The Worst Thing

For those of you who think paper cuts or pickle juice is the worst thing, you have not tried durian. I finally got the nerve up enough to try it today (mainly because there were 4 other bulehs trying it with me!). The consensus said that durian tastes like a combination of onion, dirty socks, sewer water, and bananas. Heavy on the onion and dirty socks, light on the banana. We decided the texture was most like hocking a loogie. I will NEVER be trying it again! Once in a lifetime is plenty for me, thank you!

Before it stunk up the entire yard

As Jennifer says, the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden...I think she may be on to something!

Randomness

Can you tell who slept with me last night? I have 6-8 bites all in this one spot on my leg. This morning, I killed him, smashing my precious blood all over the wall.

On a less gross note, my feet are clean in this picture...thanks to Sarah Beth convincing me to make the best purchase I've probably ever made in my life, my feet now look like this. Thanks, chacos!

On Becoming a P...Kinda

So, living in SE Asia has really stretched me (in a lot of ways!!) but in one way in particular...breaking away from being so much a J to becoming a little more P. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, go look up Myers Briggs and read what it means to be a J and what it means to be a P. Anyway...

Here is what is written in my planner for today (yes, I still keep a planner, even though it's kind of pointless here):

8-10am Language
11am Meet with student for lunch and studying
2pm Skype with Sarah Beth for accountability
5pm Go running
6pm Dinner and meeting with team

Here is what my day actually looked like:

8-10am Language
10:30-11am Talk with team
11am-12pm Buy water, pick up around the house, prepare for accountability
12pm Find nasi uduk for lunch for my student and me
12:30pm Student finally got here
12:30-2:30pm Eat and study with student
2:45pm Electricity is still out (since at least 11am) so go to supervisor's house to use their internet and tell SB I'm not gonna be able to talk
2:50pm Internet at supervisor's house doesn't work
2:50-3:40pm Enjoy a good chat with supervisor
3:40pm Walk home, stopping to talk to a neighbor (who changed my plans for tomorrow, oh the irony)
4:00pm Talk to our house helper & read because electricity is still out
5:00pm Rain started, right when I was going to go running, so I decide to work out in my room
6:00pm No meeting because their daughter's ballet performance got changed from tomorrow night to tonight

Not sure what the rest of the evening will hold! Guess we'll see!

Hiking up a Jungle Mountain

A group of us went on a 4 hour hike up a mountain near our city the other day. The bottom part of the mountain was a coffee plantation and then up further was all jungle. We actually couldn't even get all the way to the top because we didn't have a machete to hack our way through! We did lots of slipping on the mud/clay ground, swinging on trees, gripping hairy vines that made us sting and itch, laughing, and enjoying green sights and clean air. A great day as far as I'm concerned! It was so nice to go hiking after 3 months without it!

Toward the beginning of the "trail", among the coffee trees

Clouds at the top looked really cool...way better than this picture portrays

A view of our city

Bug with a thousand feet, as the bahasa word translates (millipede, only HUGE)

Just to give you a perspective on how big they are. Bugs grow big in the jungle!

In the village at the base of the mountain. This man's cart was being pulled by an ox or water buffalo or something, but I couldn't get it from where I was sitting in the car.

Pictures from a Day of Exploring

Very disappointing phad thai after having the real thing in Thailand. Guess I'm ruined now!

Green!!! In our city!!

Hindu worship area in a sweet woman's yard. She invited us into her home for awhile :)

Aren't these beautiful?!

Another Hindu worship area...this one outside a Hindu school

2 fisherman

They were pulling in nets of fish

Crowd of kids surrounding the "western people"

More green :)

Just Another Day in SE Asia

Today, I...

• Walked to my language lesson at 7:30am and arrived completely drenched in sweat
• Studied language for 2 hours with my teacher, which I absolutely love :)
• Finally got the "e" sound right in a pronunciation chart!
• Stopped at the seamstress to pick up my kebaya (wedding outfit) and enjoyed a conversation with the pemilik (owner) while she so kindly fixed my skirt. (pic to come)
• Visited my neighbor, who invited me to stay for soto ayam (chicken soup). While I ate, I watched rats (they're big here, like some of them I mistake for opossums crossing the road) running back and forth on her cement kitchen floor behind her. But, she was so happy I ate lunch at her house, so it was entirely worth it! Although she's known a lot of bulehs, she said I'm the first one that has been willing to eat in her home. 

They're much bigger than this, but this was all I could find. Maybe I'll get a pic of my own one of these days.

• Babysat 2 little girls for a few minutes and made them laugh by pretending to sleep and snore, and successfully told them not to pull up the vegetable garden to feed it to the pet rabbit (whose fur by the way is part blue, part brown...naturally. It looks like he got into some paint, but nope, it's for real).
•  Forgot a skype date with a friend :( -- I blame it on the lack of scheduling here
• Took advantage of my supervisor's empty house (they're on vacation) for a quiet place to study for a few hours. Come to find out, there was a party across the street, which meant LOUD karaoke for the few hours I was there to study. Oh well, it kept me awake :)
• Worked out in their backyard and discovered two little girls on the 2nd floor of the building across the street mimicking my every move. Glad I could provide laughs, entertainment, and exercise for them!
• Tried to get ants out of the pet food bowls
• Got a confused look from one of my neighbors when I responded to what I THOUGHT he said. By the look on his face, apparently I misunderstood his question.
• Continued my never ending war with mosquitoes
• Now looking forward to tom yam for dinner and who knows what adventures for the rest of the evening!

New Years

All my best New Years' celebrations involve fireworks. This year proved no different, except it was missing one thing...my dad. So, Dad, here are pictures for you since you weren't there to play with fire with me.

These ones whistled while they went off

Sparkler fun :)

We were trying to write words with a long shutter on the camera