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!

So I held on (to my principles)and waited to buy a copy on Saturday... and it is seriously retarding my studying routine! I'm about 1/3 in and would Harry purrrrlease strop being such a stroppy git!!!! And that goes for Ron too. Okay, so I will say no more in case I should spoil things for those who are less freaky than I and haven't run out and injured a few small children while elbowing their way to the front of the bookstore queue...

I'm off to Singapore tomorrow for a girly week with my Mum (ahhhwwwww) - should be fun! Lots of catching up, getting facials, shopping, eating, shopping, eating and eating :) Hoorah!!!

I am torn... to read the 'leaked' final Harry Potter or to wait until it's offically 'out'...

Today was hilarious - we went on a 'field trip' (read - shopping excursion) to this village that has tonnes of little cottage factories for fabric, bags and placemats. Basically, what happens here is that someone in a given area thinks, "you know what, I can make X" - s/he does so successfully and then everyone (and I mean everyone) in the area joins the bag wagon. So you get "silver village", "pottery village" and, where we went today, the "bag" and "fabric" village. So, while we were there I tried to talk to the women working at one of the factories, because I have to write a report on the trip (see the field trip DOES have a serious side). I was asking all sorts of hard hitting questions about conditions and wages and whether they would want to use those garish bags they were stitching together, and after about 10 minutes of very little response other than laughter (at me, NOT with me) I gave up ... only to be told by the owner of the factory that none of them speaks Indonesian - only Javanese!!!!! I have just spent 7 months learning a language that no one outside of the major cities speak and, honestly, learning the very formal form of it that no one outside of meetings and newspapers actually uses even in the places where they don't only speak the local dialect. After this disheartening realisation I did what any good Westerner does to ease the pain... went inside and shopped!

Anyway, here's some pictures. The first one is of the raw thread that they make from plants like palms and some type of grass that looks like it's related to flax. They shred it, soak it and then spin it into twine and thread of varying thickness and softness. This is a picture of the rough twine being dried in the sun outside the village 'hall'.




Some looks like rope, but the stuff in the next picture which is being washed, wrung dry and then bleached in the big buckets in the foreground, is really soft and looks like fine sewing cotton.




So, then they dye the thread (I didn't take a photo of this) and weave it on small hand-operated looms into bright cloth. The cloth type varies according to the type of thread they are using and sometimes they insert sticks or whole dried leaves to create some unusual textures. It's pretty interesting, and reminded me of reading about cottage weavers in England in the 19th century. Some of the factories were pretty nice, with light from windows and good ventilation, but some were pretty awful and I can't imagine the constant darkness is good for their eyesight. I didn't buy anything from those places.

As usual, I am procrastinating... this is because I am a) in a cafe with free wireless and b) the vocab I am supposed to be studying is all about economics and industry in Indonesia and I find this topic frankly boring... but also kind of necessary... sigh! My knitting has been going no where lately, largely because I've either been studying or trying to explore a little bit of Yogya while I'm here. I manage to do a little bit while watching a show on cable TV I am now totally addicted to - it's called Miami Ink and it's a reality TV show about a rather swanky tattoo parlour (?) in Miami (as indicated by the name really) - I am totally totally loving it! I love the guys (and girl) in the shop and have only just realised that these guys are real artists. Not all tattooing is tacky and kind of badly done - the guys on Miami Ink produce the most beautiful artwork. Not that i'd ever get a tattoo - a) not that into pain b) change my mind about what I do and don't like every twenty seconds and c) don't exactly work in the kind of job where it's acceptable, and frankly I think if you're going to go through the pain of getting 'inked' you should be proud enough of it to show it off. If you have to think about where to put it so you can cover it up, forget about it! Anyway - that's on about 9ish here, so I do a small amount of knitting while watching it - probably not the 'cool' audience the shop owners at Miami Ink (Ami - the 'cute' one, and Chris - the 'artist' are my favourites) intended. But deal with it fellas!

Anyway, that's about it for me - back to learning the words for "you're fired"... Trump would be proud. Now there's an idea - an Indonesian version of The Apprentice. Hilarious. Love you all. And Mum - I would honestly never ever get a tattoo... honestly!!

And guys check out http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/miami-ink/miami-ink.html!

Despite having an exam today(ho hummmm) I spent most of Saturday going back down to the seaside for some more seafood with a new friend Hiang Hau and her Indonesian friends. But, you see, how could I say no when I was asked to ride down there on vintage 1960s vespas?! It was such an unforgettable day, that I'm really very happy I said yes, and I studied hard on Sunday and all of today to make up for the lost time studying!

These are the vespas we rode there on!





I also got to see Harry Potter last night which was wonderful too - I love Luna and was really pleased she's finally made an appearance. I thought the only thing they didn't express well was how Harry pushed away all his friends and was a right strop because he was under the influence of You Know Who - I thought they really brushed over this vv important plot point. Apart from that, was really fantastic.

So, I'm sitting in a groovy little cafe in the old Dutch district in Yogya with super-fast WiFi (free!!!), sipping my first decent coffee in two months, with a warm breeze cooling me down in the heat and listening to jazz standards... sweet. I should be a) studying b) writing work emails or c) replying to friends' emails but instead I'm enjoying the moment and mucking about with my photos. Sweet indeed. And soon I'm even planning on checking out some knitting blogs. Okay, so I'm a geek, but what the hell! And, yes, I am still knitting here. Here's a photo of my progress on the lace scarf in charcoal grey Zara merino wool!




What else? Tonight the language school is taking us out to walk around Yogya at night... not sure what it's all about, but I'm sure it will be fun. I've also managed to get along to this great cultural/arts festival that wrapped up last week. Check out the great designs on these lanterns - there's so much great design here, on Tshirts, stickers, posters and graffiti too!






Then afterwards we wandered around and sampled odd food from street vendors like this guy and chatting to locals here for the school holidays!

Just back from the trip to the coast - it's very dangerous swimming (lots of incredibly scary rips and huge banks of waves coming in in all directions) but great for some fantastic seafood. Check out the pictures of the seafood we bought at a market where they're brought in by the fishing boats in the following picture. The wives of the fishermen then sell the produce.





We chose some (still live) crabs, squid we were told was fished in Australian waters (...not sure if that is legal...) and two different types of fish - one the fishwives told us was good for bakar (grilling) and one for goreng (frying). Yummy! Notice the baby sized sharks in the picture to my right... also not sure how legal a catch size that is either... All of this cost us about $4.

Anyhoo, then our driver found a guy who took us to his stall where his wife and sister cooked all the fish etc for us. The crab was steamed in a reduction of stock, kecup manis, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves and was amazingly delicious! The grilled fish was grilled with a sauce that was both sweet and sour, and the fish goreng was delicious, light and yummy. So I guess that was the Indonesian version of fish and chips. It was all served with white steamed rice (nasi putih), sweet basil, sliced cucumbers and spicy sambal.




What a day! I'll finish with some photos of the crazy waves on the beach - no swimming allowed :)

Heya gang - so despite stomach bugs I decided to go along to a cooking class and learn how to make Sate Ayam (Chicken Sate), caramelised tempeh and sambal sayur (spicy vegetables) with yellow coconut rice. Mmmm, and I even managed to keep down a small portion of the result! Now that's exciting...

So, to make the sate sauce we ground by hand roasted peanuts, garlic, fried shallots, kaffir lime leaves (the secret ingredient), red chillies and palm sugar, then mixed with water and boiled. The chicken was also marinated with kaffir limes leaves and the resulting sate is the best I've yet eaten in Indonesia. Sooooo yummy! The lime leaves make all the difference :)

We also made this amazing tempeh dish which uses caramelised palm sugar and kechup manis (sweet soy) to create a crispy, sweet and crunchy dish that was amazing to eat. We also made yellow coconut rice using fresh tumeric and not the powdered yellow stuff - delicious! And I was introduced to two new varieties of ginger and candle-nuts (loosely related to the macademia nut) - enak sekali!

Warning: following contains details of my yuckytummy experiences. NOT for the squeamish!!

The downside of amazing south-east Asia is that I have just had my first (and by all accounts NOT only) experience of giardia. Joy of joys. It's amazing. Once you tell people you have "sakit perut" (sick stomach) they all feel compelled to ask you in great detail about your number twos and in turn tell you far too much about the last time they had giardia. And let me tell you, with the number of intrepid traveller and do-good-aid-types in my language school there are plenty of giardia, tick typhus and amoebic dysentry stories going around. My trip to the doctor this morning(after a week of being sick - god am I stubborn) was actually to the hospital and played out something like a scene from Monty Python. So you arrive and have to line up for a form to fill out and a pen (I brought my own but tonnes of people were just waiting patiently for one of the pens with a chain attached to use, but I think only one of those was working by the looks of things) - then you line up on these weirdly uncomfortable plastic chairs you find in hospitals all over the world. They call your number and you go and submit your form and get an ID card. Then you go to a different room to wait for the doctor. Only you're not waiting for a doctor - you're waiting for the nurse to take your blood pressure. Then you wait for the doctor. If, say, you are suffering from giardia you then go to the toilet... and discover there's no toilet paper... and go back and ask the nurse for some only to be given (I kid you not) two squares. Hmmm. Anyhoo, then you see the doctor. He talks to you in broken ingrish he thinks is really good, about his exchange student from Australia, listens to your stomach with a stethoscope, gives you a script for something and tells you not to eat much (not joking) for about a week until it gets better. He told me I probably do have giardia. So I think, good, now I have the drugs. So I go to pay, they give me a receipt - take the prescription - and indicate that the place to actually pay is at the other end of the hospital (incidentally next to the pharmacy) - so I line up again and pay. They then send me BACK to the doctor to give them the second receipt and pick up my prescription. I find another toilet (don't ask) and then go back to the pharmacy. As indicated by the plethora of signs (in a language I am not sure I will ever understand), I put the prescription in at desk 1. I wait for about 10 mins - they call my name, and give me ANOTHER receipt. I line up at the chashier's desk and pay. They give me ANOTHER RECEIPT - I return to the pharmacy and hand it in to desk 2. I wait another 20 minutes. An old lady calls out my name and gives me the medication MINUS INSTRUCTIONS!!!! So I go home, log onto Google only to discover the two drugs given are NOT what I need to kill the bloody bastard giardia bugs in my stomach, but are in fact same over the counter drugs I brought from Australia and a drug for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome?!??!?!?!? URGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
So, to cut a long story (I know, you're thinking, this bowel movement story could have been longer...?!) I called my doctor in Australia, he told me I probably have giardia from the symptoms and in any case better safe than sorry, and gave me the name of the drug I needed which incidentally you can simply buy (along with lots and lots of other prescription drugs) over the counter here. Oh, and I basically can't eat until it's all over.

Am I having fun yet?!

So today I went with a group of people from my hotel up to the base of Mount Merapi, the active volcano that looms over Yogya (at least on days when the pollution and cloud cover lets up!). We did a bit of hiking, including to the small village that was eaten up by the lava in the most recent eruption, and through a gorgeous ravine that is full of deciduous European trees planted by the Dutch. It all finished with lunch at a sawah (wet rice paddy) - lot's of photos for you to enjoy! And who knew there is such a thing as a bright crimson dragonfly?!