Dude, Where's my Life?

Skating, dancing, and training (as in taking a train)

Just when I thought my life of surreal ridiculous behavior was behind me I got dragged right back in! I can’t decide if I want to do this chronologically or by them, but lets try the former and see how it goes:

Thursday – My newfound friend Simi (she’s Canadian, but the good kind) and I went to Borobudur for a school field trip (I’m not kidding. I had to write an essay in Indonesian about it). FYI, Borobudur is this massive Buddhist temple from the 8^th century covered in reliefs depicting the road to nirvana. Anywho, the highlight of the trip was when some rando Indonesian woman asked our teacher was was effectively “Excuse me. Can I take a picture with your two bule?” (bule = foreigner). The answer was “yes” and we were props in this woman’s photo. As if being posed in pictures like pets wasn’t bad enough, five minutes later we saw the same woman with a DIFFERENT bule! I felt so cheap!

Thursday (Later) – After we got back from the temple, we went ICE SKATING (anyone who has been to Indonesia or anywhere in Southeast Asia realizes how ridiculous this is), followed by dinner at a restaurant which even in Yogyakarta is known for being really spicy. Here are the fun takeaways:

a) Ice skating. Seriously.

b) It was Simi, myself, and four of our Indonesian teachers who are also college students. Simi and I are both around 5’9”, and I’m betting the average height of the teachers is 5’4. The AVERAGE. Imagine two tiny teachers on motorcycles with two seemingly MASSIVE foreigners riding on the backs.

c) After about 6pm the teachers started to get extremely silly

d) In Bahasa Indonesian, there is a specific word for the situation in which you tell a joke and nobody laughs.

e) No alcohol was involved.

If you don’t believe me about the ice skating, I will be posting pictures shortly on flickr.com/photos/dohgi under Yogyakarta

Friday – I had to pay for my language school AND my three nights at the Hyatt in CASH. In order to do this, I had to go to the money exchange and do some serious currency trading. Long story short, I left the place with around 10,000,000 (yes, 10 million) rupiah in my pockets. Sure it sounds like a lot, but in USD its not nearly as impressive. HOWEVER, its still a lot of bills. I have never carried so many wads of bills around! It was very empowering.

Friday Night – Big party at the language school, which included musical renditions of Sheryl Crow and Wham. No, I didn’t sing…this time…I did get my shake on though.

Today – 8 hour train ride from Yogyakarta to Bandung. I got a little sniff-sniff about leaving Yogya and all my new friends there. Bandung seems like a pretty cool town though. I can’t believe how many kids there are here wandering around the bazillian outlet malls! They’re the kind of kids my mom would see walking down the street in Orange County and say “bad kids!” A plus – since most of these bad kids are here for the weekend away from Jakarta, there is definitely more beer available than back in Yogya. Also they have dutch bakeries. Once again baked goods save the day. FYI, free internet in my hotel here, so I might not pry myself out of my room tomorrow…just kidding. I have more fried food to try!

posted by Dan, Lover of Dim Sum @ 12:24 AM