Goodbye, Southeast Asia :-(

So Tori is officially muy muy sad. I can't believe that my amazing SEA summer is already over...I mean, as much as I wanna come home and see all of you all, I just don't want to leave this incredible part of the world!

Truthfully, I just want to go back to Malang, but you knew that already.

So the past couple of days in Singapore have been good - we've done Chinatown, Little India (ate some rockin roti prata and got fun henna), Arab Street (good place for souvenirs, for future reference), and all kinds of fun Singaporean things in between. When I get back to the states I'm really going to miss the night and weekend markets there are all over the place in SEA. Sad face!

Stephanie, the reason the LE Indonesia program even exists, happened to be back in Singapore, so she e-mailed me and we met up at City Hall today. It was really great to see her again! She started LE Philippines this summer, and we started making plans for an expanded SEA program (Bali, Sulawesi, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.) for LE. I'm really excited about it!

Okay so this will be my last post. The remaining four of us are going to catch a cab to the airport tomorrow morning at 4AM and then our numbers will slowly dwindle from there - Deepa leaves at 6h50, Kathy at 9h30, me at 11h05 and then Brittan at 12h30...even bigger sad face!

I just don't want this summer to end. After having expanded the LE Indonesia program and made plans to make it even bigger, and then traveling around the region I kind of feel like I belong here. Goodness gracious!

See you all Tuesday!! (My flight gets in at 8h30 Ohio time!)

- Tori =)

Singapore is a FINE city :)

Wow! What an amazing place Singapore is. Compared to where I have been living for the past couple of months, Singapore is heaven. It's so clean and modern and orderly it almost makes you sick, but it's so wonderful.

We arrived last night around 10, got all of our luggage and things and headed off to our new hostel. The place is great - there are tons of people around and I think it has a character all of its own. The only thing is that it's super hot in this city and we have to walk up and down three very long flights of stairs to get to and from our rooms. Sweetness!

We are now down to five people, and Chris leaves tomorrow, so then it'll just be me, Kathy, Brittan and Deepa. It's so sad to think that this summer is coming to an end. It's so bittersweet, too, because I want to see my friends and family more than anything but then again I just want to turn around and go back to Malang. I miss it there SO MUCH! It's alright. I'll be back next year, God willing. :)

Chris's mom called him last night to tell him about this whole thwarted terrorist attack thing - scary stuff. And perfect timing, too - just when we're trying to get back into the country. And I don't think the fact that we spent 6 weeks in a Muslim country is going to help us any...great. All I want to do is be able to bring my iPod on my 12 hour flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco. I will get oh so bored if I can't have my music. :(

Alrighty then I will get going here. Can't wait to see you all!!

~ Tori =)

Bangkok, Thailand

Greetings from "The Land of the Elephants," according to Miss Lakshmi Gupta.

The only two things you really need to know about Bangkok - it's hot as a mother and there's really good shopping.

We have just been doing the tourist thing - seeing some temples, doing some shopping, we saw the Grand Palace, the world's largest reclining Buddha. And there are monks everywhere, which makes us surprisingly happy :) Lakshmi says you can't touch the monks because they might get aroused. I was kind of hoping for a more spiritual, holy reason that you can't touch the monks, but oh well.

Lizzie left us early this morning - big sad face :( We already miss her. One down, six to go. I'm not ready for this trip to end!

We're excited to get on to Singapore, but it's going to be expensive there...

I'd write more, but our sketchy hostel only gives you 20 minutes of free internet a day...

Cheers!

Tori =)

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Malysia is beautiful!!

Okay, so it's not as great as Indonesia, but we all really love Kuala Lumpur (the capital).

We got in on Wednesday evening and met this really lovely British woman named Annette who had been teaching English for a year in Indonesia with English First. She had been to KL before and helped us get a taxi and find our hostel, which was really great of her. Then we met up with her for dinner at this kind of sketchy Indian resto down the street from us (but the food was really, really good...). Good times.

So then Thursday we decided to sleep until we woke up (aka no alarm for the first time in 6 weeks...sweetness!). Then after getting showered and such we headed out into the city. It didn't take us very long to figure out KL's monorail system (it's super easy and really well planned out), after which we headed to see Masjid Jamek (a really pretty pink mosque, but it was closed so we couldn't go in and tour). Then we walked around a bit, hit up this huge Craft Complex (which was too rich for our blood so we bought Famous Amos ice cream instead), got bombarded by random men saying "Hey Miss, mooey?" (losely translated as they wanted us to purchase their bootleg DVDs), and visited the National Mosque. At the National Mosque we were able to put on robes and head scarves and actually go in and visit. We met this really great volunteer there who told us lots about Islam and dispelled a lot of the myths Westerners typically have about the religion. Then she invited us to go to her house that evening because she and her friends were reading the Koran. She was really great. And the mosque was beautiful!!!

So then we just came back to the hostel and hung out a bit. We went to bed relatively early and woke up Friday morning to go to the skybridge of KL's Twin Towers (now the tallest twin towers in the world) - the same skybridge that Catherine Zeta Jones crawled all around in the movie Entrapment, in case you were wondering. The view was pretty great, but we didn't stay very long. We came back to the hostel and got ready (we practically went to the towers in our PJs), then headed out for a day of shopping and fun times. We hit up Chinatown again to look at cheap knock-offs and dried fruit (which is SO good!). We walked by a Hindu temple, but it was closed so we couldn't go in even though it was really cool looking from the outside. Then we went to Berjaya Times Square, which is this HUGE mall with twelve floors of shopping and food and there is even a full on theme park in the mall, complete with roller coaster and tons of rides. It was soooooo cool!!

The hostel is great - we have met so many cool people and have lots of stories that I cannot relay just yet because I'm running out of time...but I will write later.

Bangkok tomorrow :)

~ Tori =)

Goodbye, Indonesia :( :(

Okay, so sorry I haven't updated in forever. It's been a crazy week or so...

So we had our farewell dinner with all of our host families, etc. and it was super sad. They made me sing...I was not happy. And I had to speak. I was doubly not happy.

Anyway, on Friday we said our real goodbye to our host families. That was really, really sad. Lakshmi and I pretty much lost it and couldn't stop crying. I love these people so much, and literally all I want to do right now is turn my bum around and go back to Malang.

After a really long controversy surrounding the travel arrangements (which we sorted out with much help from lots of people), I hugged everyone (and started crying the second I said goodbye to my host mom - the FIRST person I hugged bye), and we spent 12 hours in a sketchy Indonesian 10-person bus. Also, our bus was totally part of the Indonesian drug ring because we were picking up random "packages" and dropping off said random packages in random creepy places.

We finally made it to Bali, stayed a night in Kuta and then the next morning headed off to our little bungalow that we had found on the Internet. Once we got there, we were really glad to get away from the city. This place was amazing - it was a homestay with houses on stilts on the beach. It was pretty much paradise. And the woman who ran the guesthouse had a really beautiful family. She was Dutch and married a Balinese man. Now they have 3 absolutely gorgeous children. Clearly I need to marry an Indonesian man and have pretty babies. Clearly.

So this morning we got up super early and headed out to the Denpasar airport in Bali. We got a late start (Indonesian time...), got a flat tire along the way, almost missed our flight, got lost and confused a la American tourists many times, and then eventually made it to the Jakarta airport. Had many adventures there, and then flew from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So we're in our hostel right now (free internet, baby!) and I'm about to crash...

Miss you all!! The Southeast Asia adventure is only beginning...

~ Tori =)

Dating, Indonesia style..

That's right. You read the title right. Dating Indonesia style.

This is by far the most interesting part of this past week. Please, read on...

So it's Wednesday at 1:25PM. Kathy is literally walking out the door to catch her bus to go teach at Santa Maria. The phone rings. The maid picks up. She goes, "Kathy..." holds out the phone and says, "Hardi." Kathy's heart sinks. What in the world? Well she gets on the phone with Hardi and he starts asking her what she is doing that day. She says she is getting ready to go to school, but will be back around 5. So he asks her if she would like to go to dinner with him. Uhhh she doesn't know how to react and just says, "Okay. Sure." And then he hangs up.

So she comes in the room and I'm like, "Did Hardi just do what I think he just did?"

He totally asked her on a date. Oh good, sweet Lord.

So we're freaking out about this because we couldn't figure out what he meant by dinner. Kathy assumes that I am coming with her. There's calling and laughing about Kathy's situation with the other girl volunteers. Lakshmi and Deepa in particular found the whole predicament rather amusing.

So Kathy gets back at 4:30 and Hardi shows up at 4:50. Alone. First of all, an Indonesian being early!! Whoa!! But then Bu Dewi stepped in and was like, "Two people alone? Oh, no. You must go with four. Tori will go with you." So Hardi called Victor to come and join us. Great. Now I have to go on this date with them. Fab.

So Victor shows up eventually and we definitely hopped on the back of their motorbikes with them and headed out to our double date. But in all actuality it was really fun. Kathy and I had a really good time. I was really scared on the bike, but eventually got over it and had a really fun time. Too bad Victor doesn't speak English very well, because I'd totally date him...lol.

On the way home, Hardi and Victor kept switching who was in the lead on the motorbikes. At one point Hardi looked and me and gestured like his hands were sweating and he pointed at Victor and said, "Victor is nervous..." So adorable. Then while we were still on the bikes I asked Victor if Hardi likes Kathy. He was like, "Oh, yes. He like her very much. Uhh he want to bring her a ring. But I don't think Kathy like Hardi." It was very cute.

Oh, only in Indonesia...;-)

~ Tori =)

Pictures!!

The group in front of the symbol of Surabaya.





Traditional Javanese wedding. Check out the intricate costumes and makeup and hair. This is the Majorese wedding. They're one of the last matriarchal societies in the world. Sweetness.



Traditional Indonesian indoor market.













The group wearing traditional Indonesian clothing (batiks and cabayas) at Joice's wedding.

















The group at Mount Bromo, pre-hike.
And trust me, it really was THAT cold.