Best Day Yet! Thanks ViaVia :)

Today was indescribable. But I will try my best.

Kadi, Kelly and I started out meeting at viavia, conveniently located right across the street from our hotel. We have a tour guide, Uut, she is my age. Her friend Nana was training so she followed us around too. Uuh took us to the traditional herb market. Here, I saw some strange things. To name a few,

- raw chickens, with and without feet and heads. i saw some ladies cutting legs off, etc

-all kinds of cow parts, heart, cheek, etc. just laying there. flies all over.

-fish, dead and flopping around. on tables and in buckets..

-this leaf that you chew to strengthen your teeth.. kadi did it and it turned her mouth red/brown

-tasted a nasty root that they use for mosquito repellant

-saw all kinds of herbs - basil, bay leaf, lemon leaf, ginger, tumeric, lemongrass. all in their natural-straight-from-the-ground state

-a goat head

-a jamu (natural indonesian medicine) maker .. we got to try some :)

-all sorts of vegetables and breads and pastries

-a sitting woman who stroked my leg as i walked by... nbd

I can't describe to you how interesting and mysterious this market was. Next, Uut took us (justin beiber just came on the radio at the internet cafe for the 489202th time) to the home of a Jamu maker. She made us some woman's jamu which contained mostly tumeric. She let us roll it out on the stone thing and it died my hands orange. Then when I tried to wash it off it turned even a deeper orange! Uut showed us how to make a face mask with sticky rice and cinnamon. We each got to paint it on each other's faces. It was beautiful and felt so good!

Next we all sat in a circle and drank our Jamu. It was good, but we couldn't drink it too fast. Next we went to the massage place. This part is really neat. Our massagers were blind. The government trained them to massage to give them jobs. That blows my mind. These people who are so very limited are able to have a job and make money. She wins, I win. And I thought my last massage was full body. Wrong. This massage was full body. The only thing this old blind woman didn't massage was my crotchel region. Believe it.

Uut took us next to the modern jamu shop. There they had things from condoms to natural honey to vagina tightening cream (hope this doesn't offend anyone, haha), and many other sexual things. I bought a little packet of juice that was supposed to help with me sneezing every five seconds. It tasted like mint honey and I had to consume it slowly. I think it sort of helped. Good thing I bought 2 :)

We arrived back to ViaVia and ate some lunch with Josh. I got a goat cheese salad, pineapple banana juice, and a baguette with mozzarella, basil, sun-dried tomatoes, and turkey pesto. YUM. I was in a coma afterwards for about 45 minutes, then I had my cooking class!!

My teacher was Madi. I am guessing on the spelling. She was Balinese. She used to be Hindu, then she married her Muslim husband, and then "Jesus found" her. I told her Jesus found me, too. :) We were in an outside kitchen and the sun was setting and the mosque began their prayers. She showed me how to cook Ayam Bumbu Rujak. That is fried chicken in coconut sauce and rice. She also taught me Gado-Gado, a traditional meal with a peanut sauce. Also she showed me how to make Carmelized tempeh and peanuts. I will let you in on a secret. The three main ingredients in Indonesian food are: shallots, ginger, and red chilies. Everything we made had all of these things. Also we used a lot of: salt, brown sugar, turmeric, peanuts, lemongrass, salam leaves, bay leaves, kafir lime leaves, and coconut milk. SO DELICIOUS. I will cook for everyone when I got home. I took good notes like a perfect student :)

Tomorrow morning bright and early Kadi and I fly to Jakarta! I can't wait to see the ocean again. Great, great day.

OOOOH i forgot to mention that I broke the shower head this morning. Let me describe the bathroom. Sink, toilet, little mentos-looking things on the ground (moth balls), a weird water container thing, and a hole in the ground. There is not spot for the shower. You turn on the shower head and everything gets wet. You shower in between the sink and the toilet, haha. It stays wet all the time. This morning, I saw my friend the roach again. Only luckily he was on his back moving a tiny bit. So I wanted to move the shower head so the water wouldn't wash him to my feet and the damn thing just came right off! I had to put all my clothes back on and go to the front desk and ask for help in the bathroom AGAIN. Luckily, they fixed it AND took my friend roach away. Lovely service here :)