Continuing on the retro blogs: 12:20pm, 11/5/03, at Jakarta Airport:
Ok, so I'm sipping an iced caffe mocha which costs 23000 dollars! But it just costs like 2 dollars USD. The taxi ride here was 84000. Yesterday night dinner costs 50000. Anyway, visiting Sandra was a blur. Here's the rundown:
Day 1: Came to Jakarta airport and was immediately hounded by 4 separate guys who wanted to be my taxi driver. They kept hounding me, even speaking in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Indonesian to explain to me that there are bad people and that they'll take care of me. Yeah right. And that makes me wanna trust you! Sandra's 20 mins late so I let one of them help me make a phone call, that was a mistake. He later kept following us and demanded that we pay him for what he called "free service" Cost: 10000. A bad first impression of Indonesia. Anyway, Sandra and roommate Ellen came and it took them 5 hrs to ride into Jakarta. I felt bad that they had to do that. We drove back to their village and on the way we took a detour and went to the hotsprings. It felt so good! We were chatting and it took us a short time to catch up on things. I miss chatting with Sandra, we're so honest with each other. On the way back it was amusing to see a pickup truck carrying like 20 people and an ox in the back. They kept smiling and staring at Ellen, who is Caucasian. You really get attention if you're white, no matter you're in HK, Japan, or Indonesia. Also, driving is crazy in Indonesia. It's a 2 lane road and when you pass you're driving into oncoming traffic. There's so many times when I thought we weren't gonna make it when we pass and I thought we were going to die, then at the last second our driver would steer our car right back to our lane and we would barely miss oncoming traffic. I'm not kidding about this one. They're just as crazy as the taxi drivers in Beijing. We finally got home at like 9pm, almost throwing up on the ride b/c it was so jerky and we drove thru the mountains which meant every 15 seconds or so the road curves like 180 degrees one way and 180 degrees the next. Crazy.
Day 2: I gave Sandra all the gifts from back home and she was throughly happy with them. She felt very loved. We then went trekking, starting through the kampang (village), through narrow alleys, in mud, past crowling roosters, rice paddies, rivers, ditches. It was really an adventure. We got lost on the way back, but not after seeing a waterfall. By that time the rain was pouring and we were soaked in rain, the back of my jeans colored with mud. It was all worth it though, the highlight of my trip here, hiking past the village and nature with Sandra, being able to have deep talks with her. We have a connection, being Asian American, and our experience being from 3rd culture. I think we think in a different mindset.
The world isn't American centric. Heck, I don't even like this war in Iraq, our lack of vision in international politics, breaking the kyoto treaty and breaking our nuclear missle treaty by building the space defense and all. We're naturally so American focused. We don't see the view of the Islamic countries. We're so materialistic. We have so much resources but we waste them in things that doesn't matter much. We don't have houses like MTV cribs but we're still very rich while others in the world fare much less. In poorer countries the laws, justice, and human rights doesn't matter as much and the value of human life doesn't cost the same as they do in America. I think the poorer a country is, the more likely they are to cheat the expats there, knowing that they have something that they want. I guess I understand. In America we exploit poorer countries just the same, kinda like wholesale stealing. I dunno, I guess when I look at this world, what do I see? I see a lof of injustices. I see a broken world with no chance of ever rising above our present system of economics and distribution of wealth. People will always be greedy, prideful, pleasure-seeking. I'm not saying this to be a killjoy, I really am not. I just want more people in the world to have joy. I guess presently a small percentage of the global population is enjoying a lot, like us in the western world, while most of the world don't have much. When viewed this way, I guess it's much easier to be charitable to aid programs and non-profits which tries to help other countries. Our income level can go really far in other places in the world.
Ok, so I'm sipping an iced caffe mocha which costs 23000 dollars! But it just costs like 2 dollars USD. The taxi ride here was 84000. Yesterday night dinner costs 50000. Anyway, visiting Sandra was a blur. Here's the rundown:
Day 1: Came to Jakarta airport and was immediately hounded by 4 separate guys who wanted to be my taxi driver. They kept hounding me, even speaking in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Indonesian to explain to me that there are bad people and that they'll take care of me. Yeah right. And that makes me wanna trust you! Sandra's 20 mins late so I let one of them help me make a phone call, that was a mistake. He later kept following us and demanded that we pay him for what he called "free service" Cost: 10000. A bad first impression of Indonesia. Anyway, Sandra and roommate Ellen came and it took them 5 hrs to ride into Jakarta. I felt bad that they had to do that. We drove back to their village and on the way we took a detour and went to the hotsprings. It felt so good! We were chatting and it took us a short time to catch up on things. I miss chatting with Sandra, we're so honest with each other. On the way back it was amusing to see a pickup truck carrying like 20 people and an ox in the back. They kept smiling and staring at Ellen, who is Caucasian. You really get attention if you're white, no matter you're in HK, Japan, or Indonesia. Also, driving is crazy in Indonesia. It's a 2 lane road and when you pass you're driving into oncoming traffic. There's so many times when I thought we weren't gonna make it when we pass and I thought we were going to die, then at the last second our driver would steer our car right back to our lane and we would barely miss oncoming traffic. I'm not kidding about this one. They're just as crazy as the taxi drivers in Beijing. We finally got home at like 9pm, almost throwing up on the ride b/c it was so jerky and we drove thru the mountains which meant every 15 seconds or so the road curves like 180 degrees one way and 180 degrees the next. Crazy.
Day 2: I gave Sandra all the gifts from back home and she was throughly happy with them. She felt very loved. We then went trekking, starting through the kampang (village), through narrow alleys, in mud, past crowling roosters, rice paddies, rivers, ditches. It was really an adventure. We got lost on the way back, but not after seeing a waterfall. By that time the rain was pouring and we were soaked in rain, the back of my jeans colored with mud. It was all worth it though, the highlight of my trip here, hiking past the village and nature with Sandra, being able to have deep talks with her. We have a connection, being Asian American, and our experience being from 3rd culture. I think we think in a different mindset.
The world isn't American centric. Heck, I don't even like this war in Iraq, our lack of vision in international politics, breaking the kyoto treaty and breaking our nuclear missle treaty by building the space defense and all. We're naturally so American focused. We don't see the view of the Islamic countries. We're so materialistic. We have so much resources but we waste them in things that doesn't matter much. We don't have houses like MTV cribs but we're still very rich while others in the world fare much less. In poorer countries the laws, justice, and human rights doesn't matter as much and the value of human life doesn't cost the same as they do in America. I think the poorer a country is, the more likely they are to cheat the expats there, knowing that they have something that they want. I guess I understand. In America we exploit poorer countries just the same, kinda like wholesale stealing. I dunno, I guess when I look at this world, what do I see? I see a lof of injustices. I see a broken world with no chance of ever rising above our present system of economics and distribution of wealth. People will always be greedy, prideful, pleasure-seeking. I'm not saying this to be a killjoy, I really am not. I just want more people in the world to have joy. I guess presently a small percentage of the global population is enjoying a lot, like us in the western world, while most of the world don't have much. When viewed this way, I guess it's much easier to be charitable to aid programs and non-profits which tries to help other countries. Our income level can go really far in other places in the world.
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