Yogyakarta

Thursday morning my mom woke me up and said that Dad needs me to go to Yogyakarta/ Yogya(another city in Indonesia, an hour away from Jakarta by plane) in a few hours to guide his business partners from China during their travel to Yogya. They can't speak any English or Indonesian, so they really need someone to help them. The only problem with this is my Mandarin. It SUCKS. But since Yogya is in my list of places to go during my stay in Indo, I didn't mind too much. My brother is also going to accompany me.

As soon as we arrive at the airport, I was pretty disappointed. Why? Because I realized that my Mandarin is suck-er than I thought. I couldn't really understand what were they asking me. I felt like an idiot.

After we arrived in Yogya, they kept asking me questions forcing me to remember all the words I've learned but then forgotten. After a long while, I started to remember a few words.

It was raining so we didn't get to go out and see the city that day. Went to Borobudur Temple the next day. For those of you who don't know what Borobudur is, it is the one of the best preserved ancient monument in Indonesia and it's huge. It's one of the things that we as Indonesians really proud to have.


After a few hours heat bathing in Bodobudur, we went to Sultan Palace/ Keraton Yogya. I wasn't too impressed with this place. Maybe becos it's not really my kind of architecture. Then we continue to 2 smaller temples: Mendut Temple and Prambanan Temple. Prambanan Temple is surrounded by a few smaller temples. Prambanan Temple got hit by the 5.9 Richter scale earthquake about a year ago. The earthquake damaged some of the smaller temples. We used to be able to get inside the temple, but due to the damage we could only look from outside.


So after 2 days being forced to speak Mandarin, I think I'm staring to remember some tho it's still very bad. They were very nice to me. They said that my Mandarin is not so bad considering I only spent a year in China. Glad they feel that way even tho I don't agree.

They only had 2 days in Yogya, so by the end of the night, we took them to the airport and said "zai jian".

Home very HOT home

Alrite, so after 20 hours of sitting on a tight airline seat in front of a little girl who kept shaking my seat and sandwiched by my brother and an Indian; I'm home.
Welcomed by the boiling heat and the smell of humidity, plus a death penalty sign shown below. Yes, I'm HOME. Home very hot home.



Day 1:Home, saw the damage from the major flood a few months ago for the first time. Our house had been hit by at least 2 major floods. The first one was about 5 years or so ago. I was here. I still remember the stench clearly. It's cockroach mixed with muds kind of stench. If you don't know how cockroach smells like, let me just tell you that it stinks bad.

I can see the brown color on the wall marking the depth of the flood. It's up to my upper thigh, almost to my hip. All the drawers and cabinetries in our kitchen had been removed since they weren't salvageable. I think the kitchen have the biggest damage in our house. I would show you some pics if I didn't thought you would be shocked. So probably better not.

My mum said she had to threw away her wedding pictures and some of our childhood photos and negatives since they were fungal. I have to say, fun gi isn't so much fun this time. For some of you photo fanatics, you can definitely understand how it feels if you were to lose your wedding or your childhood pictures. Very sad.

Anyway, I don't wanna bore you with all the sad details of the flood damage, lets move on the the cute stuff: PUPPIES! So happy to finally see them. 7 adorable puppies. It felt like heaven till I saw all the poops. But they are still super adorable (except when they cry and cry and CRY...) Just like iPod, they all come in different colors.

Bear looks like brown bear, different kind of brown tho. He is my mum's fav. He loves to sleep. And when he does, he's like hibernating bear. :) He has the thickest fur.



Leila looks like a miniature boxer. Named after Laila Ali (Muhammad Ali's daughter)the boxer. My sister picked the name after watching Dancing with the Star. She is the smallest in the pack. Loves to run around like a mad dog.



Junior looks kinda like his mum or at least looks the most like Brownie from the pack. He also looks a bit like beagle sometimes.



Taffi looks like my friend Mike's dog Taffi.



Gil has the sweetest face. Her left eye is a bit odd looking. I probably should get it checked soon.



Naughty is the naughty one.



Chiki Our maid named him. I have no idea. It's only temporary name anyway since we're going to give most of these cute puppies to people, so I don't care that much naming them. Probably better not get too attached.



Day 3: still jet lag, woke up before 5am. Went out to play with the puppies. Then went with mum and dad jogged to a farmers market. Didn't realized I should have brought my camera until I got there. Well, next time I will. Farmers market (and any kind of market) here is very DIRTY. Flies everywhere, so yes, the food you buy there definitely been touched by flies hundreds of times. But that's how we've been doing it and I don't see how it will change soon.

Went to the mall in the evening and ate one of the food I missed the most: Bakmi GM. :) It's a simple noodle dish with chicken and mushroom, but I just love it.

Pups Photos: Week5