Day 8 – Jakarta
Another day comes and goes. Today we visited the Jakarta International School which Marshall attends. The boys ate large chocolate crepes prepared just for them in the school canteen. We walked around and took it all in. Popped into the School Nurse office and met Franz, one of the nurses. We had a chat and he showed us the school ambulance!
We retreated to an airconditioned mall for lunch. Ate at ‘Pepper Lunch’, a Japanese chain restaurant, where they deliver your meal on a sizzling hot plate so you can stir and cook the ingredients yourself. Steve had the ‘unagi’ or ‘eel’! It was really good. We had then intended to go ten pin bowling but the alley had closed and the man didn’t know where they had moved to. How easily do you move a bowling alley I wonder? The boys needed a snack so they tried McDonald’s Indonesian style – not unlike Australian but if you order the fried chicken it comes with rice.
Next stop, Mayestic market near the apartments which has inside and outside stalls. There is an abundance of material shops; more material than I had ever seen in my life and absolutely beautiful. Probably just as well I have no sewing skills whatsoever or I might have been compelled to buy reams of fabric. Inside the big building it was hot, crowded with tiny stalls all selling similar things. You could put your hand out to one side and buy a trophy or hand out the other side and buy an enema – really! The heat and smell were becoming to overwhelm the boys so we headed back onto the street and home to the comfort of the apartment.
Can smell the beef rendang cooking as I write and just watched my neatly pressed clean clothes walk past me in the arms of the maid. Harris says he doesn’t want to leave Jakarta … wouldn’t mind a maid in Highfields.
I’m sending the washing and ironing over asap!
Ask James if there’s any jobs going over there for me. Wouldn’t mind a maid to help out!