a trip to Sapari

not going to lie i was kind of excited to get out of Malianu for a night. im kind of stuck at the same place here and there really ins't a whole lot to see. So going to another town seemed like a change of pace and something different. However, i was warned of A. the lack of internet, and B. no traditional toilets. (side note: we are in the one room that actually has a real toilet..so very lucky) and C. more bugs that will bite then where we currently are. I wasn't really that worried about the internet thing and well...i just hoped for the best for the bathroom situation. Thankfully it wasn't horribly hot, it actually had been pouring rain all night to the point where its so loud you wake up because of it. The rain didn't really let up until the afternoon and I didn't understand why they wanted to wait for the rain to calm down but as we began our adventure i realized exactly why...the roads, the flooding, the stopping at massive pot holes deciding what dips seems less worse then others, roads that were now mini lakes that the motorcycles couldn't even get through. Let me just show you...

This is how much it rained...umm yes...houses completely surrounded by water

 

 A field totally covered in water

Us treading through the water hoping it wasn't to deep to go through

 

If you look closely through the window you can sorta see the massive pot holes in the way...yeah..it was a fun drive.

 

I would like to mention that the edge of the pavement goes straight down...the road broke..and we were seriously that close to the edge! umm scary 

 

passed lots of little houses and huts

 

sadly i didn't get a good shot of some of the extensive jungle that was happening along the way...the area we were in all of the trees were used for paper and owned by some paper company..so some areas where totally cleared... but here is some of the beautiful green along the way

 

The little village of Sapari is over an hour from where we have been staying and it is the more permanent home for my Grandma. They have a little shop with basic food items and they also sell all the weaving my Grandma does. She is one of the few people left who actually does this anymore. She is quite talented! This is one of the sets of shelves with things she has made and sells.

My Grandma lives with my moms youngest brother and his wife and kids. My moms brother loves animals and their cat just had kittens..they were sooooo cute! totally kept me entertained :)

Here is the kitchen area...and where they do most of the cooking..not like our stove tops at all.

And yes that is one of the kittens finding himself a little lunch

And now for a little reality check and something to be thankful for. Your bathroom. Because even though this was one of the cleanest and least smelly i've seen in these types of bathrooms they still aren't ideal.

It was a nice little trip but I am happy to be back with a real toilet and a little AC..and not to mention some internet. :) 

Hope you have a simply fantastic day!

The book i read in 3 days...thats real good for me!

When it comes to me and reading it’s one of those things I wish I did more. All through middle school and  most of high school I was a pretty avid reader. Especially during the summer months. It wouldn’t be a shock to go through a book a week. But as I grew up and went off to college the only reading I did was from a text book and to be honest I probably have read maybe half of two different books in the last 6 years…how sad. I was determined to pick up a couple books for this trip. And being unsure if I would have internet or not I figured I better have something fall back on. Aka: reading. 

 

I started the trip with The Happiness Project. A non-fiction book that I really enjoyed but that’s another post. Today is about the book that I started Saturday afternoon and finished Monday afternoon… One Day by David Nicholls. It’s very possible I would have stayed up  all Sunday night reading but with two other really sleepy people in my room the lights had to go out. It was recently made into a movie and I believe it just came out on DVD. No idea if it’s good but I vaguely remember hearing about what it was about and figured I would read the book before watching the movie…which is what I wanted to do with The Help but failed when my roomies were watching it and I couldn’t resist either. 

The book is a love story that is more like a cursed love story of two people who are too prideful to admit they want to be with the other. And with life and other boyfriends and girlfriends, the timing was just never right. Each chapter is dated July 15th with whatever year it is, and talks about where each of them are in their personal lives and in their life together. It was a book that after the first chapter I was immediately addicted to. One of those books where you just know they are bound to end up together and I’m not going to lie, they do. However, I didn’t see the end result of the book happening. I literally gasped out loud at the end of one of the chapters..haha.. silly but I must say it was a great light read. A perfect vacation or beach read. I’m a little sad I read the whole thing in 3 days…I could have drawn out the almost 500 pages over the next week. But with nothing better to do and annoyed with my internet I read. 

Anyways totally recommend it for all you ladies out there…now im almost hoping that this movie is one of the options on our flight back to the states…ugh..i really don’t want to think about the 14 hour flight…let’s hope I can pull some sympathy about losing our precious luggage and get an upgrade or a good discount on some upgraded seats ;) A girl can dream can’t she?

Have a simply lovely day :) 

PS: just checked the movies on the flight home and One Day is totally playing…lets hope that it somewhat lives up to the amazingness of the book…probably not but here’s to hoping :)

a night out in malinau

to be honest once it gets dark around here there really isn't that much going on...however, when the locals are finally tired of cooking and sweating over a hot kitchen they head out...to the one area that has mini little food stands. i almost would say its a fair but more of the food aspect rather then the fair aspect. However they do have a couple booths with some fun kiddy things. Don't worry I have pictures that literally just took me at least an hour and a half to upload....(i wont go there now) but anyways here is what our night looked like 

Tons of little food stands with people making a variety of different things.. 

 

this guy is making chicken sate's...delish and totally what i had for dinner

My cousins found the one little "ride" they area had..

 

the best part about the ride...it's totally man made power...peddle, peddle, peddle! 

Mom was so amazed that she wanted to try it out! Let's just say it was harder then it looked...peddling 4 kids on a ride is hard work!

They even had a little stand where they sold gold fish! my mom for some reason wanted to buy one but dont worry we didn't waste money on fish

 

However....we did spend money on my future husband..here is a pic of him :) 

pretty sure he could build me a house ;)

I didn't want him to be lonely so I had to get him a friend. 

Who obviously would be a cow with pink horns...

haha...it was a fun night and a nice change of pace from our normal routine around here.

It was fun to be silly and pick out a couple of these ridiculous little toys.. and don't worry only cost me like 2 US dollars. Everyone needs a little silly in their life :)

Hope you have a simply silly Friday!

the pig.

Last night we had our big "family reunion"/ celebration for our Grandma. Prep for this celebration started days before. There were over 150 people invited and that meant over 100 mouths to feed. It is pretty traditional to kill a pig for big celebrations or in honor of someone. I don't have pics of the actual killing...maybe thats better for some of you who would not be pleased with this anyways. but I did snap a few pics of the the end of the hair removal and the cutting of the pig. This is quite a process and a lot of work. But the whole event turned out great. More on that tomorrow. but for now...the pig. 

the end of the hair removal. they burn the hair and scrap it off with knives

the skinning begins

the feet

..idk why i failed at getting his whole head in the pic...oops

the head and the bucket full of other parts

Pretty much this whole pig is touched by the whole family.. Its quite a process..the men do the killing and main cutting then it moves to another set of hands for the next step

Here the women are doing more of the clean up and cutting of the meat.

Pretty much every part of the pig is used and eaten. Including the intestines, brain, heart..you name it its eaten. A long process all done by hand. 

Hope you have a simply marvelous day!

Jakarta

Our time in Jakarta was sadly pretty short. We have some close family friends who live there and I am always so excited to see them. As usual Jakarta was full of massive malls and shopping. Jakarta has more then 80 malls!! Can we please have a moment? 80 MALLS?! It is a little out of control. Some are fancy and nice that its hard to believe you are in Indonesia. We went to one pretty nice mall and another mall that is known for its cheaper knock off items. It was so packed and crowded...and I was told that it actually was slower less crowded time because not as many people go out during the holidays. Opposite of the states. Anyways I got some pretty good deals. Some Chanel and Gucci...may or may not be real :) but it was all in good fun. It was funny to see some of our brand name stores here as well. Good ole Starbucks and McDonald's, and KFC seems to be everywhere and even Ace Hardware? Here are some pics of the mall situations.

Ace Hardware..

tons of "fashion" jewelry 

pretty much ever inch of free space is used in this mall 

mamma! clothes everywhere!

Apparently a slower day.. not that i had to squeeze by people at multiple times

little spaces with tones of stuff. whatever you could possible want was in the mall

It was a fun busy couple of days. Shopping is exhausting there..especially when you pretty much just barter the whole time. But i did walk away with some a couple great finds! :)

Hope everyone has a simply wonderful 1st day of January! 

3 days later..

well it's official! we have touched down in Jakarta Indonesia this afternoon. After three long flights we are finally here! a few bumps along the way but nothing we couldn't handle/ are still handling. Lets start at the beginning..

December 25th. Not going to lie this Christmas definitely didn't seem like our typical Christmas. Christmas wasn't packed of Christmas trees and relaxing family time. Instead it was a rush to the finish line, or in our case the airport. We still were trying to jam everything into our 3 huge pieces of luggage that morning and hoping we wouldn't be charged to horrendous of an amount for the extra weight of our bags. Because of an anxious mother we were waaayyyy ahead of schedule and ended up being able to stop in Portland for a little pre-flight dinner and cocktail. Once at the airport we had our first little hiccup with our luggage. We had to much weight in each bag...no surprise to us however it was a surprise for them inform us that for even 2 pounds over the 50 pounds it would be an extra 100 bucks...meaning an extra 300 because all of ours were over weight. However, there was a solution. We each were apparently allowed not just one 50 pound bag but two because of the international flight. So the solution was to buy an extra piece of luggage and check another bag...and let me tell you it was way cheaper to buy another piece of luggage then pay $300 in extra charges. 

a little pre-flight glass of wine :) 

From there it was a flight from PDX to Vancouver for a few hour lay over then a horrible, annoying, 14 hour flight to Hong Kong on the worlds most uncomfortable plane. Now, I have taken these long flights before but I seriously have never been so uncomfortable in my life. I never could sleep for more then an hour and considering our flight didn't even leave until 2am..it pretty much meant i was exhausted. so 4 movies later and endless shifting and attempting to be comfortable we finally landed. Then it was just a short layover until we finally took off for Jakarta. Thankfully it wasn't a packed flight and I actually got a good couple hours of sleep.

Here we are taking off from Portland! 

Once off the plane it was immediately a hit of humidity and heat...we definitely were not in Oregon anymore. We had the star treatment going through customs..thanks to a little connection with some people who work at the airport but sadly our luck ended when we only had 3 out of the 4 pieces of luggage arrive. Sigh...always something right? We are still trying to figure out where it got lost but they have assured us we should have it back tomorrow. Lets hope we do. There are some important things in that suitcase. Other then that the travel wasn't to horrible...we have one more full day here in Jakarta then its off to our final destination. 

Here is a shot as we were coming into Hong Kong. Beautiful sun rise 

Anyways we had a nice afternoon in Jakarta. We stopped at one of the 80 malls this place has and had a late lunch and walked around. More details on that coming tomorrow. But for now I am actually going to get to lay flat for the first time in forever and get some sleep.

Have a simply wonderful day everyone! 

Bali

Although this trip is most definitely about visiting family and seeing friends we haven't seen in 7 years I would love to make a minor pit stop on our way back. I would love just two nights in heavenly Bali. We have been there before. Our last trip to Indonesia we spent a good 4 or 5 days there and celebrated my 16th birthday on the beaches of bali. Not a bad sweet 16th birthday if you ask me. However, time is limited this trip. We will only be there for 3 weeks instead of the usual 4 we normally take. I know that seems like a lot of time. But it does take us 6 flights to get us to our final destination. Meaning a lot of time is spent merely traveling. But I do think we may be able to have one of our returning flights go through Bali...sigh....i hope we can make it happen. Its absolutely stunning. And i would love just 2 days of complete relaxation and bliss before returning. Okay..let me just show you the beauty of this place...

beautiful rice fields 

perfect beaches 

 gorgeous resorts.. we actually stayed here last time we went..perfection

great villas 

stunning temples 

hotel rooms that open up to a pool...sigh...

Well now that i've convinced myself for the 100th time that this needs to happen...I do hope we can actually make it happen. Wish us luck that things fall into place when we get there and book our returning flights! For now I will just be dreaming of this paradise.

Have a simply dreamy Thursday! 

what a weekend

this weekend was full of attempts to be productive...and for the most part I was...i obviously wish i could have gotten about 20 hundred other things done but all well. The countdown for Indo is on and with less then a week to go my butt better get into gear with packing and the MASS amounts of laundry i need to do. sigh...i know it will all get done but sometimes i really wish i didn't have to work this week so i could take my time and not rush... Anyways here is what I was up to this weekend

Did some major cleaning and redecorated my piano..i kind of see my piano as all of you with a fire place mantel to decorate..haha 

very simple and natural

got a head start on my table decor for family Christmas that i hosted at my house 

Did some essential shopping form the trip. Got this fun navy bag at good old Target. It will be perfect! Nice and roomy, it zips, and will withstand a hard 3 weeks of traveling. 

Also picked up some books for all 6 of my flights. (thats just to get to our final destination)

One Day by David Nicholls 

And the Happiness Project by Gretchen Ruben. 

Finished up a couple DIY projects. My fun hand scrub and made some delicious homemade mini pumpkin breads that I packaged in of course a mason jar :) The recipe is over on Restored Style...an AMAZING blog so you should all check it out! :) 

And finally sat down to Christmas Dinner on Sunday night.. I made my holiday go to meal this year. Prosciutto and Fontina Cheese stuffed pork chops, caramelized butternut squash, and roasted brocolini  with parmesan . Talk about yummy! And we ended with a chocolate peppermint lava cake..totally forgot to snap a picture...but it was so good! 

A busy weekend. And now back to monday. Everyone else have a good weekend?

Hope you have a simply wonderful Monday.