settling in...

helloooo!

sorry i haven't been very good about posting regularly, if anyone's been checking. life is just sort of gliding by, and it's much nicer when it doesn't include trips to the internet cafe :)

things here are so good! i'm really settling in. i've realized that i'm less into actually "traveling" ~ carting my stuff around everywhere in my backpack, spending my time figuring out where to sleep that night & how long to stay in each place & how to get to the next one. it seems like all those details would keep my mind busy & distracted, like it often is at home, but i'm here to try to calm it down, and take time for spiritual questions. so i'm going to stay in bali for a few months i've decided ~ at least until sometime in late may or early june. cris is coming may 17 (yay!) so we'll see how long we feel like staying on here, or if/when we feel the urge to head to thailand.

so yes, settling in to bali ~ the big news is that tomorrow i'm moving into a house! it's a beautiful 2-story place in the middle of the rice paddies, just outside town. my autstrian friend christian rented it for the year & he's going back to europe for a few months so i can stay in it as long as i'd like. it's really bright & open feeling, almost all glass walls. i'll have my own kitchen finally so can experiment with cooking & eating the things i find in the market here. it has a beautiful little yard, all enclosed with flowering trees so it feels really private. the landlord comes every day at 5pm to clean & take care of the garden & will even take my laundry for me! and get this ~ it's only $150/month! so incredible. oh and i have a motorbike now! it's gold with a red rose painted on the front :) i was really nervous to use it at first, but my friends here all have them & so i've had people to teach me. i got a library card ~ the library here is so cute. the first time i went it was also the weekly a capella group gathering so i had a great time, singing & playing with the cute orange cat who lives there & eating at the library cafe.

i started volunteering at the local orphanage! a guy here named ketut started inviting orphans into his home years ago and now he & his wife have 60 of them there! they are very well organized and have done well getting sponsors & funding for the children: http://www.thewinsproject.org/
the kids go to school in the morning but then have english classes at the orphanage in the afternoons. they have some regular teachers but 2 have just left so they need subs. the photo of the classroom on the website is where i've taught! the kids range in age from 6-16 & the classes are split into 2, the older (11-16) and younger (6-10). if any of you have taught english to little kids & have ideas for me let me know! the classes are 2 hours & there is only so much singing & introducing you can do, you know?

yesterday my friend jessa & i headed out of town on our motorbikes on a little adventure. we went to goa gajah, the elephant caves ~ very cool ancient meditation caves & sunken fountains & ancient hindu sculptures. it's impossible to upload photos here, way too slow, but here are some i found online: http://www.pbase.com/boon3887/goa_gajah. we hired a local guide, a fun 23 year old guy named nyoman, and he showed us around, and then brought us down this jungle-y path to a beautiful river. he took us up & around the river & through this jungle trail til we came to his village, bedulu, and then to a site called yeh pulu, with an ancient rock carving of scenes of daily life (hunting, etc.). the carved wall was cool, but i think we had more fun just hanging out with our guide guy!

last night i went to the regular wednesday night meditation and deeksha at a shop here called namaste. deeksha is a special blessing usually given by a guru to a follower, an ancient indian practice. nowadays you can train to do it at places around the world. the deeksha giver places their hands on the head of the recipient for a few minutes, transmitting divine/spiritual energy to them. it's a cool experience. i've had it maybe 10 times since i've been here & i usually feel something interesting. oh & namaste is participating in the eckhart tolle/oprah thing that's going on right now! have you heard about it? eckhart & oprah are teaching & discussing his new book on a worldwide, online forum. the namaste people downloaded it in singapore, since the internet is too slow in bali to try to do it here!

oh i did have a spot of bad luck (which i guess should be expected ~ life can't be this perfect all the time!) ~ i fell into a big hole & got really sick. not sure whether they were connected. let me back up ~ the sidewalks here are sometimes missing a whole square, and one night walking home a new path in the dark i slipped on a pile of gravel and fell into one of the holes! it's almost funny, since we've joked plenty about that happening to people. i guess that's what happens! i got all scraped up ~ nothing serious but lots of gravel in my cuts. i went home & soaked in my bathtub for a long time to get it out & maybe something from the water got into my bloodstream? who knows why, but the next day i woke up with a fever that just got worse & worse. on the 2nd day it was so bad that i had the family where i'm staying call a doctor to come see me (i think the 1st housecall i've ever had! her doctor bag wasn't as cool as mine :-). i had a fever of 103! but she did some tests & it wasn't dengue or typhoid so i was relieved. she put me on antibiotics & gave me some other unidentifiable indonesian medicine and within a few days i was all back to normal! and actually feeling better than before it all happened, if that's possible. i think the fever burned up some old negative/unhealthy things that were kicking around in there. and my friends here were so lovely, visiting me & bringing me water & soup & homeopathic medicine & making get well cards. it's amazing how people you've known for 2 weeks can feel like such close friends!

ok, i'm off to go get a massage. there are spas everywhere here! i found a massage therapist i like who used to be $8 for 90 minutes, but she just moved to a way more upscale place that is $12. life is rough, huh? :)
then tonight i'm going to a tibetan bowl meditation and tomorrow to a jewelry making class!

love to all of you, thanks for checking here! leave me comments, it might make me write more often if i knew you were reading this! sempai jumpa lagi (see you soon) !

beautiful bali!

wow, i can't believe i've already been in bali for almost 3 weeks. and honestly i have no plans to leave anytime soon :)

it's BEAUTIFUL ~ jungles, volcanos, flowers, temples everywhere, friendly people, good food, safe, clean. people here say i was lucky to chose this as my first stop, but warn me not to get stuck here! but that wouldn't be all bad...

i've been staying in ubud, a town in the center of bali (bali is a whole island, fairly big ~ would take a maybe 5 or 6 hours to drive across it). ubud is known to be the artistic/cultural center of bali and i can see why. there are lots of places to do yoga, meditate, go to healers, crystal shops ~ it's great!

i'm really enjoying settling in a bit. i'm so grateful for this time, i love waking up every morning & deciding how i want to spend my day. most days it's something like: meditation, breakfast - which is served where i'm staying, always includes fresh pineapple, papaya, bananas, then maybe running an errand, reading by the pool, going to yoga, having a meal with someone interesting i've met here. the food is great ~ there are a few "health food" places and i've been eating great fresh wonderful meals for $2 or $3 ~ things like green papaya salad, lots of tofu & tempe & curries & coconuts & cashews & noodles & fresh squeezed juices.

the place i'm staying is gorgeous! i have my own little bungalow, it's one big bedroom with a gorgeous carved 4 poster bed, big bathtub, nice front terrace/porch with a table & chairs. everything is woven bamboo or beautifully carved wood everywhere you look, and there are flowering trees right outside my door. it's amazing! and it's about $11/night :) oh and the same family owns an even fancier place across the street with this gorgeous swimming pool that i'm allowed to use. lucky me, huh?!
http://www.artinicottage.com/

i've gone on a few expeditions since i've been here. one day i went on this eco bicycling tour and saw & learned so much! had breakfast on the caldera of a volcano (there are 2 volcanos on bali ~ people say part of why it's such an interesting place is the volcanic energy here brings up a lot of things in you, good opportunity for dealing with & clearing things!). then we visited a plantation & learned about lots of local edible & medicinal plants, watched coffee being roasted & has a sample (i had ginseng coffee ~ yum!), got to taste lots of interesting fruits - guava, rambutan, passion fruit, other interesting things i've never seen or tried before. then we biked about 30 km, through all these little villages full of children running out calling, "helloooo! helloooo!" everyone here speaks english. it's nice, but it means i haven't had to make much of an effort with my indonesian or balinese. we got to tour a family compound (people here live with their extended families), see bamboo be stripped & woven & dyed, watch wood carvers, go into the rice paddies & thresh rice with these ancient looking women. we finished the day up with a trip to the monkey forest! ~ more of a jungle than a forest really ~ with 300 monkeys running around in there! and oh my gosh there was a cremation happening at the temple there which was quite a sight, one i've never witnessed. cremation is a big deal here ~ it's extremely expensive since it involves all kinds of rituals. so most people are buried right when they die, and then in july or august every year each village will do their cremation. the bodies are dug up & cremated together, since it's such an elaborate affair and most people can't afford to do it just for one body.

the balinese put so much time and effort and energy into their ceremonies & rituals! there seems to be a major one every week, and there is another temple everywhere you look. you're only allowed into temples if you're dressed properly; for women this means a sarong & a scarf tied around your waist. for men, a sarong & a wrap thing tied around your head, almost like a do rag. there is a 4-day ceremony going on right now & tomorrow is the culmination: the full moon. so this happens every month! and there is one for the new moon & there's a whole balinese calendar full of ceremony-worthy events!
the family at the place i'm staying invited me to their temple for tomorrow's full moon ceremony ~ i'm excited to see what it's like!
they don't celebrate the equinox here ~ i guess it would be the autumnal one for them since we're in the southern hemisphere (great stars by the way!) but since we're so close to the equator the weather doesn't really change much. warm & sunny almost every day, with a quick rainshower some afternoons. it's perfect!

it was balinese new year the week i arrived here ~ it's called nyepi. the night before, these giant papier-mache evil spirits are paraded around town. they are HUGE! i wish i could upload photos but the connection here is so amazingly slow that it crashes the computer every time i try. so each community creates one of these oogoh oogoh (what they call these giant evil gods) and march them around town with gamelan orchestras playing & tons of people in the streets. the idea is that they invite the evil spirits to come to bali, and then on nyepi (new year's day) the whole island falls silent. it's crazy. everything is closed, no one leaves their houses, no one speaks, even the airport closes! i had to stay inside my hotel place all day. it was really lovely. oh and so the evil spirits who have been invited come to bali & see that no one is there, and so they leave the island alone until the next year!

i've really been enjoying the spiritual explorations i've had time for here ~ it's such a good place for it. i've been meditating most mornings, and there's a great yoga place here ~ the classes are in this open-air pavilion which is beautiful. there was just a yoga/dance/music festival here so met lots of interesting people & did some amazing workshops: laughter yoga (soooo good! look for a laughter club near you: http://laughteryoga.org), qi gong, qawwali sufi chanting, kecak/monkey chant (just like at burning man!), received deeksha, having been really interested in sacred geometry ~ i went to an all-day lecture yesterday about the work of nassim haramein ~ unified field theory ~ amazing stuff ~ lots of physics & sacred geometry & ancient religions & civilizations & crop circles & the galactic federation. some of it was kind of out there, but it's a lot to think about ~ i certainly have some new ideas of what the universe is made of. and i'm really interested in sacred geometry! there's a lot of it here ~ i'm meeting people that are into all this stuff too, it's great.

oh there is so much to say but this post is getting awfully long. sorry not to have photos. i'll try to post more regularly so it doesn't get so long.

oh ~ i have a cell phone here, and would love love love to hear from you! country code is 62, then my number is 087.86.111.4393. i think you might leave off the 0 at the beginning. international texting is cheap too! :) lots of love & blessings to you all ~

tokyo is amazing!

it's absolutely IMMENSE. so much to look at everywhere. i'm only here for 2 days, staying with expat friends of my sister's. went to the famous tsukiji fish market this morning which was a trip! endless aisles of so many kinds of fish. almost all the tuna in the world is sold through here. i was thinking of all the times i've had sushi in the U.S., realizing i was seeing the same tuna that ends up on american plates. then we went over to the more retail section & ate sushi, and i forced myself to try all kinds of things i would never have ordered at home! and to my surprise i liked almost all of it...

this afternoon we took bikes around town. went to meiji shrine, the biggest shinto shrine in tokyo. it was beautiful! saw 2 weddings. then walked around harajuku, which is the teen fashion hotspot - such good people watching! i couldn't believe some of the things i saw people wearing. lots of frilly-ness, lots of super short skirts & knee socks, high high high heels, crazy hair. little dogs are really fashionable - there was a whole shop for dog outfits. stopped at a starbucks for a green tea latte.

the architecture here is crazy. and things are sooo clean. and there is almost no crime. this morning we saw people would leave their shopping bags on the sidewalk while they went into restaurants. can you imagine??! no one locks their bikes, they just park them neatly. everything is orderly & precise & there is a lot of bowing. you buy something at a convenient store & the cashier bows to you when you leave!

the people i'm staying with are a german wife & indian husband. they have lots of other expat friends here, so tonight we're going out with a bunch of them for sushi & karaoke. i think there might have to be some sake before we start singing! i'm curious to see what it's like here, at the source...

tomorrow i'm off to bali, yay!

for more tokyo photos, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/hazardkatie/Tokyo

made it to chicago!

i'm here at my parents' house trying to get lots of last-minute stuff taken care of, mixed in with lots of play time with my nephews & niece.

look, we stopped at niagara falls on the way here! it was FREEZING & icy but really majestic.

tonight i invited my parents to go to a kirtan with me. i hope it's good!

oooh look at me!

yep, i done did it. i started a blog.

no exciting news to report yet ~ i'm in the midst of crazy packing, trying to sell stuff, saying goodbye to people & my life here, and getting ready to hit the open road! nicola & i leave boston sunday morning...

woo hoo!