Last day in Jogja and 3 weeks have gone by. But during these 3 weeks, we learnt the language, culture, did some cooking, made our own batik cloth.

Some last pictures of UGM.

We visited Mengelang, Kaliurang (as close to Mount Merapi as I could get). Visited the Kraton, Fort Vredeburg, Malioboro street, Pasar Beringharjo, Tamansari water castle, PASTY (Pasar Satwa & Tanaman Hias, Dongkelan), Gadri-Resto restaurant, Sonobudoyo Museum. We even went to two UNESCO sites Borobudur and Prambanan, countless of many other local Batik and culture shops, visited all the malls (Galleria, Amplus and Malioboro mall). I rode the Bacak, the Angung and even an ATV.

To sum it all, we have finished visiting almost the whole of Yogyakarta already and met many nice people, it has been a very rich 3 weeks. So we left the Dharmaputra for the last time, headed to the airport and before long landed at Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK), the main airport of Jakarta, Java.

Tea on my flight to Jakarta

The airport is named after the first President of Indonesia, Soekarno, and the first vice-president, Mohammad Hatta. The airport is often called Cengkareng by the Indonesians and originated from the word Cengkareng, a subdistrict located to the northwest of the city.

When we arrived, I wasn't able to contact anyone! I couldn’t recognize anyone who looked remotely like our driver, to make matters worse, I couldn’t contact the 3rd parties either.

In an essence we were pretty much stranded. Although now isn’t the time to point fingers, and it wasn’t really anyone’s fault, just a lack of information on both sides. I could sense that the driver was waiting for us, just that I had no idea how he looked like, or how to contact him, and likewise for him.

So when you are stranded in an unfamiliar land, with no help available, you use your brain and make the best of the situation. Thank God the airport isn’t big at all and there are only 3 arrival gates. Hunting around for anyone who looked remotely like a Kalbe staff took some time as I was going from person to person looking at what sort of signs he was holding up expecting from the throng of arrivals.

Finally after going through one-by-one for more than an hour, I found our driver.

He couldn’t speak English and was only holding up a piece of paper with my name pressed up against the glass pane of the arrival gate and his body was hidden by an opaque pane, how could anybody see that? I had to ask to see his piece of paper before I saw my name and we were both relieved to see each other. Soon we were in his vehicle, and travelling along the highway to the apartment.

Jams everywhere.

The immediate difference that you will notice is that the pace of life is very evident; there are jams everywhere, honking and rushing vehicles all over the place. The sky seems to be cloaked in a perpetual blanket of smog and haze. It was a big city and everybody is trying to get someplace.

Reaching Kelapa Gading, passing Artha Gading mall

I thought: “hey this is very familiar, Jakarta is very much like Singapore, a bustling city with traffic jams, throngs of people rushing to get somewhere.” An environment altogether not too unfamiliar.

A very stark contrast from the calm and patient Yogyakarta that I just left, where drivers on the road drive calmly, and horn only to warn someone that they are approaching from behind. But here in Jakarta, vehicles drive haphazardly and whiz in and out of turns and lanes and honking is an incessant cacophony that is audible around the clock.

Superstition, no number "4" because it sounds ominous in Chinese.

My apartment for the next month.

Shuttle bus to the malls

Quite a pleasant condo actually.

The price of freedom and staying in an independent apartment.