Taman Safari

Taman Safari is in a village called Bogor. It is about an hour outside of Jakarta. Some of my friends arranged a trip for me to go to the Safari with them. It was such an amazing experience. We drove through the safari and the animals came right up to the car. We fed them carrots and bananas right from the car! Then after the driving part, we walked through the baby zoo. They had some baby animals that we could take pictures with. I took pictures with the baby tiger, lion, and orangatan. Most of you might be thinking about all kinds of germs I could get from the animals. But when you are around experiences like this, you just gotta jump at them. When on earth would I ever be able to do these things again. We need a little risk in our lives. Don't worry, I washed my hand before and after every animal I touched. Then we walked through the bird exhibit. The birds were everywhere! And such exotic birds too! These birds were not scared of people at all. In fact I was the one scared of them. I basically hid behind my friends during this part of the trip. The birds just hop right on to your arm or shoulder. Some of them sit on the railing and squawk at you and won't let you pass. After the bird exhibit, we watched some animal shows. We saw the sea-lions perform and after that a bird show. Then we walked through the rest of the zoo and stopped to feed the elephants and camels on our way. My friend Angel and I even got to ride the camel. I felt like I was riding through the desert in the olden days by camel. How cool! To end the trip we walked up to the waterfall and took some scenic pictures. What a long but amazingly wonderful day!



The zebras were amazingly beautiful. They came right up to the car and took the carrots right from your hands.








Feeding the deer from the car. They were so greedy.








This is me feeding a lama outside my window of the car.








This is me and my daughter... don't we look alike? She sure had fun playing with my hair.








Me and a baby white tiger... he doesn't really look like a baby does he? But he was so soft and quite content, if you can't tell from the picture.








Me holding Baby Simba! He just fell asleep in my arms. How would you like to have this kitten at home with you?








I think this hippo is hungry! He held his mouth open for a long time, waiting for us to throw food into his mouth... Have you ever heard of the game "Hungry Hippos?" Well, I witnessed it, its true!








This is Angel and I riding a Camel. How many people can honestly say they've ridden a camel before? Guess how much it cost.... 1 American dollar!











These are the girls that came on the trip with me. The waterfall was the last stop we took in Taman Safari. Angel, Me, Sisil, Mantju (from left to right)

Swiftfoot Concert

The American Christian Rock band "Switchfoot" was in Jakarta. I don't typcially listen to Religious music, however I was invited to go to the concert with some of my co-workers. It was an awesome concert! They were extremely entertaining to watch. We had a good time.

Parents in Jakarta!

Wow! We've sure got some protective parents here in Jakarta, at my school! I thought this would make a good story for my blog:

Yesterday one of my Kindergartners (Kalista) fell down at recess and got a tiny little scratch on her knee (it wasn't even bleeding). She screamed and cried and insisted on a band-aid. So the Recess Duty person got her a bandaid and sent her on her way. Then I heard all about it from my students after recess, but Kalista was just fine. The next day I get a note from her mother written to the P.E. teacher. It said:

Dear Mr. Talijaard,
Kalista can not join P.E. class today, because she hurt her knee yesterday at recess. Thank you for understanding.
Sincerly,
Kalista's Mom

When I read the note, I was shocked and amazed that her mother would be so dramatic. I looked at Kalista and she said, "I can not go to P.E. today." I said, "Ah, yes you can, and yes you will." Then I told all of my kindergartners that today is the one time I'm allowing them to run in my classroom. Kalista joined in the fun of all the kids running around the room. Then I said to her, "If you can run in my room, and at recess, then you can go to P.E. Your leg is fine, and you will not be babied here at school." I couldn't believe it! Ha! Parents these days, what do we do with them!

For all of you who are reading this, don't worry, I did give the note to Mr. Talijaard to decide what to do with it. However, the good thing about working here is that you won't get in trouble for ignoring a note like that from a parent. (Of corse in the states I would have to allow her to miss P.E. no matter how stupid it was!)

I still think that schools need to hire other employees to handle all the parents! That is the worst part of my job! I decided to be a teacher because kids are so much easier to deal with then adults. I end up working and training adults (the parents) more then the kids!

Crazy Men In Jakarta!

I had to write about this in my Blog. No man is the same, and I know that, but I have to tell you a stroy about one crazy man I found here in Jakarta...

I went to the mall with my co-worker the other day. She needed to stop at the restroom. So I sat outside of the restroom on a bench. People were going in and out of the mens and womens restroom. While I was sitting and waiting an Indonesian man pushing a stroller with a baby (maybe 6 months old) came by. The man looked at me, smiled, didn't say a word to me in English or Bahasa and then parked the stroller right next to me and went into the men's restroom. As I was stunned that he left his baby with a complete stranger (me) the baby started to cry. I tried to calm the baby down, and then the man came back out, smiled at me then pushed the stroller away.

Now, I know that Indonesia is a different country and has a different culture, but I also know that no matter what country you are in you should never leave your baby with a complete stranger! YIKES!

Don't worry, I asked my friends if that was normal, and they said, absolutely not! So, I think I just happen to attract the cazies in whatever country I'm in! HA!

Jogja Pictures

I learned so much about the culture here from this trip to Jogja. I learned a lot about Hindu people and Buddhists. There are two major temples here in Jogja, one Hindu and one Buddhist. The ironic thing is the city is mostly made up of Muslim people, not Hindu or Buddhists. After the natural disasters in 1996 most Hindu and Buddhists moved out of the city and spread out. You can read more about my adventures here in Jogja below.



I rode around in a "baci." This is a three wheel bicycle. With someone peddling the bike.







This is the Ramayana Ballet that I went to see. I had a traditional Javanese dinner and watched the traditional ballet.







This is the grounds of the area where the dinner and ballet took place.







This is the Prambanan Temple. The Prambanan Temple is a Hindu temple. Hindu and Buddhists have different looking Buddhas. The earthquake in 2006 made this temple unsafe to walk inside it. So I just got to see the outside. But it was still phenomenal.




Prambanan Temple.








Prambanan Temple.








I was able to watch how silver what made. This man is polishing the piece of silver, with the brown little ball and the toothbrush. The brown ball is some kind og fruit that makes the silver extremely shiny.





This woman is doing some fine finigrie work with silver. She is adding all the little details to ever piece of silver made. I have a new found appreciation for this type of work. It is extremely time-consuming to make.





This is the Mendut Temple. An idol of Budbha is kept here.











This is a picture of a carving on the Mendute Temple. It is of a woman who used to eat children. But then Buddha did something to her and now she is the mother gaurdian of all children.






This is me and the idol of Buddha.












This is the Borobudur Temple. The Borodudur temple was one of the "Seven Wonders" of the world in 2006. It is the Buddhist Temple.






You may wonder what I am doing. Well, I am reaching into a tower in the Borodudur Temple to touch Buddha's foot.







You may be wondering why I would want to touch his foot. If anyone can touch the sole of his foot then they will have many riches in life. So of corse I had to try! Ha!





This is me with some local Indonesians. I was bombarded by locals thinking I was a movie star and wanting pictures with me. After this I never would want to live the life of a movie star. They can never get away from the crowds!





Part of the Borobudur Temple.








Part of the Borobudur Temple.






This is Mya. She is Buddha's wife.









This is a carving in the temple of the elephant that impregnated Buddha's wife.






These are many carvings of Buddah. The carving of him with his hands in his lap means that he is a giving god. The carving of him with his hand up means he is afraid of nothing. Buddha has many different positions that mean different things.






There are good and bad phases of life. These carvings are of the bad phases of life. And these people are doing bad things, like gossiping to one another. I got pulled into the sin, if you can not tell from the picture. :)

Karaoki Fun!

I love to Karaoki in Jakarta! The girls and I have so much fun. We sing English songs and Bahasa songs. It helps me to learn more Bahasa. This time when we went to Karaoki Angel and Mantju sang a song to me! It was all about how much they will miss me when I am gone. It was so sweet. And then it turned into another after another song about staying here. It was so funny! We had a blast!



Mantju seranading me.











Angel serenading me.









Singing, singing and more singing!







Even the boys get into it!










Everyone likes to sing!







Dancing in the karaoke room!

Trip to Jogja

Jogja (Yogyakarta) is second to Bali, for cities to visit in Indonesia. It is on the Island of Java (the island I'm on), however it takes 11 hours to drive there and 1 to fly (of corse I flew). I went with my co-worker, Carol. She's the one that lives below me. We are pretty good friends, considering she's the only other single woman on my staff. She always jokes about being my mother figure, since she is old enough to be. Anyways, we decided to take this weekend to fly to Jogja and be tourists.

We saw everything we could in two days and I'm exhausted now! We went on a guided tour for 9 hours on Saturday. Leaving at 7:45am, we headed up to Borobudur. This is one of the most famous Budhists temples. Just two years ago it had been on the list of the seven wonders of the world! At least that's what the tour guide said. The temple was beautiful, and had lots of interesting stories about it. I'll include some pictures and stories about it on my blog.

Then we went to a much smaller budhists temple called Mendut Temple. This temple wasn't half as impressive, but it had a huge shrine of Buddah in it, which I got some good pictures of.

After that we stopped at a silver company, where we got so see how silver is made and shaped into jewlery. This is a very lengthy and delicat process.

We made a detour to the lookout tower to see the view of the Volcano. It is still active today, so we didn't get too close. I didn't get to see much, since it was very foggy that day. But that's ok, I think I have a pretty good idea what volcanos look like.

After stopping for lunch we went to our last stop on the tour, which was Prambanan. Prambanan is the Hindu temple. Part of this temple was destroyed in the 2006 earthquake and was deamed unsafe to be within a certain distance of it. So we couldn't walk through the entire temple. But it was incredibly interesting.

A highlight from the tour was being interviewed by a local news station about our thoughts on Prambanan Temple. And of corse feeling like a movie star when all the kids there came up to us and wanted to take pictures with us. We must have taken 30 pictures at least with different kids (mostly teenagers) wanting to stand next to the "bule" (white people). It's extremely rare to see "bule" around, and teenagers are fasinated and astonished.

That evening after washing up at the hotel we went to dinner and a ballet. The dinner was traditional javanese food... one of the most famous dishes is jackfruit. The ballet was a javanese ballet with such elaborate custumes. The story was a little hard to follow, but entertaining, to say the least. Its the most famous ballet to see on the island of Java.

Sunday we were exhausted from our big day on Saturday so we slept in a little. And around 8:30 we rode the bacet around town. This is a three wheeled bike with a little carriage attached to it that the riders ride in. I have a picture of it on my blog. The driver took us to all kinds of neat silver shops and batik shops and even a puppet shop.

After checking out of our hotel and taking a quick nap we went back out to face the heat of shopping in the local market, exploring the bird market (a local market only selling birds) and admiring the view of city from the top of the Water Castle ruins.

I almost forgot to tell you about the javanese coffee. I'm sure you all have heard of the term "java" being used around coffee. Well its because Java is famous for its coffee. Some of you might know about this famous "cevic coffee." Don't be shocked. Java is supposed to have the best tasting coffee because of its "cevic coffee". You might not be familiar with "Cevic Coffee." Well let me tell you how it is made. Coffee beans actually come from a fruit. Monkeys eat the fruit and pass the pit (coffee bean) right through their bodies. The famous javanese coffee is made from these pits that are in the monkey's poo. Supposedly it adds a delicious flavor. Sorry to change anyones opinion or tastes about coffee now.

The last stop was by far the most beautiful. We stopped at another temple that was on one of the highest cliffs in Jogja. It over looked the entire town. And there were caves and pools of water surrounding the temple. The grounds were "inda" ("Inda" in Bahasa is beautiful).

And that is the end of my trip to Jogja. You would think, with all the things we did, that we were there for a week, not two days. Now this week, I'm exhausted for parent conferences. But it was all worth it.

Pics of My American Holiday

Home sweet home!







Christmas Eve with Santa.








Mom with her Indonesian presents.










Dad with his Indonesian gifts.










Downtown Seattle outing.







New Year's Eve Mascarade Ball.







Me and Sarah at the Wedding.







Mountains in Montana.







Saying goodbye to the kids is always the hardest.

Vacation in the States!

Back home I went for Christmas and New Years! I'm so glad that Sarah Brockob's wedding was during this time, because it pushed me to go back home for the holidays... a well needed time of refreshment. I was able to connect with Evergreen Primanry and my old co-workers whom I miss dearly! I even ran into a few of my old students and got to see how they are doing in first grade!

I got to spend Christmas with my family and practice our traditions... going to family friends houses for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day dinner. And had a bountiful Christmas morning full of Christmas songs and wraping paper on the floor. And I even got to enjoy a tiny bit of Christmas snow falling from the sky!

I went on a weekend get-away with some of my closest girls friends. We spent the night in a hotel in downtown Seattle and went shopping and to a movie, and I can't forget the Cheesecake factory!

New Years was a ball! No, literally a "Ball," a Macarade Ball. I spent the Eve with my friends back at home and we partied it down until late! Our masks were a big hit!

I was able to spend some good quality time with my family at a theatrical play and shopping downtown at Pike's Place! I had to do the "Seattle Thing!"

Then of course to put the cherry on top of the icing was Sarah's Wedding! Wow! How beautiful she looked, and Double Wow! Wow! for how cold it was in Montana! It was a memorable roadtrip, that went right along with a memorable day of celebration. It was so good to reconnect with some of the "Old T-Town Group."

ALl in all my vacation was so refreshing, and I enjoyed myself quite a bit. I was ready to come back to the warm weather in Indonesia, however. It's back to sunscreen and mosquito spray every morning!

The Baji

Ok... So this is my first trip in a baji! A baji is a three wheeled little car. In Kelapa Gading they are always orange. It's quite a bumpy ride and you have to bargin with the driver for a good deal, but it is definetly worth the experience at least once! You don't see many "bule" (white people) making this their regular transport!