Fun Day

On saturday, Mommy and Daddy decided to take the kids to explore North Jakarta.  First we went to Sunda Kelapa Harbor to see the old schooners. The boats look really old, but they are still in use.  It was a busy harbor where lots of cargo was being loaded and unloaded.

Next we decided to head to the old town of Batavia that is now known as Kota Tua (Old Town).  Batavia was the hub of Dutch Colonial Indonesia.

Fatahillah Square-cobblestone area lined with old colonial buildings

Old building that is now an art museum

Old Town Hall built in 1627

Sadly, most of the old buildings in Kota have either been torn down or are in really bad shape.  



We then headed to Glodok (Chinatown) to look around and get some lunch.  The kids really wanted some dumplings.  Unfortunately, we didn't find the right part of Chinatown that had the old temples and the traditional street markets where they sell skinned frogs, live bugs, and other interesting things.  We also didn't find any dumplings. We'll try and go again another time.  We did find a somewhat traditional street market where there were some food stalls and people selling fruits and other miscellaneous items. We stopped and had lunch at a place that was surrounded by food stalls.  As a whole, Chinatown was rather run down and very crowded.

We thought the kids would be tired after lunch, but they said they wanted to go to a playground.  Mommy had heard there was a cool pirateship playground in Ancol Recreation Park so off we went.

Daddy wanted to take a boat ride so we rented a boat and went for a 20 minute ride.

The guide caught the kids some jellyfish. We got to keep them, but we convinced the kids that they should stay at the park so we eventually let them go.

The kids loved the boat ride and kept asking to do it again.

After the boat ride, the kids wanted to look for the pirateship playground.  We finally found it, which is pretty amazing since Ancol Recreation park is enormous (300 hectares!)



It was hard to convince the kids that we should leave the playground and do some more exploring, but they finally agreed.  We came across a beach area and the kids got to play in the water for awhile before we headed home.  Good thing Mommy had brought extra clothes...just in case.

Mommy and Daddy had not expected to stay out all day, but we had such a great time.  We feel very blessed to live in such a beautiful country.  We have already had the opportunity to go so many different places and see many things.  We are trying to make the most of our time here in Indonesia since we don't know how long we will be living here.