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Latest Bali Journal Entry:
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September 2008
I had a great, but short, visit to San Francisco and LA in February. The main purpose of my visit was to clear out my storage unit in Oakland. Yanti & I had moved all the rest of my stuff from my old house there when we last visited SF about two years ago. It was a 5' by 5' unit in Alameda and it was full!! Prior to my arrival to Oakland, I had advertised for two items I thought I could sell. One was an oak 4-drawer file cabinet and the other was my beautiful Zenith floor model radio (circa 1940). I was lucky enough to sell them both :-) Then I just had to rent a truck and load it up and drive down to LA to my wonderful sister Kathy's house to hold a series of garage sales. So I was very busy during the day but had the evenings to see my friends. I was lucky to be able to stay at Chris & Ben's great house in Upper Rockridge for most of the time and at Jim & Kelly's for a few days. Thanks to you all!! I also got to see Dave's new place in Marin county. WOW. It was incredible. He has worked so hard and invested wisely in real estate and now has reaped some benefits by having a great new house!! So, after five days of working and playing, I drove down to my sister Kathy's. They have an incredible house and pool and a 2 car garage. I unloaded all my stuff in their garage and spent three days organizing it all. I had run some ads in the local papers for the garage sales and so had a busy and successful three days of garage sales. I was able to get rid of everything!!!!!! Boy, some people sure got some great deals, I'll tell you. I was motivated to move it out!!!!! So after only 10 days, I was back to Bali!!!!! I left a few boxes at Kathy's and will bring them back to Bali whenever I visit. Well, this year Yanti & I celebrated our FIFTH Wedding Anniversary! It seems like a much shorter time that that. One reason is we've been so busy these fine years - several stays in Shanghai, China, once with the kids; living in Jakarta; Yanti visiting Calif. several times; Yanti going to college; and all the other wonderful things we've shared. So for our anniversary, we decided to visit a place in Java, near Jakarta, we had not been to - Bandung. Why? Well Yanti wanted to shop and I wanted to see some tea plantations and the old Dutch buildings. Plus, it is supposed to be cooler there (it's up in the mountains) and has less traffic than Jakarta.
The van was clean, roomy, and the diver nice. The trip took about two and a half hours. The ride reminded me of the US. We were on a freeway!!! It was only 2-3 lanes on each side, but it was a freeway, just like we have in the states. Along the way were gas stations containing KFCs, Starbucks, Pizza Huts, and Burger Kings - just like the states. The drive was nice and it was interesting to see the country-side outside Jakarta. Lot's of small cities; suburbs; small shopping centers; and lots of vegetable patches. Plus, it was the first time I had seen FORESTS since leaving California. Actual forests! Pine and other trees because Bandung is pretty high. It was beautiful to see it all.
From our hotel we spent 2 days shopping. Bandung is
famous for 'factory outlets' and it When we got back to get on the shuttle we were on "Jean's
Street". So Yanti got in a little more shopping. The funny
thing about this area is the HUGE statues that attracts
On our return to Jakarta we got to see all the tea fields and could understand why Holland had such a huge presence in Bandung. Tea was one of the major reasons Holland 'colonized' Indonesia so many years ago. The fields were beautiful but it was interesting to notice that tea bushes look much different than anything else. They are low bushes but even from the freeway you could tell they were tea because you could see how there was room for pickers to move between the bushes. Very interesting to see.
So after only 5 days it was time for our return to Bali and see the kids faces as they got to try on all their new clothes. Fun!!
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