A Day in the Big Durian

Last weekend, after over 7 months in Indonesia, I finally made it to the capital.  Hello, Jakarta.  The city lives up to its nickname -- "The Big Durian" -- by having a notorious reputation and being, as well as I can figure, something of an acquired taste.  In the words of the Lonely Planet: "At first glance, this hot, smoggy city, which sprawls for miles over a featureless plain, feels like nothing more than a waiting lounge for the millions queuing up to make their fortune.  Jakarta's infamous macet chokes its freeways, town planning is anathema and all attempts to forge a central focal point for the city have stuttered and ultimately failed.  The first -- or only -- thought on most travelers' minds is how quickly the city and its polluted streets can be left behind."  Come on, Lonely Planet, why don't you tell us what you really think.

As it turned out, though, Jakarta wasn't half bad.  The annual international Java Jazz Festival was happening that weekend, and my friend Megan was planning on going and staying with her friend Yuyun, who had picked her up a ticket.  When Megan asked if I wanted to come along it was obviously no question (jazz plus the hemisphere's worst traffic jams?  I'm totally in!), and Friday morning found us at the train station in Yogya, waiting to board the 8-hour train that would carry us across Central Java and right into the pulsing heart of the Big Durian itself.  The train ride, while long, was pretty comfortable, and the hundreds of kilometers of rice paddies and countless small villages we passed through were certainly a sight to see.  Definitely a different view from what I used to see through the window of the Amtrak train between New York City and Springfield, Massachusetts -- there's just not a whole lot of beautiful mosques by the side of the road in New England, dontchaknow.

Once we arrived in the city, we took a taxi to a big mall where Yuyun had said she'd meet up with us after she got off work.  Stepping into that mall was like stepping into Singapore, and I felt so shabby in my t-shirt and Balinese "fisherman pants," as Megan calls them, that I was actually a little embarrassed.  This shopping mall, with its eight floors of high fashion boutiques and restaurants, skylight roof and elevator that flashed different colored neon lights, was like what I imagine the future might be like.  Only it was still the present.  Yuyun finally found us drooling our way around a hipster bookstore, and we went to eat at restaurant she liked whose specialty was -- get this -- pancakes.  We ordered one savory (which came with an egg), plus one blueberry and one caramelized banana (both of which came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top).  I mean, breakfast-for-dinner is one thing, but dessert-for-dinner?  Now that's just asking for it.  Which, obviously we did.

Yuyun was stoked to show us around Jakarta, and we spent most of the day on Saturday touring some of the sights of the city until the Jazz Fest started at 5.  Our first stop was the Masjid Istiqlal -- reputably the largest mosque in Southeast Asia -- followed by the old Catholic cathedral across the street with some of the best stained glass I've seen since Europe.  The highlight of the day, however, was the National Museum, which had exhibits for all of Indonesia's main ethnic groups across the different islands, including huge 3D maps, costumes, masks, musical instruments, puppets, and even model houses, which meant I got a sneak peak of the traditional Torajan houses I'm going to see when I travel to Sulawesi in a few weeks (I'll report back).  On our way back to Yuyun's to change for the Jazz Fest, we stopped at another mall to grab lunch at this Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant, which had about 50 different kind of Japanese-themed pasta, many of the dishes served up with egg yolk and eel.  Did I mention that the entire front facade of the restaurant is a glass case featuring the plastic-food incarnations of all of their dishes?  Just like in Tokyo.  What a nice touch.

Then, on to the Jazz Fest.  I haven't been to many music festivals, in Indonesia or otherwise, but this one certainly did not disappoint.  Over the course of the evening, weaving our way through what felt like about half of Jakarta in the Expo center, we saw a mix of Indonesian and international bands, my personal favorite being a Brazilian guitarist named Ivan Lins.  Every other song he played was about his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, but in my opinion, that was part of the charm.

After some pillowtalk back at Yuyun's, Megan and I crashed for a couple hours of sleep before having to be up and on our train back to Yogya by 8:45 the next morning.  Bye-bye, Big Durian.  Clocking in at just under 40 hours, it was a short first taste, to be sure -- but that's the first step in acquiring any taste, right?  I imagine I'll be back for seconds.

In the End It Will Be Known

On Wednesdays and Thursdays, I teach my favorite students -- all 4 of them.  This class is Academic 1, but I had these 4 students (plus 2 others, who sadly couldn't continue due to schedule conflicts) last session in Business 2, and 3 of them the session before that, in Business 1.  I absolutely adore these guys, and not just because we've been together since September -- they are hilarious and kind, hard-workers and engaged learners, and take me seriously (but not too seriously).  Basically, I can't imagine a set of students more baller than this.  When my American boss was doing site visits in November and observed one of our Business 2 classes, she said it was one of the best EFL classes she'd ever observed on the Asian continent.  And as much as I would have liked to take credit, I had to admit that it was really all them.  Because it is, true fact.

This past Wednesday, the pre-determined syllabus dictated an "Extra Class," which happens at the end of every unit in this workbook and means I get to ditch the book for a day and do whatever I want.  "Extra class" is basically synonymous with "Game Day," so obviously it's everyone's favorite, and this week I decided to bust out an improvised version of one of my favorite board games from the States: Wise and Otherwise.  The game's catchphrase -- printed on the front of the box -- reads: "The game where the beginning is half the whole, everything with a crooked neck is not a camel, & in the end it will be known who ate the figs."  With a motto like that, how could this not be the greatest game ever?

If you are not a member of my immediate family, the unfortunate truth is that you are probably not familiar with Wise and Otherwise (nor will you fully grasp how awesome it is that I have now brought this game beyond our living room and into the classrooms of Indonesia).  It's a lot like the game Balderdash, and the premise is simple: written on hundreds of cards are the first halves of proverbs and sayings from all over the world.  The moderator picks one and reads it out loud, and each player must then write an original ending -- in effect, finish the proverb.  The moderator then gathers all these potential endings and reads them out loud, and everyone must guess which proverb they think is the real one. You get points for guessing the right answer, and also if people guess your ending as the right answer.  Bite-sized chunks of (sometimes truly comical) wisdom were never produced so readily, nor so enjoyably.

In my EFL version of this game, my students had to finish well-known English proverbs, and the results were by turns hilarious, clever, and totally lovely.  Some of the gems:

If you fall down seven times ... you are unlucky.

You can't kill two birds ... without trouble.

Home is where ... you spend your life.

One man's trash is ... a woman's trouble.

No man is ... nothing.  

The apple never falls ... in love.

I mean, come on.  Can you believe these guys?  Like I said, I have the ballerest students you will ever meet.

But on my token cheesy-ending note, this past Wednesday was probably one of the most enjoyable classes I've taught during my time in Indonesia, and it really is all thanks to those students.  Lately I've been in a bit of what I imagine is a half-time slump, feeling adrift in this experience and questioning what it is I'm really doing here, and it's on days like this when I remember the answer to that question.  After all, there's nothing like re-writing ancient pieces of English language wisdom with 4 amazing young Indonesian adults to shake away the mid-year blues.  Coming up on month 7 out of 12 here, half the whole has already passed, but I'm just holding out that in the end, it will be known that what I did here mattered.  I really hope so.  Whether or not we ever figure out who ate the figs. 

Yum City, Indonesia

Guys, this is yum city.

-- my friend Lolly

Sometimes, tempe bakar (grilled tempeh) and sauteed kangkung (water spinach) are all a girl could ask for in the culinary department of her existence.  And most of the time, these delicious Indonesian dishes suffice.  But variety is the spice of life, is it not?  Sometimes, a girl asks for more.  And this past week, she received.  Watch and observe, O ye of little faith, and you will learn what can happen when a bunch of creative twenty-somethings living abroad in Asia get a little too tired of rice:

Sunday, 14 February 2010  Valentine's Day Potluck at Lolly and Megan's.  Where do I even begin?  Lolly found some whole-wheat linguini in the cupboard of her homestay's communal kitchen, which was pretty special since none of us have seen whole grains in months (Indonesians like their white white Wonderbread, wouldn'tchaknow), and tossed it with whole garlic and broccoli which she'd bought fresh from the pasar that morning.  Megan baked eggplant with some amazing tomatoey sauce she'd whipped up, and Colin pureed carrots with basil and yogurt for an exquisite thick orange soup.  Emma and Cyrus pulled through, as always, with an Indian potato-and-vegetable curry incorporating spices they'd brought back from their holiday travels in India, and Luna showed up with a small barrel of mashed potatoes (half 'n half regular and sweet).  And my contribution?  Banana chocolate chip pancakes, courtesy of the Bisquick hand-schlepped from the USA first by my father and then by my mother, for dessert.  Heart-shaped, of course.

Monday, 15 February 2010  Day-After-Valentine's-Day-Potluck leftovers at Lolly and Megan's.  Just as delicious cold.

Tuesday, 16 February 2010  Cyrus' tourist visa ran out last week, which meant he had to leave the country and re-enter to get a fresh visa.  So while he was in Singapore for 24 hours, he picked us up what he thought were black beans -- black bean burritos, here we come!  And just as our fantasies of homemade Mexican food were getting too delicious to be true, reality reared its deceptive head and revealed that, as it turned out, these were soybeans.  Soybean burritos, here we come?  Exxxxactly.  Whipping some culinary magic outta his back pocket, Cyrus boiled those little beans down, added some veggies, and thanks to Emma's prowess with cake flour and oil, we had ourselves some mean soybean burritos that night.  Best Mexican-Asian fusion south of the equator, I swear.

Wednesday, 17 February 2010  Luna brought over some tiny round eggplants, which we sauteed and added to the leftover soybean burrito filling from the previous night.  I whipped up some Southwest-style guacamole (avocados can be good for other things besides avocado shakes, it's true) and we had ourselves Mexican-Asian fusion Night Two, with dragonfruit for dessert.  Doesn't that color make you want to dance?  Or maybe just eat dragonfruit?

Thursday, 18 February 2010 Deciding to play it easy, Emma, Cyrus and I settled on a simple gado-gado style pasta and peanut sauce dish for this evening.  It was shaping up to be heartily peanut-y, if a bit bland, until Cyrus dumped about a quarter cup of chili sauce from Makassar into the mix.  I still maintain it all ended up great, though we did spend most of the meal with tears streaming down our faces.  Better bawling than bland, right?

Friday, 19 February 2010  Friday night is jazz night at ViaVia, a tourist cafe downtown, so E, C and I took a break from the kitchen and headed down for some good eats and good music.  (ViaVia, it should be noted, also serves Storm, a Balinese beer that, frankly, knocks Bintang out of the park.)  Over a round of Storm Golden Ales, we enjoyed lamb curry, goat cheese salad, fried tempe and calamari.  Over another round of Storm Golden Ales, we enjoyed the jazz, and over yet another round of Storm Golden Ales (though only for Cyrus), we simply enjoyed the existence of Storm Golden Ale.  It wasn't cheap, but hey -- every once in a while, I'd say we deserve to splurge on brews with more kick than our usual 5% Pilsners.  Bintang's fine and good, but sometimes fine and good just doesn't cut it.  

Saturday, 20 February 2010  At around 1:30PM on this day, out to lunch with Lolls, Cols and Meg, I had my first taste of sushi in at least 7 months.  Swoon.  We were at a restaurant that serves not only Japanese food, but also Korean and Chinese food as well, so I guess I'll have to go back for kimchi and dimsum at sum point.  It was no Osaka (Western Mass represent!) but it was a Spicy Rainbow Roll -- which are hard to come by in this town -- so I'll take what I can get.  It's easy to forget sometimes, but a life without wasabi is really no life at all.

Sunday, 21 February 2010  This morning I slid back in to home plate from my week of culinary revelry the same way I started out -- with pancakes.  I wanted to experiment with coconut milk, so I just used that in place of regular milk in the batter, with favorable results: the pancakes did have a vaguely coconutty flavor.  And anyway, it's really kind of impossible to go wrong with Bisquick.  Thanks mom and dad!

So as you can see, with a few imported goods and a little ingenuity, the great eats of the world can be had, well, anywhere in the world.  Hungry yet?

When it Rains ...

... yep, you got it.  It pours.  No, but like -- it actually pours.  Such that, though one rode one's bicycle, Maurice, to work, one nevertheless finds it necessary to swim home.  With Maurice.

So, it seems that the much-anticipated Rainy Season, though unfashionably late, has arrived.  For realz.  It's been raining pretty regularly over the past few weeks, which means that sometime during the early or late afternoon clouds gather, the sky turns ominously black, and an ocean of fresh water pours forth from the sky in the form of nine gazillion fatty raindrops.  Somehow, up to this point, I've been able to avoid having to go out during the worst of the monsoons and have successfully limited my transit necessities to times when it is only drizzling.  Mission "Don't Let My Work Shoes Start Molding" thus far accomplished.

Today, sadly, this was not the case.  (I should have known, since it hadn't rained in two days and when I woke up this morning to check the weather, my iGoogle gadget informed me that it was about 88ºF with 91% humidity.  Great.)  The rain started as I walked in to teach my 1PM class, and by the time I dismissed my students at 2:45 and gathered my things to go home, the tropical thunderstorm was in full swing, complete with dramatic flashes of lightning and show-offy cracks of apocalyptic thunder.  My choices were few: 1) stay at school and wait for the rain to stop, or 2) go home in the rain.  It being Friday, I was in no mood to hang around the office, and besides, this was always going to happen sooner or later.  Time to face the music, Fiona, and pull out those flippers.

Preparing to go home in the downpour, of course, was a full operation.  First, I rolled my sleeves up above my elbows and rolled my pants up above my knees, to minimize the square inchage of clothing that would get completely soaked.  Then, I took off my work shoes, put them in my backpack, and changed into my Old Navy flip-flops that I carry in Maurice's basket in a plastic bag in case of this precise situation.  Finally, I donned my bright blue one-size-fits-all poncho, complete with reflector stripes, and fitted my helmet over the hood on my head.  Outfitted thus, I was ready to brave Noah's Ark Take Two.  Yogya doesn't have the best drainage system, so most of my ten-minute bike ride home was performed through one continuous lake of varying depths.  The better moments were when the lake was only a few inches deep; the worse moments were when the water came to pedal level, halfway up Maurice's wheels, and I wondered if we might just kind of tip over and float away.  It didn't help that I couldn't see much since Mother Earth was giving my exposed face a good raindrop scrubbing, but Maurice and I made it home without any hydroplane mishaps and surprisingly only mildly soaked.  And after I changed my clothes and toweled off my face and limbs, you almost couldn't tell I'd just invented a new water sport on my way home from work.  

Best of all, of course, was that my work shoes (in my backpack and under my poncho) stayed dry.  No mold for those loafers today!  But I'm not going to count my chickies before they hatch -- I've heard my share of mold horror stories, and with weather like this, you just never know.  It's the tropics, after all.  Stuff molds. Whatcha gonna do but keep the fan on and your fingers crossed?  And wear all your clothes as often as possible, I guess, so they don't stay stationary.  I've heard that helps.

Surrendering My Soul to Singapore

In the Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, the section on Singapore begins as follows: "One of Southeast Asia's most remarkable success stories, immaculate Singapore confirms and undermines popular stereotypes in equal measure.  Yes, it's modern, clean and organized.  No, it's not stifling, strait-laced and dull.  What you have here is a dynamic 21st-century metropolis with a culture, history and cuisine that's remarkably rich for a place so small."  As it turns out, the LP and I have that attitude in common.  Yes, Singapore just might be my soul city-country.  No, I am not kidding.

I had a good feeling about this last stop on my itinerary before I got there, and I wasn't disappointed.  After arriving by bus from Melaka, Luna and I found the nearest metro station and hopped on the amazingly easy-to-navigate Singapore Mass Rapid Transit to head out to the friend's apartment where we would be staying.  I mean, what kind of city has a public transportation system whose acronym spells SMRT?  I liked this place already.  

Our first night in Singapore, we headed down to Little India where I proceeded to consume possibly the most amazing Indian meal of my life at a restaurant called Komala Vilas.  Luna, who studied abroad in India and had just returned from almost a month of travel there, admitted that this was maybe the best dosa she had ever had.  Actually, it was the best dosa she'd ever had.  Not that I needed any convincing, but Singapore's Little India went straight to the top of my List Of Places To Return To As Soon As Possible.  The next day we explored Chinatown, where I was introduced not only to pink bubble tea but also the most aesthetically beautiful, chicly hipster and if-I-had-a-million-bucks-I-would-buy-everything-in-this-bookstore-y bookstore, called BooksActually.  Even the name was chic and hip.  I walked inside and was drooling within 4 seconds.

With a superhuman display of self-restraint on my part, I managed to exit BooksActually having only purchased two items: an bilingual anthology of Malaysian/Singaporean poetry called Dari Jendela Zaman Ini/From the Window of this Epoch, and a vintage red and turquoise notebook -- but you can bet your behind that this little independent bookstore also shot straight to the top of my List Of Places To Return To As Soon As Possible and snuggled in up there with Little India.  I decided that if I ever live in Singapore, I will just go ahead and allot a portion of my monthly salary to my very own BooksActually fund.  It will be like taking out taxes, only I will be the one withdrawing the money, and it will come back to me in the form of books and extreme intellectual and aesthetic gratification.  [:: drools ::]  Later that afternoon, Luna and I took an excursion to the grocery store around the corner, where we discovered that, contrary to our experience in Indonesia, you can buy the following items at any old corner grocery store: real bread, blue cheese, mixed-berry jam, and red wine.  A veritable feast, and then two sulfite hangovers, ensued.  I love Indonesia, don't get me wrong, but if I expect to attain any sort of long-term happiness in my life, both wine and its immediate procurability are going to have to be in the picture.  

The next day -- and last day before heading back to reality -- was spent goggling at the shopping sights of Orchard Road, wandering through the Singapore Art Museum and gorging ourselves on incredible mexican food (one more prerequisite to my long-term happiness that is sadly missing in Yogya).  And though our flight was the next morning, I wasn't too bummed out.  I mean, it was love at first step-on-the-SMRT.  And though Singapore does have its potentially creepy idiosyncrasies (the signs on buses urging you not to pretend to be sleeping so you don't have to give your seat up to grandma, for example, or the lanes that separate walking traffic in the SMRT stations), it's all just part of the package, and I know I'll be back.  Come on, I have to be back -- the whole damn country's holding court at the top of my List Of Places To Return To As Soon As Possible.  And as anyone who knows me knows, I don't take lists lightly.  No siree.

Flying Solo

For those of you who follow the "Buku-Buku" section of this blog, you'll have noticed that the book I most recently read was called "A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe." The book, which was a gift from my aunt, was a collection of essays by women telling the stories of their solo travels. I read the whole thing cover-to-cover in just a few days, and was so inspired by some of these women's stories that I just couldn't wait to get out on the road, and face my fears about traveling alone.

And as it turns out, I've gotten my chance. I left Yogya last Friday, and spent the next four and a half days with my friends Aggi and Alex, who are teaching on PiA fellowships in Penang, Malaysia. After gorging myself on Chinese, Indian, Malay, and Thai food in Malaysia's veritable food capital, kicking it around Georgetown (the main city on the island of Penang), visiting some sweet temples (see a picture of Kek Lok Si to your right), hiking through a national park to go swimming on a deserted beach, and helping Aggi ring in year number twenty-three, I decided it was time to head out on my own. Aggi and Alex had gone back to work and I had seen (and eaten) the best of Penang, so it was time to move along.

With three open days before my scheduled reunion with Luna in Kuala Lumpur on the 15th, I hopped a bus to the Cameron Highlands (which lie roughly between Penang and the capital) to see what the mountainous tea plantantion towns had in store for me. I've traveled alone before, including in countries that are not my own, but this trip was different -- in the past, I've always had the phone number of at least one person with whom I could get in touch at my destination. When I took a solo weekend trip to Granada while I was studying abroad in Spain, for instance, I was able to meet up with the friends-of-a-friend, who took me out and showed me around town. But this time, I was completely on my own -- a woman alone, as it were. Oh goody.

When my bus pulled into the bus station in Tanah Rata, the main town in the Highlands, I disembarked without really knowing where I was going. I had called ahead to reserve a dorm bed in a guesthouse mentioned in the Lonely Planet, but I didn't really want to sleep in a dorm, so I was considering that my back-up plan. All the couples who had been on the bus quickly dispersed (obviously THEY knew where they were going), which left me and the only other lone traveler on that bus, a British girl who looked uncannily like a blonde Minne Driver. (I have since entertained the possibility that she actually IS Minnie Driver with a dye-job -- the resemblance is that uncanny.) Minne clearly didn't know where she was going either, so when a man approached us offering a free ride to a guesthouse called "Twin Pines" where we could check out the rooms, we both accepted. At Twin Pines, upon discovering that they were offering single rooms for 12 ringgit (which is about US $4) per night, I was sold. The rooms were basically closets in the attic, but I wasn't planning on spending too much time there -- and besides, it's cold in the Highlands. Like, actually cold. Is this still Southeast Asia? Will somebody please wake me up?

After parting ways with Minnie in the attic hallway and dropping my bag in my closet, I went back downstairs to head out for a walk, enjoy the cool air of the afternoon, and check out the town. While I was standing on the patio examining my map, someone with an American accent said, "So, what are you up to this afternoon?" I looked up to see a bald dude of ambiguous age, sitting at a table and smoking a cigarette. "I don't know," I said. "I just got here." Forty-five minutes later, I had learned that Ernie (not his real name -- gotta protect people's privacy dontchaknow), age 43 and hailing originally from Wisconsin, had already traveled around much of the world and was basically kicking it in Asia, waiting out the economic crisis in the States. Ernie is an ex-drug addict who first went to jail when he was 15, never got married or had kids, has bungee jumped in New Zealand, has touched a great white shark while scuba diving off the coast of South Africa, has taught English in China and has never had a beer in his life. If I had been heading out for my walk with someone else, we probably would have passed Ernie right by. Instead, I made a friend. Score one for Team Woman Alone.

I think that most people who have traveled alone agree that it can be by turns (and sometimes simultaneously) invigorating and exhausting. For example, when I had to use the bathroom in the bus station, I didn't have anyone with whom I could take turns watching the bags and going to pee, and when it came time to make decisions about accommodation, I only had Minnie for solidarity. On the other hand, no one complained when I chose to eat Indian food for all three of my meals today, and I didn't have to weigh the pros and cons with my travel companion of paying for a tour of the tea plantations -- I just decided to book the tour, and I booked it. (Which, by the way, was totally worth it -- not only did I get to tour a tea plantation, watch the tea being processed, sample some tea and buy oleh-oleh for my housemates back in Yogya, but I also got to visit a butterfly aviary, hold a scorpion the size of a bottle-opener, and eat fresh strawberries from a strawberry farm. Word.) I've taken a few walks, written 5 postcards, had coffee with Ernie twice, made friends with a Pakistani girl from Australia who has promised to add me as a friend on Facebook, and eaten every meal alone. It is sometimes lonely, but mostly fantastic.

That being said, I am more than looking forward to seeing Luna tomorrow. My few gorgeous days in the Cameron Highlands have been a super solo experience, but I'm ready to morph back into A Woman With Friend -- after all, it's nice to have someone to crack a beer with, say goodnight to, and ask to watch your stuff while you go to the bathroom in the bus station. Trying to maneuver into those tiny stalls and squat with a backpack on -- trust me, it just doesn't work.

A Report from the Future

One year ago today, I wrote in my journal: "First entry of 2009! Call me crazy, but this year feels like a good one. :-)" Then, near the end of the entry: "The cosmic energy is definitely here in 2009." So now, one year later, it feels appropriate to ask: was the cosmic energy here in 2009?

Let's take a little scamper down memory lane and check it out. I wrote a small book of poems -- my academic thesis -- and graduated from college. (Bachelor's degree: check.) I spent an amazing summer visiting friends and family all over the U.S., and packed all my worldly possessions into labeled boxes which are currently being stored in my mother's basement, waiting for whatever comes next. (Thinking ahead: check.) I bought a one-way plane ticket and moved to Indonesia to teach college students English. (Plunging headfirst into the great unknown, thereby throwing all forward-thinking out the window: check.) And what have I done since I moved to Indonesia?

I've learned a new language, eaten cobra, and sat through an all-night shadow puppet performance. I've been caught in tropical thunderstorms and swum in the Indian ocean. I've hiked the foothills of a volcano, watched the sun set over Bali, and received baby turtles as a thank-you gift. I've stood on the side of a dirt road while a man I've just met shimmies up a coconut tree, cuts off a young coconut, hacks off the top and hands it to me so I can drink the water straight out of the fruit. The cosmic energy, I think, was definitely there in 2009.

And while I won't pretend it doesn't make me a little sad to be celebrating the new year so far away from friends and family, can I really complain? (I mean, who else gets to drink fresh-blended mango juice on New Year's Day?) I'm having the adventure of my life, and I have no idea what's on tap for 2010. And I like it that way. Happy New Year to everyone from me and my mom (and our becak driver) in Indonesia -- here's to hoping the cosmic energy sticks around in 2010. And to all the Americans I love on the other side of the ocean who are reading this as they wake up hungover a couple hours from now, from where I'm sitting (12-15 hours in your future) -- the chances are looking pretty damn good.