Groovy Friday. Floody Saturday. Sunny Sunday

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Fun Weekend Photography Project: Week #7

It was not a productive weekend for me last time. I didn’t make enough photos for FWPP Week #7. I don’t know if I have good excuse for this. Let’s begin the list of excuses I can mention here…

Friday night after work I went for dinner with my colleagues. It was a rainy evening. In Jakarta, the equation is: Friday evening + rain = heavy traffic jam. Further it means that you can’t get taxi on the street, even though you call the taxi companies, you’ll be in the line of long waiting list. So instead of waiting for taxi we were walking to the resto.

Around 10 pm I had an appointment with my friend to go to B.A.T.S in Shangri La Hotel, a 5-star hotel. I was curious of how a nightlife in Jakarta is. That’s my main reason of going to B.A.T.S. The cover charge I had to pay to enter B.A.T.S is Rp. 110,000 which covers one first drink. I ordered orange juice while my friend ordered a shirley temple – a mocktail. The guy at the entrance were laughing at me. So what?! Is it wrong to go to a bar while my being non-alcohol drinker?? Maybe it is wrong… or not. Just continue reading the whole story below.

B.A.T.S is an underground bar which provides a live band, usually imported from other countries and playing popular songs. The downside is that it is hard to find a place to seat, but I didn’t mind it as my friend and I only need a little space to dance a little bit. The dance floor at the front was way too packed for us to move.

B.A.T.S is very , very, very popular bar among expatriates. As I could see, most of the male guests were white guys. You maybe wonder why so many expats love this place. The answer is easy for me to figure out. I just had to look around. The nice atmosphere, nice music, good crowd make B.A.T.S nice place to socialize as you can easily meet people. However, there and then I also easily spotted girls in sexy outfits (read: really really short dress which allows a lot of skin to be seen) who were clinging to guys who were not their partners. They hardly let the guy get away from them. They clung to their neck, like a leech sucks your blood out of your body. It sticks on you.

Some friends of mine actually have given me gentle warning that there are lots of “ayam”, in English it is “chicken” in B.A.T.S. “Chicken” is the word for prostitutes of hostesses. But listening to news brought by others and experiencing it is totally different thing. Seeing all those pretty ladies in sexy outfits made me grateful that I wasn’t born to do all the things they do to get money (or to have fun??). What a hard life for them to go to one bar to another bar every night, to please strangers they just meet. To kiss every lips they can reach. To give their beautiful body to be touched. What a miserable life it is.

Well well… I didn’t realise time flew very fast when I looked at my watch and saw it was almost 2 am on SATURDAY!! Obviously I had good time at B.A.T.S. Time to call it a morning (instead of a night) and for us to go home. Outside we saw few drunk girls. One that drew my attention was the one who called her boyfriend and told (yelled at) him that she was f@*#ing drunk and that her f@*#ing so-called friend left her just like that. Gosh! Drama in early morning… Meanwhile we were still waiting for taxi. It was difficult to get Blue Bird. I tried to call the company but it kept on ringing and saying that I was in the line to be attended by the operator. I wasted my phone credit only to hear an ugly repeating song. at 3.30 finally there was Blue Bird came in and took me home. Reached home at 4 am and there was a black out. My intention was entering my room with making as little noise as possible. But darn it! It was pitch black and I couldn’t see even my own fingers. The result was I dropped my keys which made notable noise in such quiet peaceful morning.

Donc j’ai fait la grasse matinée ce matin. I woke up around 9 am as my friend had to go home. After she left, I went back to bed and sleep again before having to get up at 11.30 am to prepare myself to attend my French class. So I just wasted half of Saturday by sleeping.

My French class finished at 5 pm, and the torrential rain just began. When it finally ceased, I took Metromini 75 from Blok M to Pasar Minggu. Normally it took me about 45 minutes to 1 hour to reach home, but there I was, sitting on the 3rd Metromini I was transferred to because the street was totally blocked and no cars nor buses, not even motorbikes could move. I had been on the street for 1 hour and not yet home. Many people decided to get off the bus and walked. I too walked. My God… it was still about 6-7 km from home. Having walked for about 1 km, I found the source of this trouble. There was a huge pool of water. Huge here means chest-high. Sure enough no driver had any gut to put their cars go through it. I had to pay Rp. 5,000 for a cart to get me pass the pool. It was fun! Yay! The thing was I should have brought my camera to capture this moment. Sigh….My poor mobile camera can only capture this.

Flooded Street

Oh I continued my journey home. I kept walking for about another 1 km before I found a taxi. Thank God! The adventure was not yet finish. The traffic was still heavy. The lines on the street were long. Around 9 pm I finally reached home. I was so tired and sleepy. I directly fell asleep once I hit my bed. Zzzzz….

It was already Sunday morning. I had a Couchsurfing gathering to attend at 1 pm. I wish I could stay at home. I had to move my lazy bum to get out of my comfy room to be out in the burning sun at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. Taman Mini is a culture-based recreational park situated in East Jakarta. It has an area of about 250 acres and showcases traditional houses of each province in Indonesia – 33 provinces in total, miniatures of Indonesia archipelago, as well as several parks and museums.

The meeting spot of the gathering was Museum Indonesia. The architecture of the museum is of Balinese style. The CS gathering that time was meant to celebrate the Independence Day and the theme is Going Around Indonesia in Half Day. My plan was to take photos for FWPP at Taman Mini, but as we played amazing race where we had to race, my plan was totally blown up. The participants were divided into 7 groups and had to follow the clues written in each piece of paper given to us. One clue was given in each post after we carried out the task requested by the committee member. The tasks and the route were like this:

1. Taking group photo with Rafflesia arnoldii in Bengkulu;

2. Eating a very spicy cassava chips in West Sumatra;

3. Answering geographical questions on a high-rise traditional house in West Kalimantan;

4. Singing traditional song in Maluku;

5. Answering questions related to Indonesia in South Sulawesi;

6. Arranging puzzle of map of Bali in Bali;

7. Playing “lenong” (traditional play of Jakarta) in Jakarta;

8. The race finished at Keong Mas Theatre.

Keong Mas

From Keong Mas, we returned to the base camp, Museum Indonesia, where little snacks and souvenirs with our name written on it were waiting for us.

Reflection Is Sometimes Prettier

I wanted to go home as I was having headache due to the heat, but I had to wait for the gathering to finish.

I Wanna Go Home. I’m Having Headache

Whew… finally the gathering finished at 5 pm. Before we went home, certainly we should not miss the photo session. I present you the friendly gay CSers Jakarta and few foreign ones.