More Jakarta

From F's place, I moved to the Jakarta digs of Peace Corps Madagascar friend R and his fiancée, K. F joined us for dinner and a group shot...

...and then while F and R went back to work in the following days, K and I hit the town together with another Indonesian friend of a friend of mine, S. She sweetly showed us the Kota Tua neighborhood...

...where we had fun taking a picture of a group of Chinese tourists staging a really funny picture of their own.

I also loved this rental bike stand:

This group of Indonesian teenagers wanted a picture with Katrina and me...or so I thought. Turned out they were fascinated by my pasty white Antarctic skin and just wanted a picture with me, while K with her nice tan was (unbeknownst to me) shoved into the background by the teenaged throng. The resulting picture is pretty hilarious.

From Kota Tua, S took us over to the Old Port of Jakarta and we went through the Maritime Museum, which had this amazing display of all the spices--especially nutmeg--that were the motivation for colonial powers competing for the islands that are now Indonesia.

I also managed to be around and in their space (which they were endlessly gracious about) for BOTH R and K's birthdays, a week apart. It was fun celebrating with them...

Including especially K's chosen birthday outing of karaoke. So I have now officially experienced karaoke in Asia (where you're in a room with your friends), which is SO much better than the American version where you have to be on a stage in front of a bunch of strangers.

In between the birthdays, R and K and I took a great long-weekend adventure to another part of Indonesia, which will be the topic of my next post, promise!