I know I seem to be travelling all over the place these days, and I'm really starting to get sick of packing and unpacking, but Indo is better than I thought. With all the media hype you'd think you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without being kidnapped or seeing a terrorist, but life is pretty normal down here (or up here, depending on your perspective). I mean, the people complain about exorbitant costs and many are still living in poverty, but most Indonesians are peace-loving people, especially in the town I was born in, Bandung. By the way, this is not bias, I was really dreading this trip; I'd just come back from China and missing Jase a lot, we'd just moved to a new house so things are a bit all over the place, plus I have no friends in Indo (I left when I was very young). I had to see my grandma and other relatives though, so I had to come here, bird flu or not. Luckily, even though my Indonesian is a bit rusty, I look Indonesian so there's no chance of me being kidnapped cos I'm a foreigner (unless they see my passport, I guess). But then again. it's probably DFAT being all paranoid (I suppose they have to be, it's their job).
My relatives were really open-minded about my relationship with Jason, surprisingly. My really old (and sometimes senile) grandmother even wanted to keep his picture, which was sweet. I heard of a friend of my sister's best friend marrying a black guy as well and they have a gorgeous kid, brown with squinty asian eyes (aww.... he he he). It really gave me a lot of hope for our future.
