thejosijournals

This last week has been the best yet. We moved up the hill to where our friend has a small dairy farm. From my bedroom window there I watch the tips of bamboo, coconut palms, and other green trees sway in the wind, and I feel like all my dreams have already come true. We went on three hikes, the first up the side of Mt. Merapi and down one of it's hardened lava flows. The second was in a forest park, a two-hour plus assent up one of the steep hills where at the top we picnicked on watermelon and admired the two faces of Merapi, one green and the other grey. And the third hike, and so far the best, was totally unplanned in a forest starting at what we can only guess was ... read more

Once a week the house we stay in is transformed into an efficient, large scale Jamu factory. Over 100 Javanese herbs and spices are peeled, mashed, ground, boiled, soaked, dryed, blended, encapsulated. In one bucket I am shown a root that is like ginger but with ten times the strength, a chunk of cinnamon bark the size of my arm, whole nutmeg, pepper, honey bark, and a white pomagranite fruit. Sehat, makes you strong, Woko tells me pointing to a bubbling cauldren overfolling with bright orange liquid. A team of about ten men easily work together, everyone knowing exactly what to do when, how to help each other out. It seems as though everyone is doing everything, and yet it unfolds like an assembly line. John and I move around taking photos, tasting herbs, generally being ... read more

OK So we are actually in Yogyakarta now, but let me back track and start from the beginning. We arrived in Jakarta on Thursday, very hot, where we met with friends, old and new, and promptly left Friday night for Semarang, by freezing train, to join in on a family party, eat fresh Durian and wonder at the plethera of empty dutch buildings covering the old part of town. Semarang is even hotter than Jakarta, and we left there Sunday for Yogya, where we are now, still a bit in shock as we unpacked our stored boxes and marveled at the things still same and the things so different from a year a half ago. Today, Monday, we borrowed a motorcycle to visit some of our favorite haunts. As old memories surprise us the rest of ... read more