Chinatown, Yard Sale, and Relaxation

It's a beautiful day today, one that is most likely going to be a "good day sandwich" with the way the weather works here.  In fact, I can hear rumbling in the distance.  At our old house in BC that usually meant that dump trucks loaded with earth or rocks were passing by, but here it means that thunder and lightening and lots of rain could be just minutes away.  As long as we're out of the rain when it hits, it's kind of an exciting place to live in that regard.  Yesterday was rainy, and so were parts of last week. However, on the days that counted most, the rain stayed away just long enough for me to enjoy the events I'd planned.

possibly a soup-turtle

 Last Tuesday 11 of us from our Bread & Butter Cooking Club (BBCC) headed into Jakarta, to Chinatown.  We went armed with shoes that we didn't mind getting muddy if it rained, plastic spoons, cups and plates for sampling local food stall wares, cameras, and of course a spirit of adventure.  Our goal as a cooking club:  to see what kinds of unique foods we were missing at home.  Our first stop:  what I call 'reptile alley'. This is a long, narrow corridor where men sit atop wooden crates, readying frogs for the soup pot by peeling off their skin, chopping turtles into smaller bits, and selling live eels for later consumption.

these frogs are all tied together, waiting for their turn to "undress"

turtle soup

Sorry for the descriptives, but there's no nicer way to put it.  Further into our journey, we sampled iced grass jelly drinks (very nice, very refreshing), something that looked like burnt Barbie doll hair and tasted like cotton candy, sweet potato chunks mixed with glutinous rice and floating in coconut milk (yum!), an indonesian salad with spicy peanut sauce, and some were daring enough to try turtle soup (not me this time).  We ended our day at a 2nds ceramics shop where we found lots of great plates, bowls and serving dishes to buy.  Nice way to end the day.  

We're really proud of the fact that we're an international mix of girls, and it was pretty neat to realize that of the ladies who joined, only 2 were of the same nationality.  There were 2 Chinese Indonesians, 1 Canadian (me), 1 American, 1 South African, 1 Pole, 1 German, 1 Singaporean, 1 Icelander, 1 Brit, and 1 Japanese.

On Friday the Karawaci Ladies held a Yard Sale, very much like the one we held last year.  This time, although we had the same goal of blessing the local maids, drivers, security and neighbourhood maintenance people, we were a lot more relaxed about the whole affair.  We reduced our hours to one day from last year's 2, and after spending HOURS sorting, pricing and displaying clothing last year, this year we decided to price it all at the same basic price and just dump it all onto tarps on the ground.That's what ended up happening to the clothes in the first 30 seconds last year anyways, so it was just a matter of saving time and energy beforehand.  Like last year, people were excited to shop and to go home with some really nice items.  This year, with much less work and less hours of sale, we made almost $100 more than last.  So, some local employees were happy with the deals they found, and the Karawaci Ladies were able to donate another rupiah 8 juta (8 million, or almost Cdn $900) to our Children's Medical Fund for poor kids needing medical attention.  

Today, Sunday, seems like a dream day.  I love "culturally significant" days, and today was one.  Actually, the significance started yesterday when a fairly new Indonesian friend picked me up at 5:45 am to go to a local "pasar pagi", or morning market.  We went to a place that sells pork (very hard to find fresh here for a non-local who knows nothing of these things), which was hanging by strips and bones from large hooks.  I got so excited because Tris and I have been discussing eating ribs, and lately I've found out that even with Celiac, I'm able to eat a few brands of BBQ sauce.  This first outing led to today's, where at 6 am Tris and I headed back to the same place and bought a kilo of back ribs for about $8.  We got to choose our cut of meat, and had them cut it how we like it.  Right now they're in the oven, and delicious tangy sweet smells are wafting throughout the house.  Can't wait!  

After a quick meander through the grocery market (set up with set prices inside a cement building) where we bought some strawberries that taste very much like ours did in our back garden, we checked out the outdoor market.  There were found lots of wonderful fresh veggies and some things we didn't have a clue what to do with.  At one point I stopped at a chicken area, where there was a centrifuge-looking thing (or what looked very much like the inside of a clothes washing machine).  A man was killing chickens, throwing them inside, where they spun until the majority of their feathers came off.  He'd then throw them into scalding hot water, return their rubbery bodies to the spinner, and after a few seconds pull them out completely featherless.  It was quite intriguing, except for the part where the dead chicken pulled his head up and looked at me before he was thrown into the water for the first time.

We returned home with our purchases, headed to the pool and enjoyed a time of golfing (Tris) and swimming and reading (me).  All during this time our kids were at home:  Abby was doing homework and preparing for a talk she gave later to a group of teens at our church, and Matt was sleeping.  

This was a wonderful week and it has ended with some wonderful surprises:  pork ribs, blue skies and a nice, refreshing breeze.  Gotta go, the pork is on!!

Thanks for reading.