So this is my last full day in Indonesia. I arrived in Jakarta Sunday afternoon and presented my research to the Ministry of Agriculture yesterday. Just a short presentation in front of a few people, so not too bad. I did it after I got to Jakarta (eh, sort of last minute) and got some good comments from people, so I can definitely put together a better one for Research Day. My mentor has suggested submitting an abstract for another research day in October (though Boston, not the one in Grafton), which is centered around the theme of global health and infectious disease. Not sure if my project will be selected, but it would be a good opportunity. Spent many hours yesterday driving around the city, going to various malls to do last minute shopping. I ... read more

I returned from my trip to Bali and Gili! (I decided that it was only fair to take a week off from my research, since I still need to finish up with looking at my data and start writing my paper) Here goes… I went to Bali with my friend Tom, who I lived with first year of vet school but then moved to China to work at his family’s business. He was only able to take a long weekend (Thursday through Sunday), and since he was coming all the way from Hong Kong, we really only had 2 full days. I decided to fly out to Bali Monday night, then visit the Gili islands (mainly Gili Trawangan, the most popular one) that are located between Bali and Lombok (island to the east of Bali). A ... read more

Shela invited me out to hang out with some of her friends from Yogya this weekend - on Saturday, we had our second visit to the birds markets, but afterwards she and her friends were going to meet up for dinner at a place called The House of Raminten. It’s owned by a really famous guy, one of the richest in Yogya, who owns a big store and various other things here. He’s also gay and pretty much requires all of the (very cute) male waiters to be gay…. all the girls in our group were quite happy, looking at them. Dinner here is usually pretty late, closer to 8, so I met them at the restaurant around then (after my taxi driver got really lost and had to get directions multiple times over the phone ... read more

I got to Yogya early Tuesday afternoon and already have fallen in love with it! I love big cities like Jakarta, but Yogya is a nice change - smaller but still full of energy. Wanty, my FAO translator, has been amazing too! It helped so much traveling to Yogya with her, since Stacie couldn’t join us until that night. We’re staying at Hotel Bladok, which seems like the place to stay for Westerners and backpackers. We’ve come across a few restaurants that offer “European food,” but I’m still interested in trying Indonesian/Asian food. I’m so excited to be here, since it’s my first time to SE Asia and a predominantly Muslim country (still getting used to the prayer calls early in the morning). Stacie had to come up with an excuse to come with me to ... read more