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.