9/2/2012

9/2/2012

I woke up, in Jakarta in the tiny apartment. My family was eating breakfast and they told me that I could not eat anything because it was too spicy. I thought I liked spicy things before I got here. I love my Dad's chili but, they have a new crazy level of spicy. So, I have to build up my tolerance before I can eat everything. Instead I went downstairs to the mall to get breakfast with Diandra. Bread Talk might be the best thing ever, it is basically a huge display of bread and you can choose what you want and then pay for it. It is so good and I loved every bite. Then we went with Papa Gatot (my host Dad) and dropped him off at a meeting that he had to go to. Papa Gatot is running to be the governor of West Java so he had a political meeting all day. The roads in Jakarta are very confusing. We had to go a long time in one direction before we could turn around and backtrack until we finally got to the place we wanted to go. Again, I cannot imagine driving here. I took lots of pictures of the city many of which did not turn out because we were in a moving car but some are OK. Then we went to another mall. This mall was huge! I have never seen anything so big. We had to go up seven stories just to get to the parking garage. We spent several hours walking around the mall and taking pictures. Many of the levels had art and were designed like a famous place somewhere else in the world. We stopped to eat lunch at a restaurant that looked out on a courtyard that was designed like Rockefeller plaza in New York City. I had beef and rice and it was excellent. I really enjoyed walking around the mall and sightseeing. All of the clothes were more expensive than they are in Bandung and more luxury stores were in the mall. When we had finished we drove to one of the most famous monuments in Jakarta. It looks like a torch with a flame except it is very, very tall and the flame is made with Gold. There is a museum at the bottom of the monument but because it was Sunday the museum was closed. We went back home and waited for Papa Gatot to get back from his meeting. When he did we packed up, cleaned up and got back in the car. We drove for a while before we stopped for dinner. At the restaurant, the servers piled lots of food on the table without us ordering and we just ate what we wanted to eat. At the end someone came over and totaled up the cost of what we had eaten. On the table there were little fish, only two or three inches long (still with bones, scales and heads). My host family teased me that the fish were staring at me, which they love doing because they think it is funny that I am scarred of eating a whole fish. My host sister explained that the fish are dried and that they are like chips and she gave me one. I broke it in half so that I only had to eat one inch of the body, and they teased me until I ate it. It was nothing like a chip. I can't stop eating chips, I could live without eating another one of those, but at least I am getting my protein and calcium (from the bones). When we finally got home I went right to sleep because my first day of school started in the morning and I had to wake up at five to be on time.

9/2/2012 Highlight

I was really happy spending the whole day sightseeing in Jakarta. The mall and the monument show that Indonesia is a growing country and it is becoming more modern. The food was all really good (except for the fish, but at least I ate it).  I am loving spending time with my host family. Thanks for reading :)