June 2019 – Claire Rocks!

6-14 Salt Lake to Seattle

Here we go! Getting ready to board in Salt Lake.

6-15 Korea to Yogjakarta

Just got into the Seoul airport and saw a humanoid robot on wheels playing harp music and escorting a Korean family to their gate.

We didn’t eat at the airport since we had just eaten on the plane.

I want to not sit anymore. Is my head spinning? Nah I’m okay.

Headed to sleep before the next flight but we have to get through customs first. Been in it about 45 minutes so far.

It’s about 1 right now and the next flight is at like 10

Hotel breakfast.
Wanted to try a little of everything, this is maybe 2/3 of it
Top 3 favorite things on the plates and least favorite one
The bubur ketam hitam (black rice porridge) was way good, also the pink jello thing (some kind of floral flavor) and the telur (fermented soybean, the brown squares) which was marinated in some kind of savory sauce. Turned out the orange squares were cow skin. I tried to man up and eat some anyway but when I went to cut off a corner it fought back like rubber and went boing and I gave up
The round yellow things are pancakes

6-16 Yogjakarta

Ate jagung bakar (grilled corn) for 5000 rupiah (35 cents) here

We drove up a mountain to try and see Sinabung (I think) which is erupting. It was too late in the day and the fog had already rolled in but it was still a nice drive. May try again today.

6-17 Yogjakarta

We visited Borobudur: A 9th century Buddhist temple

6-17a Yogjakarta

6-19a Pacitan

It’s always a competition to fit the most on your motorcycle

A ~1900 year old building foundation covered in subsequent volcanic deposits

A recently rediscovered 9th century Hindu temple in mid-restoration (was buried under volcanics)

Inside of the temple, representing male and female

Top of the temple -replaced blocks are not carved

This was amazing to see!

6-20 Pacitan

Today was Stressful. Met with local disaster mitigation agency then was left to do vs30 all day in a situation that was like herding cats.

vs30 is Measuring ground stuff. It involves lots of expensive equipment that has to be laid out in a certain way over a large area and then hammer strikes that also have to be done in a certain way

Frustrating because there was a combination of students and locals.
Half didn’t speak English and we only had one person who knew both because the other wanted to go to the beach

Everyone else knew little to nothing about how to do it properly but it’s really hard to order people 250ft away around while also running the computer program etc

It worked out in the end but idk how it’ll go tomorrow
I barely know how to use the stuff myself. It was like the blind leading the blind

This work is not for my thesis. We’ll see how it goes today.