Ramblings

Tuesday, February 24th. 8 months until the wedding. 104 days until Taylor comes back.

Do you ever feel like you're just spinning your wheels in life waiting for the next thing to happen? I feel that way right now. And to be honest, I feel really guilty about it too! I am sure that I could be doing more in the here and now than I am. Currently, my days primarily consist of talking to Taylor (entirely too much, which I think makes me miss him more...I need to work on this), working a little, watching TV, going to the gym, cooking/eating with my family, volunteering at church, planning the wedding (bit by bit, it's really not enough work for me to spend a lot of time on), and running errands with my mom. This sounds like a lot, but it translates into a lot of down time and a LOT of time just waiting for Taylor to come back so we can get married and THEN start life. I feel bad for looking at it this way. I'm sure God and the people around me deserve better. I should look at my present situation (particularly the surplus of free time) and find ways to enjoy it, relish it, use it to improve myself and others.

Fine. I will!

I have a list of things I need to start doing:

• Running - I'm planning to join the Hash House Harriers of Toledo starting tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes!
• Reading my Bible - I have not been doing this enough, that's for sure!
• Praying (ditto)
• Blogging - couldn't hurt right? In fact, this blog might become slightly more introspective as a result, but don't worry, I'll try to keep it light, too
• Working more - allegedly I have a big project starting tomorrow, which will be nice

I'm sure there are more things, but that's it for now. Now for some more ramblings.

I watched Slumdog Millionaire last night and it was really good. I highly recommend it.

Did you notice that celebrities seemed to realize it's the year of my wedding and many wore white or ivory dresses reminiscent of awedding dress? Well, if not, have a look:

http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/02/23/swooning-over-oscar-dresses/

One of them looks A LOT like mine...but I can't say which because there's always a chance (albeit a very small one!) that Taylor might read this.

Ok, I think I am done with my ramblings for now!

Belated Story from Indonesia: Me getting picked up by a woman

When I was in Indonesia with Taylor, we took a flight back from a few days in Jakarta and were sitting separately. Right before the flight took off, the guy behind me taps me on the shoulder and hands me a pamphlet of some sort. I said, "Apa ini?" (what's this?) and he replied "advertisement" (in English, kindly). I looked, and it was an advertisement for pads (feminine napkins, what-have-you). I was very confused about why this man would be advertising them to me (is he a travelling salesman? do I look like I am in need of this particular product, and, if so, I better RUN to a bathroom!), but then upon closer examination, I realized that written on the front of the pamphlet in pen was the name Fannah followed by an Indonesian cell phone number. So, apparently someone was giving me their phone number on a pamphlet for Kotex (or some other brand). Nice.

I spent the rest of the flight not glancing back for fear that my admirer would be eyeing me. Then, we got off the plane and I was walking to baggage when a girl came up to me and asked where I am from. I replied, "Dari America" (I'm from America) and here's the rest of the conversation in Bahasa (Language) Indonesian (it's too hard to write in paragraph format):

Woman: Bicara Bahasa Indonesia? (You speak Indonesian?)
Me: Hanya siddiquit, masi belegar (Only a little, I'm still learning)
Woman: Bicara bagus (you speak well)
Me: Nama anda? (what's your name?)
Woman: My name is Fannah (in English)

????? I'm thinking, "Wait, you're the one who gave me your phone number?" Of course I didn't ask her this, and she didn't mention it, but we went on to discuss how she knows some English but wants to learn more. Taylor later explained that she probably gave me her number because she wanted me to call her so she could practice her English (he says this happens to him all the time...women trying to pick him up to practice, nice). So yes, this was the first time in a long time that I have been hit on. And it was buy a woman in Indonesia.

Things are moving along!

Well hello there, blog readers :)

Ok, first, can I just take a second to say how weird the new Geico commercials are? A pile of money with pouty eyes? I don't get it.

Anyway, you may know, I (with the help of Taylor, my mom, and various other people) am in the middle of planning a wedding this fall. I'm really excited, but since we've had a really long time, it feels like I've just been waiting to do a lot of things. So far we've reserved the reception and ceremony sites, picked out bridesmaid dresses, and bought my dress. I'm holding off on some other things, but the one I've been most excited about is my dress! The dress has been hanging in my closet for 2 months, and yesterday I FINALLY had the first appointment with the woman who will be doing my alterations.

It probably still seems a little early to be meeting with the seamstress with the wedding 8 months away, but since I'm living in Ohio until June, we decided to get it done before I leave the area. It's much cheaper to have things done here than in another city we might move to. And I'm not just having the dress fitted. I bought a dress from Davids Bridal that is very pretty (wish I could post pictures, but I can't on the off chance that Taylor reads this, which is unlikely, hehe), but I want to make some changes including adding some beading and buttons. We had so much fun with Jane (the seamstress) at her shop. She really liked the dress that I picked and said that it was pretty good quality for Davids (yay!). She also liked my ideas of ways to change it and is going to be ordering some ribbon and button samples in the next few weeks before we go back for our second appointment on June 5. Oh, and she also gave me strict instructions not to lose any weight in my mid-section, which is nice, haha. I still want to work on my arms since the dress is strapless (Taylor knows that), but I guess I can give up my dream of being featured on my favorite Canadian reality show, Bulging Brides. Bummer!

And the dress isn't the only progress we made yesterday! So, Jane gave both my mom and I strict instructions to come back with the shoes we'll be wearing for the wedding for our next appointment (my mom is bringing her dress too). That means 3 weeks. I hadn't really thought about shoes at all because I don't think they show that much. And I wasn't really wanting to spend a fortune on them. So after we left the appointment, we decided to stop in this one random store near our house called Shoe Department. I'd been in there and really didn't think that they would have bridal shoes. We looked through all the dress shoes and didn't really see anything but then I noticed the clearance section. Wouldn't you know they had a pair of ivory pumps that perfectly match the texture of my dress, had great padding on the bottom, were my size (they only had 2 pairs!) and were half off....of $10. That's right, I got my perfect shoes for my wedding (I didn't even know that was possible since I wasn't really interested in wedding shoes) for $5!! CRAZY! And it's nice to have that out of the way (even though I actually NEED things to do...I get pretty bored around my house!). So, there you have it. Progress toward matrimony, achieved!

Asia Trip, Week 3

Ok, so we left off as Taylor and I were departing Bali via bus to return to Surabaya only to hop right on a plane to Jakarta for a conference that Taylor had to go to. I believe I left you hanging on the last post with something like "and that's when it got interesting...." Well, it was interesting because I feared for my life (really) for the next 12 hours. For starters, “highways” in Indonesia are largely 2 lanes (1 lane in each direction) with no dividing line. They wind through the mountains and are extremely steep and curvy. Finally, drivers pass each other with little to no concern for oncoming traffic and often you feel the bus weaving back and forth at frightening speeds. I think they must go like 70mph through these roads too, it’s insane. It wasn’t so scary until one time we were asleep and I literally felt the back of the bus, which is where we were sitting, slide OFF THE ROAD. The sides of the road are basically the side of a mountain so we dipped noticeably and the driver had to steer wildly and basically head perpendicular to the direction of traffic to pull the back of the bus back onto the road. After that, I could hardly sleep for fear that we would die on this roller-coaster/bus ride.

Then it got worse. We stopped at a rest stop at about 2am for food. When we were getting back on the bus, I noticed that it said Malang on the front. Malang is about 2 hours south of Surabaya and NOT where we needed to be going to catch our 10am plane to Jakarta. Taylor asked a fellow passenger who confirmed that we were going to Malang. He then told the bus operator that we had been told the bus would go to Surabaya and he basically just said “yes, yes, it will after Malang” Taylor doubted that this was true, and this was confirmed when about 15 minutes later we pulled over next to another bus (for a different company altogether) who was stopped to get their food. He told us and 3 other men on the bus that we would have to switch to that bus to get to Surabaya. Then, we saw him pay the driver of the other bus to take us. Evidently, they had lied and put us on the wrong bus and this was the solution.

So…we did arrive in Surabaya on time and headed straight to a hotel that Taylor knew of so that we could shower before our flight to Jakarta. We paid $10 to shower in one of their rooms, grabbed some breakfast at McDonalds, and went to the airport. We were dog-tired because we had barely slept on the roller/coaster bus, but we were on time! Just to clarify, we were going to Jakarta for a conference for the Fulbright program, which is the program through which Taylor is in Indonesia. The conference began Friday evening and lasted through Sunday morning and I decided to come to since I couldn’t bear to waste any of our time.

Our flight to Jakarta was delayed some, but I did get to meet some of the fellow Fulbrighters (all female of course). We arrived in Jakarta and had time to go find a hotel for Taylor and I to stay in before he had to head to a 4pm-6pm meeting. We checked in to the Novotel (the same brand as our favorite place in Surabaya) and he headed to his meeting. I went to the gym for the first time in weeks, it felt good! By the time I showered, Taylor was back and we grabbed some dinner and hung out before hitting the sack early.

The next day, Taylor left first thing, leaving me all alone for a day in Jakarta. I decided to be brave and try to do some sightseeing, so I got in a cab and went to the “Monas” which is basically the central monument in Jakarta. I first went to the National Museum and spend an hour or so reading about Indonesian history, then I went to the monument itself.

A couple pictures:
The museum
Me in front of the Monas

Since this was the first time that I had been out without Taylor, it was also the first time I experienced men shouting “I love you, Mister!” at me everywhere I went (they have a little trouble with pronouns since they don’t have gendered pronouns here). I even had a gaggle of about 15 Indonesian boys ask if they could have a photo with me (and look VERY excited) when I said sure.

I walked around that area a little bit, taking pictures to prove to Taylor that I had in fact ventured out and then headed back to the hotel. That afternoon, I got a manicure and pedicure and hung out by the pool, waiting for Taylor to return. He returned at around 5pm but had to leave again at 6:30 to go to a dinner. While he was at dinner, I went to an internet place and started working on transcribing this fair tale and also grabbed some dinner in the hotel lounge. By that time, Taylor had returned and we decided to just hang out at the hotel for another night. Taylor was also very sick, which factored into our decision to be lame.

On Sunday, Taylor had another meeting, so I stayed at the hotel again until he returned. His cousin who lives in Jakarta also came by with her son and nephew so that they could meet me. They were really nice and gave me a package to bring back for her sister who lives in the U.S. (and therefore I lied when asked "has anyone given you anything and asked you to carry it with you on the plane today?).

We left for the airport and arrived back in Surabaya that evening. Of course we went straight to the Hotel Novotel to check in. We decided to go to dinner and a movie that night and saw the movie "Yes Man" with Jim Carey. It was a decent movie, but Taylor's favorite part was that one of the actors from Flight of the Concords was in it. I swear, Taylor loves that show so much that this actor could literally do no wrong in the movie. He was in hysterics every time he was on the screen. That's one thing I love about Taylor, he has a great sense of humor.

We went back and went to bed and got up at a decent time the next day to enjoy the pool a little more before embarking on our next adventure. Taylor had been wanting to go to this Safari about an hour from his house. Since you can't really rent a car in Indonesia, we had to hire a driver to take us to the Safari and then on to Taylor's village. We left with the driver at around 1pm and got to the safari at about 3. It had been pouring rain until right before we got there, but luckily it cleared up, so that was nice.

Now, something you have to understand about Indonesia is that they have very little gonvernmental oversight of most things, including wild animal safaris, apparently. So, this Safari is actually one that you drive through in a car. We paid the admission and started driving. The first couple animals we saw were sort of just wantering on their own on the mountainside. There were llamas, some grizzly bears, and some deer-like creatures. After a few minutes, we came to a gate that opened as we approached and closed behind us. And then we realized that we were in a giant cage...with the tigers!

Seriously, you look our and there are HUGE tigers just chilling 10 or 15 feet from the car. Now, it was a Monday and fairly rainy, so we were actually the only car anywhere around, so the tigers appeared slightly interested in us. Although, not interested enough to stop one tiger from trying to mate with another, sparking a violent little confrontation with another jealous suitor and some very loud growling and aggressive posturing. It was pretty cool. We took a bunch of pictures and decided to move on before the tigers turned their collective aggression on us!

The next cage we entered belonged to....the lions. And these lions were't your Toledo or Bronx zoo sleepy lions. They were playful, active, HUGE, maned, and eventually very territorial. We watched the lions from just a few yards away as they chased one another around, climed on some large fallen trees, etc. Eventually, after a few minutes, one of the male lions with a mane noticed that our vehicle had been encroaching on their territory for some time. Apparently, this was a problem because it wasn't long before about 4 other lions ran up and started to approach the car. Now, Taylor and I had been sitting next to each window in the back seat since there were lions on both sides. But as they started to approach us, our driver started to move, the lions started to chase us, and suddenly I was on Taylor's lap in the exact center of the back seat, as far as we could get from the windows and we were driving about 25 miles an hour with 3 lions in hot pursuit! It was absolutely crazy, I've never seen anything like it (and I hope I don't ever again!). It became clear, however, that they were just interested in getting us off their property because as we neared the exit gate, the lions backed off and we escaped without a scratch on our car. Whew!

The rest of the Safari was pretty interesting, but not nearly as eventful as being chased by a pride of lions. Toward the end of the park, you get to what they call the "baby zoo" where you can pay $1 each to have your picture taken with a lion cub, tiger cubs, and an orangutan. Here's me and Taylor with them:




I don't know why, but I got scared when the time came and I only did the orangutan. It was pretty sweet though!

We left the safari and got a ride back to Taylor's village where we stayed at the Hotel Sativa again. We headed up to Taylor's village the next day (Tuesday) so that we could do some cleaning around his house and spend one last day in his village.

We got to Taylor's village in the early afternoon. He had been gone about a week and a half, and somehow is power had stopped working. Seizing any opportunity to be around Taylor and in his house, many, many villagers came over to help rectify the electricity situation. Of course we were thankful because Taylor would never have been able to do it himself. Of course his neighbors also showed no intention of leaving once the problem was fixed! About 15 people remained hovering outside his house while we started to unpack from our trip and clean. I started to sweep, and Taylor suggested that I go sweep in the front room where people could see me. I think he was hoping that they would realize we were busy and that our activities wouldn't be very exciting to watch. Instead, three of his neighbor women decided that we weren't doing it right and proceeded to go to their houses, gather up cleaning supplies, and come back and commandeer the operation. They were probably there about 45 minutes and they cleaned his house top to bottom, doing a much better job than I ever could have done. In fact, every time I tried to help, they took the tools from me and told me to go rest. I have never seen anything like it. Taylor felt so bad that he paid them with American snacks that his parents had send for them before sending them on their way. Since the floor was wet, we just hung out in his room for a while to let it dry.

Taylor got in touch with his co-teacher and found out that I couldn't stay at his school because they had some guests there. I'm also not allowed to stay in his house, so we decided to go back to the hotel Sativa for the night. Luckily, the car at the hotel remembered where Taylor lived and they were willing to come back and get us since it was pouring rain and getting late by the time we found this out. We went down to the hotel and got some dinner before laying down to watch the inauguration on TV (it was on at midnight, live).

On Wednesday, we woke up and packed up all my things to head to Surabaya for my flight back on Thursday :( I couldn't believe that my trip was almost over...In fact, I have to be honest, I'm not going to recount the rest of the trip because it makes me too sad to think about leaving, and it's not that interesting anyway!

25 Random Things About Me!

So, we're taking a break from our trick recap for something a little fun. So I don't know if you're familiar, but there's this thing going around on Facebook where almost everyone is sharing 25 random things about their personality. Well, I held out for a while, but I finally decided it would be fun to inventory 25 random things about me. So...without further ado....

1. I am marrying a man who is about as far as you can get from me on the self-disclosure spectrum. Example: I think sharing 25 things about myself is fun; he would rather die.

2. I have run 2 marathons. The first one was one of the hardest things I have ever done (physically); the second was one of the best (in every sense).

3. I have slept with shorts or some other textile on my head every night since I realized it was the cure for my insomnia. Taylor hopes this will stop when we get married, but I make no promises.

4. The best thing to happen to me since I turned 25 was that my body has become more prone to weight loss and increased fitness with less effort. It is a miracle.

5. I have already named my dog and at least two of my children. I am under strict orders not to share the latter. The dog's name is Asia.

6. I am planning what I believe will be the most economical wedding of 2009 in New York City. But I promise it will be fun.

7. My mom keeps our house at 65 degrees and I complain about it emphatically every day.

8. But I live at home at 25 and don't have to pay rent, so I can't complain.

9. I have a calendar in my head. And by that I mean the days and months of the year follow a path in my head that only I now. I could draw it for you, but you would think I am crazy for sure.

10. I donate more money per month to causes close to my heart than I probably should.

11. While fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, I once sent a real, snail mail letter to the CEO of Barnes & Noble and he logged on to my web site and donated $1,000.

12. I am pretty sure that I could eat one of the following 4 condiments on every food I eat: guacamole, caramel, soy sauce, ketchup.

13. I am obsessed with learning the keyboard shortcuts for every computer program I use - this goes hand-in-hand with my obsession with efficiency. Newest shortcut project: Gmail, I even ordered the stickers for your keyboard that reminds you what the shortcuts are.

14. I feel pretty comfortable asking people for money (for a good cause) - they can always say no!

15. I love playing card and board games and do so with my family almost nightly.

16. I am ashamed to say that my list of favorite shows includes many game shows.

17. I am 25 years old, have been out of college for over 3 years, and even though I have been supporting myself with good jobs since then, I can safely say I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

18. My sister is dating my brother's girlfriend's brother.

19. Both of my siblings are way way cooler than me, but I'm the nicest :)

20. I put lotion on my legs and elbows after every shower without fail.

21. I was the top Bible quizzer in my denomination as a senior in high school. Yes, I am a total nerd.

22. I come from a very big, very close family. We have a reunion and a huge Christmas party every year. This year, we hired a Santa Claus off of Craigslist to come hand out gifts to the kids.

23. I really truly enjoy watching sports (on TV or in person). I can get interested in almost any sporting event if Taylor can explain to me one or two interesting things about it (and he can always do this).

24. I absolutely love everything about the snow except downhill skiing, which I will never do again in my entire life no matter how much you pay me. I will be in the lodge making hot chocolate.

25. My family has always had at least one cabin in Northern Michigan where I absolutely love doing anything involving a lake, a four-wheeler or a camp fire.

Trip to Asia, Part 2

January 9
The next day was the fateful day. The day I went to Taylor's VILLAGE. We checked out of our hotel at 1pm and went to the travel agent to purchase tickets to Lombok on Sunday (this was Friday), a hotel in Lombok for 2 nights, and tickets for me to go to Jakarta with Taylor for his conference the following Friday (more on that later). The entire thing (4 plane tickets and 2 nights hotel) cost only $240! After that, we headed back to the hotel to get our bags and got a taxi to take us to Taylor's village (or near it). The taxi ride was about an hour and a half in the rain but it only cost about $25.

We got to the area of Taylor’s village at about 6pm and decided that we should check into a hotel and then head up the mountain to his village first thing the next day. We had been spending a lot of money on hotels so we decided to stay at the cheapest place we could find for the night. The first place we went was called Hotel Sativa and was $40/night and really nice. That wasn’t bad, but Taylor knew of another place up the road that he thought might be cheaper. We had the taxi driver take us to that hotel. Taylor got out to go find out about the prices and found out that they had a room with hot water but no A/C for only $10! He wasn’t sure how nice it would be so we got out to go look at the room. As soon as I got out of the car the woman at the desk started talking about how much nicer hotel Sativa is and how they weren’t sure if we would have the proper documentation to stay at the hotel (I guess you need a passport, which we both clearly have). It took a few minutes for us to realize that she just didn’t want some white hussy girl staying at her hotel. It was crazy and I have never felt so discriminated against, but we decided that her prejudice was a good excuse to stay at the very nice Hotel Sativa for the night, so that’s what we did!

Hotel Sativa pool:

January 10
The next day we went up to Taylor’s village. We had a whole lot of stuff from traveling for a week, so we actually chartered the hotel’s car to take us up this mountain to Taylor’s for $5. Not bad. We got there at about 12pm. All of Taylor’s neighbors were outside to speak to him and stare at the woman he brought back with him. He kept calling me “pacarku” which means “girlfriend-my” basically. They all said how beautiful I was, but that’s really just because I have light skin and in Indonesia, light skin is always more beautiful than dark, even within the same race and same level of attractiveness. We talked to his neighbors for a minute (and by that I mean Taylor talked to them and I just smiled dumbly and received translations from time to time). We then went inside for a bit and Taylor showed me around his house before we left for his school.

I had to wear long pants and long sleeves at the school even though it was like 85 degrees out. I also had to wear a jilbob which is the Muslim head covering that all women wear. When I got there, Taylor had a few of his students lent me their jilbobs. They brought out a few different colors, but we settled on hot pink, just in case I didn’t already stick out enough :)

Some great pictures:
In Taylor's village and my appropriate attire, on my way to his school
With my headdress on :)
We tried on a couple different jilbobs...

And decided on this one

Once I was appropriately outfitted, we started to walk around the school and meet Taylor’s students. They were all very interested to see me and glad to have him back. We went to most of the classrooms and just let them ask questions about us, which mainly revolved around basic biographical details and romantic advice (how did Mr. Taylor win your heart?). It was fun and I really enjoyed meeting all of them.

Here's a photo, can you spot the difference?
We arranged for me to stay at the school that night instead of the hotel, which was much cheaper!

We went back to Taylor’s house, which is about a 15 minute walk from the school and ate some dinner, had some coffee, worked on a cover letter for him to use for the job search and watched some episodes of My Name is Earl on DVD (a Christmas gift from me).

That night, I headed back to the school at about 9:30pm to get ready to go to bed. Taylor came with me and we found all the female students hanging out near their rooms cooking corn on the cob (shouldn’t it just be called corn and corn off the cob can be so indicated?). Now, the students have to get up at about 3 or 4am for prayers and a morning ceremony, so you would think that they would get to bed early. Not so! They did not seem to be in any hurry to get to sleep and actually just wanted to hang out. We sang songs (American ones, like Umbrella and Linkin Park) and chatted until about 11 when one of the students kindly but firmly informed me that it was time for me to go to bed (no fair, none of them are in bed!...). I headed to the room of one of the teachers that Taylor is friends with (she was out of town visiting family) and went to bed.

January 11
Sleep was somewhat fitful because the students were still right outside talking and there was a gecko making menacing noises near my ear, but I eventually managed so sleep until the call to prayer at 3am, which was followed with a ceremony over the loudspeaker at 4am and it seemed like everyone was awake and chatting again by 5am. So…I headed back to Taylor’s house to get some more shut eye (I’m not technically allowed to sleep with him, but they just assume that everyone is awake after 5am here so it’s ok). We slept until about 9am and began to get ready to head out for our next adventure! We had a flight to Lombok at 7pm and needed to figure out how to get to Surabaya.

We went to Taylor’s school and luckily hopped an angkat (kind of like a bus/taxi for multiple people who are going the same direction). The car took us to Surabaya where we got a taxi to the airport. We were there by2pm which was pretty early, but we decided just to enjoy the air conditioned airport until our flight. Incidentally, it was Sunday, January 11th, which was our 6 year anniversary since we started dating. CRAZY! Our flight ended up getting delayed until about 9:30pm, so we arrived in Lombok at 11:30pm and were glad we had already reserved a hotel. Here we are, very disappointed in our delay:


Taylor was very proud of the picture because he is at least 6" taller than everyone else (that's him in the middle looking at the camera):
We went straight there, ordered some room service and got to sleep to prepare for the next, busy day.

January 12
Taylor really wanted to go to the Gili Islands, which are 3 very remote islands off the northwest coast of Lombok. We talked to our hotel and chartered a boat to the quietest of the Islands, Gili Meno, which left at 9am. We met at the tour company office at 8:45am and got in a bus that drove us about 45 minutes to the boat.

Here's a good view from the bus:you know, the usual mountainous tropical island, no biggie ;-)

There was just one French couple with us and they were going to the same island, so we all hopped in a really small little boat to the island. Of course we had to make a stop at another island first and by the time we were on our way to Gili Meno, the waves were really high. I was quite frightened that we were going to capsize, but Taylor wisely assured me that unless the locals who were driving the boat looked nervous, we were fine!

We got off the boat and realized that the island is basically just a stretch of about ¾ of a mile along the beach that has a few huts that are restaurants, some bungalows for sleeping, and an assortment of bars, snorkeling rental stands and convenience stores. We walked all the way to the other end of the island exploring and then stopped at this one restaurant for food. Basically you sit in this bungalow looking our at the ocean with the restaurant behind you and order really cheap food! I think we got our whole meal for like $2 or $3. Then, we walked back by where we got off the boat and rented some snorkeling gear for $4 and headed our to sea. The snorkeling was REALLY good! We saw coral with Dori fish (the blue ones, I think they are angelfish?), anemones, and all kinds of other fish. It was really cool. We only snorkeled for about 30 minutes though because we were worried about our stuff that we had left on the beach. After snorkeling, we headed to a bar and just relaxed until our boat returned to get us. The Gilis were great. The only thing I didn’t like was that there were sales people constantly haggling you to buy their necklaces and no matter how much you ignored them they would just stand there and shove things in your face just because they could tell you were a tourist.

The only dude that I liked was this one who asked Taylor if he was “gado-gado” which literally means mixed vegetables. What he meant was is Taylor half Indonesian and half something else. Taylor said it was the first time anyone had ever guessed that. He also told him that he could be a model because he had a good face. Hehe.

Here's a couple of shots from Gili Meno:
That night we watched the sun set from our hotel and went out for dinner and drinks and got a little wasted but also got all of our requests played at a local bar.

January 13
The next day, we got massages for $10 each for 1 hour. They were great and after that we relaxed until we caught a ferry from Lombok to Bali. The ferry took 4 hours and was REALLY dirty and hot and smoky, but it was definitely an experience. We were the ONLY 2 Westerners on the boat for sure. On the way on the boat, I actually scratched my shoulder pretty bad on a piece of metal on the way up some stairs, thank God for tetanus shots! It has healed pretty well though, thanks to Taylor’s careful application of Neosporin.


We were off the coast of Bali by about 8pm that day, but for some reason we stopped moving for like 30 minutes and it started raining really hard. We went into the indoor part of the ship to get out of the rain and before we knew it we were docked and they were telling us to get off the boat. It was very twilight zone because we didn’t even think we were close to docking. We got off the boat and negotiated a guy down from $12 to $6 to take us to our hotel. We arrived there at about 8:20pm and they were expecting us (Taylor had called ahead) so we were checked in in no time.

Our room in Bali was SO nice! We stayed at a place that they Lonely Planet described as “a modern water palace.” It’s hard to describe but basically there are just 12 rooms and a stone walkway heading from the lobby out toward the beach. The walkway is separated from the walls of the rooms by a moat on either side that is about 2 feet wide and 10 inches deep. The moat is filled with water and has huge Asian goldfish in it. Our room was off the main walkway and had an open air bathroom which means that there was no roof, just walls to block it from view. There were plants, bugs and of course lizards, but it was very nice. The room was nice too. It had a king-size canopy bed and a set of glass doors that looked out to our own little pond with fish right outside the room. The main walkway dead ended into a pool which was right above the ocean. And all this for $30/night! We went to dinner at a restaurant nearby and went to sleep.

Hallway of the hotel:

The private pond outside our room
January 14
The next day we planned to go to a beach that LP recommended called Pasir Puti (white sand) and then to Ubud. We rented bikes to take us the supposed 5km to Pasir Puti, which ended up being a lot farther and difficult to find. Nevermind that, it was totally worth it! The beach was a cover surrounded by cliffs on each end with perfect white sand, blue water, rolling waves and little warungs (food and drink huts) that let you use their lounge chairs as long as you bought food (it would be difficult to spend more than $10 on food so it was worth it!). We had planned to stay just an hour and make a bus to Ubud, but the beach was too beautiful and we ended up staying almost 4 hours and getting very sunburned in the process.

Here we are with our bikes:

Enjoying the fruits of our labor to get there:
Cute:

We left at 1pm and found that one of our bikes had a flat tire, so we hired an angkat for $4 to take us back to our hotel. There, we jumped in the pool to ease our burning skin, took a shower, and headed to get a ride to Ubud.

We got to Ubud at around 5pm and walked around looking at the stores until we grabbed dinner at a place called “Dirty Duck Diner” It was an awesome place where you sat on cushions on the floor and had low tables. We had a pretty funny experience there too. So, Taylor and I are notorious for ordering food and drink contrary to our gender to the point where our servers typically give the food/drink to the wrong person and we have to switch as soon as they walk away. The first and most memorable time this happened was in New Jersey at a Mexican restaurant when I ordered a plain and Taylor ordered a kiwi margarita and the bartender actually laughed when he caught us switching. So at Dirty Duck, Taylor ordered a fruity yogurt drink and I ordered a beer. Clearly, these were delivered backwards. Then we ordered a Caesar salad (Taylor’s idea) and a friend appetizer assortment (my idea) again, delivered backward. By the time our actual meals came, they had it figured out, but it was still funny :)
Here we are reacting to drinks:

We headed back to our hotel and went to bed, thoroughly tired by the sunburn and duck.

January 15
The next day, we headed to the bus station to buy tickets from Bali to Surabaya. Taking an overnight bus seemed like a good idea because not only was it less expensive than a flight but it also allowed us to save on a night hotel by sleeping on the bus. We spoke to a bus company and paid $13 each for tickets on a bus that left at 8pm and arrived in Surabaya at 7am. Then, we headed to the most popular part of Bali so I could see it (we hadn’t been yet because Taylor wasn’t such a fan). We grabbed lunch there, but I shared Taylor’s sentiment and after checking out the beach quickly, we grabbed a drink at a bar and headed back to the bus station for our bus.

When we got there, it was a little unclear where the company was from whom we had bought tickets. Eventually we found them and they directed us to a bus that they said was going to Surabaya. It rolled out at about 7:45pm (good thing we weren’t late!) and we settled in for a long bumpy bus ride. All went well for the first couple hours. We arrived at the edge of Bali and the bus hopped a ferry to the main island of Java. That was wear the fun began.

You will have to wait until the next post to get the rest of this story. But I will pause here for a brief interlude to discuss the excitement that is toilets in Southeast Asia. So for whatever reason they have not yet adopted the oh-so-modern amenities of toilets that you can sit on and toilet paper. Most restrooms are just a hole in the ground and do not have any toilet paper. Instead, you are expected to "rinse" off down there (whether having gone #1 or #2, sorry, but let's tell it like it is) and call it a day. I do not understand how you can effectively rinse off nor do I understand why you would not want to dry off...it's crazy. Well, anyway, I just thought I'd share a photo of a "typical" Indo toilet:


Don't worry, most of the time, we were able to find a "western" toilet to sit on and I always had TP in my purse!

More to come!

Trip to Asia, Week 1 (warning, this post is long!)

**Note** All photos are available by clicking here, select photos are below!

January 1
I arrived in Singapore at about 1am on New Years Day. Went through customs with no problem and realized that in Singapore, you get your bags before you can leave the secured area. Taylor had sort of anticipated being able to see me for some length of time before we could actually be reunited, so he was hidden from view, but he could see me the entire time I was waiting for my bags, which seemed like FOREVER! I am sure it was only like 10 minutes, but knowing my love was about 10 yards away and I couldn't see him yet, after 5 months apart was excruciating.

FINALLY, my bag arrived and I hoisted it onto my bag and headed toward the green exit (meaning I had nothing to declare to customs). Our reunion was wonderful, completely happy with no tears (good job, Carissa!) and so exciting! We hopped in a cab and headed toward the hotel that I had booked for the first night in Singapore. I did a GREAT job. It was a really nice place (unlike some you'll hear about). We spent some time geting reacquainted, which was amazing and then headed out for our next adventure!

On January 1, we checked out of our hotel and headed to the Singapore bus station to buy a ticket to Kuala Lumpur. We had planned to get a 5pm bus, but actually were able to get tickets on a 3pm bus for about $25USD each. The bus turned out to be REALLY nice, too! Air conditioned, fairly empty, and only 3 seats across and each seat had a leg rest that popped up and reclined. Very nice. We did get yelled at by a fellow passenger for being too loud, but we actually suspect that our PDA was offending her and she just wanted to let us know she was paying attention. Oops. Here's us on the bus:The ride to KL was uneventful. We stopped 3 times. Once at the exit from Singapore, again when we entered Malaysia and went through customs and finally at a rest stop where we couldn't buy anything because they didn't have an ATM and we hadn't acquired any Malaysian Ringgits yet.

We arrived in KL at about 8pm and decided to try to walk to our hotel. I had booked it online and it looked pretty nice and centrally located, so we started asking around for the KL Plaza Suites. No one seemed particularly sure what were were talking about, but we managed to find our way to a place called KL Plaza which seemed promising. When we entered, we realized that KL Plaza is really just an almost-empty mall and KL Plaza suites is only visible on a small sign above a door about halfway down an empty hallway! Exhibit A:

We took an elevator to the 5th floor reception which looked a LITTLE more like a hotel.

Then we went to our room on the 19th floor which looked like a college dorm hallway or a hospital rather than a hotel. The room was really a suite, which was nice because we had lots of space but a little troubling because the TV only had Malaysian channels and the hot water didn't work (they had a hot water heater in the bathroom that you were supposed to turn on 30 minutes before you wanted to shower, no dice).

We called the hotel to come look at it and they came, realized it couldn't be fixed, and offere that we could move rooms. I had already unpacked so instead of moving, they said we could just use that shower if we wanted. We did so and then headed out for dinner! Unfortunately, it is rainy season in Southeast Asia and as it often will in our tale, the rain thwarted our plans and we ended up just dashing to the nearest restaurant we could find that was open at 11pm. Here's our dinner, mmmm fried!
After dinner we tried to find a live music place Taylor read about in Lonely Planet (also to feature frequently in subsequent pages) with no luck so we settled for checking our e-mail, letting the parents know we were alive, and watching end of ze world :)

January 2
Today, we went to the Batu Caves outside KL. It's these caves with Hindu temples and lots of Monkeys. We got some good pictures, met a fellow American buleh from Virginia and watched in horror as a crazy man in crocs started a fight with a monkey. Some images:
Me in front of a HUGE statue outside the caves
Inside the caves

We broke down and took a cab back that dropped us off in Chow Kit. The neighborhood has lots of markets and we went to a food market that had every kind of fish, plant, testicle you can imagine. We also bought Taylor a new duffle bag for $12 because his was moldy.

We headed back to our hotel and cleaned up before heading out to dinner in Chinatown at a nice nonya (Malay food) place. It was full of other bulehs (what Indonesians call white people) all with their Lonely Planets ready at hand. After dinner we walked all over KL including Merdeka Square, some private club that was the birthplace of the Hash House Harriers, Little India, some street with bumping clubs, and back to a place near our hotel for hookah (Taylor's first!) and a jug (about .75 pitcher) of beer.

January 3
Our last day in KL. We went to the bus station and bought tickets to our next destination, Melaka (Malacca), and then walked to the Petronas Towers (KL's most prominent skyline feature). The Petronas towers and accompanying mall were fun, but we were getting tired and had to make our bus by 4 or so, so we headed to the hotel, checked out, and went to our bus.

We arrived in Melaka at about 6pm and got a cab to the Seri Costa Hotel. We had heard that it might be like $45/night. Fat Chance. It was $285MR for the king room and $250MR for the standard room. I made the mistake of seeing the King room first and I fell in love. It was this homey little room with a big shower, tub, nice decorations and a great bed. I was sold, so we stayed there for the ridiculous rate of about $80/night. Our first night in Melaka, we walked into the main area of town and grabbed dinner at the Quayside Seafood Restaurant. It was cheap, delicious, outdoors, and had live music, the perfect dinner. After dinner we walked around and saw some old dutch buildings and made our way to a restaurant that we will always refer to as "Buddah Bacon Bistro" because I cannot remember the real name. We got a couple drinks and listened to the singer who was covering American songs. Everything was going really well until the singer started singing Faithfully by Journey and it got 10X better. Faithfully is our song and it was just the perfect moment for him to play it. We both cried, smiled and knew that our first dance would have to be to this song. Also Taylor told me that he has never heard faithfully in Asia...apparently Journey isn't very well known, guess it was fate.

January 4
We booked tickets for a bike tour the next day and then decided to go to an island off the cost of Malaysia about 10km south of Melaka called Pulau Besar (big island). It's actually a small island and kind of hard to get to. We took a bus and had to walk a ways through a marshy field. As we were walking I realized how remote it was and commented to Taylor that I wouldn't be surprised if a large animal just came out of nowhere. Wouldn't you know it at that moment a huge cow appeared to our right. Ah! We've since seen a million cows, but that was the most memorable. We got a ferry to Pulau Besar and spent about 3 hours just walking around, laying on the beach, eating the local food, and looking for a decent bathroom. After Pulau Besar, we had plans to go for Sate. Unfortunately, the Sate place we had in mind wasn't open on Sunday, so we ended up walking around a lot. We were pretty lost and asked a nice couple in a car for directions. They actually invited us into the car and ended up dropping us off near Chinatown. It turned out that the man was a minister and they were very nice! We grabbed cheap eats in Chinatown and walked around before heading to Buddha Bacon Bistro for some bad drinks and (sadly), no live music.

January 5
On Monday morning, we got up to meet our bike tour guide, hoping to talk him down from the $70MR price they had quoted. Taylor went to meet him to offer $50MR each ($100 total) and the man would not accept it and left. Sad, but also kind of weird since we were clearly the only business he had that day. Malaysians are very proud, I think and not really willing to negotiate for their prices. Instead, we just spent the morning relaxing. We went to Starbucks and McDonalds, I got a manicure, and we headed to the bus station to get a bus to Singapore.

We took an evening bus to Singapore that got us in at about 9pm. We stayed with Taylor's friend Wayne Ma who lives out by the airport. By the time we navigated there with the help of our taxi driver, Wayne's great directions, and NO cell phone, it was about 9pm and Wayne was waiting. His apartment was on the 22nd floor and you could see downtown Singapore from his balcony. We set our stuff down and met his roommate and then Wayne was kind enough to take us to get some dinner in the Clark Quay area. It's pretty much just a huge, developed area with lots of restaurants and bars (including one called Clinic where you can sit on hospital beds or in wheel chairs and drink alcohol out of IVs...yeah, weird). Wayne headed home after dinner and Taylor and I went to the Raffles Hotel, which is arguably the nicest hotel in Singapore for a drink. We walked around the hotel a little bit and ended up at the 2-story Long Bar. The band upstairs was on their last song, but we still ordered 2 Singapore Slings (what the bar is famous for) for $22 SD each (about 25USD) before heading home to bed.

January 6
On Tuesday, Taylor and I both called our parents and got kind of a late start. We headed to Orchard Road, which is the nice shopping district of Singapore. It was nice, but everything was expensive and we were hot from all the walking around so after grabbing a quick lunch, we headed up Orchard Road to the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The gardens are beautiful and I highly recommend the National Orchid Garden where you can see all kinds of amazing Orchids. We stayed there for a couple hours before heading to a neighborhood called Kampung Glam to see some more local sights and grab a beer. Here are a couple pictures:


We wrapped up the day with dinner with Wayne at a Mexican place in Holland Village and drinks at a rooftop bar in Chinatown with Wayne and a couple friends. Here's a picture of the view of Chinatown, Singapore:


January 7
Wednesday was our last day in Singapore and we went to meet Wayne for lunch at Pau La Sat, this old victorian market, a beautiful relic from the British days of Singapore. After that we went to the mall and to the Eplanade, which is basically this really gaudy building that looks like 2 hairy testicles or durian (a southeast Asian fruit). You be the judge:

After the Esplanade, we had to head back to Waynes to grab our stuff and get a cab to the airport. When we got in the cab and he asked where we were going, Taylor said, "Singapore Airport, International terminal." That's funny because, being a city-state and only 26km wide, all flights from Singapore are international. Nice!

We boarded the plane and I braced myself for my first time in Indonesia!!!

We arrive in Indonesia at about 7pm on January 7th and headed straight to the Hotel Novotel Surabaya. Taylor had been there once to see if they had Internet and he remembered it being really nice. Well, he remembered right! The hotel is more like a resort in the middle of a sprawling, dirty, hot, traffic-laden city. The rooms are nice, the lobby is beautiful, and the pool is amazing! It's this lagoon surrounded by trees with beautiful flowers. There's a water slide, great service, and stone monkeys spitting out water everywhere. It is truly a dream and only $60/night including breakfast! We checked in and spent the evening relaxing.

Me with no pants (I have a bathing suit on!)
Pool!
He loved the water slide!

January 8
We checked out of the hotel thinking we would go to Taylor's village. However, we were waiting to hear back from Nelly about permission to book our tickets to Bali (which we would have to do in Surabaya), so we decided to stay another night at the hotel Novotel. We spent most of the day on Thursday hanging out at the mall. Then, after we re-checked in to the Novotel, we went out to dinner and then to a club called "Colors." When we got there, it was dead, but there was a live band playing so we stuck around. Taylor has become very accustomed to live music in Asia, so he quickly made some requests and even went up on stage to sing Munajat Chinta with the band. That crazy boy! After Taylor sang, the first band wrapped up and another band came on stage. Their first song was actually a Switchfoot song, which was crazy! They were good, but they played mostly Indonesian songs so we left around midnight.

I'm leaving for Asia tomorrow!

Well hello there! That's right, the countdown on the right will probably self-destruct sometime soon because my visit to see Taylor in Indonesia starts TOMORROW!!! I seriously doubt I'm going to be able to blog while I'm there (more because Taylor will mock me mercilessly if I try to use any of our precious online time blogging than because of lack of internet access....), but I promise to give a good recap when I get back, complete with photos. Before I go though, I thought I'd give you an idea of what I plan to be up to.

I'll be overseas for a total of about 3 weeks. Here's the breakdown:

I leave tomorrow at 12:30pm from Detroit on Northwest. My first leg is 13 hours and lands in Tokyo at about 3:30pm local time (that includes the 14 hours time difference). Then, I have a 2 hour layover in Tokyo before I fly to Singapore. That flight is about 8 hours and lands in Singapore at 12:35am local time on January 1 (35 minutes after they ring in the New Year in Singapore). If you're sitting in the U.S., think of be and Taylor being reunited after 5 months at 11:30am on Wednesday (2 days from now!!!!!!)! I can't wait!

So, after a very exciting reunion (my fiance has requested it not be tearful, but I cannot make any promises!), we're heading to a hotel called the Far East Hotel: Chiang Village. It's just a few miles from the airport in Singapore. Taylor will have arrived and checked in already, so we should be able to just head to our room for a nice shower (I'll be feeling pretty icky after 24 hours traveling!). We decided we should try to celebrate the New Year a little, so we're going to go out somewhere at like 2am just to hang out for a couple hours :)

On Thursday (January 1), we're going to get up and check out of the hotel and find our way to the bus station to get a bus to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. See, we wanted to go somewhere else in Asia, and KL (as they call it) is only about a 5 hour bus ride. We have a hotel reserved for the nights of Jan 1 and Jan 2 in KL and then we're planning on staying in Malaysia 2 more nights, though we haven't decided if we want to stay in KL or go somewhere else. I have some recommendations from friends and I'm going to call another friend who lived there for a year today to see what they think we should do!

On January 5, we're heading back to Singapore where we'll stay for 2 nights with our friend Wayne from Vanderbilt. We don't have too much planned for these two days but I know we'll find PLENTY to do in Singapore.

After we finish our visits to Singapore and Malaysia, we'll head to Indonesia for the rest of the trip. We will arrive in Surabaya, Indonesia on January 7th and spend a week in and around Taylor's home in the mountains outside Indonesia. I think we have plans to climb a volcano and go to some hindu temples. Should be fun! Plus, I'll get to see where Taylor has been living for the past 5 months!

The last week, I think we will be splitting our time between Taylor's village, Bali, and a quick trip to Jakarta for a gathering Taylor has to attend.

Well, folks, you won't be hearing from me for a while, but never fear, I will return with plenty of stories!!

Happy New Year,
Carissa

Merry Christmas!

Hello there! It's CHRISTMAS!! I just wanted to post a Merry Christmas blog to all my friends and family who read this. I am still home in Ohio celebrating with family. It feels like I've celebrated Christmas about 8 times this year because we have so many family and friends!

The past week has been pretty fun. Last Friday we had a Christmas party with my parents' small group from church. I went along and participated in some lively conversation and the white elephant gift exchange. It was a good time.

Last weekend I can honestly say I don't remember a single thing I did! Oops! This week was fun though. On Monday I went up to Ann Arbor with my little sister to stay the night and hang out with her on Tuesday. Monday night, I dropped her off at class and proceeded to sit in traffic for about 2 hours trying to get to her apartment. Ann Arbor Michigan has THE WORST traffic ever! It didn't help that it was snowing and there was too much traffic to clear the roads, but STILL.

I picked Taryn up from work at 10pm and we watched some friends before we went to bed. On Tuesday we got up and took our time before we headed out to do some shopping. I was in search of some shoes for my trip to Indonesia. I needed a pair of black closed-toe flats and then a pair of flip-flops. Well, I didn't have too much trouble with the flats, but seeing as it was snowing buckets on Tuesday, I had a bit of a tough time finding a store that was carrying flip flops (don't they realize that people go on Vacation!) . Luckily, I remembered a fantastic web site called www.endless.com. It's a shoe and handbag store that offers free, overnight shipping on everything if you order by 5:15pm PST. So...on Tuesday night at 8pm, I ordered a pair of Havaiana sandals and they arrived Wednesday by 5pm. Pretty amazing and it only cost me $20! They're really nice flip flops, i swear :)

Yesterday (Wednesday), we went to my Aunt Shari and Uncle Jeff's house to see all the Lucyks (except the ones who live in Whyoming). We had a great time and I got some fun gifts. I got wine glasses for when Taylor and I have a place and two bottles of my favorite red wine from Northern Michigan. I also got a jewelry box, which is nice since I've been using a tupperware to organize my jewelry since high school!

So here I sit after Christmas morning celebrating with family :) I will be posting this weekend with a sneak preview of my trip to Indonesia! I can't wait to go. I leave on Tuesday so don't worry, you'll hear all about our plans before I leave!

Adventures perhaps not so exciting....

So my friend Eric has reminded me that I have a blog! You know, NYC was so random and interesting that I never really lacked for things to update. Now that I'm back in Ohio (on sabbatical, in hibernation, whatever you want to call it), I find that I am less exciting on my own than I thought! But, I think it's only fair that I post upon request and also that I make a vow to post at least twice a week from now on. Does that work?

So, as I mentioned in the title, Adventures in Ohio was the overwhelming winner in my very successful voting (sarcasm intended, I think I got like 10 votes!) endeavor. So here goes!

I arrived home last Tuesday (has it REALLY been 9 days?). My grandma picked me up at the airport and we went to lunch at Applebees. My "you're not in Kansas anymore" moment (New York City being Kansas in this analogy) happened as soon as we walked through the door and I was hit by a wave of cigarette smoke. Yes, that's right, in Michigan they still ask you "smoking or non?" when you arrive at a restaurant....ugh. Thankfully the great state of Ohio has banned smoking in restaurants (and that's about the only thing I like more about Ohio than Michigan, but I won't get in to that ;-). Anyway, I headed home right after lunch with grams and got to my house at around 3:30pm.

I have made a commitment to go to the gym every day in the three weeks between when I got home and when I go visit Taylor. So I hit the gym right away when I got home and ran 5 miles. Not bad, right? My mom and I went out to dinner that night at P.F. Changs and just relaxed.

A lot of the other days since I got home are sort of a blur of going to the gym (I've missed a couple days due to a cold and a stomach virus one day!), showering at about 4pm, and eating dinner with my family.

Highlights include:

• I picked up my wedding dress last Thursday!
• My mom and I gave blood at the Red Cross (0-, so popular right now)
• I went with my mom to an ornament exchange with my mom. Think 30 or so midwestern middle-aged women, CHRISTMAS SWEATERS that light up, play music, and jingle (no, not as a joke, for real), sexual innuendo in amounts you would expect at an 8th grade boys' get-together, and some really tasty snacks. It was a good time.
  
• We had Christmas with my Grandpa and Grandma Hooper and I got some sweet gifts including a medal plaque from the NYC Marathon! Isn't it cool?!
  

• 
• Headed up to Dearborn, MI (it's basically like New Delhi, MI, tons of Indians) for the Shinske family Christmas, which is basically my dad's mom and all her siblings and their kids and grandkids and greatgrandkids (those are the ones I'll be having one day....). There's about 100 people there and about 20 kids. This year, no one volunteered to be Santa so - being the resourceful midwesterners that we are - we hired one off Craigslist! Nice.
• Went to my OTHER grandparents church for their annual Christmas play. My grandpa has been raving about it for years and I've never been home soon enough to see it (Dec. 14 was the last show), so I really wanted to go. It was pretty amazing, but not surprising considering it's a church of 30,000 people!
• Oops, I may or may not have burnt my butt by going tanning apparently for the first time without underwear....
• Some drama with the boy which has subsequently made me even more desperate to go visit him. I leave in 12 days and even though I love Christmas and don't want it to be over, I'm DESPERATE for Dec. 30 to get here.
• Today I found out that the job I had before I left NYC which now has me working from home (oops, forgot to mention that....I'm doing that too about 25 hours a week) wants me to stick around after I get back from Indonesia. That's pretty exciting!

Alright, Eric (and my 3 or 4 other loyal readers), I hope that this is a worthy update!