Last two days

Here is a quick glimpse of what a fellowship group can look like here. This was friday night at a couples house that go to the church I've been attending.

 Everyone (except one lady who has had a stroke and can't get up and down from the floor) was sitting on a mat on the floor. We were served fried rice and gorengan which in this case was made from soya beans, and deep fried. 

 Of course there was also a big jug of sweet tea

 This was some of the stuff we sang, if you can't understand it you'll know exactly how I feel ;)

 This morning I found these monkeys at the playground!

 The weather was so nice and sunny today that I took the chance of washing my bedding. You have to pick the right day now in rainy season, or you'll end up sleeping in wet or really moist bedding! Today turned out to be my day, and I'm looking forward to sleeping in my clean AND dry bed tonight :) After playgrounding for a while and picking up some more flour at the local toko, I went home and baked a huge batch of cinnamon rolls for the afternoons thanksgiving meal. All the foreigners here came together to celebrate thanksgiving today since most of them are american. I completely over-ate on some amazing turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweat potato casserole, gravy...you name it. Then I had some amazing cheese cake for dessert :)

 This evening I skyped with my mom and we did some christmas crafting "together" online :) I fixed up some advent candles for tomorrow, since its the first sunday in advent. While we were skyping I went to pick up something in the kitchen cupboard, and ended up discovering that a few ants had moved in. Well, it was more than just a few, they weren't just passing by but making themselves very much at home. So I had to spray the whole thing down with ant poison, and now I'm looking forward to cleaning everything that was in the cupboard...in the morning. (Can you write ant killing down as ministry on your time sheet you think, Anne? Maybe if you come over here and kill mine and I'll take down yours? ;)

 Some of the end products

Mold and other stuff

 This hairy mold literally grew out of the wall over night, yuck! Another interesting problem here is the fact that when you try and sweep the floor and turn away from a second, half your pile of "rubbish" is on the run, and you have to sweep it back together again. (For those of you who didn't get that...most of what looks like dirt on the floor is actually alive in the form of an ant, termite or the like, and they don't appreciate much being swept)

 Look at the top of the gate, this little dude was watching me when I came cruising through the door on my scooter. He's a tiny iguana, but his tail reaches almost to the end of the picture

 Yet another member of the animal kingdom. It's a lot bigger than it looks like in the picture, let me tell you

 Fast food in Asia, a big lump of rice and some deep fried chicken, yum!

Some of my favorite peeps to hang out with :)

I'm pretty happy that..

..I didn't pick this last weekend to climb Mt. Merapi, an active volcano close to here. Because it all of a sudden decided to be a bit more active!! Check it out:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/11/19/hundreds-villagers-flee-mount-merapi-eruptions.html?fb_action_ids=10202635389514181&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=[228666420642360]&action_type_map=[%22og.recommends%22]&action_ref_map=[]






 

Last week

Some stuff that's been going on lately :)

 Driving around a lot

 Going to a dedication of the new church building at the church I attend here. Yes, that is a band of cowboys.. ;)

 This is how it looks after the repairs and up-grade. The thing in the middle is a fountain, and there is fish in there ;) I'm wondering if that is permanent or just for the occasion. For you Norwegians, yes, it does look like a funeral with all those flower arrangements, but that's just how they do it for any kind of event in the church.

 Went out to eat fresh, young coconut with my friend and language helper Esther

 Got thought how to make mie goreng, to make to my family when I go home to visit!

 Got a glimps of this big lizard, it makes a really cool sound, but I usually don't see it

 Went to another friends house to learn how to cook soto (a type of chicken soup), though the sweet grandma had already prepared most of it by the time we got there :)

What to put in your bowl first, apparently there is a commonly followed order. Sort of like norwegians with their porridge ;) First rice, then broth, then chicken, then fried union...and be sure to remember the rice, for if you didn't eat rice, you didn't eat!

If you can't buy it...make it!

Who who ever have thought I would learn how to make mexican tortillas in Asia?? :) 

Haircut and a waterfall!

One of these days I'm gonna post some really boring pictures of me studying, so that you don't think I'm always out and about to the beach or somewhere else ;) Haha. But today I'll show you some shots from my cheapest haircut ever (except from you Anne ;) I got a wash, head massage, cut and blow dry for 15 000, which might sound like a lot, but its actually 1, 5 dollars or about 9 norwegian krone.

 Tadah! If your really lazy, or don't have a shower, you can come and just get your hair washed and dried.

 Today my team-mates and I went on a rather long scooter/motorcycle ride to a pretty waterfall. There we had a picnic and just relaxed and had some fun.

Beach jumping!

Some friends and I went to the coast this Tuesday cause it was a public holiday and school was out for them (1st day of the year on the major religions calender). We drove on some pretty hefty roads for several hours before getting to the coast (we left at 6 in the morning), and then the beach jumping began! We went to 5 or 6 beaches, some of them took an hour to drive between. Had lunch one place and moved on to the next. It was really fun as well as pretty exhausting! At 8ish we made it to a huge town called Jogjakarta where we had dinner, and a quick run through a touristy shop that sold everything you can think of from batik fabric. Then we drove home. Its supposed to take at least 2,5 hours, but our driver made it in 1 h 45 min!

 Check out the flip-flop tan..

 I found this sign funny considering the people in the background

 This lady was collecting sea weed that had been laying drying on the beach

 This guy made is milk shakes by using a hand-driven mixer! It looked just like a regular mixer, so I almost jumped when he all of a sudden started turning a handle around and around! But it got the job done.

 As you can tell by the landscape, it was an interesting drive!

 This girl wanted to take a photo with me, so I said sure, if I can get one with my camera too!

More pics from the hike

 Starting out, optimistic and all.. ;)

 It's getting steeper!

 It wasn't even sunny, but man did we sweat! You can practically see the humidity in the air

 First camp spot. Many people just walked up to here and spent the night. The blue thing on the ground is actually someones tent that was raided by monkeys. A monkey ran away from the tent just as we walked into the camp ground. Felt sorry for the people coming down from the mountain later on to find that monkeys had eaten all their food!

 Time to fill up the tank

 Time out for some pics!

 This spot stunk like rotten eggs due to the sulfuric gasses

 No this is not the peak, just a cellphone mast. Some people camp here in order to climb to the peak for the sunrise

 Yepp, there was some climbing to be done...

And all of a sudden we were on the top! I'm so used to false peaks from hiking in Norway, I didn't even think to consider that the first real peak was the actual peak!!

 

 Unfortunately it was really cloudy and foggy, so the pics were no good. But the landscape was amazing! Behind those clouds hides Mt Merapi, an active volcano that I hope to climb later on

 Yey for us! We made it!

3145 m!

 Steep!

 The road in the background (in the village we started out from) is the steepest cobbled stoned road I have ever seen, it was insane! And there were people walking up and down there with half a ton of stuff on their heads! Driving up to this village was an adventure by itself, we were two on each bike, and often one had to get off and walk because the bike just could handle it!

We got down again just as it got dark and it started raining, perfecto!

I think that speaks for itself..