Ok, bonus picture before I start my tale of our intrepid adventure to Bogor today. This was from yesterday, Friday afternoon, when my host sister and I played badminton at the Karawang sports center. The sport center consisted of a large badminton court and two pool tables (to the left of where I stood to take this shot.) I found it fitting that they sold donuts at the snack counter. Donuts are, of course, right up their with cigarettes in terms of items considered to be healthy in this country. In fact they sold cigarettes as well at the gym.
This morning I woke at 4 and Syifa, my 25 year old host sister and I were out the door by 5:30 am to catch our bus to Bogor from the questionable bus stop which was situated right on the freeway.
The main attraction of the day was the Bogor botanical gardens. This post will mostly be devoted to long-overdue pictures of the native flora.
Our guide was Syifa's former high school English teacher who also gives "freelance tours" of the gardens. He shares my sister's passion for nutrition.
First we saw a bunch of cool FLOWERS (actually first we saw a bunch of ibus and school/work groups picnicing on the sprawling lawns.)
In the lotus garden
Trees on the path to the orchid garden.
Apparently it's not the season for orchids. Most looked like this.
Interesting bit of history. This park was founded by an English man and has a lot of mock buildings around it like the Eiffle Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Presidential Palace. We only saw the GG bridge today.
And then we happened across some MUSHROOMS:
As we were ambling out of the gardens around lunch time we saw none other than the Golden Gate Bridge! Apparently there's also an Eiffel Tower and mock Louvre somewhere. Syifa told me it would take at least a week to see all of the gardens. I took that as another trip in the making.
Also, awesome trees.
After the gardens we had lunch and this ice-jello mixture for dessert. It was good, even if the star-shaped jello pieces and colors reminded me of some sickly-sweet cereal.
Annnnnd then it flooded as we drove back into Karawang. Not the whole road fortunately.
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