Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Fun sightings in Jakarta

Back at the begining of my trip, I did a post about the strange things I saw in London. Since arriving in Jakarta a few days ago, I've been bombarded with much fodder to photograph. Here's some of the great things this city has to offer.

At one of the local malls, the escalator was a giant red shoe...


While bowling, Boomgard and I saw THE COOLEST Hello Kitty bowling ball ever.


Walking around Kemang (which is a bule-infested suburb of south Jakarta) we saw this new restaurant that just opened. I love the purple brain fountain in the front, and the mustard color-scheme followed by the tetris logo. So cool.



On a shopping trip to Kemchicks (which is the popular white-people store in Kemang) John Boomgard and I happened across this sign at the deli. John (who is actually from Virgina) and I found this extra funny. The way we figure, Australia must now be a new county within the great, orginial 13-state of Virginia, in the United States of America.

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Take me home, country road...

7:44 PM Posted by javagold 0 comments

So after three months of travelling, I finally made it "home" to Jakarta, Indonesia. Coming back here is always bitter sweet for me, since so many painful memories from the past comes flooding back to me, but (thank God) intermingled with the memories of great friends and amazing adventures.

Since the invention of Facebook, (if you're not on it, GET ON IT) I've been able to catch up with long-lost friends from high school (the Jakarta International School). We've been able to mobilize and organize mini-reunions all over the place, including some in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, London and in Vegas in 2008. I came back to Jakarta this time around for a small reunion which takes place at Bakmie GM, an awesome fast-food noodle joint we frequented in our adolescence.

Being back here is hard, and I can tell because there are many people, places and events that I seem to have blocked from my memory. It's a dark place to revisit, but I think it's important - because so much of my past has molded me into the woman I am today. (Yeah, this is going to be a heavy post, deal with it.)

I was back here about a year and a half ago, but wasn't able to deal with the buried emotions - everything seemed different, but more importantly, there was no one around who could really share in that lost innocence. This time around though, I'm in Jakarta with the people who I grew up with. In our minds, we can reconstruct Garuda (a great pool hall that I used to visit after school with Kris Saunders) before it burned down, talk about Bayu (a crap club I used to go to during 9th, yes I said 9th, grade) before it shut down and about our lives after the riots, which I know transformed our lives forever.

There is something about growing up here, something about our school - something about our friendships that I cannot, for the life of me, ever explain to people. It's this common denominator that binds third culture kids like Karen Chuan, Ben Nolan, Amanda Drosten, Joel Staples, John Boomgard, Danielle Townshend and Kris Saunders etc together.

For example, John Boomgard came to pick me up at the airport here in Jakarta. I haven't seen this kid since we were 14 years old, when I was taller and bigger than him - and we feel strangely close even though we never hung out in high school, or kept in touch through the years. But we've been running around making a ruckus like old friends, with little but a common heritage to bind us together.

I guess when it comes down to it, these people are home to me. They are sancutaries for spontaneous hugs without fear of rejection or explanation, temples honoring our unique individuality and champions for our collective differences. In a sense, they are my family.

Alright, enough with the deep, gushy crap. There are guys that read my blog and I don't want to lose my (small but devoted) group of readers. I promised, hot almost naked women in another post... really. (no really, I went to a lingerie brand launch party.)

Here are a few awesome pictures I took, and cute stories to accompany them - it'll take your mind off the battle that rages internally in Riani's head and heart.

Selamat Datang! John and I "playing bowling" if you translate the Indonesian term literally into English. John was five-foot short the last time I saw him, but now he's a healthy 6 feet tall and heavy enough to kick my ass... So I'll be nice to him.



At my fave restaurant, Cafe Tamani in Kemang. As a child, my father never let me blow bubbles in my drinks. So now, as an adult, I do it all the time. Every chance I get, until the bubbles pour over the sides and onto the table. Take that dad! (Memo to me, when I have kids, I'm letting them blow bubbles - so they can get it out of their system before they mature. If they mature.)

The view of the kampung from John's apartment. That river rose 7-8 feet during the flash floods that hit Jakarta in January. Jakarta is a sprawling city with many back alleys and confusing streets. The concept of City Planning was evidently never popular here... it would give the Palace of Knosos a run for its money. (Quick history lesson, the palace, which is located in Crete is one of the sources of the term Labariynth.)



John and I went for sushi, and I managed to dump a full mug of hot green tea all over myself. Boomgard would like to point out, that it looked like I peed my pants. ("You DID pee your pants, Riani" he says, over my shoulder.) When the hot liquid finished spilling, we looked at each other and said, "damn, if it were the states, we could sue."


Some chick named Carla put a Perfume scent sample on the sushi conveyor-belt thingy... We responded, and then she wished us well. I loved random things like this! =)



Anyway, that's really it for now. I have a lot of posts coming up in the next couple of days, so please stay tuned!

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Eats, shoots and leaves.

Put your Vera Wang flat wear away, give your dishwasher a break and wash your hands... because tonight we're eating off leaves! One of the things I love most about Asia is the mish-delish food, the hot spices, the grated ginger, the knotted pandan leaves and aromatic lemongrass. There's a great little Indian restaurant near Karen's place that has great curries that you eat off of banana leaves. I thought I would snap a few quick pictures for documentation.


Basmati rice with chicken curry and UFO's (Unidentified Fried Objects)


Karen and I feast on the spread before us, and thank the food gods that our stomachs are made of cast-iron, because most of my wimpy American friends would have not been able to take the heat and the oilyness. (Andrew, Danielle, Jake - you guys are exceptions.)


I think dinner came out to be around $4 for everything... With such amazing prices, it's difficult to rationalize actually cooking at home, since going out is usually cheaper. The only problem with that, is Riani will balloon out again, since the food is mostly fried. (Hence trying to eat healthy.) I would also like to point out that I ran 5k yesterday, so I'm not doing so bad.

Footnote: If you haven't read the book Eats shoots and leaves, you really should. So you'll hopefully have better grammer than I, or is it me?

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Luna Bar Blast Off

LUNA BY DAY

For the first two weeks I was in Kuala Lumpur, I stayed with the wedding party at Pacific Regency hotel which has a great roof-top pool turned-night club by moonlight. As you can see by the picture below, those are the petronas towers in the background. And if you look on the pool stairs, there's a girl on the left hand side sitting there. That's me, and that's as close as you're going to get until I get my butt but into action.



The guy on the right hand side was there in the sun everyday, without any sunscreen. He looked like a lobster. A bright red lobster in melted butter and garlic.



God bless the hotel, they had (FREE) wireless everywhere in the building. Now that's what I call service! I love the orange and blue color scheme, it makes for a great fashion statement.



More orange and blue, and Zouheir, I'm sorry... But again, I really think you're a closet photo whore!


LUNA BY NIGHT


Here's Joel and his lovely mother Anne, who (again) loves to feed people. I think I've inherited that trait from my mother's side as well, since I'm always cooking when I'm home in Seattle. But Joel's parents live in Oman now, and hopefully I'll be able to go out and visit them sometime.


Here are some of the bride and groom's friends that flew in from Australia. They ended up travelling around Malaysia, going to Penang, Langkawi and Malacca - which is more of Malaysia than I have even seen!


Richard the MC for the wedding, and married the couple. I love this photo because it was so natural and in the moment.


Joel and I, again. I think we took about 600 photos together, making up for 8 years of not seeing each other. (It helps that he's so photogenic).



The bride and her cousin, a family full of beautiful women!



Rob (one of the groom's men) Zouh and I, having a great time. Zouh was my date that night, since he looked so dashing!



The bride and her sister, Durga...


The Groom and I. I loved the Batik shirt James was wearing.


Here's a great picture of Gayatri's mother with her beautiful daughters. =)

As I sit here in Starbucks (go buy more stock people, they are just as busy overseas...) I can honestly say it was a great wedding. I'm closing that beautiful chapter of my trip now, and looking forward to all the other adventures that await me. Hope you all are well!

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Seafood and Fireflies


Late Saturday night, a friend of mine I met at the Attic (which is a great neighborhood lounge in Bangsar that I was singing at) invited me out. Apparently, he had an open seat for a seafood dinner and fireflies... What Quanxing meant by that I wasn't so sure, but judging by his blogpost, neither was he:

A couple days ago, one of my childhood friends from Malaysia dropped me a message that said "Hey this Sunday we're going for seafood and fireflies. Wanna join?". Ok so I know what seafood is, y'know food from the sea and all. I also know what fireflies are, there were a ton of them back in Houston. But how does one go for fireflies? At first I thought maybe it was a bar, so not wanting to be completely retarded, I googled "Firefly Bar Malaysia" and nothing particularly relevant showed up. So then I thought, hmmmm maybe this is some crazy Malaysian thing, like we would go and have deep fried fireflies for desert after the seafood or something. Before everybody starts thinking I'm crazy, please keep in mind you are reading the blog of someone who went down to Southern China last year to eat deep-fried maggots (tasted like fries) as well as this monstrously huge snow worms (tasted like cream puffs), and that I've also always wanted to try monkey brain too (Ok I admit I'm a lil crazy but only just a little bit, I swear). In any case, its turns out that Kuala Selangor is this little kampong town about an hours drive away from Kuala Lumpur and its famous for its seafood and for this boat ride where you can watch tons of fireflies.



I should mention this boy is even more screwed up than I am. He's a Chinese-Malaysian British citizen but speaks with a thick American accent. Where did he go to college? In St. Louis of all places, I was terribly confused. Apparently, he was as confused about me as well... Of all the places he thought I was from, The United States wasn't one of them. (Score one for the international accent!)

Here's the Asian side of Quanxing coming out... (His boys in St Louis call him Q) Take a picture, take a picture! At this point, we had decided we'd have dueling blog posts about the event... I think I'm going to win. Why? Because I've incorporated his post into mine, my pictures are bigger, brighter and more colorful AND I've actually linked to other posts... Score one for Washington.

I didn't really get the opportunity to take pictures of the fireflies, because we were riding in this dinky little sampan that I swear was gonna flip over if I sneezed so I didn't want to risk my camera falling into the water, but I managed to take a couple pictures of the town and the restaurant.
What a girl, the boat was completely stable and I even had my camera with me. The coolest part of the boat ride (you know, besides the awesome Christmas lights) was that our gondolier was getting text messages all the time. I love how technology has brought people together. The other cool thing was the youth's understanding of ecology and how important the fireflies were. He voiced his frustrations with people catching the fireflies in jars - only to have them die by the end of the night. Without the fireflies, he would be out of a job - as well as the many hundreds who are supported by the touristy activity.

Here's a little ecology lesson... Fireflies are a indicator species in their eco-system. They are the canary in the coal mine, if you will. When they start dying, it means somethings wrong with the environment. Other such species include frogs (because they are more susceptible to changes through their semi-permeable skins) and butterflies. Alright, I'll stop there before you guys think I'm too dorky. (Probably too late)

This is a picture of the restaurant we had dinner at (complete with token white girl presenting the restaurant.) They had some great crab (no, not chili crab or black pepper), I think it was some weird sweet and sour sauce. We also had scallops, fried squid, oh oh and the prawns were fantastic too.
I think the best part was the deep fried bread, I mean... Why don't we have that in the states? I also loved how when we were done, Yuen-lee (one of the girls in our party of four) polished EVERYTHING else off. The crab, the bread, the scallops, everything. Girl was my hero.


I took this picture right after dinner. I think its the purdiest one since I've come to Malaysia. The river itself is kinda murky and polluted. Wouldn't want to go swimming down there, but having dinner right on top of the water was really cool.
I would have to concur with my mid-west host, it was an awesome sunset and he took an awesome photo (good job with the boat!). The water is usually silted Quanxing, not because of direct dumping pollution (although it is a factor) but because of deforestation. The good brown earth is falling into the water since it's not held by tree roots, causing the river to look so murky.

This is right outside the restaurant as well. I know this place looks kinda like a weird third world country, but its really similar to lets say, a border town in Texas. That's all I have for right now, hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of other interesting trips around Malaysia in the near future.


I love that boarder towns in Texas is like a Malaysian Kampung. Muhahahahha. Anyway, that's it for now. I'd love to thank Q for letting me use his post in mine, hopefully we'll have more tag-team adventures to report to you fine folks. But until then, that's all, y'all!

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Day Trip to Batu Caves

Take a few Aussies and a Yank, a extremely hot day, an old Hindu temple and a HUGE golden statue and you'll get our day trip to the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The day started out innocently enough. I had my morning mango and was looking forward to bumming it at the hotel pool, but the boys had a different idea. We took the LRT train to the end of the line and then caught a bus with "Batu Caves" in the window.

Silly us. Apparently, the Batu Caves is also an area of town... Which the bus driver (who KNEW we were going to the temple) didn't happen to mention. He kicked us to the curb a MILE away from the actual caves and we ended up walking there in the hot sun. I felt like I was going to melt.

Walking there, we saw the mountain-side and a small golden statue soaring into the sky. But you don't realize that the "small" statue of Lord Murugan is actually 50 meters high (that's over 160 feet for you non-metric Americans out there.) That's HUGE.

It seemed like no matter what angle I took the photo from, the statue always looked so beautiful, regal and insanely cool. Quite frankly, the best part of the Batu Cave temple, is the statue outside.

There were about 300 steps up to the where the caves actually were... We ended up taking breaks on the way up - especially since the sun was beating down on us. Here's a great picture of Joel, Zuh and Alan resting on the steps, which were painted red and white.


I tried to walk in the shade, but my trusty umbrella did come in handy. Apparently, the Aussies call them brolly's, which does make sense. I thought I would learn a lot of Malay while in KL, but honestly, I've picked up a lot of slang from down under. For example, Joel had called me when we were trying to make plans... "I'll give you a bell when we're sorted." I paused for a moment, and checked with Karen. "He meant, I'll call you when we figure out what we're doing, right?" She laughed and nodded. If we're speaking the same language, why can't I understand them?

There were a lot of Monks at the temple... But this guy was cool. I think the picture speaks for itself. Monk + Video Camera = Riani smiling to herself.

Look at all those stairs, and the size of the statue. This picture was taken from the entrance to the compound, which was at least a 4 minute walk.

Zouh and I posing for Joel's camera. I don't know whose more comfortable with the camera. I mean, check out the look on his face. Zouh, you're a closet photo whore!

So if you're making it out here to Malaysia, the Batu Caves makes for a good afternoon trip. Check out the whole album below, and let me know what you think. Again, I'm sorry I'm so behind on posting. I don't have Internet access at the house I'm staying at, (shock, horror, gasp, I know) so it's going to be few and far between for awhile.

Batu Caves

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Getting Hitched in the Sky

It's amazing to me that people my age are starting to get married... And some of them are already having babies. Although I'm in no rush, it's always a great feeling when you get to witness two people in love giving themselves to each other. James and Gayatri are two wonderful people who I had the honor to watch tie the knot - and it was great making new friends while catching up with old ones!

Here are some wonderful random shots from the wedding that I thought I would share with you!

Gayatri's rings... They were gorgeous, and James did a great job picking them out. James told me that after he bought the rings, he kept them in his pocket for a month, waiting for the perfect time to ask her (since planned engagements have been "done to death", he wanted to leave it to chance.) Finally, after watching a movie (Monster in Law, interestingly enough) Gayatri said to James at dinner, "You could NEVER surprise me." In which case, he took out the ring, open the box and put it on the table and said "How about now?"


Joel the best man and the smiling bride... Gayatri had the most beautiful dress ever, and the whole wedding had hints of lavender. Joel, you really do clean up well... You look a million times better than in your stupid shorts. (Please refer to my last post for some history on the subject.)


Joel's mom Anne and I at the hotel lobby waiting to go up to the wedding. I hadn't seen her for about 10 years, when we lived in Indonesia. Anne used to feed me, hence me liking her so much. You can see where Joel gets his dashing looks!


The wedding was held at KL tower, which had awesome views. Those extremely tall buildings to the left are the Petronas Towers, which used to be the tallest in the world. (FYI they were the cool towers in the movie Entrapment.


Here's a sign leading guests to their wedding and after party...

Here's Joel dancing with James' niece, Susie. It had to be the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Durga, the Bride's sister and I during the reception. Durga looks just like her mother, and is an insanely good looking girl. In fact, the whole wedding party was chock-full of tall handsome men and gorgeous Asian woman. Fun times for all!

Gayatri's grandparents. Look at the serious bling her grandmother was wearing! Apparently, she didn't dress to the nines either, but how beautiful was her Sari?

Here is Zou and I at the reception. Check out the windows behind us, it was floor-to-ceiling with amazing views of Kuala Lumpur. And in case you guys were wondering, I bought that dress for 20 pounds in Camden Town in London... It was the last one they had, and one clearance. Score! (Ask Alex Boyce and he'll tell you I used to prance around his apartment in it, even ironing and doing dishes in it, since I loved the dress so much.)

Alan and I at the reception. Boy drinks more water than anyone I have ever met, and has inspired me to drink more. (4 cups of tea later, I'm constantly going to the bathroom.)



AFTER PARTY


So after the wedding, a large group of us went partying... Leaving the bride and the groom and two of the photographers in their hotel suite. (What on earth was that about. Hee hee hee...) All I remember is that I left with a pack of ridiculously beautiful woman, and strutting down heritage row with Beauty Queens and MTV VJ's. We had a BLAST.

May Wan and Kanchana Nanda Kumar cosying up to the camera.


Me and my girls, hanging out at Bar Savanh. I loved the greens behind us, made for a great backdrop.

Kanchana and I hanging out, before heading to the dance floor to boogey!


Alan and I hanging out.... I'm glad that it didn't rain, it really was a perfect night!



Can't remember where we were... But at the end of the night, we all ended up piling up in one car, FIVE of us in the back seat. Insane....


In the end, the thing I remembered most about the wedding was the great mixture of people. Friends and family flew from around the globe to attend the wedding, and between the lunches, dinners, afternoons at the pool and shopping trips before and after the wedding, I met a lot of fantastic people I now am proud to call me friends.

Thank you to both Gayatri and James, for setting a fantastic venue for embracing diversity. Being of mixed race myself, it really touched me to see you guys tie the knot.

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