Tuesday, March 10, 2015

last saturday and sunday's haps

this past weekend (minggu kemarin), we had an interesting few days. we were invited over to our landlord's house for breakfast (sarapan). as you can see below it was quite a feast. nasi goreng, mie goreng, rambutans, and srekoyo (the fruit i'm holding in the second picture below). the drink was a fruity mixture with fruit seeds, cantaloupe, and little thimble-sized pieces of a jelly/jello type thing.


 here i am with the srekoyo. we had never seen or tasted this fruit before, but it was enak. to us, it looked like a pine cone.

 brian had to leave early to go to a meeting at the university. the kids and i stayed at ibu dewi's house and continued eating and chatting. she was patient with my indonesian. after awhile she came out with several bags of gifts for us. w and s are showing off some of their generous gifts.

 later that morning/early afternoon, i took the kids to a batik shop nearby. we looked around. the shop had what i used to think of as ikat, but now i'm not really sure what it is (although i still like it). it's a type of fabric that's easy to identify but difficult to name. anyway, they had some for a good price--so i may go back there and buy some pieces.

once brian joined us again, we had lunch and then took a taksi over to the zoo. as soon as we arrived, we had a couple families ask to take pictures with us. here is one such family.


the zoo was not crowded at all--so we could easily walk around and see the exhibits. there were some neat animals (as you'll see below), but, sadly, many of the exhibits were not in great shape. and a lot of the animals did not seem to be well cared for. it could be an issue of a lack of funds. the zoo was really cheap to get into ($1/person). 

 the birds had a pretty good set up. this one enjoyed w.

 there were four orangutans there. in this island location, a mother orangutan and her baby were playing and eating. the baby was super (super) cute.

 this gives a good sense of how a lot of the zoo looked. there were lots of vendor stalls that empty. and since there were hardly any people at the zoo, it looked a bit like a ghost town.

 a mysterious old plane at the zoo.

 a close-up look at one of the camels. during certain times of the day/year, they offer camel rides.

 

 the kiddos while we waited for the taksi.

 later that night we struggled with what to do. we felt tired so decided to go to a nearby mall and see a movie. on our way out the door, we ran into our neighbor (the man in the dark shirt) and his friend. we got a picture with them.

at the mall, we saw that the only family friendly movie was shaun the sheep. we didn't know anything about shaun the sheep (and the name didn't sound promising to us), so we left the mall and headed to sriwedari to see a wayang orang show. 

we got to the place too early--so we walked around the carnival type park around the theater. brian loves the cincin here (the big rings that men wear). he's been eyeing them for awhile. but it wasn't until saturday night that he took the plunge and bought a $8 cincin. it is a lovely ring with tints of turquoise (it looks like it could be from the american sw). here b is posing with the man he bought the ring from.


we thought that the tickets from the show would be somewhere between $5-10/ticket. but when we actually bought the tickets, we were delighted to find out that it was just 30 cents/ticket to get in! and we could sit wherever we wanted to.

 wayang orang is a dance performance where the actors/performers move like wayang puppets. the costumes were elaborate and the dancing was wonderful.


 the show lasted four hours, and brian and i were falling asleep by the time two hours had passed. given that (and that it only cost $1.20 for all of us to go), we got up and left the show around 10:15pm. we got a couple becaks to drive us home.

on sunday, we went to church and found out there was a baptism right after church, then our typical post-church lunch, and then a get-together at the home of the woman getting baptized. 

 here are some pictures of the landscape around the woman's home. this is a rice field.

 this is the fiance of the woman who got baptized. they are getting married in a few months.


 w and s had a good time with their friends.

 (note that s doesn't mind wearing w's suit coat.)

 it was beautiful out there--less city-like than where we live.



4 comments:

Unknown said...

the photos of the dancers is magical! What an amazing beautiful lush country scape! Sad that animals could be treated better at the zoo, however, it is also important that the zoo remain affordable to the people there.

Unknown said...

Brian, the ring looks cool man! Wear it proudly and with distinction my friend!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
eNJay & B said...

Thanks on the ring Frank. There are just so many rings here. I've talked to a few people who have compared rings to the stock market--right now it's a bull market on rings. Everyone is buying them. But the prediction is that in a while, the ring market will collapse, as did the market for canaries, and the market for a certain type of plant a few years ago.