Santa Claus is Coming to Jakarta!

Living in a country that is nearly 90% Muslim, we did not have high hopes for Christmas this year.  We have been surprised at the amount of Christmas cheer around Jakarta.  The malls are all decorated for Christmas and we have been able to find things like decorations for our apartment and wrapping paper for our presents! We were especially excited to see "Santa's Ice Village" going up in our closest mall!  It was set to open up December 6th and we were waiting with baited breath (I was a little curious to see what Santa looks like in Indonesia).   For 50,000 Rupiah (approximately $5.00 USD), we were able to...

Meet Frosty...

  Touch the magic tree for 8 seconds while making a wish...

Meet Santa's Reindeer and get our picture taken with... 

SANTA!!!

Lucky for us, there was a Santa citing at the American Club!

 Dustin got to perform in the Nut Cracker!

It was interesting to hear some of the things American kids, living in Jakarta, ask Santa for - Things we can't get in Jakarta like candy canes and Chips Ahoy cookies topped the list.  D-Man asked for a race track!

Santa gave him a little gift!

And we got a picture with a REAL LIVE Santa!!!

Taman Safari Indonesia

Our second day in Puncak was spent at Taman Safari.  Taman Safari is a short 30-45 minute drive down the mountain from the bungalow (assuming everything goes as planned).  We set out a little after 8:00 and assumed we would be at the Safari by about 9:00 - easy!  We even assumed we would eat breakfast when we got there.  We were making great time getting down the mountain until we came to a traffic stop at about 8:32.  We were the first vehicle stopped and assumed there was some sort of construction causing the road to go down to one lane.  We assumed that they were taking turns letting the traffic travel on the one open lane.  After about 15 minutes went by, we assumed the closure was timed and they would let us go through around 9:00.  Just after 9:00, the police officers stopping traffic went across the street.  We assumed they were going to prepare to open the lane for us.  After another 30 minutes or so, we assumed the officers must have gone for a little coffee break and would be back soon.  Another 30 minutes later and the officers were on the way back to open the lane for us (or so we assumed!).  30 minutes more and our driver, Pak Firman, got out to talk to the police officer.  For those keeping track, it was now about 10:30 and we had been sitting there for 2 hours.  The officer informed Pak Firman that the traffic coming up the hill from Jakarta, to go to Taman Safari,  gets so bad on Saturday and Sunday that they close the road to those heading down the hill - and here we assumed we were ahead of the game because we were already up the hill and would be heading in the opposite direction from all of the traffic.  We were told they would open the road for us as soon as they got word from the Chief of Police - somewhere between 11:00 and 11:30.  Apparently, this road gets closed from 8:30 until about 11:30 every Saturday and Sunday...if only we had left 3 minutes earlier!!! Finally, at about 11:15, the road opened and we were on our way.  We had now been in the car for over 3 hours, most of which was literally sitting there, waiting for the road to open.  

Waiting...

A short time later, we were entering the Safari and assumed we could head straight to the restrooms, then grab a little something to eat and go on the Safari.  We assumed wrong, apparently, the flow of traffic goes THROUGH the safari prior to getting to the parking lot with the restrooms and restaurants - oh boy!  Lucky for us, the drive through the safari was AMAZING and we were able to ignore our empty tummies and full bladders for the remainder of the drive!  

Once traffic was moving,  we got a police escort down the hill!

Keep in mind, none of us ate breakfast (assuming you don't count the boxes of mints we consumed while sitting in the car).  We were coming up on lunchtime; Everyone was hungry and had to pee.

The safari was great.  We drove through the grounds as animals roamed freely through-out.  In some places, the animals came right up to the cars.  People were able to feed the animals carrots, but we were warned that the animals would possible scratch and dent your car as you were feeding them.  Since our car technically belongs to the company, we didn't want to chance it.  Regardless, we were able to get some up close and personal time with the animals.

Once we got to a certain part of the safari, there were signs telling us to close our windows and stay in our cars...

Once we finished driving through the safari, we stopped for a restroom break and a little lunch.  I learned yet another life lesson in the restroom...

The rest of the safari park was a little like a zoo with amazing habitats for all of the animals.  They also had rides, a small water park, and several animal shows.  We went to the tiger show and the dolphin show.  These were great, but it is definitely different watching a show when it is entirely in Bahasa Indonesia.  

Despite our rough start, we had a great day and really enjoyed Taman Safari.  We were impressed with all of the animal habitats and the safari was amazing.  We will be back again and have learned another valuable lesson about the dangers of making assumptions (especially when living in Indonesia). 

What Makes a Bungalow a Bungalow?

Emilie's school has A LOT of breaks.  The weekend before Thanksgiving, they had a five day weekend (although, they didn't get Thanksgiving off).  During this break, Chris' boss generously offered to let us stay at his bungalow in the mountains of Puncak.  Without traffic, this is about a 2 hour drive South of Jakarta. We set out early Friday morning and the drive was beautiful.  We went through mountains with miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) of tea plantations. As we climbed through the mountains, the air continued to get clearer and the weather cooled off (It was SO nice to be in 70 degree weather (and to breathe fresh air) for a couple of days).  We made it to the bungalow, and WOW!  When I think of a bungalow, I picture a quaint house in the country...we stayed in the guest house - which was a separate building from the main house and had ten bedrooms, along with a kitchen, dining room, and two sitting/living areas. The main house also had more bedrooms, a kitchen, eating area, formal dinning room, more sitting rooms and rec room complete with pool table and ping pong table.  There was also a pool (with a slide), a tennis court, and a basketball court on the property.  We were in heaven!

We all enjoyed playing Ping Pong, but Andy beat every last one of us!

Enjoying the weather!

The "Guest House"

The Main House

The Main House is on the left.  The Guest house is straight ahead

The View

The Lion Waterfall

This was where we spent most of our time.  The breeze was wonderful and the storms at night were beautiful 

The property caretakers made us a delicious dinner our first night there.   Napkins are scarce in Jakarta - even in restaurants.  Usually you get kleenex/tissue.  Here, we opted for the always classy roll of toilet paper at the table!

If you look closely, you can make out the volcano!

Tea Leaves!

Our first day at the Bungalow, we hung out swimming, relaxing, playing baseball and ping pong, and enjoying the wonderful weather.  The second day, we spent at the nearby safari...stay tuned for pictures from our Safari Adventure!

An Immigration Adventure!

The immigration process in Indonesia has been a nightmare adventure!  When entering the country, each person is able to get a 30 day Visa on Arrival (for a fee, of course).  This can be extended once for an additional 30 days (and an additional fee).  Once this is ready to expire, you must leave the country and start again (you also get to pay a fee if you want to LEAVE the country).  I'm not sure how long you can continue doing this every 60 days before the Indonesian government final says enough and doesn't let you back in.  Regardless, Emilie's school requires a KITAS (a one year, multi entry Visa).  So, shortly after arriving in Indonesia, we set out on the process to obtain a KITAS for each of us.  During this process, we were required to leave the country twice, surrender our passports in Singapore to the Indonesian Embassy for a day, surrender our Passports to the Indonesian government in Indonesia for a week, go down to the immigration office (twice because the computers went down the first time), get turned away on our second visit because we were not following the dress code (no shorts, no skirts, no flip-flops, no t-shirts, no tank tops), get hustled down an alley to a little lean-to store to get appropriate attire, barely make it back to the Immigration office in time for our appointment, get finger-printed and our pictures taken, sign a million documents in Bahasa Indonesia (Dad, I might need some legal advice if I ever find out what it was we signed), and FINALLY, we were given our KITAS Visas!  We are now, legally, allowed to stay in Indonesia until next November (and Emilie is not going to get kicked out of school). While the process was quite the headache adventure, we did get two trips to Singapore out of the deal and we are all learning some great life lessons (patience, expect the unexpected, if it can go wrong - it will go wrong, etc.) so all in all, we have enjoyed the frustration adventure of dealing with immigration issues!

The Art of Batik

Do you know what Batik is? 

Batik is the traditional fabric of Indonesia.  You find it EVERYWHERE out here and certain designs can represent different things.  Batik shirts range in price from $5 (that's about we paid for Dustin's Batik shirt above) to hundreds of dollars.  We recently decided to take a field trip to the Textile Museum (riveting, I know) to learn a little more about Batik.  The museum itself was about as exciting as it sounds.  Although the fabrics displayed were beautiful, how long can you really spend looking at a bunch of fabric? After our exciting time inside the museum, we were taken to a room behind the museum for a little Batik making of our own!  We were the only Westerners in the entire place, but nobody seemed to mind sharing this Indonesian experience with us.  Many people there brought their own designs, but we weren't quite that prepared.  Lucky for us, they had a huge selection of different designs for us to chose from.  We were all a little afraid we were going to have to draw freehand so when they showed us a few of our choices and guided us toward the tracing tables, we all breathed a huge sigh of relief!

Dustin "helping" Debi trace her flower

Emilie also made a flower!

Chris & Dustin's tracing of a fish

After tracing our designs, we were given a quick lesson on using the hot wax.  We used these little tools, called cantings, to scoop hot wax into a little copper cup on top of a bamboo handle.  We then, tilted the bamboo to apply the hot wax along the lines of our tracings.  WOW!  THIS TAKES A LOT OF PRACTICE! First, you have to be careful not to spill the hot wax on yourself (Both Emilie and Chris managed to spill on themselves), second, if you tilt the pencil too much, you get splotches.  If you tilt it too little, no wax comes out.  It takes a steady hand and lots of patience. 

Once we finished adding hot wax to the front AND THE BACK of our designs, it was time to dye the material.  Lucky for us, there was someone there to do it for us.  Our designs were being dyed one color, but most Batik fabrics are dyed in several steps (alternating, wax and dye over and over) with several different colors.  

The first step in the dyeing process was adding a film to help seal the wax.

Next, the fabric is rinsed in water, put in the dye and rinsed again.

Then, the fabric is added to boiling water to remove the wax.

Finally, they are hung out to dry (FYI - the drying process works best when it is not raining so we took ours home to dry).

Overall, we had an AMAZING time!  We have learned to really appreciate the art of Batik making and have added several Batik items to our home including Christmas Ornaments on our tree!  If you decide to make the 10,000 mile trek to Jakarta, I can pretty much guarantee you will be dragged to the textile museum to try your hand at Batik making! 

Our Final Products -  framed and hanging in our apartment!!!