06 | May | 2014 | A Christmas Tree in Asia

Well, friends and family, I have made it to Yogyakarta. The flight from Jakarta was uneventful, thankfully. I’m always a fan of short flights with nothing to report on.

So I said I’d share a bit about my thoughts on Jakarta and the things I did while I was there. I have had a bit more sleep so hopefully these next few blog entries make a bit more sense. Jakarta is an interesting city. Very crowded, very busy, very loud, very polluted. It definitely had a different vibe from Yogyakarta or Salatiga. I didn’t dislike it. However, I knew after landing in Yogyakarta and driving through the city that this will always be my Indonesia. Central Java. I just adore it. But back to Jakarta…

Kota Tua di Jakarta

One of my favorite puppets from the museum.

Jakarta is hot. Very hot. Sweat dripping down your face in a matter of minutes hot. So I don’t know if the wayang museum had a lot of patrons because they were interested in wayang or because it was air conditioned. Either way there were a lot of people in the museum. A lot of young people too. So that was at least good to see. What wasn’t good to see was the condition the puppets were in. While air conditioned it was definitely not temperature controlled and the cases were not air tight either. There were dead bugs and a lot of dust in the display cases. The puppets weren’t in great condition either. I’m not sure if they were obtained in poor condition or because of the conditions they are kept in they have deteriorated. I am used to American/British museums so I also wished the puppets had more information on their id cards. I was hoping for approximate date created, date acquired, where they were from, etc. Pak Will said it has improved over the past few years so hopefully it keeps improving and more and more puppets are added to the collection. There was a dalang performing at the end of the museum. Which was nice to see. Pak Will said it was the first performance he has seen at the museum in a long time. So good things are happening.

We then took a short drive to look at the shipyard and after to a very old beautiful house where there was an art auction happening. We just stopped in to see it. They were auctioning off some ming vases for around $200 USD. So… anyone want a ming vase? Then I went home and then off to Starbucks with Anna as I mentioned before. We picked up food after Starbucks and headed back to the hotel. Where I downed a lot of the food and then hit the hay hard. I was feeling a bit off. I don’t think my sinuses or my head were very fond of the pollution in Jakarta. If I was staying there long I would have to really invest in some top notch allergy pills. Salatiga and Yogyakarta never seemed to bother me so we will see how it goes this time around.

Entrance to the Phoenix

I’m now sitting in my hotel room in Yogya relaxing. I thought about going out tonight and doing a bunch of stuff but I’m not sure. Even though I’m supposed to be keeping gluten out of my diet since it irritates my fibromyalgia I really do think some Nanamia is in my future. HELLO PIZZA REUNION. It is just so good. I can taste the joy already. Plus I have a meeting set up for tomorrow so I don’t want to get too tired since I’m already a bit worn down from the past week. So some pizza, some relaxing, and some HBO maybe? My LOGOTV app was working in Jakarta but now it wont let me load the new episode of Drag Race. GRR! I do love my RuPaul and I’d like my fix please. Which means I’m not caught up… so NO spoilers, everyone!

Well, I guess now you want to see how great the hotel is? I am still incredibly pleased with the deal I found on Orbitz. I am getting a steal of a deal for my two days here. Kind of pricey for here. Cheap cheap cheap for the US aka $40 a night. Compare that to $16-30ish (which includes breakfast) a night for the hotel that is attached to my new apartment. You could also compare that to the regular price of this hotel which is $95ish a night from the hotel website and $79 is the cheapest rate on TripAdvisor right now. So win for me.

Here ya go. Picture time.