Tuesday, 25 December 2007
(Finally) Welcome back to Tassie...
Ok almost there... on the way back to Hobart from Devonport... yes Devonport! All was going fine, I spent my last day in indonesia cruising around Ubud, a coffee here, a bit of lunch and a read there, then got dropped back to Denpasar after dinner for my flight out. Met up with Beki and Drew, who were also studying thru ACICIS, paid a huuuuuuge amount in excess baggage (bloody garuda, the no-frills airline from jogja charged me about a tenth the price) and hung round the airport waiting for our midnight flight. Everything seemed positive- our flight was called to boarding gates on time, we got thru the security gates- and then were told our flight would be delayed by 2 hours. BUgger. Beki and I had a bit of a stress cos our domestic flights to tassie were due to leave at midday, giving us an hour and a half to land, get thru customs and onto the next plane, so we asked the Garuda people if we could let Virgin Blue know we were running late but would indeed be there (fingers crossed) and what could we do... they were really dumb lol, but eventually took us to the head office, let us call oz, who told us if we get an official letter saying we were delayed, our domestic flights could be rescheduled wihtout having to pay again, if we missed them. Garuda gave everyone some midnight dinner- a toasted sandwich and chips, woo hoo, then we finally got out of there. Annoying transit passengers from Jakarta, tsk tsk. The flight was even later than they said originally, we werent scheduled to land til 11am and explained to the flight crew we had to get off quick for our connection and they said no worries, talk to the ground staff and theyd rush us thru. No such luck. We got off, had to wait 45 mins for our luggage to come out, then get thru customs, and didnt stand a chance of making our flights. And there wasnt a single Garuda ground staff around, not a single person in the terminal could help us. Stress! We got to the Virgin counter and we told there were no flights to Tassie with seats available til CHRISTMAS DAYYY... arrrgggghh stress... we headed off with our billions of bags to find the Garuda office (empty) or a Garuda counter (empty), and eventually grabbed an official looking person, had a bit of a teary explanation of things, and she found us a Garuda person, hiding amongst the empty check-in counters. Tsk tsk. The man was really nice tho. Cos Garuda delayed us and as a result we all missed our connections (about ten people, all over oz), they had to get us home... Solution: stay in Melbourne for the night, get the ferry back to tassie then taxi to hobart. Lol expensive for them... We did get put up in a nice hotel tho, the food was yummy, taxi all paid for... v early morning tho, Spirit of Tas late getting in, and late leaving... just wanted to get home! We only had sitting seats so bagged a nice couchy area and watched some tv and dozed to kill the time (all ten hours of it). Very rough seas (and lots of sick people :S) but we made it. Several titanic moments staggering down corridors and falling all over the place... and we made it! Nice deep sleep in Devonport then back to Hobart, lovely Hobart, at about lunchtime. Only 48 hours late. No biggie, rubber time- Coming from Indonesia after all ;)
Cooking class at Casa Luna cooking school
Thursday morning I did a cooking class- the biggest gathering of white people Ive seen in a while! There were about 12 people and a few people, staff from the restaurant took us on a tour of the Ubud markets to start with, pointing out the ingredients we'd need and typical Indonesian foods... We headed back to the restaurant and had a drink and morning tea to recover (lugging that laptop around in my backpack for a couple of hours certainly warranted a few glasses of hibiscus tea) and tried a few traditional Balinese dishes, some pandan green cakes, a gado-gado peanut salad, steamed bananas and some little cakes filled with sugar syrup. When we were sufficiently stuffed, we started the preparations: the restaurant had these massive 20kg granite mortar and pestle so we took in turns grinding up big bowls of beautifully smelling spices and herbs to make the sauce bases. Then we cooked a chicken curry, a few salads and our own sambal (we didnt do a lot of cooking, mostly the chefs demonstrated and explained why and how things fitted into their culture) then enjoyed the meal with a glass of brem, balinese rice wine. I met some interesting people, a family from Canada and several people from Oz, one from Launnie, and a Canadian couple teaching Spanish in Malaysia (as you do).
Second stop- Ubud for some r & r on the way home
Arrived in Ubud about lunchtime (almost got forgotten by the shuttle bus company) and checked into my hotel... very pretty! Little treat before I come home... the hotel is still being built, lots of bungalows and greenery and a lovely pool, so theres not many people around which is nice. The rainy season in Bali is a bit less drastic than Java at the moment- its just been peacefully drizzling instead of crazily trying to drown any unfortunate person stuck outside. Its ok tho, gives me time to organise my photos and catch up on some blogs (and maybe finally get around to reading an indonesian novel).
At INCULS (the dept for foreign students)
The drinking room, where of course there are glasses of wine on offer, and the courtyard at INCULS (Indonesian Cultural and Language Studies)
Brollies and christmas cheer
See- we finally got all prepared for the rains with the latest functional accessory- the umbrella!
A little Christmas cheer at Amplaz, a big shopping mall- I dont think they know much about Chrissy except that you put up sparkly decorations!
Bye-bye Java... Jogja... Karanggayam... Jalan Weling...
On Saturday morning a group of us headed up to Krakal, a beach a couple of hours away for the night. The perfect way to end my time in Jogja. We hired a minibus (there were 12 of us) and a row of rooms at the hotel and just hung out and enjoyed the peace and quiet (on Saturday at least). Got some sun, had a wander around the pretty deserted little town. The hotel owners cooked us dinner, beautiful fresh fish and vegies, and we chatted and played some funny games... then decided to build a bonfire on the beach. Little bit tricky as we only had a lighter and sticks, so after much forraging in the bushes for kindling, burnt fingers, a few rolls of toilet paper, and much determination, we got it going, and quite a good fire it was (in my defense, joey scouts arent actually allowed to build campfires so my expertise in that area of scouting was a bit lacking). There were some indo guys further down the beach drowning their wet logs in petrol and wondering why they had to relight the fire 3 or 4 times... Late in the afternoon, the hotel was swamped with all these indonesians, some music group from a uni, who hired out the hall at the hotel and sang... and sang... and sang... all night. Then they got up and noisily chatted and played soccer, just to wake us up im sure. And just when they quietened down to have breakfast, this awful indo-pop music rang out over the whole area... from an ocean festival taking place on the beach behind the hotel! We gave up on sleeping in and had a look after breakfast. It was pretty interesting but there were so so many people, i couldnt believe it! The last time we were at Krakal, we were the only people there, but there mustve been a few hundred people up and down the beach, having lunch and listening to the music and things. We tried to have a swim (remember indo people swim in their clothes), and got rather self-conscious in our bathers, but by that time, the number of people on the beach around our towels had doubled and we had no choice but to just to a runner up the beach at once (safety in numbers people). After lunch we headed back to Jogja as it started raining, good timing... then had a drink to say goodbye to people, then went for dinner to a fancy resto. So yum! Indian food in Jogja! I cant believe we hadnt discovered it before! Monday morning I finished cramming my 40kg of luggage into my bursting bags and had breakfast with Jess, the good Indo staple of Bubur Kacang Hijau and Kopimix... An indo friend met me at the airport after Id checked in, and I said my last goodbye (and palmed off my vegemite, i wonder if shell speak to me again lol...), to my friends and to my Jogja...Sampai jumpa! See you next time...
Selamat jalan dinner
Been a while... great way to end my time in Jogja. Friday morning we had a ceremony for the end of INCULS (the language program I did my study through) and we all got a swish certificate and alumni pin... graduates, score! The japanese students and some other asians did a few cultural performances, unfortunately Australia and Germany dont have a lot of culture to share so we luckily just got to watch :) Said a few sad goodbyes at the end of the week and went along to an awesome dinner for the ACICIS people at Parsley... yum! There was so much good stuff! Chicken and steak and pasta and potatoes and icecream... mmm. There were a lot of speeches and some of the girls came up with funny awards for everyone. Bugger- missed out on the "rajin belajar" (studies hard) and "managed to keep up a healthy lifestyle in Indonesia" awards, but came away with the "calm before the storm" award... ;) Really good night, caught up with everyone and said a few goodbyes. It was great- made me realise how far weve come over this semester... its pretty awesome.
Farewell ACICIS dinner at Parsley
Isnt this the look everyone has after they try Vegemite for the first time?! The new in-country admin assistant for Acicis suffered a tricky initiation into the group...
Me, Beki, Sarah, Erinn and Jess at dinner
Choose your own fish & five types of sambal (chilli sauce) at Jimbaran restaurant
On the last Thursday, to celebrate the end of exams, we went out to dinner at Jimbaran resto, a bit outside Jogja. The Lonely Planet (bible) rated it in the top 5 places to eat in Indo so we had to try it out... and it was so yum! We braved the pouring rain, the staff greeted us at the door of the taxi with massive umbrellas to escort us inside, and we headed straight to these big glass cases to choose our fish/prawns/crabs. We didnt really know what we were doing but it all turned out great- awesome fresh fish and vegies, and some of the other diners commented how we mustve been here for a long time, cos we were eating with our hands! We spent the night watching some crazy bvles (white people), like the other people in the restaurant were... maybe we were turning Indo after all!
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Countdown begins...
Its the strangest thing... The last few weeks I feel like Im finally settled and comfortable here and its time to leave lol. Im ready, but its just funny its taken me this long to feel like Ive made a life here. I feel comfortable walking round the streets here, taking buses and taxis and talking to people. My language has come so far, Im starting to feel really settled, into a routine with classes, yoga and travelling. But Im definitely ready to move on (I just cant think of how many days left cos it will just make the time drag!)The other day I went to Amplaz, the big shopping mall here, just to have a wander around and enjoy the air con. I discovered the most beautiful display of... stillettos... in a department store and was transfixed. It was really nice- i spent ages in there admiring the pretty things and listening to the christmas carols. Hard to believe its almost christmas- theres just not the excitement here :(When I was walking to uni the other day, these people came out of their kos on a motorbike. A guy wearing a tshirt, thongs and shortish-shorts (mid-thigh) and a girl, wearing a long-sleeved top, jeans, a jilbab, even socks under her sandals so you couldnt see the feet on her skin. Such double standards... poor girls. I feel so sorry for them at yoga, all covered up, or at the pool, some of them have full-body wetsuit-type bathers (including jilbab)... cant be comfortable!
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Bandung, the city of superheros and mass printed t-shirts but very few metered taxis
Bandung... the Paris of Java.. not too sure why lol! Its reputation preceeding us, Erinn, Jess and I headed to Bandung, in West Java for a big weekend of shopping, armed with many many rupiah and dreams of shop after shop of beautiful clothes...We got the night train up on Thursday, and had to kick people out of our seats so we could sit down... the train was packed and wasnt very nice, there were people sleeping on the floor and all over the place. I sat with a family with little twin girls, they were really funny! We got into the station at about 630am and went on the hunt for a hotel, only to find the few we tried were already full. Lots of tour buses and groups around. We decided to have breakfast and go back later, and found this sweet little bakery with great (real!) coffee :) After that was the Museum of the Asia-Akfrika Conference, which was really interesting (and air conditioned!). In 1955, Bandung was host to the conference, which brought together leaders from 29 countries for talks of peace and improvement, and theyre very proud of it: you can take a walk down Asia-Akrika Street, or Freedom Road, to visit the Freedom Building. It was really interesting tho, they had heaps of displays and information and still had the hall set up as it was then. Our guide was a uni student wanting to practice her english, which was nice and easy. Bandung has a famous "Jeans Street" north of the city so we checked that out later in the morning. The taxi drivers there are notorious for not using the meter, so after trying to cross several streets of four-lane one-way traffic (?!) we also had to battle with a driver to use the meter and not rip us off. Jeans St was worth seeing, if not incredibly successful in the shopping way. The whole street is factory outlets, not just for jeans, and every store is based on a superhero. There were shops with giant rambo statues out the front, Wolverine, Superman, Cat Woman... little strange. Shame, it just takes so long to sift thru the rubbish to find the good stuff in places like that. We moved onto another mall, just a small one, not much success (but more successful than the mall we were planning to visit that had been knocked down!) and headed back to the hotel strip. The hotel we were planning on had only one room left- the Presidential suite! It was about twice what we were plannig to pay but we decided to take it anyway- a little treat and our feet were sore! It wasnt that flashy- i guess for an indonesian mid-range hotel it was, but it was just a normal room, air con, giant bed, hot water, quite spacey. Had some great thai for dinner, and a wonderful chocolate brownie for dessert, played cards and had a nice restful sleep. Saturday we'd devoted to Bandung Supermal so headed there after breakfast, after some tough haggling with several taxi drivers. Really, is it that hard to be honest!! After a coffee for energy, we spent most of the day at the mall... it was massive! It even had a ferris wheel and rollercoaster up the top level and a kiddie rides bit to keep them entertained. Not to mention a bowling alley and a movie cinema. It was massive and there were lots of shops to look in... just not a lot of success on the shopping front. Sigh. Yummy dinner at the Coffee Bean and we headed off back to Jogja. A lot more comfortable trip home, dreams of more successful boutique shopping in Jogja...
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