5-16-11 Ubud/Denpasar to Jakarta

We left the natural beauty of Ubud for Denpasar, and later for the Urban Jungle which was Jakarta. But on the way back to Denpasar, I definitely kept myself awake, and the country-side was just as beautiful as I thought it was, another thing I noticed was all the temples that we passed on the way back to Denpasar, and more importantly all the stone carving places which we also passed, I thought to myself, these must be the people who are repairing the temples at Prambanan and Borobudur, but one could never be sure.  

Since my mom's friend Rima was leaving around 3 from Denpasar, we decided to switch flights to an earlier flight, and we also left around 3 PM on a Garuda Indonesia flight bound for Jakarta, I was surprised to find out that my mom had booked seats in First class on Garuda, so for an hour, I would fly First class, which was perfectly fine by me. Before the flight we also got to hang out in the “Eksecutive” lounge and enjoy some free food and drinks, and I browsed more shops in the search for trinkets to bring back home. 

 Meanwhile, we solidified plans to go to Singapore, the idea of which had been bouncing around for a couple of days. After booking our flight, we boarded our flight to Jakarta. The flight was uneventful, and though we were in First class on a Garuda flight, many of the amenities that came with being there were given in Economy class in Singapore Airlines. 

 But the one cool thing was the pop-out touch screens , and tray tables which the plane had. After a short flight we arrived in Jakarta, but due to traffic, my uncle-in-law Najib, (who I'll refer to as Wa Najib), was running a bit behind, so while we waited we went and got the print out to confirm our flight for Singapore. My uncle got there and was extremely apologetic for the delay, but it was no worries all around, as we made our way to my uncle and aunt's house, we got stuck in traffic, so for nearly two hours we were in bumper to bumper traffic.

Since I'm currently stuck in traffic (lol) I'll take a second to spotlight, Wa Najib. Wa Najib is my cousin Faris' father, and husband to my maternal aunt, who I call Wa Mei-Mei. (Her name is Miriam but it's pretty common practice to refer to a family member by their diminutive in Indonesian culture) He, like all my uncles-in-law, is not Sundanese, but is from Central Java, however he is fluent in Sundanese due to his time spent in schools in West Java, and his days at ITB (Technological Institute of Bandung, Indonesia's equivalent to MIT), where he would later meet my aunt. He is a civil engineer and works for Indonesia's private highway company which builds and maintains most of Indonesia's roads and highways. So as we were stuck in traffic, I got interesting explanations of current and future construction plans. He also has a penchant for golf, so I got a layout of all the major golf courses in Indonesia, which was pretty interesting because I had no idea that Indonesia had pretty big golf courses. 

We eventually got to his house, which would be our jump-off point for all trips around Jakarta. Had another awkward encounter with my younger cousins, but my older cousin Ardhi stopped by the house, and brought up an interesting bit, that in Indonesia, if you are less than 45 minutes late, then you aren't really late. It would become a maxim for the rest of the trip. I got more Internet access, though thoroughly exhausted, I didn't have the energy to type up blog posts and ended another day of fun in the urban jungle of Jakarta.