After dropping Elsie off to work, we sat in his car to go do some sightseeing… His car is a 1-yr-old Honda Odyssey! Actually was Elsie’s car, but then since they are getting married soon, made no difference whose car is it liao!
The traffic jams were very serious! It made me appreciate Singapore more so now... When we asked Emil how long it takes to bring us to the eating place, he told us that the place was very near, should be reaching soon. So I thought the car-ride would be about 15mins or so...
It turned out that we took 1 hour to reach the place!!! So, a car-ride of 45-min to 1 hour is considered "near" in Jakarta! (What??!!!) And the furthest we took was about 2 hrs...
Anyways....... No choice lor... We just had to get used to the long travelling time!
Along the way, we witness some serious flooding situation!
I was very surprised! This is Jakarta city! I always thought flooding could only occur in the countryside whereby sewerage and drainage systems was less advance… According to Emil, it rained everyday in Jakarta, that’s why there was flooding everywhere in town area…
What a sight! Being so pampered in Singapore, I have never seen a serious flood before
(Choy! Choy! Choy!)… Not that I yearn for one! Hyahahah
Most of the people going to work or school had to take off their shoes!! That reminded me of the days when I was young and my Mum always insisted us to wear our slippers to school during rainy days and changed into proper shoes when we reached school...
Well, I saw that some of the roads were not well done and I think the drainage might be a problem.. See this small lane? It was drizzling only and the road started to form some small pools of water liao! Soon, it would be flood again!
Anyway, side-tracked a bit… Having nothing much to do and not wanting to shop, we decided to go watch movie!!
We watched “Fearless” by Jet Lee… some of the scenes were so gross that I covered my eyes and missed about 40% of the whole show!! Sigh…. I secretly took some photos of the scenes! Hahahaha!!! Just for fun only lah, not for sale!!
Ok, back to the topic… after the show, me, Sean and Clement sat at Starbucks for coffee… Just then, we saw something interesting and definitely new to us…
A DEMONSTRATION! Just outside the shopping mall, Plaza Indonesia!
We were so excited that we rushed outside to take pictures. There were this van, playing loud music and we saw a lot of people around, wearing the same T-shirts and some of them carrying flags…
I have no idea whether was this a demonstration, so just some political party doing some publicity… Maybe it was just a friendly gathering? Well, anyway, I have no idea at all… So please don’t quote me!
But I did see some reporters and cameramen rushing around frantically, trying to capture the scene.. So if anyone out there who know what happened on that day, pls let me know, yah? (Date: 27 Jan 2006, timing… about 5pm or so…)
Saw this statue... So nice...
Sidetracked abit... There were alot of statues in Indonesia... I took a few, but due to shortage of memory space, I only retained the below picture... rust me, there are alot more out there!
Anyway, back to the topic... When we were on our way back to hotel, I spotted this wordings carved on the road pavement...
Think this might have been left behind after some riots against America...
The traffic was very slow and eventually I got used to the slow and jammed traffic liao...
There were alot of people selling stuff along the streets... There are boys selling newspapers, drinks, flowers to motorists who were jammed in the traffic... Amazingly, I saw this young man trying to earn some money by providing music to motorists!
So funny! Who would actually wind down the window to listen to him? Everyone was very irritated by the slow traffic liao, who would have the mood to listen to your guitar?
Anyway, this man was earning a decent living lah, at least he was not one of those street beggars, who combed the traffic and knocked on car-doors to ask for money.... Along the way, I did see some childrem knocking on car-doors and begging for money...
Well, just for a thought...
Most of the time, I saw alot of people idling around... Even during working hours, I see a lot of people sitting along the road, lazing around town, without doing anything... But since this is the first time I been to Indonesia, I cannot and would not judge them by just what I saw... There might be some culture differences... Maybe they are waiting for someone? Maybe they are guarding something? Maybe they are just tired and taking a rest? Or maybe that's their way of life!
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