It’s fairly quiet here with Ramadan – the Muslim month of fasting, which ends with Idul Fitri on Sunday/Monday. Muslims fast from sunup to sundown, then everyone goes out to eat at sundown, so the restaurants are packed every evening during Ramadan. The week after Idul Fitri (next week) all of Indonesia shuts down – even the banks are closed for the entire week. People typically travel to their home town so travel out of Jakarta is a nightmare and expensive, but the good part is supposedly Jakarta becomes a ghost town because no one is actually from here, so everyone goes somewhere else. I’ll believe that when I see it, but it’s already getting a little hard to find a taxi.
So, in the meantime, here’s a few odds and ends:
Pink bus – there are also pink train cars – these are for women only. No men allowed.Affectionately known as the ‘Donnie and Marie’ statue. Why, we do not know…..DeeAnn wanted to buy some shoes, but I said no…Very odd – in the grocery store freezer section, here are loose, frozen chunks of meat for sale.Traffic – always traffic….Chicken Run down the street from the office. A whole rotisserie chicken is 85,000 Rp ($6.50) or a little more than Walmart.A mini-store on a bikeThe new mass transit system construction has downtown Jakarta in a constant messTempting, but we passed…Dental office waiting room – finally found a dentist that treats mostly Westerners – but VERY expensive…Dental office overlooks the golf course. Space like this does not come cheap in JakartaFrom the dental chair…someone has to pay for this view…I guess it’s usOld school rice farmerNew school wheels – Rolls Royce….Very odd modern art at Plaza Indonesia – a very upscale mall (see the car being sold in the mall, above)
