More than halfway

This Wednesday marked the halfway mark of the trip! Yay! Downhill from here on!
We celebrated by me getting some massive stomach upset, kinda traditional for visitors here I think.
Been less than comfortable for the last few days, but it's no biggie 'cos it doesn't hamper my TV watching, book reading, computer playing... and yes, maths text booking.

It's quite a challenge to do some of the questions. The straight calculation stuff isn't so bad (good practice with no calculator) but the worded and more advanced problems are sometimes hard to work out what the heck it is they're actually asking. Still, we might look for a uni text somewhere, although it's been ages since I did straight maths, I kinda do a quarter of the book a day, so that even though I've only spent a little time on it, I've just about finished.

After the triumphant rain last post it hasn't really rained since. There's been a little sprinkling a couple of nights, but it's been back to dry and hot, which is not how it's meant to be so people are grumbly again.

Not half as grumpy as these guys:

Came out from dinner and saw the pavement moving. Was lots of little frogs. Or toads. My education in this area has been sorely lacking, apart from a book I remember when I was a kid called "Frog and Toad are Friends". In which case all you need to do to tell them apart is talk to them and work out if they're grumpy (toads) or cheerful (frogs). Unfortunately they hopped away when we got near and wouldn't submit to psychological profiling.

Speaking of dinner, here's the club resto:

You can see how crowded it is. Waking up at 4 in the morning means that TJ gets back from work pretty tired, so we're usually having dinner by 5:30 or so. They have a buffet style thing that starts at 7, but since it's costing us all of $4 to have a full meal whenever we want of whatever we want, we just have an early dinner. There are two things of great importance in the picture. One of them is obviously Tari, the other is why I also have VERY long lunches there. Yes, the air conditioner.

But what about breakfast? I hear you ask. Outdoors while it's nice and cool. I'm typing this just after breakfast today, it's a lovely 29 degrees, so nice to be so cool outside! I'm sitting in the lobby, I've found it's the only really stable connection. And yes, stable doesn't mean the same over here, but it's far less painful than any other method I've found so far!

Selamat Pagi (good morning) is just one of the many Selamat's you have to use, there's about five in total, for different parts of the day. Good morning, good day, good afternoon, good evening, good night. See, back home I have a g'day that kinda does all of that for me. Apparenly it's good for my learning and more polite to learn the whole rainbow.

Oh, and Clayton, about the whole guru thing, here's a picture of the epitome of scholarly learning, you'll see these guys all over schools and university campuses (campi? campusi?). So before you go denigrating "slippers"...

This one is actually one of a pair at the front of the university club. Charlotte and MacKenzie, make sure that Mummy or Daddy (or both) show you what noise an elephant makes (and take a photo of it if they do that thing where you put your arm in front of your nose to pretend it's a trunk).

Now I've had several emails wanting to know what our room looks like. I realise I kinda described it, but forgot to show you pictures. Well, for the last half a week we've been watching a crack in the ceiling expanding slowly. Other than that, it's a really nice room. here's a panorama...

Firstly, here's the kitchen/pantry/study area. Most importantly, you can see the two power points in this shot. No fridge, so we kinda buy stuff a day at a time rather than stocking up, and go down to the club for a cold drink. There are no appliances except... wait for it... an electric kettle. For all those hot drinks you want over here. Needless to say, it hasn't ever been a worthy contender for one of the power points.

Eagle eye readers may note the bright orange extension cord. One of the best purchases made on this whole trip. Except for maybe the cold root beer  I had in the mall, that was pretty good. Oh, and the lounge chairs are there because we watch West Wing on the laptop on the counter there, so we switched the chairs that were there for the chairs in the "lounge"...

Here we have the lounge. Um. Yeah. That's about as exciting as it is. Oh, there's a carpet/rug on the floor here. Moving on...

The bedroom, massive king sized bed. Obviously I've been "working" hard on something there, probably Evil Genius. The DS is there too, Scribblenauts, Giana Sisters and Mario Karts are the three most on rotation at the moment. I alternate between the bedroom and study depending on the light coming in through the windows.

So there you go, really huge room compared to most other hotel type accomodation I've been in. If you want to feel more a part of it, those three pics were taken from one spot so you could digitally stitch them together if you wanted to. Oh, wait, you all have lives! Sorry, I'll do it when we get back and I find my photoshop disc.

As always I have other photos, but unless you're keen to see a crack in the ceiling at different stages of development or the air conditioner I'll leave it be at the moment.

Well there are only really two other pieces of news before I sign off. My stomach has meant that I haven't been able to wander too far from the room so there's nothing else to tell you about I'm afraid.

News story 1: Tari got confirmation that she's made the shortlist for the Harkness post-doc fellowship! That puts her in the top 8 candidates of the country! They only pick 1 or 2 a year though, so it's a super amazing honour, confirming her general and specific levels of awesomeness. She's too humble, so I'll take any chance I can get! We'll head up to Sydney in early December for the final interviews. She'll be there among the sort of people who get Australian of the Year for researching amazing stuff, it's that prestigious a fellowship. If she gets it they pay a really nice amount of money and we go to the US for a year. Anyway, can't get hopes up because it's still a really long shot.

News story 2: After watching more ads on TV I can confirm the rough proportions mentioned earlier with a few clarifications. I saw a car ad once. Still no ads for stores or insurance etc. I also had it pointed out to me that the cosmetics ads are just about all for skin lightening cream. My theory is that they have a massive centrifuge that they put in barrels of cosmetics. When they spin it up, the skin darkening stuff settles on one edge, the skin lightening stuff settles on the other. To maximise profit they skim off the darkening stuff to sell to US, Europe, Oz etc. and the lightening stuff to places like here. Some people suggest theat it's evil the way that the companies play on humans by using models with darker skin and tans in Oz, and people with milky skin over here. I'm sure that really they're just trying to waste not want not because of their centrifuge.

Well, only two an a bit weeks to go now, so next time I post it'll probably be less than two weeks to go!

Happy Birthday if I don't post before then Paul.
Happy final bits of holidaying Mum and Dad.
Have a GREAT trip Dave and Tori.
Hope the girls are letting you sleep more Clay and Mandy.
Juni, hope you're feeling MUCH better and that the puppies aren't making you spoil them TOO much =)
Uni and School studyers, hit those books hard! Look forward to the MASSIVE holiday you get after the exams =)
For people I've forgotten, sorry, but my battery is just about dead and I need to visit our room again.

Everybody, enjoy the last bit of October and be nice to any trick or treaters!


P.S. Juni, if you read this before Halloween, feel free to buy some lollies for any kiddies that come by, we'll reimburse you when we get back. (And buy ones that you like so if there aren't many kiddies you get a bonus lolly bonanza!)

Weekend

Internet has been as good as ever. That is to say it almost never works!

The weekend was nice and quiet, but the big, important news of the year is that it rained!

At about 3:30 in the afternoon, the usual threatening clouds gave us an awesome thunder and lightning show followed by a good half hour of torrential rain. Since then it has rained a tiny bit every night, but no more proper downpours.

There is now palpable relief among the locals. The roads were immediately awash, and the day after we went for a walk and saw a much greater multitude of birds, lizards etc. feasting on the bugly goodness.

The photo doesn't do justice to the river of water flowing down the road.

Anyway, since then it's only been in the mid 30s, rather than the previous 40+s. Pleasant enough for the local ninja brigade to be out jogging after dusk. (For those of us old enough to have played The Last Ninja on the C64 or Apple IIe, you may identify with the white figure...

The only real thing of interest we did on the weekend (apart from catching up on sleep) was go to the local big mall. It's about as big as Knox, but vertical rather than horizontal. On the ground floor is a Carrefours, can't remember if I talked about that store chain yet or not, but a mix between department store and supermarket. They sell everything (well, everything that's for sale here). That includes "standing dispensers" as well as DVD players, Rice Cookers and other things. Never found out what a "standing dispenser" was, but was in bold letters on the front advertisement next to TVs.

Iced tea drinks are cheaper by far than any other drinks here, so we've been having more and more of them, although Tari is a super fan of our local's lime juice too. We bought a stack of bottled water, the trip was about 5km so we Taksi'd there and back. I know it doesn't sound so far, but on these roads, 5km involves walking far further to avoid/dodge/backtrack etc. and it was still VERY hot and humid.

As I mentioned with the advertising, so it is with the actual shop contents. About 1/3 of supermarket space is cosmetics of all sorts. They have about two "helpers" per aisle too, which means you spend more time "permisi" (excuse me) than anything else as you wend your way through the helpful people.

Lunch was at the oh-so-local A&W All American Eatery, a mug of frosty cold root beer and that all American favorite meal, black pepper chicken and rice.

We also found a bookstore that had some books in Ingris (English). Tari got an Ingris - Indonesian dictionary, I got a bilingual maths textbook (for $6!!!). It's only higher level year 12, but Tari thinks we can track down a university bookshop somewhere. And yes, I admit that it's pretty geeky to be doing maths questions, but at least *I* didn't spend part of the afternoon reading a dictionary.

We finally found some dried fruit over here, mango, which is normally fantastic. However, it seems as though they have used at least partly a salt method to dry the fruit. Salty dried mango. I think I'm acquiring the taste. At least, you know me, I'm too "thrifty" to throw things out. It'll take a while, but I'll get through it!

As promised, we are now blending in with the locals.

Tari's giving me the grimace of "I just got back from work after walking 15 minutes in over 30 degree heat and you want me to smile for your blog?" look. It's all the rage in Milan, I think it'll give "magnum" a run for money.

We passed on the plastic sunglass rack outside the supermarket, even though we could have purchased super cheap "special imports" with Gucci, Prada etc. on them (must specially import them from Singapore then slash the price by several thousand percent).

Tari's favorite moment of the day was NOT actually finding the 47 types of dried fish available (seriously, 47! - We all know that 48 would have been overkill, so they stuck with a more modest approach) It was coming out from the supermarket and being stared at (not unusual here) by a 4 year old eating an ice-cream. She made a face and said "mmm, enak?" (enak = delicious). He got a shell-shocked, stunned expression before turning to his mother then laughing and being so excited that it was only the reflexes of his mum that stopped the enak ice-cream from flying across the room. Very very cute!

Treated TJ to an iced latte from starbucks, it was a discount bargain at 50,000. With a croissant. It's still bizarre to see price tags sometimes in the millions!

There have been conferences all weekend here at the uni club. Some of them we've had difficulty deciphering. We think there was a school parent meeting, but there were few kids (though all in immaculate military style uniform) and there was great pomp and circumstance. They do take their education pretty seriously over here, it's very highly regarded to be a teacher (guru) so I get props and niceness rather than slight disappointment or embarrassment. Quite nice really!

One of the other meetings was of shareholders of Garuda. This morning when we came downstairs there were military uniforms everywhere (this time being worn by adults rather than schoolkids). Some sort of military conference.

It's a bit hard for us living here, because most of the conferences seem to stay up late partying, then get up early the next morning while we (well, TJ anyway) has to get up and go to work like normal.

Well that's about it, nothing particularly exciting happening, and I imagine the week will be boring as all heck.

To finish off, Tari's got a story about some of her colleagues when they were in Singapore. Some places expect tips, some refuse tips, it's impossible to tell at a glance. They went out for dinner, paid (including a tip) and left the restaurant. A minute or so later they heard shouting as one of the people from the restaurant sprinted down the road chasing them, waving money until they took it!

Sitting here in the lobby, very hot, definitely dinner time so gonna leave it there, hope this finds you all well and healthy and happy.

Love to you all, Sim.

Fill in the gaps

Here's a misguided attempt at another blog post. The internet has been so super patchy, not sure if I'll get it done. In any case have only attached a couple of pics because the wait for them to upload is insane!

Might be easier on my anger management if I semi-dot point rather than spin verbose tonight. Keep having to copy and paste as the connection drops, then I have to wait for a minute redialing before it picks up again. Anyway, enough whining about the internet!

Firstly a few fun typos...

When Tari was speaking at the conference she noticed on the microphone that the label called it a crodless microphone. It was totally without crod apparently. No crod.

Oh, and speaking of AV stuff, is it about the time of year to give you a Happy Birthday Daveboy!? If it is, then Happy Birthday Dave! If not, well, just read this again at the appropriate time. Oh, and thanks for the shirt offer, but I'll do okay =)

They have a function centre here where among other things they can perform weeding ceremonies. With this ring I do thee weed? Maybe they pronounce you gardener and gardenette.

On the laundry list it appears that they wash undergarments and shocks. With the heat not yet abated, my socks probably would be shocks to an unprepared launderer.

It's also somewhat disconcerting how much of the artwork has erupting volcano themes. On our wall is a Jackon Pollock style volcano erupting. Very soothing. Not!

As for a snippet into the last few days...

At night (like right now) when it cools down to the low 30s - feels so much nicer than during the day - students congregate outside to do stuff. The main entrance to the university is a long divided road, maybe 400-500m. The middle of the divided road is a 5m wide grassy aread. Our room looks out over it, although this picture is looking too high. It was a great sunset shot, but I don't think it came out well at all. I really tried to get a shot without a car on the road, but the traffic is unceasing, mostly motorcycles. If you've not experienced S-E Asian traffic, read one of my blogs from the last trip!

Right now outside there are the sounds of a loud marching band, drum music. We thought it was many practicing drummers, but it's actually a martial arts group. They're doing something with swords and kicking. There's a group juggling further down. And beyond that there is a brass band. They're practicing. They really need to.

Anyway, we've been really trying to get to bed by 9:30-10PM because the call to prayer is at 4AM (sunrise). At about 6AM spaced about 10 minutes apart three jumbos come down really low over the roof, enough to make the room shake, which gets you up if you managed to get back to sleep after the 4AM wake-up, which isn't easy given the temperature. Here's a shot of a minaret that looked to the eyes like it was glowing golden in the sunlight, but just looks kinda ordinary in the photo sorry =(

Last night we were taken out to dinner at a fancy place. It was for the visitors, Tari, a lady from Belgium looking into their educational documentation and a gentleman from Sweden trying to get more inter-student exchanges happening. Oh, and me I guess!

Some of the food cost about 10x what we've been paying here at the university restaurant. (Not that beating $1.50 for a main meal is that difficult I guess!) It was really good food, but the ice-cold drinks were worth any amount (especially when I wasn't paying hehe)!

Semi-outdoors location, open wall into a nice little garden/pond enclosure. Lots of tropical plants, beautiful artwork (for once not volcano related) on the walls, the table was enormous and had a marble top! There were fans on the ceiling, and many fans of the fans sitting around the table. As always, the Indonesians were polite beyond all rationality, just so welcoming and nice. There was gently 80s music in the background but (fortunately) no karaoke.

The power went off about half an hour into dinner, the staff didn't blink (it happens so often anyway) they just brought out more candles. The worst part was the fans stopping! I noticed after a minute or two that the music was still going. That's right, it was a live band playing what sounded to me to be the "tragic love songs of the 80s megamix".

Dinner was a bit of beef, chicken and fish with three types of rice. The rice was white, yellow (saffron) and red. We were educated about the red rice. It's not coloured artificially or with a sauce, it's a red rice, I expected it to be gritty or rough like brown rice, but it wasn't. Just a sort of, hmm, I dunno, richer almost brown rice flavour, but in a smooth white rice package. (Gee, wouldn't I make a great ad maker.)

The chicken was deep fried, the beef sort of rendang style and the fish was a solid block of salt effectively. I mean SOLID, couldn't cut it so just picked it up and gnawed at it. Was really yummy in a fishy, salty kinda way (anchovy lovers would LOVE it!) There was soup too, good for having with the rice. No hands this time (except the fish) but there were, like, two spoons and three forks. I just took my cue from the others which one to use when. (I need one of Dad's old airforce etiquette lessons I guess.)

The conversation worked from work related stuff to ping pong (a favorite sport) to more work related stuff to the weather to some work related stuff. The climate has been shifting here for the last 5 or so years, the wet season comes later and later and the temperature gets hotter and hotter. It's been over 40 degrees during the day here for a while now and even though they're used to heat, they're not used to that level. Usually by now it's been raining for a month, which keeps the peak temperatures down.

Without the money and resources for proper meteorology they're still using models primarily based on past history, which means that every day the forecast is 30-35 and thunderstorms even though it's always over 40 and dry. Anyway, I can feel a long boring discussion beginning so I'll move on!

Last night was warm again, but the morning was really nice and cool, 28 degrees. Coolest we've felt since leaving home, although some shops in Singapore were quite cool from the airconditioning. Had breakfast with TJ then walked her to work. Must have been about 1/4 to 8 when I left her office and the clouds had cleared in the 5 mins I was indoors. By the time I got back to our room it was 35 degrees and climbing.

This shot was of one of the university buildings in the morning. Some of the buildings are quite grand, but there's a part of my brain that equates that roof shape with Pizza Hut. Sorry, apologies to an entire culture for that.

Spent some time with the TV on just sitting in front of the A/C while I dried off. The days have been hot, I've still been walking, but it's hard to keep it up. Mostly I try to walk for an hour (to the shops and back) but it's dry and 40+ degrees so it's not all that fun. If I try for more than that the old foot really flares up, but in smaller doses it's bearable until bedtime. On returning it's cold shower time and then drinking litres of water.

TV game shows still cut to an ad break just when something is about to happen (even if I have no real idea what it is that they're doing!) The main difference seems to me to be that the audience members are allowed to use musical instruments. Yup. One guy has a tambourine. Another has a sort of recorder thing. Some just have noise-makers.

The ads are so similar to home that it's kinda creepy. If you want to learn advertising principles, just watch ads in other languages. You're not distracted by what they're saying so much and the products are different, but the methods used and stories told are all the same. (Less sexy over here though, the people all wear decent amounts of clothing.)

- Good mum doesn't like bacteria
- You can get the perfect man/woman if you use the right beauty product
- You have lots of fun and can even get proposed to if you have the right phone/camera
- You can develop super human sports reflexes/strength if you eat the right cereal
- Your kids will love you if you get them food that pretends to be healthy (but we all know isn't)

Scary ad then for earthquake friendly food. Real food - real fresh! In a sachet that you can pull from rubble and drink. I thought it was an ad for sending money for relief agencies or something, it had that sort of start to it!

Ads for super low power consuming air conditioners were about the only appliance type ad I saw.

Haven't seen any "pretending to give you brand advice from a professional" type ads yet.

Just about all the ads are food/beauty product related. Almost none for vehicles, electrical goods, shopping chains (like Myer etc.).

It might just be the time of day I was watching, so I'll endeavour to do some "further research" for you all =) Watching TV in the name of your intercultural enlightenment. Wish I had a USB TV thingy so I could get screengrabs for you all!

And on that TV related note, it's time for another West Wing episode!

Take care all,
Happy Birthday Dave if I'm right.
Give the dogs a hug from us Juni! (And yourself one too while you're at it.)
Dean, one of the guys at dinner spent a few years as a kid in Kansas, we asked him what he thought. He paused and then said. Flat.
Mum and Dad, hope you're just about up to the relaxing beach part of your holiday.
Paul, don't forget that you can use my steam account if you want. I've played a bit of Trine, Mass Effect and Evil Genius now as well as re-playing Plants vs. Zombies and Defence Grid. Evil Genius is lolworthy sometimes, but I must admit I used a faq on the net to help get started.
C&M, hope the twins are letting you sleep a bit, played Settlers any?
Nicole, (I dunno if you're reading or not) I know you're jealous of the food, so when we get back I'll let you cook us dinner. (I'm so generous.)
To those of you with exams looming, what the heck are you doing reading this?? Get back to work!
Anybody else that I've missed, hope you're doing well too!
Thanks for the comments again, I'll get someone to take a photo with me in it again soon so you can see the attire.

Tomorrow is Friday, almost another week down! (Yay!)

Prambanan Temple

Internet wasn't working well recently so today's post is actually about Monday, even though it's Wednesday!

Copying and pasting from Word so excuse any tense screwups!

On our first full day here, and the day before Tari is to start work, our first step was to meet and greet some of the vice-deans and people Tari will be working with. Always embarrassing for me, firstly because you know how much I love meeting, greeting and new people. Mainly because they mostly talk to me for the first few minutes until they finally realise that I’m really just a hanger-on and don’t know most of the acronyms they’re using!


It’s always a shock for them that the person they’ve read the credentials of is a young, white, tall, pretty female. Some of them actually tell her that – very open and honest here apparently =) They’re always nice enough to include me in conversations, but I have very little to offer really, the parallels between astrophysics and health research are parallels in the sense of lines that never meet rather than that they’re heading in the same direction. Whoah, I just barely stopped myself from going into a lecture about parallel lines in non-flat space. I think I do miss teaching from time to time!

A privilege for me to see Tari in her environment, talking the talk with the powers that be. A very clever woman is my wife and it’s good to be reminded of that first hand. Because she's one of the leaders in her field she keeps getting offers from all sorts of places around the world. If I wasn't such a home-body I think we could probably travel forever! It’s clear right from the start that although they have really good researchers (quite literally world class from this university – Gadjah Mada) they have difficulty in getting publications because of a lack of English literacy. Fortunately Tari was able to assure them that back home there are plenty of people who are similarly in need of help in how to put together a proper publication.

We were treated to their DVD of promoting the uni. I managed to keep a straight face, but almost made Tari laugh because the music in the background of the DVD came from a hollywood movie soundtrack CD and I kept whispering the name of the movie to her. My favourite one was the Jurassic Park theme while showing the library. I just couldn’t help but see velociraptors hiding behind the shelves. And when the Indiana Jones theme (not the major theme, but one of the softer ones) was on I just expected to see a rolling boulder rushing towards the happy studying students in the park.

After a nice lunch, note to self, things that look like green beans are usually chillis over here, and plenty of water (from the mix up with beans and chilli) we were shepherded away by Shinta and Wulan who had asked us what we’d seen last time we were here and wanted to complete our Jogja experience. Today was Prambanan temple. The last time we were here (you can read about it in the other blog sections) we went to the big Buddhist temple. This one was Hindu.

Such an amazing place, again, like last time, I’m staggered by how little history we have in Oz. Especially in terms of actual buildings. It was about 41 degrees today, so quite a scorcher. It was suggested that we use umbrellas to keep off the worst of the sun. I think I might be quite red tomorrow, although it takes longer to burn here (must... resist... urge... to... teach...) it was a really sunny day and someone (*cough* Tari *cough*) seems to have a knack for breaking umbrellas in the wind (which was pretty gusty).

And now, because my two main goals here are to: 1. Support TJ and 2. Try to resist being bored to death. Number 2 dictates that I have lots of gratuitous tourist photos. The shot above is from out in front of the complex. You can see the leaves at the top of shot because I was standing under a tree in the shade. Immediately you notice lots of rubble, and the shape of the buildings are quite steep rather than Borobadur which was very wide. They are that shape for lots of reasons, I don’t really know what the true reason is because I couldn’t find anyone over 1,000 years old to tell me.


Some say it’s because the temples represent the shape of the Himalayas, others that they are phallic symbols (Charlotte and MacKenzie can ask their Daddy about that word). In any case, to me it’s so very impressive that such buildings exist. Especially given the lack of tools. It’s taking ages to restore earthquake damage and that’s with (relatively) modern technology. Originally there were 224 or 242 or something temples, mostly small one-priest affairs apart from the bigger ones in the middle that they're trying to restore and keep intact.

Speaking of Earthquake damage. After the most recent, 2006, quake there was some fairly extensive damage done. This poster had before and after shots:

Although it’s been in ruins for most of the modern era, they still keep fixing it back up, just in time for another quake. I had to take this pic of the "after" side quickly, before Shinta and Wulan realised that they were in the photo and ducked away.

In all of the shots you can see rubble. Some of this is due to quakes etc. Other is due to antiquity and people nearby taking stones for houses etc. There has been a push for people to return the stones, and some have come back, there’s a bit car parking lot section of stones that have been retrieved and are awaiting classification. Missy would love the challenge, it’s basically a massive jigsaw puzzle. You often see chalk markings to assist builders with what goes where.

Dad and Laurie, thought you might like the OH&S would go with this:

And yes, those guys are out working in 41 degree heat lifting stone blocks etc.

The original stonework was all engraved, but they’ve lost most of that over the years due to damage/theft etc. Our guide was showing us that you can easily tell what is new and what is original. Original has carvings, new does not. Each stone in the original building was carved, quite a bit of time and effort in that! Should take that up with BSBC building committee.

On some buildings you can plainly see the lower carvings have heads/bodies etc. Missing from them and the upper levels are more intact as they are harder to get to for would-be antique sellers.

Much of the Buddhist temple had to do with telling a progressive story. Much of this one had to do with the actual meanings of the figures. Some represented wisdom, others intelligence and learning, still others for emotions, peace, prosperity etc. Etc.

Many of the temples are still too dangerous to enter, but one is now open. Up until recently you couldn’t go near the actual buildings due to earthquake damaged and loosened rocks. One of them falling on you would very quickly let you determine the truth or falsehoods regarding reincarnation.

Most people recommend a visit in the early morning or late evening, but after finding out (at last) a little more precisely what she was meant to be doing tomorrow, Tari wanted to work this arvo/evening so we went a little after midday. Which made this shot very easy to take of the temple with the sun right overhead:

Inside one of the temples was a cow, I’m still not sure precisely whether it’s related to the ones in Singapore, perhaps originally it was very brightly coloured too! (After reading the blog comment on a previous post, I now expect the twins to be able to make the appropriate sound when they see this next picture:)

It is, in fact, a bullock (anatomically easy to spot from behind). And there are other statues and carvings that are a little too explicit to appear in this G-rated blog. On the way out, our guide took us behind the cyclone fence to a grassed area that you’re not supposed to walk on. “We were with him” was going to get us out of any trouble. He pointed out where cashews come from. From a tree where they grow as the stalk bit on an orangey-red fruit. One fruit – one cashew, hence the expense he told us.

The cost of them (which is relatively expensive over here) was nothing compared to what they cost back home!

I have many more photos (I think the guide expected every time he stopped that I should take a photo) so if you want more you can see them when we get back. The guide was great, he had a million stories to tell, he used to live on the temple grounds, but a while back the government bought the land back to make it a large park. They paid the princely sum of 50,000 rp per square meter. Sounds good? Not really, as Andrew saw, we have a few wads of 50,000 rp bills, each bill is about $7 Australian. He would often tell what we can only assume to be quite rude stories to the girls. He’d point at a carving that was clearly very “interesting”, say something in Bahasa Indonesian to them and they’d blush and giggle while he chuckled. He only shared a couple of them with us, a unique insight into a culture, and quite different to the Buddhist tradition to say the least =)


This last one...

That’s Shinta, Wulan, Tari and me. Hmm, actually it’s Me. Why should they get all the capitals?

And right now it’s about 5pm, Tari’s still working away and I’m done for now, must be time for a pre-dinner snack =)

Well, actually, now it's 10:30AM and only 32 degrees, so I'm gonna go do a run (slow mosey) to the local market for some mango =)

If the 'net is working properly later on I'll post again, otherwise until next time...

To Jogja

More thoughts of Singapore that I forgot to put last time:

There are almost no insects in Singapore. Like, we saw about two flies the whole time, no mozzies, nothing. Some ants if you look for them. Saw a few skinks on buildings at dusk. As a result of the lack of bugs, there are very few birds. Almost none whatsoever in normal streets, though you can see some every now and then in outdoor eating areas and in parks. Still, it was very odd to be in that sort of temperature and not be continually swatting flies and mosquitoes!

Trip to Jogja.


We had really good tickets for the flight from Singapore to Jogja. Last time we came it was split into Singapore – Jakarta then Jakarta – Jogjakarta. This time it was direct, about a two hour flight. The timing was great too, the flight didn’t leave until 11AM, so we had a nice leisurely start to the day and were never rushed. Less taking off and landing meant less sinus headache for me, so that was great. As we got onto the plane, the AC was on, and we’re not sure whether they were spraying something or if it was just the humidity and what-not, but here’s a picture of the Thriller album special effects we got:

With keen eyes you can see the mists coming from the ceiling vents. It was hard to capture with the camera, but was kinda eerie. The flight was as bumpy as last time, well, maybe not quite as bad, but maybe we were just ready for it this time. Quite turbulent in some areas. As we came in towards Jogja and descended I tried to get a few shots of the volcanic cones sticking out above the cloud layer, only a couple of shots came out enough, and even they aren’t great, but here’s one I don’t know the name of:

And I think this one might be Mt. Merapi, there’s smoke coming from the top, but I don’t think you can distinguish it from the clouds in this shot, which was taken as we descended:

On arrival we disembarked to a sunny mid-30s day. Much lower humidity than Singapore, but quite a bit warmer. The wet season is about two weeks overdue at the moment, so it’s very hot, but no afternoon showers. I’m sure it’ll begin during our stay here so that will be kinda cool for the contrast we’ll see.

Now sorry for the block of text...
As you all know, I’m a bit clueless when it comes to travelling (unlike TJ, who knows everything) but apparently there is an entire class that are even worse than me. For example, even *I* knew that you had to buy a visa on entering the country and a preliminary check in any information kit, the internet or asking someone tells you how much. The fastest and easiest way is to just have $25 US dollars on arrival. Tari (being the, um, what’s that nice way of saying it?) as efficient and well prepared as ever got out two lots of $25 US when we left Melbourne airport.

So all we had to do is get off the plane, read the arrow that says immigration/visa and then there were two windows, one close to the plane side of entry, one further away. There was a big sign on the wall that said in several languages:

Step 1: pay at first window for visa (and then listed the prices)

Step 2: hand in immigration card

Step 3: at second window get passport stamped

That was it, there were arrows and a flowchart (yes a three box flowchart). My gut reaction was, wow, what overkill! Then, as we waited, at least three people couldn’t work it out, one guy came up to us and asked, saying “a bit of deficiency in explanation huh” and once we’d told him the two step abridged version (go to that window, pay, then go to that window) he still seemed a little confused.

Once out the security was immense. NOT. You had to declare stuff, which involved just telling someone that you didn’t have anything. Then you handed in a form and were on your way. The routine for people declaring was exactly the same except the form was a little longer.

About thirty seconds after we made it out of the terminal (which makes it sound much larger than it is!) we were met by two young women, Shinta and Wulan. I’m so bad at telling ages, and so many of the women who wear head scarves have such great skin. I thought they were maybe 18-20 and students who had drawn the short straw of having to go pick up foreigners from the airport on a Sunday afternoon. Actually they are doctors who specialise in Molecular Biology. Lovely girls, they have taken great care of us and we had to stress with them that we actually wanted to spend the evenings/afternoons in our room (Tari has work to do) and don’t need them waiting on us all the time!

We often feel embarrassed when we come away from home at how lovely, polite, hospitable and generally wonderful everybody is. On the way back from the airport they took us to lunch, really good fried chicken, rice (of course) and cold sugary tea and juice. The rice is always sticky because you eat with your hands and the chicken was, quite literally, finger licking good. With very little ice breaking we were soon in full conversational swing. Shinta’s brother is studying at Melbourne Uni so that was a good starting point!

She went to visit him a short while ago and actually travelled on Puffing Billy, so she understood where we lived. Tari asked about whether they had more information about what she’d be doing here. That’s right, our accommodation must have finally been sorted, but Tari still didn’t even know what she was going to be doing! Initial information suggested that there was going to be a two day conference/seminar that Tari would be running. The subject matter? Vague enough to not really know! The group? Everybody from younger research students to senior doctors and lecturers. Gulp!

Anyway, after lunch they wanted to look after us some more, but we convinced them to just take us to where we were staying and point us in the direction of a supermarket. We’re in a quite large room, but there is a lot of renovation going on, so we’re just not 100% sure how new/old it is. We think that they may have set it up partially for us (subtle things like the TV remote says on the back it’s from a different room!) It’s very simple in terms of amenities, but the most important, air-con, seems to work. It struggles to keep the temperature below 30, but that’s still a vast improvement on outside!

The door lock is one of the old chain ones, you know, you stretch it out, put the big end in, then slide it along. Great, except this one is installed backwards, so it makes a rattling noise as the door opens, but then pops out because the big opening is at the wrong end. Also, you know in most hotels nowadays instead of keys you have those cards where you swipe the card to open the door then put the card in a slot next to the door to turn on your power. Well, this room has a normal key, but also a keycard. There’s a slot to put the keycard next to the door. I had my suspicions about the mechanism being there without being on the door. I tested it by putting my Safeway Everyday Rewards card into the slot to turn on the power. It works fine. This means we can leave the aircon on if we’re gone for a couple hours (it has a timer on it) instead of coming back to a sauna. Most rewards I’ll probably ever get from that card!

Tari’s been provided with a USB modem so she can do things like check her email. Speed is variable and slow, but fine for that sort of thing. I’m typing this up on my laptop in advance to copy/paste at some later date.

The main advantage of the modem was that Tari finally had access to email and FINALLY had details about her job. Well, that’s an exaggeration, she had the program for the first two day seminar thingy. It’s a start anyway! Fortunately she’s not running the whole time, but is running one session. Unfortunately it appears to be a bit of a talk fest and she’s really here to help them get hands on. Still, we were to meet with some of the uni folk the next day and they were much more helpful in giving her an idea of what they’d need.

There are only two power points in the whole place, so you have to choose wisely when to use each one. I’ll probably venture out to get an extension cord at some stage, but I’m a bit wary of using a quad board or double adapter because I’m not sure what the power ratings are like and don’t want to blow a fuse and lose air-con power!

I’ll take some exterior/interior pics at some stage!

After dumping our stuff and turning on the AC, we headed out at maybe 4ish to the local supermarket. We’re actually staying on the university campus grounds, so everything is geared towards students. Lots of food stalls in the designated areas, lots of green space that fill up when the sun goes down with sporting/talking/etc. The little supermarket was not a lot bigger than Goodfellows (or whatever it’s called now) but cram packed with tiny aisles. Tari and I did our impersonations of jolly white giants. You can tell the marketing is aimed at uni students because of the produce for sale. I’ve never seen so many varieties of instant noodle. I mean LOTS of instant noodle!

We didn’t get much because we don’t have a fridge, also, carrying bottled water is a heavy job and best done in an accumulatory fashion, a few bottles at a time. Just for fun to break the watery monotony I got some blueberry fanta as well. It’s kinda like sugary lemonade that smells like lolly snakes.

After we got back (only a 10min walk each way, but took about an hour because of the narrow aisle negotiation) it was time for dinner. We just went down to the little restaurant/cafe downstairs. It was air conditioned! Our room is tolerable, but this was really really nicely cooled! I may be spending a lot of time there. To make it doubly good they have the discovery channel (or maybe it was nat-geo) on, which we don’t have in our room.

Food here is ludicrously cheap. We both had a full dinner with yummy fruit drinks for less than $4. Again, Tari especially was feeling the guilts when people come to live/visit in Australia and food costs relatively so much. It’s really odd to pay less for things here that have come from Australia too! Cadbury (specially imported) is cheaper. Strawberries (product of Australia) are cheaper too!

Anyhow, the service was traditionally Jogjakartan slow but polite, a survival tactic in the long heat! After dinner it was back to the room, we’d left the air-con on so it was probably only 27-28 degrees I think. Hard to judge accurately, but I was shirtless and in shorts and still hot, so it may have been a little warmer than that even.

It’s quite dry, totally different from last time when we were in December, well and truly after the start of the wet season and nearing the end of it. Lots of brown, brown grass and public places being watered.

With the clock going back another hour, although it was early, it was bedtime for us both! The time thing is weird if you look on the map to see where we are in relation to Singapore. We’re closer to Australia, but use a further away time zone, it’s what you get when you’re in an elongated east-west country I guess. I think we’re now four hours behind home now. Fortunately after a week in Singapore the time difference isn’t too dramatic. We still often feel tired early and wake before dawn. For example, at the moment it is 4pm and for you guys it is 8pm. Hence I feel hungry! Tari would suggest that time zones have nothing to do with when I feel hungry!

Well that was it for the travel day. Next time I'm online I'll put up pics of today (Monday).

Thanks again for the e-mails, a special thanks to Dave (Tari's still addicted to Scribblenauts), the younguns and their excellent blog comment mooing ability, and to Juni for keeping us informed about the dogs and for talking to Nev for us! Love you!

Mum and Dad, hope your trip is progressing well too!

Love to all the rest of you too!
Sim.

Farewell Singapore

Well, today is the last day in Singapore. Tomorrow we fly to Jogja.
Sorry for the lack of blogging.
Thursday I had one of my (fortunately more and more rare) fatiguey days. So that was about six hours of lying motionless on the bed looking at the roof, the window or my eyelids. Very glad it only happens once a week - fortnight nowadays.
Anyway, nothing to share about that day I'm afraid!

Tari had her big farewell, end of colloquium party (I didn't go because the tickets for partners were $90). Why so expensive? Because they had booze there, and alcohol costs a lot over here. She said that her and her friend wanted a glass of white wine with dinner, they had to get two each to pour into a glass to get a small drinks worth.

Yesterday Tari had her first day off, so we decided to go shopping. There is a road, Orchard Road, along which there is just mall after mall. We headed off to a highly recommended one called Ion. It was quite a trek. (3hr round trip, but walking and going into shop the whole time.)

We saw more cows!

The sign says "cows under surveillance". So either they're worried people might steal them... or... the cows are every bit as suspiciously evil as I first suspected!

MacKenzie and/or Charlotte, make sure you get Mummy to make cow noises for you =) Mooooo!

Anyway, we had a bit of a stalker for a little while. Happens every now and then as you walk along someone starts following you. Who knows what for. Most of the time it's probably innocent, other times they start doing it when they see you take a photo of something. This guy was about as inept as they come. I stopped to "tie up my shoe" and he stopped to look at a wall. A blank wall. Another few minutes later I stopped to "look at the bus schedule" and he stopped to look at the traffic. Yup, a professional. Gave up after a while, we walked past some place that had lots of cops (with machine guns of course) guarding a big gate. I didn't take a picture.

Eventually we got the the highly recommended shopping place. It was quite impressive, but useless. The stores were right up our alley, Dolce And Gabbana, Prada, Emporio Armani, Gucci, Luis Vitton, Chanel etc. We looked aroudn a bit but then started our return trip. It was, typically, hot and muggy so we kept inside the malls most of the time. Tari had a ball in Gap and particularly Baby Gap. It wasn't particularly cheap at any of these places, so to cut a very long story short, there were no purchases.

After a walk that big my foot wasn't up to anything else (other than letting me know it didn't approve of long walks) so we pretty much bummed around the rest of the day by doing laundry, napping, reading and watching TV. (Thanks again for West Wing C&M!)

Today we decided to visit Little India during the festival of Deepavali.

Quite hard to get a photo here without being a total tourist. Very crowded here once you get into the area properly. I'll let Tari tell you about her impressions when we get back, but we didn't spend a lot of time there. Lots of really colourfully dressed women, wearing all the sorts of stuff you'd see in a bollywood movie.

Although we could have walked back to the hotel then, where would the fun in that be, we had one last mall to visit to make sure we'd exhausted all chances of finding a super bargain. On the way we saw this building which I thought belonged in Ghostbusters:

I'm not sure if you can see the statuary in the photo, but it was so out of place among the rest of the city. Sorta gothicy.

Anyway, the last mall finally had something for Tari to buy. She got some Skechers shoes for under half of what they cost back home. Was good timing, 'cos we still had a half hour walk to get back to the hotel.

One the way back we took one last picture of what we found out was Buddha on a Dragon.

This is in front of the Art Museum. It's just around the corner from the hotel. You can see the orange, I tried to get a shot without any works in it, but they're doing lots of renovations/building stuff there.

Had other stuff to say, but can't remember any of it at the moment!

Don't really know when/if we'll have internet for a while now, but I'll post again when able. We still don't know exactly what's happening when we get to Jogja. There's a chance someone will meet us at the airport, but we don't have accommodation confirmed or anything! Call it an adventure.

Thanks again for the comments and emails, miss you all!

Signing off for now!

Sim.

Wednesday

Tapping this out to the sound of booming thunder outside. Went for about a 45 min walk today, just around a big rectangle. Wanted to take a few shots of the multi-cultural aspects of Singapore. You already saw the Church, there's a big Catholic one nearby too.

Hindu:

Probably can't read the sign at the door, but it says "no shoes beyond this point". The big tarp was because of the rain, they were doing a bit of a clean-up.

Buddhist:

There was a big golden buddha that you could pat and rub the tummy of. There were five or six priests walking around today, plain robes, shaved heads. They were having a great time, very happy and smiling, conversing with people who would walk alongside them, holding umbrellas for them.

There's also a mosque, at least, I saw the sign for it, but couldn't seem to find it. Wandered around a bit, but it got thundery so I came home.

I know Melbourne is "multicultural" but really it's just that we have people from different places living in the one city. Here you get a real taste for what multicultural means. You've got active, practicing religions right next to each other. Food of all sorts, people interacting in all different ways. The food court has lots of different places selling food from different places, not in such a fake way, but actual food from different places.

We're right in the center of a big university/tafe sort of region here, so there are lots of young people from everywhere. It's so cool to sit in a really crowded space hearing so many languages and smelling so many different types of food while observing how many different laptops/mobile phone combinations there are!

Along the way I walked along a marketplace. There were some interesting stalls. Roadside acupuncture. Ever felt like stripping down and having needles stuck into you in a marketplace? If the answer is "yes" I suggest you keep it to yourself! =)

Remember in Wayne's World the VacuSuck hair product? Well, you can get them here and even have them tried out on you on the roadside if you want.

Other sights that I judged cameraworthy:

Weird building, all glass and angles. Was odd to see people just working and walking along the bridge. I walked through the middle of it and felt like I was in an M.C. Escher picture or the end scene of Labyrinth. Some of the angles really hang out and give you an odd sense of vertigo/worry as you walk under them.

And I have really no idea about what this was about:

You might need to click on that one to get the big photo for the full impact.

Yes, those are brighly coloured, happy-go-lucky cows. Just standing there in the middle of a grassy bit.

No fat dudes riding them or anything, just standing there.

The longer you think about it, the more ominous it seems.

No.

Wait.

That's just the thunder in the background.

Thanks again C&M for the West Wing DVDs, already watched more in a row than we should have. Thinking I should have packed more of them now!

Of great interest to us is the buttons on the elevator here:

Check out the "3" or lack thereof. You may also note a distinct lack of 14. We think the 14 might be because there's a pool on the roof (level 15).

And yes, even though people told me not to, I pressed the button. Lots. Nothing happens. I may try the stairs when I can find one that isn't alarmed (poor doors, I think it's the knowledge of the cows, just standing there... smiling).

And from the roof, I thought you might like the bay view that the Bayview hotel has.

You can click on it, see the big version, zoom in as much as you want. No bay. Well, at least there's still a view. Maybe they should rename the hotel? Cityview Hotel.

Anyhoo, that's about all the interest I have for one day. Thanks for your comments and e-mails, really appreciate the contact with home =)

Night Safari

Phew, excuse my sweat! Just got back from a trip to the supermarket. Have only found one so far kinda like a Safeway and it's a half hour walk. Needed to pick Tari up some dried fruit and nuts so she can still snack healthy at the conference and while I was there I saw they had root beer too.

To cut a long story short (unlike the walk, which stubbornly stays the same distance) half hour walk there, then half hour back with 8kg of stuff. Good exercise anyhow =) Quite overcast today, but still the same temperature and as humid as ever, takes a good 10 mins just to regulate your breathing to cope, but after that it's not so bad...

...until the sun comes out! Wow, just when you thought you were already hot and bothered, direct sunlight is like pressing an instant all-over-body-sweat button.

Last night we went on the famous night safari. Tari got back from work a little after 6pm and we had to be on the bus by 7, so it was a quick stroll down the road to the place I talked about before. We had korean food last night, very tasty.

The safari place is about a 45 min drive, so we all climbed aboard the bus and enjoyed the air-con for a while. Jumping ahead a little, at about 9:30pm we saw a thermometer - 31 degrees. It stays pretty warm all the time!

What a great time we had! I took lots of pictures, but most of them looked like a big black rectangle with some really dark grey blotches if I was lucky. The only one that I managed to get an image from (thank you photoshop!) was of this elephant:

All I could think about was how pleasant it would be to recline upon the elephant. I hear that's frowned upon though. You're not meant to leave the tram (especially near the tiger and lion enclosures) or use flash photography. As you can see from my efforts, flash photography has never been my style, I tend to go for "adequate photography" at best.

It's been harder for operations like this, because even without people using bright light flashes, the screens on the back of digital cameras, when you get 20-30 of them together, make quite a lot of light themselves.

I think my favorite animal was the giant anteater. There are walking tracks, but we opted for the lazier tourist option of the tram ride. Although it was warm still, the tram drove at enough speed to keep a bit of a breeze going. So very, very nice to sit in the breeze in the dark and see (after eyes adjusted) all sorts of weird animals.

http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/index.html

The tour guide was hilarious, she was a total classic. We were trying to work out how to best describe her. You know the old guy who does movie ads (Clayton knows the guy I mean from that youtube clip). Deep melodramatic voice with important pauses between words "In a place... far from here... a boy... becomes... a... MAN" you know the guy?

Well, imagine a female version of that with an accent.

"They are tall... dangerous... and, yes... sexy!" talking about animals that we can barely see in the dark.

Had us in stitches and we weren't sure if it was meant to or not!

She also gave us a nice educatorial lesson about why it was bad to cut down rainforests, the unfairness of lion prides, the huge size of some buffalo...

To highlight the danger, they take a picture of the back row of the tram before we leave. Some say it's for selling the photo back to you later. My personal opinion is that it's to help identify who was eaten in the event of a Jurassic Park like event. Nobody seemed to appreciate my personal opinion. In any case, the worst that happened was one of Tari's friends being swooped by a flying fox type critter. Probably won't make that into a movie.

On the way out we had a gelati from Ben and Jerry's, watched the fire dancing guys:

That was what the place needed, fire breathers to up the temperature up a little =)

And for the adventurous, who had feet in need of cleaning, why use a foot spa, pumice or massage when you can let fish nibble...

Three different types of fish, all excellent dead skin eaters apparently. $10 for 5 mins of foot cleaning fishy fun.

Well Tari had a wonderful 7:30 meeting so it was a bit early today, hopefully she's going to be home early tonight though, 5ish I think. Didn't get home from the safari until 11ish so I think tonight will be dinner, then TV while TJ tries to stay awake but falls asleep =)

Well, it's time for lunch for me. Off to decide on the eternal dilemma: noodles or rice.

Monday

Had another nice dinner, smoky duck and rice from the little place nearby. Went out this morning to take a shot of it when it was nice and empty.

It's pretty much a food court but not in a shopping center. At dinner time it's absolutely packed with people. The roof is an array of electric fans, but it's still pretty warm in there. Food is about $5 for a nice plate with meat or veg and rice and a bowl of soup. Was a good way to fill my tummy and about half an hour.

Roamed around a bit until maybe 7:30 and then headed back to wait for TJ to finish up, she got home and was pretty much ready to crash out.

She finishes earlier today, 5:30 I think, but works through lunch. Tonight we're going on the Night Safari, I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Breakfast was good again today, I took a book and had a nice time...

A few plates like that and it's amazing how you don't have to eat lunch to the same extent as usual =) Today you can see fried rice, pancakes, bacon, sausages, spicy noodles and hash brown. And yes, the maple syrup is on top of most of that.

Left the hotel at about 10AM to go to the technology mall. About a 20 min walk I guess. Quite warm and humid, but cloudy today so not so bad as yesterday.

Saw this sign on a bus stop:

A list of how to be gracious to fellow travellers. Very cute.

It's a really neat and tidy city, no litter anywhere.

Got to the mall at about 10:30. Nothing open. Figured yesterday was Sunday and that was why nothing opened until later. Headed back out to wander around and took some pictures of the weird juxtaposition of old and new around here. Church in foreground, big tall cylinder of a building in the background.

I didn't take a picture of the sign that came out properly, but they have so many services at so many times in so many languages that I think it's busy almost all the time. So many old style buildings right next to really tall shiny glass and steel and concrete buildings.

That's the supreme court in the foreground, the fence on the left is because of the works that are going on in preparation for the olympics.

Amazingly enough, compared to the Oz one in Canberra, the entrance to the court has metal detectors, armed guards etc. Needless to say I didn't loiter.

After another half hour walking around I headed back to the technology mall. Not as cool as I thought it would be, just five levels of stores with names like Infrocrom, Microware, Suntronics and Cibermynd.
The massive big lobby screen had the National Geographic channel on. Not ads, not infomercials, not weather, the National Geographic channel. I was tempted to move down there to watch TV!

I spent about two hours there, going up and down and back and forth, all for a mouse. Prices on hard drives were about the same here as back home, maybe a little teeny bit cheaper.
By about 1 I was footsore but had a mouse.

On the way back I thought I should take some pictures of the cultural, um, thingoes that I walk past.

I called this one "Black Dude With Flag in Hand". At some stage I'm going to find out what they represent, but I can't help but stifle a giggle at their chubby little faces.

Meet "Red Fire Dude With Flag in Hand".

This one and the next are facing each other. This guy I called "Sword Dude on Hippo"

And lastly, "Reclining Dude on Elephant". I think I get a better understanding of why Pokemon is so well liked here.

Now it must be time for my afternoon nap =)