MY INDO HOLIDAY - DAY 13 (THE END)

This post is a compilation of funny moments, photos and a sum up of my holiday. We stayed home all day on Thursday (day 13) and watched the Walking Dead TV show, we had packed the night before so we could just spend our last day together doing nothing. It was stinking hot outside but we went for a quick walk to get my favourite food for lunch as it would be my last meal. Chicken, rice, and a sweat dessert fruit/soup thing that I love love love!! One bad thing about coming home among many, is that I know I cant get food as simple, tasty, convenient and cheap as I can in Indo.

I want to share some of my odd, favourite photos from my trip that didn't make the cut in my other posts.

Day one and two I was greeted to this street procession in the mornings, they had music and costumes and characters and a whole street load of people walking...it was a circumcision celebration!! I can tell you if I was to get circumcised I don't know if I would want the entire neighbourhood knowing about it with a street festival hahaha It looked fun though! :D

Beware! They are everywhere!!

Day four, we visited the Safari Park, and one thing I remember from my last visit to Jakarta, was almost every single car had at least one sticker on its back window for Taman Safari or Jungle Park (a water park in Bogor). We were driving Ma'arif's sisters car, we were both hoping that you had to buy a sticker to get it on your car, but sure enough, we came back to our car after lunch at the safari park and we had a big old Taman Safari tramp stamp on the car!! But don't think its just Jakarta that gets struck by the bumper sticker plague! Walking down a street in Yogya, a city on the other end of Java! And sure enough there was a family car with a Taman Safari bumper sticker!! hahaha

I had to add this photo taken in the reptile park in Mini Indo. There were two tortoises and a huge Komodo dragon type lizard in one enclosure. And this guy looked like he just couldn't take the stress anymore and passed out :P

FAB!

This guy made me laugh!! A few moments earlier he had his hand positioned on his waist with his gorgeous hat, showing off the beautiful woman that he is!! hahahaha

Only in Indo!

Driving down a highway was this highrise building topped off with a very traditional longhouse roof! When you cant decide between modern and traditional...why not have both!?!

This was an awesome surprise! As we were about to leave this shopping centre we luckily caught this beautiful water show. It was a water fountain that moved to music from all different musicals such as Phantom of the Opera. It looked as if the water had a life of its own. Very very pretty and very awesome!!

And last but not least my favourite billboard I've ever seen, it made me laugh every time we drove past it. A cure for Gangrene???? Actually its an ad for cough syrup, and the finger has something to do with the current elections. But all I could honestly think was they found a drop cure for Gangrene! :P


And that's it, the end of my holiday and the end of this blog series. :( I had the most amazing holiday, I took over 200 photos every day, so what you saw was only the tip of the iceberg! I really didn't want to come home! I came home to sub zero temperatures and not leaving the house after 5pm. Not to mention leaving my boyfriend for another 6 to 12 months. But really I made so many new wonderful memories! Had so many new experiences, pushed myself to try so many new things, and can't wait to get back out there and do it all over again!! :D To anyone going to Indo, look beyond Bali, because there is a whole lot more to Indonesia than just one little tourist Island, so many more cultures, people, experiences and opportunities waiting to be experienced!

I hope that you enjoyed reading my posts as much as I had creating them!!

<3 Em

MY INDO HOLIDAY - DAY 12

Today we visited the National Museum, we tried on Monday but all museums are closed on Mondays. Just after we arrived we were invited on a free tour of the museum in English, the guide was Thai so it was still hard to understand, but she was very enthusiastic so it was quite enjoyable. She did talk A LOT about few things, so we were shown a limited number of small exhibits for a long time, it got a little tiring but still fascinating :D I also found that I knew quite a lot of what she was saying from what I had learned during uni last semester :D

Walking through the museum, one of the other group members following.

One of the long rooms full of interesting artifacts from different tribes all over Indonesia

The statue in the image above shows the change in formal attire for the tribes after the Dutch and Japanese invasion. The tribesmen used to wear just the 'skirt' but they were told by the invading peoples that they should cover their chests, the same as westerners, but as they had never had anything to cover their upper halves before, they adopted the western shirt and jacket.

A canoe made out of one tree, it has one carving pattern down the entire length of the canoe. 

The tall white statue in the background of the photo above was carved out of one mangrove tree, it is three people stacked on top of each other, but the tree was carved upside down. So the persons head is carved from the roots and their feet from the top of the trunk, this is because when a baby is born it comes out head facing the ground, so they construct their statues in the same way, the top of the tree facing down. I thought that was really interesting.

The pattern carved into the side of the canoe above. It was so consistent the entire length!

A model of a traditional long house. 

Our guide was saying that there when a family marries off a daughter they will add another 'steeple' to their house, so if you see a long house with an uneven amount of steeples, that is why, they might have an uneven number of daughters. :) She was also telling us a story about the chief of a village that was approached by an invading tribe that wanted the land. The chief made a deal, they would battle it out using buffalo. So the invading tribe got the biggest toughest male buffalo they could, the best fighter they had. The Chief took a new born buffalo as soon as it was born away from its mother, kept it hungry. When it came to the battle each presented their buffalo, the invading tribes buffalo was totally indifferent to this baby buffalo and made no move to attack. The baby on the other hand, being so hungry, ran straight for the huge bull thinking it was his mother and kept shoving his head against its stomach looking for milk. The chief had sharpened the baby's horns so it ended up pushing so much that it killed the massive bull. Or so the story goes and the chief kept his village.

This room was full of gold artifacts, we weren't supposed to take photos inside, but we didn't see the sign. Don't anyone try to break in okay, I don't want to get arrested :P 

This is our guide, and the biggest statue they have in this museum.

This statue is very old, but I cant remember how old, it shows symbols from Buddhism, Hindu, and Animist beliefs so it goes all the way back to when they were all influencing the country and each other.
You can see here the shins of the statue are all worn away, that's because they found the statue in a farmers field, he didn't know it was a statue so he was using it to sharpen his tools!! And on the side of the base there is a salad bowl sized hole out of the side of the rock, the farmer had carved this out to grind rice in!!

This elephant stands out side of the museum and is quite famous, the colloquial name for the museum is Musium Gajah (Elephant Museum). I would recommend the Museum for anyone interested in learning about all the different cultures and beliefs around Indonesia, before the big religions and before modernization.
They have a new four story second wing with more artifacts and human skeletons found in Indonesia, that was quite fascinating too!!
One more day to go and its back home for me. :(

Em

MY INDO HOLIDAY - DAY 11

Today I wanted to go and see Kota Tua (Old City), its a preserved area of buildings from when the Dutch were still in Indonesia. We had to drive through "China Town" (the area where a lot of Jakarta's Chinese population lives), I must say it was noticeably dirty, rundown, unkempt and just not as well maintained as the rest of Jakarta. There were some artists selling their paintings on the streets and I managed to snap this shot:

We arrived in Kota Tua, it was a very hot day. I was amazed to see that the whole place was quite dirty. Every other tourist area we have visited in Jakarta has been so clean and well maintained but Kota Tua was just like a rubbish dump :(
There weren't as many buildings as I expected, we went on a Monday so the museums were closed. If you are thinking of going, don't go on Monday because not much is open.

The first building we saw, it faces a big courtyard area that is the centre of the Kota Tua area.

The courtyard I mentioned above.

You could hire multi person bikes to ride around on, so there were quite a few people zipping around on two or three person bikes with funny hats on. (No helmets).

Racks of colourful bikes for hire.

A run down old building.

Standing in the shade trying to get out of the sun, you can see the dirtiness in this picture. Its a shame because its a nice place.

After we took a walk around the whole place we found a nice restaurant for lunch. Its not what you would expect from the outside, we thought it was closed, but after stepping inside it was like being transported back in time! The interior decorations were beautiful.

The upstairs dining area.

A wall of frames above the stairs

The massive bar covered in cow hide.

Our meals; salmon steak and pina colada, burger and coke.

After Kota Tua we drove out to a town just out of Jakarta to see some friends who just had a little girl, Valerie. She is absolutely adorable, so calm and happy :) I'm so happy for them.

Little baby Valerie :)

Us and the proud parents, Mimi and Carlo.

It was a nice day, almost the end of my trip, I wish I didn't have to go home!! 

Em

MY INDO HOLIDAY - DAY 10

Coming home from Yogya, a very early start. We had to be up at 4:30 am to be at the airport for our 7 am flight. We got to the airport to check in and the woman told us that our tickets weren't paid for!! So that left us a bit panicked since our friend told us the night before that all flights were fully booked for the next few days! It also answered our confusion over an unknown deposit of a 100 and something dollars in Ma'arifs bank account, the payment was rejected for some reason. But he managed to go and pay for the tickets and we were on our way..just in time I might add :P

The flight was great, very short, we were back in Jakarta by 8am and I think we took off after 7am. Looking out the windows you could see huge volcanoes sticking out of the clouds!

 After we landed in Jakarta we caught a bus then a taxi back to Ma'arifs house to pick up the car.

Me on the bus :)

After we collected the car we drove as quickly as we could to the area where they have a 'car-free day'!! I wanted to see it sooooo bad!! After seeing all these countries close off their main roads so that people can just walk freely on them during my studies this semester I couldn't wait to experience it myself. Especially in Jakarta, a city that never ever has an empty road! This road runs right though the centre of the city and is 8 lanes wide!! With 2 bus lanes, a median strip and a huge round about/water fountain in the middle. On the car free day which is every Sunday morning 6am-11am, (we got there at 10:45am...just in time!) they have vendors and bands playing, people riding bikes and walking/jogging. It is quite amazing to see, even when the crowd isn't there anymore.
Here are some of the photos:

Me in front of the fountain :)

Very big & Very empty!!

Such a poser, but an amazing photo none the less!

That's a jumper not a headscarf :P, it was very very hot that day! And I had no sun protection on because we just got off the plane. 

The no cars sign, I love how it looks like a Mr. Bean car! :P

While we were walking back to our car I saw a monkey on the footpath, it was kind of small and strange to find a monkey on the streets of Jakarta, so stupid me I lifted my camera to take a photo, thinking he whole time it probably wasn't a good idea, and sure enough as soon as I lifted the camera the monkey bolted towards me and grabbed my ankle, I flipped out and started screaming, good thing too 'coz I'm sure it would have climbed up my leg if I hadn't!!! My boyfriend turned around having missed the whole thing and asked a guy sitting in his car what had happened, the guy was crying with laughter!! :D It was pretty funny and I don't blame him for laughing!! :D

We went home after that and had a rest, but I didn't want to waste the day so we freshened up and drove to the harbor/beach. Its a huge closed off marine park with theme parks, an aquarium, jetty's, beaches, restaurant's and apartments. I went there last time I was in Jakarta and had the best time. It was lunch time so we went back to the same restaurant but as it was Sunday and school holidays it was PACKED!! Plus there seemed to be bus loads of people arriving. We had to be put on a waiting list to get a table. After we were seated we got up and chose which seafood we wanted to eat, the place works where you select your live or frozen seafood and your sauce/cooking method then they cook it for you. We chose crab, squid and some prawns.

Waiting for our food, the restaurant is outdoors overlooking the harbor.

You can order a freshly cut Coconut with ice to drink/eat. They are very refreshing!

After we had stuffed ourselves silly with soooo much food, we headed over to the beach to watch the sunset, but Jakarta being what it is, of course there was traffic, so we pretty much missed the sunset while waiting in traffic trying to park :( But we still got some beautiful photos and saw the last few moments. Ma'arif took most of these:

I liked these boats with all their colour.

This one is my favorite, you can see the rays of sun in the navy blue sky...

MY INDO HOLIDAY - DAY 9

WEDDING TIME!

Today we had a full day of wedding parties, in the morning we went to the ceremony and in the evening we went to a very elaborate and beautiful reception. It was a traditional Javanese wedding for a uni friend of my boyfriends. She looked absolutely stunning but I didn't recognise her initially with all the makeup and jewellery that they have to wear.

My dress for the morning ceremony

Charming as always :P

Us with the bride and groom :) 

(Sorry for the dark photos, I will fix them up when I get home.) The morning ceremony was a bit confusing and hard to see from outside where the guests had to sit, but they had TV's set up so we could watch what was happening. Its seemed very complicated and I don't even think the bride and groom knew what they were doing most of the time, a lot of it was very symbolic, such as feeding each other to represent becoming the bread winner etc.

The beautiful bride and groom inside during the ceremony! She looked so beautiful!

After the morning ceremony we came back to our hotel and just chilled for a bit. Ma'arif went out and bought us some chicken and rice for lunch...it cost him 5000 rupiah for 2 meals!! that's 50 CENTS!!! Yogya is ridiculously cheap!! And the food tasted great too. :D 

These next photos are of the evening reception and me in a Kebaya :D A Kebaya is a traditional formal dress for Indonesian women, it usually consists of a long skirt with Batik designs, a corset and a beautifully beaded blouse over the top. I was going to buy my own but I was told it would be too expensive so Ma'arif's sister offered me hers to borrow and by some miracle it fit me so perfectly!! So this is that Kebaya:

Me in my Kebaya waiting for the taxi. 

Us at the venue :)

The bride and groom with the procession of family and friends walking to the stage. The outfits were very extravagant, every inch of them sparkled with gold!

All the family and friends walking behind the couple.

This is the group of friends of my partners from uni that I have come to be friends with as well, they are a great group of people!!

The huge open venue, looking towards the stage where the bride and groom would stand all night.

The bride and groom standing up on stage waiting to be congratulated by everybody.

 After the wedding we wanted to take a tour around Yogya at night on a Becak, so we did!! Kebaya and all!! 

Me + Kebaya + Becak = a lot of stares!!

 This was a huge circular park that at night you can hire all kinds of bikes and pedal cars that are lit up with florescent animal and character designs (pics above). It was called the Kraton Yogyakarta. One of the palaces of the King.

And then we went back to our hotel because I think our driver was getting sleepy :)

Sorry for the late blog I've been busy doing lots of stuff and haven't got around to blogging. I'm going out shopping now, so I will post the rest when I get back.

Em