Favorite Day (So Far)

On Saturday, we took the embassy city tour of Jakarta. I really needed this break from the daily routine. As a side note, the daily struggle of just figuring everything out from food shopping, to getting taxis to and from everywhere, to learning the quirks of my apartment oven and washing machine (and not knowing the language!!) has taken its toll. I'm exhausted.

But today, today was a welcomed break! Finally, a chance to explore a little bit of this huge city. (I apologize for the tininess of the pics - I had to use the camera on my iphone because we packed our other camera's cables in the shipment - this will have to do for now).

We visited Istiqlal Mosque near the city center. It is the third largest mosque in the world! Jakarta is 85% Muslim. Since we hear the call to prayer five times a day, it was interesting to get a look inside.



Here are Madi and Elise in the mosque's courtyard.

We also visited Jakarta's national monument. I know you can't tell from my brilliant photography skills (sarcasm), but the monument looks a lot like the Washington monument. We took a non-air conditioned elevator to the top. We were smashed together like cattle and I really thought I was going to throw up. Wouldn't that have been lovely? But the view from the top was amazing. There is no end to this huge city...from every direction as far as I could see, there were more buildings.
My favorite part of the day was a visit to the old part of Jakarta. We ate at a fabulous restaurant called Cafe Batavia. It was like stepping back in time. Big Band music, wicker furniture, large overhead fans spinning lazily, guests sipping fruit drinks from tall thin glasses - picture Casablanca (but in Asia).

After lunch we explored the puppet museum next door. Here's a shadow puppet demonstration. It was in Indonesian, but the girls and I belly-laughed at the fight scene. The sound effects were hilarious.
Here's the main square of the old city us. Behind us were rows of bicycles to rent (each bike had a fancy sun hat to go with it).
At the end of the afternoon, we bought streamers on sticks from a local Indonesian. He showed the girls how to make the streamers flip, twirl, and wiggle in the air. The girls twirled the colorful ribbons all the way to the bus.