Trip

Random thought: It feels like summer started a long time ago but is passing by too quickly.

I am home! It feels weird being home again. Home is much more privatized compared to my grandmother's house, which has people calling the phone line every other hour and twice as many people around on a given basis. Although part of that is because people kept visiting because my family was in town.

Aside from the day of my cousin's wedding and the trips to Bandung and Indramayu (which I'll mention... later), life in Indonesia kinda followed a predictable daily pattern.

1. Wake up at 4/5 in the morning to the sound of people singing/chanting? on loudspeakers coming from a nearby mosque.
2. Apply anti-mosquito lotion. Put fabric softener in pants because apparently it wards off mosquitoes. I don't know if it actually worked.
3. Eat breakfast - which typically consisted of some combination of fried bananas, Kraft cheddar cheese (that stuff is goooood.), rice, KFC because my brother is too picky to eat home-made food, assorted meat or cheese filled buns from a nearby bakery, and on certain days pastels, croquettes, and risoles, Indonesian pastries. Take vitamins.
4. Go back to the room and wait for our car ride to whichever place we would be going today. Take a shower in the morning on some days, followed by reapplying anti-mosquito lotion. Otherwise, read book or manga.
5. Car ride to (pick one) - restaurant/relative's house/family friend's house/Plaza Indonesia/tailor/family owned apartment.
6. Go back home and nap. Or read book or manga.
7. Reapply anti-mosquito lotion.
8. Car ride to another restaurant/relative's house for dinner or eat dinner at home.
9. Back home, shower and sleep before midnight.
10. Rinse and repeat.

Shortened version: a lot of anti-mosquitoing, a lot of eating, and a lot of reading/sleeping. It was pretty nice at first, but a bit tiresome towards the end of the trip. I dislike routine even though it's kinda necessary.

The trip to Bandung which I mentioned during the last post... we stayed in a really nice hotel. The people there messed up our reservation so they gave my uncle and aunt the presidential suite and my family the attached family suite, which really surprised me. First hotel room I've ever stayed in with TWO stories (although the stairs were kinda steep). The second floor only had two beds... but still. It was huge.

We didn't actually do anything in Bandung besides stay in the hotel, though, cause my brother got sick with some kind of stomach flu which I got the day after. As soon as we got to a restaurant there we had to go back to the hotel. Brother threw up. x_x

Indramayu - my mom's hometown - was nice. A lot more rural compared to industrialized Jakarta. It's small village consisting of a couple of main streets along which everyone lives, and a lot of families there work in the same building where they live. As in, the building would be divided into a front part (business) and back part (house). It felt weird eating at my mom's friend's restaurant and getting a glimpse of the rest of the house when I went to the restroom.

The trip there wasn't so nice. 3.5 hour drive turned into 6 hours cause traffic was so bad. At some point we moved from toll road (freeway) to just road (the main/only? road between where we were coming from and Indramayu), which consisted of only two lanes in both directions. Two lane congested traffic with mostly trucks and double decker buses = at a couple of points we would be stuck not moving for several minutes. On the main road. Several buses and trucks got fed up enough to the point that they actually crossed over to the lane of OPPOSING TRAFFIC to try and cut off everyone else at some later point. We passed by several of them pulled over by highway cops. Seriously, crazy drivers. Driving back wasn't so bad, though.

Oh, and I neglected to mention Hong Kong. We only stayed there for two nights (on the way to Indo), and spent most of the first day sleeping cause we were really tired. Didn't really see enough to do Hong Kong justice. But we did visit a street market at night though, where I bought three Tintin shirts. I LOVE TINTIN! (uh... pictures later?)

Sidenote, if you've never heard of Tintin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin
Sidesidenote: what the crap Steven Spielberg's making a Tintin movie for next year???

I'm finding it a lot harder to find things to write about the trip now that it's over. During it I kept finding things that would make me go "I could write about this!" but then I'd forget or not feel like it later on. Actually, I wound up thinking about a lot of things during the trip... a lot of things not really suitable for this blog though. Ask me in person and I might be willing to talk more.