The Final Days in Jogja...

5 May 14

Me and some of the teachers 

This was my final week in Yogyakarta, and it was truly an awesome experience studying bahasa here.  The Javanese culture is the backbone for Indonesian culture and it is so interwoven in all aspects Indonesia.  My final days of Wisma Bahasa were spent talking about military and political topics.  I was also assigned to give a 30 min presentation as a final "test" for the course.  I talked about the importance of airpower in military operations, and compared the capabilities between the USAF and the Indonesian Air Force.  It was very interesting doing that little bit of research, and it allowed me to realize that I don't know a lot about the Indonesian Air Force.  Hopefully while I am attached to the embassy, I can get more engaged with Indonesian Air Force operations.

To reward myself for the "hard work" and dedication towards advancing my language skills, I decided to plan a trip up to the famous Buddhist temple, Borobudur.  Borobudur is about an hour away by car, my friend from class and I saw that renting a car and driver was a little expensive.  In the end we decided to rent motor scooters and we would leave after class on Friday.  We got to the motor scooter place at around 4pm, and it started to downpour.  So a couple of things are going through my mind: A) I haven't ridden a motor cycle since I was like 15; B) I am not exactly sure where this place is, much more the possibility of finding it in the rain; C) how are we going to stay together, and not get lost, especially when the sun goes down and amongst the Indonesian traffic?  One other factor came into play: my friend had misplaced his bank card, so he now he had a limited amount of cash.  Luckily with the rain storm, it gave him some time to figure out a way to still do it.  He managed to borrow some money from one of his homestay mates and were off!

We made it about half a mile before we got spilt up in the Yogyakarta traffic.  The exit that would take us to the highway was closed, so I took a back road, and I was not able get in contact with my friend, so I had no idea where he was.  Luckily, he was able to find the main road, and I just continued on the back road, using the Iphone GPS as my guide.  Once I got onto the main road, it started pouring again, so there were a lot of starts and stops.  I will say that it still was quite an adventure and I am glad that we took the scooters.

I got to Borobudur around 7:45pm, and my friend got there a little later.  The Hotel Saraswasti was out of this world.  It really enhanced the Borobudur experience, and all in all it was nice just to have a place to rest and get dry again.  We got up at around 4am to go see the sunrise at the Borobudur temple.  When we got to the temple you could tell it was going to be a foggy morning.  Once the sun did show itself though, it was truly majestic, and well worth the time, money, and journey.  After the sunrise, we went back to the hotel to eat breakfast, and then decided to go back to get some daytime pictures, and see more of the temple.  

Part of our temple experience was being in probably over 100 junior high/high school students' pictures, being interviewed by most of them, and meeting a lot of new people.  I actually was asked by one high school girl to sing the National Anthem.  I decided to do it, but very quietly; I didn't want to draw attention to myself or others.  My friend is from Australia, so he thought this was hilarious.

The ride back was sunny and pretty smooth.  Driving through the Central Java and Yogyakarta countryside was really icing on the cake...such a beautiful country!!  We got back to Jogja at around 12ish.  I went home and started packing my bags for Jakarta.  In the evening, I went over to the Hyatt and attended the Night Market, a traditional Javanese cuisine buffet along with a traditional Remayana dance/show.  The Remayana show was very similar to the Kecak dance I had seen in Bali...stories were almost the same.  Following this, I met some friends at the karaoke place, and we hung out for a couple of hours.

I met some really cool people in Yogyakarta, and I will miss my time there.  Since the contractor can't book me on an Indonesian airline, I have to take SILKAIR all the way up to Singapore and then slingshot down to Jakarta on Singapore Air.  Needless to say, it took most of the day to get to Jakarta, but I have been able to settle in nicely at the Pesona.  I am once again staying in the lap of luxury down here in South Jakarta.

Me with Pak and Ibu Sunarto