searching for 42

It’s been a little longer then a week since I last wrote, in that time nothing much happened. We walked around town a lot, found a really cheep restaurant (Warung Lokal) that turned into our favorite “hangout and eat… and eat spot”, I finished the new Harry Potter book, and went to a beachside party, which is what I’m going to focus in this entry.
Me and mom whistled past a group of rice harvesters on the back of Rick’s golden brown motor bike on our way to meet his friend Annie (who I later found out is nothing like Rick’s other friends… in a good way). When we arrived mom, Rick, and I slid of the motor bike and made our way toward an elderly women with a radiant smile waving us over to a table looking out on the street. “Hi, Annie, I’m Lisa,” said mom, holding out her hand, Annie shook it smiling, “and this is my son Jonah,” continued mom. “Hey,” I said shaking her hand.
We got lunch I chatted with the grownups for about 20min then lost interest and satisfied myself by continually stabbing at a piece of my corn fritter. When me/mom left mom told me about a beachside party thing we were going to that night. Mom haggled for a taxi and we left for the party.
When we arrived, there were no guests yet, and we got to swim and take feeble attempts at surfing. When the guests did start arriving I met this kid named Hanuman, we talked about life, music, what was new in the US. Then we went up stairs and watched TV for the rest of the night. Finally after about four hours of Dr. House, Simpsons, Ripleys, and Family Guy, mom came up and announced that we were sleeping over.
In the morning I reluctantly opened my eyes, looked at my watch, saw what time it was, fell back to sleep. An hour or two later I re-woke up saw that it was about 9, thought about going back to sleep… “Nah,” got up and went to breakfast. For breakfast I had Nasi Gorang (Fried rice), an omelet (With Ketchup!!) and some hot chocolate. After breakfast I found Hanuman and we went down to the beach, and boogie boarded, and talked for an hour or two. Later that day mom and I hitched a ride home with Hanuman, in the car he invited me to sleep over at his house, “Sure,” I said.
“Cool,” came Hanumans reply.
Half an hour later I was being introduced to his mom, and dad. The rest of that day we biked around Ubud he introduced me to some of the townsfolk we got lunch at Bali Buddha then headed back to his house. It was getting dark when we got there; I pulled up a chair as Hanuman asked his maid (yes, maid, almost all westerners have maid’s in Bali) to make us something to drink. While we were waiting his cousin came over, “I bet I can get my cousin to kill you,” said Hanuman, he turned to his cousin and said, “He doesn’t like Good Charlotte,”
His cousin and I had the biggest fight over what good music is, I liked bands like My Chemical Romance, the Exies, Nine inch nails, The Black Mages, and System of a down, she was infatuated with Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, and Bowling for Soup. The only band she and I both liked was Greenday though I only liked their older stuff. That went on till Hanumans dad called us in to bed.

I haven’t really had time or motivation to write the past two or three days, but I’ll try to about sum it up. We landed in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and stayed there for a day and a half resting from our daylong flight, and looking around the city. I was dismayed when I saw all I was looking at was a collection of shopping malls; there were at least five malls all a walking distance from were we were staying. Mom was disgusted. I didn’t exactly fall in love with the place.
Anyway, after that we got on a quick 3hr flight to Bali, Indonesia where our friend Rick, who stays in Bali half the year, had already booked a bungalow for us (only $7.50 including breakfast!). The second I entered the room I was asleep. In the morning I woke up at about 7, stayed in bed for maybe an hour then finally got up and went outside. The front lawn took my breath away! In front of me behind the coconut tree was a stretch of rice paddies, lining them on either side was a variety of tropical trees, and living in the rice paddies a family of ducks which I later learned are good for the paddies and aren’t there purely for show. That day we (me and mom) hitched a ride to Ubud (the central town in Bali) on Rick’s motorcycle. He dropped us in the center of town on “monkey forest road” (which actually leads to a forest in which the main inhabitants are monkeys), recommended a few restaurants, then left to go on a few errands. We then went up the street, got a meal (only $2.50!), walked a little further up the street, ate some ice cream, and left. When we got to our bungalow ‘the grownups’ got dressed up to go to Trivia (every Friday Fly Café hosts a trivia contest, where each table is it’s own team, and the prize is a bottle of beer, and a glass of wine for everyone at the winning table.).
When we arrived at Fly Café we were introduced to Rick’s ex-pat friends (the best selling album “American Idiot” described them perfectly) and sat down in between mom and Rick. Then came the Trivia questions… I was disappointed when I only got one point for our table, especially since one of the questions had to do with the Simpsons which I watch every chance I get (though I don’t have cable so that isn’t very often). The question I did get was one no other table got though, the question was “What comprises 10% of the Komodo dragons main food supply,” and the answer was “younger Komodo dragons.” What surprised me was I had just done an independent assignment on the subject in school.