Jakarta News

We don't have access to the internet where we are staying, so updating our blog has proved to be harder than we anticipated! We can walk over to the mall and get free wifi in some of the cafes, but today is the first time we've done it. We'll try and give a snapshot of what wev'e been up to in the last little while...When we arrived in Pontianak after our overnight coach trip, we waited out the hours til our flight to Jakarta in this little house on the river. It is very different to where we are staying now!

This is the apartment where we are currently staying. It is owned by Pastor Joshua and his wife Sannita. She does interior design (among other things) and this is a 'show apartment'. It is close to the church, and so it is often used by visiting pastors, and members of the church also pop in and out frequently. The contrast between the extravagant malls and apartments and the slums right next door is incredible - it's like two different worlds living side by side.


On Monday, we visited Evelyn's parent's bag shop/warehouse. They import bags from China and sell them wholesale to alot of retail shops in the area. They had just received a shipment before we arrived, so there was stock everywhere! They work extrememly hard and it was fascinating to see behind the scenes a little. I even got a free handbag from Evelyn's mum - and they also got us lunch from the local Soto shop - they are so generous and hospitable.


Evelyn's family also took us to one of the malls in Kelapa Gading (actually, it's 5 malls joined together). It was gigantic! There are malls everywhere - it's where everyone goes to hang out in Jakarta (there's not really much else to do, especially as it's so hot). We had Mixed Ice - which is like nothing we've ever had (or want to have again). It's shaved ice, mixed with all sorts of jellies, kidney beans, green beans, seaweed, coconut milk, brown sugar and more.

Afterwards, we went out to a noodle house (can't remember what it's called exactly) - the food was fantastic, I really love the noodles here. We also tried fish cakes, which were great as well. There are so many more flavours here than in Australia, and so many different fruits as well - I've never heard of half of them! We've tried lots of different drinks - the oddest one being avocado...it's blended up with condensed milk and chocolate syrup and actually tastes great (believe it or not).

We've also been to the Canon Service Centre to drop in one of our cameras which decided to break in Borneo. You take a number, just like in a deli, and then wait your turn. While it's not going to be cheap to repair, it's a LOT better than what it would've cost to fix in Australia, so God's timing is good!

This is a massive Reformed Presbyterian Church we passed on the way to Canon - Ben took the photo for his dad - thought he might be impressed!

Today we visited Rianno's printing shop. He is an elder from the church and runs a very successful printing business. He even printed out one of our photos for us on his new HP Indigo 5500 printer! Ben was very impressed and we've now got some ideas for things we can print out for our business while we're here...

The streets outside the shop were filled with cages - rabbits, guinea pigs, hawks, eagles, monkeys, snakes, lizards, owls...you name it. It was very sad to see. This photo was taken from the car, so it doesn't show much, but you can get the idea.

Anyway, that's officially way too much information, but it should keep everyone happy for a while! We are off to a media meeting at the church tonight and afterwards we are going to stay in another place, Taman Palem, for a few days. Tomorrow we are going to photograph some Habitat for Humanity houses and also the land they are purchasing to build more houses, so we are really looking forward to that!