faith in humanity

lots of things going on...

1. i'm reading the koran.

2. amber is still here and we still love each other.

3. we are house sitting for a family while they are away this week. that means we each get our own bed, free wireless internet, satellite tv, and an 800 dvd collection. oh, and the fattest daschund i've ever seen named snuggles and i love her.

4. my computer is old and about to die. i'm in the process of finding a new one. my church is helping me pay for it. i am so blessed.

5. we went to jogja yesterday. to borobudur first. nothing new there, but amber enjoyed the reliefs and statues in this ancient temple. next, we went to pasar burung (bird market). wow. it was like the albion swap meet, but different. it's a ton of little shops that sell things like birds and snakes and lizards and fish and turtles and owls and eagles and rabbits and mongooses (mongeese?). some guy decided he would be our guide (expecting to be paid, of course), so he showed us all around. he taught us all about cock fighting and which roosters are best to buy. he taught us about pigeon racing and how they actually get the pigeons to come home. he taught us about songbird competitions and he showed us a champion songbird that was worth US $5000. it was great. i like birds.

6. then our self proclaimed guide took us behind pasar burung to the water palace. you see, back in the day, jogja was located underneath a manmade lake. the sultan lived in the water palace. he had his own underwater mosque and he had underwater tunnels for all his wives to walk around in so that no other man could see their faces. the sultan himself traveled by boat. very venice. the palace itself is in ruins (the current sultan lives in a much more modern palace), but the mosque has been restored (made of chalk, sand, and egg whites!) and several of the other buildings are still there. as we were walking around, another indonesian man joined us and seemed to want to be our guide. we politely told him that we were just wandering around and didn't need a guide, but he replied, "oh, no, i'm not expecting money. i work here and i live this way. i'll just walk with you." he was a cute old man, so we acquiesced. he led us through a ton of winding streets - all the people who work for the sultan live in little houses on the palace grounds - where little kids were trying to fly kites and women were throwing pans of dirty dishwater into the street. he pointed out to us lots of little things that normal tourists probably never see. then we came to a garden that had a very tall wall running along one side with a bamboo ladder leaning against it. the man motioned us over to the ladder and told us to climb up carefully. naturally, we did. and from the top of that wall, we could sit and see into the (closed to the public) royal pools - where the sultan's wives would come every day. he would meet them there and select which one he wanted to be with that day. it was like looking down into ancient greece. there were beautiful pools (though the murky green water IN the pools left something to be desired) with amazing statues and courtyards and garden areas all around them. after we sat there for awhile (beneath the setting sun, i might add), we climbed back down and walked through more winding streets until we found ourselves at our unofficial guide's house! he offered us drinks and invited us to look around. as it turns out, he and his family are all artists. amber was in heaven and ended up buying a painting from him. : )

7. i have a bike. sort of. tiffany went to cambodia for 2 weeks and let me borrow hers! i have a rough time cornering with a passenger bigger than me. but so far so good.

8. my leg wound is almost all the way healed. i'll have a nice scar for awhile though.

9. i am watching rugby. ns wales v queensland. go, blue!