Highlights from Indonesia

My birthday in Facebar. The calm before the storm

After living in Indonesia for a year, it would have been strange not to have taken away some memories. The list is a long and exhaustive one ; therefore, I had to cut it down to five moments that made my year in Indonesia one I will never forget.

#5 A birthday in Jakarta: Celebrating a 28th birthday is not a big deal but for me it was. This was the first time I had ever spent a birthday in a place I did not consider home. It was also the first time in eight years I did not celebrate my birthday with Doc, an odd feeling but one that was quickly forgotten because I had one month left before I saw him again. My birthday fell on a Sunday so I thought it would be wise to celebrate it on the Saturday. While I had a great turn out - as seen in the picture above - I was missing some dear friends and housemates who were still away on the Christmas holidays. Regardless, we started in my favourite gin joint Facebar where I drank as many half priced margaritas and an assortment of cocktails to my hearts content. Did I mention I had a cake? Facebar provided a cake courtesy of my lovely ex-student Sandy (1st right in photo). After the happy hour finished, we decided to have dinner at our regular Lebanese restaurant and then quickly moved on to Melly's Beer garden for some more drunken tomfoolery. We then moved on to Lucy in the Sky to shake our booties and that is where I don't remember a great deal. I remember being in a car and drinking a lot of gin. I can safely say that the next morning /afternoon was the worst I had ever felt in my life. I was utterly fucked! Dry mouth, sore head,nausea and all the things teetotal people miss out on (lucky bastards). Oh and sore feet since I was wearing high heels and dancing up a storm. My birthday in Jakarta was one I will most certainly not forget.

#4 Raving it up like it 2004: I like music especially music with a dirty bassline and a sneaky groove like Drum and Bass, Dupstep and Deep House.  So when Manc C told me that Skream, Benga and Andy C (the stars of Drum and Bass and Dubstep) were coming to Jakarta, I thought to myself I better get in on that! I bought tickets for myself, Manc C, Withnail and Sister J. It fell on the day before Manc C and I went on holiday to Lombok so what a way to start a holiday right? The night started with a bit of a hitch. You see I bought tickets, but was not given the physical ticket just the receipt and the ticket provider would e-mail me the tickets. This did not click until we got to the venue and realised that people papers with a barcode on it which the vendors were scanning. We panicked when we were told our tickets could not allow us entry into the event and that we should have received in an e-mail. Panic much? We sure did. We convinced the vendors to print off the tickets and off we went in, ha the reason I didn't get the e-mail was because they misread my handwriting. Oh hell well, we forgot about the cafuffle by raving the night away. There are no photos of that night because I was busy having a good time.

#3 Yogyakarta: My last trip out of Jakarta and only solo trip was to the cultural capital of Java. I loved everything about it! The food, the people and the history of the city makes this a must see. Visiting Borobudur was the highlight of the trip, I totally felt like traveller than expat temple trekking here. If that was not enough chilling out and enjoying my own company made this trip all the more special and therefore a highlight.

#2 Meeting Ian Brown: Without a doubt, this had to be the most surreal moment of my year abroad, if not in my life. Check out the story here and then call me any name of your choosing thereafter. My advice to anyone that runs into a rock legend is that if they offer you tickets to see their show, accept,accept,accept! If you do not accept, you will never hear the end of it especially from your mates.

 

Me and the man himself

#1 Doc's visit: There was nothing better than having my man with me. Although it was brief visit (2 weeks); they were the best two weeks I had in Indonesia. We enjoyed the serenity of Nusa Lembongan and swanky vibe of Bali's Nusa Dua and Seminyak. We couldn't ask for more in the way of relaxing and reconnecting. Bali was also a turning point on how I felt about Indonesia, I fell in love with it and want to see more of it especially with Doc.