Hi ho, Hi ho

Well, this is it, the last blog from Jogja. I had a really great opening line, but then I was asked a question and now I can't remember what it was (the opening line that is, although now I can't remember the question either). Take my word for it, it was a really great line. It summed up the thoughts, feelings and emotional turmoil of the final day here in Jogja. It would have made you laugh, cry and think epically philosophical thoughts about time, space and the place of humanity. Oh well. Maybe next time.

It's Saturday afternoon here (evening for you folk), we've just had a torrential downpour. It seems as though this last week the dry season has finally kicked up the last dry dusty footstep on the way out. It's rained properly three times, and the other days have often had a little shower. Everybody is feeling much more positive about crops etc. now.

From our window, the camera didn't capture it well, but it was raining hard enough that it jus looked kinda white and misty. You may also be able to see the poncho-clad cyclists motoring on through the downpour. Some of them look particularly awesome when they're going fast, with super hero style capes flapping behind them. Of course, they're cheap, plastic capes that come in mostly black and yellow, but hey, low budget heroes are heroes too.

You can compare that pic to the one in an earlier post to spot the difference. (Hint: there's lots of water in this one.)

I also popped outside (on a different day!) to grab an exterior showing our room. Well, the window that is the boundary between our room and the outside world. This was taken at about 8 in the morning, I wish the camera could catch the feeling of heat when standing in the direct sun. Yes, I went through that just so you could see the window of our room. That's how you know I really care. Also I had to wait while they cleaned our room and it was quite humid, hot and stuffy indoors.

Ours is the one on the top floor, up and to the left of the U on the sign. Hence the noise we get, right above the driveway. You can also see the two "guru" elephants in the entry-way.When I came in from taking the shot I sat in the lobby to try and get internet access (without success that time) and saw on the TV some Scooby Doo. I have seen a LOT of Scooby Doo and Popeye merchandise over here. Thought it was a bit odd. After a while I realised that there were no subtitles on the TV. Odd. Normally they put Bahasa Indonesian subtitles on. Then I realised that the show had actually been dubbed. The voices were actually pretty similar to how they should be (hence I hadn't noticed). They'd particularly done a great job with Shaggy and Scooby. Velma could have used a little work (but hey, we all knew that already).

It was good enough that at the end the evil ghost who could throw lightning bolts, once the lights came on and the mask was taken off turned out to be the college professor! Who would have guessed, what, with the crazy white Einstein hair, labcoat, clipboard and funding cutbacks. The "... and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you pesky kids!" line was exactly the same as always, anak-anak is the word for children, kids etc. and that was the only word I understood in the sentence, but it was clear that the script remained the same even if the language didn't!

Coming up on TV later (awww, we'll be going out so I'll miss it) is one of the endless repeats of "Glitter" (with Mariah Carey, who, I've mentioned previously, is quite a hit here). Even in my most bored and vegetative state I would rather just nap than watch that. (Last time it was on I completed a couple of chapters of vector equations from the textbook.) For those of you who haven't seen the movie (please, oh, please I hope that's everybody) it's well worth a read of the reviews on RT:

http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/glitter/

The reason we couldn't watch it was because we wanted to take Shinta and Wulan out for dinner to thank them for all the field trips, housing, internet etc. that they arranged for us. We went out to a local seafood place and stuffed ourselves. Coley, you know how we feel about seafood, but it was really good stuff. I think you would have liked some of it too! Yummy fish, a tofu dish (which I don't usually like), salt and pepper squid (with bonus extra green and red chilli) very good stuff. The fish didn't even really taste like fish. Some of it was spicy enough to require a lot of drink, and, of course, there was plenty of fruit juice to help that along. Tari had strawberry, I had lemon iced tea.

There were some MC Escher (my favorite MC) paintings on the walls.

When we got back afterwards and thanked them for the lift, they gave Tari a really nice red handbag as a present. So far Tari has not been able to one-up anybody on present giving. We keep trying to thank people and then they just have the last say by dropping another present on her! She's got some nice jewelry, a scarf, a top... and tonight we have a farewell dinner, so I'll bet there'll be something else by then that will cause another luggage re-shuffle.

Diah and her family took us out for lunch yesterday. She wanted Tari to try these special prawns in "her kitchen". The restaurant is three houses from their home and when she doesn't feel like cooking, she orders the family to go to the kitchen. I was told that it would be seafood again. I want you to picture the sort of restaurant you go to in Indonesia to eat seafood. Are you seeing bamboo, thatched roof, marine type paraphernalia around? Well, try this:

Yes, affectionately referred to as Dracula's Restaurant. Soragan Castle. We sat where you can see the grape vine draped windows on the bottom of the turret. It originally sold European food, but didn't do so well, so now they sell Indonesian food and are doing so well that it's usually hard to get in. We were there on Friday lunch, which is a very quiet time over here. Many places close early for prayer on Fridays. You may be able to make out the old cannon from the Dutch colonial days to the left of the stairs.

And I'm sure you'd have been with me in thinking that the interior would not look castly at all.

Check out the wrought iron chandelier!

Anyway, was quite bizarre, but the food was great. It was all about using your fingers. There was a tap with bamboo piping for regular hand washing. It wasn't because you were making a mess (well, it was that too!) but mainly because some of the sauces on some of the food were soooo spicy that you just had to wash it off your hands so that you could scoop up some plain rice to help out the lips and tongue!

I thought I'd better mention the spicy food just in case the pictures had confused you into thinking that you'd clicked the wrong link and ended up on some other blog. Of course it was all open air and there was a nice breeze that day too, so it didn't feel too hot.

Well, today we did our last chance shopping here, ducked over to the big mall to pick up a few things. Most notably Tari's weekly coffee from Starbucks. My last musings of the shops? Well, I'm still not used to hearing the un-bleeped versions of songs on department store music. Every now and then you get a surprise of a loud swear-word among the women's handbag section of the shop. I'm also not used to the sheer number of people employed. As you pull up in your taksi there is a guy to open the door for you. Another guy to welcome you and direct you to the security search. The two security guards who check your bags, the doorman of the place itself and that's all before you get inside.

Once there there are shop assistants who stand out the front of the store to say Selamat-Pagi, -Siang (Good-morning or day) or whichever Selamat you're up to at the time. Then inside each store there seems to be an employee attached to every rack or shelf of clothing. At the Kashier, of which there is one every ten meters, there is someone to take your goods, someone to do the cash register and someone to put your goods in a bag. And of course every single person is so polite that sometimes it drives you crazy.

As you leave the mall there is another guy (apart from the gang I already mentioned) who escorts you into a departing taksi, there is also a guy at the driveway back onto the road who has a glow stick, whistle and vest that stops oncoming traffic so the taksi can pull out. Now I know this sounds like it's at the nice big mall for the wealthy people and tourists, but it's not, it's everywhere!

Any place where there is parking of any kind, there is a parking attendant who waves you into and out of a spot and a guy who stops traffic to let you back onto the road. You've seen pictures of the crazy roads, you'll understand why this job is essential! You tip them a couple thousand Rp on your way out.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure if you ask me questions, or email, or comment, or catch up with me once we're back I'll yak on and on for as long as you can stand it. We leave on a 7:30 AM flight tomorrow for Singapore. Due to get in to Singapore at 10:30 AM local (two hour flight and one hour time difference). We don't leave Singapore until 8:20 PM.

I'll let that last bit register with you. That'll be fun huh. Just when that sounds like all the layover fun you can have in one place, wait, there's more! At least at Singapore Airport there's stuff to do. It's quite large. According to a teenager we overheard on the way to Singapore five weeks ago it's "at least five times as big as Darwin Airport!". For those of you with Google Earth, you might want to see why that comment made us laugh out loud.

Anyway, we get to Darwin at 2:30 AM but don't leave Darwin until 7:30 AM. So. Five hours in Darwin. I'm sure that time will go by really quickly. Sort of hoping that there are big delays departing Singapore. Sitting in the Singapore airport is MUCH more appealing!

It does mean that on the way over we got to see sunset in Darwin and on the way back we'll get to see sunrise. It's little touches like that that make it all worthwhile. In at Melbourne by 1:30PM Monday arvo. Assuming nothing exciting or overly interesting happens, I'll just do a quick "I made it back safely" post on Tuesday. Where I'll have internet access! Yay!

Take care all!

Sim.