Malice in Blunderland

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice...

2008-09-26T04:03:00.000+07:00

So yesterday I found myself less than half an inch away from being able to legitimately wear a blinged up eye patch.
And I learnt a valuable lesson: never underestimate the lethal power of a hyped up four-year-old girl with a sharp pencil and a blithe disregard for anything in her peripheral vision--like, say, her teacher.
I actually felt really sorry for the poor little mite. She's a tiny thing, and desperately quiet and shy. She normally wouldn't say boo, but yesterday in class she was really starting to come out of her shell; singing and dancing, and for once not taking any crap from the boys!
But come about the half-way point of the lesson, when the kids were doing an activity that involved a bit of colouring-in, I noticed a crayon that had fallen to the floor so I bent down to pick it up. At the same time, she dropped her pencil and dove theatrically for it, springing back up with a cry of 'mine!' and the sharpened weapon clutched (pointing straight up, of course) in her tiny fist.
Being a lot older and slower, I was still bent over picking up the crayon (I guess from the outside it probably looked like one of those martial arts movie scenes where everyone's in slow motion except the hero), so I was perfectly placed to cop six inches of cold lead right in my left eyebrow.
And what a special feeling that was... I could feel the point of the pencil jab in, hit my skull, then judder along the bone. Yucky. And it hurt. A lot. But what can you do? For a few seconds I clutched my forehead theatrically going 'ow, ow, ow' (at least I had the presence of mind not to treat it as an emergent language situation and introduce the kids to some choice expletives). Then I saw how little K's face had dropped, and how close she looked to going catatonic at the thought that all this blood all over her teacher's face and hands was because of her.
So I grabbed Anita, who was fortuitously walking past the room, and she sang a few songs with the class while I got myself cleaned up and dressed the wound. For the rest of the lesson my main focus was on smiling at K a lot and making sure she felt included. Poor little monkey, I think that was the first time I've seen her do something spontaneous, and she'll probably be having nightmares about it for weeks!

*************************************************************************************************************

So what else has been happening in the Land of the Megamalls?
Not much, really. Tash had her birthday last week, but it was a bit of a low-key affair, since I had to work and we were busted-arse broke after the Bali trip! The guys at work did organise a surprise cake and some pressies for her, which was lovely (thanks guys). We'll celebrate her birthday properly next week when we've got a week off for Idl Fitri and we head down to Yogya to meet up with my sister Megan (her first time in Indo).
The monkey's going great guns. Her two big things at the moment are spinning until she get's dizzy and falls down, and running around with a black sheet over herself (old enough that she can see through it. Just.) like Caspar the unfriendly ghost. Tash has got some great video of both these, and will probably get them uploaded today.
Anyway, Tash is off to the expat kiddies singing group this morning, and I'm taking my bike to the shop to get fixed, so that's all folks...

New School

2008-09-20T05:17:00.000+07:00

Time for a new-look blog...
From now on, Malice in Blunderland is defunct, and Malice in Blunderland Redux is the new pretender to the throne...
In theory, I've set things up so they'll cross post. But the new blog has seperate sections for photos and videos (that's one of the things that persuaded me to switch: the ease of uploading videos), so blog entries per se will now be a little light on images if you're only looking at blogger.com.
The new site is:
http://fergalandtash.multiply.com
Bookmark it, tattoo it on your forehead, tell your friends... There's a new sheriff in town, folks.

2008-09-19T22:57:00.001+07:00

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Tash,
Happy birthday to you ;-)

Bugger the Kangaroo Court, Let's Have a Lynching

2008-09-19T16:07:00.004+07:00

Two things came to my attention today that disturbed the hell out of me, and I can't quite decide which is more worrying.

The first was a video that surfaced on the web of a guy, probably in Western Australia, beating nine kinds of hell out of a kangaroo while his mate egged him on. I hate this sort of stuff. Sure, I eat meat (although not much), and there's nothing nicer than a marinated roo steak done medium-rare on the barbie, but the sort of person who would torture an animal like that has to be one seriously disturbed individual who's only a copy of Soldier of Fortune and a weekend of pig shooting away from climbing a clock tower with a selection of semi-automatic weapons and a cut-lunch.

What really disturbed me about the incident were the reactions of supposedly sane people to the bashing. The following are all comments from a Facebook group that was started in response to the attack ('Manhunt for the Wanker Who Bashed The Injured Kangaroo'):

lets find these f...cks and we can play smash the injured wannabe kickboxers!!

Anyone who is cruel to animals needs to be taken into the desert and pinned into the ground,have slits cut into their bare flesh and have honey poured into the wounds and let the ants and other insects eat them from the inside out.

…we can lynch the little fuckin idiot once someone knows who he is and feed him to the DINGOES.

It's a pity being stoned to death is no longer a legal punishment. I'd gladly break the fuckers that did this...

dont know exactly wat happened but YEAH CUT HIS BALLS !!!

They should be stoned in public!!!

I would love to take a claw hammer to this guys knees, groin and face.

i recon they shuld tie his hands up and let a roo kick the sh17 out of him and film and and put it on the net so he can be humiliated and noticed

they all deserve to get beaten up and knocked out just like they did to the kangaroo!!
animal cruelty to the poor kangaroo, u better not ever cross my path cause what I'll do to you will make what the NAZI's did to the jews look like child's play.

NO EYE FOR AN EYE BULLSHIT HERE. IN THIS CASE ITS AN EYE FOR TWO EYES, TWO EARS, HIS NOSE AND EACH STRAND OF HAIR RIPPED OUT FROM HIS HEAD ONE AT A TIME SLAPPING HIM AS HE PUTS UP A FIGHT.

LETS FUCKING FIND THIS CUNT AND KILL HIM!

COWARD PIECE OF SHIT MY HANDS ARE AROUND YOUR NECK AS SOON AS I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

i think a beating doesn't really do it justice.cut his balls off and throw them to kangaroos before being put in a cage and everyone given a stick to beat him with, keep him alive, maybe some chinese water tortue, and finish with him being hung drawn and quatered.

I want them both to die horribly and only after suffering for a long long time. Hurting animals is only one step away from hurting people

THE GUY THAT DID IT NEEDS TO BE HIT OVER THE HEAD WITH A BRICK THEN DRAG HIM TO A REMOTE SHEARERS SHED IN COUNTRY NSW. HE WILL THEN BE TIED TO A HOME MADE ELECTRIC CHAIR WITH A LIT CANDLE BY HIS BALLS. EVERY TIME HE MAKES A NOISE HE GETS SLICED WITH A RUSTY SERATED LOAF KNIFE AND A KICK TO THE FACE. ONCE HE HAS GIVEN UP ALL HOPE HE'LL THEN BE SET FREE IN A PADDOCK IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE SO THE POLICE HELICOPTER FINDS HIM WITH 4 BROWNSNAKES 2 FOXES AND 4 DINGOES FEEDING OFF HIM. THE PHOTO THEN SENT TO HIS MOTHER. IM SORRY FOR THE EXTREMETIES BUT YOU HAVE NO IDEA JUST HOW SICK THE ORIGINAL IDEA OF BASHING A KANGAROO IS COMPARED TO MINE. THIS BOY DESERVES TO FACE FULL ADVERSITY FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE.

Pretty disturbing stuff, no?

Who do you think poses the greatest threat to a peaceful society? Someone who, probably while dangerously intoxicated, does something stupid and violent that, hopefully, they'll regret for the rest of their lives? Or someone who, in cold blood, can advocate slowly torturing someone to death as punishment for any crime?

My personal favourite is 'don't know exactly wat happened but YEAH CUT HIS BALLS!!!'. This guy doesn't even know what happened, yet he still wants to mutilate the perpetrator! I just hope he's not on the jury if I'm ever accused of doing anything. ("Well, we didn't really understand the evidence, your Honour, and we dunno if he done it, but we reckon you should burn him at the stake anyway.")

I don't know.

Homo sapiens sapiens (now there's a misnomer for you) has been around for, what? About a hundred thousand years? And for most of that time there's been someone in the background saying something along the lines of 'Hey, can't we all just be nice to one another for a change?' (apologies to Douglas Adams). And for most of that time, they've been completely drowned out by the baying of the mob. If they were lucky, maybe they got a light jail term as a conscientious objector. If they were unlucky, of course, they found themselves nailed to a plank and placed in the invidious positition of unwittingly spawning a world religion that put the 'blood' in blood-shed.

Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing bringing Iola into a world that has people in it…

2008-09-14T10:56:00.002+07:00

Night shot or Prambanam Temples, originally uploaded by rowells.

Oops. I really like this shot, taken just outside our hotel by Peter with his new camera, but for some reason it didn't load with the others.

2008-09-14T10:48:00.003+07:00

The following 20 odd pics are all lifted from Pam and Peter's Flickr site. Most of them are from when they came to visit us in Indonesia, and some are from Sydney and Tasmania in October/November 2007.

With Lee and Uncle Marcus, Sydney 2007

2008-09-14T10:36:00.001+07:00

Iola2.jpg, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola, Sydney 2007

2008-09-14T10:35:00.001+07:00

Iola1.jpg, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola & Amelie, Sydney 2008

2008-09-14T10:34:00.001+07:00

Iola5.jpg, originally uploaded by rowells.

Mount Olympus, Tassie 2007

2008-09-14T10:32:00.001+07:00

Mount Olympus, originally uploaded by rowells.

Snow on the track, Tassie 2007

2008-09-14T10:31:00.001+07:00

Snow on the track, originally uploaded by rowells.

Snowing! Tassie 2007

2008-09-14T10:30:00.001+07:00

Yes Fergal it really is snowing, originally uploaded by rowells.

One of many bridges crossed, Tassie 2007

2008-09-14T10:28:00.001+07:00

One of many bridges crossed, originally uploaded by rowells.

Darwin Eskimo, Tassie 2007

2008-09-14T10:26:00.001+07:00

Darwin Eskimo, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola's new potty

2008-09-14T10:22:00.001+07:00

Iola's new toilet, originally uploaded by rowells.

Ramayana Ballet

2008-09-14T10:21:00.001+07:00

More Ramayana Ballet, originally uploaded by rowells.

Doing the Iola run

2008-09-14T10:20:00.001+07:00

Doing the Iola run, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola's fan club at Borobodur

2008-09-14T10:19:00.001+07:00

Iola's fan club at Boruburdur, originally uploaded by rowells.

Everyday transport Surabaya style

2008-09-14T10:18:00.003+07:00

Everyday transport Surabaya style, originally uploaded by rowells.

Fergal, Iola and Tash in Prambanan

2008-09-14T10:18:00.001+07:00

Fergal, Iola and Tash in Prambanam, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola and Fergal with another fan club in Yogya Water Palace

2008-09-14T10:17:00.001+07:00

Iola and Fergal with another fan club in Yogya Mosque, originally uploaded by rowells.

At the Palace in Yogyarkarta

2008-09-14T10:10:00.001+07:00

At the Palace in Jogyarkarta, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola eyeing the birthday cake

2008-09-14T10:09:00.001+07:00

Iola eyeing the birthday cake, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola with Jemima Puddleduck

2008-09-14T10:08:00.001+07:00

Ioal with Jemima Puddleduck, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola and Tash in Arab markets

2008-09-14T10:07:00.001+07:00

Iola and Tash in Arab markets, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola and Ness on last morning

2008-09-14T10:06:00.001+07:00

Iola and Ness on last morning, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola and her first Lego

2008-09-14T10:05:00.001+07:00

Iola and her first Lego, originally uploaded by rowells.

Ness. Iola and Tash at Taman Safari Park

2008-09-14T10:04:00.001+07:00

Ness. Iola and Tash at Tanam Nature Park, originally uploaded by rowells.

Iola and Yoghurt

2008-09-14T10:02:00.001+07:00

Iola and yoghurt, originally uploaded by rowells.

Holidays Again!

2008-09-13T12:34:00.007+07:00

Ahh, Bali...

Land of ancient temples, verdant rice paddies, towering volcanoes, rolling surf, exquisite dances, an artistic spirit whose exuberance and joie de vivre is matched only by it's perfected synthesis of originality and judicious appropriation...

Just a pity that the place is so damn full of fat, sunburnt Aussies and Poms!!

Seriously though, we've just had a lovely break in Bali. Our original plans of leaping about here, there and everywhere (a couple of nights in Ahmed, a couple in Padang Bai etc) went by the wayside when we realised that not only would Jorji and Alex be there with their brood, as would Min, Steve and Flame, but we were both completely knackered, and all we really wanted to do was find somewhere nice where we could chill out for ten days--swimming, sleeping, playing with Iola, sleeping, going to the beach, sleeping...

And that's exactly what we did. We booked into Taman Ayu in Seminyak, which was about a hundred meters from the villa where Jorji, Min et al were staying, and had a lovely week of lazing around, playing with the kiddies, and eating lots of luscious food. Not much else to report, really. It was a very lazy week.

I think my favourite bit was actually another classic encounter with Indonesian bureaucracy on the way home. I had to fly home on Sunday night to go back to work on Monday, but Tash decided to hang out for another five days. So we phoned up Mandala and switched her ticket. No problem, at least not so far...

When I got to the airport, I was armed with our original e-ticket receipt (paid for with an ATM). It had our booking number and Tash's name, since this was the name the original online booking was done under. So I bowl up to the check-in counter and present my KITAS and my small piece of paper.

Immediate confusion.

"But sir, the name on the KITAS is not the name on the booking receipt!"

"I know, it's my wife's name. She was originally on this flight too."

"But this is not your name!"

"I know. Put the number into your computer--it'll come up with my name as the sole passenger."

She enters the number, and sure enough--there it is. 'Passsenger 1: Fergal Fleming'

"You need a new ticket sir."

"Why?"

"Because this is not your name."

"But my name's on the computer! This is an e-ticket. 'E' for electronic."

"You need to go back to our office and get a new ticket. It must have your name on it for our files."

By now I'm getting nervous about the time. It took me half an hour to find a taxi that didn't try to charge me four times the normal price to get to the airport because their meter was 'broken', and I was starting to cut things a little fine.
But you can't argue with someone who's got a uniform AND a badge, so I trundled off to the office like a good little boy.

"I need to get a new printout of my ticket."

"Certainly sir. May we have your passport and original ticket?"

I hand over my KITAS and ticket again.

"But sir! This is not your name!"

Through gritted teeth, "I know! Just-feed-the-number-into-the-computer-and-print-the-page."

"Ah! here you are. No problem."

He fiddles with an ancient beige dot-matrix printer, circa maybe 1984, for a few minutes.

"I'm very sorry sir," he shrugs, "but the printer is not working. Maybe we can fix it in an hour or so?"

"I'm boarding in twenty minutes! Hang on. This is an e-ticket, right? So all I need to check in is the booking number, yeah?"

"That is right, sir."

"Right."

I walk back out to the departure hall, take out my notebook, copy the booking number from the e-ticket into the notebook, and chuck the ticket in the nearest bin. I go back to the original check-in counter and approach my arch-nemesis.

"Hi!" I say in my brightest, cheeriest, 'don't fuck with me coz I'm about to go postal on your arse' voice, "I'd like to check in please."

"Certainly sir. May I have your booking confirmation number and passport?"

I give her my KITAS and the page ripped from my notebook. She enters the number into her computer.

"No problem sir."

Five minutes later I'm checked in and waiting to board at gate fifteen.

***

There you have it. One more bureaucratic hurdle successfully cleared!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

2008-09-12T11:50:00.004+07:00

An old family friend of mine and her husband just published the following article in 'Eureka Street':

Modern parents' toy story
Daniel Donahoo and Tania Andrusiak September 12, 2008

Last night, our six-year-old son had a nightmare. Despite reassurance and a cuddle in mum and dad's bed, his eyes were open and his brain was switched on. He had decided he wasn't going back to sleep. So, at five in the morning, we found ourselves in the peacefulness of the pre-dawn, drinking hot chocolates and musing on the important topics of our world.

Like most parents, we're concerned about what it means to be raising children in this modern world. So concerned that we've turned to researching and writing to help ourselves and others make sense of the cavalcade of images and ideas our children are exposed to. Media violence, advertising and commercialisation are topics discussed regularly at our dinner table. We try to break the issues down into concepts and words our children understand.

But over that hot chocolate conversation we got a glimpse of what it is we're trying to achieve. In between sips, our son told us he was going to save up his money to buy a Ninja Turtle: one of those small, green karate machines which, along with Pokemon, Bratz and Shrek, represent all that we tried to flee by tree-changing to a more self-sufficient lifestyle in rural Victoria.

And while we've managed to keep most of that stuff out of our household up to now, when our six-year-old told us he wanted to buy one, we just smiled.

We smiled because our son has been indoctrinated. Long before he could speak, he has heard us rant about advertising and commercialisation. He can't watch commercial TV or enter a retail zone without us deconstructing the ads — or deconstructing them himself. He talks about how he feels when other kids engage in violent play, and we have long had a 'no gunplay' rule in our house.

Despite all this, his statement that he'd like a Ninja Turtle demonstrates two things.

The first is that our children are not our children. They, like all of us, live in a world saturated in brands, commercialism and all manner of hyped-up toys. Completely denying that means living some sort of reclusive lifestyle that can cut people off from more than just popular culture: believe us — we know.

The second is that in expressing his wish, we've experienced a greater parenting triumph than if he never asked at all. It shows that he feels enough security and autonomy to tell us he'd like to buy a Ninja Turtle, even if it's something he knows we might not like.

How he will interact with his heart's desire will depend on how well he's been supported to be a good player. Is fighting all Ninja Turtles do? Hell no! Depending on the day, they may be park rangers, restaurateurs, funky dancers or loving daddies.

They may earn different names, or be dressed in original garments he cuts out from fabric scraps. Our kids are not limited by the imaginations of middle-aged, money-hungry toy creators — but, of course, it helps that they have never seen the show.

Parenting is a dynamic process. We constantly reconsider and re-assess what's most important to us, and our children. In asking those questions, we find better ways to support our children to grow into the most contented, well-adjusted humans they can be. It's easy to get hung up on the details of a toy here or a slight difference in value there. It's harder to look beyond the hype and see the opportunities in childhood experiences.

We all realise that good food, water, shelter, safety, warmth and a basic education are critically important. But beyond that, children need other things to feed their minds and spirits. Put simply, these things are belonging (strong relationships rooted in family and community), meaning (purpose and reasons for doing what they do and being who they are) and independence (a strong sense of self and an ability to make their own choices).

If we make these our parenting focus, we might find that our children have the capacity to look beyond the trappings of commercialism. They may dive into it from time to time, but they will recognise the superficial nature of bargain-basement belonging, meaning and independence built solely around the spending of money on shiny, new toys.

Children who derive enough belonging, independence and meaning from family, friends and a strong community will not place nearly as much emphasis on consumer goods, or try to fill a hole with the empty promises of advertisers. No plastic reptile will ever provide the joy of a visit to his Grandma — and our son knows it.

So, we're not too concerned that he wants a Ninja Turtle. Sure, it presents us with a new range of challenges, but we know that the core values we've been teaching him will hold. He knows that we will always enjoy animated conversations about the dilemmas of living in the modern world. He expresses concern that our values may not concur, and learns that people can hold different beliefs, yet still honour one another deeply.

He demonstrates respect towards his mum's dislike of violence. And yet, he feels safe enough to challenge what his parents say, and has the autonomy to make independent decisions about what he likes and wants to play with. He hears that we trust his ability to think for himself.

And he does this all at our kitchen table, before sunrise, where we couldn't feel more at home.

Hmmmm.

Good article, but sometimes I think people spend so much time stressing about living in the modern world that they forget to actually live in the modern world.

A hundred years ago, kids read 'Ivanhoe' and played with lead soldiers. When I was a kid, they watched 'Star Wars' and played with the action figures. These days it's TMNT, Naruto, One-piece, etc.

Point is, when we played with our Star Wars(tm) figures as kids, we weren't being blind consumers, recreating someone else's plots and story arcs. The Star Wars franchise was a jumping-off point for kids' play. It showed the sort of kids who probably would never read a book by choice that it was possible to create inventive scenarios, characters and fantasy worlds; and the action figures gave them a vehicle and a matrix of sorts for these imaginings.

Last week I was watching Zirri (4), Jax (3) and even Iola playing with TMNT figures. And while their play was varied and creative (including an off-the-cuff game called 'Ask Mr Turtle' invented by Zirri to keep me playing with him instead of talking to the other adults!), at no point did it actually intersect with the plots or zeitgest of the comic, film or TV turtle-worlds.

Maybe Tanya should hook her six-year-old up with the original comics and graphic novels. They're a very dark and satirical treatment of a range of contemporary issues, including some of the very concerns regarding media portrayals of violence and the commercialisation of children that Daniel and Tanya raise in their article!

Speaking of which, while I'm frankly horrified by the invasion of our mental space by modern advertising culture, and by the rapidity with which I observe commercially generated memes spread through the teen and sub-teen population (particularly the 'tween' phenomenon: it kind of weirds me out at work when I see mothers in full Islamic garb dressing their seven-year-old daughters like cheap hookers), I find it hard, intellectually and objectively, to work out where to draw the line.

Picture this: A simple toymaker (let's call him Gepetto for want of a more original name) notices that the children in his village are fascinated by the new train line that's been laid nearby, and exploits this interest by making a bunch of simple wooden trains, just in time for Christmas (i.e. just the kind of basic, old-school toy that most of my more socially aware friends would buy for their kids).

He makes so much money that he's able to employ some apprentices, open a small factory, and begin exporting his toys to surrounding towns and villages. Pretty soon, 'Gepetto Toys ™' is a household name in his small part of the world.

A few years later, Gepetto is enjoying a quiet beer with a friend—a friend who's been working on a translation of 'Grimms' Fairy Tales'—when inspiration strikes. Kids love the stories, kids love the toys. Why not combine the two worlds and design a line of toys that complement the book? China-doll Snow White's, stuffed wolves, wooden goats on wheels—how could they lose?

Pretty soon Gepetto and his mate are collaborating on new stories, which are published concurrently with the release of the corresponding line of Gepetto toys. Kids eagerly await the latest offerings, and Gepetto starts utilising the services of town criers to let people know when they will become available (oddly enough, this is usually just before Christmas...).

A somewhat laboured analogy, but you get the drift. Where do I draw the line with Iola? Is it possible to draw a line, given the all-pervading media saturation we're experiencing in the early part of the 21st century?

It scares the shit out of me that kids can hum the McDonalds theme song before they can talk, and that billions and billions of dollars worth of advertising is aimed at persuading Iola that not only does she desperately need the latest Bratz™ doll, but that the best way to get it is to relentlessly nag her parents.

On the other hand, thus it has always been, and thus it will always be. A hundred years ago I would have been freaking out about the fact that Iola would be unable to get a decent education without also being indoctrinated into a repressive and narrow-minded religion, or that she wanted to glorify the horrendous suffering of the Crimean or Boer wars by playing with lead soldiers, or that she never would have wanted that doll with the wind-up voice box if her friends at school didn't have one too…

I dunno. It's all too damn hard. Iola's thirteen months old, and she already loves dancing to the Wiggles™ or Bananas in Pyjamas™. These are both big, corporate products, with extensive product lines, marketing departments etc, but they got that big because they're bloody good at what they do. Seriously, the educational content of the Wiggles™ is far superior to most of the material we use for the very young learners at the school where I work.

Well, that's my two bob's worth... Any thoughts on all this would be appreciated.

Independence Day Games

2008-08-08T09:31:00.006+07:00

Borobodur & Back to Surabaya...

2008-08-02T00:07:00.005+07:00

Borobudor and back to Surabaya...

Around Prambanan

2008-08-01T16:30:00.005+07:00

Prambanan Temple

Plaosan Temple

2008-08-01T14:46:00.003+07:00

Plaosan Temple. Text to follow...

Strike Swiftly...

2008-08-01T14:24:00.000+07:00

Just as an aside, Hannah has just told us that from now on the school
would like us to wear the new EF shirts on Fridays (currently casual
clothes day). Apparently they have the new EF advertising slogan on
them: 'Swift EFfect'.

Okay, fair enough. But my question is: if we're going to have a slogan
so evocative of the SAS's 'Strike Swiftly', and we're conducting the
campaign in a country that has an ongoing infatuation with elaborate
uniforms, then shouldn't we go the whole hog and dive even deeper into
the military/police rapid response look?

I'm picturing bandoliers loaded with whiteboard markers and red felt
pens, utility belts with sticky-ball guns and an always loaded copy of
Swan, a wrist-mounted LCD display loaded with flash cards for young
learners and picture-prompts for idiomatic expressions--the potential
is awesome!
ESL-SWAT, coming soon to a school near you...

Yogyakarta With Pam and Pete

2008-08-01T13:32:00.005+07:00

First day in Yogya with Pam and Peter. As usual, text to follow...

Iola's First Birthday!

2008-08-01T12:42:00.008+07:00

Some quickie captions:
1) Yoke took these images from the blog and got her brother to photoshop them up. The result, framed with faux chocolate, was her birthday present to Iola. The little monkey has taken a real shine to it, and walks around the house clutching it to her chest!

2) Tash, Ness and Iola playing with the tiger cubs at Taman Safari. They've gotten so big since the last time we were there!

3) Ness taking it easy in a Yogya becak. She popped down there for a few days while she was here to catch up with some old friends.

4) Tash and Ness enjoying one of the many varieties of Indonesian deserts for which Tash has developed a fondness...

5) Tash, Iola and Pam kicking back at the Hotel Equator.

6) Iola checking out her new dolls' house. We decided to stretch her birthday out over a week or so and give her a present or two every day rather than flood her with booty on just one day--especially since we were planning to spend her actual birthday on the train to Yogya. This was her first birthday present from her mum and dad!

7) Iola likes ice-cream. A lot.

8) Iola creating great art. She has a good grasp of colour theory, but a distressing (to me, at least) obsession with abstract impressionism. I'm hoping to beat this out of her and get her excited by pop surrealism any day now...

9) Iola trying to get into her new dolls' house!

10) Sussing out how things come in and out of the house.

11) Iola rockin' out with Jemima Puddleduck, her first birthday present from her paternal great-grandparents Alice and Bob.

12) Chowing down on bananas and yoghurt in her spanking new high-chair.

13) Trying to get a little closer to the Bananas in Pyjamas--one of her presents from her paternal grandparents.

14) Iola having a bit of a cuddle with Imelda at her birthday lunch. In the end, we decided to have lunch in at the school for everyone, because we couldn't find another time or place that didn't clash with someone's schedule! We got an enormous platter of food, and Wayne and Emily organised a spectacular princess cake (Peter's got some great photos of Iola just after my attention strayed and she got into the icing. Stay tuned...). Iola had a ball, and got way too many presents!!!
She's so spoilt.

15) Wayne and Emily's cake ;-)

16) Iola 'helping' Helmi and Aunty Nia on the front desk.

Aunty Ness Does Madura

2008-07-14T13:14:00.006+07:00

Ahh, holidays…
A time to leave behind all the trials and tribulations of the workplace and strike out for greener pastures and horizons new. A time to bid farewell to office politics and say hello to shipboard romances and moonlit beach liaisons. A time to forget the quiet hell of wage slavery and live in paradise for a moment, no matter how fleeting.

All of which begs the question [and to all you English teachers out there: I know damn well this is an incorrect use of 'begging the question', but it's how 99% of the English speaking world uses it these days, and it's late, and I'm tired, and all-in-all it's just easier to fill the gaps in an established lexical framework (you can thank me later, Mr Michael Lewis), however fallacious its etymology, than to come up with an original way of expressing something] of just why Tash's sister Vanessa (AKA Iola's Aunty Vanushka) has chosen to while away her desperately short escape from juggling studying psych at Melbourne Uni with three jobs in sunny Surabaya, the city described by most travel guides as:

Um.. Okay, so if you absolutely have to pass through Surabaya on your
way to Bali, Bromo or Yogya, and you find yourself forced to spend the
night, then we suppose you could check out Dollys—Surabaya's
world-famous red light district—or go for a beer at Colours (kind of
like Dollys, except you don't have to pay and you stand a far better
chance of catching a nasty disease). If you're truly desperate, you
could walk through the old submarine near the end of Jalan Kayun or
wander through TP, the biggest mall in South-East Asia...

And so on.

All of which is complete tosh, of course. Most of these guides then go on to say that if you're looking for non-Indonesian food, there are a couple of places you could try,and then list four or five 5 star restaurants. This is the equivalent of saying that if you find yourself in Melbourne and don't feel like eating traditional Australian steak and eggs, then perhaps you should try the one French restaurant on Collins St, and the cheeky little Italian place on Lygon St.

Surabaya is a big, cosmopolitan city. It's littered with an incredible variety of cuisines. Leaving aside the fact that 'Indonesian' food as an umbrella heading covers hundreds of cultures, all with their traditional foods, within a loud shout of our house (which is out in the burbs) you can get everything from Australian sirloin to Kobe beef to Korean Kimchee to Japanese to Italian to Turkish—you can even get American! (ie McDonalds', KFC, Wendy's, Breadtalk, Starbucks, A&W: all the usual crap that's been spreading virus-style across the global palate since it first escaped Bumf**ck, Idaho stashed in the carry-on of a retired insurance salesman).

And there are plenty of touristy-type spots (what Indonesians usually refer to, somewhat charmingly, as 'tourism objects'), it's just that they're not usually aimed at tourists like us (ie white westerners), which I, for one, find absolutely fantastic, given that most of the 'tourism objects' in Indonesia that are aimed at people like us tend to be either littered with loud, loutish, shouting, red-faced wankers, or, if it's the off-season, full of sad Indonesians desperately trying to offload their stock of immaculately carved wooden penises and bright pink 'batik' sarongs.

Take yesterday, for example (hmmm—this has been an awfully long lead-in to what was going to be a brief précis of our activities over the last couple of days, but hey; when you gotta rant, you gotta rant). We took Aunty Vanushka to Masjid Sunan Ampel in the heart of the Arab Quarter. This is a large, and very old, mosque that is visited by Islamic travellers from all over the world.

As we wandered the laneways surrounding the mosque, we were in total tourist land, but to us it was strange and exotic. Instead of t-shirts saying 'My friend went to Bali/Surfers/Fiji/Kho Samui/Goa and all he got me was this lousy t-shirt' there are commemorative editions of the
Koran, prayer beads, gorgeously embroidered clothing, spices and oils, and a fantastic selection of food (like yummy falafels, the first I've found here). Great stuff. Check out a brief vid of Tash and Ness buying some bracelets for Iola here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUmcLeTrA4A
Best of all (for me), you can buy dozens of varieties of dates (I'm a sucker for a good date) for about a dollar a kilo.

Just before we left, we bumped into a guy we'd met the last time we were there. He, along with approximately 15346 other people we've met over the last six months, had politely asked whether he could take a photo of Iola. This time, as soon as he saw us, he dragged us over to
his shopfront. There, sharing pride of place with a photo of our man arm-in-arm with the head of cultural studies at ANU, was a blown-up print of the photo he'd taken of our baby girl! God knows what this place is doing to her sense of perspective.

From there we went to Pasar Atom, an old-school market/mall in China Town. After Tash and Ness had spent a while exploring the incredible variety of textiles on offer, we went upstairs and splurged on a new set of plates, cutlery, mugs, implements of mass mashing and grating
etc. I don't get quite as excited by this sort of stuff as they do, but I have to admit that it's all very nice kit indeed. Total outlay on the splurge? About thirty dollars!

And today was a real treat.

Madura is an island just off the coast of Java. If you tell the average Javanese that you're going to Madura, they'll look at you like you're mad and try to explain to you that the Madurese are,
essentially, mad, bad and dangerous to know.

From what I've been able to gather, the explanation for this attitude is that over the last few decades, the vast majority of Madurese have emigrated to places like Java in search of the almighty dollar. In a poor country, Madura is a poor island, and the temptation to seek one's fortunes elsewhere must be overwhelming. The reality tends to be that they wind up doing really shitty jobs for less than shitty money, all the while being pissed on from a great height by the people they interact with (if there's one truism I've noted over the years, it's that people need other people to feel superior to!). Thus, they've developed a reputation for being rude, angry and fast with a knife.

But when you talk to people who've actually been there, you hear a very different tale indeed. And that's exactly what we found. Friendly people, quiet streets (a welcome change from the anarchy on Surabayan roads!), and some very interesting things to look at.

Getting there was as cruisy as cruisy could be. A taxi to the ferry terminal, tickets purchased for the princely sum of about fifty cents each, and a rather pleasant half-hour ride to Kamal (Madura's main port). I was particularly taken by the fact that the ferry came complete with a karaoke stage with a keyboard player and pro singer with whom the more outgoing passengers could sing duets.

At the other end we wandered around for a bit, finding various things to look at, including some cute wooden rocking horses (one of which we bought for Iola on the way home for $5) and a crazy lady in clown-like make-up who kept saluting me and miming corporal's stripes on her
sleeves. I gotta say: pretty much everyone we encountered over there was friendly and helpful, but for somewhere that has sea salt production as one of its primary industries, there seemed to be a really high occurrence of cretinism. Someone should tell these people about iodine, and fast.

After that we leapt aboard a passing colt (mini-vans that travel from place to place when the driver considers that he has crammed as many people as humanly possible in the back) bound for Bangkalan, a town about 20 km to the north that has become increasingly industrialised
(in marked contrast to the Eastern part of the island) in recent years as a result of its proximity to Surabaya.

It was a sleepy little place, although from what I gather this will change dramatically come bull-racing season. I'm looking forward to heading back for that. It's hugely popular, and the tradition of bull-racing (basically small boys balanced precariously on a plank being dragged along at great speed by a pair of enormous bulls) informs Madurese culture enormously—to the extent that houses are built in the shape of giant bull's horns!

We didn't hang out for more than a couple of hours, because Iola's been a little off-colour the last few days and was feeling the heat a bit, but Tash and Ness managed to find themselves some lovely traditional batik in the market, and I got to check out the street of false teeth specialists, which I was very keen to do. We also found one of those things that have been oddly difficult to find in Surabaya: safety pins.

We've been trying to find them at random moments over the last six months. We've tried the sewing sections in supermarkets and department stores, specialist sewing shops; you name it, we've looked for safety pins there.

So where did we eventually find them? At a tiny little gew-gaw stall in the middle of the food section at the pasar! God knows what they were doing there, smack in the centre of the meat section (ie surrounded by everything from dried fish to chicken feet, all crawling with flies and enough to turn the most dedicated carnivore into a vegan), but I carpe diemed to the max and bought about a four year supply!

Anyway, I've probably rambled on for long enough for what was supposed to be a quick round-up of the weekend, so I guess I'll get this sucker posted and pretend to do some work…

Proper-style Walking ;-)

2008-07-08T08:54:00.004+07:00

Hurrah!
The little monkey waited for me to get home before she started really going off!
Apparently she just took those first couple of steps while I was at work, but waited til I walked in the door just after nine before girding her loins and spending a solid half-hour walking 'round the house. Unfortunately, we were so excited that we didn't think of getting the camera out til she was pretty much tuckered out and get a bit stumbley-way, but we did manage to get a bit of footage.
View the exciting first(ish) steps here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BFHmQ0_I5Y

Anyhoo, I'm off to work.
Heavyish schedule the next couple of weeks, so sadly there probably won't be much time to fritter away blogging. Good timing, though, with Ness here for Tash to play with while I'm busy.

First Steps!!!!!!!

2008-07-07T18:05:00.003+07:00

Bugger.
I missed it!!
After weeks of practicing standing up and sitting down, Iola's a
pretty dab hand at jumping to her feet and doing a bit of a victory
boogie.
And for months she's been pretty down with walking if she's got
something to hang on to.
But today, while I was stuck at work, she decided she was ready for
the next evolution and started walking proper style.
Go girl!
Now me and Tash just have to remember who'd bet on what. I remember
one of us bet she'd be walking before her first birthday, but I don't
quite remember which...

Animal Crackers

2008-07-05T09:58:00.003+07:00

Another day at the zoo!
Iola loves it, it's just down the road, and it costs all of rp10000 to get in (ie a little over a dollar!)--so we're becoming quite regular visitors (Tash and Iola even more so than me: Surabaya's a little short on green spaces to go walking, but the zoo fits the bill nicely, so they often wander down there of an afternoon while I'm at work).

This photo of Iola sleeping reminds me of photos of either Kate or Megan (my sisters) sleeping when they were babies. I can't remember off the top of my head which one; maybe it was both!

Speaking of the little monkey, she is changing and developing on literally a daily basis. She practices standing and sitting down again from a sitting start over and over again (and looks pretty damn proud of herself when she does it too!). She's quite comfortable walking if you hold her hand, but so far has only taken one or two fumbling steps without the safety net of feeling Tash or me holding on. Her newest game is quite good for my cardiovascular fitness (and for tiring her out). She throws one of her plastic balls across the room, and I chase after it and kick it back to her for her to catch. They bounce a long way, so if she misses it she has to scuttle like a demon to get to it before I do.

We're very grateful for the fact that all our floors are tiled, because while she's been using her three new chompers to feed herself, quite a lot of her food tends to end up on the floor. And what an amazing variety of food it is, too... She's a fiend for her victuals, and I don't think we've found anything she won't eat yet (oh yeah--except some particularly spicy urap-urap that she swiped off Tash's plate, and a lime that I still feel guilty about. She grabbed it off Tash's plate and made a hilarious face when she shoved it in her mouth, so I grabbed the camera to film her trying it again. This was all very funny right up to the bit where she threw up everywhere. Oops). Her favourites are: oatmeal with banana and yoghurt, tofu, mie goreng, frozen camomile tea, broccoli, mushrooms, corn flakes, french toast and pretty much anything she can get away with snatching off our plates...

Anyway, we're off to Supermall so she can have a play in the adventure playground there. The plan (which has worked before) is to tire her out with playing so she falls asleep and we can go to the movies...

More Pics...

2008-07-02T17:53:00.002+07:00

I give up on guessing what order the photos will eventually appear in on the published blog.
Look on it as a kind of intelligence test--matching the captions to the pics.

Tucker Time ;-)

2008-07-02T17:19:00.004+07:00

Tucker time!!

1) and 2) Basil's (in absentia) birthday cake. Any excuse...

3) First loaf of bread from the new oven! Hmm... This photo kinda makes the kitchen look a bit skanky. it's not that bad, really...

4) Iola drinking water from Jenny and Russell's mug.

5) Little cave girl getting her first gnaw at some bones off the chicken that Tash spit roasted in the new oven (yummy).

Sleep is for the Weak

2008-07-02T16:47:00.004+07:00

This is what happens when you don't get enough sleep because someone's teething:

Tash: "There's a mozzie in the room! Quick, get it!"

Fergal (nearly seizing his electrified tennis-racket-style mozzie destroyer by the wrong end and doing himself a serious injury: "Where?:"

Tash (pointing): "Over there!"

Fergal: "You can't say 'over there'."

Tash: "Why not?"

Fergal: "Because you have to get in character. You have to put on a british accent and say something like 'Tally Ho! Jerry at 5 o'clock high!'"

Tash: "Why???"

Fergal: "Because that's what you do. Do you think we'd have won the Battle of Britain by saying 'I think that ME109 you were worried about earlier might be just over there somewhere.'? Just picture it: some poor sod's cruising along in his spitfire, wondering whether someone's going to try and kill him, when a voice comes over his radio. 'Hi there Sebastian, I think there might be a heavily armed flying chunk of german steel floating about that wants to do you some damage.' 'Really Clarence? And where is he exactly?' 'Oh, you know. Just over there.'"

Tash: "Whatever. Hey look--there's one of those little black moths on the wall. Maybe we should kill that so we don't think it's another mozzie."

Fergal (casually and skilfully whipping the towel from round his waist and, in one deft and fluid movement, making a swift end to the short and bitter life of a Javanese sewer moth): "Done."

Tash: "Did you just kill a sewer moth with a clean towel? The clean towel? The only clean towel?"

Fergal: "Well, yeah. But I had to!"

Tash: "Why?"

Fergal: "For the pun!"

Tash: "What?"

Fergal (slowly collapsing to the floor as he's overcome by waves of fatigue-induced hysterical laughter): "Well, now instead of having a moth-eaten towel, we've got a towel-eaten moth!!!"

Tash: "Does anyone actually like you?"

Around the 'hood

2008-06-26T12:15:00.011+07:00

Okay, so once again I've taken a stab at getting all these pics loaded in some sort of chronological order, and once again the order of loading (and the order they appear in on this editing page where I'm typing now) seems to bear little or no relation to the order they publish in. Ah well, I'll get it sorted one day.
So here are some possible labels for these pics. If they don't seem to match, then don't get too confused, just cast about for the most likely candidate.
I'd hate for people to get confused. There's quite enough confusion in the world already.

Photos 1-6 and 10 are of the streets I ride down getting to school (the first one is looking down our street from just outside our house). Unfortunately, the day I took the camera everything was completely dead--usually there's all sorts of interesting things going on.
I've been particularly captured by the saga of the pothole. Potholes are everywhere, but the one in the photo is a particularly deep and nasty example. Small children have fallen into it and never been recovered. People from one of the houses nearby took it upon themselves to mark the pothole with a pole (possibly out of a sense of civic duty, possibly because they were bored with being woken at 4am by the sounds of screams and rending metal). Then the hole was 'fixed', and the pole removed by the workmen.
Within hours, the hole was as bad as ever again, and the community-minded neighbours replaced the pole, this time festooning it with plastic bags and adding a couple of car tyres for emphasis.
The hole was fixed again, it reappeared again, etc etc etc.
When I rode home last night, it was straddled by an old can chair with car tyres piled on top, surmounted by three poles sporting at least a dozen plastic bags of various hues.
The saga continues...
Photos 8 and 9 are of me arriving safely at school; nice and early because I wanted to chew through some work before meeting Tash and Iola at Carre Four for lunch, only to find that the builders (doing some renovations) had disappeared with the keys! Thus the pic of Nia and James sitting out the front, frantically phoning and texting people to try and find one of the other sets!
Number 7: Iola all tuckered out after a hard day's play with Neiko.
Numbers 11 and 12: Haute Coutre in the Arab Quarter.
13: One of Iola's many fan clubs hooking up for a photo sess. Damn the papparazi. Damn them all ;-)
14: You see the oddest things through a taxi window--this is smack in the middle of a busy, crowded, high-tech(ish) city of three or four million people!
15: Myf spashed out on this ten dollar sushi spread at TP.
16 and 17: New-school mall (TP) where the shops tend to sell rolexes and diamond-encrusted handbags, followed by old-school mall (Pasar Atom) with hundreds of fabric shops, tailors, spices etc. I think I prefer the old-school!
18: Jake and Neiko spending some quality time at the zoo.
19: Iola and Neiko rocking out in our loungeroom.
20: Kiddies hairdresser at TP. When I was a kid, you got dragged down the local barber for the 70's equivalent of a pudding-bowl cut. Entertainment was strictly limited to the ratty, dog-eared pile of Tarzan comics and old People magazines on the table. These days they can sit in their toy car playing Playstation while they get their hair styled! I miss the tarzan comics.
21: Taken from the observation tower at the zoo. Interesting mix of old Dutch architecture and contemporary Toytown-style mall.
22: The view south from the zoo. If you look closely, you can just make out the mountains on the left.
23:Buffalo soldier.
24: Everything can be pedal-powered if you try hard enough...
25: The ultimate No Parking sign--en route to the night markets down the road.
26: Enjoying Thai/Cowboy fusion cuisine,

Bali & Gili Meno with Jake, Myf & Neiko

2008-06-17T10:21:00.015+07:00

Lots more piccies plus text to follow...

Random Photos

2008-06-04T14:26:00.009+07:00

As usual, these have been loaded in chronological order, which means they appear in reverse chronological order. I'll get it right one of these days!
So. Running from the bottom to the top:
1) Where's the pool? Surely if you can find your pool toy, drag it out and get into it all by yourself, then the least you should be able to expect is that someone will produce a pool for you!

2) Iola helping her dad try to figure out how to put together a flat-pack desk with many, many unlabelled pieces using an exploded, non-sequential diagram with nothing to scale. Memories are made of this...

3) Some of the many unlabeled pieces, most of which are almost, but not quite, exactly the same as at least one other piece.

4) This is as far as I got before a rosetta stone-type break through with the instructions made me realise I would have to take the whole thing apart and start again. By this point it was getting mighty warm (the power was out so we had no fans going), so I decided to chuck the project for the day and head off to a buck's night for a Chilean pro soccer player instead.

5) Two days later: Hurrah! A shiny new desk. All it needs now is to have the backing nailed on. And all it cost was twenty dollars Australian and most of my sanity...

6) Iola peering at the world through the window of her own private ball room.

7) Surveying her domain...

This Saturday we're off to meet Jake, Myf and Neiko in Bali, then head over to Gili Meno for snorkeling, banana fritters, beer and bugger all else. Heaven. It's been way too long between proper holidays, and the last year or so has been pretty damn hectic. I think we all need the break.
Photos of a holiday to be jealous of heading your way soon.

Gigi Baru!

2008-05-27T11:45:00.005+07:00

Victory! After weeks of trying, and hundreds of photos of a suddenly closed mouth or turned head, Tash finally managed to get a photo of Iola's new teeth. Zoom in on this sucker: those choppers are monsters!

What We Did on the Weekend

2008-05-26T11:07:00.005+07:00

What we did on the weekend…

[oops. I posted the text by email, then modified it by adding thr images using post edit on my blog site. The order of the photos is now the reverse of the captions. I'm sure you can work it out...]

1) Okay, so she hasn't quite sussed out exactly what a newspaper's
for, but she's still loving it (literally) to pieces.

2) It's definitely in the genes. Who'd have thought Tash's muffin
wrapper could have so much chocolate left on it?

3) Iola's stylish new shoes. We'd sworn black and blue that she was
never going to get a pair of shoes that squeak, but these sandals were
just too damn cool. Tell you what, though: I've got some two-part
epoxy ready and waiting to fill the holes where the squeakers used to
be the very second she starts walking!

4) Remember when you were a little kid and you'd go to sleep in the
back of the car? This little girl's doing it Surabayan style…
Personally, I'd feel a bit more comfortable if she had an occy strap
or something to keep her in place!

5) Negotiating rights of passage. Will diplomacy prevail? Or do we
shift to defcon 3?

6) Hurrah! Iola's five-point plan has ushered in a new era of harmony
and good will in the Supermall playground. The two little girls go
their own ways in peace and understanding.

7) Fashion parade. I'm not sure what it was in honour of, but it was a
pretty big deal. There must have been close to a kilometre of red
carpet stretched out through Supermall, with a rolling fashion parade
moving from the stage to do laps of the mall. Many, many people with
many, many cameras.

8) & 9) I want to start collecting a few more pics of this sort of
stuff. There seems to be a fascination here with classical
architecture and imagery. Thus, as seen here, you can be driving along
through warungs and shops and typically Indonesian suburbs, when you
suddenly come across triumphal arches, looming pillars (Doric, Ionic
and Corinthian too: though, as seen here, the capitals are often
supporting nothing but sky. Instant ruins—just add water), Greek
goddesses and Roman centurions. I love it. I'm trying to persuade Tash
that we should invest a month or two's pay in a legionary or two and
maybe a Diana or a Pegasus for the front yard, but (oddly enough) she
seems less than convinced.

10) Checking out the scene from her observation bubble.

We also went to see the new Indiana Jones movie! It was brilliant.
Very, very cheesy—but that's what it's all about, yeah? I won't say
anything more about it lest I spoil the plot for anyone.

Woofer Footage

2008-05-22T13:02:00.003+07:00

So while we're on the subject of videos...
Whenever the little monkey sees animals of any kind, it pretty much makes her day, if not her week. So we shouldn't have been too surprised when we flicked the TV on, planning to watch a dvd, and had to wait for half-an-hour while she rocked out to a documentary on cape hunting dogs.
This is a little bit of footage of the woofers rocking her world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuml3k0CNec

Video Madness

2008-05-21T13:22:00.004+07:00

More video!!!
Check these two links for Iola doing some jamming back bends, and her new interpretative dance entitled 'Ninja Turtles on Ice'...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3nLqg-z2F0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_sKmkSZyoo

And just for luck, here's one of me being walked over by an elephant at Tamin Safari Park!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C9oBodqapQ

We Have a Winner

2008-05-19T14:26:00.003+07:00

Yay!
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!
After the Gymboree fiasco, we were a little depressed about Iola's
chances of getting out there and meeting kids—you know, just hanging
out, chewing the fat, maybe rolling the odd ball around—without having
to subject herself to an intensive immersion course in Sumerian
astrology or something, and without her parents having to remortgage
the house in Darwin! (Although she has been spending some quality time
with Wayne and Emily's little boy Wyatt, who seems to have formed
quite an attachment to her.)
Yesterday we took her to one of the many adventure playground/obstacle
course/nightmare offspring of a deranged cubist and an inbred
surrealist that litter the Surabayan mallscape like the discarded toys
of a toddler god.
It totally rocked her world.
She started off in the baby section, but after a half-hour or so
exploring that she'd had enough, and set off for distant horizons. I
was following her pretty closely, but she never looked back to check
as she disappeared into the 'big kids' section, making her way through
the ropes and up the ladder to the second floor!
She got to play with other kids, too; which made her a very happy
little girl. Tomorrow's a public holiday here, so we're setting off to
a random mall so she can have more adventures…

Destructo

2008-05-14T13:04:00.010+07:00

A few more pics!

1-3) In destructo mode with her foam squares.

4-6) Ajay's farewell at Puri Darmo.

7-9) It's in the genes... Iola being fascinated by all the ice after Tash defrosted the freezer.

Hmmmm

2008-05-08T14:26:00.001+07:00

Bugger.
Gymboree was a total wash-out. We knew it was relatively expensive, but we thought it would be worth it for Iola to be able to hang out with some other kids and for Tash to meet some other parents to play with while I'm at work.
First off, they hadn't mentioned the hidden costs (eg a 1.3 million joining fee). Secondly, we hadn't realised that the sessions go for a grand total of 45 minutes. Thirdly, yesterday's session consisted of 40 minutes worth of fifteen babies sitting in their pembantu's laps while being given tambourine's to shake and scarves to play peek-a-boo with, followed by five minutes of a bright young thing saying, "Now put your baby on your shoulder and rock her to sleep!"
Put Iola on your shoulder and rock her to sleep after forty minutes of banging on things and being teased by not being able to grab the other kids? Please.
So basically we would be looking at forking out approximately twice what it would cost us to have a fulltime, live-in nanny for two forty-five minute sessions a week of highly structured activity. Bugger that.
I think the clincher for Tash was when the lady from Gymboree asked her what kind of learning programme we have Iola on. Tash's reply? "She's nine months old. She has a cardboard box she likes to play in."
But all is not lost.
Pretty much every mall we've been to (including the one ten minutes walk up the road) is well stocked with elaborate, 3D children's playgrounds that cost about a dollar an hour to use if supervised by an adult, two dollars if you want to leave your little cherub to the tender mercies of their staff.
They're actually quite amazing. I don't know if they still exist in this litigious age, but when we were kids there used to be these fun-house type constructions at Moomba and the Royal Easter/Melbourne Shows. They usually had a few tunnels and rope bridges, and maybe a room or two with padded pillars that kids could bounce themselves (and each other) off. They were very popular, but in retrospect there wasn't a whole lot to them.
Now, imagine you're eight years old again, and you are given a chance to design your own fun-house. You've got as much money as it takes, a team of architects and engineers to make your every whim concrete, and an unlimited supply of padded vinyl in primary colours. The result is pretty much what you'd find in any mall in Surabaya. I'll have to get some pictures of them--you won't truly grasp how damn cool they are unless you actually see them.
I suppose, given that Surabaya is a typically Asian, high-density city, these kind of take the place of parks. There are a few parks around, but if all the parents who can afford to go to malls took their kids there to play, there'd be nowhere for the street kids to sleep!
So we reckon we'll start taking Iola to those more often. She's way too little to take full advantage of them, but she loved the playground at Alpha Zone (where the ball room photos were taken), and it'll be good for her to play with other kids.

Play Time!

2008-05-07T11:50:00.001+07:00

It's a big day today for the little monkey.

At 11 o'clock Tash and Iola are off to Gymboree (www.gymboree.com) for a big old play session! Gymboree is kind of like the place where we went to Rose's birthday party on Sunday, but it's a bit closer to home. For older kids they run quite structured programmes (Chinese, English, art, music etc), but for the little 'uns you can book in for what's basically just play time.

If she likes it today, Iola and Tash will be going twice a week: 'play' session on Mondays and a 'music' session on Wednesdays, both in groups of 8-12 month olds who have to be able to crawl easily. I hope she has fun—it'll be good for her to have some contact with other kids (or, as Tash puts it, 'she needs to get her hair pulled by bigger kids every now and then'!).

Tash is hoping to meet a few other mums, but she suspects (and she's probably right) that she'll mostly meet the other kids' pembantus (nannies). Everyone here seems to have a nanny. I've even had nannies turn up for parent-teacher interviews! We could actually have a nanny of our own for not much more than we pay the cleaner (a nanny/maid would cost us about $60 a month plus board—we even have the maid's room out the back), but neither of us are into the idea—particularly since our house ain't all that big, and the idea of sharing it with a maid 24/7 doesn't really appeal.

Party Time...

2008-05-06T14:49:00.003+07:00

Wow.
Last night (Friday—I'm writing this on Saturday, but it won't be posted til Monday) I was feeding Iola when I realised that with every mouthful something was scraping against the bottom of the spoon.
A tooth! And this time it's actually busted through the gum and it's here to stay. She's had a few ups and downs with her teeth—little white spots appearing and disappearing—but this time you can feel the sharp edge of the tooth biting your finger! How cool is that?
It's been a huge week for the little monkey. We'd been wanting to get her some kind of plastic walker, since she's been having so much fun pushing chairs around the room, but the only ones we'd found to date were big-brand-name products in high-end malls that cost over a million rupiah (to put that in context, my bike, with Shimano gearing, v-brakes, dynamo lights, metal gear racks and basket, cost less than that). Tash had a bit of an explore around some of the other baby shops, though, and she found a walker/scooter identical to the Fisher/Price one we'd been looking at, but for less than a quarter of the price!
Iola loves it, and, I have to admit, it's a pretty slick bit of kit. Check out the photos posted on April 30th: cool, huh? It's kind of like a swing-wing fighter plane. The photos show it set in open, or 'V', formation—suitable for relatively relaxed speeds and inexperienced pilots whose motor coordination is just starting to come to grips with 'one foot in front of the other'. Once she's a bit bigger and more mobile, however, it locks down into 'TPM' mode (Toddler Powered Missile), which is when things get scary…
And if getting her first set of wheels wasn't enough, she got to spend all day Thursday checking out the animals at Taman Safari Park (see pics posted on Friday 2nd), and she had an absolute ball. She's got a real thing for zoos and aquariums, and found everything she saw absolutely fascinating—except maybe the elephants, which freaked her out a little bit!
She even got to cuddle lion and tiger cubs! I think her favourite (close your ears Nana no. 2) was the olive python that she discovered around a zoo keeper's neck. Tash had to keep a pretty close eye on things as the monkey and the snake made each other's acquaintance: not because she was worried about the snake biting Iola, but because she was concerned for the safety of the snake at the hands of an enthusiastic and perhaps overly friendly baby.
Speaking of snakes—my dear old mum had better keep her phobia of snakes well away from one particular exhibit. You enter an aviary-type construction through an airlock, and inside the snakes are pretty much free to do their own thing. Just off the path was a seven meter reticulated python, just hanging loose there in the grass! Can you imagine seeing that in Australia? How long would it be before some drunken yob channelled the ghost of Steve Irwin and decided the wrestle the thing?
We had a lovely day (brilliant idea, John), and we'll be using any visitors who might wander into town as an excuse to get back out there! There's a whole safari walk we didn't have time to explore on Thursday…

Two days later…
Iola went to her first birthday party yesterday. Young Rose (Jez and Liliis's daughter) clocked up a big two years, and celebrated said event at Alpha Zone. Haven't really got time to write about it today (very busy week coming up at work), but suffice it to say that Iola had an absolute ball, and so did we, Check out the pics.

PS She done got herself a new trick yesterday. She climbs up onto the upturned washing basket and 'Rrraaaahhhhs' like the tigers on the rocks at the safari park!

Taman Safari

2008-05-02T12:43:00.008+07:00

More pics and video coming on Monday. Ran out of time today...

New Toys

2008-04-30T12:21:00.012+07:00

Laughing

2008-04-29T11:08:00.003+07:00

Okay, so I''m still having a few dramas trying to upload video to the blog. I had a bit more luck with youtube today, though, so check out this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_9vPJcfgs
and (fingers crossed) it should take you to a video of the little monkey laughing her wee head off ;-)

Da Equator

2008-04-28T11:04:00.001+07:00

Wow.
Iola just had her first encounter with proper stairs (while crawling on her own, I mean—obviously she's been carried up stairs before). Five flagstone stairs with ten-inch risers, and she was up those bad boys with no hesitation. Totally fearless, although (I was pleased to note as a concerned father) very sensibly maintaining three contact points at all times.

The scene of the crime was the Hotel Equator, well known to those of you who know it well—a lush little establishment about five minutes walk from our house. We hied ourselves there for a weekend of air-conditioning, satellite television, hot showers, poolside lounging and buffet breakfasts after a planned weekend away in Trawas fell through.

Poor Tash didn't know which way to jump. Every minute spent luxuriating under a hot shower was a minute that could have been spent floating around the pool with Iola. Every minute spent savouring one of the Equator's justifiably famous made-before-your-eyes omelettes was a minute that could have been spent watching David Attenborough (sp?) or the Sponge Bob Square Pants marathon.

Serious thought was given to staying up all night watching TV and having hot showers, then getting down to breakfast as soon as the buffet opened at 6am, but in the end we only made it til about one-thirty before we crashed (would have been earlier, except I couldn't remember how The Sign of Four ended, and had to stay up to find out).

Tell you what, though: for a relatively inexpensive hotel (by Australian standards that is—we paid about fifty bucks for a lovely bungalow with balcony, sitting room etc) they sure made us feel like royalty. It's all in the details—like the staff learning guests' names so that as we walked past we were greeted as 'Mr and Madam Fleming', or the doorman telling the taxi driver our address when we left. It was kind of nice in a weird, colonial kind of way to be treated like royalty for a change.

Apart from that, it's been a relatively uneventful week on the home front. Big changes at work, though. John, our next-door neighbour and Director of Studies at Bukit Mas (i.e. my boss) has had a bit of a promotion, and taken on a double-barrelled role, running EF's new school (Jemo Sari) and heading up the young learners programmes for all the schools.

It's sad to see John go. He's been extremely helpful during our first few months here, both professionally and personally. His replacement, Hannah, is lovely, and I'm sure she'll manage to fill his shoes.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked writing this when I should be finally watching Babel (it's one of a long, long list of movies I haven't got around to seeing yet). I was planning to kind of multitask, but I didn't realise just how much of it is subtitled. I'll have another bash at uploading some video of Iola when I post this at work tomorrow.

Selamat Sore.

'That is the Miracle of God'

2008-04-21T10:57:00.003+07:00

"That is the miracle of God as Mercy with dedicated to human in order to care and protect, finally it was to be enjoyed. Based on that case Mr Haji Hindarto, head of regent of Tuban thought that Akbar cave can be renovated to be a wonderful and amazing tourist object.
So he began to realise his dreams cames true. Finally he built it up with the sense of art, and now we can see what wonderful it is."

How could we not go?? After Mr Hindarto had put all that effort into building it up with the sense of art, it would have seemed churlish to waste our long weekend on anything other than a wonderful and amazing tourist object.

Akbar cave (or Goa Akbar) is smack in the centre of a smallish (smallish in the context of Indonesia meaning less than half a million souls) city on the Northeast coast of Java called Tuban. There seemed to be a few things worth having a look at in and around Tuban, and we were keen to get out of town, so we rolled up a spare nappy or two and a couple of rattles in the swag, set our eyes firmly on distant horizons, boldly misquoted some Tennyson (For still my purpose holds, to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars before I die…What the hell is the 'bath' of a star anyway? Am I mis-remembering the line? I seem to remember being confused by that as a kid, though. Bonus points to anyone who can tell what a star's bath is) and headed off into the wild blue yonder.

You know, now that all our travel plans include a small and rather vulnerable addition to our party, it's getting harder and harder to make ourselves sound like intrepid travellers rather than coddled tourists. Take this Grand Tour of Tuban and Surrounding Areas for example:
Did we hire a motorbike and spend the whole day bouncing over pot-holed goat tracks, getting lost and asking for directions in fractured Bahasa from someone who speaks only Javanese? No.
Did we brave the Javanese inter-city bus system, with its seemingly meth-crazed drivers slamming it Targa-style around blind hairpins, and burgeoning population of itinerant pickpockets, bandits, shysters and general rogues? No.
Did we bung the Ortlieb panniers on the tandem Cannondale and camp on the verge of rice paddies? No.
We hired ourselves a luxury four-wheel drive, complete with individual aircon and the now obligatory twenty-three cupholders (when was the last time you had twenty-three cups of liquid refreshment on the go in a space that could fit eight people at a push?) and matching chauffer. I must admit, this is now my transportation of choice. It was deliciously decadent to finish sweating our way around the markets or a temple or whatever knowing that we had a nice, air-conditioned car to crawl back into, and that all we had to do to get to the next place was tell the driver, who was then responsible for all the asking of directions and so on.

We took the inland road to Tuban on the way there, planning to come back via the coast road (in the event we came back the same way, flooding having closed down part of the coast road). It was a pretty cruisy trip, on mostly well-made roads with little traffic to speak of.

On the other hand, it was a somewhat sobering trip. We'd seen news stories over the previous couple of days about some fairly serious flooding, but our minimal Bahasa and limited geographical awareness meant that we didn't actually know where the flooding was. As it turned out, we drove through one of the affected areas.

It was quite depressing. The road was raised on a sort of causeway, and this was lined with jerry-built shelters rigged from tarpaulins and bits of string: each one home to a dispossessed family. Off the road the water looked to still be about three feet deep, and whole villages had been abandoned. We passed hundreds of people by the roadside, all hopefully waving their plastic bowls or tins at passing vehicles for donations. Unfortunately we didn't have any small money on the outbound trip, but we stocked up on change in Tuban so we could contribute something on the return trip.

First stop was Kerik, ten kilometres or so west of Tuban. We'd read that the area around here was renowned for traditional batik, and Tash in particular was keen to have a look. A slight hiccough in communications meant that the driver thought we wanted to go to the masjid (mosque) in Kerik (my fault—I'd rattled off a list of places we'd wanted to go, and said something like 'Kerik, the masjid in Tuban, Goa Akbar' and so on: the driver heard 'Kerik' and 'masjid' together), so we were a little confused when we thought we were going to a batik market, and instead found ourselves turning into a masjid/school and having the office pointed out to us by the driver.

Fortunately we were saved too much embarrassment in front of the hundred-odd school kids who came racing out to laugh at the crazy bules, as a very friendly (and English speaking) Imam came out and gave the driver directions to where we could find some traditionally made batik.

Ten minutes later, Tash was in textile heaven! Gorgeous batiks, hand-dyed with all natural pigments (primarily indigo) were the order of the day, and we picked up a couple of nice pieces for next to nothing. One place even showed us unspun samples of the various cottons they used for achieving different textures. We also had a bit of a squiz out the back at one of the places, and felt like we were in some medieval witch's den. It was dark as sin, the ceiling was about five feet off the ground, and everywhere you looked were ancient cauldrons seething and bubbling with mysterious substances.

From Kerik we headed into Tuban, where we wandered around Pasar Baru (the markets) for a while before grabbing some lunch then exploring the 'wonderful and amazing tourist object' of Goa Akbar. We were actually quite impressed by the caves, and had a good look around. We skipped some sections, though, as they'd been converted into subterranean masjids, and we didn't really feel comfortable going in. I thought we were going to be arrested on the way out—a great mountain of a security guard insisted on having a cuddle with Iola, who immediately tried to rip off his shiny gold name badge!

Next stop was Kwang Sing Bio, the largest Chinese temple in Indonesia. It was a huge complex, although much of it was inaccessible to casual tourists. Tash was particularly taken with the man-size candles, which could be purchased for the equivalent of a couple of hundred bucks. Also quite impressive, if more in the anticipation than the current reality, was the immense series of frescos in the process of being created outside the temple telling the story of the warrior who got religion who the temple is named for. In honour of Harry and Lou's latest addition, we also took a photo of the big digital board showing the time in 'Sidney'.

Last stop for the day was the big masjid in the centre of town. It was quite pretty in a sort of Mohammad-goes-to-Toy Town kind of way, and we had a good look around the adjacent street market, finding some very cute little batik coordinates for Iola.

I nearly forgot—we also had a failed attempt at a swim. After Goa Akbar, we thought it might be nice to cool off, so we headed south to try finding a spring-fed pool I'd heard about that sounded quite nice. When we got there it did indeed look very nice—a stone-walled pool complete with a water slide and decorative frescos—but fortunately we had a quick look upstream before taking the plunge, and were fascinated to observe that not only were the kitchen staff from the poolside café washing dishes in the water that fed the pool, but just upstream from them was the local rubbish dump, complete with scavenging monkeys possessed of a range of interesting looking skin diseases.

So what else have we been up to over the last few weeks?

Mostly just being sick! All three of us have taken our turns at succumbing to a particularly nasty flu. Iola even had her first trip to a doktor anak (paediatrician) and had to take a course of antibiotics, which singularly failed to impress her (not that I blame her, they tasted bloody awful). Iola and I seem to be out the other side now, but poor Tash seems to be having a bit of a relapse and is feeling pretty miserable as I write this. I've just been down to the markets and got her some tucker (her usual: bebek (duck), urap-urap, tahu (tofu), tempe and nasi putih (steamed rice).

Actually, this weekend has been pretty interesting. Yesterday we went to the Black Urban Art exhibition that's been touring Indonesia for a couple of months. I'd found it online a couple of months ago, but the info I read said the show's stint in Surabaya was at a place called Rotten Apple, and that we'd just missed it. Luckily we spotted a poster for it a few days ago, and realised it was back in town for one day only, set up in a car park next to Plaza Surabaya (at the end of Jalan Kayun; the street with all the plants and flowers).

It was interesting in an east-meets-west kind of way, with heavy influences from graffiti and the vinyl collectible phenomenon. I was particularly impressed with the small collection of custom choppers. There was one big black mother with a sort of spider-web motif as part of the frame that I would really, really like to own. We took plenty of photos, and I'm hoping to upload a lot of them with this post for those people who are interested in this kind of stuff (i.e. all you Juxtapose readers out there!).

Last night we went to a dinner party/movie night at John's place next door. After a lovely homemade lasagne, we all settled in to watch Priscilla, which John's been dying to get his hands on for ages. Unfortunately Iola wasn't in the mood to sit quietly and watch a movie, so I took her off for a walk to the shops. She fell asleep on the way, so in the end I decided to take her home.

There was no way she was going down—every time I tried it she'd wake up and look for her mum—so I actually had a really nice couple of hours wandering around the house listening to music while she slept on my shoulder. When she woke up we had a bit of a dance to the Wiggles, then by the time Tash came home she was pretty much ready for bed again.

It was good for Tash, too, to have a few hours to socialise without having to worry about the little monkey. It can get quite tiring being the life support machine for someone else twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even if they are pretty darn cute.

Today was the Kartini Day spectacular in at the EF school on Jalan Kayun. Along with a bunch of other teachers I got myself all togged up in traditional East Javanese garb (complete with a gorgeously kitsch shark-tooth charm on a gold fob chain. Plenty of the students got dressed up too, and they looked great.

We hung around for a couple of hours watching the fashion parades of all the kiddies, and going in the Javanese script reading competition for all those dumb-ass teachers who can only speak Bahasa Ingris. I even got interviewed for the television about the significance of Kartini Day! (For those of you who are wondering, Kartini was a nineteenth century proto-feminist who has become a symbol for the equivalent of something like our Blue Stocking Day.)

Well. I guess that's kind of brought us up to date. There's lots of other stuff that's been going on: we had a nice dinner out with John, Jez (a teacher from KELT), Lilis, and Jez and Lilis's little girl Rose; we went to the zoo and saw the baby Komodo dragons (and Iola had her first elephant ride); we've watched Iola start walking sideways with her palms flat against the wall for support; we've got Iola completely hooked on the Wiggles; we watched two entire seasons of 'Who Wants to be a Superhero' in one day when we were both sick; Tash got to hang out with Mrs Sue for a few days when we got back from Singapore; Tash has become seriously addicted to onde-ondes; and we still haven't plucked up the courage to try rujak cingur (cows' noses).

More news soon…

Misery Loves Company

2008-04-15T12:36:00.008+07:00

It's been a thoroughly miserable couple of weeks here, with all three of us laid low by the flu, so there hasn't been much time for anything beyond scraping myself to work each day.
I seem to be out the other side of the tunnel now, but Tash is still feeling pretty miserable, and Iola has developed a nasty cough.
We're taking her to the doctor tomorrow to see if she needs a wee dose of liquid antibiotics, as her cough seems to have moved into her chest and she seems a bit rattly, poor little monkey.
All very stressful for a pair of first-time parents who have never had to deal with a sick baby before, but I'm sure she'll be fine.
Anyway, here's a few pics to tide you all over until we're all fit and healthy again and can do something interesting enough to write about!
1) Iola trying her best to share Tash's ayam goreng at PTC.
2) Iola lovin' up her cubby house.
3) Eating the doll?
4) Night of the Living Dead...
5) Sad little monkey :-(
6) She's clapping like a demon these days!

Out and About

2008-04-03T13:07:00.006+07:00

Oops--though I'd posted these pics ten days ago! See what the flu can do...

1) Rose, Lilis, Iola and Jez--out to dinner on Saturday night.

2) Iola being mobbed by shop girls--again!

3) Ajay caught out trying his new pants at a Pasar Atom tailor.

4) Muji giving Iola some fashion tips.

PPLH and Singapore

2008-03-31T10:52:00.001+07:00

[Check out the March 11 post for the photos that accompany this one…]

Hmmm. Where to start? It's been a busy few weeks. Maybe I should start at the very beginning. As an irritatingly chirpy young lady once remarked, it's a very good place to start…

So, three weeks ago we decided to treat ourselves to a weekend away at PPLH, a sort of eco-resort/organic farm/educational type place nestled in the jungle-covered hills in the shade of a classically proportioned volcano. We packed our bags, girded our loins and, in the tradition of the great tropical explorers, called ourselves a cab.

We knew PPLH lay somewhere between Surabaya and Malang, and after a twenty-minute, four-way conversation between me, the driver, the base operator, and someone who spoke English that the base operator managed to find somewhere, we were assured that the driver knew exactly where to go.

In retrospect, we probably should have armed ourselves with slightly more information regarding our destination than a pencil-scrawled 'PPLH' on the back of a supermarket receipt and a vague, half-formed idea that it could be found on the Malang road (it can't) and that there would be nice little bungalows there for us to stay in (there were).

[Ed: Fergal should probably confess at this point that despite his liberal use of the word 'we' in the last two paragraphs, it should read more along the lines of 'I only had the scrawled initials 'PPLH' on the back of a crumpled receipt—at best a hollow mockery of an address. I forgot to get a copy of PPLH's phone number after Nia had very kindly tracked the place down and booked us a room.' Possibly even 'I was foolish enough to believe the base operator's friend when she told me that the very confused looking driver knew where to go.']
[F: Thanks for clearing that up Tash!]

We had a lovely drive through the countryside, and through some not-so-lovely abandoned strips of shops and houses next to the huge, earthen dyke that's keeping the mud flow at bay south of Surabaya. It was quite eerie, seeing all these shops and restaurants that had obviously been thriving until relatively recently starting their slide into decay. The town had its ghosts, too. We'd see the occasional flicker of a homeless kid with a guitar disappearing through a doorway, or a man wearing nothing but a plastic bag on his head and a piece of string around his waist leaning against a wall and counting his fingers; reminders of the relative security and stability of our own lives.

We soldiered on, and once we hit Singosari we figured we couldn't be too far off PPLH, because if we went much further we'd get to Malang and would have gone much too far.

Then we arrived in Malang.

Since we had no idea where PPLH was supposed to be, we thought maybe, just maybe, we had to go through Malang to reach it. We were reassured when the driver stopped to check directions with a local taxi driver, and was all smiles and a big thumbs-up when he got back in the car.

A hundred metres or so down the road he stopped for directions again, and was equally beamy and happy when he got back in.

Then he stopped again.

And again.

And again.

Our faith in our fearless leader was rapidly eroding, and we were discussing our options sotto voce in the back, when we turned into one of the big universities. The driver's relief was palpable, which was disturbing, because our travel plans didn't include any tours of major educational institutions. We were clutching at straws by now in our attempts to reassure ourselves that we would eventually get where we wanted to go, and tried to persuade ourselves that driving through the uni was a convenient shortcut rather than an alternative destination.

After the driver had stopped to ask directions another four or five times, I finally clicked that he was looking for a government department with broadly similar initials (I think it was 'LLP' or something like that). Why he thought we were going for a weekend away at a government department, and why he thought that said government department could be found at the university, are just two more of life's little mysteries destined to go forever unsolved. I spat the proverbial dummy and stalked off to find someone who spoke English (we really, really need to jack up our language studies. The whole day would have been so much less stressful if we spoke Indonesian).

I found some very helpful students, none of whom had ever heard of PPLH. They even called a few friends, but to no avail. Eventually one of the girls insisted on jumping in with us, followed by her boyfriend on his bike, and guiding us to the Malang tourist information centre.

The (very helpful) chap behind the counter there managed to find somewhere called PPLH, and showed us where it was on the map. Initially we were a bit sketchy on this, because the spot he showed us wasn't really anywhere near where we had been over the preceding three or four hours.

We got hold of Nia (big-up thanks to Nia, by the way—she's saved our bacon on several occasions now) on the phone, and she talked to the driver and the tourist information dude. Turned out PPLH was exactly where the info guy had shown us on the map. This was a little depressing, as it meant backtracking most of the way to Surabaya, then turning off the toll road and heading up towards Tretes.

The bit where my jaw really hit the floor, though, was when it was revealed to us that the driver had known where it was the whole time—but he didn't think there was any accommodation there, so had taken it upon himself to find the most alliterative alternative for us.

To cut a long drive short, we eventually found ourselves driving through some very pretty hills, and turning into a gateway that I recognised from John's photos of PPLH. Hurrah!

Once we were there, it was all worth it. The place was beautiful. Forested hills against a volcanic backdrop, verdant rice paddies, sugar cane waving in the breeze—all the accessories needed to feel like you're living in a picture postcard. We stayed in a lovely little bungalow with an outdoor bathroom in a lush courtyard.

It was raining and nearly dark by the time we got there, so we settled in before heading down for dinner. The food was fantastic. They grow their own organic vegies, and breed fish in a series of ponds around the main compound. We discovered a dish we hadn't tried before—urap-urap (vegies and sprouts mixed with grated coconut and chili)—which has since become a staple of our diet.

The next morning we fuelled up on pancakes and kopi susu before going for a bit of a wander. We circled around through the sugar-cane and came out on the road up the hill from PPLH. We walked back past a couple of small farms, where we took some photos of Javanese goat houses for mum and dad to compare to Ugandan styles!

Back at PPLH, we walked down the hill to meet their goats, cows, chooks etc, and took a few more photos. We're starting to get quite a collection of goat house photos together now. By that time it was starting to rain, so we were forced to spend the rest of the afternoon in our lush little bungalow, playing with Iola and catching up on some reading. It's a hard life sometimes…

Iola was most impressed with the main bed. It had a foot-wide shelf running along one side of it about eighteen inches or so above the mattress—the perfect height for her to stand at and smash her blocks around for a couple of hours. Her favourite game of the day was 'demolition': Papa builds a block tower, then she smashes it down and laughs like a loon. Fun times.

When it wasn't raining, Iola also made lots of new friends among the big group of school kids that was at PPLH for the day. Sadly she was still a bit little to join her new buddies on the flying fox or the rope swing over the creek, but she was just as happy watching them.

After a walk through the jungle on Sunday morning and a leisurely lunch, it was time to head back to Surabaya to meet Sue (an old friend of Tash's parents) at the airport. There was a bit of a hiccough when the transport I had arranged early that morning (while our taxi driver buddy had offered to pick us up again on Sunday, we had politely declined, being not at all confident that he could find his way back!) had been mysteriously downgraded from a nice, comfortable, air-conditioned car to a brace of 110cc motorbikes. There was no way we were taking Iola on the back of a bike, but luckily we managed to find another car and driver in time to get us to the airport.

We met Sue, who was stoked to see Tash and Iola, and got her settled at the Hotel Equator before heading down to one of the local restaurants for dinner. In the midst of this, I kind of got a little bit grumpy with the taxi driver from the airport. We'd paid a flat fee of 65000 rupiah to get from the airport to Kris Kencanasari. We live in Kencanasari Timur, off to the left, and the Hotel Equator is in Kencanasari Barat, off to the right. We made a quick stop to dump our bags at our place, then continued to the hotel. When we got there I tipped the driver an extra 5000 for making the second stop (to put this in perspective, the Equator is so close to our place that on the meter it would have added 500 rupiah to the fare--10 % of what I actually gave him). While Sue was checking in, the driver came to reception demanding another 15000 rupiah for the extra drive (to put this in perspective, 15000 would normally get you halfway across Surabaya!). I know this is only two dollars, but I think I'd hit breaking point with dodgy drivers trying to scam me, and I may have been a bit less polite than Miss Manners would recommend…

Ah well. We live and learn…

We had a lovely dinner with Sue, although after we'd ordered it suddenly occurred to me that while I thought I'd ordered a pork/noodle stir fry type thing, it was possible that 'kaki' could be translated as 'feet' rather than 'leg'. Sure enough, when my dinner came it was a small bowl of plain noodles accompanied by a great big bowl of glistening, quivering pig feet. As I ate it, I could almost hear the faint 'tick, tick' of my arteries hardening.

We walked Sue back to her hotel, and got home at about ten-thirty or so feeling refreshed and rested after our relaxing weekend, and stayed up until one getting all our paperwork and kit together ready to head off on a daytrip to Singapore early the next morning. Very early the next morning. It was lucky Tash heard my alarm go off at four-thirty and stayed awake, because I had one of those vaguely alarm related dreams and slapped the evil thing off without actually waking up!

We had a pretty cruisy flight, getting in to Singapore at about ten o'clock local time. I like Garuda. They let the people with kids on first (which made one old Chinese lady who was barging to the front very grumpy), and they give you a little baby package with two bottles of Heinz's very best pure fruit puree, a nappy, a rubber ducky, some baby wipes, and assorted other goodies. On the other hand, they hit us up more than US$100 for Iola to sit on our laps, so I guess a couple of rubber duckies and disposable nappies aren't going to break the bank for them.

First stop in Singapore was a Mc Donald's on Orchard Rd where we were meeting our trusty visa agent, Mr Wahad. I thought this was hilarious. I suppose it makes sense. Why burden yourself with all the overheads of an office when rent is sky-high if all you really need is a mobile phone, a table to fill out forms on, and a steady supply of fries and caramel sundaes? Anyway, we surrendered our passports, visa photos and a large wad of Singapore dollars, and went off to have a bit of a wander around Singapore.

We'd originally had some fairly ambitious plans involving the zoo, Chinatown, old India etc etc, but in the end we only had a few hours before we had to meet the agent to get our passports back then jump straight in a cab back to the airport, so we settled for window shopping along Orchard Road and finding something nice for lunch.

I was blown away by the prices of everything. I'd got used to everything in Indonesia being so cheap, so having to pay four dollars for a cup of coffee had all my Scots ancestors rolling frantically in their graves. Thank god for expense accounts, eh? We did find a great source of free food for an entrée, though. We were in a Japanese supermarket with a deli/seafood section when we realised that they had about thirty sample dishes out of everything from crispy squid to sashimi, and were more than keen for us to try them all!

We got lost in Borders for an hour or so, with Tash under strict instructions to keep our credit cards away from me so I couldn't blow a year's wages on books, then checked out some of the more up-market boutiques. Tash found some fantastic dolls, which we hadn't realised were being made again. Unfortunately they were about $250 each! I found my new pen. It was the Graf von Faber-Castell pen of the year. Gold nib (of course), and an ebony barrel inlaid with scrimshawed ivory from woolly mammoth tusks!! How cool is that? I didn't even ask how much that one was.

Ten to four found us back at Mickey D's waiting for the agent man. This was even funnier than the first meeting. By four o'clock McD's was crawling with anxious looking Europeans, none of them actually eating anything, although several were nervously chain-smoking. By four-fifteen I was getting a little angsty too. We had to be back at the airport to check in for a six-thirty flight, and we were starting to cut it a bit fine. We passed the time playing 'where's the visa man?' with Iola.

Eventually Mr Wahad strode in with a garbage bag full of passports which he tipped out on a table as every European in the place raced over. I wish I'd been able to get some photos of this scene, but we were in a bit of a hurry and ours was one of the first names called ("Fleming! Three!), so we grabbed our booty, quickly checked the visa numbers, and ran for a cab.

We made it to the airport with whole minutes to spare, and got back to Surabaya in time to have a take-away dinner from Depot Sari with Sue. It was a loooong day, but it was a relief to be able to get Tash and Iola onto Kitas visas rather than spending the next twelve months stuffing around with tourist visas or Sosial Bodayas.

Whoosh. So that was our long weekend! And now I'm only three weeks behind on the blog! More to follow…

Tuban and Kerik Pics

2008-03-27T12:49:00.013+07:00

1) She got them again!
2) The masjid in Tuban.
3) Frescoes outside the Kwang Sing Bio temple.
4) Waterfront Tuban.
5) Just for Harry and Lou--how's the weather in Sidney?
6) Chinese temple gardens.
7) and 8) Before and after--the tempting springwater pool, and the rubbish pit upstream!
9) Mr Security Guard has a shiny name tag...
10) At Goa Akbar, the caves under central Tuban.
11) Lunch in Tuban.
12) At Pasar Baru, the markets in Tuban.
13) Making friends at Pasar Baru.
14) Traditional batik workshop near Kerik.
15) Floods by the highway.

Comments...

2008-03-26T17:41:00.002+07:00

Tash sez I'm not allowed to spend any more valuable family time on the blog unless people start leaving comments so that we know someone out there's actually reading it!

So there ;-)

In da Hood

2008-03-19T12:41:00.011+07:00

1) Tash and Iola hitting the jus apokat at the night markets (5 min walk from our house).

2) Iola making friends in the 'hood.

3) Me and Iola at the zoo.

4) A croc that followed us from Darwin...

5) Iola riding her first gajah!

6) Look into my eyes...

7), 8) One little tuckered-out monkey.

Singapore, PPLH and Mrs Sue

2008-03-11T11:40:00.016+07:00

Some quicky captions (the full story of our eventful long weekend coming soon...):

1) Sue arriving at Surabaya airport on Sunday evening.

2) Behind our bungalow at PPLH.

3) Playing 'where's the visa agent?' with Iola in Singapore.

4) One motha of a bunch of bananas outside Sue's hotel room in Surabaya.

5) The pig's feet I accidentally ordered (forgetting that 'kaki' means feet as well as leg!).

6) Iola making new friends at Bandara Juanda.

7) Me and Iola in the herb garden at PPLH.

8) PPLH

9) Iola meeting the goats.

10) Cows. Does this one really need a label?

11) Tash and Iola at PPLH.

12) and 13) Javanese goat houses.

14) Ganesh at PPLH

15) Tash in the restaurant at PPLH.

16) A four-inch-long snail at PPLH.

Ah, kids...

2008-03-05T13:16:00.003+07:00

Our little girl is developing at a frightening pace—literally in leaps and bounds! When I left Darwin, less than two months ago, she was rolling around quite happily, and looking like she was almost ready to do a sort of attempt at a crawl.
Now all you have to do is take your eyes off her for a split second, and she's suddenly clear on the other side of the room, standing up and supported by one or two fingers on the window bars, psyching herself up for a tricky first traverse of the patio doors.
She's also discovered her new favourite game: jack-in-the-box-peek-a-boo. Tash made her a cubby house out of the box the tv came in, and she's been loving it. She gets herself inside the box, pulls herself up so she's standing with her head poking out the hatch in the top, and then laughs like a loon for about ten minutes as she lowers herself down and then pops back out so you can see her again.
I had a bash at posting a video of her new routine, but unfortunately something went pear-shaped about two hours into the upload! We'll try filming her on lower res and have another go at it soon.
Iola's getting so spoilt. Everywhere we go she gets mobbed by people wanting to say hello to her. I'm starting to understand the angst of all those poor little rich girls who lose it at the paparrazi—the other day it took me ten minutes to get away from the cashiers at the supermarket because so many of the other customers wanted to take her photo!
I kinda like it. If I go down to the shops on my own everyone pretty much ignores me, but if I take Iola it's like being bodyguard to the People's Princess. I think it's getting a bit old for Tash, though. For someone who relishes their anonymity, it can be hard not to be able to walk down the street without cars slowing down to point and stare, or complete strangers wanting to stop and chat about babies in a language she doesn't speak yet…
The other photos I've put up today are from a pet shop at PTC, a mall about ten minutes from our house. CITES eat your heart out… If you want an exotic pet here, all you gotta do is ask. Snapping turtles, every variety of snake and lizard imaginable, giant tortoises, whole sections of coral reef, and my personal favourite, salt-water crocodiles. I mean really. What do you do with a bloody crocodile when it grows up? As soon as I saw them I had flash-backs to bad eighties horror flicks, with some Surabayan maid being ordered to flush Chuckie the Croc down the toilet because he was getting too big for little Bayu to play with.
At least a croc would have a fighting chance, I guess. Apparently it's quite common for rich kids to get a cute little baby orangutan as a pet. Orangutans get quite big and strong--something which seems to escape the attention of their new owners—and when people suddenly find that that cute ball of fluff is now eighty kilos of un-house-trainable muscle that could quite easily twist your head off your shoulders if you forget to buy their favourite orangy-treats, they drive them back to their 'home' in the jungle. Of course, wee Ginger has never actually been to the jungle, and so starves and pines to death quite rapidly.
But enough doom and gloom.
The other animals are much cooler. The picture was taken at Super Mall. You know how malls in Australia usually have some kind of plastic car or something that parents can drag their kids around in? Well here they have giant electronic animals with servo-driven legs that the kids ride around! Apparently I'm too big to have a go.
We have an extra long weekend coming up. Friday is a holiday, so we're hoping to get up to somewhere around Malang for a nice, chilled out couple of days. Then I have Monday off so we can head off on a day trip to Singapore to sort our visas out. It looks like we've managed to get Tash and Iola onto my KITAS (residency) as dependents, which will save a lot of running around over the course of the next twelve months!

Surabaya

2008-03-04T12:53:00.007+07:00

So here, in no particular order, are some samples of our Surabaya pics. I'll try and upload a few a day from work, but the connection's a little slow! Running from top to bottom: Iola in the loungeroom; Iola in the kitchen door with John's labrador pup Ambrose; camel cart at Surabaya Zoo; Tash and Iola at Pasar Atom (Chinese markets); and Tash in Jalan Kayun, the street of plant and flower sellers.

And to Summarise...

2008-02-28T17:48:00.005+07:00

Okay, so it's been a wee while between posts. We have been kinda busy though…
So a quick précis of the past few months is probably in order, yeah? Well here we go then, and pay attention: there'll be a quiz at the end.

1) We visited Sydney and Canberra on our way to Tassie. It was my maternal grandfather's 90th birthday, and we had a lovely weekend up in Leura catching up with family. On the Monday we hired a car for a flying visit to Canberra so Iola could meet her paternal grandparents, as well as having afternoon tea with the Ugandan Ambassador.

Tuesday we spent with Tash's brother Marcus, and started the process of getting Iola hooked on snorkelling and scuba diving by taking her to the aquarium at Darling Harbour. She was very taken with the enormous tank with reef fish in it, and spent ages tracking angelfish, damselfish, batfish etc.

2) I did the CELTA course down in Tassie. Everyone I know who's done the course warned me that it would be intense, and they weren't kidding. I don't think you could describe any particular aspect of the course as being overly challenging from an academic point of view, but they manage to pack an awful lot of material into a four-week course. Plus, everything you learn about teaching is expected to be put into practice pretty much straight away during the prac teaching sessions in the afternoons (teaching real live students in a real live classroom from day one of the course. Scary, but invaluable experience).

The hardest part of the course wasn't so much the course itself, but the fact that it chewed up so much of my time and energy that there was bugger all left over for Tash and Iola. It was up by dawn everyday, get stuck into some lesson planning/materials development, head into school before the girls were awake, school all day, then home for dinner and a bit more school work before bed. At least it gave Tash a chance to catch up with her Tassie crew and play babies with Myf (Myf and Jake had a little girl-Nieko-the week we arrived).

I did get a chance to see a bit of the countryside before the course started. Peter (Tash's dad) took me for a walk up Pine Valley. The plan was to head up to the Labyrinth and the Acropolis, but the weather closed in on us and we decided that (a) discretion was the better part of valour, and (b) we weren't really in the mood to spend a couple of days slogging through slushy snow and mud when we probably wouldn't be able to see anything anyway, so we turned back after spending a night at Pine Valley Hut.

We might not have got to were we were going, but we still saw some beautiful country, and I got snowed on for the first time in years, which was great fun and made me feel quite nostalgic! I've never really experienced that sort of temperate rain forest before, and it was quite odd seeing pandanus plants, which I associate with the tropics, covered in lichens and weighed down by snow. There was also lots of the sort of country that makes me want to dump my pack, build myself a hut, and just relax for a month or six. Beautiful little winding and ox-bowed creeks with overhanging moss-covered banks making their way through forests of moss-covered trees, studded with moss-covered tree stumps and moss-covered boulders. I'm a bit of a sucker for moss.

Speaking of which, on the track heading up Pine Valley (which branches off from the main Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair trail—AKA the Overland Track) I saw my first ever proper-style sphagnum moss bogs. As I already pointed out, I don't mind contemplating a bit of moss from time to time, and the sphagnum bogs formed a gorgeously delicate little community, best appreciated with your head near the ground at moss level. They reminded me a little bit of diving on certain kinds of reefs, in that what can give the appearance of bland homogeneity at a distance can reveal itself as complex, intricate and aesthetically delightful at a macro scale.

Next time I go to Tassie I'll have to get Jenny to teach me a little about sphagnum bogs. Jenny and Russell are old friends of Tash's parents, and Jenny is something of a world authority on the cheeky little bryophyte (apologies if that's the incorrect terminology these days—my biology's a bit rusty and I don't have any reference works here) and regularly jets off to remote parts of the world to get to know it even better.

Jenny and Russell (an engineer with a delightfully dry sense of humour and a bit of a fetish for tractors) have a little farm at Sandfly with a cottage garden that made Tash nigh to weep with jealousy, ducks, chooks, cows and a hay paddock that did make Tash weep. And sneeze. And snuffle. And itch. Hay fever is a serious disease, people, and I'm here to tell you that laughing at people who suffer from it is the first step on a very short road to a world of pain. The farm makes them about fifty per cent self-sufficient, and the tentative plan is for Russell to take early retirement and push that figure closer to the eighty mark.

When we visited them there we had the nicest meal I've had in ages. Freshly butchered duck cooked to perfection (I forget how it was prepared—I love good food, but I'm not enough of a gourmand to be able to describe it properly afterwards), home-grown vegetables and fruits, all washed down with some lovely wines, including, for dessert, a botrytis semillion. Ahhh, the Noble Rot! Not what you'd call a quaffing wine (which I guess is a negative for a lot of my friends!), but damn it makes for a nice treat every now and then.

On weekends I took a break (mostly) from study, and we got to catch up with a lot of Tash's old friends, and some of mine who seem to have the knack of popping up in the weirdest places (nods to you here, Nina—seems there isn't a pub in Australia I can walk into without you popping up and going 'Hey! Darwin crew! So are we going to get trashed or what?). Some of Tash's friends I knew and liked already, others I knew only by reputation.

Years of listening to Tash, Jorji and anyone else from Tassie who was passing through Darwin gossip about their friends meant that I'd already soaked up a fair bit of biographical detail about most of the people I was meeting for the first time, and Tash had to point out to me that it kind of weirded people out when, upon meeting, I'd say something like 'Oh! So you're X. You live out at Y, yeah? And you're Z's dad? How is Z, anyway? I heard she was having a few problems with allergies.'

You get the picture. My apologies to any of those people reading this—I didn't mean to come across as some sort of trans-continental stalker, I was just stoked to put some faces to names that had become so familiar by proxy.

Anyway. I should stop rambling on about Tasmania, much as I love the place. This is supposed to be an update on what we're doing in Surabaya, and nearly 1500 words in I'm still in Tasmania!

To summarise the summary:
We got to see lots of good people (Cate, Myf, Jake etc etc etc—I can see why Tash has such a sense of loyalty to her Tassie friends; they're a really good crew of people).

Tash's extended family and network of old family friends got to meet Iola.

Iola rolled over-both ways-for the first time.

I rode down Mt Wellington.

I got a horrendous flu and only survived the middle two weeks of my course (which I don't remember very well) because Tash kept me supplied with cold and flu tablets (in the process managing to persuade the girl at the chemist that she was running the smallest speed lab in the world. As an aside: this really gave me the shits. Sure, if someone walks in and says 'Give me forty packets of whatever you've got with pseudo-ephedrine in it.', then you're going to be a trifle suss on the transaction. But if someone comes in and says their boyfriend's really sick, and you sell them a pack of cold and flu tablets that lasts for four days, and you come in four days later for another pack, does that justify searching data-bases of registered drug offenders and giving Tash a lecture on abusing non-prescription medications?).

I'm rambling again. Sorry.

3) We spent a few days in Melbourne catching up with Iola's Aunty Ness on the way back to Darwin, which was a lot of fun. We also caught up with Dirk and Jane. After a couple of nights with Ness, we lushed it up in a serviced apartment on Collins St. We took Iola to the zoo, which I think she enjoyed, although she slept through most of it. We also took her to the Victorian art gallery, where she displayed a marked preference for figurative work and a distinct distaste for abstract expressionism.

4) Back to Darwin, and back to work… I'm going to miss working with Don and the lads. I learnt a hell of a lot in the eighteen plus months I spent working there, and Don was a lot of fun to work for.

The plan was to stay in Darwin until late February, or preferably into March, while we slowly got the house sorted and ready to rent out and looked around for good ESL teaching work. Things didn't quite work out that way, as I was offered a position in Surabaya starting mid-January. This was the cue for several weeks of frantic activity, finishing off renovation projects, getting rid of surplus material possessions, and…

5) Getting married!
To be honest, this wasn't really that big a deal for us. As far as we were concerned, we were pretty much already married anyway. Unfortunately, when it comes to obtaining visas, the Indonesian government isn't quite so relaxed about the formalities of commitment, and like to see an actual marriage certificate, so we decided to take the plunge.

We had a bit of a party/lawn sale the week before the wedding for all our friends (at least, those who could make it on 24 hours notice!), and then a quiet registry office ceremony the following Friday. Tash's parents flew up for the occasion, and Harry and Lisa-Marie came along as our witnesses. I think the celebrant was particularly impressed by our rings. Mine was made from an old spoon, and Tash's was a big red thing packed with fake rubies that I'd bought for three dollars at the corner shop.

As usual, we managed to time things beautifully, and managed to get married while Darwin was on a cyclone warning. After the ceremony, everyone raced home to batten down the hatches before heading over to my folks place for dinner. In true Darwin style, no one was going to let a petty little thing like a cyclone get in the way of a good piss-up, and we had a great evening with our parents, Lisa-Marie and Paul, Harry and Lou, Don and Belinda, and Basil and Marg.

We toddled off home to bed, quietly confident that the cyclone would miss us by several hundred kilometres, and woke up the next morning to find that a tree had fallen on the house. Fortunately there wasn't much damage, and the insurance guys got everything sorted pretty quickly.

Tash's parents decided to stay a few extra days and help out, which was fantastic. I don't think there's any way we could have got the house sorted in time without the help of our respective parents.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there amidst all the chaos, Iola had her first Christmas! She actually ended up with quite a few very nice pressies, despite my best efforts to persuade everyone that she wouldn't remember anything about her first Christmas, and it would be much cheaper and easier just to get a picture of her sitting under the tree and photoshop in a bunch of images from a toy catalogue.

6) We moved to Surabaya!
Well, initially it was just me—Tash stayed on for two weeks to finish organising everything and for Iola to get her six month shots while I headed off into the wild blue yonder to blaze a trail and hopefully find a house for us before she arrived.

I arrived in Surabaya in one piece on a muggy Friday morning after a pretty cruisy transition through Denpasar, complete with fifteen kilos of extra baggage (all Iola's!) that I managed to get through the system without having to pay any extra (Jetstar could take a few pointers on customer service from Garuda…), and was whisked away by the English First driver to one of the houses EF rents for teachers to share.

First priority was to explore the city by cabbing it to somewhere central then getting myself good and lost. The alleged CBD (Surabaya seems a little like Canberra, although not as beige, in that while it has a purported centre, it is littered with super-malls and commercial centres. We technically live in the outer suburbs to the South-West, but we're five to ten minutes in any direction from retail/commercial centres twice the size of Darwin's CBD) was easy to navigate, being littered with high-rise hotels with their names blazoned across the top floor, most of which were conveniently marked on my map.

I found lots of interesting things that day. I toured the Russian sub that was instrumental in the Indonesian struggle for independence in 1945, wandered along Jalan Kayun (sellers of plants and flowers), ate some wicked nasi campur for about fifty cents, and slowly relearned the skill of crossing four lanes of cars, trucks, motorbikes, becaks (bicycle rickshaws), bicycles, kaki lima ('five legs'—mobile cafes in miniature, usually one or two dishes only), delivery trikes etc etc in a country where pedestrian crossings are symbolic at best: the trick, which takes a bit of a leap of faith, is to just walk slowly across the road waving your hand as if patting the air beside you. In Australia, this would leave you smeared over twenty meters of asphalt; here it seems to work surprisingly well.

Most of the time.

I must admit, now that Iola's here I feel a little less confident crossing the busier roads, and tend to maintain a keen awareness of the whereabouts of any available pedestrian overpasses.

The centre of Surabaya seems to be laid out along fairly traditional lines—a structure that cities in Australia have mostly moved away from—in that different industries, services and products tend to be clustered into distinct zones (sound application of access economics, eh Dad?). Thus there's a street of shoes, a street of furniture, a street of bathroom fixtures, and so on. I checked out a few of these, then hit the mega-malls.

The first one I went to was TP Plaza, which claims to be the biggest mall in South-East Asia (the new biggest mall is being built at the end of our street!). I believe them. Floor after floor and wing after wing of high-end consumer goodies (with high-end prices to match) ranging from exercise equipment to haute couture. I didn't last long in TP before I had to run away.

It's a typically SE Asian city, though, in that it's a mosaic of old and new, rich and poor, traditional and cutting edge. Walk out of TP, turn two corners, and you're in a traditional fruit and veg market with goats, chooks and kids running around in the dirt—you could do your week's shopping here for less than the price of a latte and muffin in TP!

On the Sunday of my first weekend I was invited to a Martini Brunch at the Shangri La, a lush, 5 star hotel just around the corner from where we're living, to farewell Ben and Ide (two teachers returning to the UK) and welcome me and Hugo (a Canadian teacher who arrived at the same time as me).

This was fun, but definitely not something you'd want to do everyday.

The Martini Brunch costs about fifteen dollars. For this you get a buffet of luscious anti-pasto, a main course of your choice, a delectable desert buffet, and, as the name suggests, all the martinis you can drink (they have a variety for each letter of the alphabet!). Have you booked your ticket yet, Lisa-Marie?

By the end of lunch people were ordering their martinis two or three at a time, which meant that it seemed eminently logical to round things off with a couple of bottles of tequila at Ben, Ide and Ajay's house. Not the most sensible thing to do the day before you start a new job, but it was great to meet some of the people I would be working with on a social level first. Good crew of people, too.

The first week was a bit of a blur of orientation—going through the different course types at EF, resources, assessment and so on—and classroom observations. Meanwhile, I was trying to find us a house. In the end I got lucky. The house next door to John (the Director of Studies at Bukit Mas, the school where I teach) was vacant, and pretty much exactly what we were looking for. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a largish living area, a little garden out the front and a courtyard out the back. It was a little more expensive than the ideal, but this was more than compensated for by the location. It's a five-minute cycle to school for me, and a five minute walk to anything Tash could need during the day (from large supermarkets to cinemas to Japanese restaurants to custom furniture makers!).

The next week also went by quickly. It was my first week of proper teaching, which I really enjoyed, juggled with meetings with the landlord and lawyers to sort out the lease on the new house. Finally Friday night arrived, when Tash and Iola would be arriving from Oz!

They flew to Denpasar in the morning, and spent the day there catching up with Jorji, Alex, Jahva and Zirrian. I had to teach until 9pm, but Tash couldn't get on the late flight from Denpasar, so in the end I arranged for the school's driver to pick them up from the airport and take them back to the house where I'd been staying.

It was great seeing the girls again. Only two weeks, and Iola seemed to have grown so much! I was a little bit embarrassed though. A few days before they arrived I'd been whining like a little girl to Muji (the maid at the house I'd been staying in) about how much I was missing Tash and Iola. Turns out Muji's got a little boy, but he's four hours drive away back at the village she comes from, and she gets to see him once a month or so if she's lucky.

We moved into our new (rather empty looking) house the next afternoon, and started the process of getting to know Surabaya and turning the house into a home (is that really cheesy? I've copped a dose of a nasty flu that's been doing the rounds at work, and it's making me a bit tired and emotional. I just re-read that line and thought 'Awwwww. Making the house into a home,' and durn nearly started bawling).

Maybe I should leave it here until I get over the flu and then start doing proper-style updates—weekly, or even more frequently. The trouble with only updating this blog every few months is that by the time I get close to the current date I'm bored with talking about myself and start skipping over all the good bits.

Selamat Jalan, then, and I'll follow up in a few days with an entry dedicated exclusively to the latest carryings on of the cutest little bule princess in Jawa Timur…

ps I'm posting this using this dodgy post-by-email thingy. Hopefully I'll be able to edit it and add some pics once it's up

Buffy Shmuffy

2007-09-26T08:10:00.001+07:00

The other night, Tash and I finally got around to watching the final few episodes of the last season of Buffy.
What a gyp.
Let's start with the second-last episode. Buffy and Spike have just shared some touching moments. They'd cuddled all night, and Spike had finally let his emotions do the talking and confessed his love to Buffy. I gotta admit I had a tear in my eye. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for old Spike, and it was lovely to see those two kids being so very much in love. Then in walks Angel. Not five minutes after leaving Spike, how does our vampire slaying harlot say hello to Angel? By sticking her tongue down his throat and 'basking' (her term) in his fabulous presence! What a tramp! I was grievously offended, and most indignant on behalf of my old mate William the Bloody.
But enough of that. Besides, Tash (who seems to be on the side if the Angels) reckons I only got pissed off because I've got a crush on Spike. I don't -- but I wouldn't mind scoring a leather coat the same like his...
What really got my goat was the grand finale, the ultimate showdown between good and evil, the culmination of seven years worth of complex story arcs and character development, the scene that let us in on what it was all about. What do we get? Metaphysical denouements of the nature of the universe? A fusion of the moral polarity so integral to the 'buffyverse', leaving a world where everyone can just be happy and get on with life? (Boring, I know, but it seems to be so many people's idea of nirvana.) Proof (or otherwise) of the existence of some supreme being?
I'll tell you what we get. We get a frickin montage showing us that girls can play baseball too. Yay. Girl power. I mean, really: what the fuck? Isn't that what the whole damn series was about? Seven years of showing girls rising from humble beginnings to become serious kickers of butt and holders of esoteric wisdom, and the best the producers can come up with for the ending is a cheesy little homily on girl power? We know girls can kick butt -- that's why the show's called Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead of Buffy the Big-haired Mall Rat. I felt like a three-year-old having to have it explained to him that Aesop's fables aren't just stories, but also have moral lessons not-so-cunningly woven into their plots.
I'm very disappointed.

Night Skating

2007-09-19T18:48:00.001+07:00

I love skating at night. I just skated home from our birthday bbq, and I'd completely forgotten the rush that you get skating in almost total darkness. It's kind of zen, if that doesn't make me sound like too much of a wanker. During the day, you're constantly, automatically scanning the track ahead of you. If there's a nasty little gravel patch up ahead, you've registered it and subconsciously planned some evasive action well before it becomes a real threat. You're aware of upcoming surface changes, you can see all the cracks and bumps -- basically, you can plan ahead.
At night, all that changes. You have to feel every change almost before it happens to be able to react fast enough to deal with it. It's kind of like that scene where Luke Skywalker is training with his lightsaber on the Millenium Falcon and he's got the blast shield down: if you wait to the point where you can consciously think 'Hey, that feels like a big enough chunk of gravel under my left skate to chock my wheels completely, better shift weight to the other--oops! Seed pods, shift back again--' then you'll be faceplanted and painting the pavement with skin before you can say 'When did they dig up that patch of asphalt for the new drain?'. You have to be your skates. You have to be one with them. And you have to do it all while you're pumping it so hard that you're lungs are screaming and even if it were daylight you wouldn't be able to see for the sweat blinding your eyes. I love it.

My apologies if all this comes across as a total toss, but I had a long, boring day after too many other long, boring days that I would rather have spent hanging out with Tash and Iola,
and my skate home kind of brought me back to life.

Happy Birthday!

2007-09-19T08:26:00.001+07:00

It's Tash's birthday today. I love Tash very much. Happy birthday Tash.

And that's about all I'm going to say about that, lest I get all soppy and sentimental and anyone reading this hurls their lunch. I'd hate to have that on my conscience.

Arrrrrrrr

2007-09-19T04:41:00.002+07:00

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Hurrah!
When I first came across ITLPD a few years ago, I was pretty excited. I was unleashing 'Aaaarrrrs' and 'Shiver me timbers' and 'Pieces of eight' all over the place. But then I thought it through a little further. Why was I conforming to these stereotypical perceptions of the vocabulary of a seventeenth or eighteenth century pirate?
For one thing, if I were to be a pirate, I'd want at the very least to be a pirate Captain, if not an honest-to-God Pirate King, with his own secret island fortress and all that funky stuff. Now here's something that most people don't really think about when it comes to the job description of a Pirate King: you actually need to be quite well educated. Navigation, logistics, tactics -- these things aren't instinctive, they need to be learned. Your average Pirate King is probably more likely to say something along the lines of 'Gosh, I can't wait for someone to invent a reliable and portable timepiece so I can accurately calculate both latitude and longitude' than 'Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.'
Imagine the job interview. You're up before a panel of the Brethren of the Coast. One of them says 'So, Captain Fergal. We'd like to address selection criteria number three now, if we could. Perhaps with a hypothetical? Let's say that the construction of your island fortress has fallen two months behind schedule. The stone masons' guild is striking for a bigger beer ration, you're still waiting for your black powder shipment to clear Jamaican customs, and in just two weeks a convoy of fat Spanish merchantmen will be sailing the trade route three hundred nautical miles to the south. Half of your ships are still careened with bad cases of shipworm, and the Royal Navy has just put a price of 10000 guineas on your head. What do you do?'
Wouldn't sound terribly professional to reply with 'Well keelhaul me for a landlubber if ye ain't the scurviest bunch of bilge rats I've ever clapped eyes upon. Where's that thrice-cursed rum? Bring me a saucy wench!' now, would it?
So maybe as I observe ITLPD this year, I'll leave all the yo-ho-hoing to my deckhands, and find someone to discuss the perils of employing locals to do the plumbing in one's island hideout with over a nice cup of tea.

No Sleep Til Bedtime

2007-09-14T23:12:00.001+07:00

It's nearly two o'clock in the morning. Tash is crashed out with Iola spread-eagled across her chest, and I'm sitting here with a glass of wine that I'm pretty keen to finish before I collapse in a dead heap and sleep the clock 'round.
I love Iola to pieces. She's without a doubt the best thing that's ever happened to me, bar none. But I gotta tell ya, sometimes it's hard work.
She's usually pretty good when it comes to kipping out at a relatively civilised hour, but tonight she just wanted to party. I've spent the last couple of hours singing to her, which was supposed to put her to sleep, but instead seemed to spark this little flame in her eyes that said 'put another coin in the jukebox, baby.'
So tomorrow morning (later this morning?) she'll open her eyes and shoulder up to her usual stool at the NPR Milkbar; I'll wake up at the sound of her voice, she'll go back to sleep for a few hours, and I'll stay up and try to be functional.
Rock on Iola.

This IS Art, Tina

2007-09-12T17:01:00.001+07:00

So I've always wanted to travel the world, and I guess I've done more traveling than most by now, but I've always felt a vague emptiness, a sort of hollow feeling, like I was just going through the motions for no particular reason. Well, now I've found it. My tag. My hook. My reason for wanting to bum around the globe just generally looking at weird shit and not necessarily achieving anything much in particular.

I want to do a comprehensive survey of crap art. Especially crap art executed by the owner/s of the sorts of lodging and eating establishments where such art is more often than not found.

Here's a couple of examples. One is fairly run-of-the-mill crap. It's a classic example of the topless island girl designed to faintly titillate middle-aged white tourists and give a vaguely Gaughinesque vibe of tropical raunchiness to the room. Why did I like it? It was in a hotel room in Tete Batu. This is in the hills of Lombok. The place is so resolutely Islamic that you can't buy a beer, and there's just no way you're going to be chilling by the pool with a dusky native maiden clad only in a grass skirt and a sultry smile.

The other two are quite special. Both are from the Butterfly Farm in Batchelor, NT. The mermaid takes up the entire wall of the bathroom -- quite a sensory assault. She pales, though, next to the main wall of the master bedroom. A viking ship stirringly sets sail into a lurid sunset, embarking on a voyage of who-knows-what feats of derring-do and skullduggery. A particularly nice touch (unfortunately offstage in the photo) is the round wall light that becomes the full moon in the mural. Why did the owner of an inland tourist establishment in the wet/dry tropics of northern Australia feel that mermaids and vikings would put the punters in the mood? I don't know, but I love it.

Shanghaied

2007-09-11T10:36:00.001+07:00

I don't know why, but some atavistic remnant lurking in my otherwise totally snag-like personality feels like a bit of a girly man after that last post. So here's a picture of a fuck-off industrial catapult I just made for a friend's eleven year-old. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, some petty, bureaucratic minded sod has made these things illegal since I was eleven myself. So any law enforcement officials viewing this page should rest easy in the knowledge that the weapon of minimal destruction in question has been disposed of as thoughtfully as all the signatories to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty have disposed of their little toys.

Pass the Cheese, Please

2007-09-11T10:02:00.001+07:00

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS DANGEROUSLY HIGH CHEESE LEVELS. IT SHOULD NOT BE VIEWED BY ANYONE SUFFERING FROM SCHMALTZ ALLERGIES, OR ANYONE WHO ALREADY HAS A HIGH BLOOD/CORN CONTENT.

When Tash was pregnant with Iola, I read everything. I read new-age books on natural pregnancy--most of which were quite irritating, although they did tend to have amusing illustrations (every man with afros and big beards, every woman with long, straight, centre-parted hair and the idyllic facial expression of a lotus-chewing brood cow). I read textbooks on gynaecology and obstetrics, which were often very disturbing because (for obvious reasons) their focus was on all the dire and dreadful things that could go wrong during pregnancy and labour. I read Kaz Cooke and Sheila Kitzinger cover to cover. I read books on how to be the perfect dad. I studied massage techniques for labour and learned a range of origami-like nappy folds. I knew about cradle cap and proper breastfeeding style. I spent hours reading through every additional info link on birth.com.au. I knew perhaps a little too much about normal changes to the colour and consistency of a baby’s excreta over the first two weeks of life. I was au fait with SIDS risk factors, and I could discourse knowledgably on the relative merits of Bugaboo versus Phil & Teds prams (not that I could afford either of them). I knew about lotus births and induction techniques, caesarian procedures and contraction timings, labour stages and apgar scores.

Basicallly I was a little smarty-pants know-it-all who thought he had this whole baby thing pretty much covered. If you had to take tests on this stuff, I would have nailed them.
But you know what? When you’re actually holding your baby, when you can feel her skin on your skin and her little heart beating, when those little blue eyes look up into yours, all of that goes away. You don’t give a shit about apgar scores and physiological development. All that matters is that this is your baby, and you love her and want to cuddle her and protect her and try your damnedest to give her a good life. The first time you kiss your little girl and she smiles at you, you’re hers for life.

Iola. Yay!!!

2007-09-11T05:15:00.001+07:00

And now ladies and gentlemen, here by popular demand, fresh from her command performance at Nanna's House of Blues, it is my very great pleasure to present to you, for your education, edification and entertainment, the one, the only, the littlest pirate, Iola Persephone!!!!!

[yay, yay, clap, clap, whistle, whistle etc etc]

Maybe someday...

2007-09-10T15:04:00.001+07:00

Okay, so if I'm going to do this facebook thing, then I guess I might as well go the whole hog and go back to the blogging thing I was flirting with last year. But today I'm sick, so all I'm going to do is try and import the old beast into facebook. Stand by for fascinating, informative and amusing rants. Maybe.

Sidenee

2006-02-11T17:33:00.001+07:00

Sydney.
A flying weekend visit for the wedding of one of Tash's old family friends. Just a few days, but we managed to pack a whole lot into a short time. We stayed first with Tash's brother Marcus out in Terry Hills at a gorgeous little property (originally a nudist colony) where Marcus lives with an allegedly 'petite' pig weighing in at about two hundred kilos, a dog, a python and fellow members of the Foundation for Humanity's Adulthood, and then shifted into the heart of the CBD where we stayed with Pam, Peter and Vanessa (Tash's mum, dad and sister respectively) in a lushed out corner apartment on about the five hundredth floor with views of the harbour off the balconies on one side, and across Hyde Park and up Oxford St on the other.
There was a brief moment of panic when Tash. Ness and I realised that due to a police-imposed restriction (brought on by wild parties apparently. The youth of today. I dunno...) the balcony doors were locked on Friday and Saturday nights, which meant negotiating several security doors and an elevator requiring an IT degree to operate just to outside for a fag. Luckily, there turned out to be a loophole. For some reason the cops only wanted the north facing balconies locked, and the balcony coming off the room Tash and I were in faced west. Another tragedy narrowly averted.
Anyway, to cut a short story even shorter, we managed to get to the beach, the zoo, the museum, the state gallery, Manly Blades (my fave online skateshop -- nice to finally see it IRL), the Blue Mountains and many lush restaraunts. I finally got to meet Edgar Penzig (raconteur, antique gun enthusiast and controversial historian), a Rowell family friend I'd heard a lot about, we caught up with my maternal grandparents in Leura, visited Norman Lindsay's old stomping grounds, frightened some penguins, trawled the second-hand bookshops, and got all Titanic on the prow of a night ferry.
Oh yeah, and there was a wedding in there somewhere too. I'm not that fussed on weddings, but it was nice to catch up with Alexis and Martin (the happy couple). I actually preferred the morning after activities at the bride's parents' house -- far more intimate and offering a lot more chance for actual conversation, especially for Tash, who was able to catch up with a lot of old family friends, some of whom she hadn't seen in a decade or more. And I liked the bit where Alexis announced she was with child -- very touching. I think her and Martin will make good parents.
What is it with weddings anyway?
People spend enough money to retire a significant percentage of third-world debt, just so everyone can sit around listening to a bunch of speeches from people thanking other people for playing such a vital role in helping organise this very special evening of sitting around thanking each other for organising the evening... You get the picture. I think I'd rather hold hands and jump over a fire (or sword) on a beach somewhere.

Randomness

2006-02-11T17:03:00.001+07:00

Okay. I knew this would happen. That initial rush of enthusiasm -- "Ooh this blogging thing looks like fun, count me in!" -- lasts all of about five seconds; then all of a sudden its months and months later and you've done sweet fuck all. And Lisa-Marie's having a go at you wanting to know when the hell you're going to update your site...
So. lots of water under the bridge since my last post. A trip to Sydney, a trip to Bali and Lombok and various and assorted other little happenings. I won't even try to do a proper catch-up -- maybe just touch on the highlights, chuck in a few random photos and promise earnestly and sincerely to keep things properly up to date for the three (maybe four if I tell my mum about it) people look at my blog.

Zone 3

2005-12-03T11:38:00.001+07:00

It's my work Christmas party tonight. Yay!
Although as I'm currently the sole employee, it probably won't be all that big ;-)
On the other hand, I reckon I'm in with a pretty fair chance of taking out the 'Employee of the Year' award. We're going to Zone Three to run around shooting toy laser guns at each other. It doesn't get much better than that. And maybe (if we're feeling particularly zany) we'll get all dressed up, just like in this photo of me and Tash at a Tank Girl party.
Isn't she pretty??
I think getting dressed up and doing silly things would be goood for me. I'm feeling kinda old after going to a twenty-first birthday party last night as a friend of the parents!

Brave New World

2005-12-03T09:01:00.001+07:00

Yippee ;-)
My first ever personal blog post. This is me, over there on the right. This photo was taked a couple of months ago when I was a little the worse for wear after sticking my hand in a food processor. Pretty stupid, eh?
I'm not going to write very much today, partly because I'm not a hundred per cent sure I'm doing this right, and partly because I'm very hung over and tired (more so than I deserve to be. Our bastard neighbours have been operating heavy machinery since early this morning. On a Saturday. There's a whole level of hell reserved for those people).
Maybe I'll do another one a little later when I'm feeling more human.