Holidays! This is our third full day in Ubud, staying at the Puri Sarasawati, at the Royal Palace. It's clearly and Indonesian hotel, and expensive, compared to hotels elsewhere in Bali, but very nice. I'm able to type this on my balcony, overlooking the pool and gardens, courtesy of Indosat 3G.

We've done a lot of walking, and Helen has also done a long run. (I did a mile the first morning.) A lot of the walking was done around the shops, but, yesterday, we went for an afternoon walk up the Penestanan steps. Despite the increasing drizzle, all was well for the first two kilometres, and we were on the road back into Ubud. Helen then decided to cross the subak (irrigation channel) and climb the mud steps up to the rice paddies. The last time we did this, we walked to the right, and went 10km out of our way. This time, we went left, and ended up going10km out of our way.

All we had to do, we thought, was to keep parallel to the road, and end up at the back of the Monkey Forest. However, the twists and turns of the roads, once we had finished half an hour of circumnavigating the paddies, resulted in us having little idea of where we were. One village lady sent us 600m down a dead end, beside a river, then another pointed us in the direction of Nyuh Kuning, our entrance to the Monkey Forest. Somehow, we missed a turn, and ended up two kilometres from the entrance. The rain was steady by now, leaving us soaked.

We entered the forest, in the failing light, and trudged up Monkey Forest Rd. We stopped at The Waroeng for a drink and snacks, before going back to the hotel.

We both love Ubud, because it is always an interesting place to walk around. The market has good stuff that is hard to find in other places, and there are some great clothes shops. The real attraction, however, is the plethora of excellent restaurants, which makes running and walking frequently, and far, a necessity when staying here.

We bought home two very small kittens on Tuesday afternoon. They were half of a litter that a cat had had out in the pre-elementary school. One was white, with a tail, so Helen wanted it to replace Cappucino. One of the other three, ginger, kittens had a tail, so I suggested that we take two. We were going to leave them another week, but the mother was behaving as though she was going to move them, because students from pre-elementary were hanging around.

The white one was named "Latte" and the other "Jahe" (two syllables, meaning ginger, in Indonesian). In three days, they have gone from being helpless to climbing out of their basket, eating and drinking by themselves, using the dirt tray, and returning to their basket to sleep. Latte ithe s very much more energetic one, and makes as much noise as her predecessor. Martini and Helen spend a lot of time looking at them, particularly when they play.

The mother cat went around the area near the pre-elementary school looking for them, and even went into Helen's office to sniff around. Helen said that she couldn't look the cat in the eye, and her office staff stirred her about it.

We've just come back from our first game of touch for a while. It was fun, and I played alright, for an old bloke. We had a professional development day at school, after the Chinese New Year holiday yesterday (so that the kids have a four-day weekend). It was basically my idea, after being at the IBO conference in Singapore last October. We had non-teaching staff as well, looking at making the school sustainable, before we do anything with the kids.

The results were excellent, particularly in the way that many of the non-teaching staff really "got it" and showed some leadership in their groups. We have some clear strategies to look at, across the whole school, for a solid beginning.

I’ve been to Celebrity gym this week, at the Mall. Last
week, Helen got me to use a three-month free membership that I’d won. The first
RPM class I went to, I thought I’d die, only half-way through, but for the
second and third time I could keep up with little problem, except that I’d
prefer the A/C set a bit cooler.

The three times that I’ve been, the clientele has been very
Chinese-Indonesian. There are some very solid, fit Indonesian blokes – at the
moment I can’t even move some of the machines some of them do. The women are
classic. Many of them dress in outfits that would have the Young Islamic
Defenders Front crashing through the doors if they knew about them. However,
it’s terrific to see a culture of physical fitness permeating steadily through
society in Surabaya. A couple of colleagues and other expats come as well, and
some of them have personal trainers.

I went for my usual walk through the village of Lakarsantri
this morning. It’s a fairly typical, dirty Javanese village. The really
disappointing thing is the air pollution, simply because there is no education
or enforcement about vehicle emissions. A single motor bike here can pollute as
much as a whole suburb in Australia, and some of the trucks and buses defy
belief.

There are quite a few locals as well as other exercisers who
I regularly encounter on the 2.5km circuit, so “Selamat pagi” (good morning)
gets used a lot. This week has been Indonesian school holidays, so there have
been quite a few kids out and about early. Lots of village boys, and some
girls, now have bicycles, and packs of them venture out into the land of the
rich in the early morning. In the late afternoons it is usually the older
idiots who drag race on their motor cycles, although the City Guard (as their
trucks say) have done a fair job of keeping an eye on them. Weekends are
usually when young men and women get together for village courting rituals. I’m
not sure that a motor scooter is quite the same as the back of a panel van.

It was a lovely morning this morning, with the volcanoes visible in the distance. I walked around the (4.5km) "block", and it's weird how the volcanoes appear in different places in relation to you, depending on where you are on the circuit.

However, the remnants of one of the biggest storms I've seen, anywhere, is pattering away outside. I was watching Dr. Who when the storm unleashed, and extinguished our electricity. I quickly established that it was only our house, which meant that some circuit breakers had thrown. With the aid of a torch (previously secreted for such a contingency) I re-set the switches in the garage, which did not restore the power. That meant a trip to the front gate, where there (for reasons that escape me) other switches. After slipping on the wet floor and nearly breaking my leg, I couldn't find an umbrella. (There were golf umbrellas in the golf bags in the garage.) Under the flimsy cover of my collapsible umbrella I battled to the gatepost and restored the electricity.

The storm was blowing through the house, so I had to shut all the doors. When I switched the assorted media devices back on to resume my viewing, I had to use headphones, with the sound turned to near full volume, to hear the DVD over the storm. It lasted about 45 minutes.

Helen had been at Celebrity gym at the Mall. They play the music so loud that they wouldn't hear a thermonuclear explosion. She knew it had been bad by the flood waters everywhere on the way home.

Helen and I did not get our swimming costumes out of our cases in holidays. Melbourne, before Christmas, was cold, it rained all the time on the Sunshine Coast, and it was cool and wet back in Sydney.

However, time spent with families was great. Everyone seemed pretty well and happy. We had a nice Christmas Day and evening. Mum was introduced to full contact Pictionary after tea.

I was a bit teary saying goodbye to Lyndsey and Sean, as I wandered into the packed Virgin Blue terminal to go back to Sydney. Helen had got us a room with a great view of The Bridge. I got a bit tired of walking and running up and down hills in North Sydney in the mornings (and out at Castle Hill, around Helen's parent's place). We did a couple of ferry trips (and an expensive taxi trip to meet friends when the #@$%-ing ferries didn't turn up!). We caught up with some of Helen's friends, and relaxed a bit. The trip back to Pennant Hills station took two buses and two trains, courtesy of holiday track works.

Jetstar deposited us in damp Maroochydore, and we collected our little hire car to drive to Mum's. Every time we went outside it rained. One morning, I was at the "point of no return" on the other side of the canal, and had to walk and jog 4km home in the horizontal rain. However, we did a bit of shopping, and it was good to spend more time with Mum.

We tied up a few loose ends back in Sydney, and I popped into the recruiting fair at Darling Harbour. We flew back with Amy, Helen's niece, who did very well in her H.S.C.

Today was our third day back at school . Tomorrow we have a holiday for Muslim New Year. Tuesday, the first day back, was very sad, because the senior Elementary PE teacher, an icon in the school, was killed in a traffic accident in the early hours of the morning. His two little kids are still in hospital, but will be okay. We held a Muslim service for him with all the teachers after school, and all the teachers who were not teaching went to the funeral.

Apart from that (!!!), it's been a smooth start. I've been trying to replace my desktop at school and the one at home with my new HP laptop. I've got it working on the school network, but not on the Wi-Fi, and not on the internet at home. In addition, I somehow lost Helen's Nokia phone, with my Indonesian chip in it, on Tuesday. I've no idea how it happened.

We'll probably head up into the hills on the long weekend. The original plan was to drive to Madura, but consensus had it that more than 6 hours in the car wasn't what we really wanted to do. Hopefully, I'll be refreshed, and ready to take on a full week, next week.

Holidays! Into the 6^th day, and I'm beginning to relax. We landed in Sydney about lunchtime, Sunday, after a maximum three hours?sleep on the plane. (We thought we'd be okay, with no little kids near us, but the bloke behind us snored like a dying water buffalo, and his female companion kept kicking the back of my seat.)

Helen's sister, Diane, with young people Amy and Tim, met us and drove us to Helen's parent's place at Castle Hills. We spent a couple of pleasant (cool) days together there before I flew to Melbourne. Helen got back into running, and I did a few long walks. - the Hills are really hills.

Mark picked me up at the airport, yesterday, and drove me to the place he rents in Sunbury. Mum had arrived the day before. The house is 1km from anywhere, and Mark had to return to work. In the afternoon, I walked down to the shopping centre to get a few things. Sunbury seemed pretty unimpressive, although the train timetables indicated that it was well-serviced for trips to Melbourne. Mark works very long hours, so I cooked what was in the fridge and cupboard ?sausages, potatoes and frozen veggies.

This morning, I ran down to Safeway to get the paper, and then ran and walked back in the drizzle. Later on, I walked about 2km to what Mark and I thought was the post office, on the highway. It turned out to be a parcel collection depot. I found the actual post office in the main street. The other side of the railway line (to Mark's place) is quite nice ?churches and parks, and the original town shopping strips, with nice shops and restaurants. There are plenty of worse places to live than Sunbury.

In the afternoon, Lyndsey and Simon stopped by, on their way from Canberra, via Bright, to Moorabbin. They both seemed very healthy and happy. 

One of the things that I noticed in Sunbury was that most people were friendly, prepared to say "Hello" and help a stranger. People around the world are pretty good like that, if given a chance.

We were both crook yesterday, after the "Surabaya Triathlon". Helen shouldn't have even attempted it. She was sick two days before. She pulled out of the swim after tone and a half of the 10 laps, dod the 20km ride, but couldn't do the run. She was very upset.

I was happy with my ride, and the team of my colleague, Rod, and I finished third overall and was first team. (Not bad, for a combined age of 107.) The Indonesian bloke who arrived first was a bit stiff to be disqualified - he would have "walked" it in, and ran about the right distance, if not on the exact course. Another colleague, Cam, who also plays a bit of guitar with me, won well.

I'm not sure whether it was because I didn't drink enough, but I spent the bulk of the day with a migraine. In the end, dosing on panadol and putting on a sleeping mask was the only cure. In the afternoon we both recovered sufficiently to go for a short walk. We ended up having jaffles for tea, which was a nice change.

Last week was very hectic. Helen was giving a keynote speech in Jakarta, at a national teachers' conference, and was reported in the Jakarta Post. I was busy with SMART (Skills, Motivation, Attitudes, Thinking, Reflection) Week at school - open house, with a a different name. It was pretty good, but a lot of work for me, and many of the teachers. In the High School alone, we had a Science Fair, Art show, Technology Fair, and Maths Night. Then we had the Smartest School and "6X6 Super Sports" inter-school competitions. (We won the latter.) On the Thursday we set a record of 13450 people skipping at once in Indonesia, then went on to have a day of round-robin ball games.

On the Friday, Helen was back, and we did an exhibition at the Shangri La Hotel. WE didn't get a lot of people, but we did get more of those who came sigh up, compared to last year. We were home after 9:30pm, and crashed.

This week, Helen is away again, doing a school evaluation, and everyone else is writing reports. I've even got a Maths class to do (with no replacement in sight).

It is absolutely bucketing as I write - the rainy season may finally be here. It's cooler, but we'll get sick of that all too soon.

Our cat died last night. Cappucino had been very listless yesterday, and then disappeared last night. We looked everywhere for him, without success, before we went to bed. He has disappeared at night before, but not when sick. I looked up and down the street this morning, and then went for my usual, 3km walk. As I turned into our stree, I saw him lying on a neighbour's front step. Even though he was in his typical sleeping pose, I could tell that he was dead.

I carried him home and put him on the front lawn. Helen and I cried, and Martini went to pieces - she wanted him when we left Indonesia. I dug a hole in the front lawn and buried him.

Non-cat people wouldn't understand, but it's hard not to cry while I type this. I've had a number of cats, and loved them all. Cappucino was Helen's cat, but he grew to belong to the three of us. He worshipped Martini, who did most of the feeding. He would go for walks with her, and wait outside other people's houses for her.

He was probably the loudest cat I've ever heard. He could not take a step without making a noise. In Bali, he had no consistent routine, and was almost feral. I suggested a few simple rules, such as only two meals a day, to train him into being a pet. This worked, and, by the time we moved to Surabaya, he had developed his "personality".

Cappucino was one of the most physically beautiful "moggies" ever. He was bigger than the average Indonesian cat, and, when we lived at the Ciputra villas, roamed wherever he wished. At Taman Mansion, it was the same, although they was a big grey mongrel that caused him concerns. He got very sick twice (resulting in "intensive care" at the vet's), which meant that he had to re-gain his territory when he got better. That's what he was doing this week when, suddenly, he went downhill again.

The house is going to be much quieter.

Last day of the holidays. They were pretty good. Climbing Mt. Rinjani (most of it) was great, although it took us three days to recover, and we are not completely sure that we have. (See my website for report and photos.)

Last night was a very "Indonesian" evening. We decided to try out a new restaurant in town. The decor was good, and the food was good, for the price. I ordered a Heineken draught beer, and Helen had a margaritia. Now, to me, "draught" means out of a tap, connected to a barrel. I'm not sure from where my beer came, but, when I wanted a second, I was told it was "habis" (finished). Hmmm...

I ascertained that they had Bintang, in (of course) large bottles only. I ordered one, and a waitress poured a glass from it. When I sipped it, it was cool, but not cold. Another waiter came to ask how things were, so we told him. He took the remains in the bottle away.

When we eventually paid, the owner (manager?) talked to us, and kept bowing, deeply. We related the beer story, and suggested that, if he wanted crowds of Westerners, maybe they should keep plenty of Bintang, cold. He said "Didn't you want the Heineken?" and we told him the story. He was pretty annoyed when a waiter verified it - ie: someone knew they were low, but no-one did anything about it. He offered us a free meal next visit, but we said it was okay.

We then caught a taxi back towards home, and when to a place we'd noticed called Nen's Corner. It had a nice feel, and had a band. However, they only had beer, because the barman, who did all the other drinks, was yet to return from Lebaran. It transoired that the beer was (you guessed it) "habis". We assured the staff that we would return when we could get a drink, and caught another taxi to the Lido.

The band was the usual bass player and drummer, and two other blokes. The were good, but did only two songs before taking a very long break. We stood the cigarette smoke for as long as we could, and came home.
  

The last couple of weeks have been pretty good. Saturday night, we went to a function for the expatriate women's club, at the Majapahit Hotel. There were a lot of people to chat with, and the snack food was good. Three girls from school played some music, and attracted some attention.

Afterwards, a few of us went to a flash restaurant called "Blowfish", which seems to cater for wealthy Chinese-Indonesian kids. The club part, with a live band, had seats and benches reserved, with waiters pouring bottles of JW for groups of young patrons.
 

We walked about 500m back to the Hyatt (where we were staying because the Majapahit was full). Even though it was midnight, the main street was lined with motorcycles and their owners.

Sunday morning, even though neither of us felt well (not from over indulgence), we went for a walk around the streets and alleys beside the hotel. We found a small morning market selling (un-refrigerated) meat and veggies, and used clothes. We also found a huge church, and, nearby, various car parks that seemed to be specifically there for the church. The were also several lovely old Dutch houses in the area.

Saturday afternoon, we walked across the street to a carpet shop and fulfilled one of Helen's long-held desires to buy a Middle-Eastern carpet.

Sekolah Ciputra has been great. I still can't get enough of the teachers to push the kids to speak English, but I'm increasing the pressure, and they'll eventually "crack". This week, nearly all of the kids are on camp. Five or six teachers are back with thirty or so kids for a camp?at school. I'll taking the opportunity to get some work done. Usually I spend some time at a camp or two, but I haven't been well.

Last week we had our second athletics sports. The kids were fantastic. Even though the skill level can improve dramatically, the enthusiasm and commitment were wonderful. On Saturday morning, three of us had a "make up" athletics day for the kids who had not turned up.

Last week I had a "jam"with one of my new colleagues. With a bit of luck, we'll be able to do something together.