I hate tsunamis – they scare the hell out of me. Growing up on an island, we had tsunami warnings all the time. One time, my mom and I were ordered to evacuate our house in Hawaii Kai, so I grabbed the cats and my sewing machine and we headed up to my friend Teresa’s on Mariner’s Ridge. Nothing happened other than a rumor that one of the surfers had gone out to catch the wave. Tsunamis are terrifying because they are beyond our control – there is literally nothing we can do. Last night, I stayed up watching Al Jazeera and emailing friends and family in Hawaii, Guam and the west coast, hoping everyone was OK. One of the tv stations had some douchebags discussing the potential impact to the stock markets just a few hours after the quake. Oh, I am sorry! Did that mess up your stock portfolio? Is that even ethical?
Screw it. I am no longer Australian. All that buys me is ability not to tip. I still do, I am an ex waitress, after all. Being Australian means the Balinese think you live really close by and want to invest in a timeshare. When you explain that you were just lying because you didn’t want to discuss 911 again, they get really excited and start talking about President Obama. I love President Obama, too, but I definitely do not want a timeshare. If I need a timeshare on a tropical island, I will just sleep on the floor of my dad’s “basement”. Our house in Honolulu is on a hill overlooking town and someone added a second apartment to the house in the 1940s. My dad doesn’t rent it out anymore because he doesn’t like people, so it is just used for my nice and nephew to have nerf gun wars in. And as a bona fide roach motel. I saw a big one in there in December. He needed his own H2 to get around.
So I have decided to just announce that I am Russian and do not speak English. Nyet. This has been a huge success! No one speaks Russian, they think I am part of the mafia, no one tries to sell me a timeshare AND I don’t have to tip! Why didn’t I think of this before?
Last night as I was walking home from dinner (watermelon gazpacho – oh my yum!), I was offered sex. For free! Now I feel silly for paying for sex all this time, particularly when I can get it totally for free from a 19 year old on a moped. All those awkward trips to the cash machine in Seattle – solved! I was just walking along the street when a kid pulled up next to me and said, ”do you need love? I can give you love for free”. Maybe he was talking about something sweet like holding hands in the movie theater or some hippie stuff that happens at Folk Life, but I don’t think so. Now that I am Russian, I merely scowled and said, “Yakov Smirnoff!” and he skittered away.
I can only eat food that contains watermelon somehow. I am not sure what happened, but everything turns to dust or fish sauce in my mouth. Do you know how fish sauce is made? They take fish guts and ferment them and drain off the liquid = viola! Fish Sauce. I read about it in The History of Salt. You will never eat food with fish sauce in it again. I have just single-handedly killed the fish sauce industry. Sorry, economy.
There is a weird punk rock element to the culture here. There are oodles of references to fairly obscure 80s punk. A store called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, another called This IS a Love Song, several Punk Is Not Dead t-shirts and last night, I swear, I heard an Indonesian band doing covers of X and the Toy Dolls. Maybe they are all owned by expats in their mid to late 40s, I don’t know. Iron Maiden, Xcene Cervenka and Melissa Manchester? It is fine with me, it doesn’t totally make sense, but I like it all. And yes, I got a Sid and Nancy shirt at the Indonesian version of Hot Topic because Punk is NOT Dead.
This morning I got to go to the best temple ever. I know, there are temples all over this place, but this one was on an island and there were no monkeys! I am not permanently dissing monkeys, but I am cautious since that one tried to eat my shoe. While it was on my foot. This place is called Tanneh Lot, sounds like Camelot. It is on an island that is walk-able in low tide. This morning it was high tide, so you couldn’t get too close, but there were fun rocks on the beach to scramble on and a big sign that said “Holy Snake”. I do not know what that is about and I am not about to find out.
It started pouring, so I covered my camera and tried to get under a shelter. About a million other people were there too, so I could only keep my bag under shelter, I got drenched. After about 30 minutes, it started to let up, so I walked back to where my driver was supposed to pick me up. About 15 people tried to sell me an umbrella on the way back to the entrance. I looked like a wet muppet, don’t you think it is a bit late for the umbrella?
I looked around for my driver, he wasn’t where he said he would be. OK, I sat down on the curb and waited. And waited. And waited. I was starting to get pissed - it had been like 45 minutes. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started walking around looking into cars. I finally found him with his shirt off, legs spread, crashed out on the car seat. He was not a pretty man.
Because I have lived in Seattle so long, I didn’t say anything, I just got all passive aggressive and sighed a lot and rolled my eyes instead of saying something. Speaking of my adopted hometown, I realize I have not been giving it enough crap. I have been knocking on Honolulu like it is going out of style, but have left Seattle pretty much alone at home watching t.v. Don’t worry Seattle! I won’t forget you! And I won’t go easy on you either – no weather or grunge jokes, oh no. I am going to make Portlandia look like an episode of Northwest Afternoon.
I arrived at the airport for my flight to Perth and was surprised to learn I had to pay an additional fee to board the plane. I was out of rupiahs and started to panic, but they take US dollars too. I have never had to pay to leave a country before – paid plenty of Visa on Arrival fees, but never a Pay if You Want to Leave fee. You also get out processed on immigration – I guess they want to make sure people go home. Standing in the immigration line was a trip. There were a group of youngish Australians all wearing tie dyed marijuana shirts and pointy rice farmer hats. They will actually execute you here for drugs, so flaunting the reference and wearing an incredibly offensive hat seemed beyond stupid and tacky. There was also a magical leprechaun man who was about 5’2”, skinny, bright orange, with long stringy hair, a yellow beard, a Bintang wife beater and a garish hat that loudly proclaimed “Australia!” No shit.
The airport here is very civilized, not like Seoul. They have pocky! And newsstands and cafes and drug stores. They also have a prayer room and all of these enclosed smoking rooms. They are all glass and in the middle of the terminals. They don’t appear to have any extra ventilation, so they just serve as display cases for smokers. They look like they are in a little smoking museum or something.
OMG! I just spotted a case with Diet Coke! I think I am in heaven.
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