BIRDS NEST JUICE COCKTAIL

I love a good cocktail and I have some very creative friends who can whip up a cocktail master piece at the drop of a hat.  Here is a little cocktail that I think you will all enjoy indeed.  I whipped it up after an afternoon out on the boat. Vodka and Bird’s Nest Juice, yes you read that correctly bird’s nest juice.  The imagination runs wild doesn’t it?   This little treat comes in a can complete with white fungus, I added the vodka and ice and mmmmm tasty.

 

Okay so I couldn’t really bring myself to drink the stuff but I did have a little taste.  My verdict, sugary, nutty, floaty bits, and definitely not going to become a favourite any time soon.  For 95 cents you can try this flavoursome delicacy that is imported from Thailand, but I think I will be giving it a miss from now on. It is back to plain old vodka, lime and soda for this little kiwi bird. 
 
 

SOMETHINGS I MISS

Homesickness is something that I am sure all expats get once in a while. Homesickness creeps up at the most unexpected moments and when it does it knocks me for a six and the tears flow.  At these times my husband rolls his eyes and reminds me how much we are gaining from been here .... blah,blah,blah is all I hear.  I’m not infected with the homesick bug right now so I think this is the perfect time to reminisce on the things I miss from the life I left behind.

 

• Listening to music which is far too loud in my car, windows down, singing like a superstar, driving along the highway. 

• Books and the bookshops I love to browse in, Mary Who (oh I miss you) for a great book, then off to Millie J’s for a coffee and read.

• Coffee, really good coffee.

• Lazy Sunday afternoons listening to my friends chatter, sitting on their lawn and talking shit with cold vodka in my hand.

• Mendi Drive nights, afternoons and early mornings.

• The sensation and freedom of walking bare foot on Bushland Beach.

• I miss the freedom of feeling like myself. Here I am full of limitations because of my lack of control over the language, myself and this place.

• The crazy group of woman who shared my life in Australia.

• I miss myself. Here I have no voice. I am learning half a language. In my head there is nothing but half sentences, half ideas. I cannot express myself as I am used to, something that I value with all that I am. It’s as if I’m losing half my identity.

• Strawberries, oh how I miss strawberries.

• My closet – I miss my closet full of dresses, hats, gloves, high heels and bags, beautiful clothes. I miss dressing beautifully.

• My hairdresser – I want a haircut so much.

• My career – yes I do indeed miss working.

I miss a lot, but I am also blessed with the things I experience here.  I have meet people from every corner of the world who have stamped a little of themselves on my life.  I have seen things I never dreamed I ever would and have learnt so much about myself and the world.  I will continue to see and experience wonderful things but sadly nothing can ever erase the feelings of desire for the familiar.

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOLF

I have a love hate relationship with golf.  Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it.  I know it is meant to be relaxing and social but really, following a little white ball around a large expanse of jungle sometimes becomes a little frustrating.  Don’t get me wrong, I do understand how lucky I am to have a gorgeous 18 hole golf course that is free for me to use when I please.  It is surrounded by jungle and often monkeys can be found at holes 3 and 7.  We have very capable caddies who can find a ball which has flown off erratically into the jungle.   These caddies drag the golf bags up and down the hills of the course with no apparent effort at all.  I know you are all thinking that it does indeed sound like paradise for a golfer, but that is not the case.  The average temperature here is  30+ degrees with at least 95% humidity.  Add to this the sun beating down and you can imagine how hot and sweaty things can get.  Hitting a ball around a golf course isn’t sounding so appealing is it now.   

Many of you know there are not many expat woman left here (5 to be exact) so on the golf course I am usually surrounded by testosterone filled blokes.  The competitive edge takes them over and there is no longer casual golf but a desire to kick the other golfer’s arses.  My golf is hmmmmm how should I put it – shameful.  Yep, I try my best but that damn little white ball and my clubs tend to try to avoid each other.  On the occasions that my clubs do indeed hit the ball I am pretty damn good and yes there have been occasions when I myself have kicked some golfing arse.  However, the majority of the time I am a hot, sticky mess and would rather be at the pool bar than battling on at hole number 9. 

Having a husband that is a natural athlete and a very good golfer adds to the pressure for me to perform at this insane sport.  Directions are shouted down the green on how to hold my head, bend my knees and straighten my elbows.  I am sure this information would be very helpful if I actually cared.  It’s not that I don’t need the help (I most certainly do) but by this stage of the game I am often too hot to even care where my hands should be placed.  I have never had a hissy fit on the green as I have seen several of the boys do, never thrown a club (tempted but no) and never given up halfway round and gone home.  I will admit that I have indeed thought about wrapping my club around someone’s head, taking a dip in the pond and hijacking a golf buggy to take me back to the pool bar.  Golf and I will never be close friends.  I will however, continue to persevere with the relationship but deep down I know it’s going to end in tears.

MONSTERS OF THE GECKO WORLD

Living in the jungle I expect an abundance of creepy crawly things.  I’m fine with them as long as they keep their distance from me.  They have their space I have mine – or so I thought.  In the last few weeks it seems that my house has become a haven for a variety of free loaders.  One in particular is the huge Tokek gecko.  I have nothing against these giant geckos.  Their natural habitat is however, the rainforest, which I think they have forgotten as for some reason they have decided to evolve and become house Tokek.  They live goodness knows where during the day, building up the energy to taunt and scare I’m sure.  Once night has fallen they leave their hiding places and begin to roam the walls and ceilings of my house in search of prey. I know you are all laughing at me, thinking that after years in Australia I should be used to creepy little geckos, well I’m not.  Before you laugh too hard at my apparent irrational fear of friendly little geckos let me give you some details on these creatures that roam my house come nightfall.

  

These are not your average geckos – they are in fact the second largest gecko species in the world.   A full grown male can be as big as 51cm (hmmmmm who’s laughing now).  They have bluish bodies with red/orange spots on them – yeah real cute huh.  Big creepy gecko eyes with vertical slit pupils freak me out as they watch my every move.  The males are very territorial, and will attack pretty much anything that is in their territory, this is concerning for me as their territory has now expanded to include my house.  Insects and small vertebrates are their dish of choice but given the chance I am sure they would dine on a Kiwi.  I have made some enquiries on the likely hood of these beasts banding together and attacking me and have being told that they are solitary, so it is very unlikely they will ambush me as I wander back from the bathroom in the dark.  They bite though and rumour has it this can be pretty painful.  I knew I should be wary of anything that has sticky pads on its feet and a creepy smiley face. 

 

I am happy for these monsters of the gecko world to live outside my house, where they belong.  Despite their hostile takeover of my house I don’t want to harm them, wouldn’t even think of chasing them with a broom (they could scoot up the broom handle and attack). I can even see the benefits of them keeping other creepy crawlies at bay, but I am still not happy about their settlement in my house.   Having them in my house is something I won’t get used to in a hurry but as with many things here I will just have to grin and bear it.

COMING BACK

It has been a while since I blogged about this amazing life I live in the jungle.  Lots of friends have requested that I blog again as I am very slack at keeping everyone up to date with what is going on in our lives.  So I'm back and I promise to try to post on a regular basis.

So much has happened in the last 12 months (yep that's how long since my last post).  We have travelled a lot, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and a few places in between.  We have settled into home schooling ( hard, but fun), become accustomed to orangutans in the back yard, monkeys on the roof and snakes in the oddest places.  Have we adapted to live in this jungle paradise?  Not too sure I will ever truly adapt (too much of the city girl in me), but we are growing to love it here.

Life here presents me with challenges I never dreamt I would face.  Language barriers and loneliness rare their ugly heads way too often, but I keep on smiling (the only thing you can do when trying to communicate in two different languages).  I have learnt to cook with ingredients I can't even pronounce the name of and work with an oven that was made in 1975 and has a mind of its own.  Princess Pants has made some great friends and I have met some of the most interesting and amazing people.

I will fill in all the details of life in the rest of my blogs, but for now I must go do battle with my oven.

Oh Woolies I Miss You

Anyone who knows me knows I dislike grocery shopping.  I would prefer a bikini wax to a trip to Woolies.  I was over the moon when home delivery was invented.  Sitting in front of the computer, vodka in hand ordering groceries.  Some nice young man delivering them to my door and carrying them into my bench - ahhh bliss. 

But here I am in the jungle of Borneo.  A trip to a supermarket consists of a smallish IGA type store (if I'm lucky), my Bahasa to English dictionary and a creative mind.  With all this time I have on my hands I have taken to baking daily and cooking up a treat for hubby's dinner so I am learning to experiment.  There is no self raising flour here - yep have to add baking powder to good old plain flour.  When I ran out hubby and I spent 4 hours driving from small shop to small shop in the hope of finding some.  At our last stop I found some tiny containers of the stuff - what did I do brought all 8 that they had in stock.

There is no just popping down to Woolies to grab that ingredient you need (in most cases you won't find it here anyway) but heading into our nearest town is such a mission (imagine having to visit 8 shops to find one ingredient). 

So when I return to Australia in 2 weeks time my first stop will be Woolies where you may see me just standing admiring the range of fresh fruit and veg, the meat section or wandering aimlessly from aisle to aisle with a stupid smile on my face.

The Joy Of The Maid

So here I am sitting in my pj's, its 8.20am and my maid arrived 15 mins ago.  We had a dinner party for 10 last night so the dishes are piled high, there is not a spare plate, bowl or piece of cutlery in my house.  The sight of this would normally send me into a sobbing mess over a coffee but not today.  I know I should be feeling bad that someone else will be spending the day cleaning and tidying up the mess but I don't.  I commented to my husband last night after our guests left "I love entertaining when I don't have to do the clean up", he smiled and asked me if I would like another vodka.  

Now in between doing the mountain of dishes my maid will also find time to wash and iron the laundry that has has accumulated since she left Saturday arvo (she is here Mon - Sat 8 - 4pm). How much can there be I hear you saying - well I live in the jungle, on the equator, so lots of laundry accumulate. (I sweat more than I ever felt possible so 3 changes of clothes a day is fairly norm.)  For the first two weeks I felt uncomfortable as this domestic whizz cleaned my clothes and house while I shopped online, face booked and generally swanned around like a lady of leisure I always thought I should be.  I felt uncomfortable at the thought of someone washing and folding my underwear (our maid folds undies in ways I have never seen undies folded before) or making my bed for me.  Now I can't quite pin point the moment when I got over my discomfort but I do know that when I return to reality (life in Australia) and don't have someone to clean up after me on a daily basis I will miss it. 

My hubby has commented on how clean the house is and I had to gently inform him to not get too used to it as on our return to Australia my distaste for household cleaning will again rear it's head.  This is just a quickie blog so all of you reading it can slip way to vacuum or fold laundry - while I swan around like lady muck :)