Jakarta

Well... I told Vando ages ago that I wanted to go to Jakarta, and he said his family lives there, and so when he goes home he would invite me and I could stay with him. Sounded like a good idea to me.. So mid semester break came and he and I both caught a bus from jogja to Jakarta. the bus ride was LONG... and FREEZING... they must have thought we were Eskimo's, so they turned the aircon on full ball just to keep everyone "comfortable".

Anyway, I'd had sakit perut for a few weeks by this stage, and it still hadn't subsided.. we got off the bus and found an angkot to get to Vando's house... but on the way, nature called... no toilet in sight... we started walking faster and faster.. i thought i wasn't going to make it.. we finally got there.. saying a quick hello to his mum before running up stairs to the toilet... luckily I didn't embarrass myself.

We decided it might be fun, when I meet his friends for the first time, just to pretend I cant speak Indonesian at all..  it usually went something like this... me speaking english... them looking confused, mumbling a few words, trying to put the english classes they take into practice... not making much sense.. Vando trying to speak english with me, getting frustrated, and then reverting back to Indonesian after a few mins.. always quite funny to see their reactions, especially one of them.. who was talking about me in Indonesian,  saying how he wanted to play a trick on me... then later realizing I'd understood everything he had just said fell silent.. hahaha. Its kind of interesting tho, people will say what they're really thinking, if they think you wont understand.

All of his friends are crazy! And so much fun to be around. The entire time I was there, I don't think I saw Sam without a smile on his face! We all went to movies together, visited monas (the national monument) went to a few different museums, ocean park (similar to waterbomb in Bali) dufan was great fun, it's a theme park in the north of Jakarta. Wanted to get to taman mini and taman safari, but neither of them ended up happening. After about 10 days we stayed at Vando’s relative’s place, it was heaps of fun, Nel took us to one of the biggest malls in Jakarta (and probably Indonesia) Taman Anggrek. The placve is massive, heaps of shops, cinemas, ice skating.. and FOOD! Haha, we played timezone before watching Meet Dave, great movie, starring Eddy Murphy, funny as!

Also went to some festival thing.. I forget what its called, but like everything in Indonesia there was a acronym for it… I’m thinking JRC, but that could be totally wrong (not that any of you would know tho :P )

Spent most of the time just hanging out with Vando’s friends Daniel, Sam and Deby…

ooohh… Vando wanted to go to a history exhibition in the Dutch Embassy, it wasn’t too bad, but it was TINY, so after 2 hours on the bus, we went to this exhibition and saw everything there in like 15 mins!!  “what are we gonna do now” we thought… so he sms-ed his cousin to meet at her school, but didn’t get a reply for ages, so we decided to go to PIM, finally on the bus, he gets a reply, but its too late, we’re already on our way, so we arrange to meet his friend at Versace. Turns out the guy on the bus lied, just so we would get on, so we swapped busses and were almost at Versace, but his friend suddenly changed the plan and wanted to meet at Gramedia, now… on the way to gramedia, I saw a girl, and was thinking… I think I know her!! Turns out it was Ajeng! My friend from Adelaide, she was just home on holidays! But, how weird, if the exhibition wasn’t so small, if his cousin had been faster in replying, if we had gotten on the right bus, or if his friend had of known where Versace was, we would never have ran into eachother!!!  CRAZY … not one in a million, but one in 20 million! Haha

Turns out Ajeng’s aunt owns a school, and I was invited to teach there for a day! So I rock up, do a lil talk show type thing, then play a few games with the kids in English. Some of them were quite fluent, there were a few who had already lived in America and Australia tho. (btw internet just dropped out, looks like I wont be posting this for a while…) the school was a lot of fun! I think I will look into doing some English lessons at some schools in Jogja! This was the last day in Jakarta, we bought our bus tickets home, opting for VIP to save Rp20.000.

On the way home, Vando and I got a little lost, trying to catch up with the others we were going fairly fast through the gangs n side streets, it was night, Vando didn’t see an unmarked speedbump! .. we absolutely flew! Haha.. my whole body lifted off the motorbike and I landed in the front, when Vando landed he was sitting in my lap, still driving down the street!! Haha.. he had to stand up, so I could move to the back of the bike again, I was in stitches, couldn’t stop laughing.

The next day we left at 1pm, turns out that Rp.20.000 was well worth it… in VIP there is NO leg room! Much more space in executive! … tho the bus was relatively empty, so I just moved to a different seat. Arrived back in Jogja at about 4am...

Thanks everyone for making Jakarta so much fun!! Look forward to seeing you in Jogja!!! If not.. hopefully I can get back there sometime before I head home.