To Thailand, Stop Number One

The boxes were shipped... (5 boxes coming in at almost exactly 20 kilos each, keep your fingers crossed they make it across the ocean...)The goodbyes and the "See you in Bali in April!" were said and we were off (with about 10 of our friends all flying Air Asia to Bangkok for the frisbee tourney. An excellent ease into leaving.)Howie had a good, if not sweltering hot, tournament. He was camo, perhaps only a slightly less ugly colored shirt to carry with you for a long journey than neon green, and while his team did not do stellar, they had fun and won the most spirited team award. Howie played a lot, and well, and has some nice looking scrapes on his knees from some good laying out for the disc. I spent my days split between mornings out and about with our friends Dana and Gilles who were in Bangkok hanging out for the weekend and afternoons on the fields, cheering the many Jakarta players on. I, of course, ate well and had a lot of fun on the side lines.After the tournament, we headed out to Sukothai, a stop on the way to Chiang Mai that has some ancient temple ruins. Sukothai is HOT. I mean really sweaty, hot. But that did not stop us. We arrived in the late afternoon and did some wandering, checking out the little local markets and enjoying local culture. While Sukothai has its tourists, it is still a small, quaint little town, with only a few backpacker hangouts. It is still weird for us to see so many foreigners around, and hear so many languages spoken.
Today we took some local transport into the Old City, rented some bikes and checked the ruins out. Good lord was it hot, but we persevered. The ruins are quite spread out, although no Angkor Wat in size, and there are nice roads leading you around from chedi to chedi and Buddha to Buddha. What is nice is that, despite the bus loads of people we saw entering the park, it was really peaceful, there were very few vendors (none of whom were pushy at all) and at times it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We were there from about 10 AM to 3 PM when we finally withered and were ruined-out (so to speak). Despite the heat, it was a really nice day. For anyone who plans this in the future, pack a lunch. It would have been a great place to cycle around and then plo down somewhere and have a nice bite to eat.

Tomorrow we are off to Chiang Mai, about 5 1/2 hours from here. We are hoping to take a cooking class and maybe a Thai massage, but not sure about that yet... We will keep you posted!

A tailor met too late, a dress just in time

I found this batik fabric on a trip to Solo way back when and finally found a fabulous tailor who made this dress. I am so bummed I met this woman so late. She came to the apartment, measured me and was not interested in small talk; all business with Ibu Nana. I handed off the material, made an appointment for one week later and, poof!, she showed up with this. Yay! If you live in Jakarta and want to get some stuff made, give her a call: 0811862920.

Too many goodbyes

This past week has been very bittersweet, with far too many goodbyes for our taste. It started on Friday the 13th (ominous!) with a trip to the office with cheesecake. As is the Indonesian tradition, when you have anything special happen in your life, you bring the treats. The office was VERY excited about the arrival of the cheesecakes. So excited in fact, they devoured them in mere minutes and Howie and I did not even get a taste.

Following the cheesecake excitement, I headed to a new wine bar in town for my last "Ladies Night." I passed the torch and this one was organized by another lady and it was a huge success. There were 25 ladies and many, many bottles of wine consumed, much to everyone's delight. But it is not all about the wine, we also had the first book auction, where, for a minimal price, I auctioned off books that are not making the trip back to the US. Books are really hard to come by here so this was a big hit and all the proceeds went the final (very large) bill from the evening. Everyone wins!

Sunday night we invited the reporters from HighEnd and HighEnd teen over for dinner. While we may have some choice words to say about some of the management, etc. at HighEnd, we love the reporters. They are a really sweet group and while I think the reports on the Mexican meal we made might be mixed, we had a great time. It was hard to say goodbye - especially since they performed a little song for us and presented us with a really nice book of letters and pictures from them. It was incredibly heartwarming and we will miss those guys a lot.

Finally, today we also had to say goodbye to our favorite slimy friend, Norman. The farm has moved to some new swanky digs and they were not opposed to taking Norman back again. It was very hard to part with the little guy, but he is definitely in good hands. And the new farm is looking great. They have partnered with some good people and seem to be steady on their feet, which is wonderful as it is a project we really like.

The Bagel Maven of Jakarta

This was batch one and it was delish. He started with plain and has since made another batch, this time zataar. Who knows what flavor will be next, but what I am trying to figure out is why we did not do this sooner.

Good Waves and Good Friends

It was another weekend of chillaxing at our favorite little beach spot, Pelabuhan Ratu. We filled both villas with some of our favorite Jakarta friends and spent most of the time playing in the waves or hanging out around the table or under the gazebo overlooking the beach.

For once, Howie and I were not on deadline, so Howie got to enjoy the hammock sans laptop, which was a huge pleasure. People staggered in throughout Friday and then Saturday, after the day started with pancakes and banana bread french toast (a la Howie), we had a huge fish BBQ for dinner prepared by the Ibu (the maid/woman of the house). All I can say is that Howie and the Ibu are darn good cooks. I did my part with a chocolate cake for our friend Gilles who celebrated 33 over the weekend, and eggs in a hole (rocky mountain toast, whatever you want to call it) for breakfast Sunday. It was a delicious weekend in addition to a fun one.

We totally lucked out on the weather as we are in the heart of rainy season here. It poured pretty much the whole ride down on Friday, but we only had a couple small and quick passing storms over the rest of the weekend.

Now we are back in Jakarta and with under 2 weeks to go, we are busy running around taking care of last minute things and packing. It is pretty insane to think that our over 2 years are coming to an end and, in fact, I think we are both doing our best not to think about it much. It is weekends like this we will definitely miss the most. Good friends, the beach and good food - it does not get better than that!