Lebaran Holiday: Part I of III

I feel like this blog played a game with me: let’s send a 23-year-old male across Indonesia for 2 weeks and see how much he can do and then remember. I think I did okay. You can be the judge of that. We left our apartment complex at 2:40am on Saturday 3 August. Cory and I got back to our apartment complex at 3:10am Saturday 17 August. It was 2 full weeks of seeing the amazing country that I now call home.

17 August is Indonesia’s Independence Day. We celebrated our 68^th year (yeah, this place is home; I can use "we" and "our") of Independence from those dirty Dutch this past weekend. My Google homepage looked like this on Saturday (pictured below).

The eagle that you see is the national emblem for Indonesia (pictured below: the actual emblem of Indonesia).

There are five distinct parts of the eagle that represent different items. The star in the middle represents the belief in the one and only God. The chain link in the lower-right represents just and civilized humanity. The bull in the upper-left represents democracy. The grains in the lower-left represent social justice. And the large tree in the upper-right is a banyan tree which represents the unity of a large number of ethnic groups that make up Indonesia (Indonesia’s motto is: Unity in Diversity). I did not do anything to celebrate Independence Day on Saturday. After being dropped off at the apartment complex, I was able to go to bed around 4am. I have been fortunate enough to meet a group of local guys that play basketball every Saturday morning from around 7:30-10:00. I had no intention of joining them on Saturday…until the fire alarm went off at 7:35am. I figured, I’m up so I might as well go play. I went and played basketball (the lack of rest was apparent in my game) and then went home to shave my vacation beard before getting my first haircut in Indonesia. After that, I walked to a different mall and sat down in the food court area to pound out these three blog posts. I am located between the “Kwetiaw Sapi,” “Sui Kiaw Chan Kie,” and “Nasi Campur Putri Kenanga” restaurants as I type. Don't worry, I could throw a baseball and hit KFC if necessary. So, as you can see, not the most exotic Independence Day celebration.

But after church on Sunday, Levi, Andy, and I went to go witness the Indonesian National Culture Parade (pictured below).

The parade was the first Culture Parade that Indonesia has had in 5 years. We did not get a good explanation as to why they have not had it recently. The parade featured a float and a 2-minute performance from each of Indonesia's 33 provinces. The parade took place in front of Merdeka Palace (pictured below), their White House. We were fortunate enough to see President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (known as President SBY) from a distance.

The main Independence Day (on Saturday) event also took place at Merdeka Palace: the flag raising ceremony. After the parade was done, we started walking to the TransJakarta station to catch a bus home. On the way, we walked past a bunch of polisi that were just hanging out. They randomly yelled at us asking if we wanted to take a picture on one of their motorcycles. The answer was an obvious, yes (pictured below).

Alright, on to the travel. Before I start discussing my Lebaran Holiday (we got 2 weeks off of school to celebrate the end of Ramadan), here is a breakdown of my 6 companions for my 2-week adventure:

Amy — Awesome chick. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One of the amazing women I get to hang around in Indonesia. She has a great heart and is a lot of fun to be around. She is very easy to get along with because she has such an awesome and open personality.

(Amy is the beautiful young woman standing next to me)

Bradley (aka Bardley) — Fellow #teamfoe member (pictured below). Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Only person I knew from the UNI Fair that had also signed on with Bina Bangsa School. We were more or less the same, chill person during college and our personalities mesh really well.

(you already kno the team !!)

Cory — Soccer-loving American from Wisconsin (pictured below: he is proud of his roots; he got that bad boy in Bali). Tremendously chill dude that has been a joy to get to know better the last month and a half. Got to experience the Liverpool (his favorite sports squad) exhibition with this homie.

(Cory showing of his fresh ink)

Eli — Hockey-hating American from Minnesota. I have a man-crush on Eli. He is a hilarious dude. We clicked instantly from the time we met and I enjoyed being reunited with him for 2 weeks. This trip was just more great times with my new great friend.

(Eli doing Eli things)

Kavitha — Total sweetheart and very beautiful. Singapore native. Great personality. She is a lot of fun to be around and is always in a good mood. She helps continue the trend of Matty P being blessed with amazing women in his life from freshman year of college on.

(Kavi and I chillin with some monkeys)

Nate — Large, muscular Badger. North of Chicago, Illinois via Madison, Wisconsin. Terrific dude that I love being around. He and I seemed to flow in-sync during the vacation. What I love about our time together is that we have a lot of similar interests (sports) and almost never talk about school. It is refreshing to talk sports with someone who knows their stuff.

(Nate is a worthy competitor in table tennis)

Day 1 — Five of us (Amy, Cory, Kavitha, Nate, and yours truly) flew Sriwijaya Air from Jakarta to Bali. It was a pleasant ride and they treat their customers the right way. We met up with Eli (teaching in Semarang) and Bardley (teaching in Malang) and headed to our hotel. We rented a 3-bedroom family suite in Bali and fit 7 of us in there, comfortably.

After dropping our stuff off at the room, we walked around the area of the hotel and found a lovely place to eat some lunch (pictured below: the 7 of us happily reunited).

(bottles of Bintang for 15. rupiah is what got us to eat there)

We walked down to the beach that afternoon and just relaxed for a while before going out that night (pictured below: me in Bali).

My mom is a huge fan of seashells so I made sure to text her on Viber a picture of me with some of the finest from Bali’s beaches (pictured below). Side note: how awesome is Viber? I vote, “pretty awesome.”

After going back to the hotel, Eli kept mentioning that people on his flight from Semarang to Bali kept saying, “You gotta go check out this burger place in the basement of this club in Bali. Best burger in Bali.” We were all planning on going out that night anyway, so we decided to double-dip club life and burger life. The burger, the Jack Daniels burger, was fantastic. It was a strange environment to eat a big burger in, though. The restaurant in the basement was closed so we just ate in the club. Eating with insane bass blaring is not the ideal way to enjoy a lovely meal, but it wasn't as bad as you are probably thinking. After showing up some locals on the dance floor, we left. As we walk out the door, we see this (pictured below).

Indonesia, mane.

Day 2 — I don’t like to just sit around and do nothing on vacation. With the way the previous night had gone, I knew that my fellow travel comrades would be doing a lot of sitting around the following morning. So I woke up around 7 and went walking. Indonesia has a large selection of pastries and one of my personal favorites* is a round pastry with chocolate filling inside. They are delicious (pictured below: picture of the “UFO Chocolate” pastry I had on my walk with my stamp from the club the previous night still not washed off).

*I originally wrote this as “favourites.” We teach British spelling at my school. Weird dates, fine. Military time, I can do that. Adding unnecessary “u”s, no. That is where I draw the line.

I got to see a lot of cool shops in Bali on my walk and it was nice to see the local Hindu culture/temples (pictured below) on my stroll. I got a Chelsea jersey for Nate on my walk. He is not a big soccer guy, but his roommate in Jakarta, Cory, is a big Liverpool fan. So, naturally, Nate needed to get a Chelsea jersey. Said jersey is being worn by Nate during one of our epic table tennis matches featured in the brief bio section above.

After walking for about 4 ½ hours straight, I got back to the hotel room in time for us to go down to the beach before leaving for Uluwatu that afternoon. I am a huge fan of nasi goreng (fried rice). You know what, I’ll just say it. I love nasi goreng. And the authentic style in Indonesia combined with how pedas (spicy) it is… nom* (pictured below: one happy boy eating nasi goreng on the beach).

*One of my great friends in college, Erin, and I went to a barbecue tasting competition in Lawrence. My method of ranking the foods was a boring 1-10. Hers was a much more creative bleh-nom with colorful adjectives between. Erin, “nom” is for you.

That prevening we headed to Uluwatu. There is an old Hindu temple there and there are a ton of monkeys everywhere. I mean, everywhere. It is just like out of a cartoon: the monkeys will try to grab and steal your ish if given the opportunity. They warn you to take off earrings, sunglasses, etc. before going into the temple area. Anyway, the temple is cool and who doesn't love monkeys? Below are a few pictures of monkeys and the gorgeous sunset that we saw from the awesome view at Uluwatu.

After the sunset, we headed to a fancy restaurant for dinner. The place was right on the water and we ate with our feet in the sand. They kept bringing out plate after plate of unreal seafood. Amazing lobster. Tremendous crab. Awesome fish. I even tried my first oyster. It was, like everything else, off the charts. The meal was very expensive for Indonesia standards (about $20 a head), but YOLO, right? (pictured below: dinner on the beach)

Day 3 — On our third day in Bali, Amy, Eli, and I went adventuring in the morning to find a pancake place for breakfast. On my walk I had seen a place called, “Flap Jacks” that looked encouraging. I didn't remember exactly where it was, but I had a rough idea in my mind. I thought that we needed to turn right when arriving at this big intersection. I asked the concierge and he said to turn left. We turned left and yada, yada, yada, we get there about 2 hours later. We arrive at roughly 9:30am. The place is pretty desolate. We head to a table to grab a seat and they tell us that they do not open until 11. Let me repeat that: a pancake place does not open until 11. Indonesia, mane. We still had a lovely breakfast at another joint and got back to the hotel with enough time to dip in the pool before getting in the car to head up to Northern Bali.

There were 7 of us and Kavitha had a friend that she had met on a previous trip that could shuttle us around Bali whenever we needed a ride. The problem was that he was not the driver of his mini-van and he had another guy do it for him. This meant that 4 of us got to cram in the middle section of the mini-van on each trip. I, trying to be selfless, took the the “floor” of the middle row during the car ride up North. The traffic was awful, we were all pretty tired and I was extremely uncomfortable. We stopped after a couple hours of being stuck in traffic to stretch the legs. When we got out of the car, both of my legs were asleep. I had noodles for legs ala Kramer at the dojo before his first fight in ka-ra-te. Kavi was sweet enough to help me out of the car. I think that was the most frustrated I got on the vacation*.

*Little tease for Part III: while we (Bardley, Cory, and I) were sitting around drinking beers in Malang at the end of the 2 weeks, Cory went out of his way to mention how well I handled this situation. He said he could tell that I was frustrated but I didn't let it affect me or the group. That meant a lot. Cory is a very bright kid and I appreciated those words.

In Northern Bali, we made it to another monkey temple (pictured below).

(monkeys do, in fact, love bananas)

(those facial expressions tho >>>>)

(even the monkeys in Indonesia know not to drink the tap water)

Then we were going to visit a scenic outlook on the top of a mountain in Bali, but we were running too late and did not make it in time. We spent a lot of time in the car that day and did not get a lot in return. It was additionally frustrating because it was our last day in Bali and there is so much to see there. Fortunately, I plan to go back to Bali again before my 2 years are up in Indonesia (mom and dad are tentatively planning on visiting in December 2014 !!). That definitely helped lessen the sting of not seeing many beaches during our time on Bali, as well. We figured that we had 6 days in the Gili Islands coming up and that would be almost exclusively beach time, so we might as well try to see the “cultured” side of Bali during our 3 days there. We ended Day 3 with a lovely meal at a hole-in-the-mountain place on the side of the road. I think over dinner we all realized how awesome it is that we are all together and on this amazing vacation. Even if one day did not end up being perfect, we are all blessed so much and are all so fortunate to be in the situation we are.

That is all you will get from the vacation right now. Tough to say that is “all” you get when I have rambled for 2200+ words, but whatevs. Check back on Wednesday for Part II of III.