Are we sick of Bali yet? Just maybe. 

Don’t worry, parents.  When you come and visit, I’ll definitely be ready to take you to Bali.  It looks something like this:

Balinese sunset.

But until the parentals/siblings arrive, I have no interest in going back.  I spent several weeks in Bali working my tail off. But it was all totally worth it… because guess what? We had some really awesome people come, including President Obama.  You probably saw this in the news, but he actually came to Indonesia.  So the awesomeness of that almost made up for the fact that I sweat through pretty much every suit I own again and again in the Balinese heat.

President Barack Obama poses for a photo with other leaders at the start of the US – ASEAN summit at the Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center in Nusa Dua, Bali, Nov. 18, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza; read more at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/11/18/president-obama-east-asia-summit)

So… that was fun.

Thanksgiving, a.k.a. a five day food coma

After the excitement of another trip to Bali came Thanksgiving, my all time favorite holiday.  In case Mom and Grandma were worried, I was very thankful for turkeys, PEOPLE WHO READ MY BLOG FROM AFAR, good food, living the dream, little old ladies with curly hair, doting mothers who send reminder emails, a lack of natural disasters of late, good beer, fine wine… sorry, I ate so much turkey I fell asleep there.  Anyway, lots to be thankful, including the fact that neighbor Mike cooked three delicious turkeys over the course of the weekend.

mmmmm. delicious.

Dolled up

After all the excitement of Thanksgiving, November still had a few more punches.  One of them was called the Marine Ball.  Even though the Marine birthday is technically November 10, they still put on a birthday ball around the world for the next several weeks.   After all, who really needs an excuse to party?  Definitely not the Marines.  The occasion sparked the perfect reason to get  manicure/pedicures, get my hair styled like a Garuda Stewardess, and experiment with fake lashes.  Wicked fun.

Hey Bu! (that's not overly familiar... Bu means "Ma'am" in Indonesian.)

how we roll... see if you can spot the lashes. So hot right now.

Cambodia, part deux

This time my destination was not the majestic pagodas/stupas (?) of Angkor Wat/Siem Reap, which is probably a good thing because word on the streets is that there was flooding all over the place.  We stayed drier and busier down in Phnom Penh.  In addition to meetings at the palace (of which there are more than one in Phnom Penh, beware) there was also fun to be had scoping out the tuk-tuks, staring at weird modern paintings of angry buddhas, and being awed by the size and speed of the enormous lizards hanging around on my hotel room’s balcony.

Trip to Krakatau

OK, so this is actually a lie.  I apologize for the falsehood.  Over Columbus day several brave/boatloving souls decided to make the trip out to Krakatau, the famous/infamous volcano.  Would you believe it, we boarded the boat only to sit down with Kyle, our South African dive master, who told us we couldn’t go to Krakatau because of some silly eruption.  What, like he expected it to look like this?

All right, maybe it did look kind of like that, so it might have been a good thing that we didn’t make it all the way out to Krakatau.  Instead, I got to spend a weekend hanging out on a boat and going swimmin’.  Pretty fun.  Other highlights of the weekend include when I got stung by an enormous jellyfish and had a small Indonesian man pour vinegar all over my body to make the welts go away, which was followed by my smelling like salt and vinegar potato chips for the rest of the day, and an awesome hike up the westernmost tip of Java.  I inadequately photographed the hike, which included a trek through the jungle, scaling of Dutch ruins, and climbing up some cliffs.

Not sure if this was just one tree or many, but it was pretty awesome. Also, there were a bunch of monkeys in a huge brawl up there somewhere.

Many bottles of wine were imbibed, ridiculous jokes made, and quite a few cannonballs were launched from the front of the boat.

Mirasole

As the winners of last year’s halloween contest, we carefully considered our halloween options for this year and decided after much deliberation that we should probably go ice our knees after last year’s solid victory (translation for Grandma: that means we thought we should sit out this year).  So when the chance to get out of Jakarta and hit up the mountains of Java arose, we jumped on the opportunity.  Last weekend was spent eating way too much ridiculously delicious food, playing bocce, running around in circles, reading in the sunshine, falling asleep, and getting pushed in the pool (clarification: I was the only one getting pushed in, thanks, Brian).  There was also fun to be had doing some tropical sledding down the terraced landscape.

If only Ranger the Lab had joined us instead of being an onlooker...

and that's what success looks like. You're welcome.

So anyway, October was a blast.  November is going to be rad too.  Hopefully I’ll stop being such a bad blogger/grandchild and post more often so Grandma doesn’t think the latest geographic tremor on the Pacific Rim has incited a catastrophe here in Jakarta.

If there is one thing that occasionally gets me down about Jakarta, it’s a lack of seasons.  The New Englander (read: Masshole) really has a thing for winter snowstorms, fresh spring air, the cool, crisp fall air and sweatshirt weather.  We don’t have those things just south of the equator here.  This week instead of bemoaning the lack of seasons, I was kind of relieved by the familiar hot and humid air.  Why, you might ask?  Because fall is synonymous with marking a most familiar and time-honored Masshole tradition: watching the Red Sox choke in the post season.  It looks like it happened anyway, even without me there to scream at an HD broadcast of NESN coverage.  This week’s blogpost is respectfully written in honor of the 2011 Boston Red Sox.  Thanks for dashing our hopes and dreams.  I thought I’d share some memories of finer days, when we were still under the illusion  that this might be a year reminiscent of 2004 and 2007.

Beer, siblings, and sox... best combination ever

Ironic that this is one of approximately 4 photos I took in August.

Strictly seasonally speaking, we’ve now come to the rainy half of the year.  I have my yellow rain boots, so I’m ready to rock.  But not much else to report on, so Grandma is going to have to wait until next week to hear more stories about me saving the world.

Eager to prove that at my old age of 26 I am just as spry as I always have been, at some point in the last few weeks I thought it would be a great idea to run a 10 mile road race at 6am on Sunday morning.  Road races in the late fall, you might think to yourself… how fun.  Yes, the race ended up being fun, but let’s examine the things that make running this morning’s race totally different than my previous suppositions:

1) fall.  Oh yeah, no seasons here.  It’s still hot as heck.

2) this race was in Jakarta, organized with Indonesian efficiency.  This meant that what could have been a 5 minute appointment after direct trek to North Jakarta on Saturday to pick up our race packets… wasn’t.  Traffic aside, our frenemies on the other side of the check in list insisted that we had to wear the race singlets we received, we were advised that the starting time for the race had been moved 1/2 hour earlier, and were extremely concerned about collecting physical race confirmation slips instead of helping us prepare for the race.

The race ended up being a total blast — it was nice and cool out (for Indonesia), there were a limited number of people running, and motor traffic was slightly less than normal.  10 miles (16.8km) went by, I finished in a reasonable amount of time, and at the end was all smiles:

Indonesian singlets... yes, they make us look tan.

Yup, that’s right.  Another great birthday.  But 10 miles got me totally tuckered out so other adventures of the week will have to come later.

Grandma already mentioned what a slacker I’ve been this summer with my lack of blogging.  Actually, that’s not really truthful.  This is Grandma we’re talking about.  She said “It’s ok when you don’t blog, as long as I get a postcard.”  So Grandma has been getting a lot of postcards of late.  Here’s what I’ve been up to amidst saving the world and living the dream.

I spent most of July working my tail off in Bali.  I know, that sounds silly, but I wouldn’t lie.  It’s cool, there were a lot of important foreign ministers and people from a zillion different countries, but let’s face it, I’ve kind of moved on and you’ve all probably heard about it already.

August: Breathing in Liberty and Justice for All

That’s right.  This August I spent most of my time… abroad? in the USA!  That’s right, ladies and gentlemen.  The land of freedom, clean air, Chipotle, bulays, driving on the right side of the road, and cute French Canadian grandmas.  Oh wait, only one of those!  The highlight of the visit was obviously cousin Kate’s wedding to our new cousin Brian.  Of course we love him because he loves beer and is an engineer… and we didn’t even scare him off  over the course of the many years he and Kate were dating.  Congratulations to Brian and Kate, especially because the party was totallyawesomegreat.  And we got to hang out with Grandma.

We're definitely related.

Grandma and the happy couple.

Kate and all her bridesmaids... For the record, even though I am not the most tan of the bridesmaids I am pretty sure I traveled the furthest distance for this wedding so I am glad it was totally worth it.

The other highlight of the brief time I spent in the homeland was the yearly pilgrimage to Maine.  That’s right, it was hanging out wearing bathing suits and sweats all week, drinking good ol’ American beer, eating bagels, going running in clean air, waterskiing, and this year we even added a hike up Bald Mountain for the sunrise.  That’s right folks at home, all us lazy 20somethings woke up at 4am (we didn’t even stay up all night for this one) and got our butts up a mountain to see a sunrise.  Worth it? Yes.  Especially because there was napping involved later.

evidence!

beautiful, right? Still no guarantee we'll wake up that early again next year.

Last weekend I embarked on another epic regional tour, which started with the trek to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Once again, after a fairly short plane ride that left at a totally reasonable hour in the afternoon (actually a rarity when it comes to these regional flights) I found myself in a city where I could talk to the locals in bad Bahasa, poor English, or downright awful Chinese, and still be understood.  KL is my kind of place!  In addition to being overwhelmed by possibilities to communicate, I spent a lot of time in KL in meetings.  With people in dark suits.  And mostly dudes.

Did you know in Malaysia they actually have crazy keyboards with Arabic letters?  I totally didn’t see that one coming. It definitely added to my excitement in the business lounge of the hotel, where I incited some strange looks from everyone else preparing to attend their conferences with my interjections of “WOAH MAN! COOL!” amidst an otherwise silent group of people typing away.  Look, see for yourself:

We also heard a lot about KL’s skytrains.  While they are one of the few southeast Asian cities with a functional public transit system, the way in which the contracts for public transit was so corrupted that none of the lines connect.  That’s right — to transfer lines requires disembarking the train, leaving the station, walking across the street in some cases, buying another ticket, and then reboarding another train.  I don’t think I’ll ever bash the Washington DC metro again (that’s probably a lie, actually.  I can only take so much DC Metro sass.)  But anyway, enough complaining.  Gotta get back to the story about living the dream.

So that’s KL in a nutshell.  After that it was on to Brunei, home to one of the world’s few reigning Sultans, clean air, free education through college, a population of 400,000, and royalty.  I knew Brunei was going to be awesome when my boss and I were picked up at the airport by a guy in uniform driving a JAGUAR.  Then we were taken to an incredibly opulent hotel that was originally built as a guest house for the Sultan’s visiting friends — movie theatre, golf course, country club, gym, and enormous pools along the coast of the South China Sea.  Blew my mind after the poverty I see every day in Jakarta.  Was I still in Southeast Asia?  Anyway, Brunei was rad.  We had productive meetings, I had a chance to to see royalty AND saw from a distance the sultan’s palace.  I have my suspicions that the sultan’s palace in Aladdin may have leaned heavily on the spectacular view in Brunei.

OK, I’ve covered the skytrains, the sultans, and now it’s time for the weakest link in my alliterating title.  CELEBRATIONS obviously mean HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, AMERICA!  In my first overseas July 4, I was delighted to the point of laughter when all my foreign friends came up to me and said “congratulations” instead of “happy independence day.”  While this is probably an appropriate response on national day celebrations, it made me feel a little bit silly — I mean, I am saving the world over here (just like you told me to, Ma) but if I were a little more egotistical I could think it sounds like I’m single handedly responsible for keeping America independent this last year.  Well, anyway, you’re welcome, America.  And happy birthday.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

So after I’d gotten all that celebrating out of my system, it was time to do some relaxing.  Neighbor Jen and I hopped on a plane (because it’d been so long since I’d been airborne) and headed to Manado.  I’d heard before that Manado is home to some of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world.  After some 8 hours of snorkeling, I’m pretty convinced I need to get my scuba diving certification and I can vouch for Manado’s reputation.  However, as much as I love boats, getting out to the island of Bunaken, where we spent the weekend, was harder than I’d anticipated.  Here’s a picture of some boats that were way nicer than the rickity boat we took out to the island:

For grandma's sake, I won't post a picture of the actual boat we took out to the island. Because I want to stave off heart attacks so I can see her when I go home next month.

I don’t have a waterproof camera, so I can’t share the true awesomeness of most of what I stared at all weekend, but let it  suffice to say it was THE BEST WEEKEND EVER because I spent all my time floating around in a giant fish tank and didn’t even get sunburned.  Also, took in some pretty incredible sunrises/sunsets:

actually, pictures don't do it justice.

I can't make this stuff up.aaand the sunrise. Can't even handle how great the sunshine was.

So anyway, KL, Brunei, the 4th, and Manado were all totallyawesomegreat but now it’s time for me to get my tush to bed so I can keep up my adventuring. Doesn’t this make you want to come visit?

1) Eating Really Delicious Food: even though Pops has been on a very scientific diet for the last… 20 years, he still loves eating delicious food.  Which is only too bad because that “scientific diet” can be summarized in just a few words: if it tastes good, spit it out.  Not that I think he usually does that.  Let’s just put it this way — he has now convinced himself that wheat bread is an acceptable taste substitute for donuts… he might be a little crazy on that one.

Anyway, I’ve been eating some delicious brunch of late, of which I’m sure he’d approve.  You have not had brunch until you’ve experienced the extravagance of hotel brunches in southeast Asia.  Three hours of western and Asian food… mimosas… fresh vegetables… eggs benedict… sushi… marvelous.  During last weekend’s brunch, our revelry/entry into food comas was interrupted by the arrival of a random enormous lion in a suit singing the Happy Birthday song to a short person.  I can’t make this stuff up:

This may have been used to model characters from the Madagascar movies?

2) Barbecuing: What Dad doesn’t like barbecues?  It’s fitting today that I make note of our neighborhood barbecue last weekend to welcome our new interns/fellows/newcomers.  Burgers, dawgs, general American deliciousness were all involved.  Dads everywhere would’ve been proud.  I admit I left the actual grilling to the dudes/future/current dads.

This is what happens when you let the finance guys out of the office. Also, I'm sure Dad approves of the Sox hat.

3) Running: OK, Dad isn’t a big runner, but he’d approve of getting some good exercise, and if he were here he’d probably be out on a bike on Car Free Sunday.  Last week (and this morning) marked another great day of sweating and pavement pounding with the running shoes.  Lo and behold, there were absurdities to observe:

Don't you get up on Sunday mornings and push an enormous plastic ball down the street?

Of course I know Dad also approves of all the work stuff I do over here… trying to save the world, living the dream, serving my country, etc., and Dad (and Mom) are the inspiration behind the formation of that dream.  Thanks for showing me how to devise aspirations worth following and for your own public service.  LOVE YOU DAD!  So go do something your dad inspired you to do, and call him to say Happy Father’s Day!

Food: Vietnamese food is incredible. I think I had more Pho in a weekend than I have had in my whole life and it was wicked delicious.  Still don’t believe me? Check it.

delicious. and probably less than $2.

It was actually so good that I think it drove Mike a little crazy:

pretty sure this isn't the correct way to maneuver chopsticks.

And just so Grandma can see that I didn’t employ any manners while in mainland southeast Asia:

thumbs up. Though I will note the local beer (333) is on par with Natty Light... worth skipping.

Adventures: We adventured the heck out of Vietnam.  By that I mean we rocked in the Cu Chi tunnels, where Vietcong spent as long as ten years in cramped quarters sweating their butts off and plotting ways to kill the American GIs.

Also, there were plenty of old weapons… pretty creepy.

they da bomb.

Next adventure consisted of a trip down the Mekong river, where we saw a floating market where enormous watermelons and other things were being sold (including dirt).  I held a python, ate some Vietnamese food, saw Rice Popping (imagine ginger flavored rice krispies) and was oared around by a small but very strong Vietnamese man.  Wanna see proof? Keep scrolling down.

boats? I love boats!

This dude was pretty darn buff. Because we were a big heavy bunch of bulays. And yes, I'm the one reppin' the Sox.

See Grandma... really went to Vietnam.

Of course, what set of adventures would be complete without some toolin’ around Saigon (HCMC) City Center?  We hit up the Post Office (open 365 days a year), Notre Dame Cathedral, the War Crimes Museum, and just did some meandering.  You know how it goes.

Unification Palace... Imagine a gorgeous edifice built in 1880 by the French and decorated in 1960s fashion... surreal.

Gambling Room at the Unification Palace -- LOOK MA, THEY HAVE MAHJONGG!

Notre Dame... Vietnam style.

Just hangin' out with Uncle Ho.

So the trip was a total blast and now I’m back to livin’ the dream in Jakarta.  More adventures to come.

So the past week has been filled with adventures.  In the Philippines, I had the chance to tour an overseas cemetery for both Americans and Filipinos who died during World War II.  The cemetery is beautiful — similar to Arlington Cemetery in the resplendent green lawn and the rows upon rows of graves of those who had given the ultimate sacrifice. Visiting at sunset and receiving the grand tour from a retired U.S. marine corps officer himself was an incredible way to start my week.

Breathtaking.

The next day featured a whole lot of meetings with very charming Filipinos and finished with a trip out to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, the naval aircraft carrier from which Mr. Bin Laden went to his watery grave.  The trek out to the carrier was unbelievable — a boat ride at sunset out to an enormous ship with a volcano in the background.

no biggie, I'm just hanging out with a nuclear powered aircraft carrier...

Oh yeah, and did I mention it was at sunset?

After a short tenure shipside, we hopped onto the “fast boat” to head back to shore.  Since the trip had taken over an hour on the “slow boat,” this was a welcome change.  Much to our dismay, either a broken gas gauge or fuel leak meant WE RAN OUT OF GAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HARBOR after cruising for some fifteen minutes.  Did I mention there were lots of important people on this boat (none of which included myself, don’t worry.  I’m still a staunch believer in my minion status). Everyone is freaking out, as we unfortunately discover there are 1) no life vests onboard, 2) no flashlights onboard, and 3) the handheld radios the captain and crew had were not in range of either shore or the carrier.  Shortly afterward, we also discovered that the boat that was supposed to be rescuing us did not have GPS, so coordinates were no good to anyone.  Enter into this picture of everyone flipping out yours truly.  In typical fashion, I spent all my time passing out bottles of water and going “gosh, I love boats.  Isn’t it nice and cool out here on the water?  Ooh, look at that bird!”  Contain your surprise.

After Manila, it was on to Bangkok.  All I can say is that Thai food from Thailand is the bomb diggity.  We also had a bunch of meetings and I had a marvelous chance to catch up with a friend from studying abroad — of course two American white chicks who studied abroad in Chinese Siberia would be fortuitously in Bangkok the same week!   I also had the chance to feel very popular because some of my colleagues from both college and the post-collegiate life have found themselves in Bangkok, and I ran into them all.  I’ll have to go back to Bangkok someday soon to see the actual city/country instead of just the inside of some meeting rooms and some pretty sweet hotels.

The other highlight from Bangkok was dinner on the water at the Mandarin Oriental, the former hangout spot of Somerset Maugham (nope, didn’t know him before hand), Joseph Conrad (familiar) and Hemingway (I’d heard of him.)  See? Learn new things every day.  Check Wikipedia if you don’t believe me, I’m sure there’s something on there. So there you go, I’ve been working to become more cultured and classy out here… soon I’ll be able to fake it pretty well.

Yup, it's classy. But pretty sure the authors weren't around when the put up the neon lights.

A shoutout to my little bro, who just graduated college today, and one of my favorite cousins, who did the same last week.  Today’s a day where it’s sad to be far from home, but it doesn’t even start to diminish the pride and love I still feel for all my stateside friends and family.  Good job S.O. and Big N!

Now that I have that out of the way, sorry for the delay since my last post.  Things have gotten a little busy over here and I haven’t had time to blog because my job is getting in the way of my social life these days.  Can you believe it? So anyway, there’s a lot to update you all on.

Big Man on Campus

About two weeks ago, I got a new boss — our Ambassador finally arrived!  Much to our relief, he’s very energetic and hit the ground running doing all kinds of important Ambassadorial things.  Don’t worry, I’m not starstruck, though his name has now appeared in some 40-odd Asian news publications.  He’s kind of a Big Deal.  He’s also planning on blogging, so stay tuned for a link someday soon.

One of the Ambassador’s first activities was to attend a meeting out in Yogyakarta, and your favorite broad abroad got to accompany him.  Though I’d been to Jogja before back in September, one of the things I hadn’t seen before was Prambanan Temple, a Hindu temple built by one of the previous princes of Yogyakarta.  Pretty cool:

one of the stupas.

Prambanan from the front

Prambanan is a very large temple that according to legend had been built during one night by a prince for his beloved, who cheated on him and then was turned to stone to complete the structure.  Just visiting the temple would’ve been enough for a quick 2-3 day trip.  But no.  Later that evening we were treated to some Ramayana ballet, another Indonesian specialty.

Most of the Ramayana ballet is a little bit hard to understand for your average foreigner.  We had a poorly translated synopsis to read, so that may also have contributed to some of my confusion.  The story is full of a monkey, some guards, a butt-kickin’ bird, some princes and princesses, and of course, a love saga.  I didn’t catch it all. What was cool about the performance was 1) the dance featured crazy movements that were clearly derived from the traditional Indonesian wayang kulit (puppet shows); 2) DURING THE GRAND FINALE THE PERFORMERS LIT THE STAGE ON FIRE.  I can’t make this stuff up:

and yes, they were still dancing/performing as the stage burned down.  Holy smokes!

I'm actually sweating just thinking about this.

Back in Jakarta

In non-Yogyakarta-related updates, this weekend Jakarta hosted the ASEAN Summit.  While most residents were mildly annoyed by road closures and a crowded airport, I can’t even share their frustrations because professionally and personally it is way too exciting to think the leaders from ten countries were here this weekend.

This morning I tied up my running shoes and started running down Jl. Sudirman, the main street, in the middle of a delightful rainstorm — only to joyfully discover there were no cars, bicyclists, or people ambling along the southbound traffic lane.  Odd, I thought, until I was a few miles down the road and started to get flagged down emphatically by traffic guards.  I came to a halt, only to witness the presidential motorcades for the Philippines, Vietnam, the Sultan of Brunei, and the Prime Minister of Malaysia (note for my siblings: the Prime Minister of Malaysia is an actual person and not just a pivotal protagonist in Zoolander.) Since the street was totally blocked off, had these world leaders looked out their windows they would’ve seen nothing but some dudes in fluorescent yellow vests and a rain-drenched boulay wearing a Hoyas basetball shirt.  I waved, obviously.

Brushes with fame and fortune aside, (okay, just fame, really) this weekend also marked another important purchase: a new DVD player.  Not really of any importance, except that it gave me the opportunity to visit Electronic City once more and appreciate another incidence of fine Asian English that sent me into fits of laughter:

I draw your attention to #1.

Reasons to shop at Electronic City: #1: As your Future Store.  Whatever that means.

Anyway, gotta get back to living the dream and working hard at the best job ever, famous people or not.  Now that you’ve wasted your time reading about my antics, go call your mother.  Seriously.