Perth - World Ultimate Club Championships

Two days after we got back from Yogya, I headed off to Australia for the 2006 World Ultimate Club Championships. WUCC is held every 4 years with teams from every continent. I played with Team Fisher Price (TFP) out of Vancouver, and had a fabulous experience. What a phenomenal group of people to play with!

The tournament was very well run, and the facilities were amazing. I have never played on fields so flat and springy, without mud pits or sprinkler-head pot holes. It was a shocker coming back to the archery field where we play in Jakarta, with its “undulating” terrain, almost complete lack of grass, and extra rocks and garbage.

TFP played our first game a day earlier than everyone else, in the tournament opening showcase game. We played against Sublime from Perth, so naturally we weren't exactly the crowd favourite. Nevertheless, we pulled a win off. At the time it felt like smoke, mirrors and a hefty dose of luck, but it turned out we were actually damn good. After an incredible tourney with an 11-0 win-loss record, we emerged tournament champs. That's right, your friend Liz Love is a world champion! (That never gets old.) Here's a photo of me, Farouk, Karen and Jon with our medals:

Dr. Luke and Nick enjoying the sweet taste of victory:

Also, my parents wanted a close up of the medal, so here it is. Pretty sweet.

Yogyakarta - Assorted Photos

Chad has a lot more Yogya photos on his blog, but I'll share a few more of mine.

Didn't catch avian flu in the bird market, but I did snag these photos:

A Yogya 'garage':

This is a photo of our guide at Borobudur, a Buddhist temple built around 800 AD. It eanded up covered in volcanic ash, and was re-discovered in 1814 and was restored in the early 1900s.

Yogyakarta - Becak-Becak

First, a couple of notes about the post title:

1. Becak-becak is the plural form. So becak-becak means pedicabs. It doesn't get much simpler than that. And if the plural form gets cumbersome you can just put the number, or "many" in front and you don't have to bother saying it twice. I love it.

2. Becak is prounced bechak. In Bahasa Indonesia every letter (or two letter combo) has a single way to pronounce it: no long and short vowels, no silent p's, no hard and soft g's. Easy. Pretty much all you need to know to read it competently is that c is pronounced "ch" and ng is pronounced like the ng in sing.

3. Of course, even a super logical language has an exception: Yogyakarta is pronounced Jogjakarta. Don't ask me why it's spelled like that. It might be in Javanese (the traditional language of the island of Java), but that's just a guess.

Ok, now to the photos. While in Yogya, I was amazed by the number of pedicabs (becak-becak). Apparently they were banned in Jakarta a while back to reduce congestion, and my guess is all of them came to Yogya instead. There are so many idle becak drivers trying to rustle up a fair that walking down the main street can be a test of patience. That said, with so few passengers, and so many becaks, I might be doing a little marketing too if I was a driver. Here's a driver in action:

It must be nearly impossible to make a true living wage as a becak driver. You do, however, become a master in passing the time. The men read, ate lunch, played cards and chatted with friends, but by far the most popular way to pass the time was this:

Yogyakarta - Rings

The first week of November, Chad and I went to Yogya for a week of language classes. A week there, I spoke a little more Bahasa, had eaten more than one well-rounded meal for less than $3, had seen a couple of ancient temples, and had drank my first tea from a roadside food stall, or "warung". It was a great week, and you can see a bunch of the photos on Chad's blog.

Probably the most fun I had all week was making my very own silver ring at a local workshop. For $10 each (including materials), a silversmith spent 4 hours with Chad and I showing us how to make our own rings. It was amazing to start with silver tape, silver wire and solder and finish with these:

If anyone is going to Yogya, I'd suggest this place for sure. Send me an email and I'll dig up the guy's name so you can find him. It was a real treat!


Here are Chad and I doing some serious sanding and polishing:

Beijing - Great Wall

We chose the Mutianyu section of the great wall because I'd heard it was a little less commercialized than the other nearby option. I didn't really have any expectations of the wall, so when i got there I was blown away. What an insane undertaking! The wall is literally built at the top of the highest ridge around. Standing on it, I felt exhilerated and almost invincible. What a fantastic dream. Are there any countries thinking on such a grand scale these days? (Well, maybe the states with their wall between the US and Mexico...)

Here's my favourite shot of mine. Chad's blog has got a bunch more.

Beijing - Tiananmen Square

With Saturday as Chad and Nikki’s only day for sight-seeing, we signed up for a private tour going Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. We had a pretty good tour guided who spoke English, and a driver who only got into one minor fender-bender (no injuries, happily).

We started with Tiananmen Square. It is absolutely huge, and it’s hard to reconcile the vast, empty concrete space with the atrocities that have taken place there.

Here are a couple of my photos:



Chad also had a great one of the massive portrait of Chairman Mao at the entrance to the forbidden city:

Beijing - Temple of Heaven

Judi and I visited the Temple of Heaven one morning. It was built over 600 years ago as a place to offer sacrifices to heaven. With the echo wall closed foe pre-Olympic repairs, and without a guide to give us the more interesting details, the temple wasn't a highlight, but it was still worth seeing. Next time I'd get a guide who could tell me about the symbolism of the place.