adrianLiem

It’s the last night of my trip, and the last week has been so busy I haven’t had a chance to write so there will be days of thoughts to fill in, but suffice it to say for now that the trip has been a memorable experience.

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We had a nice pleasant day today travelling from Surabaya to two nearby towns called Malang and Buta Batu. [Update: the second town is "Batu". Thanks, Yuna, for the correction!]. As has been the case when meeting much of my family so far, this was a visit to another successful business owner. This time, an aunt who has been running a successful flower plantation business for the last twenty years.

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My mind has been jumping around a lot lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve now realized we’re past the mid-way point of the trip and I have as much to look back on as I have to look forward to. So in jumping around, shotgun fashion, here are some thoughts.

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A couple days ago I realized I had no idea what day it was – not a bad way to live, day by day. If nothing else, it makes the past present and future all blend into one.

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We wrapped up the main highlights of Jakarta today, going to an outlying town called Bogor and seeing the last few places where my father had called home.

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Today we toured Jakarta, and sitting in a car has never been so tiring. It’s almost midnight as I’m writing this now, and still I can hear the traffic outside. Lucky for us, one of my cousins guided us through the city, took us to some of the smaller corners of the city you might quickly pass by, including places where my dad had grown up.

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We’ve arrived in Indonesia and it has already been an eye-opening experience after just a few hours here. Much of what my parents had told me about the country where they were born still seems to hold true.

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The first leg of the trip has been a good start. Four nights and three days in Hong Kong has been a good first step into Asia. Hong Kong means business. It’s a no-nonsense city – you get the sense that when they decide they’re going to do something, they decide to do it.

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