GJ jinxed us again

GJ struck again yesterday.
He made a sweeping statement of "the rainy season is over"....................

This is similar to the time touring around central Java he decided to take a shortcut through a village. He turned around after five minutes and said 'What are you worried about, this road is great!" Two minutes later we were driving the Serena up the inside of a rough creek bed that was supposed to be a main road LOL.

Yesterday, after picking up the girls, we made a quick stop of at Hero, the local supermarket. It was pretty dark for 3.30pm but no more than the usual afternoon clouds. We were inside Hero for about 8 minutes when we heard the thunder and the rain start.
We spent about 15 minutes in the shop and then loaded the car up in the pouring rain.

As we left the car park we were driving through about 15cm of water which was rising rapidly!
We found that the road was closed, the river was over the road and there was only one way out and that was to power across the intersection through one foot+ of water.

We drove through a posh part of Kemang looking for streets not flooded so as to get home, this was after 10 minutes of rain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The girls were screaming with joy, yelling out "cepat cepat" to Yadi, which means faster faster! They thought they were in a speed boat making a huge wake.

I was busy rummaging through my hand bag for my camera. I try never to be without my small compact, but alas no SD card or battery and I couldn't get my hand phone on as little madam Georgie had changed some settings!

We finally got out of the suburb Kemang and were nearly home. We had to cross one more river before we got there and were amazed to find it breaking its banks. The river had risen over 2.5 feet in about 20 minutes of rain.

We were ringing GJ telling him to leave the office now!
Get a taxis and try and get home asap.........This was a 4.05pm.
Yadi's home was already thigh deep with water through the ground floor and we wanted GJ home.

I remember years ago trying to describe how heavy the rains were in sub-tropical Queensland compared to Sydney or Melbourne...

There is no way to describe the ferocity of an Indonesian rain storm!

GJ made it home at 5.35pm...and wanted to know what the fuss was about....not much traffic, great trip home and the river a good one foot below its banks............

Sunsets over west Java

I have done nothing to these photos, this is really what it looked like!

I don't ever think I have seen a sunset this vivid.

I did grow up on the east coast of Australia.....here we were sitting on the west coast of Java.
I wonder if the air pollution contributes to the magnificence of the sunsets?

We all sat and wondered if we went back 2-3 years would any of us guessed we would be living in Indonesia and living a life of adventure? I know that I would of bet money against it! But here we are and so happy to be here!

We were waxing lyrically (well as much as you can with a few glasses of champagne....) and came to the realization that we had taken out family "boat" out of dry dock, we have even left the safe harbour!
We might encounter some rough seas, but wow, how fun life is!

This is still my favourite quote of all time

"Twenty years from now you will be more
disappointed by the things you didn't do than
by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbour.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
--Mark Twain

Sickness in Jakarta

Just to break up the monotony of our fun adventures in Indonesia...

I have more sickness to report.

Both the girls came down with Cytomegalovirus last week.
This week Ben has Glandular fever
Quite a few kids are off school at the moment with one or the other.....We are at week 7.5 of a 10 week school term...School holidays are needed!

I think GJ has both!

I had both in my early twenties so should be fine. The girls are back at school and are on the mend. Georgia needed antibiotics for a very infected throat, but Chelsea has not needed any.

Ben is still contagious so is at home being my little shadow........
I think that this is what explains the temper tantrums from a few days ago!


I think that this photo is so precious, It was late at night and we were still at the clinic and the local dr wanted a second opinion with the Expat dr, so Georgia was taken back to the ER to lie down and wait. She is such a little princess like me..........so dramatic but soo cute. My sister saw this photo and wanted to jump on the first plane to comfort her.....
This is the exact opposite from Chelsea LOL, If she needs a blood test she just sticks out her arm and watches......Ben falls half way between the two extremes. This time his vein collapsed so he needed two goes and was quite ok with it all.

It is not until you move to a third world country that you realise how much you take for granted at home.
Australia's drinkable tap water, clean air, sanitary conditions, non polluted environment and access to safe foods makes it very easy to stay healthy.
Here it is a whole new ball game.


I have worked out how to take photos with my hand phone AND to download them......It makes it easy to take discrete photos.....

I am trying to sneak one this week to show the raw chicken handling procedures at the local expat supermarket....oh my you will be shocked!

A tropical birthday party

My birthday was the 5th of March and J's was the 10th; we decided to hold a combined party while on holidays at Sambolo on the west coast of Java.

What a GREAT decision!

We decided to make it a toga party as well!

This was J's and my birthday cake.
There is no ovens or shops at Sambolo, and a cake wouldn't stay fresh from Thursday to Saturday evening so we improvised......Tim Tams and Lamingtons (these are Australian icons).

The bottom RHS photo is the table decoration that the girls made for us.
We had a sheet as a table cloth and had covered it in sparkling party confetti when the girls presented us with two half coconuts filled with flowers.

They were stunning...we were all blown away that we were in togas with the sunsetting on a tropical island with volcanoes as a backdrop.............

J is a explosives-mining-thingy-expert and had great delight on putting on the most AMAZING fireworks display( T even had an OHS plan on standby....I have very clever and efficient friends LOL). This would be absolutely, totally illegal in Australia, probably here too, but fireworks are readily available, even on the beach.
Around the cove another group let off a few fireworks before ours...theirs were quite good but ours were the best!


We had a 14 kids at the party......this was the sort of night that makes childhood memories.


How are we going to top this next year?
And when can we do this again????????????????????

I am now 32+++

This was my surprise birthday presents.
I have long admired these over-sized goblet ice bucket and now have my very own!
I was asked if it was for a very large greedy serve of champagne.... I have been to a few parties and seen these filled with ice with a few select bottles!
The picture frame was also a nice surprise. I was fascinated when I first saw these months ago and set about folding paper to achieve the same look at a fraction of the cost...to no avail.
I can not make my hands do what my brain wants them to do, they are craft challenged fingers!

The ++++ in my title refers to the practice of adding a ++ after the price on just about everything in Indonesia.

In Australia we are used to the advertised price being all inclusive. Here the final price can be over 21% more than the advertised price......sales tax as well as service charge need to be added.

I have decided to adopt this practice for my age, every year is just another +

Birthdays in paradise

We are just back from our wonderful looong weeknd on the west coast of Java.


When we sort through the many, many, MANY photos I will tell all about

• J's and my all Australian birthday cake...Tim tams and lamingtons.....
• hiking through the Indonesian jungle
• fireworks on the beach
• sunsets so magnificent you will not believe that I have not retouched the photos in any way
• our toga party
• swimming in the ocean looking at Anak Krakatoa......( yes that volcano!)
  

Yet another wonderful weekend in Jakarta

Sat afternoon, clean, rested and fresh
synchronized pool fun
Mud mining and construction
Backyard soccer
Saturday AND Sunday night; dinner with friends

humongous garden snails
What the floor looked like on Monday morning....courtesy of the mud construction and Mowgli.
Monday at rest time...
First ever full-blown tantrum from too much excitement over the weekend.
Yes, all books thrown across room and chocolate milk smeared on walls.........
I don't think he will do that ever again.........
He packed them all up too, although his wall cleaning skills leave a lot to be desired.

Chocolate fountain ............Chocolate volcano!

The kids were delighted the other night when the chocolate fountain exploded like a chocolate volcano.....
Someone let their skewer fall in and it got sucked into mechanics, the fountain was not impressed and went off.

Chocolate flew
EVERYWHERE
(except the curtains thank goodness!).

Ben caught most of it on his spider man outfit. It was just pure luck that I had the camera out as it erupted LOL

You can actually see the chocolate flying in the first shot.

The kids all want to know when we can do it again!

Thank goodness I had Samino here to help clean up the huge mess........

The Kamoro tribe of Papua, Indonesia

Blogger ate my post.........

I had an epic post written about the great Lunch T and I had with the some members of the Kamoro tribe of Papua, Indonesia.

It will never get posted unless I summarize......

• Indonesia Heritage society organized in support of the Ubud writers festival.
• Kal Muller spoke about life with the tribe, his role in distributing the tribal art and his job at Freeport mine.
• It was a first for T and I, we work, we don't "lunch". In fact T went back to office after the lunch (and one bucket sized glass of wine).

Adapting to Jakarta's climate.

I am sure I have mentioned quite a few times that Jakarta is hot, stinkin' hot actually!

And it is usually stinkin' hot 365 days a year.

Jakarta is VERY close to the equator.

We have two seasons here, hot and wet and hot and dry.

We are presently in the very, very, VERY wet part.

It is particularly wet at the moment and something strange has happened, it is not stinkin hot, just hot and I am getting cold...........I know, me cold, in the tropics!

I had not noticed it as much until Jakartass (famous Jakarta blogger) mentioned how cold he was.

It was only about 27 degrees Celsius yesterday (80.6F). That is cold when Jakarta is, 99.9% of the time, over 32C during the day (90F).

I have had the A/C off for the last week, well except at night.

I like to keep my bedroom at a Canadian winter temperature.

I have been wearing a jacket to work and to the supermarket to keep the chill out of my bones.

All the kids at school are turning blue and shivering after their swimming lessons.

The smog and haze seem to cut out a lot of the suns warming rays on pools here, I was so surprised to see how much cooler the water is here compared to Queensland.

Next time I complain about being stinkin' hot perpetually please remind me that it is possible to feel cold in Jakarta.

Jakarta Java Kini club launch, aka a BiiiiiiiiiG weekend in Jakarta

We had another wonderful social weekend in Jakarta.

Friday night was the annual school parents BBQ, which was great fun. After it ended we (some of the teachers and partners) moved on to a local club/pub place called the Star Deli.
The music was too loud and the wine horrible but we still had a great time.
I vaguely remember sending a text message stating that I need white, patent leather knee high boots to really fit in!

It was really hard to wake up early for our massage...yes you heard right, we had a masseuse come to the house for one hour body massages !

We tried something new on Saturday night. We live in an exciting place, we have the opportunity to try new things, so we are exploring new places hence Saturday nights outing.

I subscribe to a great magazine called Jakarta Java Kini.

It is a life style magazine written in English published monthly. You can buy it at the shops or subscribe and have it delivered (I did mention to the owner how difficult it is to subscribe and he is so aware of this and is working on making it easier). They also publish Hello Bali which I want to subscribe to as well.

Jakarta Java Kini is starting up a club for Jakartan residents. ( I will explain more later about why I have no details......LOL).
There was a day of fun at Club Azur

One of the main reasons we went was out of curiosity for seeing the inside of Club Azur. I drive past it at least 3 times a day and had no idea what was inside. I have since found out it is a private club for paying members and their guests.

We also thought we would mingle and meet some new people. We all have such a great time with our circle of friends that we never get around to chatting to others.
Unfortunately Sat night was no exception, J had spent a very interesting week in China, T was excited about her new job and I always have lots to talk about as does GJ.

We arrived at 6.30 for some pre-dinner wine tasting. The wines were very nice, served in large glasses which were constantly refreshed.......
The staff from the magazine had been at the club all day for the variety of tastings, demonstrations and talks. Some had helped the long day pass by tasting some of the wines and were hilariously hammered.

We met Alister the Owner and editor in chief, although I doubt he will remember us.
We listened to a wonderful recital from classical guitarist , John Paul.
We drooled over Melanie Wood's posture, she would put a yoga master to shame!
We marveled over Andrew Whitmarsh's bravery, he just wrote a great story on free train travel...on the roof of the carriages (this means your head is REALLY close to power cables which kill instantly on contact). We also quizzed him on his private life and asked for some kid orientated travel/adventure features.
John Aglionby gave a great talk, he talked about measuring the 14m snake in this link. I would love to hear more of his stories....
A gentleman in a black shirt with a nice wife gave a great tipsy talk on Feng Shui , it was hysterically funny. I might add that every one was tipsy by this time too.

We literally stumbled out of the club at I have no idea of the time. I deliberately did not wear my watch so I would not notice my usual 8pm bedtime come and go. Truly.....I go to bed early...
I left behind my information pack with all the details on the new club.....so sorry no details.

GJ and I managed to sleep in to 7am (a huge feat in our house) poor old T and J were up at 5.45am for a family mini marathon.....and yes they all finished!

We started the next round of fun at midday on Sunday, yes a great lunch with a group of friends. An old bloggy friend (although un-met in the flesh) couldn't make it; an always starving Ace took this lunch home in a bag.
We met C's fiancée, an American doing aid work in Ache and washed away tiredness with a glass of bubbles or two. GJ was in heaven as B was a scotch lover and he even opened his best bottle of scotchy goodness for a quick tipple.

I think it would be obvious that we did not make our Sunday night dancing lesson............

Bedtime success

Our kids have always been big sleepers, but over the last 18 months ALWAYS want to sleep with each other.
Now Ben too always wants to join in.
The new rule this year was each in their own bed for school nights.
On Friday and Saturday nights the kids can sleep in a huge puppy pile in any bed EXCEPT mine!

The main thing that has made this much easier has been the colourful mosquito nets we got in Bali.

The girls feel so secure and snug inside their princess enclaves.

For some silly reason I didn't buy Ben one......HUGE mistake that will be rectified (he has chosen Orange for his). He is now buried under a pile of soft toys and cuddlies to make him feel snug and secure every night.

These cost 200 000rp each, about AU$28. I am sure they could be bought for alot less if you knew how to bargain lol.

Polarizing filter for Nikon (Nikkor) 18-200 lens.

GJ had some fun with the new lens on Sunday.
We added a polarizing filter as well as our standard UV filter and this is some of the results.

This is a little tin wall hanging near the pool, I just love the blue.

Ben actually looking at the camera!

A collage of blue.

A warm collage

The whole reason that GJ picked up the camera was that there was blue sky visible. This is VERY, VERY unusual.
We are in the midst of the wet season, and it is really wet too. The rain and wind managed to clear away some of the perpetual smog. Jakarta ( can't find a reliable source for fact linking, but try this) is commonly listed as one of the top ten/twenty polluted cities in the world. We don't see sky during the day and/or stars at night.
This is our home with blue sky above.


The colour and light of this are just perfect to my eye, BUT I am still not happy with the focus.
I might just try to read the instruction manual.


While searching for facts and links I found this on Wikipedia, it is VERY interesting.

I did a speed test on our internet as we have been having a VERY slow and intermittent time lately. This is the best speed so far, I have been averaging about 79kb/s. We use fiber optic cables to receive signal and pay for "up to" 512kb/s.........very different to what we actually receive.

A few friends have recently switched over to the new service from First Media and are all very happy with the speed. I can have "up to" 1500 kb/s for the same price.

I dream of wonderful, super fast internet connections........
I have given up on phone lines here, especially in the rainy season.

One day.........

Here is the link if you want to do your own speed test.