We landed in Jakarta in the middle of the day and upon leaving the airport terminal we quickly spotted Alfi. Literally one of our favorite people in the world and someone who has changed our lives for the better. Flashing back a couple of years; I  had convinced Mark that we should consider hosting and although he was hesitant he acquiesced and Alfi came to stay with us for two weeks. Alfi was a fantastic guest and we used his visit as an excuse to play tourist in our own city. Because of our experience hosting Alfi, Mark and I have since hosted several more exchanges and have enjoyed every experience.

As soon as we landed Alfi took us to a nearby restaurant for food and drinks as he was sending off a group of interns on their flight. We sat down for a quick drink and a chat with more seasoned travelers. Alfi disappeared for a moment to help some of them catch their flights and then we were in a van headed towards our hotel in Jakarta. This would be our first of many experiences with the horror that is the traffic in Jakarta.

 

Alfi got us to our destination, an airbnb in the middle of Jakarta, and we settled in. The apartment that we were staying in is in one of these giant structures that dot the Jakarta landscape; appropriately called cities. It consisted of two 30+ story apartment towers, a pool (which we never found), and a seven-story mall. The view was incredible:

It really is just city after city after city for as far as you can see. The wifi in our room didn’t work, but we quickly found the Starbucks in the mall downstairs and figured out how to navigate our way there, order both familiar and foreign foods and check our emails, and most importantly our Facebook messenger messages with Alfi and Resha.

We found what felt like the basement of the mall which contained a grocery store and a food court and we decided on a restaurant for a quick dinner. Ona was feeling very sick, but still managed to be outgoing enough to meet another baby from Australia and we had a chat with his mom and got pointers on diapers, milk, etc. We bought some supplies and headed back up to our room to crash.

In the morning we woke up, made our way to Starbucks and hung out with the wifi while Ona ran up and down the mall waving at everyone until Alfi came and found us. While we were waiting we got in a lot of people watching. The mall had security checkpoints at every entrance staffed by a friendly crew who briefly scanned everyone and answered questions, and the majority of women were wearing hijabs. Otherwise, the most notable thing about the mall was that it was decked out for Christmas. Familiar tunes were blasting, and there were Chrismas signs everywhere.

 

 

 

 

Alfi took us to a monument called MONAS is the center of Jakarta. It was lovely to get out and walk around, but even more fascinating to see the history of Indonesia.

Alfi and Ona are in competition for who has the most outgoing personality. While we were chatting Alfi found a guide who took us around the center of the monument and walked us through the history. We spent about 45 minutes looking at dioramas that depicted parts of Indonesia’s history, roughly two-thirds of them represented a war spanning 3-4 years on one or multiple islands as Indonesia struggled for independence, all of which spanned hundreds of years. As we made our way around the room, and the fighting with the Dutch intensified Mark and I both simultaneously realized what was about to happen: WWII. The Japanese replaced the Dutch (as they had a couple of times previously in the history) and there was some fighting on some of the islands, but not the typically struggles for independence, and then the year 1945. After over 300 years of struggling for independence the defeat of Japan in WWII was what finally put an end to the fighting. Without intention, America had helped Indonesia gain independence.

This small outing was wonderful, in so many ways. It made me feel like a bit of an idiot for knowing so little about the history of Indonesia (but we knew all about spas in Bali), we got to get out and stretch our legs, and it was the first of several stops that Resha and Alfi would take us on that really solidified our understanding of Indonesia.