Blogs from Jakarta, Java, Indonesia, Asia - page 12

We will try and add to this as much as possible - if we discover a new species, you'll be the first to know! Hi all! We arrived yesterday at Jakarta airport at around 4 o clock, but had to wait FOREVER to get our suitcases back. A "Losari Tours" rep drove us to the hotel, where we fell asleep within an hour. Claire slept for about 15 hours. Today we have....napped. Breakfast was bizarre: Prawn crackers, green jelly, egg fried rice, rice, noodles, sausage (we think), mushroom pasta, chocolate cake and sauce, watermelon. Tea. Toast. Amazing! We checked out the swimming pool and spa but got scared off by the lack of women. Instead, we've dialed up a massage each in our room for this evening's entertainment. We're not leaving the hotel today because we're ... read more

NOw im still here Jakarta... But, next month i'll start my adventure..... wait for me ... read more

Después de un vuelo de 4 horas desde Singapur llegamos a Jakarta, la capital de Indonesia. Es una ciudad que no nos gusto para nada, las calles sucias, los hoteles terribles y la gente con cara de depravados veían a Carolina en todo momento, así que decidimos quedarnos solo un día ahí ya que no estaba ayudando mucho a la impresión que nos estaba dejando el país, pero como habíamos leído antes Jakarta no es la ciudad favorita de los viajeros. Sin embargo quisimos buscar un “bonito” lugar para pasar ese día. La pobre Carolina estaba toda asustada de que la primera ciudad donde fuimos era todo un desastre (gente buscando en los basureros por comida, hombres con miradas extrañas.., hoteles sin aire acondicionado y sucios) Carolina me pregunto si así iba ser el resto del ... read more

My mom's piece of advice before I left (hmm). In truth, I'm here for a bit because of family, male circumcisions, and the fact that I don't have a job... yet(?). I've been pretty tired lately and had been blaming it on jetlag until I realized that I've been waking up at 5 for the past five days. Indonesians naturally get up that early for exercise/prayer/groceries... which is quite different from my ol waking-up-ten-minutes-before-class routine at Cal x) Nonetheless, I am coming to terms with the fact that 1) You need to haggle to survive... and I am a perpetual tourist who sucks at it (dammit!). We are traveling with a "bulai," or white person, which happens to be my sis's husband from Louisiana. He's super cool but my sis leaves him behind whenever we go ... read more

I decided to separate Jakarta... After Bali the cousins and I flew back to Jakarta. Jakarta to me felt like an undefinable city...Parhaps its character is its lack of definition...Like many Southeast Asian cities, it has beautiful colonial era buildings (Dutch), especially in the Batavia neighborhood, but there seems, and I could be completely wrong, a tremendous neglect...The city, minus the small Golden Triangle area, is very delapitated. The museums have great collection, but they are not maintained or coherent...The old and the new are not coordinated or conscious of each other, they are just adjacent to each other...It is intense and merciless...The traffic is horrendous and in my opnion supercedes any other Asian city..Beside the Batavia Neighborhood and too far from it, the ship docks lined with colorful, large wooden boats is quite interesting and ... read more

Japan: Is It Possible? For a preschool teacher like me, traveling is almost impossible thing to do, especially to Japan. Japan is always be my first destination list of traveling. But since the living cost, flight tickets and accommodation are really expensive, then I really have to plan the this trip as detail as I can. If it's possible I really have to tight the budget. I still have no idea how to do it and how to start since my traveling experience is very limited. I desperately need help here.... Can somebody help me how to start the planning trip? What should I do first, where should I look to find information about this? thanks so much for your help :)... read more