Geek in the Heat

Heya gang - it's been quite a while, I know. My whirlwind trip home included a sick Dad and a wedding, and since I've been back I've been studying my butt off! Next Sunday I head back to Jakarta and the world of 'real' work... but what has me terrified is the fact that I have to sit my language exam on day 2!!!!!!!! EEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk anyone?!

So this weekend I ditched my plans to go to Kuala Lumpur for a fun weekend with friends and virtuously (and bitterly) knuckled down with my books. It's depressing the number of vocab words that I have learned relating to awful things like beheadings, invasions, explosions, persecution, human rights violations etc. I want to study a happy vocab list tomorrow - I'm thinking economics couldn't possibly be this depressing, right?!

Anyhoo, here are some photos from the wedding I was a bridesmaid at while I was (briefly) back in Oz.







Shortly after I came back I also went on a trip up to see a couple of temples high in the mountains near Solo - it's very Indiana Jones, surrounded by tea plantations and so, so silent (and cold! Wonderfully, wonderfully cold!)... see for yourself!









x j

It's okay - if you pop on Google Earth (as CNN did during its coverage, I note) you will see that Sumatra is a long way from Yogya. Unlike the last earthquake we didn't feel a thing, but I understand it shook up a lot of my friends living in Jakarta. I was excited because I was watching Indonesia news and then finally understood something... it's funny that the one batch of vocab that seems to have stuck to my brain cells post-holiday were all words relating to earthquakes (gempa bumi, BTW).


So all is good (here at least) - we'll have to see how the area in Sumatra near where it hit is okay. There are reports now of building collapses, but no word on whether a tsunami has arrived.

So, after a very dramatic couple of weeks I am finally back in Yogya. I arrived a couple of hours ago and am currently basking in the warmth (and lack of humidity) at my favourite cafe in the quiet old dutch area of town, a coffee and big glass of water at my elbow, with the Goldberg variations on my iPod. Life is good! Promise more updates of the last month soon, but for now I am alive and well!

My inner (asleep) monologue:

Hmmm, is that the bed shaking...

Hmmm, me tired...

The bed really IS shaking...

It's shaking, A LOT...

It's unlikely to be a poltergeist...

I think that's an earthquake...

Guess I should get up and find a doorway...

*stumbles out of bed and, falling over her shoes, gracefully and with only a mild amount of panic, opens the outside door and stands in the archway*

Why are those Indonesian people staring at me like I'm insane...

Oh, the shaking has stopped...

And my bed head hair is pretty attrocious...

I'm tired...back to bed now...

1 hour later:

*sits up in bed with the occurrence of a VERY important thought*

Don't be one of those annoying Aussies that doesn't call her Mum after disaster occurs in area...

*texts mother to say is OKAY*

PS take note people... if you are in the vicinity of a natural or manmade diasaster, even if you are OK and half-asleep, you MUST inform your mother that you are OK and half-asleep...

That's right, just like those ads for those really sickly sweet deodorants you loved when you still read Dolly magazine...when I walk down the street absolutely every turns around for no apparent reason and stares at the wierd, gigantor with the white hair! Look at the freak, they seem to say (and they do indeed point, and occasionally make wierd noises to get my attention). I made a guy fall off a chair today when I 'snuck up' on him. hehehe. That's all for today.

I thought I would recount my day yesterday because it occurred to me that just crossing Yogya to study at one of my favourite cafes is actually quite interesting in itself! So, most days now I get up and about by about 8ish and try to head to a cafe to study by myself for the morning. This is usually advisable because the construction work-that-never-seems-to-end at my hotel usually starts at about 730ish. This can involve anything from drilling being done in the room next to me at about the same spot as my head leans against the bedhead, to the chipping away of concrete in the fountain outside my room only to reinstal exactly the same bloody fountain all over again...anyhoo, between the noise and the fact that there is a big screen TV in my room with cable access and the Travel and Living Channel, it's usually better for my studying (not to mention my sanity) to head out to a more sedate location for the morning. Plus, I usually really need a proper coffee by this time!

So, sometimes I go down the road to a place called Dixie's which has Illy brand coffee (downside - they make it really weak) but my usual haunt is about 15 minutes across town and is called Via Via. It's owned by a group of Belgians but is run by locals and makes yummy salads and great crepes (the coffees are less good but are served with tiny little dark chocolate squares from a factory in Yogya...also owned by Belgians!). Now the key to studying in cafes where the music often leaves a lot to be desired (I am NOT a big fan of Indonesian pop music and Indo punk is even wierder!) is to make sure and bring your iPod (or other generic music playing device that may or may not be made by apple)...without it all is lost and I usually end up reading the local newspaper and people-watching. BUT if I do bring my iPod I become a champion word-memorizer and studying machine!

But one of the things I like best about studying at Via Via is the journey there. The taxi weaves its way through a warren of streets and alleys. The intersections are always fun as the hordes of motorcyles and scooters everyone drives here like to interpret red lights very loosely! All the way along the route (in fact all the way along every street in Indo I have ever seen) are shops and food stalls and tiny one-man enterprises like mini-petrol stations and cobblers! It's an endless, chaotic and often run-down array of capitalism at its purest. No government assistance or social security here - you make it or starve on your own efforts, that's for sure, and everyone is selling something. I had to laugh - I saw a guy with a stall that looks like the electronic rides we have in malls in Australia. You know the ones you have to pop coins into that you always nagged your Mum to have a go on when you were little? Well it was exactly the same, except that, instead of feeding the meter with your coins, you paid the guy who owned it and he peddled away at the back to make the plastic ponies go up and down!!

There seems to be no real 'good' and 'bad' areas here. Run down shacks sit right next to the newest mansions separated only by the high iron fences and concrete walls erected between them. When we pass over a few bridges you look down at the polluted river and see the really 'bad' area - the poorest of people have built here, though nothing in Yogya is as poverty stricken as I have seen along the highways in Jakarta. But there is also a real sense of civic pride (despite the rubbish everywhere) - there are little parks all over the place, usually very tiny and filled with plants and palms (never grass) that someone tends lovingly. And there are many, many ornate iron lamps here that I guess were installed in the early 20th century but are really well maintained and painted in bright colours. Think Narnia-style with a tropic twist!

In the afternoons, after my 4 hours of classes, I usually either flake at home or go to a cafe like Own Cafe (where I am now) which has great coffee (the best in Yogya, with a real European-style espresso machine) and free super-fast internet. The staff are friendly and I like their club sandwich which comes with real chicken breast meat and no fake bacon or ham. Forget pork products here, people. The only time I've eat bacon in the last 2 months is in Singapore! Oh, how I miss BBQ pork buns!!!!

So that's it for today's report - hope you're all safe and well x j

After a fantabulous break in Singapore I have had something of a studying lull - not happy Jan! I actually think, after waking up with a sore throat and runny nose today, this could have been a result of an incoming cold... although let's never discount the return-from-holiday syndrome!!

Tonight I'm taking a friend out for a birthday treat at a very swanky spa. And then early to bed, I think, to head off this nasty lurgy :) And yes, Mum, I'm practically O.D.ing on vitamins!!

Can't wait to see you all in a month when I'm back in the Berra. ooooh and I bought yummy yarn in Singpore and the blanket is already starting to take shape... okay, two knitted 20cm x 20cm squares probably don't qualify as "taking shape", but the yarn is bliss to knit with and looks great when I've cast off. Love it! Promise to add photos soon

x geekintheheat

With Mum feeling better we ventured off to our cooking class in a lovely destination in the middle of a park where taxi drivers felt compelled to avoid with the result that were dropped off in the middle of nowhere and told to go "in that direction". The first problem was that we had been dropped off at the wrong carpark and, therefore, the second problem was that the directions we had been given by the cooking school were hopelessly irrelevant! Luckily we had left a little early and, after a hot and sticky hike up a giant hill through the Spice Garden, we made the start of the class. We were even greeted with a yummy lemon-grass iced tea on arrival!

So the next step was to hop on a bus and pair up with a fellow 'schoolie' - we headed off to a local food market. It's the last of the old 'wet' markets, meaning like Fyshwick markets only with fresh seafood everywhere and the water dripping from the ice splashing all over your feet.




It was totally enchanting - exactly the kind of exotic, crowded marketplace you'd expect here at the crossroads of so many cultures. There were alleys of meat sellers, a delicious looking (and smelling) roast duck vendor, people selling freshly grated coconut to make your own coconut milk (which we did), fruit and vege vendors, poultry stalls, Indian spice sellers, muslim Malay halal meat stalls, and tofu and noodle stores. Amazing. Our cooking school gave us a list of ingredients and a budget of $10 each and off we went in our groups. It was such a great experience, bargaining for candlenut and palm sugar and we even came in massively under budget :) All of the stuff we bought came in at about $15!!




Yummy duck... they even had the whole duck head available... but the smell was amazing.




The chicken man chops up our satay chicken thighs.




This is the coconut man shelling the coconuts and the photo that follows is the crushing process.




You just take the coconut gratings and soak them in water and then squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, and then put through a strainer and Bob's your uncle, the richest most flavourful coconut I've ever had!

Here's Mum and I at the cooking school later, cooking up a storm!



What a day - then it started absolutely bucketing down in true monsoonal style (although it's actually the dry season and all the locals are scratching their heads and muttering about global warming) - check out the photo of the rain outside where we ate our lunch...




So tonight we're off to find Singapore chilli crab!

So Mum is well (hurrah) and we've had a day chock full of shopping, eating and, more importantly, drinking at Raffles (and other places of course) as well as walking around in the rain! Here's some photos :) Oooh, and I also found a teeny-weeny yarn shop and stocked up of yummy gelato coloured fine-cashmarino yarn (no photo of that though)!!!!! Yay :)



So this is me at the Longbar at Raffles with my gin fizz. At this bar they invite you to eat the peanuts piled on the table...



...and then...



...throw them on the floor. I tell you, if it wasn't for the fact that my Mum was sitting next to me doing this very thing, I probably would have shook my head and clucked to myself about how these people were raised in barns and would you do that at your Mum's place?! Anyway. My mother is sitting next to me now insisting that I was the one encouraging her to throw the damned things on the floor. So there.

So next up, Mum and I got thoroughly lost walking through Singapore's giant maze of interlinked and underground malls that I am certain are specifically designed to ensnare hapless tourists. Here's Mum (and I) coming up for air!




It was lucky we got lost really, because on one of our forays out to "the surface" we found what is claimed to be the "World's Largest Fountain". We agree with the Lonely Planet's assessment. This baby should also be tagged "World's Ugliest Fountain"... judge for yourselves.





I personally preferred the "lucky coy" of Suncity (apparently the "Pride of Suncity Mall"). These lovely fishies were almost two feet long a piece!

Ah, this is the life... sipping a gin fizz under the eaves of the Raffles Hotel while a storm crashed and flashes outside and the fans whirrrrrrr above. I feel positively colonial, even more than when I catch a becak in Yogya and have another human being push me around in the midday sun... I always tip very well on account of the huge guilts I have after this! Anyway, I digress, Singapore, a cool cocktail and the rain. Now the downside of this experience was that I was alone in my rattan chair sipping my fizz, as mum has eaten something terribly yucky at dinner last night and is now stuck in the hotel room until things settle down somewhat. Poor babe!

So I ventured out into Chinatown and, in true geekintheheat style, managed to avoid the tacky end entirely (only ventured there in search of the thoroughly fantastic Chinese Cultural Museum) and found the swanky shop and cafe section immediately... I'm high-maintenance, what can I say?! Anyway, had a great time swanning about pretending I was well-heeled. Bought a couple of wonderful ruffle-front work tops in white and black (with tiny polkadots) that are far less frou-frou than my description would imply and then headed to Raffles for some hard earned alcohol! Yum.



This is the swanky end of Chinatown.

Mum's getting a tiny bit better so hopefully we can make it back to the Raffles' Tiffen Room (tres swanky) for afternoon tea tomorrow arvo. If nothing else, Mum could enjoy some nice tea :)




And this is our swanky hotel lobby which challenges my fear of heights every time we take a glass-walled elevator the full 19 floors!