My father’s airplane, hanging upside down, was cradled by a gentle nest of tree branches and power lines. The scene proved more than my delicate psyche could absorb having only experienced five years of development in this world. No one ever survives, my brief knowledge of plane crashes told me, formulated by viewing the height of action TV circa 1983. Half of my entire world revolved solely around this one man, and now he was leaving us? Moments later, IRead more
Posts filed in: Expat Experiences
Five year blog anniversary
Unbelievably, this blog just turned 5. I truly cannot believe I’ve kept it going this long. It’s been through many iterations both in regards to style and content. It began as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, basically an avenue to avoid mass emailing. It morphed into a place for venting frustrations of an expat living in Jakarta, random ramblings, and finally more as a photoblog with less frequent writing. I’ve never tried to play theRead more
New photoblog, Bali, Idul Fitri
I’ve been quite busy lately with off-line life. I spent a few days last week at the Ayodya Hotel (previously Bali Hilton) in Bali for a conference; turned out to be fun but a bit of a tease considering you have to be indoors all day while the glistening ocean is only minutes away. The Muslim Idul Fitri holiday starts Wednesday, which means a week off work. Unfortunately, if you’re a slacker in regards to travel plans, it’s a horribleRead more
Celeb sighting at the zoo
Saturday, Novita and I spent the day at the zoo in south Jakarta. As we were heading towards the exit, three women were walking towards us. Novita started talking to one of them; I assumed they were old university friends or something, as the conversation was quite bubbly. After a few minutes of small talk, I said, “Oh did you go to university together?”. (I tuned out their Bahasa – happens if I’m tired). It turns out the woman’s nameRead more
Well hello there.
So I guess I’ve been away a bit longer than I’d planned. It’s a rough life waking up every day, heading to the beach or for a day trip around Bali. The ‘net has been the last thing on my mind. My apologies to those of you who’ve wondered where I’ve disappeared to. Although we’ve managed to soak up some sun, we’ve covered about 1300 kilometers so far; our travels have included: Kuta, Seminyak, Ubud, Sanur, Tampaksiring, Kintimani, Lake Batur,Read more
When friends leave
One of the most unfortunate aspects of being an overseas expat is the simple but inevitable fact that you must continually part ways with close friends. When you work in an expat situation and experience extreme highs and even more intense lows, these people become your surrogate family. Unlike other environments, rarely would you find a job where you’d find yourself stranded together because of massive flooding, and evacuated together in the back of a military truck. You’d scarcely findRead more