At home...

It has been a day over a week since I got into Jakarta. It has been rather relaxing visiting my parents and at the same time a bit productive since I have been working on my music while I sit around in my room. So, since my parents no longer live in an apartment provided by the hotel, they live in the hotel. They have a suite in the building and it is very nice but being in a suite, I no longer have my own room, so I am staying in my own room across the hallway. Privacy is a plus and a bliss... I think a lot will change if I didn't have this. As I always think to myself. As long as I eat, sleep, watch TV, have Internet and practice singing. I can continue my general living. Only problem is that I don't have the use of cell phone here. So that would leave me no contact over the phone. I have not had the chance going out to buy a phone card so no connection via phone to people, well actually Ashlee.

Like I mentioned above, things are quite nice here. Not too bad of a weather, other than the fact that it is the rainy season right now. But it usually rain, hard, for a while but before you know it the sun is shining again. I rarely leave the hotel so I barely notice the fact that it is raining outside. That's one thing about living in a hotel. Everything is right there so you really don't have to leave the building. Which I have no problem doing... :-p Occasionally we do go 'out' to eat instead of using the facilities here. In fact my parents took me and Mona, our family friend from India. We went to a very fancy Japanese restaurant called "Koh". Now, the cuisine here is very traditional Japanese cuisine. The meal we had for dinner that night was in a style of "Kaiseki" which is a course meal where many different dishes are presented with such art and work in a manner that it is too beautiful to eat it. It is delicious to boot! These type of meals are created upon what is available during that season. Since everything that the owner/chef gets are from Japan, it is very fresh and good. The theme of the meal that night was New Year's so we got to have some special dishes. The specialty that the chef prepared for us was a congee(porridge) with red beans. Also, we had "Blow Fish" sashimi. That was a rare opportunity to have that outside of Japan. It's so hard to come by. Needless to say that dinner was AMAZING!!!

Today, Sunday January 28th, I actually spent the day with my father. I thought it would be nice to do a father-son activity. So what do we do? My father's favorite sport, Golf. Now, I mentioned couple days ago that maybe I'll go golfing with my father. So he set up to go today. Well, the last time I went out golfing was over seven years ago! So of course my father wasn't sure if I was ready to get out on the course. We got to the golf course around little after 8:00am. I got up at 5:00am, by 6:30am I had breakfast... This RARELY happens. Anyhow, we got to the course and we both head to the driving range. I need practice. I end of hitting two buckets of balls, most of them not very promising... The future looks grim. But actually at the end, I did pretty well. Now, usually if you go around 18 holes and score 133, that's nothing you want to broadcast. For those who play regularly! Yet for my case, over seven years of absence from any golf action, that was pretty damn good. Of course my hands, forearms, back are in pain and also got a nice burn on my face, neck, arms and legs from the nice warm sun of Indonesia. The best part of it was that I actually got to have fun. Who knows, maybe I'll pick it up when I get back to Chicago. Of course I got to wait for another four months or so until the ice melts...

As I enjoy my days here, I look forward to visiting Tokyo with my mother. We got some family business to do. My grandmother's, my mother side, first death anniversary is coming up on February 3rd. So we will be visiting her grave and give her our prayers and after that we have dinner with all our relatives. Now it will be great to visit Tokyo for the 10 days we are going to be there. Since I'll be going with my mother, without my father, we don't need to get another room. Which means that my mother and I will be sharing a room for TEN DAYS!!! I think it will be okay but then again, who knows... It will be interesting.

Before you know it, I will be getting on a plane to come back to Chicago...
Back to the freezing weather.

For now, I'm enjoying the tropical weather, mainly in an air-conditioned indoor! :-p