Medan

Back in Medan I took a becak with a very nice driver (like many others during these days he didn’t speak a work English, but we managed anyway) to a shopping mall. Here I was walking around, having some cold to drink and an ice cream and looking for wet tissues, a t-shirt and some other stuff that would make me feel more clean again. I did definitely not feel clean after the bus trip!

At around 17.00 Yeti came to pick me up at the shopping mall and we drove to Medan’s palace to look around here.

Apparently Medan only has two attractions: The palace and an old house.

After the palace we went to the oldest house in Medan – a Chinese house. And a big one - fourty rooms they said. (We had a guide around the house.)

Here it was really clearly that Indonesia had been under Dutch colonialism. A lot of the pictures and books e.g. in the the different rooms had either Dutch people on them, were written in Dutch or had a small note in Dutch. But otherwise - very Chinese...

Before Yeti took me to the airport we drove to a street that she wanted to show me. A street full of small shops selling Bika Ambon (http://menumakanan.com/content/view/22/1/). And since Bika Ambon is a typical present to bring from Indonesia, I had to bring it to Jakarta.

And compared to other cakes in Indonesia, this was actually a really good one.

Officially my flight was leaving at 20.05 on new years eve. It didn’t. It was three hours delayed. It was supposed to have taken around two hours, which had meant that I would have been able to be back in Jakarta for new year. I wasn’t.

So after Yeti had brought me to the airport and I had checked in, I went to the lounge, spent time on the internet and checked my mail.

The lounge closed at 21.00. From here I went to the gate and stayed here the next two hours.

Back in Jakarta I got home, took a shower, unpacked my things and went to bed.