Indonesia

Jakarta was a very relaxing week.  Staying in the Jordanian ambassador's residence (amazing!) with my friend from Yale and her family, I learned more about Arabic culture than Indonesia culture.  We ate feasts of homemade Jordanian food twice a day.  We got driven around daily by the chauffeurs (Jakarta traffic is ungodly), and I got clean laundry for the first time in forever thanks to the maids.  The best part was her 2-year-old brother who only spoke Arabic and feuded with Stella.

Visiting a park with replicas of houses from different Indonesia island communities

National Museum of Indonesia

Side note: on the way to Jakarta, I had a layover in the Tokyo Narita airport.  First time ever in Japan, and it was amazing. Airport stores were selling all these cute things, people dressed so fashionably, and the automated walkways were on the left side because Japan drives on the left side of the street (I’d never known this before!).  It felt like a parallel reality, as if this were China but with more money earlier on.

Traveling in a lot of different countries during the Olympics has been a neat experience.  Nicaragua only showed Hispanic athletes.  Japan showed a lot of Judo and gymnastics.  In Indonesia, my Jordan hosts only watched Al-Jazeera which mostly showed Muslim athletes.  China showed diving and speed-walking.  And Taiwan is represented as Chinese Taipei because China.