First impressions of Jakarta, Indonesia (I'M SHOCKED!)
hello all right everybody welcome to kota tua here in jakarta which literally translates to old city because this is the historical center of jakarta you can see all the dutch era colonial buildings so first things first big shout out to ivan's dad who drove us down here today and we were quite lucky that he could drive us because there's a law in jakarta where every day a certain license plate is allowed to drive so on the first day it would be license plates that end in even numbers and on the next day it would be license plates that end in odd numbers so today happens to be an odd number day and lucky for us ivana's father's car is an odd number license plate which by the way amazing to think that after 35 countries ivan and i have been to and hundreds and hundreds of cities the city with the most traffic that we've ever been to is actually operating at 50 of what it could be there's a law every day that says only half the cars are allowed to drive and so to be the most traffic of any city we've ever been sort of amazing that it's only 50 capacity now today we are going to explore cotatua you can see this uh sort of beautiful scenery all around our next stop is to go to the museum nearby which should be pretty exciting but i will say this it's now 1 30 and we left the house this morning at about 9 30. the distance from the house to the museum 16 kilometers now to be clear we did make a pit stop at glo dock which is chinatown and we had a meal so if we were if we were in chinatown for an hour that means it took two hours to drive 16 kilometers now i want to be clear about this when i was a young boy in canada having never left my country actually i had been to the united states but more or less same same i fell head over heels in love with this lovely woman because i was amazed at her patience i was amazed that yvonne is never upset and i have come to realize based on my time in jakarta that ivana's incredible patience comes from being born and raised in jakarta because honestly when we were in the car there were human beings on foot casually walking faster than we were driving and i'm telling you in canada if it took two hours to drive 16 kilometers there would be grown-ups adults there would be parents mothers and fathers who would be having temper tantrums seriously you've probably seen these videos online public freakouts and so my time in jakarta has taught me to one yes be productive because i find it very hard to be productive in jakarta but but it's also important to be patient it seems like patience and productivity are almost opposite things that's right right so uh rather than be frustrated that i find it very hard to be productive in jakarta i've decided to look at as an opportunity to improve my patience because sitting in that car my nostrils were flaring and my temper was flaring and i was about to say oh my gosh what's with the traffic but i decided to look to ivana for guidance and be like ivana what's really good to admire is someone who's patient and productive that's like a superpower it's not enough to be productive if you're always this close to being mad it's not enough to be patient if you're not doing nothing you want to be patient and productive these are the people go with the flow go with the flow if you live in jakarta so this is what jakarta has taught me this is my first impression of jakarta so far now like i said our goal is to go to the museum and learn more about the dutch empire you can see this square we're in is really something special here this is a beautiful relaxing part of jakarta and doesn't feel like the city with the most traffic in the world in this particular space quite nice and quite relaxing and i will start the vlog by admitting i don't know much about the dutch empire i know indonesia was dutch east indies i'm not sure i could name one other country who was part of the dutch empire maybe south africa because i heard that the language afrikaans is similar to dutch i have no idea i don't know good question right so being canadian we obviously learned about british empire because we were part of it french empire because we were part of it we have a french-speaking province uh every country below united states speaks spanish so we're done with spanish empire brazil speaks portuguese empire but i don't know much about the dutch empire to be clear so next stop let's go to the museum and learn about uh the city of jakarta which by the way used to be called batavia yeah cafe right there because uh that was the dutch name and then i guess it became jakarta when the dutch that's right we're kicked out after world war ii okay next stop learning more about jakarta let's go you all right so if we look at this museum from the outside the building itself is very formidable and that's because it was actually built to be city hall in the year 1710 built by the dutch now actually this museum is the museum of jakarta's history so there's lots of stuff in here that's not related to the dutch but we will focus on the more recent part of history because quite honestly when it comes to clay pots and prehistoric stuff it just all looks the same to me i can't differentiate country to country uh prehistoric stuff now i didn't realize the dutch were here in 1710 and so i was even more amazed to realize and learn that the dutch actually arrived here in the year 1603 and they ruled here until after world war ii which means nearly 350 years of dutch colonialism so this city hall is actually the third city hall the dutch built now when you go this back far in history you get some really uh grotesque sort of things so there's actually a jail beneath this city hall where you can imagine what criminals were treated like in the 1700s they say it's haunted nowadays and this is the balcony room which was built for judges and government officials to oversee the public execution of criminals hanging and other methods that would happen in this very square so it's sort of incredible to imagine because you look at the square now and it's absolutely beautiful i wish the flag wasn't twisted up but this is uh life and so the steady march of time seems like time always forgives what a beautiful square that was once such a sort of dark place i wish the flag was not twisted because if you guys know the indonesian flag it's red on top and white on the bottom the way they got that flag was when they got their independence people actually reached up to the flag that was above them and ripped off the blue section because red white and blue was the dutch flag so they ripped off the blue leaving the red and the white and that's how indonesia got their flag now tons of original 1800s furniture in here and tons of good information i would absolutely recommend this museum you guys know me i love every museum but this one is really good and i love the price uh 5 000 rupiah which is like less than a dollar which i always like an affordable museum because i don't like blocking knowledge to people who have lots of money so really really nice museum it's quiet in here the entire structure is 1710 and so you're in a museum as well as a historical building and you're right in front of this beautiful and very historical square uh you know what's coming next five-star museum uh-oh uh oh has decided it would be right for us to go in the under city hall 1700s prison which by the way i think indonesian people to generalize i think indonesian people like haunted stuff they seem to be drawn to it when i hear that this place is probably haunted because people are probably tortured and killed i think oh let's not go okay not bad just go stand there that wasn't so bad uh yeah it's a lot to imagine what would have happened in here something like 300 years ago okay with that on to greener pastures maybe we'll go search for a cafe for a cold drink because this whole uh kotatua old city just full of beautiful landscaping beautiful buildings and smiling faces so let's find a cold drink can you hear that i tell you what move aside philippines forever i've been saying philippines is the best singing nation in the world i think it's indonesia everywhere you go you see a guy singing very well oh my gosh indonesian idol right here in kotatua just incredible and so many times that ivan and i have been eating dinner someone will come no microphone just guitar and sing and we always put a couple bucks in their uh bag because nice sort of echoing voice kind of loudly echoing through the whole kotatua shout out to indonesian singers man so good indonesian idol best idol they're not even professional they're just singing and he's got that really nice it was awesome oh that was good stuff five stars for him um okay all right okay boom boom boom boy okay listen for me i always support street performers yeah it takes a lot of work a lot of initiative to do that you know could just be begging he said he does something very creative and hard to get better he wanted to give too much money what would you guys give normally two thousand i give ten thousand that's five times more oh cool looking cafe hello can i order or i order outside order um what do you have you have coffee oh here we go can i have one ice latte with no enough to read the menu but i think your english is better than my bahasa really yeah i think so i think so um maybe two ice lattes okay without sugar no sugar okay please that's it we're sitting in the front okay thank you very so friendly people all around jakarta actually first impressions of jakarta people are very friendly to the camera and also just friendly in general it sort of gets back to what i was saying at the beginning of the vlog when you live in a place where the traffic is so frustrating what are you gonna do be frustrated every day no you're gonna be you're gonna develop a complete mastery of your emotions people here very pleasant i feel like if you told someone from jakarta hey listen that thing you've been looking forward to for three months we can't do it anymore the person jakarta would say oh that's too bad where's from canada would say ah that stinks oh my gosh you know yeah so uh very friendly people in jakarta oh right on the road again now usually two lattes are slightly cheaper than that here in jakarta but we are also paying for this beautiful scenery and location here in kota tour now what i wanted to mention is yvonne and i have done a lot since we've been here in jakarta and we've noticed that there seems to be many different faces to this city so we've seen this really beautiful really modern bridge that sort of closes the dark and lights up and it's very elegant and it really reminded us of our time in tokyo very futuristic and very clean but we've also been to kabayoriyan lama which is a street market that turns into a night market so literally 24 hours a day this place is rammed with vehicles honking and screaming and people and motorcycles and you name it it's a very beautiful chaos on kabayiran lama which remind us of delhi india the way it's sort of all happening at once all the time and so maybe it seems natural that south asia india and east asia japan come together in southeast asia but we also stumbled into something called a chinta am i believe it's called which sounds like love chicken i am not sure why they call it that but it's like a fashion show with live music and dancing where everyone's dressed up and it really reminded us of brazil it felt like a little bit of carnival happening right in the streets of jakarta and it was really nice that ivana and i just stumbled into that accidentally it's sort of like the citizens put on the show by themselves and sort of uh have this little impromptu festival and we also went to the financial district which all the tall buildings all the nice dressed people felt like new york so you've got east asia south asia south america and north america and i guess now that we've been to the old town where the dutch colonial buildings are a little bit of europe too you could say so maybe next up if we're good ivana can we find some uh part of africa that might be tough that might be tough so i don't know how it is africa but uh my point is it seems like there's many different faces there's lots of different parts to love in jakarta and i will say first impressions tons of construction the city seems to be booming they're redoing this part of old town to make it more prettier but also tall buildings and cranes seems like everywhere we go there's people improving the city so maybe uh it's growing quickly it could be a first impression and so from here what's our next plan i'm not sure let's walk around some more let's go explore more hello hello wow your english is good namaste this is the best this is the place to be okay selfie okay okay everybody dinner send me very good thank you very much thank you good thank you just say where are you from they're so happy it makes me happy to be here in conclusion first impressions of jakarta sabi photoshoot a little bit oh thank you thank you so pretty right this is uh kabaya this is the traditional traditional dress of indonesia yeah yeah very pretty yeah very pretty yes exactly i love it history photoshoots and the music in the background all the boys are so excited school trips and the girls are taking photo here very organized they're very well behaved right the guys are all about to rip their shirt and fall off and all the bikes are gone the boys oh took the took the bike and this guy is about to wear the hat i love it love it look at this look at all the boys oh my gosh i love this they're so funny school trip it's awesome they must be having the time or they're live right at this now it's so cute and also couples these bikes are pretty popular here you can rent them actually and get the hat at the same time oh i think these girls wants to talk to steve but they're shy oh there you go so cute i'm not sure what hermes is doing here greek god messenger god okay so if you know why hermes is here guys let us know because this is in the back of the 1710 city hall dutchy side we have the statue of hermes let us know if you know there you have it
2022-08-30 08:08
