Week 1

Selamat malam!

*My apologies for the terribly long blog post. I'll try to blog more frequently so I won't have to bother you with reading this enormous text. If you even do. I'll totally understand if you don't though.*

Another blog from beautiful Indonesia! I'm sorry that it took so long but it was really hard to find some time to write aaaand I was a bit lazy ;).
Anyway, it's already Monday, meaning we are already on the other side of the world for over 1 week! Time flies. Before we even realise, I'll be at home doing my maths homework..

Past week was incredibly busy but absolutely amazing. I've already written about my first day in Yogyakarta which was amazing, but the the second day was nothing less! We went to see a Hindu temple: the Prambanan. It was unbelievably hot that day, but the temple was really beautiful and impressive. Interesting was the fact that man and women are portrayed equally through the architecture. The temple had both masculine and feminine aspects to make sure everything was in balance. I also noticed this the day before at Borobodur and found it a really nice detail. After Prambanan we visited the palace of the sultan of Yogyakarta (which is still active btw). The atmosphere there was very fairy tale- and fantasy-like. It felt as if I walked through a real-life Efteling because of the golden ornaments, flowers and batik prints everywhere. We didn't stay too long at the temple though because of its early closing-time which was understandable since the sultan still lived there with his wife and daughters. Next was a beach, where the sand was actually volcanic ash. No barefoot walking there. It was breathtakingly beautiful there. The high waves hitting the grey sand, with the high mountains covered in palm trees at the background. It felt really unreal to be there.What I've found really funny there were the people who literally stared at Nena and me in awe. At first I thought it was just because Nena was white, but when there were also actually people asking me to be on the photo I felt a little bit awkward.. Nena and I just tried to laugh about it and decided to wave back at all the staring people. That was absolutely hilarious. The people started giggling as soon as we waved and waved back enthusiastically asking us to take a picture with them. I assumed that this was what being famous must feel like omg.. Last was Malioboro. Malioboro is a famous shopping street in Yogya. The street was very colourful and atmospherically because of the many lights and people present. Everywhere were little stalls with local souvenirs. I didn't buy that much though, which is something I really regret now..

The next day we already left beautiful Yogyakarta to head back to Jakarta. Friday we just relaxed a little bit at home.

Saturday we visited Taman mini. A kind of amusement park but ridiculously big. So I don't know where the mini stands for either. Anyway, at the park we visited an aquarium with all kinds of fish, a reptile "park" (where I held a snake omg) and some exhibited replica's of traditional houses of all the different parts of Indonesia. This was really nice to see.

Sunday we went to Monas, a national monument in Jakarta made of marble and pure gold at the top. This was incredibly impressive to see. When we got in there was an exhibition about the establishment of the Indonesian Republic which was mainly about the fight against the Dutch haha. When we got (almost) on top of it, we had a beautiful view over Jakarta.

So far my adventures in Indonesia, since I barely did anything today :). And a little standing ovation for everyone who read the whole blog.

Love,
Elysa