Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Come with us on our first outing in Jakarta

Our first outing in Jakarta began by climbing into one of these babies. I can't even remember the name of it (some Indo-buddy, help me out!) but they are pretty interesting. Loud, stinky, sticky, held together by cardboard (at least the roof is) but CHEAP! It seems to us that most people in this city do not walk. The sidewalks are small and crowded with vendors and shops, so most people have motorcycles, cars, ride in these things or take a taxi. I prefer the taxi's. The are pretty cheap and very nice. They even have air conditioning. There is also a blue version of this thing, and those are pretty nice, too. They are faster, not loud and stinky, but I'm not sure if they are as cheap as the orange ones.
This is Joe's reaction to our first ride around the city. He did NOT want to get into this thing! Now, he always says, "I wanna get in a car," but he will get in these things now with out crying, at least.

These are some sights you might see out the window. We only took a 5 min ride to a nearby mall/grocery store.









People walking VERY closely to the traffic. It may seem completely crazy at first, but we've had several people tell us the drivers here are better than western drivers. This is because there are less guidelines, so people have to pay attention all the time, with every move they make. Sometimes, people in America (or other places) think if they just stay between the white lines and go somewhere around the speed limit, they don't have to think about anything else (I know that's how I am most of the time!) Anyway, I thought that this made sense after thinking of it that way.







Parking anyone??
Apparently there was a law recently passed to require helmets while riding motorcycles. I was surprised to see that almost everyone does! I guess this is one law that is enforced. And, they just stick their helmet on their handlebars or line then up on a nearby fence. I wonder if they always get their own helmet back??
This is us going through an intersection while all these people wait at a red light. Notice Starbucks coffee and Burger King in the background!

Lots of tall buildings scattered everywhere.

The kids checking out the ice cream selection at a grocery store. We were at a big mall with lots of shopping, and this grocery store was on the basement floor. We were told that if you find a mall, which there are a lot of, there is always a grocery store on the bottom.

More grocery store.


Hanging out.

Of course, no Saturday would be complete with out ice cream from Granddad. Okay, so he wasn't really here, but we made sure the kids knew they were getting it because he wanted them to have it! (Since we've lived in Houston, we always went out to eat on Saturday night with my parents and my dad always got them ice cream afterwards!)




On our way home.
And that concludes our little tour. Our lack of language is definitely noticeable and we do get a lot of stares, but the people are really friendly here and they are always nice stares!
We've enjoyed seeing a little piece of Jakarta, but we are glad that we get to go to our home in Salatiga tomorrow!

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A Glimpse into the lives of a family on a journey to serve God through aviation in Indonesia!