Editor note - the pictures for some reason are posted backwards. So the first picture referring to our time in Seoul is the last one in the list on the right (plane on snow).

Evidently keeping a daily journal is going to be difficult. We have been here 3 days and been way too busy to access the internet and post anything. That’s probably a good thing. Our original flight was cancelled due to the snow storm that hit NYC. We flew out the next day direct to Seoul where we had to kill 25 hours waiting for the connecting flight to Jakarta. Spent most of the time sleeping and eating. We got a hotel room there and crashed. I am suffering jet lag big time this trip and that was the beginning. We ate at the Korean restaurant and I had the dumpling and bean curd soup which was hot and good. Then we wandered the airport which is strange. It is an international airport which is filled with designer name stores. It looks like Rodeo Drive - inside. We cannot figure out why an airport would have such a set up considering the only people shopping are flyers.

We arrived at 8:30PM on New Years eve in Jakarta. Made it to the hotel by 10 after stopping for a sim card for our phone. The hotel lobby was rocking due to a large party held in the restaurant area. We unpacked and managed to join the festivities. We took our nephews Jeremy and Jojo and niece Jessica to a new building across the street to have a snack and enjoy watching the crowd coming and going from the nightclub there.

The next day we left late (jam karet) to go to Puncak Pass (Poon-chuck). PP is a popular vacation area that is normally about a 2 hour drive from Jakarta. We hit traffic about an hour into the ride and it took us the better part of 9 hours to get there. The best part of the trip for me was the ‘short cut’ around the traffic that our driver took us on. It was great. All back roads past many villages. The road was barely wide enough for one car so it was wild watching two cars pass within inches. Motorcycles passed us frequently and it was always risky for them. The road was bumpy but I love hearing people yell “Hey Mister” or “Boolay!” when they saw me. However, despite our driver’s efforts we still got stuck in traffic for a long time. But the best part of traffic in Puncak is that there are warungs (food stalls) all along the road. We ate like Vikings the whole way. Great baso and Pop mie. I fell asleep for the last couple hours.

The villa in Puncak was neat. A nice house in a village area surrounded by farm fields and mountains. In Puncak it is about 65-70F degrees which is a nice change from the 85-90 in Jakarta. We went swimming in the pool and ate lontong sayur (sure I missed that spelling) among many other Indo meals which were great. Very windy last night and started to rain. No trouble though by morning it was over for a bit. I woke up to hearing the breakfast dude walking by softly advertising “Nasi Uduk” at about 5AM. I got dressed and tried to find him but he was gone. I walked down to the small store around the corner to get a Fanta and try out my Bahasa Indo lessons. I said Salamat Pagi Pak, and then asked for the drink and what it cost this made the guy smile that I knew any Indo. I knew the price from the night before so when he tried to raise the price, I made him drop it back to the 2000rp. Since I was taking it to go he poured the soda into a plastic bag and gave me a straw. He keeps the bottle. Lina found me just as I was leaving. As we talked about why I had a bag of soda, the Uduk dude walked by and we stopped him and bought breakfast from him, Nasi Uduk and Risoles. Nasi Uduk is fried rice with eggs and onions wrapped in paper. It was perfect.

I brought a gift for the boys which proved that some things are truly universal. I gave them all whoopie cushions which were a huge hit. Proving once again that fart jokes need no translation.

We went to the pool and got stuck in the rain. It was cloudy today but it is still beautiful there among the tea fields. Since it was close to lunch we stopped at a baso stand and stayed out of the rain while enjoying Baso soup. I had the campur (I think) with kecil meatballs. The US State Dept warns us not to eat at these places but as Hank and I learned during the last trip, these are the best places to get a true Indonesian meal. The baso was great and talking with the owner and his friends was very cool.

The ride home it was foggy and rainy until we got to Taman Safari so naturally we went in. It has changed a lot since 5 years ago. They have a water park and hotel there now. It was packed. It still has the open air bathrooms that I so loved before too. (-: We passed the carrot stands on the way in too. It wasn’t until we were leaving that I realized they were being sold for us to feed the animals, not to feed ourselves. I was amazed on the ride in why there were so many carrot salesmen on this one rode, now I know why. Duh!

We leave in the morning to fly to Medan and Lake Toba for almost a week. I will probably post sometime after we get to Lombok.