Cartilage...It's What's For Dinner Tonight!

So tonight, my roommates and I were too tired to cook, so we walked to a warung (food stall) for dinner. I ordered gado-gado, which is a vegetable dish with peanut sauce. Rebecca got soto sapi (beef soup), and Valerie ordered ayam bakar dan nasi (baked chicken and rice). Valerie also ordered rujak (see my first post), so I was really excited to share that with her! However, when the rujak came, it was not the fruit dish with peanut sauce that I had before. Not knowing what it was, I braved the first bite. Now, being trained for semester after semester about living overseas, I knew to never spit out food. But I HAD to spit this out! It was not an Everest I could climb (that's for you, Jennifer :). We reviewed the menu to see exactly what we had ordered and after putting the word into a handheld dictionary, we discovered that what I had just put in my mouth and quickly spit out was none other than cow cartilage. Here is some more information and pictures if anyone is interested...

http://discoverindonesia.net/2010/02/rujak-cingur-a-challenging-taste/

Pisang

Please do not read this word with English pronunciation! It is pronounced pee-song, and it means banana. Yesterday, was a pisang day. While singing "I Have Confidence" by Julie Andrews in my head, I walked confidently home from my language tutor's house for the first time by myself. I was told to walk confidently and less people will make comments about me being buleh. It worked! On the way home, I stopped on what we fondly refer to as Banana Street at the large banana stand. By myself, I told the man, "Saya mau pisang hijau dan kecil" (I would like small, green bananas.) However small this victory seems on paper, it was an awesome victory for me! I did something all on my own for the first time in almost 2 weeks! Definitely something to be celebrated for this independent spirit learning to be dependent :)

Then, yesterday afternoon, I attempted baking for the first time. I decided on my banana bread, because as most of you know, I'm VERY comfortable with that recipe :) What I didn't think about was the fact that I didn't know how to turn the oven on or what temperature to put it at (our dial has the numbers 1-6, not 200, 250, 300, and so on.) So, I called my roommate at work and while on the phone with her, I turned the gas on for the second time (mistake #1 was turning it on the first time without knowing what I was doing), sticking a blue lighter/springy thing down a hole in the oven and clicking it repeatedly until BAM! I almost caught myself on fire!! Now, I've lit a barbecue before after putting way too much lighter fluid on it and had a rather large fire poof out, but that was nothing compared to the fire exploding from our oven! Mind you, I'm still on the phone with my roommate at this point, and I definitely screamed into her ear. Don't worry, I apologized as she was laughing at me. Anyway, the rest of the banana bread making went fairly smoothly, with little breaks to keep killing tiny ants that threatened to go swimming in the batter. After learning that 3 or 4 on the oven is about 350, I set the temperature there and kept checking the bread. Here is the yummy result:

Experiences of the Day

• Hour ride on the motorcycle (half of it in the rain = so fun!!!)
• Neon green 4 inch long grasshopper
• 6 in long centipede, about as big around as my finger
• Beautiful walk around the university campus
• Lunch with a new student (we ate gado-gado but with rice--don't remember what it was called)
• Enjoyed a conversation at English corner about arranged marriage
• Just now, the power went out :) Love it!! Oh, except that our dinner is cooking in the rice cooker. Oh well!
• Just came back on, so now I'm going to make mangoes and sticky rice :)

War

Here in SE Asia, we are at war. Not the kind of war you typically think of. No, this is war between woman and pest. And by pest, I mean pest! Here is my battle plan. So far, it has proven very successful.


Step 1: Spray legs and feet with deet when you're in for the night.

Step 2: Two hours before bedtime, fumigate bedroom with Force Magic and close bedroom door  to ensure the most enemies killed by the deadly poison.

Step 3: Right before going to bed, swing the electrocution racket through the air, in the bed, and under the bed to zap the remaining alive enemies.

Step 4: Plug in the electric repellent, fighting off all potential back up forces through the rest of the night.

Step 5: Enjoy a peaceful, mosquito free night's sleep with no pesky bites in the morning!

Step 6: Repeat every night for the rest of wet season.

Here are my trusty weapons:

Initial Reaction

Rujak

I'm finally here (and starting a blog about it 5 days later--sorry!)!! Here are some initial sights, sounds, smells, and tastes I've experienced:

Sights

• Green trees & plants
• Indian Ocean
• Smiling faces underneath head coverings
• Begging children
• Lots of motorcycles in lots of "lanes" of traffic
• Cats with no tails (they kinda look like half rabbits, half cats)
• School children walking on the side of the road
• Men bicycling mobile warungs (food stalls)

Sounds

• Cats meowing
• Motorcycles buzzing
• Calls to prayer from the mosque behind our house
• Man on a mega phone with blaring ice cream truck-type music selling bread in the early morning
• Kids yelling "buleh" (white person) when we walk by
• Lots of Bahasa Indonesia
• Laughter

Smells

• Burning trash
• Car/motorcycle exhaust
• Meat cooking
• Steaming corn
• Waste in the market
• Durian and other tropical fruits (some are called perfume fruits--not durian though!)

Tastes

• Fresh squeezed juice--mango, strawberry (they even have avocado with chocolate syrup squirted on the sides of the glass like they do at Starbucks for an iced caramel drink!)
• Rujek--fruit salad with spicy peanut dressing (soooo yummy!)
• Duku- a not so yummy fruit that looks like a nut, very bitter
• Jambu- a red, strawberry-shaped, apple-textured fruit that is tart like a granny smith apple
• Nasi goreng-- fried rice that is so much better than Chinese fried rice
• Pantsit- fried noodle dipped in onion broth and eaten as a wonton
• Padang food- this needs a blog post all to itself :)

As you can see, lots to experience, lots of adventure to be had, lots of learning to do!