sebfowler.com

I just got back from what was an amazing little holiday with Sunaree in Bali. We spent most of our time at a beautiful little spot in North Eastern Bali called Amed, chilling out, snorkeling and eating great food. We also hung out in Sanur a few nights with my friends Yvette and John, and one night in Ubud, catching up with Nina and Ollie.

Working backwards, because I’m exhausted and can’t think properly, yesterday was huge and bitter-sweet. After 2 perfect days, I had to rush off to the immigration office to sort out my visa.

It’s been a crazy time since getting back to Jakarta. We had one day together, relaxing and had a great night going to the movies and eating sushi. Monday, I unfortunately had to run off to the immigration office to try to sort out my visa, leaving Sunaree alone for most of the day, before coming back and taking her to the airport. There’s a long story behind the visa thing which I won’t bore you with.

Our last day in Bali was even nicer, though somehow I managed to forget to charge the camera, so no shots of the beautiful sunset dining on the beach, the seafood extravaganza (©Fred Fowler), the boats, the lights, the planes or the horde of strangely dressed, excited Chinese tourists doing funny poses.

Now for things I did get photos of: monkeys in Ubud. Yes, though we wanted to ride bikes down from a crater-lake nearby, time was not on our side, so we went to the Sacred Monkey Forest instead. The name was not just symbolic, but very representative. Monkeys everywhere chasing each other over sacred temples in a forest. So great.

Ubud is a really nice town and I’d like to go back, since we only really had a day and a half there. Galleries and art on sale everywhere, lots of things happening and I kept hearing about things that I’d like to do, but didn’t have time for. The only annoying thing is not being able to walk anywhere without 2 guys asking you if you want a taxi. It’s not that big a town and there’s lots of stuff to look at while you walk. Nobody takes them, why do they try so much? It boggles the mind.

Prior to Ubud we had a lovely few days in Amed in a beautiful little resort type place built in traditional style with local materials. It was also right on the beach, where there was good snorkeling, so we spent a lot of time doing that and just relaxing. Tip; black sand beaches are scorching hot in the sun. Feet will burn.

So, there’s the very brief rundown of the trip I wrote earlier in the week, but only just finished. Since then, I’ve been back at work, had a day off for Christ’s ascension and  am about to head back to the immigration office, to pick up my passport, hopefully with a shiny new stamp in it.

My new column’s up on ArtsHub (I’ve had a monthly column there since the start of the year). The only reason I haven’t mentioned this before is that it’s a subscription site, so unless you’re a member, it’ll just be a tease. This one’s about Indonesian street art, which I’m sure I mentioned while I was in Jogja.

http://www.artshub.com.au/au/news.asp?sId=171320&ref=#

Things are going pretty well here. Work is chugging along with the usual highs and frustrations. I’m still enjoying the new accommodation and new company there.

The weather this week has been pretty nuts. Basically every night this week it’s poured with rain at about 6 or 7pm for a few hours, sometimes with quite impressive storms. Last night was a funny one. Walking home from work as the sun was setting, it looked like the clouds were preparing to dump on me before I got home. An hour or 2 later, heading out for dinner, most of the clouds had cleared, but lightning was flashing off in the distance. Eventually, as I was drifting off to sleep I heard the rain start. Think it was playing games with me.

(Unimpressive*) Storm Pics from my room!

*The storm itself was impressive, just not my photos, as you can see.

I really need to get some audio grabs of the street seller cart guys. There’s several distinct varieties, with escalating in hilarity. The simple tapping of spoon on bowl/plate, the shouting out of something vaguely resembling the word of what you’re hocking, the straight whooping/shouting guys (no resemblance to words), then the jaunty jingles, which usually belong to the bread guys (”roti roti”, “sari roti”, etc).

You may have noticed the Twitter updates in my sidebar, so if you have a Twitter account, say hi.

Bali plans are still, well, being planned. Needless to say I’m getting excited.

Back to tooling around with things and maybe lunch. Yes, that would be a good idea.

Work in progress!

 {Edit} I finally got to a scanner and just uploaded a whole bunch of recent sketches to my flickr.

#1 - After dinner and buying banana pastries (fantastic) and donuts, I stopped off to get sop buah (fruit soup; basically a variety of fresh fruits sliced up into a cup then doused with milky syrupy juice). While waiting at the juice stand, an old guy comes up to me to beg. He’s quite smiley and friendly and when I shake my head to say ‘not this time’, he grins and gives me a thumbs up, then raises his hand up to marvel at my height. I reply with “tinggi, ja?” (tall). He agrees, impressed I know the word, then wanders off smiling.

***

SAT - Moving kost this morning was an interesting/nice experience. It was a little awkward leaving the former one, but Ibu Olga took it amiably. Icue and her friend Lukman (who I’d never met but lives in the new kost) came to help me move. He had a bike, she walked. Lukman took the 2 smaller, heavy bags on the bike, I started walking with the big backpack and Icue carried the groceries bag. Not far down, Luckman stopped and got me to hop on the back of the bike. I was hesitant at first because of the weight of both bag and myself, considering what he was already carrying, but it was all good. It was a little hard work and hair raising, because the bag being large and kind of top-heavy, made it harder to stay on/balance, especially while accelerating. No dramas though, we all survived.
I was hanging out in the room, alone, wondering if I’d made a mistake, leaving the little community I’d started to build up around Ibu Olga’s, when there was a knock on my door. It was the people who run the kost, wanting to through the house rules/papers. They’re really nice and friendly and relaxed. They’d also lived in Sydney for 5 years, so we had stuff to talk about.

Aside from that, there’s more privacy and autonomy, the room’s larger and there’s less outside noise (no construction site on the other side of my wall). A lot of other people live in the building who are a similar age to me, an there’s a common area where we can hang out and watch tv and things. Should be good…

***

General notes:  The center of Jakarta is hug and sprawling with massive office buildings and huge malls everywhere. I guess what you’d expect in any large metropolis (or megatropolis or whatever it’s classed as). Thing just seem bigger and more extravagant here, though it could just be the contrasting poverty so close by. There are a few things I’ll eventually get photos of, but every time I see them, it’s whizzing by on the bus-way. My favourites right now are Da Vinci Tower, glimpsed yesterday on the way home. It’s a massive gothic style apartment building that looks straight from Gotham city, complete with statues and gargoyles. The other is the mammoth fountain near one of the biggest, fanciest malls. It’s the centerpiece of a roundabout and must be seen to be believed. So I’ll get a photo soon. The name escapes me for now…. Otherwise, there are some huge Sukarno era bronze statues and more skyscrapers. And Monas, the national monument.

Well, here are some things I’ve been working on as an idea for something at work, though I may not end up using any variation of them.

I’m fighting with the scanner, so no sketches for now. These are from scans, but then the computer I was using to scan them stopped working and no drivers exist for macs for this scanner.

As promised, the site’s got a bit of a redesign, which I may or may not keep working on. I’ll get some new images up soon, once I start scanning and taking photos. This weekend turned out to be a bit of bust and I didn’t do much or get out of town for the whole 4 days. Now further notes on life here.

—–

For Dave, the VoiceBox crew or fans who might be reading this, I’ve seen something you’d appreciate here in Indonesia; real Street Karaoke. People walking the streets with a backing tape, amp and mic, annoying people for money. Fantastic to see. Not usually as good as the bands of up to 5 people who wander around the street restaurants playing for cash, but entertaining nevertheless. I particularly like their tactic of having the amp turned up really loud, so people have to pay them to away. There is no such thing as a public disturbance here; disturbing the public is a way of life here.

Something that just astounds me, having seen and been part of the inner workings of a tv show, is this show on tv here called (I think) Superstar Idol. It’s a live talent style show that runs for 5 hours, 5 days a week. That’s a total of 25 hours to fill every week and it’s hosted by just 2 guys, who have incredible stamina and energy. They’re backed up by the panel of 3 judges, which consists of one middle-aged woman, a large transvestite and a crazy bule (white guy), who also dresses rather effeminately. The talent show side of it is all about pairs; sometimes husband and wife, sometimes friends, sometimes mother and daughter, you get the idea. They get introduced (and sometimes mocked) by the hosts, then get to pimp themselves to the audience for a while before doing their song or 2. Afterwards, there’s the usual judging, interspersed with random antics. It’s pretty entertaining, but for 5 hours every night; pretty insane.