The Last Article

Huh, I thought I had already posted the last article that I promised a long time ago. Apparantly there has been some problem with my blog and the already completed last post hasn't been published at all. Because I've been extremely busy during the last couple of weeks I noticed the situation just now. Well, luckily it still can be fixed :)

So yeah, it's now exactly one month since I arrived back in Finland. Although I love my home country, I really miss Bali almost every day. There's so many things that were part of my normal life in Bali that are now long gone. I can't go surfing and I can't drive with my scooter to university in a sunshine. But of course people are one thing that I miss the most - and hopefully I will meet those guys many times during next years :) I also hope that I'll be going back to Bali one day but that's completely different story.

Still, now it's finally time to leave the official goodbyes. There's not going to be more blog posts from me here after this. I have to move on to my new projects (as I've already done) and seriously settle in to my home town. Once more I want to thank everyone who's been reading my blog and helping to get the all material here :) It's been an amazing ride.

And yeah, here's the one article I was supposed to post a long long time ago. I hope it will give some kind of inspiration to some of you who're still planning the study abroad semester in South East Asia.

JONAS IS ONE OF THE NEW STUDENTS IN BALI

An Excursion to the Balinese Compound

This week has been quite quiet here in this blog but I have a good reason for that: this week was the week when I had to leave Bali. Yesterday (Friday) I had packed my baggage and had no other option than to take a taxi to an airport. From there my plane took off and landed in Hong Kong where I'm spending a weekend until I'm heading to Finland.

Right now I'm feeling quite sad: it was really a shame to leave Bali and especially the great group of new exchange students. Most of them already were like friendes to me so I'd have really wanted to spend the whole semester with them. On the other hand there's many great things waiting for me in Finland so the situation isn't that bad after all :) Returning to Finland means also that soon I'm no longer writing in this blog (because I have nothing to write about the student life in Bali). That moment isn't here yet because I have still a couple of posts to add here :)

Before those upcoming posts (which I'm trying to post here when I've returned to Finland) here's a couple of pictures from the last excursion I had to chance to be part of. This time we visited a Balinese compound and at least I think it was quite interesting to see these part of Balinese everyday life.

The Highlights of the Second School Week

New exchange students have just experienced the first couple of weeks in Bali and they still have so much time left in this awesome island. That's why I'm quite jealous of them: my flight back to Finland leaves from Bali this Friday. I only have a couple of days left here but I'll try to make most of them :) It's a shame that I don't have an opportunity to see the whole semester of this new student group because they seem to be really great guys and it would've been nice to stay here with them.

Anyway, last week was the first actual school week of the new semester and I promised to write a quick recap of it. Because of the public holiday on Tuesday, students had one extra day off but on the contrary they had quite a long school day on Wednesday because the workshop was held then after lessons. As I already wrote earlier here, the workshop went well :) Other than the workshop, students had their first lectures of all of the subjects they're going to study here in Bali. I bet there were plenty of new things (especially in Indonesian language) but hopefully at least most of them were also interesting.

The school week ended on Thursday and the rest of the week was great for relaxing. On Friday we went to Serangan Beach which is located in the eastern side of Bali. Actually Serangan is a really small island just side by Bali but nowadays there's a bridge between Bali and Serangan (because they're so close to each other) so it's really easy to go there. During the rain season the beaches of the eastern Bali are in much better condition than those near to Kuta area. There's also really good waves in Serangan though they're not too easy :D After the day at Serangan Beach we had a nice party (the first real villa pool party among these students) and on Saturday there was another party! All in all the weekend was great and I had a lot of fun - which is exactly what I was hoping from my last weekend here.

The First Workshop of the New Semester

This week has been quite busy for new students. It has been the first official school week and Asia Exchange students have had all of their first lections during last couple of days. Because there was a public holiday on Tuesday, students have also lessons today on Thursday although normally there's only a workshop or an excursion on Thursday. This time the workshop was held already yesterday afternoon.

The workshop was about palm leave ornaments which are used both in ceremonies and as an decoration. I've written about them already earlier in this blog hence the palm leave ornament workshop was the first workshop of the previous semester also. That's why I'm not going repeat everything I've already said but I can conclude this time's workshop by saying that everyone seemed to have fun and everything went pretty well :) Palm leave ornaments are just one example of the spesific local culture here and students are going to learn a lot more about that culture.

The First Week Has Gone So Fast

One picture is worthy of one thousand words so these pictures should pretty much tell the story about what our students have been doing after the official program of orientation week ended in the beginning of this week. Still, here's a quick recap of the whole week also in the form of text.

MONDAY was the first school day which started 9AM and ended around 3PM. Students got to know each other, their teachers and tutors and also got pretty much useful information about Udayana University, Bali in general and especially Asia Exchange. The first day ended with a visit to Seeds of Hope Children's home which is basically just an amazing place (as I've mentioned before).

TUESDAY was the second day of orientation and students got more information about their courses, classes and all in all about their upcoming months. Also they were informed about the possibilities about tropical diseases ;)

WEDNESDAY was the day of rest since during the orientation week there was school only on Monday and Tuesday. Normally the school weeks last from Monday to Thursday but the first week was an exception.

THURSDAY was the first day of the so-called unofficial program. We had a really fun Beach Day where students first got a great chance to learn surfing with Pro Surf School which simply is the best surfing school in Bali and which provides the best student discount to Asia Exchange students. After the surf lessons ended around midday, we had pretty fun beach activities (look pictures above) and then had a lunch together. Pretty nice day, I hope we're going to have more similar free-time activities during upcoming weeks.

FRIDAY was then the so-called main day because we had our Ice-Breaking Party at Beach Lounge near to Kuta Beach. The party started around 7PM and lasted untill... well, very late. Beach Lounge is such an amazing venue and everybody seemed to have fun there :) After the place had to be closed down, we continued to other bars in Kuta, the most of the night was spent in a club called Eikon. All in all, the night was really fun and I hope that students thought so too.

After the rough studying and partying we have had well-deserved rest-period during the weekend. Tomorrow's going to be the first real school day and I can't wait for that! I'm going to write about the first real school days at least at the end of next week :)

The First Videos of the New Semester

Today there's going to be the one kind of a highlight of the orientation week when students get a great change to get to know with each other better in the Ice-Breaking Party. The party will be held in Beach Lounge which is located near to Kuta Beach and it's a perfect venue for this kind of event. It's only a couple of hours before the party starts so I'm pretty excited! :) I'm pretty sure it's going to be a great night.

Before the party of this night I wanted to make the day better especially for them who can't be here in Bali right now. Here's two video interviews that I made this week with our new students. They tell about their experiences about the first days here in Bali and their expections for the rest of this week and for the whole semester. Hopefully there's going to be more video interviews in the blog during next weeks.

The First Days of New Semester In Pictures

This week's monday was the first school day for the students of the new semester here in Bali! The first two days have gone past extremely fast and they have been full of program. The students have gotten all kinds of practical information about their studies but they also have had time to get to know with each other and to visit the children's home Seeds of Hope which is one of the most amazing places here in Bali as I have said already many times in this blog.

So basically the structure of the first two days of the orientation week was pretty same as they were last time here in Bali. Only the students were different but I have to say that this group seems to be full of as awesome guys as there were in the previous semester :) It has been really nice to at least try to get to know with as many students as possible. I'm also pretty sure that there's going to be even better opportunities for that during the rest of this weeks because now the orientation week contunies with Beach Day on Thursday and the official Ice-Breaking Event on Friday! So there's going to be more material and more posts about the whole orientation week but now I just wanted to share some of the photos from the two first orientation days :)

Bali Article

Tomorrow's the day! The new semester is right around the corner and I can't wait for tomorrow when all the new students arrive to the campus area here in Bali for the first time. I try to post first experiences and some photos alredy tomorrow or at least at some point during next week.

But before we move on to the next semester, I want to share one more story from the previous semester. Before the semester ended, I interviewed Emily from Hawaii who's really inspiring person and she had a great story to tell about her stay in Bali. I hope this will give some kind on inspiration for future exchange students :)

EMILY ENJOYED HER STAY IN BALI

Videos from Bali

Yesterday was the last day of Autumn semester and yesterday was about partying and saying goodbyes. Now it's time for Christmas break and holidays! Next semester starts in the beginning of January so before that I'm probably not writing that much here because there's nothing to say about the student in Bali before the new semester starts. Anyway, I'm trying to post a couple of articles here during the next week, maybe on Monday already.

Before that here's a couple of videos that I've made with the students of this semester during the last couple of weeks.






So, this is almost it about this great semester :)

Closing Ceremony

During the last couple of weeks I've been already writing about the fact that the end of autumn semester is really near. Still only a couple of days ago I still thought that there's a lot of time before the closing ceremony will be upon us but now the time has come and actually already gone: the closing ceremony was held this morning. Most of the students are leaving Bali soon. It's really hard to understand all of this because it feels like the students would've just arrived in Bali. In overall this semester in Bali was an exteremely great experience and that mostly because the great students of this semester :)

So yeah, today the semester got as good ending as it deserved when the closing ceremony was held in Denpasar campus. One of the most memorable part of the closing ceremony was a great traditional dancing show in the beginning of the ceremony but maybe even better part was in the end of ceremony when the dancers came to the stage again and took some of the students to dance with them. Even I had to go the stage which was quite an interestin experience as I've never trained that traditional dancing like the students did in their workshop.

Besides of dancing shows there were also a lot of other programmes in the closing ceremony. For example the head of BIPAS program Made Rajeg held an speech in the beginning of the ceremony. Made Rajeg wasn't the only one to have a speech: also Saara and Jukka of our exchange students had amazing speeches. Also, the role model of this semester was declared in the closing ceremony. Johan was chosen as an role model student and I truly think that he deserved that :) After the ceremony was over, everybody said goodbyes to the university personnell: luckily most of the students will still meet of each other in tonight's party that we're having in Kuta.

Besakih Temple

This week we had the final excursion of our semester. Huh, sounds really depressing when I write it down but it's the truth. The semester really is almost over. Luckily there's still one more week to go and before that we had a great final excursion that was maybe the best one of them all :) This time we visited Besakih Temple which is the biggest temple of Bali and it's located really near to Mount Agung which is the biggest volcano (and mountain) of Bali. Agung has a really important role for the religional culture of Bali: even some of the beds in Balinese houses may be directed towards Agung. So it's no surprise that Besakih Temple (located in the slope of Agung) which is hundreds of years old is a really important place for Balinese culture and religion. In overall there's thousands of temples in Bali but most of them are small house temples. Besakih is something completely different.

 
Besakih ja Agung are located quite near to the north-east coast of Bali so the trip from Denpasar to there takes two to three hours. Hence our excursion started already at 8AM when we hopped on to our bus and started traveling towards the temple. We were at the destination about 11AM. Right after we had arrived, the whole exchange student group had to change their clothing. You can enter the temple only in a clothing that respects the Balinese Hinduism so everyone dressed up their Balinese traditional clothing that they had purchased during a traditional costume workshop in the beginning of October.

Men and women have a different kind of clothes when they're wearing a traditional Balinese costume. Men have a udeng (a headdress), a safari (a shirt), sarong (a large piece of colourful material wrapped around the body like a skirt) and a saput (another skirt which is placed in front of the sarong). Women doesn't wear udeng but instead of that they wear a kebaya (a blouse), a selendang (a scarf that is wrapped around a kebaya) and a sarong without a saput. I'd say that our group of exchange students look really different compared to a normal day at the campus area.

After entering the temple area we had a great opportunity to take part of a Hinduism praying ceremony. That was a great experience which I'm probably not getting ever again at least any time soon. Before the ceremony started, every one of us got an incense and a kind of a praying item made of palm leaves and containing different kinds of flowers. When the ceremony (lead by a local priest) began, whole group sat down to a ground. With the instruction of the priest we were praying while holding all the different kind of flowers. In the end we drank and washed our head with a holy water and then the priest put some kind of special rise to our forehead. After that the ceremony was over, in overall it maybe took 15 minutes. In overall this is a really fascinating tradition and the local people really take part of this kind of ceremonies every day so these really are a big part of their everyday life. This is also really different compared to most of the western religion traditions.

  
After the ceremony we had approximately one hour to just wonder around the temple area. When I was walking around the place, I truly realized how huge place that temple is. It's really miraculous how they have been able to build this up centuries ago. So yeah, this last experience was a great way to end excursions of this semester and I'd recommend a visit to Besakih Temple to anyone traveling in Bali :)

New Week, New Article

It's a new week once again. During the weekend we for example celebrated the Finnish Independence Day in Balinese style and went paintballing, both were great experiences. Still it's a little bit sad because the weekend was the second last that we're going to spend with this exchange student group: some of us are leaving Bali straight after the semester ends in 19th December so that they'll make it to home for Christmas. Of course some of the students are going to stay in Bali/Indonesia longer and some are going to explore Asia. It feels so weird that this school week is the last normal school week. Next week there's only exams and the closing ceremony in Thursday. New students are coming here only in a couple of weeks and luckily I have a chance to meet them all because by job here in Bali ends only in January. Still, I feel a little bit sad right now.

But let's still focus on the current semester. Because it's a new week, it's also time for a new article that I've written :) I interviewed Saara a couple of weeks ago. She is one of our many exchange students in Udayana University. Before arriving in Bali Saara had been traveling around Indonesia for a couple of months and she's going to continue traveling after the semester. After the semester new students also can contact Saara with their questions because she's going to be our new online ambassador.

Saara has enjoyed the exchange student time in Bali really much

Traditional Healing Workshop

As I wrote about the sicknesses in Bali last week, it's good to write now about the traditional healing workshop that we had last Thursday. There really is a strong culture of a traditional healing in Bali. Many Balinese still think that normal doctors can't heal all the illnesses and that's why they still may prefer going to a traditional healer's place instead of visiting a doctor.

Asia Exchange students had a rare opportunity to learn a lot about this culture which is really interesting and completely different compared to for example the European healing culture. All of the information that was told in that workshop was completely new to me. The culture of traditional healing includes the belief that every person has own aura and seeing that aura is an important part of healing. I got an opportunity to go standing in the front of the class so that others could observe my aura, quite interesting experience. With the traditional healing you should be able to heal both physic and mental problems.

The workshop started with the lecture of a local healer who spoke about the theory about traditional healing. After the lecture the students got a chance to try to practice the right way to see things (that ability is needed if you want to heal someone). After that they practiced seeing an aura and even breathing in a right way. Finally a couple of lucky students got an opportunity to get healed from their headaches. At least there wasn't any results instantly but the healers told that for the first times it may take a day before the healing affects - maybe the headache has gone during the weekend :) Who knows.

Of course this all may sound really silly if you're thinking this only in the aspect of western medical treatment but at least I think it's much more interesting to respect this tradition. This has nothing to do with cheating people or making them pay for nonsense: this is a real tradition and many Balinese people are still believing in it. So, once again our students had a great chance to get an information about a special area of Balinese culture that normally tourists doesn't have a chance to know.

And here's a couple of pictures from the workshop: