"you need to contract an illness to fully experience what i've gone through"

"it's so weird to think that you are half indonesian" - e. ciputra

jakarta, indonesia is an interesting place.  life in jakarta through my eyes - transcribed on this blog (if you spare the time to read it), can be a sufficient eye opener for many.   however, jakarta, if biographically told through alice's ridiculous tales, all the backwardness she has come vis a vis,
it's satirical prowess might be 'the naked gun' meets 'very bad things' with kevin arnold as the narrator.  the bizarre associations with every trip to jakarta begins right from the mental
preparation of buying the air-ticket (if u choose garuda air, it's a game of 'to die or not to die'), the airfare purchase immediately impacting that weeks
activities because all of a sudden u find yourself amidst a mass pile
of work, and still making that extra run to the supermarket to buy
"bagged apples" for the folks in indo because 'they don't have apples
in jakarta'.  <<~~ that's verbatim.  for alice, packing becomes
this strategic 2 pronged battle of luggage space versus 1. the 8
different possible scenario outfits needed for a 2 day excursion** and
2.  the cartons of apple juice that is going to take up the other half
of the suitcase.   sounds ridiculous?  we don't laugh anymore.  we just
buy the fruits, pack the suitcase and prepare for the worst.

    **extra footwear - what if it floods, broken stiletto on non paved road, u step in garbage/mud,
    **extra tops - for xtra hot n sweaty days, smelly bbq food, just in case there's a wedding, rendang sauce on ur shirt, just in case there's a baby shower, just in case u have to meet a                     director, just in case u have to bribe a cop, just in case u go to the mall for the fifth time that day (-u def can't be wearing the same outfit). 

im
okay with flying, but alice preps her own craisins and the vacuum sealed
nuts for better nutritional management - (managing altitude effects on stomach gases, local greasy cuisine anticipation, and traffic starvation/nausea anticipation)  the traffic, up to an hour, is bearable for me, but for her, with
her historical-jakarta anguish, before hopping into the car, she pops in a ginger root, then sighs a breath surrender.  "PULANG!" - we shriek to the driver with ridiculous body odor.  the things people do for
love.  the things people do for money.  the places people call home. 
with over half a decade of indo experience between the two of us, we knew that this time, no-line @ the visa-on-arrival stand was too good to be true.  10k away from the inner city, we hit an hour
of traffic, just the "sighs" had predicted. 

it was at this moment alice proclaimed that she would buy a video camera to document her life in jakarta.  i volunteered to film it documentary 'blair witch' style and broadcast 'the diary of alice nguyen' on a free podcast.  indonesia, outside of bali, is not a country of tourists.  too many people think all our jet setting is so exotically glamorous whereas a documentary podcast might shed some more light on the shennanigans that take place in this part of the equator.  we will do it for the passion of the 5th estate, the fervor of narcissism, and the hope to be sponsored by couture to be worn on the show and the hope to parlay that into b-list celeb status....

and i'll continue to supplement that with this blog.  my writing style unchanged for this project that is completely whirpooled upon tangents.  we'd have to focus the book less as a chronology of events.  but more sectioned off and focused on specific aspects of life in indo.  for instance.  i'd devote a chapter on food. titled "charcoal tablets".