This past Thursday we headed to Jakarta on the night bus to attend a mission Christmas dinner with our Indonesian board members.
We left at 6, stopping for dinner at a regular bus stop restaurant.
Shane had goat soup.... you decide for yourself. :)
We arrived in Jakarta at 5 A.M. and headed to our guest house for a few hours before Shane and I left for his Dr.'s appointment at 9. We were meeting with the only Dr. in Indonesian familiar with Fabry's and is allowed to give the infusion treatments. When we left if began to rain.
It took us 2 hours to get to a mall to eat lunch. I will start by saying that this whole Jakarta trip was a big learning experience! We have NEVER gone 'around' Jakarta like we did this weekend, and we have certainly been the wiser for it. We know a bit more of the lay out, we will have a detailed map next time, directions for every place where we would like to go, and we do know know a bit of where things are. ALL relatively speaking as Jakarta is HUGE!
Malls: I have never felt more out of my comport zone. Our taxi driver takes us to a mall, which we are totally trusting him that it is near where the guest house we are staying at is. If you want the hightest end of the hightest end of all that this world has to offer, that would have been the mall! Certainly out of our price range! :) It was very amazing, but not exactly relaxing. :) The very kind ladies at the informations desk allowed us to charge our now dead cell phone the hour that we would walk around, and hunt for some not so wallet breaking lunch. We did enjoy the live music of a saxiphone and piano player. It was so nice! :) (This isn't this mall, but here is a picture of a mall we visited the next day looking for health food/vitamins. It had 9 stories with 2 more in the basement.)
We got to the guest house to quickly shower and turn around and head to the Christmas dinner that should have taken us only 35 minutes, but with the flooding, ended up taking us 4 hours!!!! We shared the taxi ride with Alan & Judah. This is a view of the traffic jam we sat and crawled along with for 3 of those hours. If we had known it would have taken so long, we would have bought some 'pak pau' or fried tofu from either of these vendors.. ok, so NOT the fried tofu from the guy you see here. :) {Towards the end is a picture of a guy behind a cart. It is not a very good picture, but these two guys are 'carrying' a guy on his motorbike across this main flood in the road. :) I wonder how much he paid the guys?? :O}
We enjoyed the dinner, getting to meet more of our Indonesian board members.
Our ride home was not as eventful, only taking the 30+ minutes that needed to be taken. We did however see a fatal accident. Must have just happened. Sobers you up a bit when out on the road. One more reminder for prayer for safety!
The next day we were up and out and about with another fellow language learner. He had a list from his wife, and we set off on our walking adventure. I won't cover the whole adventure here, but lets just say it was an adventure! :)
Empty streets...
Stopping in a Starbucks to buy a cool Jakarta Starbucks mug. They were out, but we did use the bathroom. :)
After some more walking and asking directions to our desired destination, we came upon one of the many statues. Will have to research it's significance....
Stopping at a mall, we did find a Starbucks and a Jakarta Starbucks mug!!! :)
Some orchids.....
Passing the Hard Rock Cafe....
Guy in a water canal clearing away the garbage.
After finally deciding that we really did need a taxi (even thought we were told we could walk to where we were wanting to go...), and two taxi rides later... we arrived at a mall with a little of what we were really looking for. We didn't have much time, so after a QUICK ride back to the guest house to pack, we were off again, headed to another mall for one more try at some food and then to the bus station for our ride back home.
Home again, home again, jigidy-jig.... we arrived at our area turn off at 3 A.M., hopped on a 'ojek' (motorbike taxi - the two of us WITH our bags!!!) and headed home. The weary travelers flopped into bed at 4! :)
We are still re-cooperating. :)
