Car Free Day: Ondel-Ondel Beauty Contest?

This week's Car Free Day happenings: a couple hundred ondel-ondel puppets lined up along Jalan Thamrin... why?  We're not exactly sure, but they were all numbered and looked like maybe they had been part of a contest of some sort. 

This month is Jakarta's 486th birthday (Dirgahayu Jakarta!), so there have been lots of celebrations across the city over the past few weeks, many of which centered on Betawi culture, from which the ondel-ondel originate. 

Remember the video I took of the ondel-ondel dance performance last year? Incedentally, it's the most popular video on my YouTube channel by a crazy amount for some reason... as of this writing it had over 32,000 views, whereas my next most popular video only had 186 views.  Eh?

Here's me and Tim posing in front of the un-manned ondel-ondel:

I like how each one has a slightly different face:

Finally, after all those ondel-ondel, we stopped at Bundaran HI to listen to this cool sounding band... I don't know what that bamboo instrument is, but I like it:

Grocery Games: Balls

Balls: enough said.

Also, do those "JetZ stick" look disturbingly like larvae of some sort?  Gross.  Also: the flavor is "chocofiesta."  Yeah.

Care of our local 7-11.

Indonesian Wedding!

And now for something completely different...

 

Right after we returned from our amazing scuba diving trip to Bunaken, Tim and I were lucky to be invited to an Indonesian wedding!   The daughter of one of the drivers working for Tim's company, Sumijan, was getting married and we were lucky to be able to join in on the festivities.

We took a cab to the wedding, which was held in a large tent in a residential neighborhood not too too far from us...  our cab driver had to stop about a block away from the address on our invitation because the party basically took over the whole street.  As we walked towards the music, we saw the big tent, the Indonesian greeting cards (below) and the balloon sellers taking advantage of the crowds (above). Streams of people came and went from the party.

 

 We actually showed up post-ceremony, which is quite common in Indonesia.  The philosophy at Indonesian weddings is the more, the merrier, in the sense that you invite everyone you know, no matter how much of an acquaintance they are.  My understanding is that it's socially acceptable to "crash" a wedding, too, if you go in with someone who was formally invited.  In any case, most people don't actually show up for the ceremony, which is mainly for family members (although I kinda wish I was there to see it...). Apparently the Indonesian wedding ceremony is known for a rather long series of speeches by family members.

 

 

The wedding set-up was basically an elaborately decorated stage where the bride, groom and their parents received guests, a long buffet line with all sorts of food, and rows of chairs and a few tables for the guests.  And a bandstand.  See above.

When we arrived, we went through a barrage of handshaking... ushers, groomsmen (or their equivalent), other family members, until we were ushered to the stage to shake hands with the bride and grooms themselves.  And look how beautiful they were (despite my camera's fuzzy lens, which I blame on apartment + AC + cab + AC + tent + not AC... but don't get to frustrated, the photos improve):

I am still in awe of how amazingly elaborate their wedding outfits were.  Look at the bride's hair!! She literally has a 4 foot long ponytail made from flowers! And the groom has some golden elf ears (these I find harder to explain):

 

Here's me and Tim with the bridal party... we got to wear our formal batik (including the batik dress I made a couple weeks ago!!):

The bride and groom with the bridal party, all in matching batik sarongs and lovely lacy and sparkly kebayas:

And the groomsmen, in matching batik shirts:

Tim and I were a little sweaty, which is par for the course (and makes me really respect the bride and groom, who were wearing approximately one thousand heavy layers):

Luckily, the party favor was a personalized batik fan (Ade & Atika, 12 Mei 2013):

A big group of Tim's coworkers joined the party not too long after we did:

 

Lots of hand shaking:

The proud father of the bride (and a good side view of the bride's amazing hair-do):

Some of the posed photos... beautiful!:

Congratulations, Ade & Atika!!

Ice Cream Sandwich, Singapore Style

In Singapore, the ice cream sandwich is quite literally a block of ice cream sandwiched in a slice of bread.  

When Tim and I were wandering about the city this weekend we stumbled on a cute elderly couple selling ice cream out of a cart... there was a line in front of their cart, which is what initially drew our attention, but what reeled us in was the fact that people were walking away from the ice cream cart looking ecstatic over something wrapped in pastel colored bread.

The bread is a little bit Wonderbread-esque, but pink and green pastel-colored and pandan-(and maybe a hint of durian?) flavored...  The ice cream is cut off of a giant block (hence the name of the treat, "potong ice cream," which means cut ice cream... check out the video link for the ice cream cutting in action), and the flavor options run the gamut from those you might recognize (chocolate, vanilla, et al.) to some truly SE Asian flavors (sweet corn, purple yam, durian, red bean...). 

Here's me, taking my first bite and trying to decide whether I am on board:

It was definitely refreshing! The bread part was better than I thought it would be- it sort of compresses in your hand and soaks up the ice cream as it melts, eliminating drips.  Definitely worth trying for the novelty factor, but perhaps not my absolute favorite way to eat ice cream... I still love the crunch of a sugar cone.

The Amazing Big Durian Race

This weekend Tim and I joined forces with our friends Zhenyi and Gladys, entering a team in the third annual Amazing Big Durian Race here in Jakarta.  The race, which is loosely modeled on the Amazing Race concept, is organized by the American Chamber of Commerce Indonesia's Young Professionals Committee and sponsored by a bunch of local businesses, with proceeds and book donations going to various local charities.  Basically it's a four hour long Jakarta-wide scavenger hunt in which teams compete by earning points taking photos with certain people, locations, activities across the city, gathering specified items and generally exploring/being goofy while wearing matching t-shirts:

We had a blast doing the race.  Our team didn't win, but we had a good time tooling around Jakarta in a taxi.  We lucked out with our driver, who was totally game for helping us get points, taking short cuts when necessary, making random roadside stops when we yelled out and generally being amenable to our bizarre requests over the course of the 4 hour race.  I'm bummed that we forgot to take a photo with him...

PS: MVP award goes to Zhenyi for her superior Bahasa Indonesia communication skills... we would still be sitting in the Amigos parking lot were it not for her.

Anywho, here's a sampling of some of the tasks we had to do and photos we had to take as we wove our way across Jakarta:

A photo of our team stuffed in a bajaj:

A drink and a photo in front of the eponymous statue at Aphrodite, one of the race's sponsors:

Cooking our own street food:

A photo with the statue of little 10-year-old Barack "Barry" Obama at his elementary school in Mentang (interestingly, the statue was originally erected in a public park on the eve of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, but was moved to the school grounds after outcry). 

Us, with a baseball bat (not a common sight in Jakarta):

Looking like idiots jumping in front of the fountain at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle (bundaran HI)... how we failed to coordinate our jump three separate times is beyond me, but the resulting photos are pretty hilarious.  Scuba Steve, we may need a lesson in jumping photos when you arrive in Indonesia in a few weeks!!

In front of a burnt out building in kota tua, Jakarta's old city (you may remember it from when I visited with Liz and Meghan last year).  We were able to tick off several items on our list in the old city, particularly at Fatahillah Square:

Operating a pedal-powered kampung amusement park ride (which looks like a rickety tetanus delivery machine to me!), also in kota tua/Taman Fatahillah:

With one of the vintage cars in Fatahillah Square: 

In front of the Wayang Museum (Javanese shadow puppet museum):

 

With some (quite creepy) marionettes:

 

Playing chess with a local:

 

Taking a photo of someone else taking a photo of food:

 

 At Sunda Kelapa, Jakarta's old port, in front of the old-school wooden boats that are still hand loaded and used for inter-island shipping:

With an entrepreneur and his "micro business on a bike," selling instant coffee (packs of coffee on the handlebars, thermos of hot water on the back...:

In front of an empty fountain (I can't say I know the significance of this task, but here it is):

My favorite (although the jumping photos are a close second): with a snake blood salesman on the side of the road... we assured him he did not need to take the cobra out of the box for the photo opp, but he insisted and the cobra was not happy.  You'll notice how far we are standing from the cobra:

In front of one of Jakarta's many Lamborghinis...  how is it that there are multiple Lamborghinis in a city notorious for its crippling traffic, a city where it is virtually impossible to reach speeds of over 15 miles/hour, a city with roads rife with potholes...?  I have never seen one of these cars actually driving anywhere, but strangely I can tell you where at least 4 Lamborghinis are regularly parked in Jakarta.  This one is front of Plaza Indonesia mall:

In front of Monas, the national monument:

With a cat with a full tail (Lincoln!!)... most of the street cats in Jakarta have stubby and/or broken tails, so a cat with a full tail is somewhat of a novelty:

Eating rice at an American fast food joint (McDonald's in this case)... we were also supposed to wear Burger King crowns while ordering food at McDonald's, but the Burger King we chose was habis on crowns, sadly:

At a TransJakarta bus station:

Drinking under a pedestrian foot bridge:

On an elevator that has a fourth floor button... many buildings in Jakarta don't have fourth floors, only floors 3, 3A and 5.  The Chinese word for "four" apparently sounds similar to the word for "death," so it's considered an unlucky number (tetraphobia!!):

And, our last task before heading into Eastern Promise for the post-race happy hour, ye olde human pyramid:

Some of the tasks we didn't get to, but wish we did (although some of them we've done before!):

• making batik
• on stage at a dangdut bar
• riding a becak (like the ones I showed you from Jogja... they're less common in Jakarta)
• at an ondel-ondel performance (Tim and I have seen this before!)
• eating bat (Tim has done this!  He says it's boney.)
• riding the train (been there! done that!)
• sporting ibu-ibu style big hair (a giant, teased bee-hivey hairdo favored by wealthy older women in Jakarta)
• busking on a Kopaja bus
• mini deer (remember the ones we saw in Bogor?)
• getting kerok (the coin massage treatment for masuk angin!)
• photo opp with a koteka (a penis gourd/sheath from Papua!... we asked our taxi driver what it was and he was too embarrassed to explain)
• pictorial about proper toilet usage (there are more of these around town than you would imagine)

And finally, tired and sweaty, but enjoying post-race beers: