Thursday, January 31, 2008

The Hurricanes will always be my number one, but...

got to watch the Avs play last night here in Denver and it was a pretty sweet game. They beat the Chicago Blackhawks 6-3. Colorado is a beautiful state and I am enjoying my short visist here despite another cold, not yet adjusted to the time zone from Asia (unless you call waking up at 2:45am adjusted) and the 16 hours of drive time looming over us. It snowed here last night so, I might just have to go outside today and act like a kid. We'll see. Anyways, here are a couple of cool pix... (see, I wore one of my Canes' hats for good measure)
me and the rockies, its a cold but lovely relationship, this set of mountain range is called Flat iron peak.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Back in the States...

Hey Ya'll-
Got back in Austin last night and am trying to adjust to the time zone again. We traveled over 20 hours in a plane, and it makes for quite a long day, but the trip, overall, was pretty amazing and I am glad I went. Tomorrow I head up to Colorado with Melissa for the week. It seemed like a much better idea back in November...

Oh well, there are a lot of pix from the trip, I think I will try to put up a few today, but if you have facebook, you will get to see them all a lot sooner (they upload albums there much quicker). Facebook is free, so you can friend me if you join (carrie.finch@austinseminary.edu).

Anyways- here are some of my favorites...













Thursday, January 24, 2008

Greetings from Hong Kong!

It's Friday morning here, and I thought I would update my blog for the last time while on this Asian trip, as tomorrow, Melissa and I have the 36 hour day of flying back to Texas. We got into Hong Kong Wednesday afternoon and went through customs quickly and were at the hotel and checked in (and relaxing) by 4:30 local time. After a quick exploration of the property (which by the way something all my gaming friends will find humorous- they have a Nintendo Wee in their exercise room) Melissa and I began "faking it" through Hong Kong- what I mean by that is we didn't (and still don't) have any real idea the best way to see the province/city so we just made it up as we went/go. Wednesday night we found ourselves on Hong Kong Island (we are staying on the mainland in Kowloon) and up to the top of Victoria Peak to see the lights of the hundreds of skyscrapers that define the city. We traveled that night by bus, ferry, taxi, walking (we got off at the wrong stop once) and we had a great time doing it. Yesterday, we went on the train and then on a very long cable car/sky car (akin to a ski lift) up another mountain on Lantua mountain to the Po Lin monastery to see the ginourmous Budda that sits atop the mountain (over 120 meters tall) and then we went to the Ladies Market and the Temple Street Night market. We have also found a few malls- you can't seem to avoid them here- as well. All in all, there is so much to do here, and it really has been a great minivacation- and the best part? no Eastern toilets- they exist here, but usually, you have a choice about which style you prefer.
Now let me take a moment and tell you about Eastern toilets, because I don't think I have yet and if you haven't experienced them, well, uhm, consider yourself lucky, especially if your tummy is not well. Eastern toilets are nothing more than porcelain or plastic holes in the ground that you stand atop of and do your business squatting down. There is no flush system, you have to scoop water from a bucket or well, and there is no toilet paper either. I think you are supposed to use that same scoop water to wash your self as well, but I always carried my own paper so I didn't do that- this is one place where I think Westerners excel, but I digress....
Today, I think we are going to check out the Art museum and the History museum and depending on the weather might venture out to explore one of the outer lying islands where there is talk of a pirate! Yesterday, I found out, was only 12 degrees Celsius, which I don't know what that translates to in Fahrenheit except that to me it meant COLD! Today, its supposed to be 15.
Well, thats all I have to report for now.
Hope you are all doing well. Take care- C

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Leaving Indonesia

Hi all-
Just a quick note from the hotel lobby here in Surabya- We are getting ready to hop in some taxis (taksi here) and then we are off to the airport where we fly to Hong Kong. And there is where Melissa and I leave the group for our own little 3 day adventure. Yesterday was spent traveling in a bus from Solo (which was in fact in central Java, as was Yogyakarta) to Surabya.
Well, I have to get going. Time to go.
I will write more soon!
C

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Jojakarta, Java,Indonesia....

Hi all-
I am writing you from a internet store (I guess that's what you call it) in Jojakarta, Indonesia. Local time is Thursday, Jan 17, 7:07pm. Sorry its been almost a week since my last post. This is the first time I have been near a computer since we arrived here on Monday. So, what's happened with me over the last week? Well, I got over the worst of the sickness, although I still cannot eat food without, err, repurcussions, so, I have limited my diet to crackers, some plain rice and the occassional attempt at other food leaves me in regret soon after.
Out side of that, the trip is going well. On Saturday we were given a free day and some money to cover meals, etc. so Melissa and I decided to have an adventure and we went to Lomback Straight on the east side of Bali and rode on a banana boat, went parasailing, went out to the coral and fed some fish and then they took us to Turtle Island where we held sea turtles (as well as a python, a toucan, and petted several other animals). That was a lot of fun. That night we joined the rest of the group as guests at one of our Balinesian friends' home for dinner. The next day we attended worship at an English speaking service (designed for the numerous expats that live in Bali) and as a group processed our time in Bali.
On Monday we flew over to Jojakarta, in the central part (I think, according to the people here) of the eastern part of the island of Java. Jojakarta is much busier and bigger than anywhere we went in Bali, there are many colleges here, and one of them, a Christian University, has been playing host to us here during our stay.
Jojakarta is also primarily Muslim. Which means, that at 4am, and four other times of the day, the call to prayer can be heard (by several competing Mosques) through out the city, and, it is a most interesting way to be woken up in the morning. However, I do like it. I have yet to see a Hindu temple here on this island, which is odd to the thousands that exist on Bali. Since we have been in Java, we have done some cool things and attended several lectures on contextualization. The coolest day by far was yesterday when we started out at 6:30am (too early) and headed to the Boboudour Buddhist Temple which was amazing. This thing was built with lava stone and has stuppahs and Buddhist sculptures and reliefs all over it. We climbed the entire thing and at the top, we were treated like minor celebrities, because all the Indonesian people seemed to want to get their picture with an American- it was kind of surreal. The whole thing, not just the photos. After that, we went to a Buddhist monostary and chatted with one of the monks, had lunch and toured the campus. Then we went to a Catholic audio visual production camp thing in the middle of a bamboo forest and toured that place as well. Afterwards, we went to this resteraunt that was called something like "Elephant Man" where they served some amazing samoas and other food (that I regretted eating later) that was very tasty.
Today we went out to a little community that was the start of contextualization here in Java- basically it was a little community that had a church there that was built a 131 years ago. It was all right I guess, we passed lots of rice patties (which is a common theme here on both islands) in route to the place and saw some corn fields in the mix of it all. That was kind of funny.
We also went to the Sultan's Palace and saw a traditional Javanese ballet at this pretty impressive Hindu place on Tuesday, which was interesting as well.
Tomorrow we have more lectures and we are going to see another church and a puppet show then on Saturday we leave for Solo. We will be in Solo (and its surrounding areas) until Tuesday when we will make the trek (hopefully it will be safe and smooth) to Surabya where we will fly out of to Hong Kong the next morning. Surabya has had some issues with floodingand mudslides, but Arun is pretty confident that we will not have any problems. I won't tell you the nickname that some of the locals have for the place until I get home. I am most interested in seeing Surabya and there is a large part of me that wishes we could go ahead and go there and then do some work with the people there for the next few days, but I don't think that is at all likely to happen.
Anyways- if I get the chance, I will write again sooner, but otherwise, it will probably be Wednesday next week, when we get to Hong Kong that I will be able to check in again.
I hope you are all doing well wherever you are.
Peace to you all.
Carrie

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Ever had a monkey on your back?

Hi all-
I write this Friday morning as I have stayed back from the program today due to the fact that I have gotten progressively sicker- I hope this day of rest will be sufficient. Quite a few of us have gotten some sort of bug- first we thought it was food poisioning (which it still may be)- anyways- outside of being sick- these last two days have been pretty interesting. On Wednesday the highlight of the day was having lunch at a restraunt that overlooked a volcano, somewhere on the east side of Bali and getting to (sort of) see Ubud. Apparently our tour guide likes to take us to tourist traps- so we can dump some money into the places. But, we did also see how they make the sarongs and other materials. Yesterday we visited two hindu temples and a monkey forrest where yes, I litterally had a monkey on my back- which was pretty darn cool and a little frightening as they are wild creatures- she was lured up there with a peanut. I do have a picture of that as well- which I will put up once I get home.
My classmates today are meeting with various faith leaders which I am sure will be fascinating as well.
We fly over to Java on Monday so our time here in Bali is quickly coming to a close, as is this e-mail. Those of you who have been facebooking me- well, I can log on, but I can't do more than that, so I will have to get back to you at the end of the month.
Allright- that's it for now.
Take care,
Carrie

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Another Update

Hi all-
So, where was I??? Well, it's Tuesday afternoon here and we are on a break from the program, so I thought I would update you on the adventure. A quick note- the Internet is incredibly slow here and the business office is not always open when I would like it to be, so sometimes, I can not always make the "scheduled" updates...
This morning we had a presentation from the bishop of the Protestant Church here in Bali on the contextualization of the church here as well as we heard from other speakers and Balinesian Christian artists about their works. It's pretty impressive. Yesterday we toured a school, an orphanage and a social justice/education place that is all sponsored by the Protestant church. It is incredible how much they are doing in their communities with so little resources and how small the population is, not to mention the restrictions on sharing the Christian faith in a Hindu island- those who are Christian here have to give up essentially their identity to practice their faith and are shunned by many.
So, as I mentioned in the previous post, I spent the weekend in Blimbingsari. While there, we had a cultural presentation of local music and dance, worshiped with the church and our group was split up through out the community for home stays. We also ate a lot.
We eat a lot here. Every meal, except one, since I have been here has rice and/or noodles. I am becoming quite fond of my breakfast noodles by the way- but I digress.
We also drink a lot of hot tea and coffee. Every where we go we are served that (as well as snacks that typically involve a sweetened rice treat with chicken inside all rolled in a banana leaf.... I have tried several new fruits- jack fruit and this red hairy fruit which name I cannot remember but it is very good. In Blimbingsari, they served us this black rice pudding with fresh made coconut milk- it is very nice.
They also served beef heart- I did not eat that.
Tonight we are having another cultural night. We have experienced a lot already- the Balineese people are very warm and hospitable. Tomorrow we are exploring another part of the island (I think we head north).
Let's see- uhm, the flowers and the greeness and the nature in general here are AMAZING! I am glad that I have my camera here to try to capture some of it.
Well, there is always more to tell, but there are people outside who either just caught and killed (they were beating it with some bamboo a young crocodile or a big lizard- it was like 2 or 3 feet long) and that has caught my limited attention span so I will end this update for now.
I look forward to sharing about more of this later and then adding pictures when I get home.
Take care and I will write again soon.
Carrie

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Monday Morning Rush...

Hi all-
Quick post this mornng because I am supposed to be getting on a bus any minute now. The internet connection is quite slow here. I hope to expand this update when we get done with today's activities. I spent the weekend in BlingBlimSari- a little Christian village in the jungles and the mountains of Bali- very beautiful, very rustic, which I will expand on more this evening (hopefully).
Thanks everyone for the well wishes and prayers. It's hard to believe it's already Monday!
Take care-
Carrie

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Greetings from Indonesia!

Hi all-
I am writting this at 11:14am on Friday morning (Jan 4) from the hotel we are staying at here in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. We arrived yesterday here about 4pm. I am pretty sure that we are 13 hours ahead of EST and, respectively, 14 hours ahead of you in Texas. It costs about 2,000 Indonesian Rupies for 15 minutes of internet access (the excange rate is ~9,100 ruppies to every 1 US dollar) so it is pretty cheap. It took us over 25 hours of flying time to get here, wecame via Austin to Dallas to Vancouver (which by the way- their international wing of the airport is super fancy and cool in preps for the winter games in 2010, and if for some reason you get the chance to see it, I highly reccomend that) then to Hong Kong- which that flight was 13 hours- and then down to Denpasar. Not to mention lay overs and what not. I slept little on the planes, a few naps here or there and by yesterday night I was well exhausted.
This place that we are staying at is called the Dhyana Pura Beach Resort and has access to the Indian Ocean- however the undertow is very strong here and the water quality is very poor so all I have done is stick my feet in it so I can say that I have stood in the Indian Ocean. The place is owned by a Christian community and the people are very hospitable.
Last night, some of took a quick dip in the pool and then the group went into town for dinner. After dinner, we all passed out from exhaustion. We are having lunch today with all the pastors of the city and later this afternoonw we are having a program on the church in Indonesia (or atleast, the church here in Bali). My first impression of the country is that geographically it reminds me of Belize and Puerto Rico- in that it is very tropical and lush green with beautiful flowers although there are rice patty fields here) with a very Asian sense of architecture, the buildings have the roofs that one has seen in pictures of Japan and China- plus, because Bali is primarily Hindu, there are Hindu deities all over the streets and that is also something different to see.
There is already lots more to tell, but I think I will end this for now. I think I will try to do that every 2-3 days. Tomorrow we are heading to another little community for the night and will worship with them on Sunday and return to this hotel Sunday night, so that will most likely be the next entry. I do not know after the 14th if I will have access to the internet, we are flying over to another island of Indonesia then.
Here is an interesting fact- Indonesia is stretches out over 1/8th of the globe. And it is also home to the largest muslim population in the world.
So thats it for now. Thanks everyone for your support and prayers.
Take care,
Carrie

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Happy New Year!

Hi all-
Just wanted to take a moment to wish you all a wonderful new year. I will be leaving in a couple of hours to begin the trek to Indonesia. I will be back home on the 26th. If I get the opportunity, I will update the blog while on my adventure, if not, I am sure, come the 27th I will have lots to share.
So, until the next time I can update, take care one and all.
Carrie