Bali

Christmas on Bali was spent at Waterbom, a water theme park that would rival the best water parks anywhere in the world. What we saw there was what is typical in Bali: an assortment of people from everywhere in the world including Australia, Japan, Germany, UK, Russia, North America, Indonesia and India (just to name a few) all speaking the common language of English when necessary (except for the Australians, who were speaking a language undecipherable to all (especially the ones with beers in their hands:)).

Eric and Neil on the Boomerang

Here is a sampling of our week in Bali (besides two days at Waterbom):

Eric at Dreamland beach

Two attempted days on the beach. The first one failed miserably as it was raining on and off and we discovered just how dirty the beach was (plastic trash and dead fish). This is an unfortunately reality for many beaches located near big cities in developing countries because of poor sanitation. The other day at the beach was picture perfect (appropriately the beach was called Dreamland).

Temple guide and me. Nice Sarong!

Visiting a Hindu temple called Besakiah which is the “mother of all temples” in Bali. We all had to wear sarongs over our legs as a sign of respect within the temple.

Hope feeds the monkeys

Feeding primates at the Monkey Forest.

Kintamani

Driving to huge caldera and volcano called Kintamani.


A half day of snorkeling (for which we have no pictures)

Visiting a craft stores and a market in Ubud (no pictures here either).

Spending lots of time around the swimming pool at our hotel and eating as much bacon as possible (Pork products abound in non-muslim Bali).

Just for fun, please vote in the poll on the right. Also, if you wish to put the items in order from most expensive to least expensive, do so by clicking in the comments box and typing them there. I will reveal the prices for all four items in two weeks (January 9).

Happy New Year! sweeda

Salamat hari natal

With a flurry of gifts and a half day of Christmas parties, the 1st semester came to a close here on Wednesday.

For most Asian families, in the celestial pantheon, teachers exist somewhere slightly lower than the Holy Trinity and slightly higher than pop stars. This was good news for me. In spite of a semester of slogging my way through IB Economics, gifts still rolled in most of the day. The school has actually set a price limit on gifts for teachers (for that reason I had to return a nice Italian leather belt), however, I still did fairly well with chocolate (mostly) and a few other gifts.

Now, our attention is turned toward Bali, where we will spend a few days enjoying a different island with a very different mindset. Bali is a smaller island than Java that remained Hindu/animist when the Muslims took over a few hundred years ago. This gives Bali a different cultural color and texture than the rest of Indonesia (not to mention that people are free from dietary and clothing restrictions allowing them to cavort more easily than anywhere else in Indonesia). I’ll do my best to keep Janet out of the bars :). For us, we will enjoy the resort amenities while visiting some Hindu temples and Balinese dances, snorkeling, body surfing and touring in the sun.

Talk more when we get back.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

Refrain:Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee,

O Israel.

O come, thou Wisdom from on high,

who orderest all things mightily;

us the path of knowledge show,

and teach us in her ways to go.
Refrain

O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer

our spirits by thine advent here;

disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

and death's dark shadows put to flight.
Refrain

O come, Desire of nations,

bindin one the hearts of all mankind;

bid thou our sad divisions cease,

and be thyself our King of Peace.
Refrain

The view out my window

I commonly zone out when grading which usually means I stare out the window. For many years, this is what I saw out of my Room 3 window at Rehoboth (never mind the fact that in the past 3 years it was dark most of the time as I suffer from insomnia and was often in my room somewhere between 3- 5 AM):

This picture was taken by a former student from a cell phone and emailed to me and it is now the background on work computer in case I experience "enchantment fever." I never knew a picture of a parking lot could be so calming. :)

This year, I have gone from Room 3 and the picture above to Room J307 (third floor) and the picture below:


Lots of comparisons could be spent on these two pictures. While both beautiful (as far as scenes out of High school classrooms go), differences in geography, perspective and color could be made. Then there are elements of how typical these pictures are of the places they represent. What’s behind the trees, buildings and mountains? What does it look like when you rotate 45, 90 or 180 degrees?

However, after all the wondering is done… there is still the knowledge that God’s beauty is everywhere, and God’s calling is here(wherever that may be) and…

that there is still a stack of papers to grade.

sweeda

Bogor

The road to Puncak

Jakarta is surrounded by volcanic mountains, or so we had been told (you can’t really ever see them because of clouds and smog). Enjoying a holiday weekend, on Sunday, December 7 we rented an 11 passenger van and thought we would check them out on this 180 mile round trip. We went with the White family (fellow new family to SPH from Vancouver Island, BC).

Janet at in front of Presidential Palace

Our first stop was Bogor and the presidential palace botanical gardens. Besides the beautiful gardens (see picture above), the memorable event was the Flying Fox (largest bats in the world). We saw a tree full of these giant bats (wingspans of around 2.5 feet) after something had stirred them up and they were swirling around above us. This was truly eerie as they look a little like pterodactyls. You can see more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_fox . We also looked for dead dutch relatives in the graveyard there. No luck, however.

Eric, Neil and Matthew White with tea plantation in background

Following Bogor, we drove to Puncak, which is a mountain pass of 1500M (over 4500 feet). Along the way, we stopped at a traditional marketplace, outlet mall and a tea plantation. We also enjoyed the 10 to 15 degree cooler weather.

One of many rams tied up along the side of the road

Through out the trip, we were reminded of the holiday (Eid al Adha), as we saw goats and rams tied up to posts. To commemorate Ibrahim’s (Abraham) obedience in offering Ismael (not Isaac) as a sacrifice and God’s provision of a ram, Eid al Adha sees the sacrifice of thousands of rams and goats, which are tied up to posts a day or two in advance. The meat is then shared with family and friends. There should be no shortage of goat and ram meat as we saw thousands of goats and rams tied up along the road.

Look forward to hearing from you,

sweeda

KFC dinner plate made of real dinner ware, not plastic (notice Colonel Sanders cartoon on the top of the plate).

I'm considering a set for her for Christmas :)

Life in the Kampung (village)

The suburb of Jakarta that we live in, Lippo Karawaci, has now changed its name to “Lippo Village”…. Ironically enough, the town we moved from I believe is changing to the name “Rehoboth Village”. There must be a joke in there about the village idiots who have inhabited both places.

As for Lippo, it originally wanted to have the name Lippo Village but in 1993, when it was founded, names of towns could not use “foreign” words so the name Lippo Karawaci was used instead. That restriction seems to have faded as housing developments today (which are springing up all over the place) almost always use foreign words. Names such as “Serenade Lake” and “Country Woods” abound and often have big billboards advertising advantages to living there. The billboards often have pictures of white people engaging in blissfully suburban activities (playing golf or riding bikes for example). These planned communities aren’t quite planned enough and actually have a negative effect on the city of Jakarta. The link below describes the effect of these housing developments on the metro area of Jakarta (and is a great example of market failure for IB Economics students at SPH):
http://www.rics.org/Knowledgezone/Researchandreports/jakarta_141108_research.html

Just over a week ago, we gathered for our 1st annual Lippo Village Thanksgiving dinner (organized by Janet and her friend Delenea Meyers). We had a great dinner and over 60 expats showed up, as you can see below in the picture.

Maybe some developer here will use it on a billboard :).

sweeda