betty loves blogging

Hello misses!

Random times a million at a restaurant door: Hello misses! You want special very good food from America?

Me: Saya tidak mau. (I not want)

I have been sick sick sick for the past week.  The kind of sick where your stomach is churning constantly, you haven't managed to keep down any food since Monday and the toilet bowl becomes a close friend.

Readership: No more details please. 

Sorry, I know, it's really gross.  But my stomach is making some sort of a revolt against my decision to move here.

So I haven't been up to much this week except going to work, clutching my stomach and moaning, sleeping and watching crap on tv.

Managed to venture out for bit today to Kemang in South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan) for a brunch and a wander.  Kemang looks pretty cool, with lots of funky restaurants and cafes.  There's lots of bule living around there.

We went to a place called Koi for brunch which had a really good menu.  Managed to eat a little bit of granola, which was yum.  Then just chilled out with some cool girls, and also checked out a great exhibition at a local gallery (Edwin's Gallery, it was a great space) of Indonesian contemporary printmakers.  Some very cool stuff.

Was also pleased to find a few stores selling an abundance of English language books and magazines.

There was one great work where the print was done on a mirror.  I took the opportunity to snap this self portrait.

Tofu is shit

LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN THE TOFU SECTION OF THE SUPERMARKET!

How I laughed! The five-year-old child within me was squealing with delight and wanting to run around the supermarket screaming "look, it says poo!".

But annoyingly when I went to fry up some poo this evening, I couldn't figure out how to get the burner to work. That's shit. Couldn't eat any poo.

It's even greater that it says "pong" at the top, as in, bad smell... like poo!

POO!

Hot, hot, hot...

I'm getting to know the cuisine of Indonesia.  Slowly.  It's not all nasi goreng and mie goreng... so I'm told.

So far my impressions are that it is always either extremely spicy and chili-laden or extremely sweet... there's no middle ground.  It's also quite frequently fried.  Or just cooked in lots of oil.

It nearly always has carbs of some type as well (rice or noodles).

But it's pretty tasty.  I don't think it's very healthy, but yeah.  Not much I can do about that.  Been swimming lots and finally found where the gym is in the apartment block.  There's a sauna too, which is kind of ironic because the whole place is a sauna really with the heat and humidity... anyway.

The food pictured above is from a place called Dabu Dabu in Grand Indonesia Mall... in the Denpasar Jail themed food court.  It's named after a chili dip that they chuck on your plate that when you first eat, is deceptively mild... so you eat more... five minutes later you are gagging for water and feel that you might just die.

It clears out the sinuses though.  And the tear ducts.

At Dabu Dabu, and similar places like it, you pick to have rice and a meat dish and a vegetable dish.  They are all chili flavored.  I'm sure there are further subtleties to the flavor, but chili is the overwhelming taste for the unaccustomed Western palate.

According to the internets, it's Manadonesse cuisine, from North Sulawesi.  And now you know, and so do I.

It's pretty good though.  And there's lots of green on the plate, and green is healthy, yeah?  Just don't look at the oil.

It's good for the Indonesian-impaired cos you just point at what you want and smile and look a bit stupid.

They have a website... in English! www.dabu-dabu.com

Sunday sunset from my balcony

Designer labels and dancing fountains... it's all at the mall!

Jakarta is a city of malls.  So very many malls.  Until today, I had only been in one, Plaza Semanggi, where my work is, and I thought it was alright (except for the extraordinarily few lifts for the extraordinarily large crowds).  Everything seemed quite reasonable, if not somewhat baffling in layout.

Today, I decided to venture to some new malls in my quest to see more of Jakarta.  I wanted to see the big fountain in the middle of Jakarta, so I headed to Plaza Indonesia because I read it was near there.  Well, this mall was quite a different affair to Semanggi, which is fairly middle class.



The middle of Jakarta... don't let the clean, un-congested roads fool you.  Turn the corner and it's all falling down tin shed homes, little food carts selling dubious looking consumables, etc... and the traffic is only quiet because it was a Sunday morning.

Plaza Indonesia was full of designer stores, like Versace, Prada et al.  It was so swanky, it made Westfield Bondi Junction (Sydney’s s/wankiest shopping complex) look like Westfield Woop Woop.

It was bizarre though, on a Sunday afternoon when malls should be buzzing, the stores were sooooo empty.  It was like a freakish glass monolith paying testament to all the things most Indonesians (and moderately paid bule like me) can’t afford.

So I got freaked out and went outside, and it didn’t take long for me to stumble upon yet another mall.

This one was called Grand Indonesia, and once again, was full of swankiness.

BUT... EXCITEMENT!

It has British chain stores like Dorothy Perkins and Marks and Spencer (which sell clothes for fatty boom bah Westerners, albeit for high Western prices) and… TOPSHOP!  My favourite of the British high street stores (along with Monsoon… I wonder if there is a Monsoon in Jakarta?  The store, not the weather pattern).  Topshop has the coolest stuff ever.  Wanted to buy things as soon as I walked in.  Except it’s a pretty small Topshop.

But, besides this excitement of finding stores that somehow Australia has not managed to get its hands on despite 11 years of John Howard driving the economy towards greatness, was just general wonder at this mall.

Within the space of 100 metres, I somehow managed to move from normal swanky shopping mall décor, to a faux Japanese bonsai garden replete with cherry blossums, to mini Morocco, baby Venice (sans canals) and then Paris without any French people.

The mall’s décor literally changed to a completely different chintzy theme every 50 metres or so!  I was in awe! I love chintz!



Where baby Paris and baby Italy border each other, right in Jakarta... I think the windmill is supposed to be a-la Moulin Rouge, and the fountain like a baby Trevi.

It also had one of the craziest food courts I have seen in my life.  It was like a tribute to Schapelle Corby’s term in Denpasar Jail, except instead of her highly groomed eyebrows between the bars, it was tables and restaurants!



I swear, the drugs aren't mine!  Someone must have put them in my boogy board bag! Oh wait, this is just a food court.  Get me some nasi goreng.

Once I stumbled upon Art Deco New York World though, the ante was upped big time.

A crowd had gathered in some sort of art deco atrium with the New York skyline painted on the ceiling. 

Crowds only mean one of a few things;
a) Protest, in which I can go all journalism-style on their arses
b) Something free is nearby
c) Something moderately to very exciting is about to happen

It was option c!  All of a sudden, the familiar strains of “New York, New York” filled the atrium and a relatively normal looking water fountain started a choreographed routine to the tune, complete with technicolor light show!



The fountain spurted and sprayed and sploshed in perfect time to the grandiose show tune, much to the delight of small children and stupid bule (… me).

Then, a classical instrumental tune came on, and just as the fountain spurted towards the ceiling for its climax (mind out of gutter people, this isn’t Mills and Boon), thousands of bubbles started coming out of the ceiling!  I don’t know where from, but there were bubbles everywhere.

This sent the children into a frenzy of running around popping bubbles.  I just had to stand there and look grown up with surreptitiously examining the ceiling and trying to figure out how the hell they did it.

I wonder how many times a day the fountain spazzes out like that… does it have a large choreographic repetoire or can it only rock out Sinatra-style? This warrants more investigation and a return visit with my SLR and a tripod to take better pictures.

A mall-cum-theme park-cum-world tour? Jakarta is a very strange place indeed.

Like a sore thumb

I'm beginning to notice that I stick out like a sore thumb here.

But, it doesn't surprise me and it doesn't stress me too much.  It's happened before.  I always stuck out at school because I could read and stuff.

That's why I desperately need to start learning the language to have any chance of blending in.

But perhaps the funniest thing is when small children drop their mouths completely open in shock.  Or I can hear the word "bule", which is slang for white person here, being used with sideways glances.  I just wonder what the other words around "bule" are... probably "stupid bule who can't speak Indonesian" or "stupid big bule taking up the space of two people on the lift".

I haven't had this feeling for a long time... probably since I went to Vietnam.  When I traveled Europe, I didn't stick out quite so much.

But it's kind of amusing.  Especially to note the reaction amogst members of the community who are either too young or too old or too hormone-fuelled to have what is commonly known as tact.

Today I was at the supermarket and a little girl (well, baby really) was sitting in the chair of the trolley in front staring at me quite intently while her mum piled the groceries up on the checkout... she was staring so much that she dropped her toy.  So I went "ooops!" and bent down and picked it up and handed it back to her and pulled a funny face.

She looked so shocked.  She almost didn't take it back off me.

She held it close to her for a minute, then like someone pinching themselves to believe what they had seen, she quite deliberately dropped the toy again.

They had a big trolley, and I thought oh dear, this kid could throw this toy about five more times before their groceries are bagged, so I hesitated, pulled some more faces and pretended I couldn't see the toy.  She kept on looking down at it, hinting.

So I picked it up again, and she grabbed my hand, just to examine it more closely.  A very strange specimen.

Meanwhile, an elderly grandmother in the next aisle was nudging her middle aged daughter and looking right at me with what I would class as a "judgey stare".

I've also noticed that my moderately sized (very moderate if you rate it as a percentage of arse size) rack catches a fair bit of attention from the male populace, even though I have been dressing modestly and the girls have not been out to play.  Especially a teenage boy in the swimming pool today who nearly smacked his head against the side of the pool for staring.  It was a bit full on.

Big fat bule.  Fun for all the family!

Ramadan Market

Went to the Ramadan Market on Wednesday with the lovely Novia from my work to take some photos.

For those that don't know, it's currently the Islamic holy month, which means Muslims (of which there are a lot in Indonesia... it's the country with the world's biggest population of Muslims) fast from dawn until sunset... that includes not drinking any water (impossible in this heat, I couldn't do it), not eating any food and not getting up to any naughty business in the bedroom either.  All this sacrifice is supposed to teach the person patience, sacrifice and humility.

I don't even know what those things are.

Anyway, I'm getting impatient at explaining this very interesting cultural stuff to you people, so search it on Wikipedia yourselves.  I'm sure it will do a better job than me (is that humility?).

So, the markets are held so that people can stock up on yummy food to break the fast (different to breakfast, because they do it at night time), and there were all sorts of interesting things there.  Let me show you through the magic of photography.

Well, I assume it was yummy. I didn't really try or buy anything because I was too busy weaving through the crowd and balancing my camera. Next time, perhaps.

Oh, and a special note to those pestering me to update the blog... this is the second post this week, and I have managed to relocate to a foreign country. Seriously, readers, I love you, but you need to have a little bit of patience. Show me some love in the comments section instead. xx

Here!

Indonesia's tally of stupid Australian arrivals rises by yet another (at least I didn't fly Jetstar to get my hair braided on the beach in Bali though).

I have arrived in Jakarta, all arms, legs and excess baggage intact and with relatively little stress.

I've started at my new job, which is somewhat baffling, like it always is starting at a new place, but everyone seems very lovely.  If only I could remember all their names...

I am in awe at the huge array of two minute noodles in the supermarket here.  I am also in awe of the display of relatively normal looking underwear in the hypermart which has the tag line "the power of underwear".  I should take a picture. What, pray, is the power of underwear?  Maybe I just haven't been buying the right kind.

It's Ramadan at the moment so there are also lots of funny displays in the stores tenuously linking products to the Holy Month.

It's pretty amazing hearing the call to prayer from the local mosques though.

Its also very sticky and hot.  And occasionally very smoky.  Or smoggy.  Not sure what it is exactly.  Something that means the sky is not blue like in Sydney.

Not sure what a lot is, actually.  But that's the true joy of being overseas.  Being completely and utterly baffled and/or in awe every step of the way.

As soon as that stops, I think you are a local.

Blog might be a bit neglected until I get internets at my new residence, but after that, I promise I will be good!

Sydney... see you later alligator.

So, I'm sitting at home, completely organised (I believe so anyway), waiting for an appropriate time to call a cab to the airport and twiddling my thumbs.

It's been a crazy few weeks getting to this point, but crazy is also exciting and I'm very excited about what awaits me in Jakarta.

I've had some lovely farewells over the last few days... but farewells are hard so I've preferred to take the "see you later approach".  A boozy night last Saturday dancing to Britpop, a boozy night on Thursday with my Village Voice work family (ex-work now), breakfast with my brother and uncle this morning, lunch with the gorgeous Soph (mmm pancakes... took these pics of the city on the ferry home) and dinner with my posse of hot mammas at a Mexican restaurant where the sangria and margaritas were flowing.  As well as many a text message from beautiful people wishing me well.

Leaving makes you feel so lucky.  Not only are you lucky to be going on to new and exciting opportunities, you also realise just how lucky you are to have so many amazing people in your life who are hard to leave behind.  People who encourage you to be yourself, people who support you chasing your dreams, people who give you embarassing nicknames like "Trashlee" and "Pashlee", people who have bankrolled a fair few of your adventures (hi mum and dad...) and people who are just damn fun to be around and who you know will always be friends no matter what far flung place you decide to relocate to.

So I feel very lucky today.  I don't carry a good luck charm with me when I go travelling because, firstly I'm not a superstisous nutbag, and secondly, who couldn't be lucky with all of you in my heart?

Love you all xxx

Enough mush, I have a plane to catch.

 

(Taken on my new point and shoot that my beautiful work people got me.  No, the scissors aren't going in the hand luggage.  Yes, expecting to be slugged with huge excess baggage fees. Blurry because I turned off the flash and it was too dark.  But the camera is amazing!)

A summary of the last week

Pack, buy things, pack, unpack, reconsider, repack, buy things, find no room for them in case, unpack, reconsider, repack, dump stuff at Vinnies, have an unsensibly boozy farewell without farewelling anyone for fear of emotional overwhelm, turn need to replace car headlight and a broken Ikea plate into emotional vessel for overwhelming sense of loss and joy and excitement and fear and stress, stress some more, write stories for work, pack up desk at work, fill in wanky corporate forms about whether my experience with the company was positive or negative, email contacts, finish work, get a bit sad in the car home on last day of work, run more errands, pack, start cleaning room, unpack, reconsider, repack.

Get a bit sad.

DENIAL DENIAL DENIAL.

Get a bit excited.

Realise what needs to be done today.

SWEAR WORDS SWEAR WORDS SWEAR WORDS.

It's only two more sleeps until I am a resident ofJakarta.