It's the best place to rest your Helmet!

Howdy all!


So where we left off, I had just come back from Jakarta after mine and Tim's adventure to the Australian Embassy to exercise our civil duty! On Saturday, it was a day of relaxing before meeting up with the boys: Joel, Tim, Gio and Matt to help them find some purple clothes for our friend's/the ACICIS program Manager's farewell party down south at Jl. Prawirotaman. It was a really fun night since we were all dressed up in Purple clothing and both old and new ACICIS students having a drink together. Very reminiscent of home! Of course, where there is alcohol, also brings games of "Would you rather" or "Never had I ever". The result, to put it politely, an education in fun facts that were both entertaining and eyebrow-raising to say the least :P

The lovely farewell party at Bu Ira's beautiful guesthouse ended and we were all off to an Indonesian bar called Lucifers. I found this highly ironic name since we are currently in the most holy and revered month of the Indonesian calendar - Ramadan. Our little crew of ACICIS students, that being: Sophie, Alex, Katrina, Maryke, Joel, Tim, Dimas, Sam, Matt and I, embarked on our first journey to an Indonesian night club or Dugem. No idea what that is abbreviated for though!

To be honest, the nightclub in Yogya was actually a lot of fun. It wasn't as busy as it usually was but at least the music was upbeat and followed through with a live band at about 1am. Nothing like a bit of Bob Marley mashed in with Lady Gaga and of course, the typical dancing on the speakers. Joel and I were left as stragglers at the club as everyone mysteriously disappeared. I later found out that they had made their pilgrimage to Macca's so for that, I was glad I missed out by default.

Sunday was a mixture of sleeping in, cleaning my room, picking up my laundry and checking out a Shotokan karate class with on of my teman kos, Tita. That was a lot of fun to learn a discipline that although similar to mine, it was still completely different. I was also treated to the feeling of sweat literally pouring out of you but sadly, it was more due to the sheer humidity rather than exertion. I think I'll keep it up regularly but have some links to Pencak Silat (An Indonesian Martial Art) and Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing except not so big on the crazy conditioning rituals) to check out and try. After class, Tita and I went and had dinner together. The food was delicious except for the confronting moment of poverty.

After our meal of bakso, I had left some noodles and fat from the soup and a lady came up to me to ask for some money before pointing to the food and asking if she could finish off, as well as give it to her small child. Being in such a state of shock, I could only merely utter a "Ya boleh Bu" and leaving the warung (food stall). In hinesight, I am so ashamed of my blatant ignorance, as well as not even offering to buy her and her child a meal. I mean, I did give her some money prior to her request for the remains of my meal but that still is pretty poor on my part. This experience, although meagre, has inspired me to get involved with some of the local NGO's here whilst I'm in Yogya. I only hope that if I am in a situation similar, I'll react with a more encouraging response than shuffling a few notes awkwardly.

My post now brings us to Monday and my first attempt at Puasa (fasting from food and drink from the hours of daylight, a Muslim ritual during Ramadan). I awoke at 3:30am and ate Sahur (first meal of the day) with my teman Kos, Dita and Novi. Despite our fatigue and nonchalance to food, we managed to drink some juice and eat some roti (bread). It was pretty tough seeing as my body's knee-jerk reaction was just to roll over to sleep once more, rather than feed it. I was grateful that I did eat something as all day, all my body was craving drinking, more so than eating.

Fasting or Puasa was definitely food for thought. Throughout the day, it made me realise that sometimes as Westerners, we forget the true meaning of food. Of course, food is for sustenance and a means for survival but it is also a privilege to have, as well as a great opportunity for community. In Indonesia, the time of breaking fast is such a communal event and full of colour and vibrance. This evening, my fellow housemates Dita and Novi, along with their friends from uni alongside my friends from uni, ate together in a Malaysian warung. It was a truly wonderful night, eating many delicious flavoured roti canai; some with curry dipping sauces, banana and cheese ( truly delicious, contrary to the combination), egg and of course, Chicken rendang and nasi lemak! Also no Malaysian experience would be complete without - Teh Tarik!!

Dinner tonight was definitely an eye-opening experience to how we as Australians can benefit from living like an Indonesian, even for just a day. Most of my Aussies friends joined in the fasting and were just as eager to eat alongside our new Indonesian friends while they explained the importance of fasting in Islam. They explained to us that there are many reasons why they fast: for health reasons to rest the body from over-consumption in the world, as a test of mental endurance, to empathise with those facing poverty each day and a chance to celebrate the time when you can eat for we are so fortunate to do so. I think it is also a chance for the Indonesian cuisine to burst to life with various sweets, drinks and food that are only during Ramadan too :P

I thought that to end this post, it would only be fitting to show off my new helmet that I bought since I have been and will continue, to be on the back of motorbikes in this country. Can't decide whether I look like a power ranger, a robot or an astronaut? Either way, my face feels pretty safe :)

My room with furniture!

Here are some pictures of my room! All it needs now is some photos and posters up on the wall and it will feel like my second home! In the third picture, the little hall way leads to my bathoom and also my little balcony but unfortunately the door is a little tricky to lock so waiting for that to be fixed. Bring on the tea times on the balcony though :)

Wandering is a product of Independence.

So warning, this is going to be not only a super post combining the past 5 days but could be a poorly written post since it is about 2am! So here goes and if possible, maybe even some photos!


Monday 16th August - This day began with a nice stroll to uni from my house at about 8:20am to test just how long it would take to get to campus for a 9am Language placement test. It was about 20mins at a casual place and once I get a bicycle, I think it will take about 10minutes. Super cool and it's quite a nice walk too, imagine will be more lively once Ramadan is over! The placement test was pretty fair but true to my nature, I was one of the last people to leave the classroom haha! At 10am that day, the other ACICIS students or rather, the ILTI (Indonesian Language Teacher Immersion) had their opening ceremony at Sanata Dharma University. It was a real treat to be invited to attend to the Upacara Pembukaan (Opening Ceremony) since the students had dances and singing from across the Archipelago! Very vibrant and colourful and of course - great photo opportunity!

Another positive of the day was that since it is a Catholic uni, they provided a free lunch! After being typical uni students and mooching, my friend Yasmin and I decided to go wandering the area as an attempt to familiarise ourselves with Yogya and of course, the elusive taboo of walking in Indonesia. After discovering we were close by to my kos, as well as buying my room a fan (yes!) we headed back to my kos and chilled out during the crazy onset of monsoonal rain!

The rain cleared which left Yasmin and I a chance to head to Ele's house, the Program Manager of ACICIS, for Yasmin to buy her bike off her. This was also my first traumatising calling for a taxi moment. Indonesian taxi phone calls were a little confusing since as they are talking to you, they page for a driver in the area so there are two conversations at once. This led to me repeating the same information to a number of different people + giving them the wrong address since I didn't realise my street changed at a certain point = one annoyed driver. I also nearly sideswiped his door on a passing motorbike; I've never been more happy to jump out of a cab I tell you!

To end a long, exciting, colourful, vibrant, scary day, Yasmin and I met up with Dave, another ACICIS student for Indian! It was heavenly to indulge on papadums, roti and chutneys and dhaal and beer! The place also has a yoga place next door so the plan is to check that out on Wednesday!

(since I'm too lazy to write things more eloquently, behold is the abridged version of the next four days:

Tuesday 17th August - Independence Day! Explored the famous Jl. Malioboro and Alun-Alun Selatan in Jogya with the girls next door to me and Yasmin. We rode a tandem bike and tried to walk behind the famous wishing/good luck trees blindfolded. Unsuccessful but was successful in buying some Tikar aka bamboo mats for my room!

Wed 18th August- enrolment into my classes of Indonesian History, Javanese, Journalistic Photography, Ethnic food appreciation and Karawitan (Javanese orchestra), bought some cleaning products and cleaned my room. This was followed by an excellent stretching and sweating class of yoga at 6-7:30pm, followed by fresh pineapple juice!

Thursday 19th August - Woke up at 3:30am to head to Borobudur at sunrise, our attempt resulted in a min bushwalk to a nearby village in Magelang and watched the sunrise there. Breathtaking and misty! Borobudur was amazing and inspired me to learn more about Buddhims but forgot my SD card and had to replace it haha! Attended buka puasa dinner with the kos girls - Dita, Uthie and Novi before embarking on a mad dash to buy tickets to Jakarta to vote at the Embassy. Success!

Friday 20th August - Excercising Civil Rights with Tim in Jakarta but also treated to the rain and traffic of Jakarta. Hectic security there too! After a delirious giggling/coffee high walk home from one of my new favourite cafes with decent coffee, I came home to some new Furniture! Exciting to have a proper bed frame now! My room feels like home :)


All in all, I think I'm really going to love it here in Yogya and time to get a bit of sleep before being woken up by the morning call to prayer xx

New friends, new food and new beginnings.

Today began with a knock at my door from my teman kos, or my next door neighbour in my boarding house. The girl next door, Tita and her little sister had invited me to go to their church which I had forgotten started at 7am on Sunday morning, luckily they had knocked on my door at 6:10am. So a quick shower and off I was on the back of Tita's motorbike to a church service. The night before I had gone drinking with the boys from my Indonesian class in Sydney but luckily I left before my night turned into watching them vomit about the streets and club, in might I add, the most holy month in the Muslim calendar.

So Catholic Church is nothing like it's counterpart back home, or maybe it was because I couldn't understand everything properly o the fact that there was so much singing that it was enough to keep me entertained? The church they took me to was St. Yohanes and it was about 10minutes by bike from our boarding house. There were over 100 people there that morning and the interesting thing was, there was no point of evangelism but just a group of people coming to worship every Sunday. Also had some gorgeous kids doing what I can only describe as a Catholic/Indonesian rendition of Glee Club. Very harmonious! Tita and her sister than took me to a local warung, an eatery of sorts, which was nice to just chat with them and laugh at how silly my Indonesian pronunciation can get at times!

From there, I headed off to Ele's garage sale or cuci gudang! From there I was able to buy some very cute vintage clothing, perfect for wearing at uni and A MILLION COATHANGERS... well, atleast less than a dollar's worth :D A new addition to my lemari or cupboard!

After the garage sale, I went to check out my friend's Gen and Liss's apartment by foot and got treated to swimming in a pool - with no one else but us! They have a very schmick apartment! Later on after swimming, we decided to go for a walk in search of vegetable based food followed by having a delicious drink at one of my new favourite café's in Yogya - Coklat! Nothing like chocolate and free wi-fi!

I met up with some other Australian students and chocolate, which I might add was delicious just incase you didn't realise my sentiment on the matter. Just to top off the day, Steph, Alex and I went stationary shopping at Grammedia! It's pretty much stationary and book heaven! They then invited me to dinner at a friend of a friend's restaurant north of Yogya so all five of us girls, at this point we have picked up Yasmin and Sophie and made way, very illegally, to a Sundanese (West Javanese) restaurant. I wish I had taken a picture of the food because as you can guess - it was so DELICIOUS!! Very traditional and excellent balance of fresh produce! Turns out Steph's friends is also a potential tutor of us in Bahasa Indonesia too!

After a long taxi ride home, after dropping us all at our various kos's and a good chat with the taxi driver, I finally made it home to see that my other neighbours were home! I made some new teman kos (boarding house friends) by the name of Uthie and Novi. Of course, no friend is officially made until you have exchanged phone numbers and FACEBOOK! It was also a great chance to get to know some of the other girls I live with and to no surprise, they too were either Dentists or GP's. I suddenly feel really silly saying that I'm only here to study the language in the social sciences faculty since they are clearly so clever but they are also super friendly. Novi particularly likes pulling my leg or cracking jokes. Somehow I think I'll have quite a few reasons to like my kos other than the fact it is bright yellow but rather, it is also home to some great girls!

Well, I best be off to study/sleep because tomorrow I have a placement test for our Indonesian classes. After the exam, all us Anak ACICIS, are going to head off to see our other ILTI friends, at their opening Ceremony at Sinata Dharma University. I hope to then go bicycle shopping as although walking is fun and exercise, I am itching to ride a bicycle around here after seeing so many old school bicycles!

I know I need to try and upload photos, so I will promise you some photos of my boarding house, some friends and anything interesting in my travels. Tomorrow I think it is camera day :)

xx

Ramadan and Rain.

At the moment in Indonesia, it is Ramadan, so the time of fasting! It means that most Muslim Indonesians wake up before the sun rises to eat and then do not break fast until about 5:45pm here. At that time, the streets burst to life with people selling food, sweets and drinks on little side road stalls - very cool! I'll need to take my camera next time I 'jalan kaki' or walking by foot. It was really bizarre yesterday because of the appearance of rain! I was walking around with my friend Tim, around our area, Karangayam/Deresan, which is about 20minute by foot north of my campus of UGM and it started pouring! Naturally, I was wearing white also. Fail.

Later that night, I went to a Vegetarian restaurant called Milas with Tim and Mat by motorbike. That was a lot of fun being on the back of a motorbike and braving the Indonesian roads. Also this adventure resulted in another night's worth of rain and being saturated! It's very strange for this time of year as this is usually the dry season.

Well today's adventure includes being woken up at 4:30am by the beautiful sound of the morning Adzan aka morning prayer. It's a lovely part of living in a local area that is surrounded by various Mosques or Mesjid in Indonesian. I'm also starting to get to know my various kosmates too which is really nice but a lot of them are still on holidays since semester doesn't start until the 23rd August, and will also be gone home during Lebaran. This makes me think I ought to book flights to Jakarta to visit some family during that time too before they all sell out because every other Indonesian has had that very same thought too!

I think it might rain again too so I am glad that I already took some washing to a local laundry and stocked up on water too. I think I'll wait until buka puasa aka breaking fasting time to walk down to buy some early dinner, as well as start to get to know the locals in the area too! As for this evening, I believe some plans are in the make for us Bule aka foreigners to hang out and get to know the nightlife!

:)

Feeling like a turtle.

Today marks the day that Orientation is over and now I'm off to move into my new Kos or in English, my boarding house! It was a bit of an ordeal to find a boarding house as right now, is the beginning of the first semester of university here in Jogyakarta, Indonesia. The Kos I found, after hunting many kos's that were already full, had super strict curfews or the perils of shared bathrooms with 20 other people, was a bright yellow building! It seems to have some nice girls in it as here in Jogya, a lot of the boarding houses are either Kos Putri (girls) or Kos Putra (boys).

So my first out of home experience has me living in a bedroom with a bed, a cupboard and a little desk and my own ensuite. Little sad that I don't have a mandi (a basin that you pour water over yourself) but rather a Western shower. I suppose I can replicate my own mandi with using buckets come shower time haha!

I'm pretty excited to start going shopping for things to furnish my room with and meeting the other girls who live there and buying a bicycle! I'm about 10-15minutes away from my uni by bicycle so would be say, 20-30 minute walk, so at least I know I have one source of exercise here!

So only fear right now is being alienated in my boarding house or my fear of riding on the roads haha! Uni starts the 23rd August so still time to chill out and get to know the area!

First day in Jogyakarta and a re-cap in Bali

I arrived in Jogyakarta at about 7am this morning, about 20 minutes behind schedule - a reason why I love this country, they are as tardy as me! Jogyakarta in one word: HOT! It's amazing just how warm it is, especially if you compare it against the cold weather we have had in Australia!

I'm really enjoying this country's free wi-fi spots, something that Australia needs to catch up on. I've been to a chocolate cafe and my hotel, both which have been free and not password protected! Very cool.

My only worry at the moment is forgetting to sort out my birth right; the gift to vote. So far, it looks like it might have to be a trip to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta or Bali but I won't have my passport. Declaring an absentee vote is looking mighty fine despite being a conflict of interest.

As promised, I will try to upload one picture a day of my adventures. I spent my first days in Indonesia in my mum's village in Tabanan, Bali. It was great eating a lot of my FAVOURITE Indonesian foods and also seeing my new baby cousin - Tugek Radmilla. So in celebration of her, it seems only fitting that I upload a picture of her, alongside my family :)

Until tomorrow, I'll be able to report news on my first day of Orientation!

Sampai ketemu besok,

Katrina