Philip & Julia - Now in China: 2012

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Taman Safari

Puncak

After hearing many great reviews of the area just south of us, we decided to spend our long weekend in the mountains. The hills were covered by tea plantations and there were beautiful views. Hidden beyond the traffic was a magical place unlike any we have been to.

Taman Safari (Safari Park)

Set into the hills is a wildlife preserve/zoo. This place has it all: lions, tigers, bears, oh my, monkeys, pygmy hippos, zebras, giraffes, elephants, and more. You begin by taking a "safari" through acres of free-ranging animals. You drive for half an hour through different habitats getting a close-up view of the wild animals. After the drive, there's a whole other area of the park filled with live animal shows and smaller animal habitats.

tigers up close

lions hanging out

a herd of zebras in the road

an orangutan family staring at us

Philip wrestling crocodiles

You can pay $1.50 to pet and take pictures with baby animals.

So we did, three times. A beautiful White Tiger cub.

This is how we felt by the end of the day.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Into Town

A trip to Jakarta

We decided, along with two girls from work, to go into town for the night last weekend. Senddi and Ayu helped us navigate the trains and we made it to "Old town" Jakarta. This is the old Dutch capital area.

It was pretty crowded on some commuter trains.
Thankfully, ours weren't this bad. There was even a little
AC on most of them.

We enjoyed the colonial high life
while sipping on some cappuccinos.

Built around 1805, Batavia Cafe is one of the oldest
buildings in the city. It overlooks the main square
of the old town.

wandering the streets

There is one Chili's in the middle of the city. We couldn't
wait to taste some real Tex-mex. It was a rare treat,
bottomless chips and salsa and fajitas.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Around Here

Sanity

To keep ourselves occupied, we had to make a few adjustments to our lives. First, we found a kitten in the street and decided to nurse it back to health. Then we bought a motorbike so we could take trips around town more easily. This really opens up our possibilities to explore on the weekends.

At first, we named him "Scraggles" for obvious reasons.

He's growing big and healthy now, and he
loves to be outside.

safety first

This is our Suzuki SkyDrive in our driveway

Having fun in a toy store

All of the malls have things for kids to ride around on.
This unicorn actually walks.

We found BagelBagel in Jakarta, maybe the only place to
find bagels. That's real pork bacon inside!

Bogor

We took a ride down to the next city south of us. It was a little more than an hour drive. It turns out that there is literally no way to escape traffic on this island. The drive wasn't so bad though, and when we got there we got to relax. There is a huge botanical garden in the middle of town that was created by the Dutch a few centuries back. They used it to experiment with and develop cash crops like tobacco, spices, and coffee. It has an amazing diversity: there are hundreds of species of palm trees among many other things.

giant lilypads a meter across

Julia in the orchid garden

some interesting flowers

banana plant with small pink bananas

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Lebaran - Idul Fitri

We just experienced the largest Muslim holiday, Idul Fitri, referred to as Lebaran in Indonesia. It's as big as Christmas, signifying the end of the month-long fast, Ramadhan. During this time, people travel to visit their families and home villages. This gave us 12 days off to travel. We went to Bali, Lombok, and Gili Air.

Bali - Ubud

We traveled back to Bali, but we started in the mountains instead of the beach. Ubud is the center of arts on Bali. It's a small town at the edge of the mountains and volcanoes. The main religion in Bali is Hindu, so there are many old temples and very different cultural traditions compared to the rest of Indonesia.

A view of Mount Agung, one of the holy volcanoes.

We went on a bike tour of the area. He was our guide.

We biked through rice paddies, villages, and temples.

We saw where they make these beautiful
carved doors and windows.
They take months to make.

Then we traveled into the Monkey Forest

Julia was attacked.

At first she was surprised . . .

But then, she kind of liked it.

The monkey was obsessed with her hair.

At the main temple in Ubud.

Julia with Garuda

One of the highlights was this "Kecak Dance." There were
a hundred men from the community who chanted around
actors reenacting scenes from the Ramayana, a Hindu
legend. The chants sounded like "kechak-kechak"

Lombok - Senggigi

We left the island of Bali and headed east on a ferry to the next island, Lombok. The 5 hour trip took us back to Muslim Indonesia, where everyone was celebrating Lebaran.

We joined other families hanging out at a
giant waterfall.

We rented a motorbike to get around the island. A lot
of it was covered in coconut palm forest.

We found some deserted fishing beaches to hang out on.

The water was crystal clear.

Gili Air

From one island to another, we took a short boat ride over to one of 3 small islands off of Lombok. They are each ringed by coral reefs and the beach is white and covered with pieces of coral. We went snorkeling right off the beach and saw sea turtles and many kinds of fish and coral.