J_45 & 46: Brunei, bugs, proboscis and hommmeee

Ahoy, me hearties!

Well. Well, well, well three holes in the ground. It's that time. The last ever blog about my travels in Indonesia (mainly), the land of chaos, insanity, imbalance and amazing experiences. Let me recount

I say mainly, because, I left Indonesia in the early hours of Saturday morning. We arrived at the airport in Jakarta at around 1am Saturday morning, WAY too early for our flight, and proceeded to annoy all the lovely people we'd met on the course by using up our spare texts and bombarding them all with insane messages. My stomach, alas, seemed to have contracted a bug, and I alternately lay down, moaning, and read a book, declaring I was fine. After a ninja strike on a scurrying cockroach that lived on the bench we were lying on, our gate opened and we made it through to book in and direct out luggage to go straight through to Auckland. Annoyingly enough this guy and his wife pushed in front of us randomly and then a terrible old ex-pat said "I never let these Asians push in front of me, it's the principle, isn't it?" SIGH. So I said "I hope you don't let ANYONE push in front of you" and then remembered how crotchety I'd been getting in the last few days and grew, alas, confused. Luckily, Helena's mammoth bag broke my shoulder whilst I was trying to load it and this physical turmoil distracted from my mental qualms.

We got on the plane, negotiating with Michelle at the last minute to break through the ring of security and visit us at our gate - alas, she was too late, so we settled with sending her crazed texts, in order to express our affection for such a truly awesome person. Then it was a 2 hour flight to Brunei, most of which I spent watching movies, if I can recall. We embarked around 8am in Brunei, and arrived at our hotel to find that our door had a self-latching mechanism and required maintenance. Thus it was that we got about a 20 minute nap before being picked up by Helena's friend's sister for a tour of Brunei. Most unfortunately my stomach had been twinging ever since Jakarta, but it lasted long enough to make a tour of the floating village, which is a whole village of houses on stilts that stand out of the water. There are little bus stations which are basically small shelters on stilts out in the water, where boats stop to pick up passengers. The houses are brightly painted, and there are schools out there, with enclosed gyms etc. We passed a whole group of young boys swimming in the river/estuary which made us all feel a bit ill, since we'd just been told the town's sewerage was pumped into the water.

Then we headed out to the mangrove forest to see the proboscis monkeys. We didn't get close enough to see them properly, nose and all, but we saw them in the distance, dropping from vines at great heights to effortlessly catch the next branch, and fighting amongst each other as to who was going to climb the last tree. They were very cute, and lovely to watch in the quiet of the forest, with the huge roots of the trees rising above the water, the insects clicking and whistling, some weird circus tune playing in the distance, and a big slow monitor lizard the colour of the mud climbing through the vines in front of us. Great stuff.

After that, Helena's friend showed us her house (MASSIVE) and then dropped us back at the hotel for a much needed 2 hour nap (big thanks to Alicia!). At 8pm we boarded our plane and I spent my last money on dumplings, gelato and a toe ring, before boarding at 10pm to catch our flight back to NZ.

The flight was LONG and painful - for some reason, I couldn't get comfortable and sleep for more than a few minutes (it felt like) at a time, so movies seemed to be the only way to go. Needless to say, both Helena and I were very glad to get off the plane some 9 hours later, and glad to reach Duty Free and very glad to be back on home soil, with familiar accents who knew what kiaora meant. We picked up our bags, headed through customs ("Do fish pills from the NZ embassy count?" "...Move along ma'am"), changed our remaining currencies for NZ mulah, and farewelled each other, me to catch a shuttle home, only to find my parents had forgotten to leave a key out, thus necessitating a taxi ride into the city to meet a joyous Mum, and Helena to travel to the domestic terminal only to find her flight delayed.

So it was home to nap, pick up Mum from work and blather to my parents about how amazing everything was, and how different, and how I HOPE that I'm different, and how I really need to travel more! I had BBQ for the first time in ages, and fresh salad, and great wine, and I am one satisfied lady. I've had a fantastic, mind-blowing 6 weeks, and I would like to thank everyone who made it possible - most especially Asia NZ and ACICIS, the head of the JPP unit, the JPPers themselves, my parents, Helena for putting up with me, my Indonesian friends and sources who helped me out so much, and my friends back home who reminded me why it's worth returning, and the people who read my blog, regulars and once-offers, it's really encouraging!

Indonesia is a country of contradictions and frustrations, and it's so full of life, and happenings that chaos runs amok, and you can't help but have a damn good time. Thanks Jakarta, for all the fast and fun times - it really was the trip of a life time.

LESSONS LEARNT 45 &46:

- Me without sleep is not a pretty sight

- Blog writing is heaps of fun

- Jakarta has issues, and it's a heck of a lot of fun

- I like being a journalist!

- First day of work tomorrow, and back to reality

- This is just the beginning of my world travels....

J_42, 43 & 44: Wine and politics, end of days, and presents and accounted for (chortle)

Hello troops!

Well, here it is. My second to last post, and the last one I will ever write in Jakarta (for the next little while at any rate). I fly out of the country in 9 hours, and I leave my kos in 7, at 2am (sigh).

But I get ahead of myself. Let me take you on a journey with my words. Back to Thursday, at any rate.

Details are hazy because the last couple of days have been pizacked, but as I remember it, I worked from home for most of Thursday, having developed a minor cold and not feeling particularly up to trudging into work.. I got quite a bit of stuff written before heading to the New Zealand embassy drinks in my best gears, on the back of an ojek. Having swapped some change with two surprised looking office workers, I headed up to the drinks, to find a whole score (or even 25 oh ho ho) of people there and loads of Kiwis. Helena hadn't arrived, and Sarah wasn't going to, being stressed with the special section, so I wandered up to the military guy from the embassy, who was talking to a famous ex-pat journo. The military guy, never one to disappoint a first impression, said hello unenthusiastically and then took off as I was replying. I guess the dislike is mutual. The ex-pat was hard work but opened up a bit when he realised I wasn't an idiot, or a suck up (I think). Helena then arrived and we proceeded to have a good yarn to several random people, including a software salesman, whose product was used mainly in the oil industry ("Don't talk to me about global warming - I agree and my kids are always on at me"). The embassy held a quiz with various prizes and I'm sorry to say I failed miserably, EVEN at getting the scale of the Christchurch earthquake, despite having LIVED IN CHCH at the time. Ay yah!

I tottered home, full of good wine and glow of warmth that we'd received from an overflow of praise - I told the ambassador it was nice to have an honest diplomat, he said I'd asked very good questions.

Alas, the night was not over - I had remembered on the back of the ojek that I was supposed to write a side bar for this %#$% section, as WELL as a 1200 word piece, and this realisation had caused me to swear loudly (and thus the ojek to swerve violently) and to panic about exactly what I had due. I also remembered a travel competition was due around about now, and looked up the dates to find it was due midnight Friday NZ time - so 6pm the next day here. I don't know why, but it seemed like a good idea to enter, so I stayed up until 3am, writing my article, my side bar and the 1500 word story for the competition.

The next morning, I probably don't need to tell you, was not pretty. However I made it to work in goodly time and tuned up my competition story, before sending it off and wishing for luck. Then it was time for the closing ceremony at ACICIS, which really just involved a speech from the director of our University, and then a group discussion about improvements to be made. I got my certificate in Bahasa (95% booyah!) and then headed back to work early, to finish off my side bar. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to check over my first story, before I headed home for a cream bath with Helena. I chose chocolate this time, and it was once again a fantabulous experience - once I asked the girl to stop rubbing this particular place on my skull she seemed to have an obsession with, since it quite quickly became raw and painful.

Again time, my nemesis, was against me, and I had to cut the cream bath short (cue running out of the salon with wet, chocolatey smelling hair) in order to get dressed up and jump in a taxi to get to Facebar, to meet my mentor for drinks. I espied (a word!) the Australians trying to flag a taxi down on the main road and they crammed in mine, a mutually beneficial arrangement since they'd had no luck getting a ride, and I had no idea where I was going.

At Face, our mentor bought us all two rounds of drinks (woo!) and we got to know him a lot better than we ever had over the past four weeks, since I told him several elaborate schemes he should employ with his interns next year (including popping up randomly behind them and demanding to know why they were using the particular programme they happened to be on at that time: "WE NEVER USE FIREFOX, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" and then throwing the whiskey glass in his hand at the wall and storming out of the office) which he promised to video and then send to us.

I said goodbye with a much better impression of him and headed off on the back of an ojek to keep my reservation for 30 people at an Italian restaurant. I started getting nervous when the ojek guy got lost 3 times, but luckily the head of the course was as organised as ever and had gotten there first with her husband. We ordered starters and wine, and gradually other people began to trickle in - sigh- after our mains arrived. However, it was a really nice night, and so good to see everyone relaxing and getting along after a very short 6 weeks.

When we FINALLY sorted out the bill, for which I had to do my best Nazi impression and ask everyone to PLEASE remember 20% additional tax, I said goodbye to those who were heading off to bed, and went to a bar down the road. It was pretty lame, lots of older people schmoozing, no dancing, and really lame re-mixes, so I had a dance or two and then decided to head home, having had about 5 hours sleep the night before.

So this morning I slept in, got up and packed all my belongings - I had THREE bags full of rubbish, which was fairly disgusting, and managed to get all my belongings back into my pack. Then I headed into Semanggi one last time to meet Peter for lunch and have a chat with him, but completely forgot to ask him about his week away in the excitement of discussing BluRay DVDs (don't ask). On the way to Semanggi, I handed over my blanket, some biscuits and my tea bags to another beggar lady with a baby - hopefully she'll use them, or sell them. After a delicious lunch at the mall, I farewelled Peter, having been told visiting NZ was not too likely since he'd seen Greymouth, and agreed to email instead. Then it was off on my mission to find presents for everyone back home, and I'm sorry to say gang that there are bound to be people I just haven't been able to get anything for. I'm sorry, but that mall is a PLAGUE of commercialism and I got stuck in it until 8pm tonight. How I loathed myself by the end, AND all the shop attendants. Shop girls here (invariably girls) have a terrible habit of a) calling out "Bule sialam" (don't know what sialam is, but bule's annoying) b) standing RIGHT beside you when you're looking at things and c) insisting on trying to sell you whatever you're looking at. They will push you aside to get it off the rack, ignore your questions to tell you it's very cheap, great quality, and then laugh at you with the friend who for some reason is in every shop, sitting behind the 'counter' eating something, or looking extremely bored. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a little bit bitter. (SARCASM)

Anyway I got what I could and escaped, having had a phone conversation with Michelle about dinner (couldn't get to her, might see her at airport, lovely lovely LOVELY (NOT SARCASM) to meet her and Chris if we didn't), and had dinner with Sarah, where we discussed life, the universe and our blasted section. I also ran into Jack and Trish when I was leaving, and farewelled them - visits to Australia are in order I think.

Then it was home, to have a shower (it's INSANELY hot here) and put my presents away, and finally, FINALLY get on to checking this article, re-writing the sidebar to be 'cheeky' (as requested by editor sigh) and then maybe have a nap before catching our taxi at 2am and saying goodbye to Jakarta at 5am.

The projected plan is to arrive in Brunei at (maybe) 9am (?!) and then get a tour of its sights, thanks to Helena's friend's sister ('s dog's uncle's teacher's piano tuner), then sleep, jump on a plane and watch movies until New Zealand, midday Monday.

So I will update on Monday when I'm safely home, my last ever (travel?) blog post. Until then, adios Jakarta, you chaotic, smelly, crazy, awesome beast.

LESSONS LEARNT 42, 43 & 44:

- Diplomats put on a good show

- Jakarta is unbearably hot at the moment!

- It's been an awesome course, with some amazing people. I'm sad to see them go.

- If you come to this city, you can't help but have a great time.

J_40 & 41: Diplomatic dances, internet dating, moshing and final interviews!

Salamat malam nintendo ninjas!

It's been a hectic two days, I tell you what, and I am tired OUT. Let me elaborate.

Yesterday I got up early to head straight to the New Zealand embassy, having been invited by the ambassador to see exactly what our embassy was like due to the programme doggedly ignoring the fact that New Zealand is not Australia. The three Kiwis arrived just in time, and we had all slept badly the night before, so pounced at the opportunity of coffee and drank it as if our lives depended on it, while being introduced to the ambassador's assistant guy (a technical term), the head of immigration and the head of military in Jakarta. I've said before that I quite like the ambassador, and I still do - he's an honest sort of a diplomat, and he seems pretty genuine about his job. What was interesting was watching the journalists ask the tough questions diplomatically, and the diplomats slide their way around them. I had to ask my questions several times in several different ways before I got them answered, and they really did NOT like my questions about the Free Trade agreement NZ wants Jakarta to ratify, probably because I couched it in terms of globilisation being the new colonialism. Anyway after much wriggling we got down to the bare bones, which was that NZ was trying to reap Jakarta's benefits for all it was worth while reimbursing a bare minimum, and all the grand talk of no barriers to trade was really for NZ's benefit, and to Jakarta's harm. However, I'm not really sure if levies etc are any good either, since NZ would STILL use them to our advantage, and we have a wee bit of power being a (supposedly) developed country. At any rate it was a very interesting talk! The military guy (who, incidentally, was Maori himself) was a bit of a tool, who decided that everyone on the benefit was a bludging Maori (nice to see our diplomatic service are so up with the times), but unfortunately that attitude is quite common in some ex-pats - perhaps it's the olde worlde, colonial feel to the richer contingent of Jakarta.

After ascertaining that we COULD take sanctuary in the embassy's floor of the apartment complex it was located in should we get in trouble with the police, but that it wouldn't do any good (the ambassador looked thoughtful when I asked and said "Well, we could TRY locking the doors." Not reassuring, but hilarious), we headed off back to work - promptly we thought, since it took us about 15 minutes to get there. An hour later we arrived frazzled and furious, our driver having missed our exit, driven in a massive loop and then taken the busiest road possible to get back. We all swore copiously and he looked fairly nervous by the end of it - it was the one taxi driver any of us had not thanked so far.

Back at work, I grabbed some lunch and then interviewed one of our LOs who does online dating and kindly agreed to SAVE our feature. She had some hilarious stories, like the time she had trusted a man she was talking to enough to turn on her webcam: "And guess what I saw!" [Points below her waist]. It's hilariously tongue in cheek, and I had a great time writing it with Sarah, and am quite proud of the end result.

After that, the LO told me to try chat on this net dating site I joined, as she said this was a really easy way to get quotes from people. Naively I thought this would be a great idea - OH CRUEL FATE! For noobs like me out there, NEVER, EVER, do internet chat, particularly if you are desperately serious about getting an end result, like useable quotes for a newspaper. I got bombarded with private messages, one of which went as follows, except with appalling spelling and punctuation which I can't bring myself to replicate:

James: Hi

Alex: Hi, are you interested in answering some questions about internet dating for an article?

James: That's weird, okay.

Alex: *Various questions*

James: Um I don't use net dating, look at my picture, do you think I can't get a girl? That was a dumb question.

Alex: Cool. [WHY ARE YOU ON HERE THEN YOU IDIOT?!]

JameS: Are you really a journalist?

Alex: Yarp

James: Yarp?

Alex: = yes

James: Are you a virgin?

Alex: *Block*

Le sigh. Of course I should have expected something like this, and one girl was quite helpful, but alas not an Indonesian, and also was called 'Mintykins' (?!) Another one asked me every five seconds for the entire time I was online if I was "fine dear? Dear? Dear? Are you fine? Dear?" Creepy.

Anyway I signed off ten minutes later feeling dirty and had a moan to Sarah. Then I put out an alarm call, and my fellow JPPers came to my rescue by getting THEIR Indonesian friends to contact us, so the story was saved! After that, it was time to run home with Sarah to get ready for the Australian ambassador's farewell, and then jump on an ojek to get there in time. The ojek drivers were CRAZY, but considering we had 15 minutes to get there in rush hour traffic, this was pretty awesome - envision motorbikes roaring along narrow, cracked pavements beside a row of stand-still traffic, and suddenly braking to avoid the huge pothole/drop into the sewers that litter the pavements here in Indonesia. Terrifyingly fun!

The Australian ambassador's house was, as we imagined, opulent and MASSIVE. I signed in and picked up a name badge that sported the legend "Mr Alexandra Walls" (sigh) before heading in to see all the ACICIS students decked out in their best gear drinking free wine and eating hors d'oeuvres (didn't even have to look that spelling up, booyah!) Then at 8pm I snuck out to flag down a taxi and urge them to drive as quickly as possible to the DEFTONES!

At 8:15 (they started at 8), we pulled up at a concert-looking place, and I thanked the driver repeatedly and ran inside, only to find Janet Jackson posters being pulled down, and lounging ushers. Um? They read my ticket, laughed at me copiously, and then pointed in the other direction - outside. I turned to see my taxi driver waving, and worked out via charades that he'd taken me to the wrong place. We jumped in, he drove to ANOTHER empty stadium, before getting it right and dropping me off outside the right place. I ran in, hearing Feiticeira as I did - curses! Luckily, I was only about 30 minutes late and I think I missed that one song. Also lucky was the fact that Jakarta mosh pits are exceedingly tame - I could survive in the circle pit which is impossible when I try in NZ - so I made it to two from the front by the time the next song, Shut up (and Drive) had finished. Soon after, and in quick succession, I lost both my shoes, my phone, my necklace and my atm card. Also in quick succession, I found one shoe, my phone and my card - booyah! Maybe it was because I was the only female for about 10 people deep, but people here are really cool about giving you some room between songs when you're looking for stuff - or maybe it was because heaps of people were fainting and threatening to throw up, I don't know. I also managed to head butt two guys completely by accident when I was head banging and they got a little too close. Casualties of rock, my friends.

Anyways for the fans out there, they played Passenger, Digital Bath, Change (in the house of flies), Elite, Minerva and Diamond Eyes, but I was pretty disappointed they didn't pull out My Own Summer and Back to School. Still, I was stoked with Digital Bath (my 'I'm so 17 right now' song and actually quite a sweet piece of music) and the fact that my preview picked most of the songs they played and EXACTLY what the band would do onstage, despite never having seen them before. BAM! Rock reviewer? I think so.

I'm FAIRLY sure Steve Carpenter (guitarist) smiled at me, particularly when I mimed worshipping him for his FLUORESCENT YELLOW guitar. Chino won the crowd's heart by ripping out a can of the local beer (Bintang) and saying "Yeahhhhh, BINTANG!"

By the end of the set I was on the barrier (oh yeah) and hung around for a bit afterwards to chat with some teenaged guys about how not playing Back to School was a cardinal sin (direct quote) and how awesome Change was. One of the guys had lost his iPhone, but was still too stoked to care ("It was worth it man! How could they not play the Mini Maggit version?!") and his friend raved for a while before saying "Hey you've only got one shoe!" I explained I'd lost it in the mosh, and he said he'd seen someone pick it up and toss it to the back - "Maybe look at the back of the stadium, you'll find it!" I thanked them, said goodbye and sure enough, found the offending footwear, battered but still useable. Apparently, people got pickpocketed and bag slashed, but all I found at the Deftones was camaraderie. Oh, and an AMAZING TIME that I will remember forever.

I ojeked home, still slightly tipsy on wine and exhilaration, and headed to bed, waking up several times, before getting up late this morning to start writing a diary of my time at the Globe, for my final interview this afternoon. That's right, readers, I've got two more days at the Globe, and three more in Jakarta. How time flies!

I headed into work to print the diary, photocopy my features and check in with Sarah about the Valentine's Day article before her interview. I wrote approximately half of it, forwarded it to her, and then headed down to meet the head of our course. I was a bit nervous, since my last journalistic review was CRAP, but needn't have been - she said she was happy with my progress and the only thing my mentor thought needed work was that I was reserved in a professional context. She was very surprised at that ("I've always found you very open socially!") and considering I got 'over-enthusiastic' in a school report once, I can't blame her. I think I get polite and quiet when I'm in a new, formal context, which is never a BAD thing - ah well. She also mentioned the intro to one of my features, which had been changed by the subs into something quite questionable that I wasn't happy with, so it was nice to be able to tell her that they weren't my original words, or even close. Blasted. Subs.

Then it was back to the office to finish writing the story with Sarah, which was HEAPS of fun and produced many a giggle. I had to explain to Sarah what a '+10 to charisma' reference meant (oh the shame) and she had to carefully edit my work which was of a much poorer quality than hers. Then the remainder of my time was spent starting to write my special section feature which HAS to be mostly finished by tomorrow at 5pm because we have drinks at the NZ embassy.

So after a dinner of pasta and Lego's tomato sauce (yum), and after snaffling some chocolate off my Candy dealer, Helena, who has decided to buy a trench coat and tape different forms of sweets to the inside, I shall head to bed and cross my fingers this feature comes off.

Adios, mi amigos!

LESSONS LEARNT 40 & 41:

- I can write a feature in about 3 hours, provided I know the topic well and have some useful quotes

- Deftones are pretty darn good live

- Nothing beats seeing a favourite band live

- Internet dating is AWFUL

- Free wine is the best kind of wine! But NZ wine still beats Australian wine into the ground

- Puns are the best. They're so...punny? (Ouch)

J_39: Interviews, interviews, interviews!

PACHOW!

I'm running out of ideas for the beginning of these things. Not that you can tell from that stunnner.

Today was a full on day, I kid you not. I got about 5 hours sleep due to my outta whack sleeping patterns, and emerged grainy eyed at 9:30am (I know, it's a hard life) to head to work a bit early and get some serious interviewing done, since last week was a bit of a wash.

Cue ringing people frantically all day, and trying various University departments in Malaysia, and FINALLY pinning down the elusive and slippery urban planner in Jakarta after being incredibly patronising and firm with the non-English speaking secretary, who then APOLOGISED to me for her lack of English when I arrived for the meeting. I felt awful, but assuaged my guilt by assuring myself she was still in the wrong for not actually liasing with her boss as to his schedule, and making me travel to her office for no reason last week. Ay yah.

I had to hang around until 7:30 to do a phone interview with an architect, and while I was waiting for the arranged time to call, I joined, with great mortification, a dating website on Facebook in order to steamroll ahead with Sarah and my feature that we forgot was due this Wednesday and thus have done no work on. I chose one of my awesomest photos (for the Facebook friends - and fiends - it's the one where my face is right up in the camera and I have crazy eyes). To make sure the ethics weren't too shady, we decided I should announce in my profile thing that I was a journalist looking for interviewees and NOT a lonely soul adrift on the sea of...loneliness? Alone.

It's all a bit meat marketish, unsurprisingly - so many people claiming they want to find love, and then partake in a site which fundamentally involves clicking 'Yes' on a person's photo. I suppose you have to start somewhere? Anyways it's quite a lot of fun and I'm hoping I get some people willing to be quoted because otherwise I'm done for. We're also looking to find what net people are intending to do for Valentine's Day - is there a virtual restaurant you can go to? Do you just set up Skype and have a candle burning to the side of the screen? ("How exactly did you damage your laptop ma'am?" "Uh...sabotage?") Our back up plan is to interview one of the copy editors and bribe them to make up answers. Ethics shmethics!

After this, it was a quick-fire mission to find shoes since my last pair exploded AGAIN. I don't mean that they exploded once and that I painstakingly reassembled them and fixed the leaking reactor, but that this is the second pair of shoes that has exploded, having had my huge Western feet jammed into them everyday for a grand total of oh, A WEEK. Sigh. I know the reason they keep dying is because they're cheap, but there are no reasonably priced shoes in Jakarta - it's cheap and explodey, or expensive and uncomfortable. Helena and I spent a good half hour or so perusing footwear and quoting IT crowd at every turn ("THE SHOEZA!" "Like all women, she's gone shoe mad.") and then headed to disgusting Pizza Hut for tea where I got the grossest pizza I've had in a long time, complete with potato on top and Thousand Island dressing (tastes like sweet fish paste) blearghhhhh.

At home, we finally discovered the band that generally rocks up at 1am and blasts us awake, and in the mellow twilight they're not half bad and make me want to clap, cheer and sashay rather than throw a shoe at them. They have this portable keyboard which is set ontop of two amps (as far as I can see) which are in turn set on a cart that one man pulls around, followed by a whole rag tag group of people carrying guitars, microphones, tambourines, flutes...it's brilliant! A mix of Indian music and gypsy jazz and lots of fun to listen to when you're NOT trying to sleep. A few minutes in, we saw the Australians from downstairs poke their heads out over the balcony, and then the little girl from downstairs, Moko's daughter Tasha, clambered up with them and pointed excitedly at the band as the Australians danced their hands in the air for her. Very nice. We cheered the band as they left and waved at them until the disappeared down the street, lugging the amps and guitars all the way. Muy cool.

Now it's off to bed, for the biggest day EVER tomorrow - visit to the NZ embassy, more V-Day net dating interviews, the Australian Ambassador's farewell dinner, from which I will sneak out early to go to DEFTONES! HELLS YEAH!

Until then comrades, keep your balalaikas warm (ask the Beatles).

LESSONS LEARNT 39:

- Jakarta still has some surprises left for us, with one week left. I'll miss you, you heaving, polluted beast

- Gypsies. All kinds of cool.

- Internet dating is depressing! From the ten minutes I've tried of it, anyway.

- Ojek drivers need to shower, and also not try and rip off bules. I hates it!

- Emily is awesome! I am getting published in her Slightly Grimm zine and I'm really excited about it!

J_36, 37 & 38: Another weekend in Jakarta, SPOILER: Sadness ensues and a Solemn Topic - this one's for the Byeard Maggott

Hello all,

Not sure if this weekend is really worth the post - it IS unfortunate I keep having boring periods for you! After Thursday's epic rant, I'm not entirely sure any of you are reading anymore anyway, so I'll carry on regardless, YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, I SHAKE MY FIST AT YOU ANY DANG WAYS!

Ahem. So Friday was spent trying to ring Malaysia to interview people about Putrajaya, the administrative capital - mission, unsuccessful. I went out to lunch with the other Globe interns and had a talk about plans when we're back home, and where we want to be in a bit - sounds like heaps of people are having quarter life crises, often tied to the fact that jobs, or bank accounts, require you to hang around for a year or so at home, when we're kind of ready to leave...I know I am.

HOWEVER, an afternoon spent researching technology advances made me really excited about my new job starting - I just love seeing what science comes up with, it's pretty amazing. Like creative problem solving but with gadgets. Yeah. You can have that one for free. It was mainly for the dream Jakarta section and I kinda overwhelmed the lady writing it with research and ideas, but it was much more preferable to researching capital cities that have moved and freaking out about everything due this week.

That's right readers. You may have noticed an inevitable pattern of laziness and then stress. I'm pretty sure this is just journalism, because you sit around doing research and waiting for people to contact you. Then you just decide people can go hang out with rabid bears and start bombarding them with phone calls as your deadline draws nigh and your editor starts appearing randomly behind your shoulder and asking frigidly why you're written "Cultural Stuff" half way down the page, and nothing else (not that this happened to me, or anything...)

Then it was time to head home for a quiet night in - I was supposed to go to Jogja this weekend but decided I would stay home and try and get some work done - HA! Foolish Alex, when will you learn? The rest of Friday night was spent sitting on Helena's floor, ordering pizza and drinking beer while chatting to Josh from downstairs. Then Helena watched Peter Pan while I, most unfortunately, looked up the Maggott Show, having quoted and episode to Josh and decided to unleash its glory upon them. If you've never heard of this show, the first episode is up on Youtube, and the rest can be accessed from steveargyle.com, if you search 'the maggott show'. They are a series of hilarious, utterly crude, clever fake radio shows hosted by a guy pretending to be an alien called The Byeard Maggott, who is ultra violent, sick and bloody hilarious. (Well some of them. Some of them are just crude. Sift through the chaff and all that I guess).
He interviews various guests like Yoda, Satan and Warchief Thrall from Warcraft 3. So one for the nerds, but a laugh for all. Anyway, I say unfortunately, because when I couldn't find the episodes on the original website, which had been inexplicably turned into a poker and travel website, I asked around this old forum my brother introduced me to, that the Maggott used to pretty much run. Turns out he killed himself about a year ago, and the website was allowed to expire.

Not nice. It's really thrown me, not the least because, as everyone says of most suicides, I just would never have picked it. From the sounds of things, he had a really loving, large family, so I can only assume he was depressed for a very long time. It was all very sad, and my creepy internet creeping (read: stalking) didn't turn up anything except more and more sadness, and grief and this enduring sense of confusion, and helplessness - why? When you've got so many people who love you, isn't it worth it just to hang on for them? It seems, as I say it, like a pathetic way to live, but the amount of pain that people seem to go through, and anger and guilt, when someone suicides just doesn't seem to make sense. I suppose it all comes down to the fact that I've never had depression, minor or major, and it's pretty hard to imagine a world where everything is grey and there's no point in getting up anymore because everyday is exactly the same amount of awfulness. Anyway, this is why I created the spoiler title, because not everyone wants to read this kind of thing.

So having made a major social gaffe on this nerdily nerdy forum (something about why he'd taken a hiatus OH DEAR) I think some of the people are going to try put up the shows somewhere that is easier to access, in order to remember him and keep the awesomeness of the show alive. RIP Maggott, you crass but hilarious bastard - you saved my life on train rides to school and during class, and procrastination won't be the same without you.

Anyway Peter Pan kind of lost its appeal after that, and I headed to bed a slightly subdued person. I slept in the next morning as per usual, and headed to Cafe Batavia, the colonial retreat, to meet Michelle and her boyfriend Chris for a drink before hunting down dumplings in Chinatown (Happy Chinese New Year, by the way!) Chris turned out to be awesome, but Helena and my navigational skills didn't, since we caught the bus to about 5 minutes from Batavia, and then proceeded to walk in the wrong direction for a good 15 minutes. LE SIGH. Roads are confusing in Jakarta - signs are scarce and don't always belong to the road they're on, or the one they point to, there are people and cars EVERYWHERE, it's always hot and polluted, and I don't like to ask people for directions sometimes, because when I need to there are inevitably about 6 toothless men grinning at me and saying things like "Hello meeees, oh yeahhhh" (no joke). Very uncomfortable - the calling out, and trying to touch you, and muttering things in Bahasa, and waving in your face is getting REALLY REALLY old. One part of Jakarta I won't miss.

Anyway, we made it, I enjoyed a hasty glass of Caribbean punch, and then we were off to find dumplings! We walked down many a twisty, muddy street lined with red lanterns that looked very China-towny, and I found a sweet shop on my first go, stocking up on exotic looking lollies (ALL OF WHICH WERE FOUL) including gelatine in a box, weird milk concoction wrapped in paper with a horse on it and a coffee mixture with a smiling panda on it, and some gummy fruits (which redeemed the lolly shops, BY GOLLY CHINA!)

We walked past some skinned frogs legs, rows of them, on bamboo leaves, flies buzzing around them, ironically enough (probably screaming in victory and pooing in triumph on the frog legs) but no Frenchmen (oh ho!), and directly behind the legs, whole frogs. Not sure if they were dead, they still had skins on at the least. The road was filthy - a layer of mud - and we all got flecked legs and dirty feet, grossss. We found a big temple complex with brightly painted rooves and dragons running across the eaves, and people lighting incense, and outside were the most beggars I have ever seen - very sad. By this time, we'd walked down a bajillion streets, and were lost in a 'walk way' that was actually just a very small gap between houses that twisted and turned back toward the main road and was PACKED with stalls. Luckily we emerged into the sunlight and out from under the dripping eaves to find a weird semi-abandoned mall (there are a lot of these in Jakarta) that had a dumpling place, and we sat down with a sigh of relief for some tea, dumplings and spring rolls. YUM.

I bussed home and had a shower/lie around, and then headed out at 9pm to go karaoking with Michelle et al. We even managed to drag Peter out, but only had one hour at the karaoke place ,which was sad but sensible. Then Helena, Peter, Michelle, Chris and I had coffee at their hotel and due to my uselessness, discussed enthralling subjects such as the Kirsk and how people could've escaped, the Bends, submarines in Sydney harbour, the Brisbane line, or whatever it is, and sea mines. Ah well, I found it enthralling. Oh, and Ghost Ship (Karl Urban, phwoar!) Then it was hometime, for an epic sleep until today, when I did literally nothing. I am useless! I did manage to con Helena into buying pesto and pasta on her shopping trip, but unfortunately my stomach rebelled. Owwww.

Now it's off to bed, and tomorrow it's time to PANIC as I must have three interviews done by tomorrow, NONE of which are organized. Great. Also panic inducing, my computer at work has been set up, and my friend Charlotte is all ready working hard. I am muy scared! Home in just over a week, amigos, and I leave Jakarta in less. How time flies when you're having AMAZING amounts of fun!

LESSONS LEARNT 36, 37 & 38:

- Eat lunch before setting out on wandering adventures - although the dumplings DID taste amazing

- DON'T drink copious amounts of coke! Your stomach will rise up against you.

- Get out of Jakarta if you ever travel here, and don't give a flying flip about work (that's a phrase) - I should have done this more

- Get your work done early, then you can travel out of Jakarta, instead of reading comics and listening to Nine Inch Nails on repeat. Sigh.

- Don't choose Island in the Sun by Weezer to sing - it's impossible!

- DO choose Smile, by Lily Allen. Awes sauce, particularly with accurate Cockney

- Brothers can be bloody useless when it comes to emailing, and mighty unflattering - but it's nice to have them

- I'm glad to have the friends and family I do :) I'm muy lucky and think so every day.

J_35: SPOILER: Epic rant, Work, frantic work, and schmoozing

Kumbayah, travellers

Some kind of rhyming reference to yesterday's post there. Incidentally, in reference to the 'travellers', has anyone out there seen the 'Geeks and Gamer girls' music video parodying Katy Perry's California Girls? It features the one and only Seth Green? Fun fact, he's married to the girl dressed as Lara Croft (NO SETH! WHY COULDN'T YOU WAIT FOR ME?!) but it's an interesting video - caused a lot of controversy because the girls lie around naked, with things like PS controllers and geek DVDs covering their more scandalous parts. It's nice that the gaming world is recognising women participants a bit more, but it's worrying that as always, women's participation is based upon sex and bodily parts. There was an interesting Penny Arcade comic about a new game out that contains a very large breasted woman, clothed (if you can call it that) in hair that comes off when she battles, who constantly licks lollipops.

Penny Arcade left most of the talking to female game blogger Leigh Alexander (not that it matters, readers, I'm just saying maybe as a female blogger she has a bit more knowledge/perspective about what video game objectification feels like/means). Here's the comic for those interested, and remember to click on the 'news' icon, which has some fairly onto-it thoughts from Tycho: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/11/

Alexander argues that the sexuality of the character, Bayonetta, is theatrical and intended, and that it's refreshing to see female characters who are sexy and every bit as powerful as the male characters, who are also ridiculously proportioned, but not particularly lambasted by the gaming community. Article here for those interested: http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/213466/bayonetta-empowering-or-exploitative/

This is all true, except Bayonetta still bothers me. I guess, it's fine to have theatrical characters, but when most female game characters ARE ridiculously sexual, the theatricality is lost. Also, sexy doesn't mean her body has to be anatomically crippling. Also also, why does being female and powerful mean you HAVE to throw sexy into the mix? Why is being female tied to being sexy?

I suppose the problem is, is that stereotypes abound in the gaming world for both men and women - men are huge muscle-bound, shaggy haired, macho, rough-voiced....where was I going with this? No no, I joke, but a lot of video games subscribe to the 'barbarian and wench' character game types, and let's face it - geeks lap it up. I'm getting a bit scatty here, but it's an interesting topic that is changing daily - does sexy mean you're selling out as a feminist? I certainly don't think so, but I think making someone an object, as Bayonetta is, isn't right.

I rest my case with case studies, examples where women in games are powerful, genuinely admirable characters who don't have to show their animated cleavage to show they're women. Most of these characters are generally playable as men, which might have something to do with it - they are given HUMAN dialogue options, based on the character's role and motivation, regardless of gender, so the answers ring true and aren't tainted by gender assumptions. Commander Shephard of Mass Effect (also starring Seth Green, and Raphael Sbarge, of Carth legacy, more swoon) is a good example (I think, haven't played most of the game!) Revan and The Exile aren't bad either in KOTOR 1 and 2. As far as I can remember, Sarah Kerrigan from Starcraft was pretty awesome. The female Fallout characters were never disappointing, and Alex Roivas from Eternal Darkness is cool even when she's crazy (which, when I was playing, was most of the time).

I think a good rule of thumb in gaming is that if it's adult anime or fantasy RPG, expect stereotypes galore. Would love feedback/comments/views!

ANYWAY, after that epic rant, what happened today is not so exciting: I went to work late, I frantically read up on capitals cities that moved and why, I chatted with the guys at the office about how we SHOULDN'T have turned up yesterday because it was a public holiday (NO ONE TOLD US) for Chinese New Year (or rather, today was, so the paper wasn't produced yesterday, you see what I mean?)

Then I left and caught a taxi with the others to Social House for some drinks (Lychee cocktail) and a schmoozy, delicious dinner of peking duck pizza (am over the taste of duck, however, very fatty and heavy tasting) and cheesecake with my first glass of wine in a while - exorbitantly priced, and I spent far too much money, but it was lovely. In the middle of it, some ladies dressed in traditional Chinese costume came in and danced, which was nice.

At the end there was the usual hassle of paying for the bill. Because we're all essentially travellers, or at least, very temporary dwellers, we all pay in cash, and haven't organised bank cards etc. There's also the fact that Indonesian restaurants charge a service tax and a something else tax (PSI? I'm not sure) but don't add put it on the menu. So you have to calculate your own tax, according to wherever you go (some places don't charge it, some charge only one...very confusing) and then try and find the right change...it's exhausting and when you've got 12 people and a 3 million rupiah bill, and people forget their tax, you end up short about 200, 000 rupiah, paying much more than you bargained for to make up the odds, and essentially a nice meal is tainted. Nothing in Indonesia is easy.

HOWEVER, the wine, food and dessert was lovely, and it was one of the JPPers bdays so it was nice to see her have a good time. I headed home and had a cold shower, and am now preparing to get up early (read, 9am) for the first time in a long time. I can do it!

Also also, a REALLY good view of Indonesia here, including a run down of the inherent problems/power structure: http://atraceintime.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/working-in-wonderland/

LESSONS LEARNT 35:

- Pay for your drinks at the bar - it's not worth it otherwise

- If you plan to stay in Indonesia long term, arrange a cashflow card

- Tech writing for NBR is going to be fun, I'm thinking tentatively - I spent all afternoon looking up tech advances in engineering and it was fascinating - if you've got time, have a look at solarroadways.com, I think it is

- It is time for bed!

J_34: Failed interviews and a better but less kostly kos

Jumbalayah, loved ones.

I don't actually know what that means, but it makes me think of 'gumbo', which incidentally will be the name of the first child I have, should I ever have any (God forbid). "Gumbo" I'll yell into the peaceful summer air of the neighbourhood "Come inside, I'm making stew..."

Today was a wee bit of a fail, redeemed by a trip to Sarah's kos.

The failure part had a lot to do with the fact that last night was a really restless night spent thinking about completely pointless topics. I finally drifted off to sleep about 4:30am and was up at 9:30 to get to an interview with Jakarta's head urban planner, which I had arranged the day before. I successfully navigated a taxi, but when I arrived (ten minutes early, I might add), it was to find that he had decided to meet with someone else and flag my interview. Um. Thanks for telling me?

I returned to the office, fuming, having negotiated with the secretary, who spoke very limited English and kept saying "Oh my god" to demonstrate this, that I would return at 2pm to interview this #@*^(% guy. After a morning spent reading Penny Arcade (not even going to pretend I did work, here) I rang the office at 1pm, being a little more savvy this time around, and was told that actually the planner was busy at 2pm as well, and that I should come in on Friday. Now wise to this snake-like secretary's ways, I insisted she check this was okay first, to be told that actually actually he was busy all week and would I fax my questions through so they could arrange a time with the English speaking members of the office? I know this trick from way back, and after I dutifully faxed the questions through, I appealed for help to the journo who originally gave me the planner's number, who very kindly rang him and arranged a meeting for me on Monday afternoon in a matter of minutes. BLOODY. HELL.

Then it was an afternoon spent feeling sleepy, drinking tea, and fudging around on Facebook, homestarrunner.com and Hark, A Vagrant! I headed home around 4pm for an epic nanna nap, and woke up around 7pm to head to Sarah's kos, which I still haven't seen. I walked with Izzy and Josh, the Australians from downstairs, having purchased my pot luck contribution (chips and Tim Tams, classy, I know) and thanks to the very detailed map Sarah had drawn me (complete with little squares labelled with things like 'Abandoned field with loads of rubbish') we made it to her kos, which is down a series of windy little roads, and over a bridge, and is just really nice - big, A/C'd rooms, balcony, quiet, clean - sigh!

We had dinner with Sarah, Becky and Elise, and caught up with everyone and their doings, then loaded up the live feed on ABC about Cyclone Yasi and proceeded to feel very worried about everyone in Australia, and very sorry for them. I headed home about 9:30pm to do some more thinking, and watch Youtube videos of Vin Diesel talk about D&D. Who would've thunk it?

Fingers crossed tomorrow is more productive, and I make a decision about Jogja!

LESSONS LEARNT 34:

- Thinking too much is tiring

- I miss my family

- I like hanging out with people every night - flatting can be a lot of fun

- I want to live near a river (but NOT a dengue-carrying mosquito-infested one)

- The net in our kos is AWFUL - but only a week and a half more now, uwah!

- Being a journalist is pretty dang awesome

J_33: Lazing, researching and pool

Hola banditos!

Today was not too interesting unfortunately. I would try to be more so, but my computer is spazzing out and the space bar has broken, would you believe it, on the right side, which is of course the side I use. Gripping stuff I know, but have you ever dropped your phone in your glass and then tried texting with it, and one of the buttons just won't work no matter what you do?

...Neither have I....

So I got up really late today, which was ultra useless. Had a wander into work, and read my Deftones preview which was published today (yay!) but had had every first sentence altered (sigh). Then had a casual lunch with Helena, but foolishly ordered a mochachino which was muy expensive, and very bad for me. But having gone for a run last night, I felt mildly virtuous and somehow, skinnier. Psychology ay. Who needs it.

A side note on running in Jakarta - it's like trying to run in treacle, and breathing soup. And you get stared at - one security guard clapped me as I ran. I had to cross over the busway and sounded like a herd of discoing elephants as I ran on the steel plates. I got very tired within about 10 minutes, which probably had a lot to do with my fitness level, but there was a ten second burst where I felt really good, so will have to attempt another run tomorrow. Unfortunately, the humidity was awful, and I had run to the supermarket to do my evening shopping, and I'm pretty sure the man behind me went "POOH!" and moved lanes because of me. Alas, my cursed brothers have proven omniscient, at least about my odour.

Then I stayed at work, 'researching' (read listening to Deftones and Shihad, chatting to mates in NZ and occasionally reading a page or two from the Google textbook I was meant to be scouring.) At 6:30 pm I met up with Helena, Josh and Gina for dinner at a Japanese restaurant (not that good, and very expensive. And tiny sushi pieces!) and then we caught the busway to pool. Gina hadn't eaten and wanted dessert, however, so we stopped off at Dunkin Donuts and got a dozen donuts (3 each - diet out the window, YET AGAIN). Several heart palpitations later, we headed up to the pool hall, where Josh proceeded to carve up (blasted boys are ALWAYS better than they say they are at pool), I managed to do terribly for most of the games and Gina and Helena did well. After pouring talcum powder meant to dry your hands and thus improve your game into Helena's bag - BY ACCIDENT! - we headed home and I washed some of my gears, looked up flights to Jogja for the weekend - maybe, maybe not - and accused Peter of using my email to lambast Unilever, when I'd actually just signed an online petition about cocoa trading from the Ivory Coast, and not read it properly - I know, I'm a one of those.

Until tomorrow, amigos.

LESSONS LEARNT 33:

- Pool is fairly cheap entertainment

- I need to practice my pool....

- I need to look up the rules too - everyone was convinced I was making them up and I'm fairly sure I may have been...

- Running may be too difficult an exercise option - maybe just wear clothes and go swimming?

J_29, 30,31 &32: A Lot of Catching Up, Awesome Pants and Too Much Good Food

Evening all! Apologies for the complete lack of blogs for the last few days - the internet at my kos died two days ago, although considering the router is dangling from the ceiling, swaying gently above our bathroom sink in the evening breeze, we're probably lucky to a) have had it fixed and b) not to have been electrocuted whilst being hygienic.

SO! Friday started out pretty cruisey, although I was a little sad to see my pornography law feature hadn't been published. I had just one feature to write that day, and it was a preview for the Deftones, so I figured it'd be easy to wing (write with PASSION, Alex!). I churned that out around 3:30pm and took off with Helena to go shopping for something nice to wear that night. Two or so hours later, I had managed to buy THE MOST AMAZING PANTS IN THE WORLD, which are genie-like puffy style yellow paisley, and rock my world, along with every other person's world that sees it (that sentence made sense. It was a...wait for it...sense-tence?)

We returned home exhausted, but not before having run into Peter, who was gazing thoughtfully at toy helicopters (he wanted to mount cameras on one, and we didn't ask what for) and after throwing on my Batik shirt as a dress (I had tights!) we headed to Face bar, where I knocked back 3 cocktails and some spring rolls (in that order) and found out we should have booked for Social House. Cue poor old Michelle having an extended talk with the Indonesian owner of the bar, and re-routing her taxi to us. Oh dear. We headed next door to the Indian restaurant and had a very nice, if very expensive, meal spent regaling Michelle with our train-jumping adventures, and moaning about the placements. My necklace consisting of a brass teapot and cup was much admired, and I got home feeling pretty good.

The next morning I had a sleep in, and then due to miscommunication, missed having lunch with a group of JPPers, so I headed in to get the Black Forest pancakes that had been tempting me all week (pancakes, cherry sauce, chocolate, cream, ice cream ohhhhhhhhhhh. Diet going well, as you can see) and then headed on the bus way for the first time with Josh and Helena. Most unfortunately, I checked a text from Michelle just as the others got on the first bus - hold up. Buses in Indonesia work like this. You walk over the steel busways that I've described many times before - where the beggars sit? By the way, busways are muy unhygienic - my total is now five men urinating at the base of the one closest to me. They are also not made to hold bule - our one's plates move alarmingly when I stand on them. So you walk up a big metal ramp that crosses above the main road, and in the middle is another steel ramp that goes down to the bus shelter, and at the end is the exit ramp to the other side of the road. You head down the middle ramp and purchase either a paper ticket, or a plastic one. The plastic you drop into the turnstile and move on into the little bus shelter, and the paper you keep and waltz on through the (broken) turnstile. Ah Indonesia.

You then wait by the open doors of the raised busway, and when the bus comes, it empties its passengers at one window, then moves forward to the loading window. You have to push a little sometimes, or at the very least, don't get separated from your friends by one old lady and then check your text. You will get left behind and realise you don't know where you're meant to get off, because Helena's the conscientious one. Luckily I had had the forethought to listen to Helena when she carefully instructed me as to which station we needed to get off at (and checked my phone when she texted me it) so I was fine, and even managed to get a seat. Don't run away with the impression that Helena's the only practical one here - I do useful things like booking restaurants and sorting out encroaching taxi drivers. In fact, anything to do with someone trying to gyp us, I generally handle. Some might call that 'cheap'. I prefer to think of it as proactive, and money enhanced.

I found Josh and Helena at the correct station and we caught another bus (it's 3500 rupiah for anywhere on the busway, as long as you don't leave the busway, which is pretty bloody cheap. It's just a pity the busway only goes certain places, and is really badly run, due to, you guessed it, korupsi). We got off at Pasar Baru, where Pud our guide took us the first weekend we were in Jakarta, and the feeling was very different - manageable, comfortable (up until some guy got his child to sucker punch Helena in the thigh. Ouchies. Apparently she was too shocked to do much except snake eyes the guy).

Pasar Baru, alas, didn't render us any of the pimp gear we were supposed to be finding that day, even after a good three hours of searching. Who knew bad taste gear would be so hard to find?!
We decided out of desperation to head to Ambassadur Mall, which was the theme of this blasted party anyway, and successfully caught not only the busway but then a mini bus (the little blue buses I talked about in my earlier posts), which I was pretty stoked about. There I found in quick succession a tiger beanie with a little tiger face on top, a truly hideous yellow leopard print necklace and yellow nail polish (thanks to Helena) and decided to forego the gangster pimp costume popularised by Snoop Dogg (FOR NOW - I had visions of a purple velvet suit, purple panama hat with feather, purple platforms, gold capped canine, encrusted pinky fingers heavier than yo crate, pimp sunnies and permed hair, sighhhh) and instead go as some weird tiger woman (bad taste indeed!) Josh settled on a bling necklace of a confused-looking panther and Helena had go-go girl earrings and a headband. We had beers and KFC - we were sorted. Unfortunately it was about 9:30 by this time, but we headed home for showers and headed out the door at about 10pm which was amazing hustle, I thought.

True to Indonesian form, there was a massive macet on the way so it took us an hour and we turned up really worried everyone would be leaving (we weren't sure about parties in Indonesia yet). Luckily, we had arrived at just the right time - just after a huge crowd of people, just before people were too drunk to move. A band was playing, the house was freaking HUGE (there was a baby grand piano! COME ON.) and everyone was in costume.

Needless to say, the New Zealanders carved up the dance floor, allll nighttttt longgggg. I may have pulled some particularly spectacular move in my puffy paisley pants of PERFECTION, and I may have forced all the JPPers attending AND the guy who invited us to perform their best Mick Jagger strut. I have no regrets. It was an excellent dance crowd, and everyone was giving it their all - good times, my friends, good times.

At about 3am we decided it would be a good plan to head home, with regret, since it was the first time in a long time I'd had a good dance, and it signalled the end of the dance crew, since the other five or so JPPers moved on to a club to show Jakarta how it's done.

The next morning I woke up late and got changed into my nicest gears to head to one of Jakarta's better eating establishments, Social House. We met up with Michelle and her friends Asi and Jess, from Bogor, and proceeded to order up a storm. I had a pizza called 'Salmon 2-way' and was quite disappointed when normal salmon pieces arrived on the pizza - I don't know what I was expecting, maybe whole salmon passionately entwined on my plate, but it certainly wasn't normal ol' salmon. Luckily for Social House, it was delicious, as was my cheesecake dessert - freshly made, I think. Yummmmm. Then I headed home for a fairly epic nanna nap, and a night spent eating chips and watching DVDs. Bliss.

Today was fairly casual - headed into the office late (I KNOW, I'm useless) and then spent the day researching the special section the interns are working on. I think I will have to get onto some more stories as I'm getting a bit bored, but it's nice after last week's panic to have nothing much to do. I organised a few interviews, read a few pages of a research book (online, obviously), messed around on facebook and then headed home. Now it's time to attempt my first run in Jakarta and then head to the supermarket for supplies, and dinner.

Catch you all tomorrow, when I plan to re-match Gina at pool.

LESSONS LEARNT 29, 30, 31 & 32:

- House parties man. Way too cool

- Dress up parties man. Ultimo cool

- Even when deathly tired, parties are worth attending

- JPPers. Too cool.

- Difficult subjects make the best journo fodder - my pornography law article got published today and even has some reader comments! Woot!

- Even if you hate it, you gotta have some hip hop for a party situation. It ain't nothing but a g thing baby

- Beer makes dancing easier, but less co-ordinated

- Paisley pants make everything better

- Pizza. So good right now.

J_28: Women's rights, complaining and nothing much else

Kia ora day trippers,

Another boring day today. All's I did was write up my other article, get invited to a bad taste party, get invited to Bali, and write another feature. All in a day's work, really.

So I was late AGAIN, but knuckled down to work after a VERY SHORT couple of hours procrastinating on facebook. I had all ready written about 500 words of my Rahima women's rights feature so today wasn't too much of a stress, even though I'd lost half my dictation from the interview - ay yah! On my desk was an invitation to some of the subs party that weekend, the theme of which is Ambassador Mall, which is kind of like a Savemart-style, loads of weird clothes, shop. So I'm thinking I might invest in a Panama hat and purple suit, if such things prove easy to find (oh, I'll make them easy to find, readers).

Then it was lunch with the head of the programme to check up on progress. I moaned a bit and I got the impression I was meant to deal with it, which I suppose is fair enough, and then got back to work, minus an iced mocchanino run later in the day. I really need to invest in this swimming pool everyone keeps talking about, so I can actually exercise off all the sweets and fantastic food I'm eating.

In the afternoon the Kiwi web editor and one of the former ACICIS students invited us Kiwi interns for a drink, so I went and had a beer with them and got to know them a bit better - they had been in Jakarta for the Marriott, which must have been pretty crazy - they said the blast shook the buildings around them, but that people kind of didn't really click something was wrong and continued on with their work, like the earthquake in Canterbury.

Then it was back to fix up my story a little, and then jetset home, but not before trying Dunkin Donut's croissant sandwiches (don't ask, and don't try - not so good) where I lazed around for haaagees and now plan to catch up with Helena. Tomorrow is on like Donkey Kong!

LESSONS LEARNT 28:

- Being friendly gets you party invites!

- Trying new things man, I cannot recommend it enough - Helena had a blast!

- Jakarta is not a good place to shop for togs - the ones I found have like leggings down to my knees

- My A/C is lame! I am SO HOT right now, and not in a fashion way!

J_27: Featuring comics and a cream bath

Aloha campers!

Today I was the first one to arrive in the office, despite being half an hour late - this 'manage your own time' thing is very seductive.

We had a meeting for our special section which I have done NOTHING on. The other problem is I felt incredibly ill the entire time, possibly due to this insipid parasite everyone has caught, or maybe just due to my family's awful stomach gene. So I rushed out half way through and my presentation of my part of the section did not go very well. I then had to rush out to an exhibition, and had a REALLY awkward lift conversation with my boss, where I babbled as I apologised for leaving the meeting. Oh dear.

The exhibition turned out to be in a cafe (!) but was very cute and had some real talent on display (and some real un-talent), so I tried to rush back to the office, the feature being due that day, but got stuck in a blasted macet. Indonesia, why must you play me like that?! I also succumbed to BK - fun fact, whoppers live up to their name in Indonesia. I couldn't finish it, nor could I finish the bizarre deep fried cheese stick.

Back at the office, I spent the rest of the day writing up the comic exhibition, had dinner in the food court and headed home, handing out apples and tripping up on paving stones as I went. When I got back to the kos, I managed to successfully tempt Helena into a cream bath at the salon next door, which was A-MA-ZING, very relaxing and lovely, and now my hair smells like avocado and is very clean and bouncy. Huzzah!

Tomorrow, I have yet another feature due, as I do for Friday, but then we're meeting up with Michelle for a night on the town!

LESSONS LEARNT 27:

- We've been in Jakarta for a month now! Tempus fugit, ay?

- I have terrible posture - I felt much better after the massage

- Spontaneous activities are awesome

- Food courts are NOT awesome to eat in

- BK is muy disappointing after delicious Indonesian food

- It's nice to be busy when you know what you're doing!

J_25&26: First feature and Grade A schmoozing

Buenos dias! This 'writing every day' thing is not going very well, but nezza mind, I will try harder...tomorrow, maybe...

SO Monday, I drifted into the office at 10am, which is my wonderful start time, and spent a day of writing my pornography law feature and frantically ringing people to check that what they said was right. One of the more subtle problems with the language barrier is that people here will often agree with what you've said to make you feel better, when they don't understand, which means real trouble later when you quote them on it. One of my interview subjects said twice that he didn't want to change Indonesian law, and then twice that he DID. He then told me that child pornography ownership is illegal in Indonesia, when a human rights lawyer told me it isn't. So I rang him to discuss this and he said "Yes yes yes, I agree that it is illegal. Yes it is. What? I'm not really listening to you, I'm in a meeting. I'm not actually sure, email me later about it." Not. Helpful.

Anyway I rang UNICEF to sort it out and they were AMAZING, getting me an expert opinion overnight that clarified everything (the law is fairly dicey and open to interpretation on the subject which is what caused the confusion) and I managed to write a semi-decent feature that I haven't yet heard any complaints about. Unfortunately I had to stay until 9pm to get it all written up, because we were told at the very last minute that when they say deadline at my paper, they actually mean the day before. Sigh.

So I got home really exhausted, but still managed to watch an episode of the Hills with Helena (don't ask, it's so dang addictive) and found out that the tiramisu ice cream I bought her to pay her back for eating hers has COFFEE in it and so she can't eat it, due to a severe lack of taste. Ay yah!

Due to my losing my phone, I have to get Helena to smash my door in every morning to wake me up, and this morning I could have sworn she DID knock on my door, because I woke up, thought "I'm way too tired for this" and decided that since my time was supposedly my own and I'd stayed at work an extra 3 hours to write my article, I would sleep in. When I woke up again, I had the impression it was 12pm and panicking, I booted up my computer to find it was actually only 8:20am - so who knows when I actually woke up originally. Of course, I fell back asleep in relief and was an hour late ANYWAY but luckily no one here gives a hoot when you turn up since we're contributing work for free, as long as you get your deadlines on time.

Today was spent trying to write up another feature and planning for tomorrow, which is going to be a really busy day - I need to go to a meeting about our special section, which I've done nothing on, and then go to an exhibition and interview the curator/some artists, and then write the story up. Um. Do-able, right?

At about 5pm I got a call from the head of the JPP course (or rather, Helena got the call) and she said she'd heard I'd lost my phone and that this wasn't allowed - apparently ACICIS needs a number they can contact me on in case of emergencies (such as the bombing of a Western-frequented hotel...). I refrained from pointing out that if I were in a position to not contact my family myself, I probably would also be unable to use my cell phone even if it were on me (besides, I don't have the insurance deal that gets your coffin flown home) and agreed to purchase a new phone ASAP and she would drop me off an old phone of hers to use until Friday, when Michelle will be coming to visit Jakarta, bringing with her my PHONE! (And, unfortunately, my old simcard, which she somehow also got off the shady Bogorian driver, legendary).

Then it was off to the NZ ambassador's house for dinner! To be honest with you, we had all expected someone's apartment, some beers, jandals and a very laid back, casual dinner. But the ambassador's residence is HUGE - marble doors, 12 person dining table, pool, massive mirror in the entrance way, chandeliers, and WINE! Ohhhh, to taste that delicious liquid again! We DID have a BBQ, but it was true "let's try the natives food, darling, ho ho" style, with perfectly grilled chicken, bratwurst salmon - everything was DELICIOUS and so nice to have after weeks of Indonesian food (which is delicious, but it was nice to have a taste of home).

The ambassador was an intelligent, lovely guy and not snake-like at all, as I have found with other ambassadors. He was very definitely a diplomat, but I found it refreshing that he could be somewhat candid about certain questions. It was also really lovely that he had hosted a dinner where three lowly NZ journo students were the guests of honour - we felt very abashed! (That's a word.)

I met lots of distinguished people - the deputy editor of Tempo, Indonesia's best investigative journalism magazine, journalists who have been in the business for 40 years, some during Suharto's era, Tempo workers who had won journalist of the year for confronting officials about their corruption. I didn't realise it at the time, but the ambassador had obviously invited a whole heap of his contacts he thought we'd be interested in. We all felt distinctly underdressed too, since we'd had to come straight from work, and I had had to wear my not-so-posh trousers, everything else being in the wash (I'd planned to wear my fancy work skirt, but had been walking home last night when I passed an ojek driver fiddling with his chest. Random, but I thought nothing of it until I felt something warm splash the arm opposite him. I turned to confront him in confusion, only to see him looking up in indignation into the tree above me. So, did a monkey urinate on me? Was there someone in the tree? I don't know, but I threw the clothes into the wash when I came home and scrubbed my arm raw.) I had a wonderful night and it was lovely to connect with Kiwis, and to have a really nice dinner with some nice booze on the side.

So I am a satisfied trooper tonight, what with a freezer full of ice cream too, but fingers crossed I can get this feature done for tomorrow, and then the one for the next day, and the day after that. That's right, four features in one week. Friday, I am going to be free!

LESSONS LEARNT 25 & 26:

- When the dress code says casual/smart for an embassy, go for smart, rather than casual

- Wine helps conversation flow

- Social skills are very important

- Ambassadors are fascinating to watch in awkward social situations, like master ice skaters, whirling around and performing conversational pirouettes.

- NZ is a great little country, but we're so very little compared with our neighbours

- Try not to mention how your diplomats have failed you in the past...

J_22, 23 & 24: An upside, and BOGOR!

Aloha readers! I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but as you must know by now, weekend blogging is not my strong point...

Let me begin from the beginning, but first a caveat: Tonight's post will be a monster!

Friday went well - I got up super early (read, 7am) to get to a 9am interview early and ended up at the House of Parliament a half hour before the interview, so I had a coffee and prepared my questions. An hour and three quarters later (and thus over an hour late), my interviewee came in, mentioned the traffic briefly, and we got down to business. There is a very famous Indonesian phrase that has slipped my mind in true Wooster style but translates as rubber time, which bules (rude word for white foreigners) tend to find infuriating but must learn to deal with. However it DOES mean that, apart from the drivers, everything is very laid back in Indonesia. Anyway the interview went well and means I may be able to save my story - it was all about how certain parties had pushed for the child pornography loophole (that if it is for personal use, it's legal - scary) to be closed in Indonesia but that politics had basically muddled the law and allowed the loophole through by accident.

Then it was back to the office to do some research before getting a driver I had sneakily booked that morning to take me an hour out of Jakarta, to interview the director of a Muslim woman's rights group, who was LOVELY. We talked for a good two hours and then I ojeked back to Jakarta. It took an hour and a half, and while I loved it, I got a very numb bottom and my hands vibrated for hours afterwards. I tried to take a video of it but when I nearly lost the camera (and the bike) I decided to stop.

I was so tired by this point (it was 6pm) that I decided to have a quiet night and bought a very naughty pizza (sounds like a strip tease involving a dancing pizza slowly removing pieces of salami...) and garlic bread and watched DVDs until 11pm, then did the most stupid thing I've done in a long time - tied my mosquito net to a bottle of beer and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. I remember having a moment of doubt and then thinking, those look pretty heavy. Idiot. Cue getting into bed, rearranging the net slightly and hearing two huge bottles smashing from a great height. Then cue tiptoeing across a glass-strewn floor and cleaning up beer, vinegar and shards of glass for an hour with the only thing available, my towel. The walls of my room have been stained with drips of vinegar, so it looks like I killed someone with brown (stinky) blood. SIGH.

The next morning I got up at 5am, as the plan was to head out to Bogor to visit Michelle and have a relaxing weekend in the country. I got to the train station as instructed well before six but hit our first snag when it turned out that the train to Bogor didn't leave from that station. Some others turned up and we headed to the next station along via taxi (our guy taking us to the next station after THAT in order to get more money. Bastard.) Then Peter, Jack and I jumped on a train that had every seat filled, the doors wide open as it moved (no air con), and at one point, a small hole rusted through the floor. It was also filled with vendors selling anything from papers and MASSIVE lighters to towels. We jumped off at one station to meet other JPPers, but they insisted the NEXT train was the one we wanted, so we left them to it - foolishness! Their train was air conditioned and had seats. However, ours was very cheap and had a lot more life to it - at one point a band got on and played for a couple of stops, very cool.

We hopped off an hour later and met Michelle and her friends Asi and Jess, who would prove life savers later on as they could speak fluent Bahasa and had infinite patience. We all piled into two cars, seven of us in each, and set off for Bogor, stopping only to take in the view (beautiful - high up a mountain, mist below us and rows and orderly rows of dark green tea plants) and for me to squish into the back in order to stop one of the other girl's moaning (she had taken a Valium, which hadn't seemed to help). Then we headed off to our guesthouse in the Pancak Pass area, which was run by Balinese people and was just beautiful. It had a dining area whose veranda looked out into the valley of green green trees, insects everywhere and a series of ponds and water wheels below us, and mist up into the mountainous distance. It also had those Arabian raised sitting things, with cushions, that could fit about 6 people, which we all took turns at utilising. Our rooms were fine - I topped and tailed with Michelle and kept her up too late talking - and over looked the valley too, and everything was green and mossy - the bricks were covered in them and had random archways, it was like an old ruin in some places. I saw a squirrel creature with a weird nose, a HAND-SIZED bright yellow spider (gross) and I fed the huge goats with curling horns carrots - they were kept in little wooden boxes which seemed cruel - I hope they were just locked up for strangers. One of the goats kept making burping noises when we were there - whenever conversation stalled you could hear "Barrrrrrrp".

After we got settled in and ordered lunch - I got a delicious chilly green bean concoction - I headed to the main road by myself to get more money out of the ATM, and then proceeded to climb the mountain to get to the markets and botanical garden at the top, to meet the others. I really need to exercise more - my thighs were aching, I was drenched in sweat, and I had to stop a couple of times, but it WAS a pretty steep incline. My progress wasn't helped by the village children who would gamely run up and down the 45 degree slopes, one of whom said "Hello bule" at me, cheeky so and so. They would ALL say "Hello Mr!", whole tribes of children, and lounging men, and giggling teenage boys pushing each other toward me - I was a real oddity, it was like the circus came to town (plus I felt like an elephant, puffing and blowing as I was). It got very very annoying very quickly, and I felt quite attacked after a while, but the walk was LOVELY - sunshine, mountains in the distance, quiet little houses, little crooked stone steps leading to their doors, and bajillions of tiered gardens - Mum would've loved it, they were all carefully tended and had heaps of different plants. As I walked, at one point prayers started and the singer was very good - haunting and lilting, great atmosphere music.

I reached the markets and walked the wrong way, reaching the National Park before I turned around. Then I bought carrots to feed the ponies I could see walking up and down the mountain, and headed to the botanical gardens, where no one was insight. By this time I was exhausted, so I headed back to the guesthouse, giving in and jumping in a little yellow van that served as the mountain's bus service, similar to the blue mini cabs in Jakarta - very cheap, stops where you want it to. I was again impressed with how nice Indonesians are - the people in the bus told the driver when to stop for me, and told me how much to pay him. I got out at the guesthouse to find that the others had done the opposite to me - bussed up, walked down, just missed them. Ah well.

By this time it was late afternoon, so we ordered coffee, waited for the others to turn up, and then watched Ananya eat banana pancakes, deciding as we did to order them for breakfast. The others showed up with this fairly greasy guide in tow, who kept trying to get us to hire him, and telling us he'd give us special prices like 100,000 each (so about 1,000,000 in total) to guide us to a FREE, EASILY MARKED waterfall. He also kept wanting to come to dinner with us and get in our cars...very creepy.

We wandered down the road in the pitch black in order to find dinner - even though Pancak Pass is in the country, basically, it's still quite a busy little road we were on, and we had to walk single file a lot of the time to avoid getting hit by over-eager drivers and bikers. It was a warm night and the crickets were out in force, and the air was so fresh, after bloody Jakarta - it was lovely. However, dinner was a bit disappointing - we went to a banquet place and they gave us far fewer dishes than usual, and they all tasted horrible, and there was no stewed duck! My heart broke. It was a nice place though, and the trip was worth it for the Cornettos we bought at the store next door. Then it was a walk uphill in the dark, avoiding the massive potholes and listening to the little streams that occasionally flowed alongside the road. Back at the guesthouse, I realised I'd left my phone in the hire car, resolved to get it tomorrow, and headed to have a cold shower (BLISS) and get into bed, where I talked Michelle's ear off (it was great to see her again!) and then slept like a LOG until about 8pm. Apparently I talked in my sleep, and I did have weird dreams, but it was so good to climb into bed after 5 hours sleep the previous night, 5am start, and a long walk in the sun.

This morning was overcast (it rains something like 350 days of the year in Bogor) and the scenery still beautiful. We ordered banana pancakes...and 1o minutes later ordered another round. Unfortunately because the owners had to make them from scratch, it took ages to get the last pancakes, by which time it was 12, our drivers had arrived, and I'd ascertained that my phone had been taken by the driver's friend who'd taken the car the night before (my phone had been turned off, and I'd had full battery). The driver promised to find out from his friend if he had it, and with that we took off to see the markets and botanical gardens for those who hadn't seen it. When we got out of the car, we started to move off as a group, when I saw one of the horses from the day before. Unfortunately, his hip bones were sticking out and could be seen very clearly through his skin, and Peter told me after the horse had taken two steps with me on his back that it was animal cruelty, and I had to agree. I hopped off and fed the horse the entire bag of carrots I'd bought, and he seemed marginally more alert.

Then I headed to the gardens and after about five minutes, caught up with Michelle and the others, Peter having attracted a toothless old man who insisted on following the girls around asking them to kiss him. Sigh. It was decided that we would skip the botanical gardens and head to the tea plantation to have lunch, as the gate to Pancak Pass closes at 3pm (and wouldn't open again until 6pm - apparently they only let tourists in at set times, then locals, then tourists....very interesting). Michelle talked to our driver in Bahasa, he nodded and agreed that he would drive to pick up Dana et al from the garden's entrance, and then go to the address she gave him. She repeated the instructions, the driver said he understood, and then tried to leave the Gardens without picking up Dana and her friend Steve. Not wanting to pay another 30000 rupiah fee to get back in for all of ten seconds, we all called out and explained the situation to him again (twice) and we picked up Dana, went to get her luggage, and then headed to the tea plantation. A good hour or so later, we arrived at the rockiest road I've ever seen that ran along a sheer cliff off the mountain. We bounced along the road, feeling distinctly nauseous, and then waited tensely as the driver backed right to the edge of the cliff and then stopped. We all hopped out and climbed a short path to find we were on top of a peak that overlooked the entire valley. The top was paved with garden tiles and had rounded edges that just dropped off into space - people were paragliding off the top of the peak for 50,000. But alas, time was short (and perhaps Indonesian health and safety not SO great) and we had realised the driver had taken us to the wrong place. We rang Michelle, whose phone had died, and then we rang someone else, to ring the other driver, to ring OUR driver (who had taken off to take in the view himself) and explain just where the hell they were. Unfortunately, we were just out of time, and decided to head for Bogor before the gate's closed. We explained this to our driver, without much hope, and all seven of us jumped back in the car, when the driver let go of the hand brake and took his foot off the brake, letting the car slide backwards off the cliff.

I'm not even kidding - the car rolled back for a good two seconds, and our back wheels went off the edge, before the driver braked. The entire car, including the boys screamed, the driver put the car in 1st as we all clung to seats and tried to take in what was happening, those lucky enough to be sitting on the sides grabbed the door's handles to jump out (I was in the very back) and the driver revved the car for a heart stopping 2 seconds until the back wheels found purchase on God knows what and we lurched back to safety. The driver then LAUGHED.

I yelled "Don't laugh!" and him and then said "Hati hati!" (Be careful!) which probably wasn't much help considering he spoke Sudanese or some other language beginning with 'S', apparently. He then headed back down the bumpy road and back to Bogor, where we got stuck in stand still traffic for a good hour and then experienced true Indonesian driving when the driver and several other cars drove on the wrong side of the road for extended periods of time at 100kmh and more.

Back at Bogor, we stopped off at a really cute cafe with a view of the volcano, complete with its massive chunk of top missing, mist, little orange cottage roofs and kites flying high in the sky. I ordered pizza and beer and took a walk to the bridge to see the sunset - bright pink and orange, listen to the prayers at 6pm from the mosque and then BATS started flying and flapping from tree to tree, big ones, small ones, ones as big as your head! Very cute, they were chittering all the while.

After dinner we farewelled Michelle and hopped in the cars to head to the station which was 2 minutes away. 15 minutes later, we told our driver 'train station' in Bahasa three times, and finally made it to the station, the idiot behind the wheel having taken us the long way for no reason. Yes, we had to pay this goon who had nearly killed us. He probably still has my phone.

We said goodbye to Asi and Jess, who had come with us to help us negotiate tickets, and then we got on a train. Unfortunately, there were 4 trains at the station, and everyone was on the one furtherest from us, leaving in ten minutes. Cue leaping from trains down to train tracks, scrambling up into another empty train, jumping across space to another train and then arriving in the right train only to be told it was the wrong one, leaping back to the third train, being told by four different people, four different places it was going and then finally deciding to get back on the fourth train with everyone else, because it was leaving first, and it was air conditioned. I abandoned the boys to sit in the special women's carriage (not sure why there's a women's carriage?) and found the other girls who said we were on the right train and they'd tell us when to get off.

An hour later, I farewelled the others and taxied back to the kos, where I regaled Helena with my tales and was devoutly grateful I'd cleaned up the beer and vinegar before I left. Now it's off to sleep, in order to write 1000 words tomorrow. Ay yah!

LESSONS LEARNT 22, 23 & 24:

- Bogor is beautiful!

- There is nothing more relaxing then getting back to nature, and fresh air

- Mosquitos here are insidious - I've been bitten four times on my TOES of all places just writing this

- Travelling with people is more fun than alone

- Being alone can be good

- Exercise is a Good Thing

- Sleeping after a long day is AMAZING, as is a cold shower after exercise

- Squat toilets are not half bad - better for your bowels/bladder, apparently