Weekend Away

Last weekend a few of us feeling pretty worn out physically, emotionally, and spiritually decided to get away for a few days. We had a day off for some holiday that I've never heard of. Someone who knows someone got us connected with a guest house up in the mountains in a city called Lembang (about 30 minutes from where we live). So Friday morning we loaded up our backpacks and hopped on motorbikes and headed up the hill. We enjoyed relaxing, praying and encouraging one another, sleeping in, the silence of being out of the city, exploring, trying a flying fox (zip line), and hiking to two waterfalls.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the weekend. To see them all go to this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyinbandung/WeekendInLembang

Basketball Tournament

Last week our school hosted a basketball tournament for a league we are in with 4 other International schools all over Indonesia. It was a three day event and many from our community came to watch and support our students. Both guys and girls basketball teams played (although I only got pictures of the guys). Our guys team did really well and ended up winning first place in the tournament. It was fun to see other international school students just like ours from all over Indonesia. Our students made immediate connections with them and enjoyed the weekend of making new friends and seeing old ones.

Jogja Trip

A couple weeks ago now a group of teachers from the school took off on a vacation for Chinese New Year holiday. We traveled to a city in central Java called Jogjakarta, or just Jogja, known as the center of Indonesian culture. We saw two really neat temples (one Hindu and one Buddhist), watched the traditional Indonesian ballet, saw a rather strange and disturbing bird market, made our own silver rings, and tried some new food (I can now add horse and pigeon to my list of weird things I've eaten in Indonesia).

Along the way I learned the Indonesian word bohong, which means lie. A friend and I planned the trip for the group and it seemed that so much of what people had told us about Jogja ended up not being true. That and once we got there we kept running into people who told us mixed information or even wrong information. Oh well, at least I learned a new Indonesian word out of the deal.

It's taken me awhile but I finally got the pictures from the trip up on a web album. Click on the following link to view them: http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyinbandung/JogjaTrip