Nick’s Indonesian Diary

4 Apr

The following day we had non-traditional burger and chips before the main event in the night. Paul is a big rugby fan so the plan was to go to a bar to watch the six nations games.
Paul had to be up early the following morning to go away to Manila on business, so he drove to the bar, Aphrodite, so as not to be tempted to drink. Here we met two friends of his that he plays football with who were both big sports fans and knew about Cardiff City. Paul and I each had a chicken salad (again, not traditional) as we watched first the tail-end of the Scotland v Italy match, before France v Wales (the main event), before finally Ireland v England. I don’t think I’ve ever watched three consecutive rugby matches like that, so odd to do so in a bar in Jakarta of all places. I probably don’t need to remind anyone of the controversy surrounding the end of the Wales match which I later saw was all over facebook. Despite the Wales defeat, Paul was quite happy after England were also beaten and he was fairly sure he’d be able to get some kip before his early start.
The following day, I was very late to rise, but once I had done, with Paul away for a couple of days, I faced the traffic to once again head back to Stu’s.
Stu had been up since 6am to make some very tasty spring rolls. Both he and Paul were being excellent hosts. Inevitably, this day with Stu also involved some drinking. We caught up, watched some movies and listened to some music over beer. Just like old buddies do.
The next day, Stu served me a tasty snack of sausages with beans and cheese in a French baguette. We had planned to go to Jakarta’s Water Park, but as the weather wasn’t so good, we put that off till the next day.
In the evening, Stu took me to his favourite pizza place where he said he’d once had as much pizza as seven people on a neighbouring table! The pizza was good, but one Porkgasm was enough for me.
We went to a couple of other bars but they were mostly quite quiet being early evening on a Monday. We ended up at the Playroom where we had a game of darts on a digital dartboard. Neither of us were much good, and in fact the game terminated without either of us scoring a decisive double. Stu had a sixteen outshot and his single sixteen but the machine apparently did not recognise he’d missed double eight and instead of busting him, made Stu the winner. Maybe the machine had just grown tired of our poor standard of darts.
I was tiring again by this stage so we headed back and had one last beer before an early night.
The following day, Tuesday turned out to be the day we finally made it to the Water Park. Stu’s whole family including mother in law bundled into the car and we headed off. It was cheap to get in and turned out to be an excellent park – fun for all the family as they say. Emily was like a kid in the proverbial sweet shop as she enjoyed the kids’ slides, while Stu, Melisa and I had a few goes on the rides for the older generation, though once again, vertigo took hold when climbing the stairs for some of the rides.
That evening, Melisa and Stu once again took me to a seafood restaurant. This one did not serve anything but seafood, so Stu had to sit and watch, but at least he had beer. I think Melisa was probably relishing the opportunity of going to seafood places as they probably don’t usually go due to Stu’s aversion to this variety of food. This time, I more-or-less mastered how to shell the prawns. Not as nice as the previous restaurant, but still, very tasty.
As Stu was due to return to work the following day, having to get up at 7am, it was decided I should now return to Bartlett’s, so I said my goodbyes and got to Bart’s by about 9.30pm, only to find it bolted with Shinta asleep in bed (Bart was not due to return from his business trip until the following day). Fortunately, the reception were able to ring the apartment to get Shinta up. I had a beer before an early night.