betty loves blogging

Rat attack

On Monday night, I was sitting at my desk, getting ready to go to bed, when all of a sudden a dart of blackness scrabbled across the floor.  It could only mean one thing — rodent.

I hate rodents.  Especially knowing that here, the rodent is probably a dirty sewer rat carrying the plague or something.  All I could do was tweet.  There was nobody to help and nothing I could do!

I was going to share some of my tweets from the attack, but Twitter is being temperamental and I can't see them right now, but they were basically me screeching with horror at it scurrying up my curtains, running across my bedside table and darting in and out from under my bed, followed by a bout of homesickness, tears, trauma, extreme tiredness and eventual sleep in the foetal position wrapped up under a sheet to protect from the rat.

The following morning, dark circles under eyes, I asked in my horrific Indonesian if the security guard at my kost would set a trap.  He looked relatively excited at the prospect of actually having something to do...  he spends most of his day sitting and saying hello to us when we walk in and protecting us from non-existant threats, and when he is on the night shift he gives us jokingly judgemental mental looks when we come back late looking tipsy.  The pursuit of the tikus besar in the bule's room should have been the highlight of his week.

Tuesday night, I get home from work, and I thought, maybe, the room was now rat free.  But then... it darted out from under the armchair.  Sigh.

Once again slept in a cocoon.

The next morning, I asked the security guard whether he was going to catch the rat.

"I looked for it and couldn't see it.  I looked inside the wardrobe and it wasn't there."

Sigh.  I told him it runs behind the wardrobe, and could he please look again.

When I returned home tonight, security guard had clearly been at work.  In an attempt to thwart the rat, the guard had now pushed the wardrobe firmly against the wall.  The floor-to-ceiling window was also half open, maybe in an attempt to get it to go outside.  An interesting strategy, but one which means my room is now full of mosquitoes.

But luckily, tonight I returned prepared with the best (only) rat trapping device Giant Supermarket could provide.

Let's take a look at that illustration a little more closely, shall we?

This trap not only catches large mice.  It also catches small elephants.  I would love to have a small elephant running around my room!  How cute!

So while I can't vouch for its elephant catching properties, it did the trick for Mr Ratty.  It let out squeaks when it got stuck on the glue.  I almost felt bad.  But not really.

So tonight I shall sleep so well.  I hope there was only one of them in here....

Recreational elevator riders

At the mall in which my office is located, there is a dire shortage of elevators during peak hours.  You wait, wait, wait and they are full when they arrive.  It's very frustrating, but at least it is acknowledged as an acceptable excuse for being late for work, as well as macet (traffic jams), because everyone in the office knows the perils of elevator availability, especially on Friday nights.

But, the problem is compounded by a group of people I like to call "recreational elevator riders".  These are people, often groups of teenagers or families with young children, who ride the elevator as if it is an attraction at Disneyland.  They go all the way up to the top.  Then ride all the way to the bottom.  Then all the way to the top again.  Cheap thrills for the whole family, especially if it's a glass elevator.

For those of us who actually want to use the elevator, you know, to get some place on a floor not accessible by escalators (people who take the lift one floor when it is next to the escalator... another pet peeve of mine) it is rather irritating.

But maybe that's an untapped market- "LiftLand".  The amusement park filled with all sorts of elevators!!!

I only started to notice the phenomenon when I saw that people who were on a full lift going down were still in the same lift going up.  Multiple times.  I also observed the same phenomenon in other malls.  It's rather strange.  At first I thought it might have been people who had come to Jakarta from smaller towns where they don't have elevators... but now I'm not so sure....

Free MSG

In Australia, when something is marked "MSG Free", it means it doesn't contain Monosodium glutamate.

In Indonesia, if I ever saw a sign that said "MSG Free".... I would know it would just mean they weren't going to charge me extra money for the MSG already in the dish.

Seriously, today I had some noodles and I was pretty sure the only topping was MSG, with a dash of kecap manis.

I was pondering today the potential damage all the MSG might be doing to me.  In Australia, I remember there being a huge panic about MSG and then all the Chinese restaurants started having "MSG Free" signs up.

Litter out of the closet.

I took this pic at the airport in Denpasar, and forgot about it.  I just found it when looking for something else. It's not a particularly good photo, because it was sneakily taken in the airport toilets.  But I remember, delirious with tiredness, chuckling away to myself about the phrase "don't litter disposal into closet".

Does it apply to all "disposal"?  If so, where can you go to the toilet?

In Indonesian, to me at least, the sign actually says "don't put stuff inside the toilet bowl".

Mmmmm the food of love!

Not a great pic.  But in the deli at Carrefour, I spotted these heart shaped, pink doughed, take it home and bake it pizzas, obviously whipped up in celebration of that most icky of Hallmark holidays, Valentine's Day.

How wrong is that?

Is also looks pretty wrong besides the dough... it's got ground beef and very weird looking chunks of cheese on it.

I wanted to buy one to see what colour the dough would be after cooking the pizza, but I don't have an oven.  So no taste test unfortunately.

Maybe this is what we should be selling at Sweethearts Pizza, dad?  I think this almost outdoes the pizza doughnut I road tested a while back.

Indonesian petrol stations

I love that all you need in Indonesia to open a petrol station is a couple of plastic bottles and a funnel.

I snapped this rather classy Indonesian petrol station while in Legian, Bali, the other day.

This one is pretty fancy because it uses glass bottles, has a sign and has an offering to the Hindu gods on it.

In Jakarta, these makeshift petrol stations usually use old plastic water bottles to dispense fuel, set up on rickety old wooden tables by the side of the road. The station "attendant" uses a funnel to pour the contents of the water bottle in to your motorcycle tank (I've never seen a car being filled up from one of these, though it might happen).

An open letter to my countrymen (and shielas too)

Dear fellow Australians,

Here are just a few notes that maybe you should take into consideration when visiting Bali so I don't have to cringe every time I see and hear some of you.

1.  When someone asks "how was your meal?", "Grouse" isn't a particularly appropriate response.  Even though the Balinese speak very good English, it still sounds awfully like the word "gross" to the un-Australian.  While I know you meant "tops", "awesome" or "rather delicious, thankyou ma'am", I don't think that waitress did.

2.  On the beach, it is acceptable not to wear shirts.  In shops, restaurants and streets more than half a kilometer from the nearest beach, it just makes you look like a tool.  Yes, you have a six pack.  Once someone has drunk a six pack, it won't matter anyway, so get over it.  This rule especially applies to packs of young Australian men hooning around on scooters.  Your abs won't be so pretty if you fall off it, idiot.  Same goes for chicks in bikinis.

3. Don't leave Australia if you don't like foreigners.  Why bother?  And metropolitan Sydney or Melbourne probably has a higher proportion of non-Australians than Bali anyway really... 

4.  Stop patronising the local staff by practically yelling your orders at them.  Most of them speak better English than you do.

5.  Hiring a motorcycle that has those prongs on the side to mount your surfboard comes with the responsibility to not hit pedestrians with those said prongs.

6. "Omigosh, it's so dirty.  I don't like it here."  If you think Kuta is dirty, try visiting Jakarta, or a hell of a lot of other SE Asian cities.

7.  "Do you have any normal food?" is a particularly stupid way to ask if a restaurant has Western food.

8.  Complaining don't maketh the holiday.  You booked a budget hotel.  Deal with it.

9.  You can't haggle in restaurants with a printed menu and price list.

10.  Haggle reasonably.  Don't overpay, it makes it harder for the rest of us.  Don't underpay.  What's a dollar to you means a lot more to someone else.  It's not a sport.

There might be a second installment, but just work on these things first, ok?  Bali will thank you.

Ash

PS. The Bali Memorial isn't really an appropriate place for smiling family holiday snaps.  See those names?  Those people died, remember?

Yet another dubiously named supermarket item.

Love Juice.  So juicy.  Hmmm.  Sounds a bit sus.  Yet it tastes like apple.

(I swear I don't have a dirty mind...)

Singapore: Funny things

Three funny things I saw in Singapore.

Firstly:

Would you like your family jewels well hung?  Well, visit the House of Hung Jeweler!

I know, I have a dirty, immature mind.

Maybe you want to look super hot in your passport photo.  This place had two banners outside showing just how hot you could look if you step inside for your passport needs:

There's a few things I have to say about these.  Number one, in reference to picture one,  who walks in and asks for a passport photo with a faux mountain backdrop... I mean, maybe it's to accentuate the Farrah Fauwcett flicks in his hair?  I didn't know it was allowed!  But... hang on a second... *squints*... is that Adolf Hitler wearing a wig, letting his moustache grow out?

And in reference to picture number two, I love that this person has bought in four different color suit jackets for his passport photograph... or wait a minute!  Has he? 

The first three pictures seem to be identical except for the suit jacket (and the mysterious white background on picture two)... could these photos have been digitally altered to make this man appear to own more suits than he possibly does?  Just when I was admiring this stern man for owning a teal, plaid and pinkish-red suit jacket, my whole perception of reality has been rocked by the discovery that these images may be digitally altered!  Disappointing!

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!