Sometimes it amazes me how in some ways our world has become so small. I recently had the opportunity to travel to Indonesia, which is so very far away, yet in only 2 weeks I was able to get there and back and have relaxing time in between. I went to both Jakarta and Bali, and I must say neither of them were anything like I expected.
Jakarta was a huge city, full of pockets of development. In the more developed pockets there were sky scrappers, huge malls, everything was impeccably clean, and there was any sort of food you could possibly imagine (including McDonald's, which provided a delivery service). The traffic was absolutely crazy. I can't say that I felt scared, but I surely would not want to drive. I spend 45 minutes staring at an intersection just trying to figure out who had the green light.
While there we were greeted by many people thanks to a family friend. In indonesia they have a honor shame culture, so it was considered an honor to take care of us. It was a neat way of living. The customer service was amazing everywhere, our "tour guides" were incredibly friendly and helpful. In many ways I wish I could have stayed forever, because I just loved being somewhere where people put others needs before there own.
Bali was so much like Hawaii, but with different cultural influences. The most prevalent influence was that of Hinduism. It is a very visible religion in the culture, from statues along the street, to large temples, to the dance and performances, to small little flower baskets of prayer in each shop and car. It was incredibly cool to be in a place so permeated by their beliefs. It made me wish that in America we would live our life by our beliefs, and we would not bend our beliefs to the culture.
I thought that it was interesting that in Bali, there were few American visitors, in fact for some people I was the first American they had ever met. That was the first time I felt like I was really representing my country, and it gave me a sense of patriotism to realize that to other people I was in many ways a bigger entity than just myself. In the past my knee jerk reaction to the question where are you from has always been to say Washington. In many ways I had never thought about myself as an American, and I certainly didn't think of myself as associated with Obama, but they did.
I had a lot of time to think while on my trip, because I was surrounded by people speaking in a language I could not understand, which was just like white noise, so I was able to turn in to introspection while still fulfilling my excessively extroverted side which desires to constantly be around people. I was able to sort through some of the causes of anxiety in my life, and some possible solutions, to think about my hopes and dreams and to reflect upon my life.
I have so many more stories I could tell, and experiences I remember (like a monkey crawling up my mom's head, and elephant rides). I learned many lessons and had a wonderful time. Ask me about it if you wish to know more or the smaller details, and perhaps when I have more time I will post pictures and explain some of the experiences, but for now I am off to work.
