Long Overdue

It has been 2 months since we returned from Yogya and I can still feel the overloaded calories accumulated from the mere 3 weeks spent there. Despite my attempts at self-control, the food there is just too cheap to resist!! Imagine $0.80 for a cup of Jus Alpukat (the real blended stuff, indo style – avocado, condensed milk, coklat, gula and all). Our dear Fucai loves this roadside version – he has it almost every day! Such an influence is he that all of us have tried it at least once. I still prefer the Cinnamon Cafe version of Hazelnut Alpukat though (at about 3 times the price), and of course the times we spent nongkrong-ing at the numerous cafes.

From restaurants to cafes to warungs, we can’t seem to stop eating. Strangely enough, we technically never ate at the school canteen. (Dhava bought ampela from the canteen once for the resident kucings in Lembaga Bahasa.)

Being in Singapore for too long left me accustomed to the “Healthier Choice” kind of food. Yogya food in contrast was characterised by being overly sweet, salty, and of course, spicy. Some of us (me included) initially went around ordering Teh or Jus “tanpa gula” to prevent the possible onset of diabetes (paranoid!). We kind of got used to the Indo lifestyle as slowly but surely, Teh Manis became one of our must-haves at every meal. 

Reminiscing about the food there, here are just a few notable makanan/minuman we encountered during our stay:

Sugary Goodness

DURIAN MARTABAK – Durian-flavoured prata swimming in condensed milk

SODA GEMBIRA – Soda + Condensed Milk + Syrup + Ice (Almost a recipe for happiness*)

COLA GEMBIRA – Makes Fucai Happy ;)

Recipe for Happiness (*Cola Gembira is a variant of Soda Gembira)

Take it with a Pinch Mountain of Salt

MIE ACEH GORENG – Weirdly seasoned fried noodles yang berair
MIE AYAM – Chicken noodles with Mamee-Monster-like seasoning
MIE REBUS (not the Malay version) – Literally boiled (rebus) instant noodles
PANGSIT - Wanton

Not for the Faint-hearted

SATE KELINCI – Sate = Satay; Kelinci = Rabbit/Hare

Not exactly found in Yogya; we came across this during our excursion, in Kaliurang (i think).

Food We’ll Miss

NASI GURIH – Nasi Lemak  (the rendang sapi one at warung Aceh was good!)

NASI PECEL – Nasi + Sayur + Telur drenched in sweet peanut sauce; served on a plate/banana leaf 

TEMPE GORENG** – Beloved Dhava's favourite
**Trayfuls of tempe are served at almost every warung as a snack. Simply keep track of the number of pieces that you eat and pay for it at the end of the meal. Can you count faster than you eat? – no mean task since Dhava can’t resist good tempe goreng.

NANAMIA PIZZA – Wood-oven-baked slices of pizza that taste way better than they look (At $1 per slice, I could eat this everyday!)

Nanamia Pizzeria

Even at home - Indo home - I was well-fed and treated like a princess, with wholesome breakfast (including additional roti/snack to ta-bao - just like Stacy & Zhi Xin) and 
sumptuous dinner served every day (many thanks to our Ibu & Bapak!). 

Back in Singapore, I'll inevitably compare the food here vs. the food we had in Yogya, complaining how overpriced everything is. "Where have all the street food gone to?" "Where are the warungs?"  

"I want to eat durians in the drain!"  

Well, I guess it is time to tune back to reality. 
How I miss those precious days there - Kapan akan kembali ke Yogya lagi......

-Cindy-

The Full Yogyakarta Experience: Part 2: Homestay

Homestay - A key defining aspect of the Immersion Programme.

Just a week before departure, the gals and myself met up with Ibu Indri for a final briefing and confirmation of the immersion programme. We found out the names of our homestay families and the addresses. I was assigned to Dr J. Bismoko and the homestay location was stated to be approximately 10 minutes by foot from the Language Centre.

White box on the left is home; The other box is Sanata Dharma University

Above is the satellite map I got off Google Maps. Maybe something of interest to you is that unlike Singapore, many of the minor roads do not have names. For example, there is no road address at my homestay place. The place is identified according to the cluster. In my case, the cluster is named KarangMalang. From the map, the house looks pretty far away, but still I managed to get to school in 10 minutes or so.

Bagaimana sistem lalu lintas di Yogyakarta? 

In the map above, you can see 1 main road, Jalan Gelayan. It is a very busy high-traffic road and there are zebra crossings marked out across the road. However, these are for a decorative purpose as no one really cares to stop. The 'tactic' to crossing a busy road in Yogyakarta is to look out for small pockets of gaps within the traffic flow itself and to tactically insert yourself in between. Just walk normally and 99.999% of the time the motorists will try to avoid you.Of course, this is not something you can or should do in Singapore.

So who is Dr Bismoko?

Bapak Bismoko buying knives and holding on to a bunch of bananas

During the brief, Ibu Indrianti told me that Bapak Bismoko was her English language teacher when she was an undergrad at Universitas Sanata Dharma. She sort of mentioned that she was afraid of him as he was insanely smart. Her words made my imagination run wild. What kind of person is this Dr Bismoko? Is he the super-strict guy? Will he be difficult to get along with? Being the kay-poh that I am, I went to investigate [with Google]. It seems that Dr Bismoko is quite an authority in English Language studies within ASEAN, he had given quite a handful of speeches regarding English Language education in regional conferences. My 'investigation' still left me with lots of unknowns, will I be able to get along with him and his family? One thing is for sure though, I will have no problems speaking English there!

HomeStay at Bapak Bismoko 


Touching down from the airport, we were fetched by the staff of the Lembaga Bahasa Universitas Sanata Dharma [Language Institute of USD] to the school campus for a brief introduction and a placement test! [YES! A placement test straight after 2 hours of flight!] After that, we were sent to our homestay locations.

KarangMalang Map

Bapak Bismoko's home is located in Karang Malang. The area is made up of little warungs and some kos (boarding house). Bapak Bismoko's home is close to quite a number of universities, as such there are many kos in the area. The area that I lived in happened to be a kos area for women. Bapak Bismoko's residence is made up of a 2 storey building. Bapak Bismoko, his family and myself stays on the ground floor while the 2nd floor is a kos for the girls. [In case you are wondering, I did not get a lot of opportunities to hang around with the girls.]

Double Doors leading into the same room.

The house is weirdly configured. There are a total of 3 doors leading into the house.  1 main door, and 2 side doors that are next to each other. The girls will have their own side door and I have my own as well. I'm not sure why is it arranged this way and neither did I ask Bapak Bismoko about it.

First Encounter with 'Pak Bis'
My first encounter with Bapak Bismoko was an interesting one. He introduced himself, "Hi I am Pak Bismoko, you can call me Pak Bis." He got me a bar of soap and told me to have a good bath and rest since I had just arrived from Singapore.

So, I entered my room and started to unpack. Here's a picture of my room.

My room

First impression of room, "Wah big! Wah got air-con! Wah got bathtub in toilet!". But yes, good first impressions always wear off after awhile. There was lizard crap over the left edge of the bed. The bathtub was for show [as mentioned in the previous page]. And yes, I had brought my laptop there. Without internet, the laptop was useless! So did you think I enjoyed my time at the homestay? Well, I did. There were other things that more than made up for the cons of the place [like the air-con and stuff that I will talk about later]!

And then, I thought, it was time to finally bathe after all the unpacking. So, I tried to lock the door. Guess what, the lock wasn't working! I told Pak Bis about it, we spent the next hour or 2 dismantling the door locks from other doors and swapping them around. When we started to dismantle my own door, we realized it was stucked in a semi-lock position and we couldn't remove the lock. So off Pak Bis went to his toolshed and back he came with hammers and other tools. We banged and slammed at the lock and tried our best to 'destroy' the lock. The lock survived. Pak Bis was quite strong for a man turning 70.

Just when we ran out of ideas and strength, I suddenly noticed that the brand of the key that was given to me did not match the lock. I suspected that the key was wrong, Pak Bis wasn't convinced. So anyway, I was right. The 2 hours we spent trying to fix the lock was a waste of time! Weirdly enough, I found it quite fun for reasons that I myself do not understand as well.

This  incident wow-ed me, I realized that Pak Bis, despite his age, was amazingly independent. He is the fix-it-all guy in the house. It seems that the water piping system and all the doors in the house were installed by Pak Bis himself. I did not recall seeing a maid in the house during my 3 weeks stay there. The house despite not being spotlessly clean, was in a very good shape.

Subsequent Notable Experiences with Pak Bis

Dinner with  Pak Bis was always interesting. Our conversations touched on a wide range of topics, sistem lalu lintas  and healthcare di Indonesia, strategies for crossing roads [as mentioned above] and even to corruption in Indonesia. Pak Bis talked about how he tried to keep fit by walking to the schools that he teaches at [one of it is at least 20 to 30 minutes walk away] and why he decided against the use of a backpack as his work bag. Apparently, he uses a hand-carried bag because such a bag would utilize his arm muscles. He also makes sure that both hands are utilized equally! Interesting enough, he even showed me his healthcare report.

Kampung Area and Pak Bis' Jeep

Towards the end of the 3 weeks, we had sort of ran out of places to go too. To be more precise, there were places to go to, just that we did not have sufficient time to visit them due to the long traveling time required. So Pak Bis, being the nice man that he is, offered to bring all of us to a traditional market [refer to the pic above with him holding on the bananas]. Also, we visited the kampung that he grew up in and snacked on many types of traditional Indo kuehs. It was a very different experience as compared to the tourism-oriented homestay covered as part of the NUS-organized excursion. Our local guide was Pak Bis and he showed us around the irrigation channels around the village and the avocado trees in the area


Of course, there are some negatives about the homestay as well [Food]. However, I shall leave that for my other posts.

Keluarga Saya di Yogyakarta

For those of you who have started reading the entries in chronological order would soon realise that this entry, will not be as dramatic, but it will not be any less insightful. If you reading this entry as your first few, it will get better. I guarantee you that because teman-teman saya, are very interesting people! =)

Many of us out there, love the idea of travelling. But what makes the Immersion Programme all the more special? It is theHomestay part of the entire trip. I think there is mixed responses to the homestay. Depending on our personality and very much our luck, it could turn out to the be either the best or the worst part of a trip. In fact, I was pretty apprehensive about the Immersion because I had tremendous fear of how it would be like to stay with complete strangers. So making the decision to go for the Immersion was not an easy one. But, I am truly glad to have gone for it!

To stay in pretty upmarket hotels and visit touristy sights are certainly on every To-Do List when we travel. But it is definitely difficult to truly experience and immerse ourselves in a completely different culture. So I have been babbling three paragraphs, so what is the point that I am driving? Well, THE HOMESTAY EXPERIENCE IS FANTASTIC!

Unfortunately, I did not get to stay in Yogyakarta as long as the others had. I had to leave earlier due to prior commitments but that did not make me experience any less! =) So let me take the next 5 minutes of your time to tell you why you should not be worried about the Homestay!

Firstly, your Homestay Family will do their best to accommodate you. I definitely know this because I do not take diary products and I do not take beef and I never had to worry about it! So my Homestay Family took care in ensuring that I definitely have something to eat! =) (Well, food is a vital part of my existence and I did expect to lose weight in Yogyakarta, which I obviously did not. You will find out in a couple more lines=))

Secondly, you will definitely not go hungry. Why? For starters, for someone who skips breakfast, I learnt what Breakfast entailed. For someone who did not bring packed lunch-boxes to school when I was younger, I sort of experienced it! It was a really sweet gesture by the way. But it also happened that my Homestay Family was really sweet! =)

So check out the following for what is in store for a typical breakfast we had in the morning!


Part of every breakfast, apart from the food is the oh-so-important beverage! We could definitely help ourselves to the Coffee/Tea/Water, but there will always be a Today's Special kind of juice prepared for us. We tried all sorts of combination juice during our stay and it was a really nice addition to our breakfast. Especially when it is freshly blended! Yes, the word is right, it is blended and not just juiced! So all the fibre remains in the drink itself. A bit strange in the beginning, but we did realise the benefits of all the fibres. So check out the following Juz Mangga!


Roti Isi Krim Blueberry!


Pisang Goreng,


Before I go onto introducing anything else further, the Blueberry Cream Bread and Pisang Goreng is something that the Ibu always prepare for us when we head out for school/excursion. She prepares it because she knows we will be hungry and so the bread will come in handy. This practice never stops even when we went for our excursion. That is when she prepared the Banana Fritter for our journey. How sweet is that? =) It just brings a smile to know that I was that looked after when I was away from home. In a weird way, I just feel young all over again, for someone to just fuss over us!

So the sandwich is typical of a day's breakfast, but we also had Nasi Goreng occassionally and even Bubur Ayam. It does seem that our Breakfast was always a great big fanfare. More so at dinner. Which I believe you can read about in ZhiXin's posts somewhere below! =) So check out the Indonesian porridge we tried!

I realised that for the so many pictures of food that I always take, I left out the important Egg. There will be an egg for each of us every morning. Be it hard-boiled or sunny-side up, there will be an egg. Which explains the weight gained during our trip!

So, it may seem strange to you that I chose to illustrate my Homestay experience with the Breakfast that I had throughout my Immersion. But I hope to give you an alternative perspective of the warmth of the Homestay Family's hospitality. I could not ask for more. The Breakfast is just one of many things that I have experience with them and I could never ask for a better trip. I knew that when I felt homesick during the Excursion, not for my home in Singapore but for my home in Yogyakarta. Surprising isn't it?

There is so much more to share about the Yogyakarta's experience and I hope the find a chance to write it in the Group's blog. I had written some of my own Yogyakarta's experiences in my personal blogs. Do let me know somehow if you want to find out more and I will be more than willing to share my experiences with all! =)

So let me end this post by introducing Keluarga Saya di Yogyakarta,

The Full Yogyakarta Experience: Part 1: Introduction [Fucai]

I have decided to break my entire Immersion Programme Experience up into a series of blog posts as I will not be doing justice to the trip by condensing everything into a single entry [and I can procrastinate more in posting my entries]! Anyway, if you are reading this, you probably are one of the following person:

1. You happen to come across this blog by chance
2. You are an Indonesian Language Instructor @ NUS [Hi Ibu!]
3. You are a student who is keen to participate in the next programme! [Silakan Ikut!]

I shall assume that you are person number 3. I had deliberately titled my posts the 'Full' Yogyakarta experience for a series of reasons.

Traditional Market: Something you will not see in tour packages!

Firstly, students are able to join the excursion portion of the trip if they are unable to make it for the entire immersion programme [or if they just want to have the 'touristy' part of the whole thing]. In this sense, not everyone that has joined this programme via indirect means have experienced the real deal.

Secondly, I've been on a 1.5 month long summer programme to Korea University a year ago. I've had a blast of a time there. But one thing is for sure, no other holiday  summer programmes can give you a higher level of exposure to local culture and lifestyle as this programme.

Our accommodation in Yogyakarta is that of a home-stay arrangement, we stay in the homes of Indonesian families and experience the Indonesian lifestyle as closely as possible. With the exception of Choon Yen, all of us did not have Internet access and heated-water at our home-stay. You will definitely learn to appreciate the simple things in Singapore that you had taken for granted! Yes, there is a set of 'inconveniences', but isn't this the point of an immersion programme? To experience life in a foreign place as close to reality as possible!

Don't be deceived by the bathtub! I had to bathe using the pail and the scoop. The showerhead was not working!

In addition to that, I felt really refreshed interacting with the Indonesians. It was a break away from Singapore's society, away from the ultra-competitive environment and the mood of negativity that has mysteriously gripped Singapore [Maybe that's just General Elections hangover?]. I felt that I was in a place of peace during my 3 weeks in Yogyakarta. This is THE place to let loose and relax.

Fucai

Tambah sebagai teman...lagi...lagi...lagi...lagi...

Back home... to internet

I've finally returned to Singapore and first things first, I have a long 'i-miss-you-honey-bunch' session with my facebook account. What? No access to Facebook when in Indonesia? Hadn't I brought my trusty netbook with me precisely for that very purpose- to maintain my connectivity to billions and billions of gigabytes? Of course! But how was I to foresee that Sanata Dharma was going to throw a wet blanket over my virtual dreams of internet usage by blocking Facebook and Youtube before 2pm? And did I mention that more often than not, our break was between the hours of 1200 and 1400? Brilliant! 

Anyway, that is not the point of this blog entry that Ibu Indri has repeatedly reminded me to type, with the  persistence of a loan shark owed tonnes of money, wielding bright red paint and some marker pens(O$P$, yo!). The subject of this blog entry is the extension of Indonesian friendliness into cyberspace, and how it is at odds with my Singaporean unfriendliness. So I must go back to my pengalaman Facebook. 

The hidden perils of FB

Because of my sparkling personality and lovable nature, several new Indonesian friends I've made during the course of my one month stay in Indonesia added me on Facebook. As I look back, I think I am able to say with confidence that this was indeed the start of my virtual troubles. And perhaps, I should have known.

Several days later, I find that strange Indonesians I have never met are starting to add me on Facebook. Do imagine me frowning at this point, because I am. Upon closer inspection, I find that most are friends of my friends. However, the important point here is... who are these people?! I have never even shared the same breathing space as these people so why in the world are they adding me on Facebook, and in doing so, falsely claiming to know me? 

Frustrated with more questions than answers, I turned to Facebook. 

Status update 1
Dhava ลักษมี Psince i came back from indonesia random people from goodness knows where have been adding me on fb... WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE???!!! AM I BEING STALKED???10 Juni jam 21:45 ·  · Musawwadah Mukhtar your number of friends is too small compared to average Indonesian, sometimes I feel bad to refuse :DMusawwadah Mukhtar jika kamu menolak, dia berkata,"ih, Dhava sombong deh, tidak mau berteman." :-) 

Status update 2Dhava ลักษมี P
Question of the day: Kenapa orang Indonesia mau berteman dengan semua orang?11 Juni jam 20:40 ·  · Indrianti Iin Karena kami baik hati dan tidak sombong ^_^

Interesting. Apparently Indonesians are so fond of Facebook and making new friends, they like to go around adding anyone and everyone to their exponentially growing list. 

Something scary

Unbeknownst to me, Indonesian societal norms had successfully extended its octopus like arms into the virtual world and trapped the unsuspecting me so that now I too have to abide by them and be friendly or be blacklisted as 'sombong' for the rest of my life.  Perhaps I should be flattered that someone out there actually wants to be friends with my cold hearted Singaporean self. 

And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say - that the Singaporean's small heart grew three sizes that day. And then - the true meaning of Indonesian hospitality came through, and the Singaporean found the strength of *ten* Singaporeans, plus two! -Taken and corrupted from 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'

- Post written(or rather, painstakingly typed) by Dhava yang rindu Indonesia and its quirky people dari Singapura, bukan India. Sigh...

My Yogyakarta Experience: The Water Heater That Is Really a Gas Stove

The video (below) shows the water heater that I used for bathing at my homestay family’s (my other friends didn’t enjoy warm bathing water except on the excursion but that’s beside the point – they would have their own experiences to share about bathing daily with a huge tub of water and a scoop).

So, the title of the video should have given you clear ideas about the workings of this particular water heater – it works like a gas stove. When I turn on the hot water tap sufficiently, the heater will perform its fire-spewing ability and heat up the water before letting it come through the shower head!





WHICH WAS REALLY SCARY, I must say. The first day I used it, I thought something exploded! I was still shocked by it on the second day. And mildly disturbed in the days after. After all, fire-spewing isn’t something I’m used to back in Singapore.

When I posted this on Facebook, my friend asked if I tried cooking an egg with it? Ridiculous really (how was I supposed to do that?!) but hilarious for her to come up with such a suggestion.

On hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t do stupid things with it because I suspect it’s antique material after reading the eldest son’s comment on my video on Facebook,

“Hahahahahaha,,I think you would not find that kind of water heater anymore in Singapore (^^) I can’t even remember when my mom bought it XP”

The process of bathing was arduous because with a stove-like heater, the temperature keeps increasing (that’s how stoves work!). I took very very long to bathe each time because halfway through I would have to readjust the water temperature until it becomes comfortably warm and not scorching hot (actually that would have been sufficient for me to cook an egg really...).

Sometimes I can smell the gas which is mildly disturbing, because in Singapore if I smell that I usually think of 3 things: someone wants to commit suicide, someone forgot to switch off the stove or there is gas leak somewhere somehow – and then *suffocates* *explodes* *OMG*.

Scary thoughts really. At least I got my warm/hot/scorching hot bathing water...

Khoo Choon Yen :)

After reading Choon Yen’s post on her experiences, I think mine just pales in comparison. I shall try to attempt to make this post a little more interesting by adding photos along the way :) But still, after teasing her for almost the entire trip, her post on the ‘memeluk’ incident still brings a smile to my face :)

The 3 weeks in Indonesia made me appreciate Singapore more. Safety, comfort, internet connectivity and even hot water for bathing that we take for granted in Singapore were missing for most of the time in Yogyakarta. However, the absence of all these things could not compare to what I received throughout the trip. It was not just a 3 week stay in Indonesia to learn Bahasa Indonesia, but 21 days of experiencing their culture, interacting with Indonesians and also learning their way of life.

I had a chance to stay with an Indonesian family and it was a pleasure to stay with them! Every morning I had sandwiches or fried rice together with an egg (either hard-boiled or fried) and a cup of fruit juice for breakfast. In addition, my homestay mother gave me bread to eat during breaks so that I will not get hungry.

The room which I stayed in for 3 weeks! 

Lunch was usually settled at one of the warungs (stalls) near school and they usually cost only about $1.50 for a meal. 

Soto, one of the favourite dishes of the group! 

Dinner was always delicious, with a variety of authentic Indonesian dishes, often flavoured with different spices. 

Satay, tempe and rice for dinner!

Of course, there were many interesting things that happened during the 3 weeks in Yogyakarta. Being taught in NUS that kemarin means yesterday and besok means tomorrow, we did not find out the other meanings of these 2 words until we interacted with the teachers in Sanata Dharma. For example, they asked us things like ‘Bagaimana gamelan kemarin?’, and in our minds, we were thinking ‘Did we had gamelan yesterday?’ or ‘I thought we didn’t have any cultural classes yesterday’ and I even tried to tell them ‘Bukan. Kami tidak ada gamelan kemarin.’, when all they wanted to ask was how was the activity the other day.

Another interesting thing was that we saw the words ‘nasi kucing’ on the menu of one of the warungs near school and we thought that just like how chicken rice is nasi ayam, ‘nasi kucing’ would then mean ‘cat rice’. We were kind of disgusted but also interested to find out how ‘cat rice’ would be like. However, a check with the teachers easily solved the question we had. ‘Nasi kucing’, unlike nasi ayam, is actually rice that is served in very small portions together with some side dishes.  

The closing ceremony for our programme was yet another highlight. The teachers showed us their talents in singing, playing the guitar and also dancing while we performed a simple song presentation >_< But the fun only started after the closing ceremony, when the teachers started their own ‘karaoke session’! One teacher was playing the guitar, while the others were singing and dancing to the songs. While they were all having fun, dancing and singing enthusiastically, we were sitting at one side, amazed at them but yet too embarrassed to join them. 

Teachers dancing and singing to the guitar's melody

They seemed to be so carefree, simply enjoying the act of dancing and singing, something that I guess, many Singaporeans aren’t capable of.

Photo with the teachers (sadly, Stacy went back to Singapore earlier  for her internship:( ) 

 It was a truly wonderful experience learning Bahasa Indonesia at Universitas Sanata Dharma with the fun-loving teachers and also with my homestay family!


zhixin