Batik

We went to get Nate a batik shirt for work.  Batik is cloth dyed by using a wax-resist technique.  It is very popular here in Indonesia.  It's their thing.  When men want to dress nice, they don't wear suits or even tuxes, they wear these shirts.  Long or short sleeves depending on how dressed up you want to be.  

They make all kinds of things with batik.  If you are reading this, and you are my family or friend, you are going to get some batik something from me.  You may as well tell me what you want.

We got G a shirt too.  He loves it.  I've never had such an easy time getting him dressed for church.  He looks very handsome.  He gets so much attention from all the Indo women when he is wearing it.  I wanted to buy one for Mads too, but they didn't have any good ones in his size that day.

Viiieeewww-tion

So this is where we live.  For the next couple weeks anyway...

 Kiddie pool.

 This is where we spend a lot of our time.

 Playground.

 This is the dude by the playground.  There are always workers hanging around out here.  Lots of them.  We are never alone.  Really.  I'm surprised they are able to keep busy.  But they find things to do.  Like mop over and over.  The guy who mops the pool water when it splashes outside the pool is my favorite.  We keep him busy for hours.

 Looking towards the lobby.

 The big pool.

More workers.

You remember when Gru lays down the ground rules?

Rule #1:  You will not touch anything.

Rule #2:  You will not bother me while I'm working.

Rule #3:  You will not cry, or whine, or laugh, or giggle, or sneeze, or burp, or fart.

That's what it was like when we moved here.  Many many rules.    

Jl. Dr. Saharjo

Someday I might look back on this picture fondly, and remember all those Sundays we crammed into a taxi to go to church.  Right now it just looks painful.  

No, I don't mind.  I love that we have a church to go to, and that we have an English ward.  I love that it's not too far away, and that I only have to wake up at 6am and not 5am.  I love that we have met so many wonderful people there, and our kids have instant friends.  And I love that the church is "the church" everywhere around the world.  It is really amazing and wonderful.

Shoot

My first picture of people taking pictures of my kids...

 It wasn't the first time, or the last, but it was the first picture I took.  Such an interesting thing that happens to us when we are in public.  I really don't get it.  It's not unpleasant, so I just keep telling the kids to smile and be friendly.  They've gotten to the point where they can just be slightly put out by it, where as before they were a little nervous and freaked out.  I think that means they are getting used to it. Hopefully they don't get used to being treated like a celebrity!

I bought the girls a cell phone.  I just thought it would come in handy, and they are super cheap here.  It cracked me up how they were so into figuring out how it worked.  I hope I haven't worsened my chances of making eye contact with them.  No, it's not that nice of a phone.  They will probably be more annoyed when they have to use it.

Emerald

Rhon had a birthday!  I'm embarrassed to say that it was well over a month ago.  But she knows she's important to me.  She does.

Nate was off work, so that was fun.  It made it feel really special.  We went to the mall.  We went to A&W.  Yes, we go there a lot.  

Rhon really wanted beef stroganoff.  We couldn't manage it, so we had pasta.  But she loves pasta, and we were able to make beef stroganoff a few days later.

Rhon's request for dessert was brownie mix.  No, not brownies, brownie MIX.  She made sure I brought the mix from the U.S. so that we were sure we could have what she wanted.  Since we invited a family over to celebrate with us, I cooked one box, and left the other one as mix.  I couldn't stick candles in it, so we used the cooked version.  The mix was a big hit!  Everyone loved it.  It tasted really good with ice cream.  The P-Gasts thought we were crazy.

Opening presents.

A Guy Dressing Up As A Bat Clearly Has Issues

G fell in love with a friend's Batman cape.  When we had to go home, he didn't want to take it off.

His friend was nice enough to let him take it home and play with it for a few days.

 He didn't want to take it off in the car.  And he fell asleep.

He didn't want to take it off in bed.  And he fell asleep.

May 22nd

The second Sunday we were here, we were lucky enough to attend a conference where the district in Jakarta became a stake.  And our branch became a ward.  Elder Bednar came.  He said wonderful things about Jakarta, and how excited he is for the progress of church membership here in Jakarta.  There is still a lot of work to be done, but there will be a temple here someday.

We got to use translators...

 The first time G wore headphones, he was on a plane and had his own TV.  He was probably wondering where the movie was showing.

 Funny.  All the headphones were placed in the middle section, right up front.  So there we were, a bunch westerners right in the middle of a huge room surrounded by Indonesians.  I think they were worried we wouldn't stand out enough, so they gave us big headphones to wear.

 The cool wall in the building where the conference was held.

They handed out a piece of paper with the Indonesian lyrics to the hymns.  So I sang hymns in Indonesian!  It was cool.

 Elder Bednar speaking.

That's his translator next to him.  The first thing he said was, "Selamat pagi."  And the translator said, "Good morning."  It was funny!  Promise.

And the people in front of me didn't have green hair.  Don't know what's up with my picture.

A cool tree outside.

The fam by the cool tree.

Just another picture of the cool, interesting, unusual greenery Jakarta has.

Kidzania

This is the only decent picture I took...

Just after our one week mark, some friends we knew in DC came to Jakarta from Surabaya.  They had fun activities in Jakarta planned, so we decided to tag along.  We went to Kidzania.  And just for the record, it is not pronounced kid-zane-ee-yuh, like you would think, it's pronounced kid-zonya.  It's a place where kids go to act like adults.  Sounds great, right?  Well, kids like that crap, I guess.  They founds jobs to do, and made money.  Then they were able to spend the money to do fun stuff.  For example, G was a fireman, so he earned money.  And the girls went to the salon, so they spent money.  It was fun.  Thanks M's for helping us do something fun, and giving us friends to hang out with.

Then all 13 of us crammed into a very very crowded Wendy's.  Those frosties were delish!  I ate all 4 of those frosties in front of me.

Not really.

Treat Yourself Well

Just some more pictures of another trip to the mall...

Mmm... frozen yogurt.

This was my first trip getting a taxi, getting all the kids squished in, telling the driver where to go, spending money, and getting everyone back home all by myself.  I am alive to talk about it, so we call that a success.  If you knew how easy it was for me, you wouldn't give me much credit.  I admit, the mall is less than a mile from our apartment, and it's on the same road, but still, I need a little credit.  Especially because taxi drivers inevitably take us to the wrong apartment building.  It's kind of freaky when I can't communicate with the driver.  But we made it back okay, and I vowed to get a car that very day.

We still don't have one.

RB

Nate and I ventured out alone one night because I was in desperate need of a phone, and I needed his help talking to people.  We ended up eating at A&W.  It was a fun experience the first time.

They have fried chicken, and rice with a side of chicken soup.

And root beer, of course.

They call root beer "RB".  I still order "root beer" and they don't understand me.

I loved that they printed "All American Food" on the white rice wrapper.  I would have to disagree.

Nate got a waffle.  

So what's a trip to Jakarta without getting sick?  Impossible, that's what!  Nate and I got sick 2 days after we got here.  I remember not feeling like eating my chicken.  The RB was good though!

Now when we got to A&W the kids get stared at, and touched.  Once someone even picked G up and started taking him around the restaurant.  He cried.  She put him down.  The kids love going there though.  Not somewhere we would ever spend that much time in the States, but here, it's become special.

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?