asia africa in bandung

 bandung: paris von java (the paris of java)

brian has been looking around at the asia africa museum here in bandung. today, a man named desmond from the asia africa museum took us over to the gedung dwi warna building, which was where the majority of the asia africa conference took place. it was the press building for the conference, and where the official delegates of the conference met with their committees. it was really nice to go over there, and we were given a great tour of the building. desmond also patiently answered my questions and was very knowledgeable about bandung and the conference.

after that, b and i split up. he stayed at the museum, and i went off to a bakery for breakfast. i've started reading "dreaming in cuban." i am enjoying it, but i can see it wasn't a great choice for me. i already want to speak in spanish here. obviously, i know people don't speak spanish here, but there seems to be a natural tendency to want to use your second language when you're in a foreign-speaking place. it's amazing how many times spanish comes to mind when i want to communicate. so, i had a nice, relaxing time in the bakery trying indonesian treats and reading "dreaming in cuban."

b continued kept looking around at the museum, and i went out later in the day for lunch and had sate and tried sour sop juice (saksir jus). the saksir tastes a bit like pawpaw, which was fun, but it's not as good as alpokat jus (avocado juice). i tried to get that at three different places today, and no one had it available. honestly, it's hard to know what this world is coming to sometimes. there must be a shortage of avocados today. i hope it's just for today though since i'd like another avocado with chocolate juice before i go.

b and i met up once he was done visiting the museum, and i was done eating my sate, and we went to an outdoor market. there wasn't a whole lot happening at the market, but we did see some neat things (see pics below) and found a theater building we'd been looking for. inside the theater building, we watched a javanese dance practice, which was a lot of fun. the dances had ornate, yet subtle finger, arm, and leg movements. we also found out that there's a chekov play being done at one of the universities here in town tomorrow night. so we may go to that tomorrow.

we made it back to our hotel and then had dinner. b decided he wanted some american food--so we got a pizza, which was surprisingly small--and then b ordered a burger and fries from wendy's. i got a slice of cheesecake to round out my meal. and, b would want me to say that i lost face as i was getting my cheesecake. the first one i grabbed, slid off my platter and then splattered on the floor. thankfully, the folks at bread talk were nice and didn't charge me for the damaged goods.

it was another good day.

 desmond (the one in the batik shirt) and myself with our guides at the gedung dwi warna building. our guides there were very nice, and spoke in english sometimes so i could follow what was being said too.

 the orginal men's bathroom from 1955 that richard wright would have used. 

 desmond and myself talking--probably about the earthquakes that happen here. he told us that bandung is right on a fault line and has at least one small earthquake each day. 

 the same vantage point that richard wright had when he took a picture of the same building in 1955. 

 b admires roosters so much (probably because my chinese astrological sign is a rooster) that he took a couple candid shots while we were at the pasar tonight. 

 oops! didn't realize this one needed to be rotated. turn your head and notice the fine graffeti. there is a lot of graffiti here. 

 a nice polisi man told b he needed to take a picture of this alleyway. 

 me standing on the welcome mat that's growing ferns and grass. 

 the cool dance instructor who let us watch his pupils dance offered to show me some moves. i have to admit that i'm pretty bad at learning any type of structured dance, but i gave it my best. 

 the girls doing the dances, as well as the instructor, had a long scarf around them that they would use in their dances. they would flip the scarf ends around at different moments in the dances, which i thought was really neat. 

 the poster about the chekov play we may go see. it's called "uncle vanya."