Exploring Jakarta: Indonesia, part 2

If you missed Part 1, go ahead and read it first if you want.  Otherwise, carry on.

Our flight had landed sometime in the early hours of the morning, and then we got back to Sudirman Park, the apartment complex area where we would be staying, around 3 am.  A few hours of sleep, and we were awakened by the sounds of the morning call to prayer.  It was lovely, and I sincerely hope that someday I am lucky enough to get to go back and experience it all again.



We went out on the balcony of our apartment to listen to the voices floating over the city. Our apartment was on the 42 floor, and within hearing distance there were (I think?) 5 mosques blending and almost harmonizing in ways that were mesmerizing.

We went back to bed for another hour or two, and then running on four hours of sleep (in a bed) and ready to take on this new world we found ourselves in, we got up and ready for anything.

That morning we went to breakfast at a restaurant inside Citiwalk mall. 

Apparently, that's what I look like after three hours of sleep in 
three days and being on an airplane for 36 (or so?) of those days.

I was incredibly nervous about trying new food.  The menu of course was terrifying, but Alia was patient and talked us through what the different options were. Thankfully, the menu did have some pictures so I had a vague idea of what I might be getting when I finally ordered - Nasi Kuning Komplit.  It had fried peanuts, shredded chicken, rice cooked in coconut milk, scrambled eggs and was to be eaten with shrimp chips and a ridiculously spicy sauce called "sambal" on the side. That sambal was my favorite thing about the food in Indonesia.  Well, the sambal and all the other food became my favorites.

I kind of want to eat this every morning for the rest of my life now.  

Someone send me a recipe, quick.  That darkness on the side of my bowl is the sambal.  

Be wary of how much you allow into your mouth at any one time.  

It is so hot, it may spontaneously combust. 

Also, delicious, which means it's worth it.

Since we were eating at a mall, it was only natural that after we finished our meal we would do a little shopping.  We found some fun new clothes, (of which I still have not gotten a picture of myself while wearing, but should do that someday soon) and some little odds and ends like pens, and notebooks, and headphones.  All the things you need the morning you wake up in Jakarta.

Alia had to leave to go to work, so we went back to our apartment at Sudirman Park and we dropped off our shopping bags.  There was so much to do and see, we hardly knew where to start.  I had already fallen in love with Jakarta from the airport on, but that morning as we began our explorations I knew the feeling was mutual.  I think I loved it so fully and immediately because I couldn't help myself - it felt, looked, and smelled so much like Sao Paulo.  (And I don't necessarily use the word "smelled" in a bad way here.)

Of course one of the first things I had done was compiling a list of all the words in Bahasa that I was trying to learn.  On our last day, just after all the wedding festivities, as we were saying goodbye to Alia's family, her mom told me that my Bahasa was better than Peter's.  Which could not be true because he was mainly the one (along with Alia, and any waiters or drivers or other strangers that were willing to indulge me) who was teaching me, but it was very nice of her to say.  I will cherish her words forever.  I think Bahasa is now officially in my list of the next 5 languages I want to learn.  (French, German, Dutch, Korean, Bahasa, in addition to the ones I do speak: English, Spanish, Portuguese)  

Fun side note story here: We had already learned a few words, one of which was "Good morning".    "Selamat Pagi!" and Alia told us that sometimes you could shorten it to just "Pagi!"  The incident occurred on our first trip in an elevator that wasn't in the middle of the night when someone got on with us.  Poor soul.  My sister looked this sweet lady in the eye, and with the kindest smile imaginable and a slight nod of her head said, "Naga."  

Peter and I looked at Mimi with wonder in our eyes and slack jaws.  The woman my sister had tried to tell "Good morning" to had a very similar expression on her face.  What did Naga mean?  That was the question on everyone's minds that morning.  

When we met up with Alia next, we asked her.  Her face also conveyed her confusion.  We related the incident in the elevator, and she burst into laughter.  "You said, 'Dragon'!"  And that was the beginning of "Naga!" which means dragon in Bahasa, but is just sort of a way of saying, "I don't even know what's going on now!" to the rest of us who were in the elevator that day.  Feel free to begin using it yourselves.

Ok, so where were we, and what did we do next you wonder?

It seemed the whole world lay before us with infinite possibilities to do whatever we wanted.  We!  No children, no parents, no spouses (as much as we love all of those individuals, this was a time for just the four of us, the siblings, the OG if you will!)  We would pick up Dan in a couple days and make the group complete again, in the way of our childhood.

We grabbed a taxi as you do in this country.  Options for travel include walking, taxi, Uber, Grab - which is like Uber for scooters, or bajay; which I will tell you about in a minute! (Get excited.)  We told our willing driver to take us to the National Monument. The National Monument is in an enormous park, and the side the taxi driver dropped us on was entirely filled with little stalls, vendors selling all kinds of wares, a colorful market to the sight as well as full of sounds and smells.  We walked slowly through this crowded market, gawking at all we saw as much as we were being gawked at.  I had not anticipated how much our blonde hair and blue eyes (and height) would attract attention, although my experiences in Brasil as a child should have prepared me somewhat.

I do hope, however, that the stares they gave us were from the same place we found in ourselves: friendly curiosity.  Indeed, when I consider how very nearly every person we made eye contact with (which was all of them), met us with a ready smile and a return greeting of "selamat pagi!"  And not a single "naga" from any of us - except when we meant it in the aforementioned newly coined definition of "what is happening right now?!"

We made our way through the market to the cultured garden-like side of the park, and as is my wont I marveled at the beauty and the varied creativity nature displays in her works.  We wandered.  Time was our own, and it felt limitless.  We talked and laughed and took pictures and I am not sure the last time I felt so completely at ease with who I was, and where I was.  No counting to make sure I still had every little person I was responsible for.  No tugging to move faster, or to hurry up, or for a "can we have a snack yet?"

(edited to add: I just noticed, looking back at my sister's blog post about this, 
that she used the picture of Peter with me, and I 
without even thinking about it obviously used the picture of Peter with her. 
Aren't we cute?)

We eventually made it over toward the monument itself, where we were met by a friendly and extremely knowledgable some sort of tour guide person?

He told us many things, very few tidbits of which I remember and not at all sure I even understood most of them correctly in the first place.  My savvy sister discreetly slid him a tip, which went completely unseen by me until I asked in a panic a moment after walking away, "Should we have tipped him or something?"  Thanks to her smooth moves we parted ways, comfortable acquaintances who once spent a portion of an afternoon discussing Indonesian and Javanese history.  (Java being the island of Indonesia where Jakarta is, thus the island we were on.)

We opted not to climb to the top.  Because of the long line, of course. That's why. 

Suddenly, with some sort of burst of energy, we decided to go to Kota Tua and we recklessly negotiated a deal with the driver of a bajay, and thus off we went, on what would be an equally thrilling and terrifying ride.  Wait, no.  It was only thrilling once we arrived safely and I reflected back on the memory.  In the moment, it was entirely comprised of terrifying.  It is exhilarating to be alive and hopping into questionably safe vehicles!

The bajay is basically a scooter that has a carriage attached so passengers can ride.  Yes.  Exactly.

The driver of this bajay, whom you can see with us in the photo above, dropped us off, as he claimed, as close as he could get us to our destination.  Which was admittedly vague as we just told him what part of Jakarta we wanted to be in but not necessarily an exact location.   So we walked.

As in the market before, there were friendly smiles and ready greetings from every single person we met on the street.  Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last I was struck by how much Jakarta reminded me of Sao Paulo, and ai, que saudades!

The first sight we noticed upon arriving at the central square of Kota were the bright pink bikes being ridden around the open square, by people wearing a wide array of fancy hats. These were apparently all for rent, if we felt so inclined to experience it for ourselves.

It's like the bikes were just waiting for us.

Our interest was piqued by the puppet museum, Museum Wayang, on our side of the large square.  It turned into much more of an adventure than we had bargained for!  At first glance, it was just a quaint old museum full of antique puppets, with nearly (to us) incomprehensible signs, failing in their purpose to explain clearly (again, to us) the history of each puppet.  The signs were fascinating to read, even if they made little (to us) sense, or perhaps because they were so strangely worded made it a delight to try and decipher the story behind the puppet.

In the lobby of the museum, before actually going inside.  

We still look so happy, so unaware of what lay before us.

The real excitement at the puppet museum began when we discovered an ancient door, dating back to the era of Dutch colonialism of the island.  Apparently the museum was built on the site of an old church which had been built in 1640.   People had been buried at the church, and so they kept the door and a wall to memorialize that part of the history. It was made into a museum in 1939, and became a museum as we saw it on this trip in 1975.  (Some fun facts for you!)

Upon opening the door (aren't creepy old unlocked doors in the middle of walls in creepy puppet museums supposed to be opened?)  The depths beyond were darker than the imagination can conceive.  The air was dank and stale, it smelled like dust on dirt mingled with the passing of centuries.  We did not enter.  Then, quite suddenly, and without any warning, all the lights in the already dimly lit museum went out.

Just as suddenly as the lights had gone out there were streams of teenagers rushing past us, screaming and laughing and hollering at each other.  We had no idea what was going on, but no one was turning the lights back on and the museum employees didn't much seem to care.  We turned on the flashlights on our phones (it was really that dark) and went up the stairs.  Yes, we realized that this is the epic mistake people always make in horror movies, but we did so anyway.  Halfway up the stairs, my brother decided to show me this picture of a puppet that I had somehow missed, and he thought I should get to see it.

Now imagine your brother puts that image in your face 

in the absolute darkness of a 16th century building 

without windows as you are climbing the stairs to what may possibly be,

 if life is like a horror movie, a certain and painful death.  

Thanks so much for those nightmares.

What we learned on this trip is that different cultures embrace different things as "beautiful".  I was amazed by how much attention my nose got, and how they praised it for being long.  This handsome warrior is an example of this ideal of beauty.  You can see on the right in the photo above, the actual puppet, and it was his shadow thrown onto the wall on the left that the audience would watch.

Here we are, at the exit to the museum, alive, whole, and startlingly hungry.  Actually, I realize I am not in this picture but I assure you I suffered no ill fate in the museum.  Off to find lunch we went.

Peter strongly encouraged us to find lunch- which would sort of become dinner because we were there so long and ate so much -  at Cafe Batavia.  (Don't be fooled by the word "Cafe" in the title of this restaurant.  It was no sidewalk cafe.)

Say "cheese", Pete!

I think, as a result of surviving the surprising terrors of the puppet museum, we were a little giddy and high on life when we crossed the square and entered the restaurant.  We were so slapstick, probably additionally from lack of sleep finally catching up to us and the joy of being together, that we had to reassure the waiter that we were not at all drunk.  I do not think he believed us.

The waiter was kind enough to take our picture.

 We ordered so much food.  So much good food.  Why is eating so delightful?

Dessert.  You may also notice the now famous dessert face.  This was the moment in my life that I fully and completely realized that there is a distinct disconnect between what I think my face looks like and what it actually looks like.  So much laughter.

They do fruity drinks extremely well in Indonesia.  Take me back!

One final story before this day ends and I leave you waiting for part 3.  When we asked for dessert, the long suffering waiter walked away.  He just turned on his heel, and walked away from the table without any words or anything.  We were a little dumbfounded, but after all, we had been really enjoying ourselves and maybe he wanted to pretend he hadn't heard us order dessert so we would finally leave?

He walked a few paces away to a column in the building where there were displayed several photos in nice big frames.  He pulled two of these off the wall.  Our confusion began to mount.  Is he ignoring us, hoping we leave, and redecorating the place all at the same time?  Props for multitasking...

He turned once more, towards us this time, and framed photos in hand walked back to us.  He handed my brother a photo of a naked woman, and my sister and I got a cowboy or something similar.  We stared at each other in absolute bewilderment, the word "naga" right at the tip of all our tongues.

Finally, the waiter took pity on us and flipped them over, showing us the dessert menu glued to the back.  Oh, the laughs we enjoyed.  I think I can still hear the sounds of our laughter ringing in my ears.  Wait, here, you can hear some of it too.  (this video was actually shortly after the dessert face moment happened.  Mimi had calmed down a little, but Pete and I were still struggling for control.)

Part 3: Spa Day will be coming soon!

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