TravelStream™ news feed for member annasidou on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/annasidou en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:10:24 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/germany_dec0607/1167234900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/germany_dec0607/1167234900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/germany_dec0607/1167234900/tpod.html Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:10:24 -0500 Germany or bust

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Frankfurt, Germany

I arrived in the Frankfurt airport and was immediately hit with the smell of cigarettes. Kind of disgusting, but hey - the first sign of culture shock... I was unable to sleep at all on the flight - a mixture of uncomfortable seats and having the pleasure of sitting next to a woman with three small children.
I met a girl, Kara, at the baggage claim and she was also traveling alone and headed to the train station so I walked with her. We separated ways and I went in to buy a rail pass. Probably the best 180 Euro investment. Individual rail tickets are really expensive and this way I can hop on any train anywhere at anytime and go places on a whim. I get to use 10 days of travel in a month - from midnight to midnight. You don't have to present the ticket upon boarding - but sometimes there are people walking around checking to make sure you have one. If you are caught without a ticket you have to pay about 40 Euros on the spot. But the trains run frequently and there are different kinds that stop more places than others - some local area trains and the fast long distance magnet trains.
It is a shame that I don't speak German because the train is an excellent place to meet people and ask questions and get good ideas of places to check out.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/germany_dec0607/1167135540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/germany_dec0607/1167135540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/germany_dec0607/1167135540/tpod.html Tue, 26 Dec 2006 07:29:44 -0500 Germany or bust

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Holt, Michigan, United States

I am, once again trying to pack at the last moment. I leave in about two and a half hours and so far have all the important things I need lying on the floor surrounding my bag.
I could kick myself for leaving my water bottle in Kalamazoo... I will just have to stop and buy one on my way to the airport, I suppose.
My plans for this trip are really rather non-existent. Luckily, I know where I will be going when I get to Frankfurt. I am to find the train station (sure to be an adventure in it of itself), attempt to purchase a German Rail pass for Die Bahn, and get myself over to Mainz for the night.
Hopefully it is as easy as I have written here.
So I have gotten just over 2 hours of sleep, and I have an 8-hour flight ahead of me. I will be the first to say that the jet lag very well may be the end of me. But my plan is to keep busy and push through somehow.
I'll be back in the states January 11th! Bye!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152590700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152590700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152590700/tpod.html Sat, 05 Aug 2006 01:05:42 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Tawangmangu, Indonesia

Translation: The waterfall and one more sex temple

Cassie and I did wake up extra early to experience the waterfall. We walked through the village in the wee morning hours, to see people sweeping, opening their shops, eating breakfast, and enjoying the crisp, morning air.
We had to pay a small entrance fee for the waterfall park, 4000 Rp (about 40 cents), and then we started the descent. At least a million steps covered in huge, tropical foliage - a very enchanting sight. We passed a handful of people on the way down and I was enjoying the scenery so much I could hardly contian my excitement while saying "Selamat pagi" (good morning) to everyone we saw. When we were almost to the bottom, one gentleman did not seem as eager as the others to return my morning wishes - and it was then that I realized, in all my excitement, I yelled it at him. Oops, I forgot that Indonesians are generally very soft-spoken and find loud people to be quite rude. I suppose it could have been worse, I could have yelled something more offensive than 'good morning'... I'll have to write that one off as being an "ugly American" slip-up. I was doing so well up until now!

But oh man, was the waterfall breath-taking. The Lonely Planet guidebook said that despite it's height it was not really all that remarkable. All I have to say is, if that is not impressive by LP's standards, I can't even imagine what other waterfalls in Indonesia must look like.
Cassie and I were the only ones there, would stood and enjoyed the view for a while, then decided we needed a better look. We began climbing over all these huge, slippery rocks (good thing we changed into sneakers as a last minute thought before leaving our hotel). Finally, after crossing a "sea" of lost flip-flops, we were mere feet from the base. The wind was so intense - spraying cold water all over us as it fell into the clear pool and rushing past us in fast-moving streams. After getting fairly soaked, we distanced ourselves from the water, settling on some large rocks in the middle of the stream, admiring the natural beauty for about an hour.
Then more people started to show up. A cute family of three asked if they could get their pictures taken with us, and several vendors set up shop. I went off on my own to explore and find monkeys.

It didn't take very long before I saw a few playing in the trees. After spending about 2 hours there, we started to leave. Those stairs are not nearly as fun to walk up as they were to walk down and my greetings of "pagi" we a lot less enthusiastic. At one point I turned around to notice about 30 monkeys rushing towards us in a huge pack. Luckily, they were intercepted by some children with peanuts.

Later, we were taken up to Candi Ceto, a very remote, very large Vishnu temple really high up the mountain. The scenery made me want to die. I'm not even kidding, that drive was single-handedly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Hills and hills of coffee, tea, and rice - lit up by the perfect sunlight, cascading into the distance. The temple was very interesting - I have never seen so many giant, rock-carved genitals in all my life. Fun fact - Ceto is the only temple in Java with Balinese-style split gates - so the Hindus who fled to the mountians and the ones who went to Bali must have been in communication with one another.

Back in Jogja we had the evening free to explore. Cassie and I took a becak ('bay-chuck') - a bike cart - to this coffeeshop called Java Nuts that I had noticed the week before. Really close to one of the universities, the place targets the student crowd. I found it to be very relaxing, a reminder of my local coffeehouse. THE COFFEE WAS FANTASTIC and the food was yummy too. And because I obviously can't go a whole day without making an American ass out of myself more than once - I gave the guy working a big tip. Which normally wouldn't be a big problem, but Indonesians rarely tip. The guy looked at me like I was nuts and we hurried out of there. I was just trying to be nice!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152857520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152857520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152857520/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:09:42 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I didn't get back to my hotel room until after 1:30AM last night and had to be at the airport at 5:30AM. I think I got 2 hours of sleep... maybe. Imagine my surprise when I was waiting in the security line and got a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and it was Wida! There with a farewell present! She hadn't slept all night so she would not miss being able to see me off. It was a very nice way to leave the city where I had stayed for a month.

When we finally got to Kuala Lumpur, our layover was supposed to be less than an hour. Who could have expected there to be a typhoon in Taiwan! Our next stop was Taipei, so we had to wait for almost 7 hours in the airport for us to get the ok to drive through it. Luckily our airline gave us meal vouchers and I am convinced the KL airport is one fo the most beautiful airports on earth - so the extended stay wasn't too bad. Flying through a typhoon, however, a little unnerving.

And with about 2 hours left to Taipei I realized something... I didn't feel well. Oh shit (litterally) - I have food poisoning. Leave it to me to get sick when I leave, it was probably the pizza I ate in the airport! Damn Western food! Just the thing to make the next 15 hours to LA more enjoyable. I maybe got 45 minutes of sleep total, it was horrible. On the plus side, I got to play 5 straight hours of Tetris...

In LA we had missed our connecting flights, so some confusion and a couple of hotel vouchers later, and I was able to sleep in a bed for about 2 hours. Then back to the airport for another day of traveling.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1154069340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1154069340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1154069340/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:06:50 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Jogja, Indonesia

The last day of our workshop, the last day in Jogja. My Mt. Merapi sculpture turned out way different than I had pictured in my head, but I am happy with it. Afterall, it was never the appearance I cared about - it was the idea behind it that mattered most of all. My altar also turned out well. I grabbed some candles from my hotel room, added some fruit, rice, and enough flowers to make Martha Stewart throw up. But it was missing something... I poked around Entang's storage area for some materials to construct an image of a god to complete my altar. That's when I found a red, wax replica of Entang's foot. In my mind I first thought, "Oh boy, a foot to put on my god!" and then I put it above the altar. But then that got me thinking about this whole religion thing. So I just sat in the rice field, looking at the real Mt. Merapi smoking, and thought about gods. I decided that it was very odd how humans create the ideas of higher beings but can not envision them in any other form than what we know - our own bodies, and the bodies of animals. How peculiar that I would find a foot and assume that a god would have a foot - or even a body!
So I went back to my altar and looked at the foot and decided that would suffice. A fake human foot could stand for an entire deity because the deity is that foot - it's anything I want to make it because I made the deity.

This was a very odd coclusion for me to come to, as I had fully intended on the trip tuning me into the spirituality of the local people, complicating my angostic tendancies. Instead I am just as cynical as ever, but with a much deeper appreciation for Buddhism as a way of life (not strictly a religion). But that is neither here nor there.

We had the critique, and everything went well (thankfully) - and I think Entang got a kick out of the fact that his foot is my 'god' (no pun intended).

Then all the artists and people we worked with during our stay came over and we had a little party and art exhibit. Each student got to show 3 pieces in the gallery and their sculptures. It was nice to see all of our accomplishments in one grand display, and to revisit with all the people we learned so much from durning pur time here. We even had a chocolate cake! Too bad it was not Western chocolate - it tasted like spice cake with cool whip on it. Oh well, it just reaffirms that you can't go to Indonesia and expect America.

When I returned to my hotel I was barely in the door before the phone rang. It was Wida, my estranged Couchsurfer friend! She was having dinner down the street with a friend and saw me walk into my building and she was on her way up! Good thing, after the CS website crashed I had no way of contacting her because I had her cell phone number saved on the site! So she came up with her friend from Japan and we sat and talked for probably close to 2 hours before we decided that it was my last night there and we had to go out. We gathered a handful of others and headed over to the Soda Lounge for some more talking and coffee. We played a very intense game of Snakes and Ladders and it made me wish I was staying longer, if for nothing else than to get to know Wida better! It was such a nice goodbye!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152686040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152686040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152686040/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:53:46 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Second day of the sculpture workshop and my gotong-royong project has turned into a experiment on the self-centeredness of Americans. I hung Merapi (upsidedown) in a space with fairly heave traffic, but away from the workspaces of everyone else. I went to everyone individually and explained my purpose - I can't do a piece on collaboration by myself. The Indonesians sure thought it was great and we very eager to help out. Even Anusapati and Entang thought it was a great idea and added to the project. But now it is out of my hands. I have no say in the eventual final outcome - or at least no more say than anyone else.

I set off to work on my second piece. Instead of focusing on the gods, I would focus on an offering, an altar - a blind stab in the ancient mysticism of the island in hopes of creating something that I can be proud of and that will get me a good grade.
And I found the perfect place for my altar - across from a giant installation sculpture project Delia is working on - a sort of fertility chamber, sex temple thing.

With still one more day left in the workshop, I hope everything turns out well. Maybe my fellow artists will find the inspiration to participate in my G-R project with as much enthusiasm as the Indonesian artists.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152597660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152597660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152597660/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:36:28 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Jogja, Indonesia

Today was the first day of our last workshop - sculpture. Our instructor is Anusapati, a very good looking Indonesia who was trained in the US at Pratt. When he was a student, he was so poor (I can certainly relate to that) that he couldn't afford clay, so he began collecting natural materials - sticks, coconuts, dried rice stalks, really anything he could find and he would use them to create works that are reminiscent of traditional Indonesian crafts. This is the basis of our workshop and the reason for my frustration.
The idea is to express something about our experience in Java, something that really made an impact on us as foreigners.
For me, it was gotong-royong. But how?
I decided that part of my sculpture is going to be a representation of Mt. Merapi upsidedown to show how a natural disaster (like a volcano erruption or an earthquake) can turn everyone's world upsidedown, but they all accept it, and work together to move on and turn it right-side up again.
After a couple hours of fiddling with the materials with no luck getting them to cooperate, I decided my idea was cursed. And then it hit me - I can't do a sculpture about gotong-royong alone! It has to be a collaboration! With a little help I created the frame for my Merapi and set out to inform others that my sculpture was a collaboration. But no one else seemed very excited about it. I sulked around, once again deciding my idea was cursed. My professor came up to me and said, "You know, when people in Java think they are cursed they find a pretty flower, a bit of rice, or a stick of incense and make an offering to the gods."
I had resolved to give up the whole idea and start fresh the following day on a new project, perhaps with some help from the gods.

Back at the hotel I was feeling very depressed about my project. Cassie and I had a very long conversation and she convinced me not to give up my idea for gotong-royong, I would just have to change my approach a little. Apparently my collective spirit does not jive with the individualist American artists I am surrounded by.
And a second project would not be a bad idea either... the "offering to the gods" is still rolling around in my head... perhaps I could sculpt a god?

We also went to a Wayang Kuit performance tonight. I'm not going to lie - it was kind of boring by my action-oriented American standards. It didn't help that the whole performance is in Indonesian and Javanese so I couldn't understand any of it. The puppets are really cool and it is interesting to see the production (the "fight" scenes were pretty amusing). One of those things that I am really glad I got to experience, but I would be hesitant to do it again. But there are these two narrator characters who lead the audience through the story and traditionally offer humorous commentary. Who would have thought that we would be the subject of such commentary...?

["Hey did you see the girls from the West in the audience tonight"
"OOO! I think I'm in love"
"Yeah, me too"]
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152459780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152459780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152459780/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 19:49:41 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Tawangmangu, Indonesia

We left early in the morning to spend a couple days in the mountains. Gorgeous beyond belief! Rice terraces stretch up the side of the mountains and down into bottomless valleys, curvy roads winding around tropical foliage, and the occassional bungalow tucked away - all untouched for generations. Simply enchanting.

We ventured up Mt. Lawu (a now inactive volcano) to visit Candi Sukuh, an "erotic" 15th century Hindu temple. When Islam began taking hold in Indonesia, the Hindus fled up the mountains (or to Bali) to continue their practice. Maybe it is because they were building the temples faster than before, maybe it is the more challenging landscape, or maybe it's because they were build centuries after the other temples in the area, but the mountain candis are far less ornamented than the others I have seen on the trip, and quite a lot more racey...

We stopped for the night in Tawangmangu, a quaint, but popular tourist village that reminds me a bit of the Indonesian equivalent of Old Forge. And, before leaving Jogja, Christine told me about the last time she was there. There is a big waterfall (Grojogan Sewu) on the outskirts of the village and she went a few years ago when she was 6-months pregnant with her first son. They went late in the evening so there were no other tourists there to occupy the monkeys who live around the waterfall and one ran up to her and bit her on the leg!
Not being afraid of a few hungry monkeys, Cassie and I decided to wake up early in the morning and check it out for ourselves...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152375960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152375960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152375960/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 19:27:34 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Jogja, Indonesia

Headed back to Prambanan (this time with backup) and were able to waltz right in... that's what happens when you have two guys who work there go in with you. Still were unable to actually go into the buildings themselves, but we allowed to look around the complex. When the earthquake hit, some stupa-shaped finials shot of the top and landed below making HUGE indents, one linga I had seen breaking off completely in the ground! There was also a crack in the center courtyard ground from the earthquake... crazy!

Tonight was also the wedding party for Dr. Oei's son. Not exactly what I had in mind. Quite possibly the most bizzare party I have ever been to. For starters, it was gigantic - over 3000 people in a big convention center type building. There was a stage, live band, and dance floor. There were also about 20 differnt buffets - any sort of food you can imagine - even one of ceramic goodies (which I attempted to take a bite out of, not realizing). That was one of the installations - as I mentioned before, Dr. Oei is the country's most renowned art collector. The vast majority of the guests were artists and many were asked to display paintings, sculptures, installations around the place (a lot of which were for sale in some sort of "members only" silent auction). One artist made a bunch of cardboard cutouts of Dr. Oei and positioned them around the enitre event, as a sort of way for him to greet all of his guests as he would clearly never be able to chit-chat with everyone. Visually, that was overwhelming enough - but there were also hundreds of giant, colorful wooden (maybe plastic or metal, I guess I really didn't know the material) hand made leaves all over the ceiling and a brief and very strange pseudo-performance piece. There were even salsa dancers. You could get a message or a haircut for free or have your fortune read and also have your portrait painted...
Which brings an rather interesting/awkward story... this is actually quite complicated and long, so I'll give the very shortened version.:
I was standing between the dance floor and the portrait painting area, watching people dance and this weird little man came over to me and started staring at my boobs (I was even wearing a very modest shirt, no cleavage or anything). He announced "I want to paint your portrait" directly to my chest and then looked up at my face. He had crazy hair and was missing his 2 front teeth and smelled very strongly of alcohol. His eyes were slitty and kind of rolling back into his head and he was quite wobbly on his feet. Next thing I knew he was grabbing a canvas and having me stand next to it. He kept asking me if I was "freedom" - whatever that means - and telling me I was unconventional. He pressed the canvas against my face and announced her was going to paint on my face and then push it into the canvas. Cassie started saying "walk away, just walk away" so I did, a bit freaked out and somehow with quite a bit of paint on my shirt.
I found Christine and Entang and told them what had happened and they said, oh that's so and so and he's really weird but an artistic genius - and also that he's pretty messed up. In Entang's words "That guy is on drugs, always on drugs..." He is apparently one of those artists who feels he needs to be in an altered state of mind to make anything worthwhile. The Christine suggested that I have him sign my shirt, as it was already covered in paint. So she walked with me back over there and talked to him in Indonesian at which point he told her he REALLY wanted to paint my picture and promised he wouldn't paint on me. Being the good sport that I am, I agreed.
"Can I paint your body first?"
"Uh, sure..."
Wham, two huge circles near the bottom of the canvas to represent my boobs. As he was painting the crowd around us grew and grew (to about 75 people all together). He was having me look in differnt directions, and act natural. I looked down and saw even more paint on me, "How'd that happen?"
Wham, he slaps paint on both my boobs, the crowd laughs. I decide to go through with it, even though at one point while he was painting my boobs he asked me to take off my shirt...
Portrait's done and he hands me a paintbrush and tells me to paint on his face. I do, and I painted boobs on him. The he grabbed another brush and gave me a Hitler mustache, gave me a Hial and then we shook hands, parted ways, and went to clean up.
It doesn't take long for word to travel becuase soon after my professor came up and asked me what happened. Cassie mentioned who had painted my portait and the response, "S Teddy D?! Wow!"
"You're acting like he's Brad Pitt or something."
"He is like Brad Pitt here - he's VERY famous - that painting is worth a lot of money, it's really hard to get his originals!"
So I left the party with my one of a kind S Teddy D portrait and a damn good story to go along with it. Apparently when I left, however, he wandered around looking for me. I must have made some impression on him...

Back from the party, a few of us decide to meet up with one of our professor's friends (Bill) at a bar to watch the World Cup game. He's this middle-aged British guy who works for the Red Cross. So we met him at a place called Bamboo where there was some pretty bad karaoke going on. The other Red Cross guys left and the game still hadn't started so Bill offered to take us to another bar across town called Liquid. I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into...
It was a big rave kind of place. All the kids were on some heavy drugs... techno, dancing, and throwing up we common themes. He was a good sport, danced with us (you can tell he was a middle-aged British guy by his moves alone), but then we all decided it was time to go home.

All in all, the craziest night in Jogja yet.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152285600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152285600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annasidou/se_asia_2006/1152285600/tpod.html Fri, 04 Aug 2006 18:49:01 -0400 A Taste of Java

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Yogyakarta, Indonesia

A day with nothing planned!
Djohan took me, Cassie, and Delia to this Batik supply store today. Cassie and Delia wanted to buy supplies for their classrooms (they are both high school art teachers) and I had a mind to pick up a set of chaunting tools myself. Not that I really have a specific purpose for them, but I did really enjoy batiking and if I can find the time and resources, I would like to continue doing it at home.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped by the most popular Catholic church in Jogja (which is currently being renovated due to earthquake damage). It is Djohan's church and a while back he had mentioned that the murals inside we quite impressive. Impressive is not really the word I would use to describe them... more like hilarious and random. Jesus at a pool party, sitting on a park bench in full robes and halo next to a man in a suit and tie (looking very uncomfortable, I might add). I will upload my pictures at the soonest possible time.
I felt bad for laughing, so I had to go to the opposite side of the room as Djohan - they were just way too funny...

Then for lunch we went back to Nino's (the deli I mentioned a few entries back with the old southern lady, Linda). Well, Linda and Nino had a new addition to their little "shop" in front - beautiful bags, shawls, and purses hand-woven by a collective of women weavers whose home was destroyed during the earthquake. The profits go to helping them rebuild their community which has worked so hard over the years to promote the traditional crafts and the economic importance of women in Javanese culture. You better believe I bought as much of their stuff as I could carry!
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