Gandaria (yes, it sounds like that to me too)

So on the second full day we were in Jakarta, we went to the mall.

That's what you do here.

Go to the mall.

So we did.  It is a very big mall.  Not the biggest I've seen here, but bigger than any I've been to in the U.S.  It was lovely.  If you didn't think about it much, you would feel like you were in your own home town.

Six or seven floors.

 The fam.

 I thought this restaurant was funny.  You will find that I will take a lot of pictures of funny things relating to awesome English.  First of all, I thought that Italian Mexican was a brilliant combination.  And second of all, who doesn't want to eat at a 'Group of Spageddies' establishment?

This is the grocery store on the lower level of the mall.  It is very convenient to have a grocery store in a mall.  You could pretty much spend your whole day in a mall.

I did not like my first few experiences at the grocery store.  I had a whole nest full of hungry birds, and I couldn't figure out how to buy groceries.  I got bread, milk and cereal because I knew what those things looked like.  But what about flour and rice?  Oh my, the many many varieties of rice!  Have I mentioned that I don't speak a lick of Indonesian?  It's too bad we don't eat noodle packages (like Ramen) every meal.  We would have been set.  There are aisles dedicated to that one type of food.  So, we ate a lot of pasta our first few weeks here.  And when I say pasta, I mean it.  No cheese, no oil, no butter.  Oh, we did have salt and pepper.  And I would steam some familiar looking vegetables.  Carrots.  But don't worry, the kids loved it.  In fact, they probably miss having it that way.

Since then, I have gotten a lot better.  I love to shop now.  The produce is my favorite part.  There are so many wonderful things to try.  And it is all inexpensive unless you want peaches, cherries, or plums.  I have told the kids to freaking forget it.  I'm not paying $6 for a peach that probably tastes nothing like the peaches we got in Utah or Virginia.  And cherries, oh my goodness.  I don't even want to tell you how much people spend for those things.  But I can get about 10 passionfruit for about $2!  But that's another post.  

Jet Lag

The Big Durian

I should have had a notebook and pen out and written all of my thoughts, but at the time there are just too many other things to think about.  Like logistics.  You know, the fun stuff.

This is the first thing I saw when I got into the airport in Jakarta...

I thought it was cool.  So I took a picture of it.  The next hour or so was meeting our sponsor, walking through the airport, and waiting for our 17 pieces of luggage.

The kids were ready to be done with traveling.  We waited, and waited, and waited for our luggage.  I walked away from the pile to help Nate, and our sponsor told me not to leave our stuff because it will get stolen.  That kind of bummed me out, but then I figured that's good advice no matter where you go, right?  So I forgot about that.  There were about a million people staring at us though.  And I'm not really sure how you would get through the lines and crowds with a stolen bag, but either way, I stayed with our stuff.

This guy was nice and played with the kids while we waited...

He was spinning coins that Mads found.  Of course!

I really didn't have too much time to take it all in.  I felt like I was on "watch your stuff" duty, and then we were rushed outside while 15 guys packed up the car for us, while we climbed into an embassy car built for 20-ish.  On the hour+ ride to our apartment, we got a quick run down on all things Jakarta.  I don't remember anything he said.

Here are some pictures that I took on the drive...

Some boys balancing on logs in water.  Since then, I have learned that people practice martial arts like that.

When did she start sitting like that?  Man, she looks so grown up.

Jakarta is infamous for its traffic.  It gets pretty bad, but I will post about it later.  On the ride home from the airport, I was surprised to see so many motorcycles.  Everyone drives one.  Men, women, kids, families, you name it!  I liked this picture because it also shows the cool red and blue buses that are everywhere, and also the guy on the sidewalk is wearing batik.  All of this is very Indonesian.

First time in our apartment.  We sat there and had a little chat about all that was going on.  The kids were so amazing.  They were so happy and fun during this whole process.  We were all thrilled with the apartment.  It was (I say 'was' because we've been living in it for 6 weeks now) brand new.  No one had lived in it before us.  We are on the 27th floor, which is way fun.  Our favorite thing to do for the first couple weeks was stare out the huge windows.  We have great views of the city, and we can watch the crazy traffic on the street.

Then I just took pictures of the kids individually while we were chatting...

They all had, and have, such positive attitudes.  They were so excited.  Especially when we saw the pool!

We got there on a Thursday afternoon.  We were still jet lagged a bit, so we all just went to bed early.  Pretty dang exciting, huh?

Nine Dragons

I know it's a lot of pictures!  But I couldn't decide which ones, so I just posted all of them.

The next morning we woke up early.  Very early.  Like 4:30am!  I guess it could have been worse.  So we basically sat around the hotel for a few hours watching cartoons.  Then we decided to go out to get some breakfast.  

Nate asked the hotel people where there were some good local shops for breakfast.  They looked at him like he was crazy.  They said they don't recommend going to certain places.  He thought that was funny, and did exactly what they told us not to.  And we found this shop.

It was perfect.  We got some yummy buns and bread and took them back to our hotel.  And we got to walk the streets of Hong Kong!

Then we took the bus.

Does he look hot?  That's because it was freaking hot!  That part was no fun.

Taking the trolley to The Peak.

Views.

Looking at seals.

More views.

This was the mall area at the top of the mountain.

Inside the mall trying to cool off.

Then we ate noodles for lunch at Mak's Noodles.

Can you believe we had a bowl full of hot soup on a hot day?

Me neither.  But it was fun.

Dare had beef noodles.

More views from the top.

This was just before a Chinese guy was forcing his son to stand by G for a picture.  We were quite the spectacle there.  Mostly because of the amount of kids, not as much because of the blonde hair.

Then we took the Star Ferry.

Don't be jealous of my hot husband.

We got some icy drinks.  Asian style, of course, so they had little gelatinous chunks in them.  Doubt many of you would be a fan, but we loved them.

Then we took the MTR.  This picture is horrible, but I wanted to show how crowded it was.  It's amazing how many people they can squeeze on those cars.

Going to the night market.

I took this picture because I thought it was funny that they put toilet paper rolls on the tables for napkins. Then I noticed the people in the background pointing and smiling at us.  That pretty much happened with everyone we passed by.  I'm glad I got this shot of it.

Yummy.

Night market.  I really wish we had more energy by this point.  It would have been fun to stroll around and shop more.  But we were exhausted.

Mads falling asleep in the jade shop.

Walking home.  At this point we were really wishing we didn't have so much walking to do.  Mads was sleep walking (what a trooper!), the girls were barely hanging on, and Nate carried G.  But we made it back to the hotel.  Then Nate and I went out to get dinner.  We got egg sandwiches and a strange macaroni thing.  It was a very weird food day.

I'm really glad we stayed an extra day in Hong Kong.  Hopefully next time we can enjoy it without jet lag.

Next stop:  Our new home in Jakarta!

Dashboard

I just thought this picture looked so cool edited.

Don't Drink the Water

First look at a foreign country.

We have waited a long time for this. So this was a big day for us.

More luggage shots. This time we didn't have helpers, so we enlisted the kids. I think we rolled around 4 carts in that airport.

Side note: Mads found Hong Kong coins within 15 minutes of being there. I swear that kid has a built in metal detector. No, it's just his crazy skills.

We decided to store our luggage at the airport for this leg of the trip. It was expensive, but worth it. So once we got our luggage taken care of, we went out in search of some sort of transportation. We didn't have to wait long before a man approached us, and asked if he could drive us somewhere. Even though he spoke English, he didn't have a uniform or badge on, and all the warning bells were going off in my head. But he seemed nice, so we went with it. We followed him outside and he told us to wait by the curb while he went to get his "big car". He pulls up in a van that you see middle eastern criminals drive in movies. In my head, I saw kidnappings, drugs, and bullet holes. It was small, tan for camouflage, and curtains in the windows. Did I mention this guy was Indian? Again, the warning bells were going off. But at this point, we had no other immediate prospects for a ride to our hotel, so we went with it. I look inside thinking that I could sort out the car seat situation. I realized quickly that this van was not meant to hold car seats. The seats were practically laying down, and there were no seat belts. I guess I knew this was coming moving to Asia, so I tried not to stress about it. I just had the kids pile in...

Since it was so hot in Hong Kong, he had the air conditioner on full blast. It kept leaking water on us. And it was pretty dirty inside, and it had stickers all over the interior. I can't remember what they said now (dang it!), but they were funny like English usually is in Asia. Nate chatted with the driver, while the kids rolled around in the back. G dubbed it the "tippy car". The position of the seats, and no seat belts meant for a lot of flopping around in the back seats. In the U.S., we would never ride in a van like this. With a stranger. That dripped dirty water on us. But here, we just smiled and chalked it up to experience. We wanted the kids to have an open mind, right? Turns out, the guy was nice, super efficient, had a card and his own little business, and he was even able to give us a receipt. He offered to drive us around our whole time in Hong Kong. We ended up calling him to drive us back to the airport.

I regret not getting a picture of the van from the outside. It was a pretty funny situation.

The ride from the airport was about an hour. Everyone was pretty tired because of jet lag, so the amount of tumbling in the back went down.

I took these pictures from the car...

Loved the mountains.

Apartments.

Cool dude riding a bike. I would fall over with all that extra weight.

Cool little street. And another look at the dirty van.

Nate wanted to get in on the picture taking.

I liked the speed limit sign. I think that's what it is anyway.

It was hilarious to me that we pulled up to a super nice Hong Kong hotel in that van. I really wish I could interview a worker there and ask them what they thought. The contrast of our van next to all the other cars at the hotel is indescribable. And then! And then a white family, with five kids, starts climbing out. I can't stop cracking up right now thinking about it. They probably NEVER see kids, let alone a family with 5. I know they had no idea what to think of us. But they were super nice and helpful. There were workers everywhere. Which I'm learning is the norm in Asia.

View from the hotel window.

We got to our room, cleaned up, and slept. Then we woke up in late afternoon, went to get some food...

...then slept some more. This was at a store that was attached to our hotel. So we pretty much never left the hotel that day. We got tasty bread, fruit, chips, and fruit juice for dinner. Nice dinner, eh?