The mildly attractive game

After a great deal of searching, I finally found a team for full field soccer. The league is made up of teams from all over the world, usually dominated by one nationality. The team I found is mostly Brits and Irishmen.

We played our first game on Saturday night under the lights in South Jakarta on one of the widest soccer fields I've ever played on. Our team is decent, but we were up against the team that one every game last year by several goals. Our opposition featured a few ex-professionals, several ex-semi-pros and even one guy who played for Cameroon in the 1990 World Cup. (Pic at left.)

It's a little sad when you say that 6-1 is respectable, but with that kind of opposition, I don't feel too disheartened by the loss.

Lombok

A friend of ours rented a villa on the island of Lombok for a month, so we went out there for a long weekend with a few other friends. The island is just east of Bali and everyone says it's a lot like Bali used to be before it became a tourist destination.

It's an amazingly beautiful island. We pretty much just hung out the whole time, cooking fish that we'd buy in the markets, relaxing in the pool, or playing bocce ball on the beach. We also made a trip to the south side of the island, which really hasn't had much tourist infrastructure develop, but has amazing beaches. While we were there, we hired a boat to take the six of us out into the bay. If there was anything you could say about the boat, seaworthy would be the right word.

The entire time we were there, we noticed a bar that advertised "Crazy Time" from 9:30-10:00 that included buy one get one free on all drinks. We had talked about going there the entire weekend, but since we were cooking big meals every night, it was hard to make it before 10:00. On our last night we succeeded by setting an alarm clock. We made it to "Crazy Time," and with four drinks in front of each one of us Hillary requested Country Roads by John Denver (a song that is infinitely more famous outside the U.S.). The best part was when the fiddle player asked Hill to play a solo in the middle of the song.

Dreams and Quakes

You may have heard about our recent earthquake in the news. On the night of Wednesday, August 8, we went over to our boss' apartment with other coworkers to watch Office Space. At about 10 p.m. we went home and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up and checked my email before going to work and saw an email with the subject "Earthquake" from my parents, which just inquired as to whether or not we were okay. I checked out the news and sure enough there had been a 7.4 magnitude earthquake only 65 miles from Jakarta at around midnight. We slept right through it...

But that's not to say that it didn't affect us. Right after we woke up that morning, Hillary told me about the awful dream she'd had. She dreamed that we were at a dinner party and that through the window we watched the three other towers of our apartment building explode, and ours was next. Her brain definitely knew something weird was going on and somehow worked that into a dream.

At work, we found out that our boss had been evacuated from his apartment and that he said it sounded like the building was falling apart. He ended up sleeping on a coworker's couch since he had no where to go. When he went back the next morning to get dressed, there were new cracks in some of the walls and chunks of plaster on the floor. Luckily, there was no real damage from the earthquake in Jakarta. But hey, now Hillary and I can say we've been through our first earthquake. Plus, it's good to know our building seems sturdy!

Everyone's gotta make a living

Just north of Jakarta, there are hundreds of tiny islands and many of them have small resorts. A couple weekends ago, we decided to go out there for a getaway. To get there, we had to take a large speedboat that had been converted into a ferry for an almost two hour ride. It had rows of seats like an airplane and no air conditioning. That ride sucked.

It was really nice to be out on an island. No pollution and no traffic, and the water was crystal clear. We were able to just relax, read, play scrabble and snorkel.

On our way back on Sunday afternoon our taxi was passing through an area of town not too far from our home when we approached a police check point. When the police saw a car with two white people in it, they made us stop. We were asked for our passports, which we didn't have. John had his drivers license, but I didn't have any ID, as I didn't want to bring my purse to a small resort. Then the shakedown started...

The cop asked John if he would step into his "office." We were on the side of the street and the only things around were little shops and stalls. When he got out of the car, the guy started to explain how his commander couldn't just let us go. John told him where we worked, but he still kept rambling on about how his commander needed "something", which translates of course as a good bit of money. John finally asked how much. We weren't going to try and pay off a cop, but we were curious to know how much it would have cost us...

After calling the embassy's security staff, I think the cops realized that they weren't going to have much success with us. They finally just let us go. An interesting experience. Oh, and the government here issues embassy employees a local ID card so you don't have to carry your passport with you, but it takes about three to six months after arriving here to get your card. From then on we have been carrying a photocopy of our passports with us!

A gentlemen's pub crawl

Oh my. Where to begin?

Last Saturday some friends had arranged a guys only pub crawl. Seven of us met at a restaurant at one of the older malls in South Jakarta where the party began by ordering a round of Indonesia's domestic beer, Bintang. Our waitress didn't quite understand why we only wanted to order one beer each and then leave. One bar sold out of beer when we ordered 7.

On our walk to the next bar, the cap tikus came out. Cap tikus means rat brand. When I googled it, I found this quote from an Aggie anthropologist living on the island of Sulawesi (where cap tikus is made). Cap tikus is a "harsh moonshine sort of fluid that grabs the palette by the uvula. People drink cap tikus here but also use it to prime their chainsaw motors." I would say it tastes something like bad tequila mixed with lime and turpentine.

We made our way from place to place, five beers and a quarter bottle of cap tikus down, finally arriving at the place where we decided to eat. At that point, I sent Hunter a short text message that really got to the point, "WTF?" It worked; 30 minutes later he showed up.

After a round of bowling and a few more Bintangs, we stopped for a drink at Aphrodite, a trendy restaurant at a building that happened to be hosting a wedding. Luckily, we didn't come off too much like jack-ass Westerners...I think.

From there it was time to test fate. We knew the roads would be jammed all around the stadium, so the only option was to take ojeks - motorcycle taxis. I certainly won't make a habit of riding them because I value my life, but it was definitely exhilarating to zip through traffic at nighttime.

We entered the stadium and headed for the upper decks where we watched the game with 80,000 of our closest friends. Our assigned seats had long since vanished, so we spread out amongst the crowd and passed the cap tikus back and forth in the plastic sack that they made us pour it into. Indonesia lost in a heart breaker when Saudi Arabia scored the winning goal in stoppage time.

After waiting for traffic to die at an expat bar near the stadium, we went to Blok M, an area with a strip of bars popular with expat men and scantily clad local girls apparently making a living off the men. Our group stuck out like a sore thumb as we were all still wearing identical Indonesia soccer jerseys. It was a good time, and our apologies to the Canadians for soiling their reputation by claiming their fine country as our own whenever asked.

Bagus, Bule

I just returned from a little cultural immersion through one of my favorite activities. There is a park near our apartment where I've often seen people playing soccer, so today I decided I'd walk down there and see if I could join in.

When I say park, it's not really what you might think. It's basically a big slab of concrete where they've erected a volleyball net, a basketball court and two futsal courts. Futsal is a game that's like soccer, but a little different. It's played on a court that's about the size of a basketball court and it has small goals. The ball is also smaller and heavier.

When I arrived, I immediately started gathering stares. Eventually some kids came over and we talked for a little bit. They asked me about soccer in the U.S., where I lived, how I got to work, etc... Then they let me play with their team. They said they were all 15, but I was still a good head taller than them (but then again I do have towering height). The team we played against was a little older, so some of them were almost as tall as me.

It was a lot of fun, and it felt like I was getting to know the people a little more, which was really nice. Our team won, and everyone was high-fiving and celebrating after the game. One kid wanted to do the sort of handshake/handslapping that I guess he's seen on t.v., so I showed him how. I'm sure he'll try and teach it to everyone else. As I grabbed my bag, one of the kids on the other team to me said, "bagus, bule." (Translation: Nice job, white guy)

Indonesians do Tex-Mex

Yesterday we were craving Tex-Mex and we knew there was a restaurant a good ways away from us called Amigos. So we made a few other excuses to fight traffic to go to that area of town, and we went to get our fix.

It was about what we expected Indonesian Tex-Mex to taste like. We ordered two margaritas, chile con queso, a chimichanga and chicken enchiladas. The margaritas definitely left something to be desired. The queso was decent enough, as was the salsa. The chimichanga was actually pretty good. The enchiladas were topped with a green sauce, but something about them tasted distinctly Indonesian.

Oh, Austin, how we miss you sometimes...

Extreme Bocce

This past weekend, a friend of ours who works at the embassy invited us to this retreat that the embassy owns up in the mountains south of Jakarta. The area's only 55 miles away, so tons of people from Jakarta go up there on the weekends to get away from the city and enjoy the cooler weather. The only bad side is that because so many people go up there, it took 3 hours to get there and then 3 hours back.

It's a really cool place with immaculately manicured lawns, a frigid swimming pool and two houses. Eleven of us went up there on Saturday morning and spent two days playing bocce ball, croquet, board games, etc. It was really fun to get to meet and hang out with some other people our age who don't work at the embassy.

It's a little hard to describe why it's such a great place until you live in a city like Jakarta where there's no green space, no clean air, and no peace and quiet. We've only been here a few weeks, but it felt so nice to be in a place where you really felt like you could relax.

And then it rained...

During our first two weeks in Jakarta, we didn't see a drop of rain. It's the dry season right now, but we were still really surprised. But our luck could only hold out so long...

Yesterday while we were still at work, we had a downpour for about an hour. It was 2:30 p.m., but it looked almost like night time it was so dark. It wasn't the hardest rain I've ever seen, but it was up there. And then after about an hour, it pretty much stopped.

A little while later, an email came out saying that there had been flooding in various parts of the city and that we should plan for a longer commute. So far, our thoughts on traffic had been that people make it out to be a lot worse than it is. Of course, we're only a mile or two from the embassy, so we have a short commute. Don't get me wrong, traffic is always bad. There are no lanes in the roads and even if there were, I doubt anyone would pay attention.

But yesterday with the rain, traffic was bad...really bad. To go the mile or so that we live from the embassy took about 35 minutes. We could have walked faster (not that you can really walk here). The rainy season is going to be interesting!

How did we ever survive before?

Following pretty much everybody we know here, we hired a woman to work in our home last Thursday. She cleans, does all our laundry and ironing, shops and does some cooking for us. In Indonesia, almost everyone who is middle-class or above has domestic help. We found Ibu Tati because she worked for another embassy employee who recently departed Jakarta.

While we pay Tati quite a bit more than the normal salary, it is just a fraction of what you would pay for help in the States. No doubt we are feeding her entire extended family and then some.

It's so nice to come home from work and have all our clothes folded and put away, the apartment immaculately clean, and a stocked fridge. It really makes us wonder how we'll ever survive once we leave...