exactly one month older than he is. We didn’t really do that much, just went out for dessert at a place called Chokolat, still, pretty fun, Laksmi and I bought him a shirt.. but I still haven’t gotten it wrapped, so I haven’t given it to him yet, its already three days late..

Yeah… I cant think of what else has been going on… that’s probably about it… I didn’t really want to write another four and a half thousand word essay anyways, so its probably a good thing that I’ve forgotten.

World War III

Well… the title is a little deceiving, its not as bad as it seemed like it was going to be… well not yet anyways.. Its been happening for a while, Adam and Laksmi are being excluded, both from Anak ACICIS plans and from my Indo friends plans.. And I have no idea why… actually, I don’t think it is intentional… but anyway… I brought it up with a few friends, and everything I said was coming out the wrong way. I could see that I was upsetting Riri and it was kind of becoming me against them… which I didn’t want… I was trying to avoid conflict, but instead it seemed like I was creating it.. Im kind of in the middle of these two groups…. Or thats what it felt like… I decided to leave, thinking I would come back once everyone had calmed down. They tried to stop me from leaving, grabbing my phone and helmet, but I left anyway. After driving off I realized I had a parking ticket stuck in my bike… haha… I was supposed to pay for parking there… I went home, grabbed my other helmet and (because I didn’t have my phone) I went to meet the others to tell them I didn’t want to join them that night.. Haha.. Sounds so funny.. Just went home and slept. In the middle of the night Vando and Niken came around and tried to wake me up, but woke up a few other people in the process because I was sleeping with my headphones in. Finally woke up, we talked for a bit and everything just seemed to disappear. We went out last night with my kos mates, played pool, went bowling and ate dinner together and everything seemed fine… even Riri was acting like nothing had happened. Anyway, we all had a great night, a lot of fun, but really tiring.

Ok… I think I’m finally out of things to say.. You’re officially up to date… well that is if you could be bothered reading the four and a half thousand word essay under this..