Coming to Jakarta and staying at a five star hotel really made me feel like a village person. Jakarta is really different from Padang. Jakarta is a really international place. You can get western things here so easily that it really doesn't feel like going to another country.
We were really amazed by the hotel when we first got here. There were people opening doors, taking our luggage, everyone speaks English, etc. The elevator even has a card reader. You need to stick your card into the slot and then it will let you push the button. We stood in the elevator for a while the first time trying to figure out this system.
Our beds are super big and comfortable. We have real showers. I can't express how much I was looking forward to having a real shower. We have bucket showers in our dorm room. This consists of a large tub of water in the corner and a scoop that you use to pour water on yourself. Having water automatically come out of a shower head is so much more convenient.
The breakfast at the hotel is also very amazing. Breakfast is free and it is a huge buffet. They have a lot of western foods like western bread, sausage, eggs, cereal, yogurt, pastries, etc. They also have Indonesian style breakfast which is much heavier and consists of rice, noodles, meat, kind of like what you would eat for lunch and dinner. So basically we've been having a big feast every morning.
We've been taking taxis everywhere. Mostly because we don't know the public transportation system. Taxis are also faster and can get us directly to where we need to go. All the offices and malls have a drop off spot for taxis right in front of the door so that you can go from one air conditioned building to another. Haven't really seen that many people walking. The city is pretty spread out.
The traffic here is really bad. There are so many cars and wide roads that it's difficult to cross streets. I mean, I had thought that the 2 way road outside our dorm in Padang was bad. But here it's nearly impossible to cross the street at some of these roads. It's really like playing frogger. People here also drive faster than in Padang. In Padang, there are also cars and motorcycles but they drive relatively slow and they slow down for pedestrians.
We've been spending so much more money here on food. It's so hard to find a reasonably priced place to eat. This was never a problem in Padang since we just walk into one of the many small, family run restaurants. In Jakarta, there are so many big malls and western stuff that it's hard not to pay American prices. Really wish we could just find a “normal” place to eat.
