More Facts About Indonesia...

• Tax in restaurants. Not that I am complaining about tax, I do enough of that in Canada. But it’s always a shock to my system when I don’t pay tax for anything else. And suddenly its 15% tax in the restaurant.
• Kolak: pumpkin, brown sugar water, coconut shavings, cassava, banana boiled, jack fruit, water and coconut milk. It’s a dessert eaten/drank during Ramadan. It’s really sweet and you’d think it’s odd to have cassava and jack fruit in the same bowl, but it’s surprisingly very good.
• Lebaran: is a long national holiday. Almost 2 full weeks. Everyone goes back to their home town to celebrate the closing of the fasting month. The last two to three days are called Eid Al Fitr, where huge celebration takes place. Families gather from all over the country to break fasting.
• Jakarta and Lebaran: Since Jakarta is composed of people outside of Jakarta, this city becomes a ghost town during the holidays. I went outside to have breakfast at 9am and the streets were empty and stores apparently don’t open till 10am… on a Wednesday… except for Dunkin’ Donut. So I had a doughnut and chocolate milk. Meh.
• Culture shock: If you want to have a culture shock in Indonesia, the best place to go is Yogyakarta. The city represents the country very well. Except for the hotels the rest of the city is well preserved and rooted to its traditions and customs.
• Temples: For a full out Muslim country, they have one of the biggest Hindu and Buddhist monuments. It because they believe in harmonized living with other religions. They are very accepting of other religions and its practices. However, I think the monuments are also preserved, so well, is because of the revenue it creates. There isn’t a large community of Hindus or Buddhists living neither anywhere near the temples or in the Java Island.  Maybe a few. But they are still kept well is because of the money.
• Caesar Dance: tv stations have special shows during the fasting month. Yuk Kita Sahur is a really famous show that everyone watches. And during this particular show, this guy called Cesar invented a dance for one of their traditional songs. And of course it went viral and whole country is going crazy for the song and dance. It’s called “Goyang Caesar”, which means Caesar’s dance. Check out the link. The video is not the best quality but the dance makes up for it http://youtu.be/cv-hHPaMQk4?t=2m32s