There’s really not a whole lot to do in Jakarta, at least, not if you’re from the Pacific Northwest, have spent the last year tied-up at a dock on your sailboat, and prefer your entertainment to be more on the quiet side. But really, it can’t be helped as Jakarta really is just a whole lotta people crammed into a not-so-large area. Greg did a quick Google search and found the following figures: Jakarta is the 13th largest city in the world with a population density of 39,740 people per square mile with a total population estimated a little over 10 million. Just to put things in perspective, the small town in SE Alaska we’ve kinda got our hearts set-on for a piece of property and a cabin once we’ve given up living in mega cities overseas has a population density of .9. That’s right, slightly less than a full person per square mile. Now that’s a place you can breathe!
So, the dynamics of life in a mega city creates a recipe for stay-at-home entertainment. Mine is of the reading and writing variety, unfortunately more of the “keeping my head above water with classes” rather than for pleasure, but I digress. Add a lot of traffic complete with scooters galore, few if any sidewalks, mostly hot and humid weather sprinkled with the occasional torrential downpour…you get the picture. But, occasionally we do leave our 850′ apartment, mostly inspired by the thought of a cheap massage and the need to replenish our coffee cache.
Below are two youtube videos of the same walk to the Mall of Indonesia, more affectionately referred to as MOI, sounds like “joy”. The first video is during the day shortly after the flooding in this area.
The second video is at night, same walk to MOI, but this time, we were in search of a bottle of wine. Actually, I was in search for a bottle of wine. Greg was along mostly because I don’t think he wants me wandering around at night looking for bottles of wine unaccompanied in a foreign country; it’s like having a Rottweiller with me. Nobody, and I mean nobody feels the need to talk to me when Greg’s walking next to me 🙂
Anyway, I can order wine delivered for free straight to the apartment, and the price is better then in the few stores that actually carry wine which is hard to come by (remember, largest Muslim population in the world)…but probably best I don’t go down that road of easy access. So, I usually do without. But, since we were looking at a 3-day weekend in observation of Chinese New Year I thought a celebratory glass of wine on our first day of the weekend was in order. Here’s a look at what we found along the way:
By the way, the wine was about $34 each (why walk all that way for just one bottle?) and I’m pretty sure they’d be about 1/3 the price in the US. The other reason I rarely succumb.
Out There 
Wonderful? It was as though I were
Walking along with you, watching
The activities. The Lion
Dancers, beautiful!! How special it was to
Hear your voices. Hope the wine was worth
It, it was to me. M