Wedding Options

Ever since I published my engagement on my blog, everybody I meet asks me when is the wedding, especially when I went back to Jakarta and met some old friends and relatives. Their questions were mainly when will be the wedding and where?

To be honest, we don't know the answer, as there are many things to think of prior to the wedding. I am an Indonesian, of Javanese descent, which means with Javanese tradition; while Keith is British through and through. Means this might be a combination of Eastern and Western culture together. But then we live in Bahrain... a totally different environment again.

Another issue to think of as well was also where to have the wedding? in Indonesia? in England or in Bahrain? When do we want to have the wedding? or the most issue is what kind of wedding do we want to have, the traditional Javanese wedding? like this video:

In the above video shows the traditional costumes of the bride and the groom as well as all the bride's maids and groom's men. The special thing of this type of wedding is the "Cucuk Lampah" the person who walked/dance in front of the bride and the groom as they walk down the isle to their seats.

This Cucuk Lampah was supposed to be the bride's brother.... but I am sure my brother would laugh himself to death if he's doing this, and the ceremony would be a disaster....

Other wedding option is maybe the modern wedding, like in this video:

It is fun, hilarious and every body has to dance, not only my brother, and the best thing is it's a free style dance.

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Your address please....

Last week, I went back to Jakarta to see my mother, an annual requirement for a good daughter, I also attended a few functions. One was a reunion from my primary school and it was massive, as this was the first year after the school was officially closed down, due to unpopularity, as the neighborhood had no more school children.

After almost four years living abroad, I am starting to lose my childhood friends who have got married, moved out from their parent’s house, or to a new address, new telephone number, not to mention lost emails and all sort of address that change as one moves on.  Thanks to facebook, we can reconnect with old friends, and a lot of reunions here and there…. Unfortunately, as I live abroad, I miss most of it, so I made the effort to attend this reunion as it coincided with my visit to Jakarta.

I wondered what the program was, as the invitation was from 5pm in the afternoon to 11pm…. I decided to come “a bit” late, or actually a big bit late, I didn't  people would stay for long and decided to just show up for an hour or two, as I had other things to do beforehand.

To my surprise, it was really a massive function, with all the students from classes in the 60’s to the class of  2000’s; thus covering the age group of 50 something to the teenagers who just graduated from primary school.  I didn’t recognize any body there, I knew a few from facebook, but to put that against a face was really difficult, they all changed in shapes and sizes…. I was amazed when some of them still remembered me; I could'nt even remember them then and even now….


There is this data base thing that I need to fill in, about my data, my address, telephone number etc…. I suppose the aim of this reunion was to rekindle the connection and stay in touch, as who knows something might happen in the future. But that question has really hit me, as I realize that I don’t have a home address; yes I have my mom’s address, but I only live there for a week in a year. I don’t even have a telephone or mobile phone number to contact me, currently I am using my sister’s mobile number to contact me while I am in Jakarta.   I have a Bahraini number which was dead whenever I am outside Bahrain, besides I will change that to my next country’s mobile number. The only address that people could contact me was only my email address….

Well I guess I just have to accept that I am a nomad, a modern nomad, who not only moves city to city, but country to country who’s address is in the virtual world, and how my folks could learn of my news was through my digital address, the so called “homepage” instead of “home address.”

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Local Cuisine

Whenever I am home, with my relatives or my old friends in Indonesia, their common questions are “what kind of food do you eat out there in Arabia….?” Or during family functions usually they serve home-made traditional Indonesian Cuisine especially for me. In their mind, I must be craving for Indonesian food all the time as they also know that I don’t cook so good, as a matter of fact, I am a pretty crap cook!!!


To the ignorant minds, I must have eaten too many traditional “Middle East Cuisine” that made me hankering for the original Indonesian food… ha ha ha is that right? The truth is, I’ve been eating anything except traditional Middle East food!

Photo 1 - Shawarma - uploaded firstime by gomideast

The question is what is Traditional Middle Eastern Food? And where can I find it? In the City Center Mall, the biggest mall in Bahrain, with it’s huge food court, could I find any Arabian food counter? Sadly NO! Out of more than 20 food counters, I could only find one Persian food counter, the closest to the Arabian Food, with no Shawarmas to display. The other food counters are American Fast food, Italian fast food, Pizza counter, a couple of Thai food counter and a mixture of Indian/Chinese food counter. It seems that Arabian food is not at home in their own country….


What about traditional Indonesian Cuisine?

Photo 2 - Padang Restaurant, at every corner of Jakarta's road. - uploaded by flickr by 536

Photo 3 - variety of Padang Food on a single table - uploaded first time by 88DB.com

Well I must say not so bad… in fact Indonesian food was doing well, despite the fact the Malaysian tried to take over our food, such as Padang Food (, it is still at home in Indonesia, Padang food was still there on almost every corner of the street in Jakarta…

When I went to Grand Indonesia, one of the newest Jakarta’s shopping Mall, to have lunch in its food court, there are plenty of different traditional Indonesian foods. Such as different type of Sotos, Gudeg, Empal, not to mention the most famous Nasi Goreng and Gado-gado, despite the invasion of foreign food.

Photo 4 - Chicken Soto - uploaded first time by kataichan

Photo 5 - Gudeg - uploaded first time by budihs

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The Traffic Issue in Jakarta

As I am waiting for my transfer to Doha, which supposedly should be within 3 weeks, I decided to take my annual leave to visit my Mum in Jakarta. After a little hassle to get the ticket as I had to change all my holiday plans for the next 10 months, I managed to get a ticket to Jakarta despite being high season. Well I guess a ticket for one person is easier than tickets for two or more. Or maybe this is the beauty of travelling solo…

Anyway, arriving in Jakarta, was not as happy as usual, Jakarta is really getting busier than the last time as I remember. Nobody was able to pick me up at the airport, at 3.00 pm, I guess everybody is busy and no time for pick ups at the airport, as the travelling time to the airport is at least one hour from the city center. If you live in the suburbs at the other end from the Airport… hmmm that might take you at least another 2 hours to drive from the airport to home. Unlike Bahrain, or Dubai, where we feel the changes caused by this global recession; Jakarta is busy and hectic as ever… there’s no sign of recession at all, nor was there any signs after the bomb attack that hit Jakarta almost a month ago.

Aside from a routine annual holiday visiting my Mom, the purpose of this holiday was really a working holiday, sorting out my empty apartment so that somebody could rent it out and maybe a little of networking with old friends. Thus I ended up on the road every day, from 9 in the morning to almost 8 in the evening before I arrived at home again.

While I was on the road, I really could not help observing the traffic in Jakarta and comparing it to Bahrain and Doha. From the type of street, type of vehicle on the road and the behavior of the drivers; I wonder what makes it so out of control in Jakarta: no driving order, no regulations obeyed; everybody’s high tempered, everybody’s in a hurry nobody gives way for the benefit of the traffic flow; too many private cars, too many motorbikes and not enough proper public transportation.!!!

Photo 1- A mixture between pedestrian, public transportation, private cars with no lanes to follow.

photo originally uploaded by worldautonews

In Doha and Bahrain on the other hand, maybe because of the weather and the heat during summer, there are not many motorbikes and not many people on the street, even though there is only limited public transportation in operation. The behavior of the people is also different; even though I encounter crazy drivers, most of them are willing to give way to others. Maybe because of the vehicles are homogenous and everybody drives within the lanes.

Believe it or not, less accidents happen in Jakarta compared to Bahrain and more so compare to Doha where at least one accident happens at each roundabout per day…. The question now is who is the better driver, the people in Doha or Jakarta?

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