Note: Once upon a time I used to run the blog cranialvomit.com – eventually like all my other blogs it fizzled and died.
Unlike my other blogs though, I managed to keep an archive of old posts. Throughout the next few weeks/months/years, I’ll be reposting some of my old blog entries (occasionally edited) for those of you who haven’t witnessed the wonders that was me, from faaaaaaaaaar in the past. Well, two to three years ago anyway.
The following post is one of my posts who when I stayed a month in Indonesia, popping into Jakarta to see the family and then moving to Bali to drink lots, eat lots, sit in the sun lots and party a little too hard. This specific post was created early in my trip and was written as I had lunch at a KFC somewhere deep in the city.
All these Indonesian posts were authored on a tiny black and white Palm PDA. No keyboard, I had to stab at a tiny electronic keyboard smaller than a stick of gum.
I left the country with 60,000 words of text. Unfortunately only half of that ever made it to the net. A lot of it isn’t any good given they were drunken ramblings of a mad tourist, but they mean something to me :)
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Sundays are supposed to be holy days. Days when people would be at church with their families praying for salvation from their sins however I’d usually be in the city performing great biblical style sins onto my credit card… yes, I’d be out clothes shopping… How metrosexual of me… ugh.
Today I was in desperate need for some spiritual guidance. Thankfully Jakarta is indeed a shopping heaven.
Knowing I was bored shitless of the cramped confines of my host’s humble abode, my cousin offered to drive me to the closest shopping mall.
It was huge.
No I mean HUGE.
And I don’t even mean the ‘huge’ your girlfriend will say when she really means ‘barely adequate’. It was really, really… um. Big.
If this was any bigger it would develop a gravitational pull and eventually suck in the rest of the surrounding planet, creating a singularity in deep space, only to be found by an advanced alien civilisation millions of years from now. Those alien scientists will stare at their instruments, sigh, then confirm that yet another dumbass civilisation decided to build a really really big shopping mall.
Several storeys high, jam packed full of outlet stores, a multiplex cinema and a food hall featuring dishes from every corner of the globe, the place was absafuckinglutely packed. There would have been tens of thousands of people there; Christmas eve at the Centro Galleria wouldn’t be remotely as busy as it was here. Although the Galleria would probably have better air-conditioning.
Things weren’t that cheap in comparison to home – unless you went for the higher priced stuff. I spotted Pierre Cardin business shirt and tie I had bought last season at David Jones for $120. They had it for $35. Not bad at all.
About an hour into it, I stumbled into a book store and immediately fell in love. Books lined the shelves at a quarter of the price of home. There was a book I immediately HAD to have – it was an architecture book detailing unique building designs used in Europe in the 80’s. A hardcover monolith, it was as thick as a box of tissues, as wide as the Sydney Morning Herald and weighed a tonne thanks to its ultra glossy fully illustrated pages. I had to concede though. It simply was too big and would severely cause luggage issues. A book like that would easily cost a few hundred bucks at home – assuming a bookstore would even import it. There it was, taunting me with its $50 price tag.
Damn you book tease. Damn you to hell!
As I browsed the English hardcover aisle I bumped into Heather, a tiny 5 foot something brunette law student from Brisbane with piercing blue eyes, a mischievous impish smile and a flawless tanned complexion. She had taken a year off from her studies to travel Asia. We met while both reaching for the same book about the rich history of the American democrats. It felt very Disney-movie-esque. She immediately recognised my Aussie accent when I apologised and we started to chat about our mutual interests of the American political system, their upcoming elections and how corrupted the Indonesian parliament was. The topic then swung to tastes in music, literature and the usual casual fluff. I didn’t care what the subject was – out of the thousands of people in the jam-packed mall that we were in, I had found a friend.
After 20 mins of banter, I invited her for a coffee at the Starbucks round the corner. She momentarily stared off into space as if she was having an internal debate with herself, then she apologetically declined explaining she only popped into the store while her partner Gina was in the shop opposite browsing for wigs.
Hmm, a travelling lesbian law student in Jakarta.
Good for her.
We exchanged email addresses and I bid her farewell with a kiss on the cheek. She grabbed the book we both were looking at and promised I could have it if I ever visited Brisbane. Then she vanished into the crowd akin to that scene in the movie Field of Dreams.
I sighed to myself and wandered off dejected.
I really wanted that book.
Next stop was the comically oversized food hall. It had everything I would have needed. KFC, Wendy’s, Kirispy Kreme, Boost Juice, Taco Bell, White Castle and any other American classics. I love cheap yankie fast foods and aussie food that pretends to be cheap yankie food but pretends it doesn’t.
If you want to impress me, turn up at my front door naked. If you want to make me fall in love with you, turn up naked with a taco bell meal with extra cheese in one hand and a 2 litre bottle of a root beer in the other. If you brought along a Starbucks caramel frappuccino, I’d probably drop to my knees and pleasure you on the spot… Not sure how you could hold the cup though y’know, given you’re using both hands to hold the meal and the root beer….
Anyhoo…
Tonight tho, Japanese seemed the way to go. I ordered as much sushi, sashimi and yakitori as AU$50 could get me. I ended up eating enough raw fish to reconstitute half a whale and got a bad case of heartburn. I didn’t care – the food was fresh and cheap. Plus it was the first real food I had feasted on in what seemed like weeks.
My phone chimed. I had spent 5 hours at the shopping Mecca but it had only felt like an hour. My ride would be waiting for me downstairs. I trundled down the escalators and the crowd parted in front of me. This seemed to be a religious moment for me… I was Moses, wandering into the desert in search for the better life.
But it was all in reverse.
Beyond me was my past life which I had to return to. Behind me, my own personal paradise. I turned to take one last look at the holy pilgrimage I had just took.
My disciples – overtly cheerful shop assistants.
My deity – the giant plastic colonel sanders that stood before the food court.
My utopia – the tubs of fake cream cheese stored under the counter at Taco Bell which beg to be poured over my begging nubile body.
I promised myself that I would someday return, I doubt know when and I don’t know how. But the second coming IS imminent. I swear to god and the root beer floats at A&W the all American family restaurant.
And you know I’m serious when I swear on a fast food menu.
Forever and ever, ramen.
G
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// November 9th, 2009 // View Comments // Classic grum
