September 7, 2008

We went to the lowlands for the day, and ended up taking a detour to the port site and the Papuan village there.  We happened to get there in time for people to be coming back home from church (at least that's what one of the Papuans sign-languaged to us), so Eric was able to get a lot of great photos.  I picked a few of the best ones and put them on the Photos2 page.  These ones are my favorites:

September 13, 2008

Happy Birthday-weekend to me!  And as if it were meant to be a celebration of my birthday, the pottery that I had ordered six months ago just happened to show up on my birthday weekend.  How great is that?! 

The pottery was made on the island of Lombok, near Bali, and I purchased it through a school fund-raiser here.  My favorite moment of the day was when I had to tip them all upside down to empty out the ashes that were still inside from when they were in the kiln, and my friend Stormy said every single time, "If a spider jumps out of there, I'm gonna scream."  Unfortunately, (or fortunately for Stormy) the comic moment of spiders and Stormy jumping around my apartment never happened, and we just ended  up vacuuming a lot.

And if I ever end up going "missing" be sure to check inside of these first.  I'd better remind Eric that these are off-limits when we play hide-and-seek.

September 15, 2008

Fun with Photoshop.  More photos from the port site Papuan village on the Photos2 page.

September 21, 2008

HOT STONE NIGHT!  This is one of our favorite nights to eat out.  The chef heats a slab of rock to a zillion degrees, throws your choice of meat on it, and you cook it yourself at the table.  It's really fun and different, but if you choose to add butter sauce you have to know not to add it to the stone too soon or you will splatter everyone at your table with sun-temperature butter.  Right, Eric?

Eric watches with great intensity the slab o' meat cooking on the hot stone.   

September 29, 2008

CARNAGE!

We took some friends into Timika for some really good seafood, and dinner turned into the Incredible Expanding Meal, where 3 fish turned into 3 four-pound fish and 8 shrimp turned into 8 ORDERS of shrimp.  The 2 crabs somehow didn't expand, but still, we had more than enough food for ten people. Because this is a little family-owned place, the five of us felt compelled to eat as much as we could, and impressively we finished off everything except for the fried rice.  The aftermath was two entire tables of fish, crab and shrimp carcasses, five people rolling out the door, and a handful of restaurant patrons who could not believe that we could put away that much food.  Lesson learned from this trip: toilet paper does not work well for washing your fingers and face, so bring your own paper towels.