Note: this was written shortly after I got back to Tokyo from my high school reunion in Jakarta, Indonesia.

And here it is: the Indonesia post. I'll start this off by pointing out that I seem to have a number of clones--and no, I don't mean the Star Wars kind.

I've always considered myself to be somewhat distinctive, at very least odd-looking (and this is neither modesty nor me fishing for compliments: it's been confirmed for me by any number of objective sources) and yet, I seem to remind everyone of someone.

"You talk just like my friend Bob!" or "Chris looks just like you! And you have the same sense of humor!" Perversely (or perhaps it's just how this particular curse works), I have yet to meet any of these lost twins. They always seem to be one jump ahead of me. "Damn! Chris was just here last week, but now he's away on business...no wait, he's relocated to Iowa. It would have been great to have you two meet! It'd be like seeing double!" So for years I've had this odd feeling that one day I'll stumble upon a gathering of my doppelgangers, all sitting around a table sipping my favorite beverages and eating my favorite snacks in a cafe in one of my favorite cities, looking sheepishly at my travel itinerary.

"Hello, Bob. Hello Chris," I'll say, and they'll respond with my facial expressions or my voice, and the whole thing will be dreadfully awkward as they hasten to explain what they're doing there, or perhaps they'll pretend not to know me. A bartender in the sunken pool bar at my hotel in Bali refused to believe I hadn't been at the hotel for a month (I'd only arrived two days earlier), since someone exactly like me had spent hours there. "No, really," the bartender said. "Exactly like you, in every detail. Are you sure you're not playing a joke on me? You come here all the time, I saw you just last week." To make things scarier still, without asking me what I wanted to drink, he plunked down an elaborate mixture of fruit juices, precisely what I was going to order.

Perhaps it's astral projection. These duplicates do seem to turn up in all of my favorite places before they fade into the woodwork (or relocate to Iowa). If I am projecting myself through the astral plane, it would be nice if I could remember it. Astral projection is surely a quicker and more hassle-free method of travel than those I presently use.

Which brings me to Garuda. In one of my journal entries before leaving for Indonesia, I predicted that something untoward would happen on this much-maligned airline, and sure enough: my flight to Bali from Jakarta was cancelled without explanation. I was singled out for a replacement flight by way of another city (my luggage, unfortunately, had a somewhat longer trip, and arrived two days later, to say nothing of the other passengers booked on my original flight, most of whom must still be wandering around the Jakarta airport). The last leg of my rescheduled trip--and I'm not joking--was a 25-minute flight.

Almost immediately after take-off, while the plane was still climbing at a steep angle, the cabin crew hurtled through the aisles with teetering carts, rushing to give everyone drinks before landing (needless to say, a meal was out of the question, though I did see some cardboard boxes being tossed around--perhaps they contained nourishment of some sort, or at very least that popular aperitif of salad dressing). By the time the carts reached the last few aisles, the crew were literally lobbing cans of Coke and Sprite indiscriminately at the passengers, before immediately turning around and snapping all of them up, since by that time we were about to land. God bless Garuda.

(The airline, incidentally, is named after the mythical winged demigod who carried Rama around on his shoulders in the Hindu epic Ramayana--I'm assuming Rama didn't need to deal with travel agents or lost luggage in those days, though some of the cabin crew on my Bali flight had clearly been around since the epic times.)

The reunion itself was interesting. Events were divided between Jakarta and Bali (the actual school being in Jakarta, and Bali being the preferred vacation destination for all of us while we lived in Indonesia). The Jakarta portion was focused mainly around the school, though there were some night-time events planned in various spots around the city, including the notorious Hotel Mulia Senayan, which is built on a slant for some unknown reason (one thing I learned in Indonesia during my time there is that it's often not wise to inquire too deeply into certain things, because the answers are generally more perplexing than the questions themselves).

On the whole, the entire Jakarta phase of the event was rather intensively scheduled and over-choreographed, and many people looked forlorn as they milled around senselessly. Fifty years worth of alumni had descended on the city all at the same time, so it was a struggle to identify more than half a dozen classmates or even just familiar faces in the huge mob of 500-600 people at every gathering. The highlight of the trip was unquestionably the time I spent with the ArtSpot artists, who I kept having to reschedule for one reunion-related reason or another but were very patient with me regardless. What a great bunch they are--I'm profoundly lucky to have discovered them.

Another treat was that I saw all of my Indonesian teachers all the way back to 7th grade, and they all remembered me, though mostly because I'd been a dreadful student. They derived some consolation from the fact that I haven't forgotten any Indonesian (beyond blanking out on a few odd words here and there, but those returned quickly), a fact which surprised me most of all.

My first Indonesian teacher, the pious Ibu Theodora, is still teaching, and was recently subjected (as she explained to me at great length) to some scandalous discussions about premarital sex by her latest batch of impish students. (I'm still chuckling as I remember her re-enactment of this baiting, and her response: "If you're a Muslim, it's not allowed. If you're a Christian, it's also not allowed. So which one are you going to pick, you little salamanders?" Ibu Theodora, unlike most Indonesians, is a Christian, and has dedicated herself to stamping out licentiousness, particularly amongst those still young enough to enjoy it.) I also got a chance to spend some time with Mrs. Ranu Dally, who did her best to teach me about literature during grades 11 and 12. She and her wonderful husband, Chris, are now living in London, doting on various grandchildren. She was utterly horrified by what I'm currently working on, though, in typical form, she and Mr. Dally know more about manga than I do, having kept up with all the latest literary trends.

The Bali portion of the trip was idyllic. Four days of sun and relaxation, with all school-related activities being fully optional, which made them actually enjoyable.

I had the very great fortune of spending some time with a family that I had come to know very well during my Jakarta days, the Ardies. Mrs. Ardie, who has fed countless hundreds of my schoolmates as we poured through her home over the years, is particularly notable, and won a day of whitewater rafting in a raffle at one of the events. My friend Mortimer and I gallantly volunteered to accompany this great lady on her adventure, and pressured one of her daughters, Yanti, to come as well (readers of Garlands of Moonlight are correct in asuming that the little girl in the story is named after this same Yanti, though in the intervening years since I last saw her she has become, as predicted, a breathtakingly beautiful young woman). The four of us trooped off to the Ayung River gorge in Ubud the following day. The company that provides the boats and guides for such expeditions is called "Sobek," which, loosely translated, means "torn": an omen that did nothing whatsoever to eclipse a very fun day, which began with us clambering down 500 stairs into the gorge, each one, as Mrs. Ardie and I joked, apparently designed by a different architect.

All three of us "kids" (including her own) who accompanied Mrs. Ardie are all far-flung genetic mixtures, the common theme being at least one parent of German origin. So in our little band, we had one German matriarch and three German mixes, specifically Indian (me), Chinese (Mortimer), and Indonesian (Yanti)--but despite the variations, everyone refused to believe that we weren't all siblings since we look so much alike, so we gave up and proclaimed that Mrs. Ardie was mother to all of us (it helped that we all call her "Mutti" out of long-standing habit).

The rafting itself was quite eventful, with various splashings, thrashings, and yellings at other rafters plying their way along the river, with Mrs. Ardie proving to be the toughest one of us all. The turbulent portions of the river were punctuated by long, calm stretches, during which we admired the beautiful scenery visible along the steep sides of the river gorge. Our guide, a chatty fellow named Baron, was no help at all, sometimes jumping up and down to make the rapids more exciting, and terrified us with talk of leeches and crocodiles, neither of which exist in that particular river.

Through this little adventure and liberal time spent basking by the hotel pool, I managed to get some of my normal color back after years of sickly urban pallor, and spent some quality time with old friends in an atmosphere that didn't make everyone fall back into high school juvenilia. Leaving was actually physically painful.

Someone has put forward a theory that Bali is so sublime because its main volcano, Mt. Agung, continuously spews nitrous oxide into the air, leaving all of its inhabitants (and visitors not accustomed to the laughing gas) in a pleasant haze. I doubt this is true, but there is certainly something singular about the place that makes it paradise. I'm trying to arrange things so that I can spend a few months out of the year there, at very least: despite a heavy schedule of running around, I had some of my most productive writing days in months just jotting notes by the side of the pool.

It's good to be back in Tokyo (where the Internet is speedy and I have all of my high-tech gadgets and reference books), though I do so wish I could have stayed in paradise a few days longer. Perhaps I will have mastered the art of astral projection before the next time I have to surrender myself to the whims of Garuda--unless my clones book up all the hotels.