The Big Durian

Here we are, in Jakarta, Indonesia! We arrived here late Friday night after a long journey from Hong Kong. We arrived in Hong Kong around 7pm from the US and finally got to our hotel around 8:30 or so. We had made reservations at the YMCA Hotel (doesn't sound that nice, but it is....its actually right next to the Peninsula Hotel, one of the best in the world). Anyways, we reserved 2 beds in one of their "hostel" rooms. However, when we reserved them, they failed to inform us that the rooms were not co-ed. So we had the option of sleeping in separate rooms, or trying to find a hotel in a pretty expensive part of Hong Kong. We were so tired, we just decided to sleep in separate rooms. We both had 1 roommate...Kelly had a girl from Taiwan, and I had a man from India who wanted to talk to me all night about everything from traveling, to the US, to him wanting me to run for President. That's the beauty of travelling. The following day we walked around a rainy Hong Kong for 12 hours before we went to the airport.

We landed in the new Bangkok airport around 12am and didn't have our next flight until 2pm the following day. We decided it would be cost-efficient, and strangely fun to just sleep in the airport. Since we were extremely tired, we found a cozy corner, busted out our sleeping bags and slept quite nicely. We finally arrived in Jakarta the next evening at 9pm to find that Kelly's pack was still in Singapore.

Jakarta is called the Big Durian because there is a fruit here called Durian that smells and tastes terrible. Supposedly, its an acquired taste. They say the same about Jakarta. We, however, have had a pleasant time here so far. We are staying here with Kelly's aunt and uncle in their beauty "compound"/neighborhood of internationals. We have eaten great, had massages and reflexology, swam, relaxed, read, etc. We've also experienced the great side effect of traveling overseas: losing our lunch from both ends. Hopefully we've gotten all that out of our systems. We are going on some excursions this weekend, so we'll update about those later. Here are some more pics!
Here are our wonderful hosts for the week we are in Jakarta! This is Kelly's aunt & uncle, Mark & Martha Moselle (Randy's brother). They work for Jakarta International School, Mark is the head of the counseling department for the high school and coaches Varsity women's softball and Junior Varsity men's volleyball. Martha works as a sixth grade teacher in the ESL department. In the last two years here in Jakarta they have also helped birth a new church! The church is non-traditional and we were able to attend last Saturday night. It is a more intimate setting with tables instead of pews with coffee, tea and water at the tables to drink while visiting with the others at your table. The church family meets at the top of a Citibank building since they are still small and are also an extention of a large church in another part of Jakarta.
Here we are posing at a tree on the school's campus. This type of tree is considered holy to the Hindu and believed to have spirits living in them, so here's to a first of many we will see.
Here's Kelly at our camp out in the Bangkok airport!