Too lazy to think about making a structured post, so thoughts it is.
- This is my 6th time being in Indonesia. The first time was on my 4th birthday (which is one of the earliest moments in my life that I can still remember), the second when my maternal grandmother died (which I have no memories of), then the summer before high school, the summer before college, last summer, and then now. This is also my brother's first time in Indonesia.
- I still hate the mosquitoes here, although I was almost able to avoid being bitten for a week. And then they got me on the back of my neck and my elbow. Freaking mosquitoes.
- In Jakarta we're staying at my paternal grandma's house. It's nice, although our bedroom is the only air-conditioned and (most of the time) mosquito-free room in the house, so when we have downtime we spend most of our time there. The rest of the house consists of Grandma's room, the dining room which isn't really cutoff from the living room, and the outdoors back area where the house servants work and the kitchen/washing machines/other rooms are based around.
- Oh yeah, labor tends to be cheap here, so most middle class and higher houses (least the ones I've been to) have at least one or two servants who also live in the house. Such as a cook and someone who can drive.
- Speaking of which, driving here is a NIGHTMARE. I have major respect for anyone who can survive driving here, cause the drivers here are ruthless. And it doesn't help that for every car you have like 4 or 5 motorcycles trying to squeeze in between them. We've almost hit a car or motorcycle a number of times but they seem to be regular occurrences. They really like to push the limits of bumper-to-bumper here.
- So internet is kinda hard for me to come by cause there isn't any at my grandma's house. Besides here I've only accessed it from a Starbucks at the Plaza Indonesia mall. Dunno when I'll find this again.
- Indonesian food is still greater than your face.
- I kinda realized that my observer habit originated with the family. It's partly due to the language barrier, but I clam up and just watch people whenever we meet with family and friends here.
- Lack of internet + a lot of downtime in the bedroom = I go through books faster. I finished the latter 400 pages of People's History of the US in 2 days, finished 3 more books, and now I have 3 books left to finish in 8 days. (3 days a book?) I would've packed more books but then my backpack would've become unbearable. I also finished 2 manga.
- Uhh I would be exploring? more I guess during downtime but I don't really have that much freedom here. Speaking of which there's a huge gate in front of Grandma's house (10 feet? it's typical of houses here) that's kept locked except when for when the car goes out. Even with that though, the house itself (as well as each individual room during the night) has to be kept locked at all times. I guess the fear of people breaking in is a lot more real here. There's a lot of traffic that passes by the house cause it's on a major street.
- I thought I'd be able to escape mainstream American music, but I hear Party in the USA at Plaza Indonesia and Telephone on Indonesian radio. SIGH. -_-''
- We attended my cousin's wedding on Saturday. Apparently they invited over 1600 people (I didn't know my family knew that many people...), which wasn't that apparent at the actual ceremony (only direct family and certain groups of people were allowed) but suddenly became REALLY obvious at the reception. There wasn't enough tables for everyone so there was a closed off reserved seating area for direct family and special guests while everyone else had to stand in the huge ballroom area or sit in chairs around the room. There were a bunch of different buffet lines arranged around the room, although by the time I realized they existed I'd already gotten full from the first line.
- Apparently a lot of people didn't show up because they thought the reception was in the evening (it was at noon). Considering how many people there already were... Technically it'd have been easy for wedding crashers to mix with the crowd but I don't suspect that there were that many.
- Part of why there were so many people was cause this cousin of mine is the daughter of my dad's older brother and my mom's older sister (yeah, double family marriages) so we saw people come from both sides of my family. I had to do a family tree project back in 6th grade that encompassed two poster boards. Almost everyone on those boards that was still alive and in Indonesia was at the wedding. This was probably the closest we'd get to a real family reunion, or at least for my parents. But still, not even including the groom's family... so much chaos. @_@
- A lot of this made me think about how my own wedding would go... would I invite this many people? Probably not. Then again, I'd most likely have the wedding in the US so there definitely wouldn't be as many people. Like 95% of my family lives in Indonesia. Gah why am I thinking about this now, I don't even have a girlfriend yet. >_>
- I can understand why my parents moved away from here, where we're surrounded by family 24/7. Life back home is relatively isolated and carefree without seeing family, whereas everyday here, since we've been seeing family every day, and with that comes family and extended family drama, drama, drama, and more drama. I feel
My mom has tended to emphasize the point that when you marry a person, you're really marrying your family with their family, and from what I've seen here, it's pretty true.
- I rediscovered my love for cassava chips here. I dunno if they exist in the US but considering Dad only seems to buy them here and loves them too... They're soooo good. But they have msg. :/
More... later.
Good to hear from you. Thought you had finally succumbed to those killer mosquitos o.O Perhaps there's a reason for your excess downtime...? You never know... Well, I guess we'll see if you happen to finish those 3 books in 3 days. I personally wouldn't be surprised -.-
ReplyDelete