Thursday, December 26, 2024 to Saturday
W and I are barely functional after a very arduous Christmas month. Our last big event is over. IbuS comes to do a deep clean on the house.
W decides we have to leave home for a break. I'm delighted. In our 10.5 years here, we've done one other staycation, in a hotel on the next mountain. This time we go all the way into the city. Bandung is noisy, polluted, and crowded with continual traffic jams of honking, smoking buses, cars, horse carts, and thousands of motorcycles. We ride downhill into Bandung before lunch for our 2-night "city-cation" escape.
At the historic Savoy Hotel down the street, I take a bath a day. A tub was part of the criteria by which W chose the hotel, along with good ratings and great prices, of course. For a few days, we walk and explore our city. We eat at restaurants we like, including #Hutanika, a new oasis of calm and planted courtyards two blocks from the hotel. What a good break from regular life.
We have a classic hotel room with beautiful art deco touches. It's clean but could use some maintenance: the bathroom door is missing the lock. The air con rattles at high volume during the night. (We turn it off.) We have to pay for extra towels and have to ask for hand towels. W pays a refundable deposit on a second key for me.
Friday morning we follow the foodies' advice to the "best bubur" (rice porridge) breakfast. The little food cart is on the sidewalk of a sister restaurant to one of our favorites on our hill: Ethnic Resto. There's a lineup at the cart and another lineup of people eating on the curb bench. We stand for a while before we realize that going inside the restaurant will get us faster service.
It's been in business a long time. Pictures of historical Bandung hang on the walls.
We love the mix of dried onions, chicken, sesame oil, and parsley, with hot sauce on the side.
We come at the right time. By the time we leave, there's a long line of hungry clients waiting to get inside and the cart lineup is much longer.
Through Saturday, we walk a lot. W trips off a curb and falls onto his finger. Ouch, though it's almost better by week's end.
We see few Caucasians (5? 10?) despite the crowds. The demographics of this formerly international city have shifted. A decade ago, foreigners - working or tourists - were abundant. They came from all over SE Asia, as well as from Australia, Europe, and North America. Now, life and attractions are geared for locals.
During COVID, the government closed the local airport to public use and reserved it for the military. A brand new airport was opened 1/2- to 2-hours from the city. Few foreign tourists bother to come because the new airport has almost no international flights. Those flights are often cancelled or delayed if the planes don't fill up. There is much easier travel access going elsewhere.
Hoards of Jakartans drive to Bandung on weekends but the Malaysians, Dutch, and others are gone. Their money flows into other destinations so the city is less prosperous. That attrition has reduced the middle class by cutting thousands of jobs that depended on tourism and accessible business travel. With few middle-income jobs, skilled workers and university graduates migrate from Bandung to Jakarta or other places.
Most expats have relocated to a neighboring city as well. Besides having a fast-train into Jakarta (1/2 hour instead of a 3-hour drive), KBP has a good international school, curbed streets (straight! not built around tree roots), and feels like an old American suburb. It reminds us of Vancouver's shift into self-segregated suburbs: the Indians moved to Surrey and the Chinese moved to Richmond. A drawback is that KBP is 3o-5oC hotter. Most foreigners' homes need air-con, unlike on our hill where the mountain winds bring more temperate weather.
Downtown Bandung? Swarms of locals hang around, chatting, shopping, and eating snacks around the central mosque. Some people smile and are friendly. Others? not so much. That's a change, too. Regular chants are piped from loudspeakers in the twin towers of the mosque.
In our wanderings, we step inside an electronics shop where we picked up gifts for our Christmas Day exchange. We buy a leftover-warmer but the cashier refuses to check that it works. W plugs it in next to our lunch table. It burns out immediately. Nothing is returnable so that's $3 wasted.
Lunch is at a Vietnamese restaurant.
Spring rolls are one of my favorite foods but I've never combined one with peanut butter and jam before. Usually they come with a side of peanut sauce.
I take a picture from the top of the stairs at the second storey. The risers are 12"/30cm tall. And each step is short: 10"/25cm or less. It's worth touching the railing as we descend.
At the hotel, we cash in our vouchers for tea at the Sidewalk Cafe. We order a lava cake to share. The chocolate is not quite warm and the ice cream is a Mini-Magnum ice cream bar. Oh well.
Saturday, we have one final meal - brunch - at
Hutanika. We often eat at Nara, a few blocks from our house. This is its 'new sister' eatery downtown. Off the busy street, you step into quiet courtyards surrounded by tropical foliage. It's like arriving at a resort miles away from the car-to-car traffic on the other side of the wall.
I enjoy the chicken tortellini.
We check out at noon Saturday, catch a Grab taxi up the hill, and enter the narrow tree-covered streets of our neighborhood. What a contrast this is to the crowded city center, where gritty ruins-on-ruins and buildings-on-buildings are memorials of Dutch colonial rule. The buildings are well-constructed but few old government and trade buildings have been maintained. Plants have seeded in the cracks in walls and on their roofs. Plaster and carvings are crumbling away in the tropical heat.
We enter our yard with relief, greeted loudly by our dogs and marveling at the garden filled with flowers. A few blocks away, an influencer has tigers, bearcats, ostriches and more exotic animals. Read about him here. Our creatures are tamer.
We wash a few items from the kitchen wholesaler and heat up Thursday's leftovers for a late lunch. We're unpacked by 2 PM and spend the day preparing for Sunday and catching up on messages and reading.
I pirate last week's flower arrangement for 12 simple Round Table bouquets: cypress, pine, and red berries.
The leftover plants make 2 sweet little bouquets for the coffee table.
Sunday
We're back to the routines, this last Sunday of 2024. The word I chose for 2024 year was "Transition" There have been many of those. After prayer and contemplation, I choose the word "Hope" for 2025. Let's see how God works that out.
At the hall, we sit around tables to ask each other: "What has God done this year in your life?" Many people have spent the year trying to recover "life before COVID," with limited success. We choose a year-end verse from the center of the table. Then we share what that scripture speaks to us. Happy asks if we can take a selfie in front of the bulletin board. Sure. Meanwhile, Daniel and Martin take the hall apart, moving tables back and deconstructing the Christmas decorations.
Rocky and his family hand over a package of delicious ribs, which make a fine lunch.
I have some new "floaters" in my eyes. W suggests that we walk to the nearest pharmacy for medicine that made the last batch disappear (be reabsorbed). A vine along the street flowers with flame lookalikes.
As usual, W edits and uploads the recording from the morning Gathering, posting it to YouTube before unwinding and relaxing.
Read more:
*Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done. Proverbs 19:17
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. Luke 6:38
Moravian Prayer: Generous God, you have blessed us beyond measure, and you call us to be a blessing. May we consider what more we can share, what more we can offer to be of service to you. Amen.
