Bali, Indonesia

A visit to Bali from the 2nd of July till the 5th.

This time, I did not get a chance to get out of a hotel for sightseeing, but I had almost a full day to relax. I spent some time on the quiet morning beach and also on the pool side. The water in the pool was pretty cold, but once I got in, it was fantastic! The view was amazing as you may see in the picture above. Everything was so shiny and relaxing.

On my right, I could see the beach. I loved feeling the nice breeze (or more like wind). It is interesting to be surrounded by trees right by the beach. I guess this is Bali. It has very unique atmosphere.

It was a very busy short trip this time, but I got to enjoy Bali where I most likely won’t visit any time soon. If I have a chance to come again, I’d like to have someone with me to enjoy all this together.

Bali, Indonesia III

Even though I like visiting sightseeing places, what I enjoy the most from any trips is to look out of window from a car. I can see the actual local life styles; no fancied up for tourists, but what's actually local people are facing every day. It sometimes could be the struggle to survive day by day depends on the country.

When I saw this scene above from the car, the picture was so cute; a little girl grabbing her father on the scooter enjoying the ride. When our car was passing them, I realized that there was another little boy in the front of the fater (left). Now, that’s not cute anymore. That’s a dangerous scene.

I also saw many kids riding scooters with their friends. They look like 10 years old. It is incredible. I asked the tour guide if kids were allowed to ride scooters. He says not when police is around. Amazing! They are not even teenagers!

In Bali, even though most of the businesses are related to tourists, there are others, too. Harvesting rice is a major one. Balinese harvest rice three times a year. It is incredible, but it makes sense because it is hot all the time. What I was curious to know was that in one field, the rice is ready to be cropped (already brown), but the other area has just planted rice (green).

In Japan, we always have a season to crop rice; that is fall. However, where it is hot all year long like Bali, then when is the season for anything? I understand that the temperature doesn’t change much in Bali, but there are two seasons; dry and rainy seasons. I wonder how this applies to the harvests. Do pineapples grow better in dry weather than rainy? I’m not sure. What I know is that their fruits are fantastic!

These are some areas that are famous for stone carvings. When we passed by, there are so many stones shaped like Buddha, elephants, naked ladies, monkeys, you name it. It seems like they are mostly religion related though. They are made out of different stones. Some of them look very old, but probably it’s something to do with the color of stones. Brown ones make them look very old.

Guess what these are. These are mangos. I’d never seen mango trees. It was cool. I didn’t even think about mangos being on the tree. When I think about it, it makes sense though. They are like apples. This is what happens when shopping fruits or vegetables from super markets all our lives. We forget the fundamentals or don't even think about it. (Is it only me?)

Cows in the back of a track. Cows are very expensive in Bali, (or maybe anywhere else) and they cost about 1,000 USD each. Now, that's expensive considering their standard living costs (average annual salary - 800USD). According to the guide, those cows are sold to become food or to grow bigger to be sold later on for a higher price.

The difference between Indian cows and Balinese is that Balinese ones are in good shape and mostly, they are tied to something like a tree where as Indian cows are walking everywhere like human being and very skinny like you can see the bones. Speaking of animals, I also so many bird cages on the streets or hanging out of roof. I thought these were for little pet birds, but actually they were for chicken! They could be roosters.

For upcoming festival, each house had some decoration in front of their gate. It is a long bamboo standing, and the top is bent. The top edge part of the bamboo is representing rich people. By having the bamboo bent, it symbolizes that rich people are looking after poors. Also, there is an umbrella opened and tied to the bamboo. It is a symbol of moon. There are two different colors of umbrella; yellow or white. They are symbolized for women and men. A few of the houses have both color umbrellas, but most of them have only one, yellow or white. When we were going through this town, I saw one side of the street having yellow umbrellas, and the other side with white. They were very beautiful together.

I enjoyed my one and a half days of Bali experience. I would love to come back again at least for a week. Next time, instead of having very busy schedules, I would stay in a hotel for a few days relaxing having no plans. I would go down to the beach any time I want, and take massage whenever I feel like. The rest of the time, I would go out to explore more Bali! It would be fantastic if I could bring my parents.

Bali, I will be back!

Bali, Indonesia II

I'm not sure where to start. There are so many things that I would like to write about. Okay, let me start from when I arrived at the airport in Bali.

When I arrived in Bali, I wanted to get some cash. There were no ATMs around, so I walked up to exchange service counter. There were about 5 of them lined up next to each other. As soon as clerks see me walking towards them everybody starts screaming “come here come here!!” what a competition. I thought exchange counters are more like banks. Yeah, they are competitive, but they don’t really show it. Besides, usually there is only one exchange service at one location or at least you don see them side by side. I picked the counter where the lady approached me first because I realized that they all have the same exchange rate. I felt guilty for the rest of them. What a competitive place.

The second day, I took a day tour. I was expecting a bunch of people waiting for the same tour guide at the hotel lobby. It turned out that I got a dedicated guide for myself, but not only that, I also got my own driver! When we, the guide, the driver and me, got in the car, I was a bit reluctant to be honest thinking “they could just drive off not bringing me back to the hotel.” As soon as I saw other tourists having their own guides at sightseeing locations, I felt relieved. It seems it is not so common to have a tour group with a bus, but rather having a private guide with a private driver with a regular car, in my case, Civic.

My first destination was the second biggest temple in Bali called Taman Ayun built in 17th century. The picture above is the gate of the temple, and the picture on the left is inside the palace. Those buildings are called Meru, shrines. They were so beautiful standing right up in the blue sky! According to the tour guide, mountains are admired as holly or God by Balinese, so Meru shrines have a shape of cones because they symbolize mountains.

Tourists cannot go inside the palace because it is holly, but there is a path going around the temple palace to see what’s inside.

	People were getting ready for a big celebration that happens once every fifty years. Lots of people, both women and men, were working together.
	Another group of women were preparing lunch for the workers. These are made out of rice. I would call them rice balls, but they are not balls. Remember, scones symbolize mountains, so rice balls for workers also shape like scones!

The second location was called Tanah Lot, a temple in the ocean. This was pretty cool. You can walk to the temple during the day (low tide) if you are ready to wet your butt (just kidding but close to that). This was pretty cool to see it right there, but also from the cliff where I took this picture from.

The opposite from where I was standing, there was more shrines. These shrines are even more beautiful during the sunset. Imagine their figures shaped clearly in black of the orange background!

The good thing about having your own tour guide and driver is that you get to decide what you want to see. Another location with the tour package was to go to something called “Monkey Forest.” Okay, I’ve seen lots of monkeys in Japan, and they even attack you if you have food. I’m not a big fan of that. I asked the tour guide if Balinese enjoy something like that. He said no, but tourists like it. So I asked him to take me to somewhere else. Then, he brought me to very tourist beach called Kuta. It was beautiful with lots of surfers both tourists and locals. They are really tanned to black almost. Amazing! This is the place the bombing happened in 2002 at a very popular night club. Kuta is really different from any other Bali areas I think. It’s like Miami; there are lots of shops and restaurants on a street. You can’t tell you are in third world country. That part of the island is something else. It was good to see the place, but I will stick with Nusa Dua where I stayed. (I think the tour guide said it means “two islands”)

Indonesian lunch at the end of the tour.

I was supposed to come back around 4pm, but somehow, I was back to the hotel at 2:30. So I got extra time to go down to the beach! After going into the water for a few minutes, I was laying down at the beach relaxing. It was very relaxing. I needed it!

By the way, about the tour guide, I think I kinda got ripped off. He was very nice and all that, but at each location, he tells me about the place in three sentences or so, and then says “take pictures”. After I take pictures, we walk to the next location where he again says “this is a great location to take pictures. Go ahead” and he waits. I wanted to know more history or culture about the place. I think 70$ was too much for that guide. Does this sound like I got ripped off?

Bali, Indonesia

Bali!! I arrived in the evening of the 25th of November and left early morning on the 27th; the total of 1.5 day weekend trip. And the special part of this trip is… it’s for leisure, not for work!

I have been to Jakarta, but this is the first time for me in Bali. Compared to Jakarta, Bali is much more developed. It is not so crowded and has very nice atmospheres including people. According to my tour guide, Bali’s economy totally relies on tourists. Without tourist, there is almost no job in Bali. 90% of people work for business some what related to tourists. Therefore, after year 2002 and 2005, Bali was really really quiet for a long time. Finally, the economy has been coming back he says. I thought that tourist related business is only hotels, but like actual sightseeing locations (temples etc), taxis, airlines and more are heavily related. I did not realize.

The picture looks like sunset, but actually it is 5:30 in the morning. The pink before the sun rises.

This is after the sunrise. It is mooi (beautiful)!

Jakarta, Indonesia IV

Indonesian lunch.

This is also Indonesian lunch at a restaurant. The fried fish is well shaped. It’s standing on a plate. The chicken sautés are very good with peanut butter sauce. It tastes like Japanese sweet miso, and what’s even better is to have this with rice! Delicious! I think I appreciate it more because I’m Asian. All food I tasted here were very good.

This is a food stand on the street, and this is everywhere. They sell things like fish balls, beef soup or any snacks. A lot of people eat here for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A bowl of meat ball soup is about 50 cents. I guess that’s also another reason to attract people!

McDonald’s in Indonesia sells fried chicken and rice! Rice is wrapped in a paper just like burgers. When I was surprised by the wrapped McDonald’s rice, my friends were wondering why I thought it was so interesting. I guess it is just like Teriyaki burgers in Japan or Kim-chee burgers in Korea. But… rice at McDonald’s!

This is a view from a car window when we were sitting on a red light. As you can see this family is riding on a motorcycle. In the middle, you can see that there is a 2-year-old-like girl in between her parents! I think this is very dangerous and it should be prohibited (not even wearing a helmet!). But it seems they do not have such restricted rules, just like they do not have any rules for “don’t drink and drive”. They can drink as much as they want and drive if they want to. What I also heard is that not many people drink because it is luxurious.

When we were stuck in a traffic jam, people come around to sell things. It could be key chains, flowers or Barbie dolls. Among those guys, this sad face man came by singing and playing a guitar. Unfortunately, our car had an A/C, so all windows were closed. We couldn’t hear anything from inside of the car…sorry.

My 6 day trip in Jakarta was very good and enjoyable. I learned a lot from this trip including the fact that their average wedding invites 500 people!

Jakarta, Indonesia III

My first durian exposure!

Heidi took me to a shopping mall, and when we went to the first floor, all the sudden this nasty smell hit me really hard. It was coming from a pile of drains in a store which had doors closed, and durian section was all the way in the back of the store. That’s how strong the smell is. Of course, once you get in the store, the smell becomes even stronger!

I used to see the durians on TV shows in Japan. What I know about it is that it is the king of fruits and smells really bad but supposedly tasty. Also, as side knowledge, the “bad” smell is like poop-smell. Okay, actually it’s not that bad. But it certainly smells like something that is not eatable. I guess it smells like garbage. It defintely is smelly.

Once we got into the store, and I was looking at the durians very curiously, this guy in the picture asked me if I wanted to try it. I hesitated for a bit, but why not? So he cut me a piece, and I put it in my mouth! It was actually good. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it is similar to avocado in texture-wise. Because it is very soft, you don’t really have to chew it. It’s like a chunk of butter I guess. It melts down in a way. Some Indonesians eat the whole durian by themselves. Me? Now that I know how it tastes like, but also I know the smell of it, I probably won’t eat it again. I think I’m done with durians!

The inside of durian (the eatable part) looks like this. It looks similar to bamboo shoots.

I found something called “Dragon Fruits.” I’m not sure anthing about it, but doesn’t it look like it has position?

Eggs are sold in a pack or individually. The individual ones are cheaper. I can understand that because those individually sold eggs had some feather and some poop-like thing on them.

This is the traditional puppets in Indonesia, maybe from Bali.

Jakarta, Indonesia II

A lunch box in Indonesia!

This is a Chinese lunch box. From what I heard, when there is a meeting or training, lunch boxes are usually prepared for everyone. The lunch box from the previous day was Indonesian. Some soupy stuff like coconut curry sauce comes in a very small bag tied on top, and then you put the sauce on top of rice. A fruit comes in the box as well; a banana or a slice of melon in a small bag. Of course, those fruits are warm because they were in the lunch box, or more like on top of the food. In my opinion, Indonesian food is somewhere in between Vietnamese and Thai food. I really like it. Chinese tastes like standard Chinese, more like Chinese food in Japan, not the one in the states.

I think Indonesians look similar to Japanese. Heidi, whom I work with here, looks just like the girl I used to work with in Japan. One day, she took me to a shopping mall, and when I wanted to call her from far away, I was about to call her “Yumi-chan!” She really looks like her. But sometimes, it takes time to remember who looks like whom. For example, this guy in my training class; I knew he looked like someone I know, but I had no idea who that was. He didn’t look like any of my Japanese guy friends. Then, all the sudden it hit me. He looks so much like a Japanese comedian from Osaka. Not only the way he looks, but the way he acts. It’s interesting to see two different races look so similar to each other. Other than that, one guy looks like the Pakistanis guy I knew in New York, and also other guys who look like other Japanese comedians. Somehow, those Indonesian guys make me remember all those Japanese comedians that I didn’t even think about for a long time. It’s interesting.

Jakarta, Indonesia I

Good morning, Jakarta!

I am currently visiting in Indonesia. This trip will last only a week. I was imagining Indonesia to be a country like India, but not at all. This country is a developed country to me. Everybody has a house. There are no people who are sleeping on the street.
I think Indonesians look like Japanese. There are some people that if they say they are Japanese, I probably wouldn’t have known that they are actually Indonesians. Maybe their clothing is a bit different. Most of the people here are wearing something that was in fashion about 25 years ago in Japan.

The population in Jakarta is 8million out of total Indonesians, 220million people. It is about 4% of the population.

From what I heard, the minimum wage here is a monthly amount, 75 US dollars. For example, drivers usually earn about 80 US dollars. There are many drivers here hired by a company. Their over time (after 5pm) is 50cents an hour. Their lunch is also paid for 1 dollar a day. I don’t know the average income here, but to rent an apartment in downtown is about 300 USD. And the person I work with here says that she cannot afford the apartment, so she lives with her husband’s parents 2 hours from the city. I hope you have a rough idea of the economy in Jakarta.

Jakarta is an energetic city like Deli. From 5 in the morning, I can hear the cars from outside even though I’m on the 6th floor. Sometimes, I cannot even stay in bed. It’s pretty noisy. There are so many bikes maybe as many as cars. The quality of cars here is very good, so I asked my colleague how people can afford a car. Then he says the people who can afford a car is rich, probably with a driver. Standard people take their bikes to work. There are many bikes that two people ride together with big helmets and masks. When I saw a mother riding a bike with her baby in her hand, I was very impressed.


This is a view form out side of the city. I keep imagining that probably Japan was like this before the war. Because I am currently reading a book that describes the before and after the World War II, I can’t avoid thinking about the Japan at that time. It seems in Indonesia, everything is back in business, and the economy is coming back. As you can see, there are houses but you can see the high rises in the back. It is amazing to see the contrast. I guess this is something you always would see in a developing country.

Just like India, the only culture that I cannot adopt is the toilet. There is no paper! In hotel, they have the “standard” toilet culture, but in an office, there is no paper, but a small shower coming out of the wall. So, after the “job”, I think people “wash” it not “wipe” it. But after washing part, if you have no paper, then it’s still wet. I have no idea how people do it. Because of this shower, the floor is all wet. Of course, the seat is wet as well.

When I came back to my hotel, there was Japanese newspaper on my desk. I was wondering how they knew that I was Japanese. And then I realized that they got a copy of my passport when I checked in! But in this hotel, I see many Japanese people. Even for breakfast buffet, I can have Japanese breakfast!