Monday, December 29, 2008

Amber waves of grain

hey!!! strange and happy and sad, and everything in between. Ok, so I have actually never see amber waves of grain in America, but here we are non the less!! Jet lag does not even begin to describe our state of weirdness. Once we get a lil adjusted, please stay tuned, for we will put up a bunch of posts all about Kooky Crazy Tokyo!!!!!
xooxoxox
Alicia Claire

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

tokyo christmas

we made it!! no time to write, but wanted to let you know we are tall and happy in tokyo!! merry christmas!!!!! xoxoxoxoxxo

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Bali and Gili Islands Photos

Alicia and I are winding down our last few days of tropical vacation land. We leave for one day in Singapore tomorrow. The following day we have an early flight to Tokyo! I have no idea what to expect about Japan besides cultural differences everywhere. That and it will be cold. We only have six days in Japan before we land bright and early in Seattle the morning of the 29th. That will be the cap to six and a half months spent overseas.





Spectacular Ubud scenery. From beautiful river valleys right outside of the city to rice paddies among stores and shops.




Shots from the back of the monster boat we took from Pandang Bai to Gili Trawangan. The top shot shows some of the boat staff working on a misbehaving engine. We were apparently on the boat's fourth day of operation. Given my motorhead and boat loving nature, this 1000HP craft was a lot of fun. You can see the five V6 200HP outboards hanging off the back. On the dashboard in front of the captain were five black VDO RPM gauges. It was quite fun to watch them start one by one and all climb up to 5000RPM for the duration of our 30 knot trip.



Alicia and I on our first tour of Gili Air in a horse-drawn cidomo. No motorized transport is allowed on the islands via a collective village decision that it would be noisy and pointless. Hooray!



Alica and I with our new friends Chantel and Björn. We met them at our guest house in Ubud and we both ended up on Gili Air for a few days while they planned a boat trip to the island of Flores. They two of them wholesale silver jewelry in Germany and manage to travel to SE Asia for at least a couple months each year. Amazing.



Alicia climbing on a bizarre tree next to the ocean. Maybe it is a mangrove?



Alicia sitting with the other tourists at the Sasak wedding we got to attend on Gili Air. Rosie, one of the owners of our guest house is to Alicia's left.



Sasak "breakfast" (aka, lunch and dinner food). As Alicia described in her wedding post this feast for 500 was prepared all night with the mostly-women volunteers working in shifts until dawn. Very spicy. I love the thick coconut-chilly-beef curry stuff in the bottom right. Yum!



A crappy picture (color-wise) of the lush village. This is a typical family plot in the 1100 person village in the middle of the island.



The population of Gili Air will probably be 3000 in ten-fifteen years. There are loads of kids about. All super cute and playful. It seems to be like a rather idyllic place to grow up. No cars, paths everywhere, tons of playmates, the ocean on all sides... not so bad. The best part is watching the tiny tiny kids all ride their bikes with no training wheels.



Doesn't Alicia look so beautiful even when she is tired? We were out of bed early to catch the wedding.



The new couple and their family along the reception line.



We witnessed history on Gili Air! The photo above shows village men connecting the recently laid fresh-water pipe from Lombok. They were connecting the line to a pre-laid village system. Previous to the pipe a small amount of potable water was available from Gili Air itself, but not the other two islands. All other water was brought over in huge tanks on outrigger boats each day. And guest houses and locals end up with brackish showers. So great for the island but not so great for Alicia. She missed fresh water showers on Gili Air by a week!



Village children playing soccer.



Typical village life. A young woman, of course with head scarf, on her bike through the coconut tree fields.



On a walk through the middle of the island with a wonderful British couple, Judie and Gabriel. They had just started a four month SE Asia journey and we had sundowners on the beach.



The sunsets, as usual, were amazing.



On a cidomo again on our way back to Bali.



Local boats at the harbor.



Kuta has a number of scary western establishments. But this two story KFC takes the cake.



The main drag in Kuta at night. Full of drunken shirtless Aussies outside of clubs offering 'foam parties', 'Pirate nights', and 'jam jars' (huge Thailand-bucket-like cocktails). Note the Starbucks across the road. One wasted fellow was dancing in the street and nearly dropped his shot glass on Alicia's foot right after taking this photo. Lots of scary people but inside some of the clubs are almost entirely Indonesian crowds. Most of them wonderfully behaved and actually wearing shirts and no swim wear. Imagine!



A cute Christmas tree with tropical flower.



This shot may be a bit small for the required detail. But the two people in this photo were too hilarious to pass up. We stopped at a club next door to Double Six (in Seminyak, Bali) to wait for people to show up. The fellow in red to the left was dancing like a total maniac. I'm not sure I've ever seen someone so violently out of sync with the beat. The other guy to the right was in a strange Tommy Hilfiger tank top, faded jeans with the bottoms rolled up and weird sandles. And he was all over the local ladies. Gross!



Alicia and enjoying our last tropical dance party night.



Beautiful lady!



This strange guy wanted Alicia to take a photo of him. When shown the result above he was apparently all about it!



The dance party at Double Six in Seminyak. We showed up at 12:15 to a virtually empty club. Alicia and I were disappointed. By 2:00am the cavernous dance floor was packed with 80% Indonesians rocking out. The local flavor and vibe more than made up for the totally average commercial dance music.



Rosy-cheeked makeup goodness.



The night before these photos Alicia and I went to the 'Sky Bar' in Kuta. It was a really, really scary place full of super drunken tourists and 'sexy girl' Baliense dancers in tiny outfits. We lasted about 45 minutes but long enough to meet a wonderful guy named Doddy (above). We figured he was probably the only cool guy in the club and were right. He lives in San Diego but was raised on Java. We met up with him last night and got a super great Indonesian-speaking guide to hang out with. Hooray for meeting great people around the world!



The scores of motorcycles outside the club. We're assuming almost all of these were driven home by drunk people :(

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Thats it for now. Stay tuned for pictures from Tokyo.

-Jonathan

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Turtles and the Deep Blue Sea

Alicia and I decided to take a snorkeling trip on our last full day on Gili Air. What a great idea it turned out to be!

After a bit of wandering around the island we finally found a boat headed out for the day. The difficultly lay in actually getting to the boat. We had picked one of the lowest tides of the year to do our snorkeling. The boat lay about 50 meters out from the normal beach line. We had to make our way over slimy rocks and ankle deep puddles of normally covered ground to climb in the boat. Not a problem for myself and my trusty Teva sandles. Not so good for Alicia and her magical yellow inexpensive flip-flops. After a plodding walk we climbed into the traditional outrigger and headed over to Gili Trawangan. After some choppy seas we made it to the 'turtle area'. The Gili's are well known for their population of sea turtles and everyone said we'd see some. I was a bit dubious if we'd be so lucky. However in minutes after following the boat-helper teenage boy into the water I was swimming after a huge sea turtle headed away from us into the depths. The sight of the big turtle headed into the deep blue water away from the island shelf will be one of my most vivid brain-memories of our trip.

We continued seeing turtles here and there as well as encountering tiny jellyfish bits that gave a strong sting. Alicia got hit with quite a few of them and decided to head out of the water. As she was getting out another smaller turtle had been spotted. After getting stung on my upper lip, arms, etc... I made it to the friendly little green guy.

The turtle swam around with us in circles. They are so funny looking and graceful under water!

After turtle time we had a couple additional snorkel spots and lunch on Gili Meno (the third and least populated island).

Overall the rest of the snorkeling was not incredible. This is mostly due to the poor health of the coral in the area. The islanders and foreign hotel owners do have a fund to help preserve and repair the coral on the islands which is really great.

Even without bright vivid corals it was lots of fun to swim all afternoon. Thankfully we were under cloudy skies. I was also able to practice some free-diving with my basic skills my Dad taught me swimming in cloudy lakes in Idaho. I can assure you its much more fun to swim like a fish is perfectly clear and warm oceans!

Sadly, our day with the turtles may be our last ocean day on our trip. The beach here at Kuta has some very scary undertow and is also terribly polluted and shockingly full of litter. So we thankfully ended our ocean adventures on a high note.

Twist-N-Twirl

Last night Jonathan and I went to do what we came to Kuta for. We went DANCING!!! This crazy town is packed with clubs and bars, and I was just itching to bring it to the dance floor!

We began our night at a "reggae" bar that was horrible. The DJ was playing the likes of Shaggy and Red Red Wine tracks. Not what we had in mind. After a crappy cocktail, we deiced to just wander up and down the street, as most of the night spots are on one strip. As we meandered our way along we passed many super gross Aussie travelers, the guys were the worst wearing their swim board shorts and no top. What are these guys thinking? They all look like such fools to me. First of all I cant stand board shorts, I think they are cliche and boring, but to wear them all day and into the night when they are not even near the beach, then to also feature a bare chest is just idiotic.

The music bumping and blasting out of most of the clubs was total trash sleaze hip hop. This was also not what we had in mind. We finally walked past a spot that seemed to be playing electro housey beats and we thought that this was our best bet. Inside the lighting on the dance floor was gross. They had red and green laser beams shooting all around making everyone look like writhing Christmas tress. Dreamman and I ordered cocktails and found a spot on the edge of the dance floor away from the miserable light show. From here we also had the best vantage point of the whole dancing crowd, and DJ booth which was up a level in a cage like podium.

The first and second DJ of the night were girls, and I have to say they were rocking it out. I was not disappointed in the music. It started off kind of classic electro but there were lots of wild drum beats thrown in, and it progressed to grindy grimy beats that I just love. It was especially interesting to get to see and hear 2 fierce female djs dressed in tight outfits in a Muslim country.

Lover and I had a total blast people watching before we brought it to the dance floor ourselves. The best and worst, was this white girl flailing around like she was having seizures. She was wafting her limbs and head in every which direction. I don't think she gets out much back home, nor does she have any sense of rhythm or dance whatsoever. I could not get over her. In fact I felt terrible for her, and had to restrain from dancing myself, for a while, because I just did not want to put her to shame. Her boyfriend was glued to a couch in a corner obviously not into the club or music, with no desire to be there at all. I felt bad for him too. The girl tried to get him to dance with her countless times, and it was disturbing to see his discomfort and her begging.

The rest of the crowd was local flavor, and predominantly gay. Leave it to me to find the gay dance club by accident!! hahaha. I think Jonathan and I were both thoroughly pleased to be at a bumping party filled with locals as opposed to the super trashed out travelers/tourists!

I ended up having the strongest cocktail of this entire trip last night in that club and danced it up like a wild women. I loved it! As gross as most of the people are here and as tourist driven as it is, it was all worth it to come here for me just to dance.

We will take advantage of the rest of our time here and go dancing at least 2 more times!! I am sure there will be much more people watching hysteria and twists and twirls to be made!!

xoxoxox
Alicia Claire

wedding bells

Hey!! Ok..we are back in Bali, and are now in a town called Kuta. Its is Australian sleazy tourist crazy, and Jonathan would rather be back on the beach in the Gilis!

One of the many lazy days we had on Gili Air we got the opportunity to go to a local Muslim wedding. Our guesthouse owner is originally from Austria and is herself now married to a Gili man. She invited us and some other travelers that were staying at their place, Gili Air Santay, {which has some of the best food on the island if you end up there!!}. She told us to meet at her house at 9am and to dress appropriately...i.e. bikinis and sarongs were a no go. I think I already mentioned to you all how hot and muggy it was on that island, but I sucked it up and wore a long skirt and a top with sleeves to get a chance to be a part of such an event.

The wedding day begins early and all the guests arrive to have breakfast. Breakfast in Indonesia is not really breakfast at all, but rather its like lunch and dinner. Rice, mystery meat curries, wickedly spicy green bean salad, banana curry, prawn chips, and all sorts of other strange foods. I was, and am not thrilled about Indonesian breakfast, but you have to eat and be polite. I loaded up my plate with mostly rice, and some fire breathing green beans. I nearly choked after my first bite, they were so hot!! There are huge tents set up for all the people to sit under and eat. First we walked through the buffet tables, before finding a spot near the massive pile of sandals on the edge of the tent to sit down at. Some of the food, the meat curries in particular had been literally slaved over into the wee hours of the night, as there is no refrigeration to keep the food, so it had to be made as close to breakfast time as possible. In the tradition of Gili weddings there are separate tents for men and women. All the children go with the woman to their tents, but being travelers we were aloud to sit together on the edge of the women's tent.

I was sweating long before I put those green beans in my mouth, and my dewiness factor did not let up, especially after the spiciness. Up until this point, on the island we had not really seen that many local women around. There are about 1000 people that live on the island, and there were at least 500 of them attending this wedding, so it was a great chance to really check out all the locals. The women of course, we covered up and looked miserable in the heat. They all had similar oval pudgy face shapes cloaked in their scarves, long sweltering un-breathable tops and skirts, and simple sandals. Some of the women were a lil dolled up in lace outfits, but they looked just as hot. I really do not know how they do it. I could barley contain my own body heat and my head and arms were out!

The men all had fabric on their heads as well, folded in a very certain manner, but this is for ceremony only, normally they do not have their heads covered up, wherein the ladies always do. The rest of the guys outfit was super simple, a t- shirt, and then a sarong style fabric wrapped around their waists. Besides the head covering difference between the men and the women, the other most prominent difference is body type. All the men, young and old have killer bodies. I mean zero percent body fat, six pack abs, and long lean muscle. They have the type of physic that gym rats would die for. Its really quite impressive, but its testament to their hard working lifestyles as farmers, fishers, and general island living labor. The women on the other hand were all a little round and had puffy cheeks and faces. To see them paired up was kind of funny.

The general skin tones of the Gili Ar inhabitants is either burnt sugar cookie brown, or a ricc burnt sienna. Either way its a burnt tone, also due to island life. Everyone was also very short, the tallest men were maybe my height. The Gili people all have slightly angled coal black eyes, and just as dark hair either thick and wavy or corkscrew curly. It is a very interesting look to say the least. I am sure they all thought I was also bizarre looking too. They do see other travelers, but most other travelers are all lobster red from the sun or too tanned, so my skin tone gleamed in the light there!

After the breakfast, there was a lot of waiting around wiping the sweat from our brows, until finally there was a bit of a ruckus. All the men lead the groom to a different tent that all 500 people gathered around for a good viewing spot. In the tent was the man hosting the ceremony, the groom, and one of his men. The bride too, was escorted by a gaggle of ladies into the tent. She had on a simple but pretty beige outfit, her hair was up and she had a wild silver crown of flowers jutting straight out of her hair in a halo formation. She also had on a sleek silvery blue eyeshadow awash over her angled lids.

The bride went and sat next to her fiance, and neither of then even stole a glance at each other. This was weird to me. The ceremony proceeded, and I stood in the back round people watching and checking out all the hundreds of children running around. There were just so many lil ones, it was crazy, and they were all eating ice cream bars and acting out on sugar highs. I decided to get an ice cream as well, as I figured if my breakfast was more like lunch, then I could have ice cream first thing in the morning too!

When the ceremony ended the bride and groom walked out of the tent side by side, but not touching. I still do not think they had even looked at each other, and this made me sad. They stood and posed awkwardly for some photos and walked off together still not touching. That's a Muslim wedding for you, I guess. Its just that in that religion its not ok to share affection in public....you all know how I feel about this!!!

I was happy when the wedding was over so I could get out of my sweat drenched outfit, but it was quite amazing to get to witness such an intimate affair!

xoxoxox
Alicia Claire

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Its raining, Its pouring

Time to take a shower!!!
Ok..you are all thinking what?? Here is the deal. The island Gili Air is the smallest of the 3 Gili Islands. It is Extra Super Mega Mellow. As lover has mentioned, there are no motor vehicles and the sound of transport is Christmas style sleigh bells gently jostling off small horses backs. The other means of transport
is your feet plodding down dusty paths or along the white sand which is
clustered with coral..Another gorgeous sound is all the coral clanging
together in the lap of the oceans waves. It is a melodic windchime sound and I just love it.
This Island only received electricity 10 years ago! All the bungalows are bamboo and palm leaves weaved together, which kind of keep the bugs out :{. There is also not really any fresh water on this island. Nor does it rain very much at all here on this little tiny paradise. Fresh water has to be brought in on boats, and all
drinking water is from the traditional office water cooler stands which
are also brought in on boat.
What I am getting at here is that a tiny island with no fresh water is quite alarming for me. The water coming out of the shower and sink, and which we fill the bucket next to the toilet to flush with is all salt water. They claim here that it is
a salt water and fresh water mix, but I beg to differ. Try showering in
salt water and you realize that your soap doesn't foam up, and that you
never quite feel clean as you are covered in a salty film. Oh, and
forget about washing your hair. Its just not possible.
Now, I have been loving my time and afternoon swims when the sun is not so detrimental to my precious fairness, but after that swim all I want to do is rinse off in clean water and get the saltiness off my limbs and hair. Never being able to get the sea water out of my hair is the worst. My locks end up feeling all dry and damaged. Not the look for gorgeous hair!
Well, luck must have been on my side the other day, because after my daily water workout whilst walking back to our bungalow, it started pouring. I mean Rain drops so big they seem more like the wrath of a waterfall than just pure water out of the sky!!! I found this wonderful and laughed the whole way home as we were drenched completely. It was pefect for me as I was just in my bikini anyways, but Jonathan had on shorts with all sorts of stuff in the pockets that should not be
wet, so he did not find it as funny as me. By the time we got back to our bungalow I decided to make the most of it and just shower in the rain!! I got our bar of soap and my razor and had the best cleansing shower standing in the mud with my bathing suit on, that I have had since arriving on this parched island!! It was truly wonderful.
Can you just imagine the hilarity of this situation, the mud around my feet bubbling up with soap suds. It was perfect!!!
We have had no rain since, and I have had to go back to the sea water shower, but now I fancy myself with the luxury of at least pouring bottle water over my head to try and diminish the salt residue in my hair!!
Here's to crossing my fingers for more rain storms!!
xoxoxo
Alicia Claire

The Durian Report

Durian, "the king of fruits", is wildly popular in SE Asia. Those of you who are familiar with the fruit are probably already making groaning noises.

Because it smells. Durian is a love/hate thing. Our favorite travel TV host, Tony Bordian from No Reservations, cannot keep it down. He'll eat almost anything else. But durian makes him, well, a bit queezy.

On our errands and adventure to Lombok the other day we asked our guesthouse owners to pick some up while in town so we could try it under controlled circumstances back at the ranch.

I finally got up the nerve this morning to give it a try after breakfast. Durians are hard to open. One needs a butcher's knife and a lot of skill. The first durian we tried was not quite ripe. The smell was not as pungent as normal and the typical gooey texture was chewy. The taste was... odd. Very non distinct, and totally un-fruit-like.

So another fruit was opened and the game was on! The smell - strange. Alicia first described it as burnt sesame seeds and then moved on to a 'burnt onion bagel, with sesame seeds on top'. A group of German's next to us laughed at my offer for some of the durian and mentioned that it tastes like onion to them.

I went in for the first gooey bite. Most people have an instant reaction to durian. Mine was clearly not positive at first. But I also didn't spit it out (like Alicia did :). As I kept eating it tasted more and more like something 'savory' - like a cooked onion. The texture is very smooth and gooey - not a bad thing by itself. However when combined with a strange sweet/savory/fruitness, its a bit much.

I didn't last beyond one piece. Quickly some mint gum was found as my dislike began to grow.

The durian went back to the kitchen to be hoovered up by the excited kitchen staff. The fruit is actually quite expensive for normal working people. So this was a nice treat for all the islanders.

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some 'choice' quotes from the above-linked Wikipedia article. If you are squeamish do not read further:

While Wallace cautions that "the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable", later descriptions by westerners are more graphic. British novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory."[18] Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions."[19] Anthony Bourdain, while a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit as thus: "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."[20] Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:
“ ... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.[21] ”
Hydrogen sulphide, one of the chemical compounds that may be responsible for the characteristic odour of durian

Other comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray and used surgical swabs.[22]

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Metric awesomeness

I've been noticing recently that I've been 'thinking' in the metric system. I was emailing my parents today and was mentioning how the water visibility here 'is over three meters'. Uhhh, when did I start thinking in meters?

I guess for a while. The metric system really does make a lot of sense - most of the time.

Here are my thoughts on common measurements:

meters - good - Feet, for more things, are too small a measure (besides height, more on that below). When talking about distance meters are a nice way to approximate and visualize things. "Oh, its only about 20 meters (66 feet) to the tree over there".

kilometers - good - When talking about distance on our trip, we are usually moving around by walking. Kilometers are a much more digestable distance mentally for me than miles. You can see just how far a kilometer is. It is also 10 football fields. These things make it easy to think about.

kilometers per hour - good - aka, driving speed. For all but the slowest speeds I think kph makes a lot of sense. 100 kph is just about 60 miles per hour. A mile a minute. 110-120 is the speed limit. That sounds fast. Over 100 is going really fast, going 60 kph is just a bit above 35. It gets confusing when you are going slow, 20 kph is a crawl.

kilograms - good - when talking about weight, kilos make a lot of sense to me. It is a less precise measurement than pounds. This is often useful when you are talking about how much something weights, or you are guessing. My bag is about 20 kilos, which is 44 pounds.

liters - good - Especially when talking about gas. A liter is a more precise measure (about 4 liters per gallon). You buy gas by the liter, and that may get you 9-11 kilometers. In my mind it tightens the relationship between how much you purchase, and how far you can go. I first started thinking about this in Tanzania when we went through hundreds of liters of diesel on our safari, and each liter cost over 4000 shillings ($1 = 1300 T Shillings). It starts you thinking...

centimeters - not my favorite - I still prefer inches in my head when talking about short distances. Telling people I'm 184 centimeters tall just sounds weird.

Speaking of weird - this is the end of my bizarre post on the metric system!

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On a swing over the deep blue ocean

Waiting for dinner I jumped on the swing in front of our great guest house, Gili Air Santay. Swinging out over the deep blue at dusk water I realized that our trip is really, truly, almost over.

A quick check on the calendar at our table lists 18 days before we arrive back in the US. And then a few more weeks until we are actually back in San Francisco. I'm sure we'll do a 'numbers' post later - but we did a quick verbal whirlwind of countries, climates, time zones, currencies, altitudes, etc... that we've been through.

We are often surrounded by travellers who are doing things that make our trip seem very tame. Thus we lose perspective on our quite magical every day experience.

So we are pulling out every bit of crazy goodness in our last days.

More on Gili Air soon. Simply put, it is a magical place. Much more so when its not 95 degrees out. And with humidity so thick a wet towel won't dry in that heat. No cars, no bikes, no pollution, fantastic views, endless palm trees, crystal clear waters... the superlatives go on and on.

-Jonathan

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Monday, December 8, 2008

On eating lizards...

Alicia and I have arrived on Gili Air, a small island off the coast of Lombok. Lombok is the next major Indonesian island to the east of Bali.

This is a very chilled out place with no motorized transport. Only the jingling bells of horse drawn carts. Electricity arrived only ten years ago.

Some friends of ours that we met in Ubud, Bjorn and Chantel, are here as well and invited us to a family-style dinner at a different bungalow than ours. On the menu that night was freshly caught lizard! mmmmm!

There are many wild monitor lizards here. They live off whatever they can find, including the duck eggs of the bungalow owner where we had dinner.

There was an extensive effort to catch the lizard, all documented by a wonderfully hilarious fellow named Leon, who ate with us. The lizard was first caught with a big fish hook baited with a fish head. Then the restrained-via-hook lizard was stuck with a spear gun (used normally for fishing) and then finished off with a solid whack to the head. I was 'fortunate' enough to see all of Leon's pictures. Totally bizarre.

The lizard was going to get cooked to feed the new pet dog. But when Leon spoke up that he wanted some, it went up on the grill. Lombok and the Gilis are almost 100% Muslim, and they are apparently now allowed to eat lizards. So the cooking of the lizard for the tourists was a topic of much amusement.

Bjorn and Leon had a good bit of the strange BBQ-d lizard. I had a very small taste. Not bad - kind of like tough pork!

After the lizard topics moved on to more terrible subjects like dog and horse. Both eaten in different parts of Indonesia. The conversation went downhill from there...

-Jonathan

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Saturday, December 6, 2008

Ubud and Beyond

Hello winter wonderlanders,

Lover and I have been seriously sweating it out here in Indonesia!!! We spent the last 2 weeks in Ubud, which is a place that most people say you only need a few days for, but we decided to really take it in, as we will soon not be on an island anymore. I already spoke of the wacky ex-pat ladies, and of the Serene nature of it all, but there is always more to tell!

While we were lazing around, we heard about this big Rock Concert that was going to be happening in the local baseball field. At this point Jonathan and I are all about the local function and getting in on the action! Local events are always the most bizarre and often most wonderful things we get to take part in because its the real deal. Local events are not shows for tourists, and that's the best part!!

This "Rock" concert was featuring all Indonesian bands, and people literally came from ALL over the island. Some drove their motor bikes hours to attend. On our walk over, there were many roads shut down and blocked just by the amount of motor bikes. It was outrageous. I mean bikes were parked 3 deep in a row, so that if one decided to leave...first, I have no idea how they would even find their bike, then if they did locate theirs from the hundreds and hundreds, there would be no outlet to get out from!!

Lover and I weaved our way to the field in the mass shuffle of motorbikes and pedestrian locals. Once in the feild it was all light up carnival style, and there were concession stands selling helium balloons for the lil ones, and strange sugary treats and soda in plastic bags. The plastic bag bit is something we have seen in most of Asia. Soda is poured into a small plastic bag with handles and straw so that the vendor can keep the bottle and exchange it back in for money. Its actually a good idea for the vendor, yet annoying for the liquid baggie holder!!

There was a huge stage and sound system set up, with some local TV announcers running the show. They were super cheese and annoying, so we focused on people watching while they were on stage. The crowd was a lot of family's with young ones, and many many "cool" guys walking through the crowd with their motor bike helmets on. Helmets???!?!?!!? Anyone who knows me well, understands how much I despise it when people walk around with helmets on. Unless you have a medical condition where your likely to smash your head at anything, then wearing a helmet to walk is just unacceptable. Some of them even had the visor down!! I could not make this stuff up!! I mean..it was night time..there was no excuse for the helmet, and NO EXCUSE for the visor to be down!!!! uuughhh..ok..besides the helmets, the sea of cafe au latte coloured faces was pleasant. Although there was a crowd, it was not pushy, and people seemed really happy to see us. That's always a good feeling in a crowd when you receive genuine smiles from everyone.

The first and only band that we stuck around for was a girl group, and they were HORRIBLE!!!! I was shocked..they should have millie vanillied it, because their voices were garbage. Their outfits were all over the board as well, and everyone knows, that as a pop girl singing group there needs to be some fluidity between their looks. Nope. We stuck around long enough to gasp at a few more helmet heads then we weaved our way back out of there. This event does not even hold up a candle to our most favorite festival we attended on Zanzibar, but it was still a taste of real life. It was just interesting to see ALL the people that came out for this thing. Buts that's island life for you, if there is an event, then its a big deal, as stuff like this is not frequent like in most of our city lives.

I certainly need more entrainment on a regular basis, but to get the chance to slip into a strange culture and witness an Island moment is pretty superb!

xoxoox
Alicia Claire