Medan

Flying from Jakarta to Medan, again flights were packed. When trying to book it, the choices and fare class / prices available would change every couple minutes when I hit refresh, it was silly. I guess there were probably only 1 or 2 tickets left on each and they kept getting held then released.

In Medan... I don't know what to do really. Somehow I just don't feel like going out and trying to do anything here. Though partly that's cause there isn't much to do. Normally I would still try to do something, but here and now, just kindof blah.

There are hardly any places to eat near the hotel, which is unfortunate. It's really treacherous to walk anywhere, as there are not really "sidewalks" per se, sometimes there are some broken up flat areas at the side of the road but frequently it's rubble with random ditches and other pitfalls, you have to keep looking down.

Visited a modern mall, well it's about the same as anywhere else. Wandered around some outdoor places a bit but didn't find anything too interesting. Tried going to a couple clubs, but it was still only 10:00 or 10:30, so they were still fairly dead, and expensive, and i didn't stay long.

Jakarta's gym had aerobic classes, which I find I actually quite like, but unfortunately the gym here doesn't. The pool area here doesn't feel as nice either. But the exercise area "looks" more fancy and I think the machines are newer.

The elevators in this hotel are a total gong show... There are only 3 to service quite a few floors at a fairly high level, so you often have to wait quite a long time. Sometimes the elevator call cancels itself after a couple minutes, not sure why, maybe even it gets tired of waiting and you have to press the button again. Once in the elevator, you have to scan your keycard before selecting a floor. Sometimes you have to scan it multiple times before it flashes green. If there are multiple people going to multiple floors, you all have to scan your card. And you have to do it fast, cause if not, the elevator might start responding to another call and you'll go 20 floors in the wrong direction before you can try again. It's just ridiculous. And instinctively (or deliberately) people tend to stand blocking the scanner. I try to laugh about it, especially when you find other people in the elevator who have clearly gone up and down 20 floors a couple times and still haven't managed to make it to their floor. If I'm only going a couple floors, I take the stairs. Though the staff don't really like me doing that. Maybe because it spoils the illusion that the elevator keycard system offers any kind of security benefit whatsoever.

The hotel rooms are large, and the staff are super friendly. It's fairly heartwarming when you glance at someone way off at a desk and her face lights up in a smile that at least seems genuine. Plenty of selection for food at breakfast, but not much nearby for other meals. Besides the elevators, a few downsides... there are occasional power outages, there was water leaking from the roof (related to the air con), and this room seems to have a smell. So although it's "5 star" I think it's more just 5 star appearance, 4 or 3 star under the surface.

The biggest taxi chain in Indonesia is BlueBird. I think I should create a taxi chain called BuleBird. That's a funnier joke if you're here. (bule = westerner/foreigner)

I'm lonely, anyone want to come visit? Almost everyone has or will have family visit/stay with them at some point, it's a little surprising.

Jakarta

Finally figure maybe I should write something, though, not really that much to say. Headed to indonesia. Flights were alright, nothing too remarkable from what i remember, though, there were 2 coworkers for the first leg (only 1 for the second) which is quite unusual, normally I travel alone. We still weren't sitting together though, so it was close to the usual traveling alone.

From looking at Air Canada's website, I saw that not all seats are equal, it seems on this aircraft the rows nearer the front actually have an inch or two more than some rows further back, so I used that knowledge in my seat selection. Everyone wants an extra inch or two.

A boarding announcement was calling for "passengers Ha and Ho," I thought it sounded funny.

In singapore, handed over passports in the morning, tried to go out for a while, just wandered around some areas, then back to the hotel to get the passport back. Flights to jakarta were packed, so I was on a fairly late flight.

In the taxi, we hit 140 km/h. That is simply incredible for Jakarta, where typically you barely go above about 30 km/hr, and on occasion people have spent 4 hrs going from the airport to the hotel, and that was without a rainstorm or other problem.

In Jakarta, I was able to spend time with my friend from last time, which was really nice. I wasn't really planning on seeing my ex-, since of course that would be a bit uncomfortable and would not know what to say to her. But even though she didn't work there full time anymore, she was still there once a week freelance, so she heard i was around and when she was there one morning she called and we met. As expected, how do you talk to someone in that situation. Also silly, within 10 minutes i was feeling sad to say goodbye again.

Didn't really get up to much else, went to the airport a few times for work. Tried to shop for a 'jacket' for my LG Optimus One but couldn't find any, despite visiting the malls with a floor dedicated to literally hundreds of mobile phone and accessory stalls (you have to see it to believe it!)... seems LG is not too popular here, I forget if I mentioned before, but Blackberry totally dominates Indonesia. Nokia is also quite popular. Third I'd guess is Samsung.

So overall Jakarta seems about the same but of course my experience/feeling is very different from before.

Lost and not found

When I dropped my car off, I thought I was just leaving it there for a couple weeks to get repaired, so, I didn't bother taking everything out of it. Well, it was declared a write off and apparently they moved it and finally told me where a month later. Was a buissance to have to drive out of town for that, but, the more upsetting thing was that some of my stuff was gone. Some things were still there, but others were gone. Nothing with too high of a monetary value, maybe $100 total, but more upset to lose something personally valuable, a souvenir from a trip 10 years ago. The strangest thing for them to have lost is the license plate, how do you lose something bolted on to the vehicle? So far, basically everyone just shrugs their shoulders. Just another failure of theirs in my opinion.

Solo living

I'm getting a roommate soon, it will be a little odd to live with someone again. She had mentioned at one point that she had never really lived by herself in the past anyway, having gone from family to various roommates in different places. Another friend in Waterloo mentioned that he'd pretty much always lived with people, except for a few months one summer. When I started thinking about it, I realized that although I had always considered my situation of living alone to be rather normal, it seems like it's actually a rather unusual situation. Having reviewed most of my friends, most either lived with family until they got married, or, had roommates for the whole time in between family and marriage.

Just thought it was interesting.

Partly it's for financial reasons, since about 2006 or so home ownership costs started becoming crippling. But prior to that it wasn't bad. And some people even now are financially quite capable, yet still prefer to live with parents or have roommates. (living with parents is an odd social phenomenon, for some groups it being quite accepted while for others it being completely disrespected).

I wonder if it means that although I've had concern that sharing a living space with a stranger may be less comfortable, by all examples it seems that I should psychologically be better off than before? Lets hope so.

Lost and found

You know what's a crappy feeling? Reaching the summit of a hike, and then discovering that a pocket on your backpack is open, the pocket that you put your phone and wallet in, and the wallet is no longer there.

You know what's a crappier feeling? Reaching the bottom of the hike before discovering it.

Luckily, I only experienced the first. So, I just kept my eyes open wide on the way down, prepared to backtrack over the wide/multiple paths sections, etc. Luckily, I found it only about several minutes down from the top, and could relax for the rest of the descent. It was where I suspected, where I had tripped and fallen, the jolt and strange angle must have ejected the wallet.

And no wildlife had lifted any cash from it.

Safety rules

I'm trying a new phone. Luckily I read the safety rules, as there are several that I was bound to violate, such as:

"Turn your phone OFF when in any area with a potentially explosive atmosphere."
"Make sure that no sharp-edged items such as animals teeth come in contact with the battery."
"Never place your phone in a microwave oven."
"Placing a battery in your mouth may cause serious injury."
and lastly
"Do not use the phone in areas where its use is prohibited."

TD Meloche Monnex

Still basically nothing happening with regards to the collision that was 5 weeks ago. I called 8 times, always just get the adjuster's voice mail, and no calls returned. Getting really sick of it. Though last year, it was around 5 months to take care of the hail damage, so I suppose this current issue is still in its infancy right? Maybe once this is over it's time for a different insurance company, even if it costs more. Though who knows, maybe this is industry standard.

Hindu IT

For some reason, I was noticing some Hindu deities, and thinking how good they would be in IT or programming. I mean, Dilbert cartoon already proposes that monkeys will surpass us by using their prehensile tail to control the mouse. Imagine deities, with additional arms or other appendages. Wow. I hope the cosmic economy doesn't take a dive and force them to come down here looking for work.

Work schedule

Keeps changing... so who knows.
Everyone is frustrated.
This project better be really lucrative, otherwise why the heck are we making ourselves suffer so much to do business with a country like Indonesia?!

So long, summer,

maybe I'll see you next year.

Work has decided that I should not have a summer. Yeah I'm pissed off about it, since basically I look forward to it for several months of the year. But despite my protests, it seems the schedule will not change. So, no dragonboat for me. I think that's my main problem with it. And there are other things as well, like seeing friends, temple festivals, hiking, etc. Well, I said I was at the breaking point, then something like this comes along. Time to more actively pursue other opportunities. Though it's probably too late for this travesty.

Preparing to be robbed

I even know who the thief will be.

Insurance called to say the car is a "total loss" as the damage estimate is around $5500. To me, that implies they think the value is around that or perhaps lower.

If I search on sites like auto trader, models identical to mine tend to go around $7000 or more, and have 50000, 75000, or even 100000 more kms of wear. Even very conservatively, that means mine should be worth over $8000, realistically more than that.

Besides which there are many hours of shopping and research, as well as inspections and such when trying to purchase a vehicle, and even transport around to see those vehicles you're shopping for. Think there'll be any reimbursement for that?

I'll be sortof ok to accept them buying-out the car, as long as they pay something resembling what it would actually cost to replace with an equivalent, but I'm definitely expecting to have an argument on my hands when they tell me what some book says it should cost in fantasy-la-la-land. I also expect they won't give a damn, and I'll simply be screwed out of a few thousand bucks.

Crazy cantonese

Why would you make two words homonyms, AND antonyms??
設 and 撤, approximately meaning "set up" and "take down", with the same pronunciation including accent "chit3".

Dragonboat

First paddling of the season today, yay!

Car crunch

Got rear-ended by a pickup truck on saturday, on 16 ave. Which pushed me into the car in front. It sucked to be the meat in a GMC-Chrysler bun.

Overall i was quite calmly accepting of the situation, wasn't really angry or that upset or anything, guess i just felt that it happened and that's that. No big emotions. Other people were quite good about it too. There was a firetruck at the scene already, so they checked that we were all okay, and called dispatch to send a police car, etc.

The fire truck was at the left side of the road, partially in the left lane (maybe block 1/3 of that lane). We were all in center lane. Light turned amber, car in front stopped quickly, I had to stop quite quickly too. Truck behind me wasn't paying attention to us, because he was paying attention to van in left lane which apparently wanted to pass the fire truck without properly changing lanes, just swerve partially into our centre lane a bit, where the truck behind me was. I can't verify that, but sounds right, especially since I had seen that van there a moment earlier, but it managed to disappear from the scene. (even worse considering the light was surely red by that time.)

I get $115 ticket for "fail to ascertain sufficient space for movement." When you stop at an intersection, you must leave enough space between you and the car in front to allow for being smoked from behind without sliding into them. When the policewoman was saying so, I pointed to the line ups of cars at the intersection and said "not a single one is leaving that much space!" and she said "yeah, well, I could give them all a ticket." Yeah, could, but wouldn't. I also oppose the ticket because actually there's no damage to the front of my car or rear of the car in front, which to me indicates I left sufficient space that despite getting my ass kicked, I managed not to damage the car in front.

Got my car estimate from the body shop. Estimate is about $5300 on the rear of the car. Because the trunk won't securely close, the car's deemed undrivable so I'm in a rental till they decide what to do. The insurance might call it a write-off. Hope not, as I imagine their book values are well under reality values. From "Auto Trader", same model car with many more kms than mine go for $8000-$9000. Write off also probably ignores the many hours of research and shopping you have to do, and costs of inspections on potential replacement vehicles.

Relativity

For half of my run today, I did intervals of sprinting and walking, equal time of each. I started noticing pretty quickly that the sprint intervals sure felt a lot longer than the walking intervals. I attribute it to relativistic effects. I think Einstein determined that the faster you go, the slower time passes. So I think that's what happened during my sprints. Yeah, that's it.

Royal wedding

Apparently it coincided with the annual meeting of the Society for Silly Hats. Seriously, do they realize how they look, or do they just not care? This is a wedding, and yet you'd see more sensible headgear at a sci-fi convention than you did in westminster abbey.

Acupuncture

I was reading something about acupuncture, and it was listing conditions that it can treat. It lists some general things. Then it lists some "women's conditions" like irregular menstruation. Then it lists some "mens condition's" and says "importance" :)

It was manually corrected to "impotence" but I think "importance" would be a funny men's condition to treat.

Mechanical elaborated

As per the last post... there are two possible explanations for the difference. One is of course that the dealership is essentially ripping me off, recommending work that doesn't really need to be done, and charging lots for it. The other explanation is that the independent mechanic just did not see the problems, perhaps not knowledgeable enough. I think it's mostly the first case, but maybe a little of the latter case.

For the general mechanical work, things the dealership just happened to notice when snooping around but that independent guy figured looked ok, I figure things are probably fine. The problem is the original reason I took the car in: the check engine light came on. The dealership had said the ECM needed replacing. At least the independent guy showed me the code so I could see it reporting "P0507: Engine idling faster than expected." He said it looked to be idling around the right range, and didn't have much else to say about it, just keep an eye on engine idle speed, if it seems fine, don't worry. The issue with that is that the light turned on, the dealership reset it when I took the car in, but it turned on again about a week later, so the independent guy reset it also. But I don't like the idea that it will keep coming on in the future, even if he thinks it's nothing to worry about. I don't consider the problem solved.

But at least with that engine code I was able to research online. I downloaded the service manual for my car, so I could see how the dealership arrived at the conclusion to replace ECM. Of course, don't know if they really followed that procedure closely. Other people have solved a similar issue by performing an "Idle air volume learning." Hmm, the dealership would have needed to do this when they flashed the ECM as part of a recall a few months ago. Maybe they didn't do it right? Maybe it's temperature dependent? Anyway, the light came on again recently, so, finally I decided to perform that procedure and see what happens. Of course now the light is on, I'll have to get it cleared then can wait to see if it comes back in a couple weeks or if that procedure solved it.

That procedure is interesting in itself though... With the car 'warmed up' and all battery-drawing accessories off, turn the key to off for 10 seconds, then turn to on and wait 3 seconds, then hit the gas pedal fully 5 times within 5 seconds, then wait 7 seconds, then fully depress the gas pedal for about 20 seconds, until the engine light flashes for a while then goes solid, release the pedal within 3 seconds of it going solid, then start the engine and wait. Was weird to see it revving up and down by itself without touching anything, eventually settled at a nice normal idle speed. Revved the engine high a couple more times, and that's about it.

Abs

I have a six-pack. It's very valuable to me. That's why I keep it safe behind some protective cushioning.

Mechanical

Stadium Nissan recommends I do $5279 of work. They charged me $76 to tell me this.
Delta Auto Care & Repair recommends I do $0 of work. They charged me $0 to tell me this. And they gave me some green tea, invited me into the garage as they did the inspection, zip-tied some damaged plastic, and topped up some fluid.

hmmmm.....

Yuri's day

Today was the 50th aniversary of the first human in space. Pretty amazing huh? A half century. Also a little surprising how few people knew this (I happened to hear it on TV), far more people know about the moon landing, simply because it was the single aspect of the whole space race that USA actually won, after losing at everything else.

Anyway, around 10 yrs ago, some people started calling Apr 12 as "Yuri's Night" (cause of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space).

I was at the university this evening for dragonboat exercise. As I walked through Mac Hall I saw a group of girls in outlandish outfits, silver and glittery and complete with skintight hood. I thought it was a group of astro-buffs having a party and wearing spacey outfits.
So I went up to one and said "Oh celebrating Yuri's Night?"
She said "huh?"
I said "50 yr anniversary of first person in space."
She was like "uh, no, we're here for a dance competition."
I'm sure I had a moment of stunned silence, as I realized I had basically said their dance outfits looked like cheesy movie space-suits! I think I mumbled something about the outfit, tried to recover by asking "oh is that here in the ballroom?" then made my retreat.

I guess I didn't impress anyone with my knowledge of this historic day.

International year of ...

I saw that 2011 is "International Year of the Forest."

Who cares?! Seriously! Does that even mean anything?

I looked at the UN website. Apparently 2011 is also "International Year of Chemistry" and "International Year for People of African Descent." Really. What's the point of these designations.

2009 was "International Year of Natural Fibres," among other things.

The most hardcore was 1982, "International Year of Mobilization for Sanctions Against South Africa." I think that's the only country to ever have a year internationally declared condemning it. Reminds me of the Spitting Image song I can still remember from childhood.

It's not just years though, there are days and weeks and decades. The first week of august is "world breastfeeding week". 2001-2010 was "Decade to Roll Back Malaria in Developing Countries, Particularly in Africa" Roll back malaria? Sounds like a Wal-Mart commercial. A smiley face will float around and cure sick black people.

Sure, in some cases the causes are worthwhile, but naming an international year of something just doesn't seem that meaningful.

Energy

Saw this on TV actually... have you ever looked at the nutritional information of energy drinks? Check out 5 Hour Energy. Yeah... you know... cause sometimes you just need eight thousand percent of something.

This is from a few years ago, but is just as awesome today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs

Parking

It was a terrible parking job. As I walked away from my car, I actually felt ashamed. A moment later though, a sudden realization comforted me. It's an asian car, with asian ornamentation, in an asian mall's parking lot. The parking job would probably be considered quite normal and acceptable.
;)

Fitness test

Did a fitness test with dragonboat teammates. The results were a bit unexpected. Overall I did better than I expected actually, but still in a weird way.

In the "beep test" which is about cardio, running, I was the third best (we all already knew the other two people would totally dominate).
In a "plank" test, which is core/abdominal, I was very good too.
The weight/muscle ones (pulldown and chest press) I did so-so, not particularly good.

The reason I say this is a bit weird, is that when I exercise, I'm always doing weights to try to build muscle. I don't do much cardio, and I don't like doing core/abs (basically never did it prior to last year, though I have done a bit more since then). So it is very strange to me that the things I do not train/practice much, I'm good at, while the things I do train/practice a lot I'm not very good at.

So what does that tell me? Is it reinforcing the idea that it's all just based on body type, and it's very hard to change anything? Or does it just mean my workouts totally miss their target?

Taxy

Worked on income tax. Overseas Employment Tax Credit requires a form partly filled out by my employer. But they don't want to give it to me. Can't seem to explain why, as she changes her reasons and contradicts herself, even though I outline clearly why her arguments don't apply. Anyways, now I have to try to get revenue canada to tell me I qualify, and pass that on to her, which could be difficult finding someone who understands and giving them all the details. What a nuissance. But it's worth thousands of dollars, in a year of low income, so worth spending at least some time trying. Hope it works out.

Update: CRA says I don't get it. Not the same reasons as our payroll person gave, but same conclusion. Drat.

XC ski 2

Monday, my second time skiing. There was a debate between C and The J about which trail to take, based on my lack of skill. Ended up trying the more challenging one. Conditions were slow and sticky, so it turned out ok. Actually because of that some parts felt too slow. I was starting to think I wasn't going to fall at all, as we were more than halfway done and still no problem, but then we went down a black part and I almost made it but not quite. At least that fall was actually a little fun, cause it didn't hurt, and was going fast so it was a bit fun sliding a distance along the ground. Later on in the day though, I fell three more times within a couple of minutes, and that was pretty lame and I felt really crappy about it. Oh well. Will do better next time.

Thoughts on cutlery

Hugging from behind is called "spooning", because of the way spoons stack together like that right? Well... forks stack like that too... but noone wants to call it "forking", I wonder why not. :)

Missing items

On a long shot, I visited Habitat for Humanity where I was volunteering about 4 months ago. I knew I used to have my thermal mug there, well before I noticed it missing. Finally got around to checking, and guess what, it was there! I was so happy, I didn' tbother looking around for the other less important missing items, though, probably I should have spent a minute just in case. Anyway, that's part of one mystery solved.

I'm black

At least, according to my recent hotel rewards membership. I started out as gold, moved up to platinum, and am now at the highest level, black. I'm not sure why black is the highest.

I think it would be awesome to create a rewards program based on racial stereotypes... like you start out as "asian" status, then move up to "honkey" then up to "latino" and finally "black". Or is latino above black? I'm not sure these days.

Snowshoe

Went snowshoeing for the first time. It was... ok. Companions were great, but weather was a bit too cold, actually my hands were miserably painful cold for the first little while, but eventually warmed up. (had planned to bring heat packs but forgot them) Breeze on the face still uncomfortable sometimes. Otherwise, it's pretty similar to hiking, some beautiful scenery. Wasn't very strenuous as we were in flat areas. Could do a little more work by walking in the stuff that wasn't packed down.

Will I go again? Maybe. Think I enjoyed the xc skiing more, though, it's hard to say how much was due to the weather.

As far as snowshoes go... I should have tried taking them off at some point. It seemed like for the packed down portion of the track, you could have walked in regular boots no problem. For the fluffy unpacked stuff, snowshoes still sink down in it, and then it's more effort to take the next step because of lifting the snow that has caved in on top of the snowshoe. But, maybe with the snowshoe you only sink down 1 foot instead of 2 feet. I should have tested. Next time.

Honesty

Well, i could feel she was lying or hiding something. Then, facebook provided some evidence. It's not even something that would matter, except that if she lied, then it becomes something that matter. Though the lie in itself is the biggest problem... if she can lie in person to my face so easily, especially when provided an opportunity to correct it, then how can i be sure about anything else?

Scared to say anything about it, cause I don't want to lose anything. But if i don't, it'll just continue to eat me inside. (and the other point is, is there really anything there to lose?) So I said something finally. And she made an unclear explanation, and insisted she was truthful and i need to think positive about her.

So where to go from here? To review the strengths and weaknesses:

strengths:
1. i really like her

weaknesses:
1. not fluent in the same language
2. oceans apart
3. combining 1 & 2 vastly magnifies their individual effects
4. little trust (also magnifies 2)
5. different cultures? different religions? (i think officially i'd be required to adopt islam)
6. i'm naturally shallow

well... see how things go. not focus on the negatives so much. still better than nothing. And maybe one day we'll sing that shania twain song.

Torn away

The notice came suddenly... I would be heading home in a couple days. I guess I could understand it from their point of view, but, I was really unhappy about it. I really wanted to stay. As mentioned, I enjoyed my routine, and also I had one close friend and one 'girlfriend' that I would really really miss. Unfortunately, not much time to figure out what I could do. I was honestly strongly considering trying to stay. Maybe find some way to rent an apartment or something, or maybe there was a cheap hotel nearby. Unfortunately, that evening, she wasn't responding to my sms, and all the next morning still silence to my sms and calls. So, with needing to decide, and not knowing how she really felt about me or my idea of staying (would she think it's wonderful? would she think it's ridiculous?), I went ahead and started booking tickets home. Ended up not being able to change the old ticket without a large fee, so had to buy a brand new one way ticket home, what a waste.

Eventually got to talk with her (she still didn't want to meet that day for some reason). After some discussion, she decided she is willing to try long distance relationship if I am. Though some things felt suspicious, don't know how to describe, like when asking how she felt, would just ask me back in return, then say she felt the same... Anyway, also determined that she would have been happy if i had tried to stay in jakarta on my own time, though it would be complicated and also I'm not sure when I'd get to see her since currently I was only seeing her when I visited the gym during her work hours, never wanted to meet outside of work...

Well, that didn't really matter anymore cause I had the ticket home and had pretty much resigned myself to using it.

Ever since, I have been strongly regretting... I really should have told the company, "it'll cost >$1200 for the new ticket to send me home, so, just give me the $1200 and I'll take care of myself for a couple weeks and take the original flight home." From a practical point of view, it should have been ok with them. But I didn't do it.

Now back in calgary, I've been pretty unhappy... have way more jetlag than normal, my eyes are still bloodshot a few days later. My gut is unhappy, it was fine with indonesian street food but seems airport and airline civilized food is unsafe. The coldness and dryness is brutal, I'm by myself most of the time, exercise is inconvenient and I feel little energy or motivation for most things. Blah, I should still be there.

Ok, I'm not there. I know that, stop focussing on it. Need to make the best of calgary time. And maybe can think about planning to go back there again.

Routine

Got into a pretty good routine. Every day I would get up and go to breakfast around 7:30-8:00, usually see coworkers there. Afterwards, back to the room, not sure what to do for a while. Later in morning, go to the gym for exercise. Afterwards, maybe some lunch. Usually spend a couple more hours in the gym visiting Eka, depending on her work shift. Sometime, take a bahasa lesson in rosetta stone. Later, probably meet with Ellis for dinner and for some more of the evening. Maybe visit Eka again if she's back in the evening. Afterwards, head to bed. Somehow, it's actually more busy than that, but those are the main highlights of the daily activities. Sometimes go out to do something, but not much really to do.

Overall a pretty good system though, and useful... everyday exercise, should be fitter than normal because of it. Also everyday study and learn some language. And everyday get to spend some time with some close friends, something really valuable to me.

Bunga-bunga

The most awesome Indonesian words I have learned... On valentines day, I'm going to give my girlfriend some bunga-bunga! Oh yeah! Sounds dirty huh? Bunga-bunga actually means flowers in Indonesian.

As for girlfriend... i sortof maybe do have one... If so, would be the first time ever for valentines day, feel a little nervous and don't really know what I'm doing. Actually, really don't know what I'm doing at all regarding her. It's ridiculous to try to start a relationship with someone who doesn't speak the same language as me and lives in a different country and culture and religion etc... Totally stupid idea. but still...

Rattus

A couple times, my friend pointed out a rat in the alley when eating, but, I never saw it. I figured it would just be like a large mouse. Finally, I saw it... There are a lot of stray cats around, and admittedly they're not particularly big, but this rat could probably eat them. It was scary big.

Food and stuff

Think I chewed on a chicken head a bit. I wondered "what's this pointy bit of bone" then realized it was probably a beak. Ew. Oh well.

Starting to get quite tired of the food here. Been over 3 weeks of buffet breakfast and restaurant lunch and dinners. Doesn't seem to be that much variety. Well, there sortof is, and sortof isn't, if you know what I mean. Many choices, but all similar style. I was quite happy to find a "hong kong cafe" the other day, and then another day found something resembling italian pasta.

Most of the alley was closed on saturday night, but a couple places (happening to be the places I wanted) were open... After the late dinner, I saw a few of the people playing cards. Went over to take a look, it was Dominoes. After a couple rounds, I joined in with them. It was quite fun. don't really need the same language for that, though sometimes a couple rules are hard to understand. One guy was really animated, kept pointing at the other guy and giving the thumbs down with a frown, then bursting out laughing. Probably I can go there another evening.

I met someone named Eka. Then I met someone named Eca. Then when I tried to meet Eca in the mall, there was someone waiting but didn't quite look like Eca but noone else was there so I talked to her, and found she was Esa. Feels like someone's playing a trick on me.

Overall the days have not been too interesting recently.