adrian is rad

I like sandwiches. I pack a sandwich four days a week for lunch back in the US. I make up recipes for sandwiches. I like places that make good sandwiches.

I haven’t had a sandwich in over a month—it’s been a month and a day since I left the states—and I really wanted one for lunch today. I don’t know of many places that have sandwiches here, so I just had to go to Subway, which is the first American food (or maybe any sort of American) chain that I’ve patronized since I’ve got here.

I had such a stupid self-conscious-that-I’m-a-corporate-whore-(sometimes)-and-don’t-really-mind grin on my face when I was ordering my foot long turkey breast sub.

[Also, I’ve misspelled sandwich sandwhich a shameful number of times on this blog.]

While my Chinese skillz are coming along slowly, my gestures and other non-verbal communication skillz are advancing rapidly.

Yesterday, I went to the post office to get some stamps, a relatively simple task if you know the language. I had one letter to mail to the U.S. and wanted to get five more stamps because I’ll have a few more things to send over the next few months. Getting the letter I was sending stamped was no problem, but the other five proved a little more difficult. But as I said, I’m getting good at the gestures and the problem was soon resolved.

I also bought a bike yesterday from a man who didn’t speak any English.

Yeah, you’re going to want me on your charades team.

Brace yourself, lest its sweetness blind you.

Sure it’s rusted, the kickstand won’t stay up when I’m riding, the seat doesn’t go high enough and the seat actually leaves part of itself on my pants when I get off of it, but it’s a pretty smooth ride and cost me a total of about $22.

Driving into Ubud from Kuta when I was in Bali, we saw a lot of floats in the street. We asked the driver and it turns out that there was a parade that day commemorating the day. We got various stories about who it was for, whether it was for anyone at all. It was an annual parade, or it was for the husband of a woman we talked to, or it was for a baby that had died a couple weeks prior. Or it might have been a combination, a planned parade but when the baby or the husband died, they became part of it.

The plan, we learned, was to parade these floats about a kilometer and then burn the floats. As it was tradition, all the men, including my group, all wore sarongs.

Some floats prepared on the road.

Everyone turned out, it seemed.

It took quite a bit of coordination to lift each of the floats.

There was a lot of noise and excitement as the parade started.

On some of the floats, younger boys road up top.

There was a music group from the local school marching along with instruments from the gamelan tradition.

People who didn’t walk along the route with the parade watched as it went past.

At the end of the parade route at the cemetery area, all the floats were lined up around the edge of the area. Every family in town prepared an offering which were then placed in the floats before they were burned.

After a lull in the excitement there was a lot of yelling off to one side. Suddenly I realized that the locals had dug up some (apparently recently buried) bodies. Wrapped in thatched blankets, they were rushed over and placed in the floats amid a flurry of yells.

This man was the man with the matches, one presumes an important person on this day.

One float with offerings lined up around it and in the back.

Everything goes up in flames.