I Love It!

First off, I'm sorry that I've been really slacking with posting lately. Things have been pretty crazy over the past couple months and I have let blogging kind of fall by the wayside. Getting started again, I thought it'd be a good idea to start with a "Love It!" post...something I love about Indonesia. There are so many unique things about Indonesia, but one of them is the unique infrastructure(how nerdy and lame do I sound?), from neighborhoods to farming land, roads/paths, bridges, etc.
Cities are very densely populated, but instead of them being built up in highrises, they are more widespread. Cities are full of "kampungs", a type of neighborhood, are clusters of houses, wall to wall, sometimes on streets that aren't wide enough for cars to pass through. They weave and wind like a maze...it is so easy to get turned around and lost in some of them. It amazes me how these kampungs were built!

This is view from the outside of a kampung...a lot of times they're built on levels or tiers, especially if it's near a river so they houses lead down to the river.

Java's soil is so rich and so fertile for farming. The area of Java that I live in is surrounded by volcanoes, making the soil even more fertile. As the people live and farm in such mountainous areas, they plant of the sides of the mountains. It's one of the coolest things I have ever seen! One of my friends, Nana, is from a village near Mt. Bromo. Her dad is a farmer and their house is literally on the side of a mountain and his farm is on the slope. Can't be afraid of heights if you're a farmer here!

One of the neighborhoods that I frequently run in is called Puncak Tidar. It's a really nice neighborhood at the top of a hill(Puncak means "summit" in Indonesian). At the very end of the neighborhood is a big surrounding wall.

In the wall is a random door that looks like it leads to nowhere, but it goes to a village area behind it.

A path on the other side of the door that goes to the kampung.

The door reminds me of a secret passage! Each morning, a lot of workers from the village come through the door on their motorbikes to get to the city.

This bridge is one my recent finds. My friend, Faith, saw it once and wanted to drive back to take pictures. So, I tagged along. It's a bridge that connects the road to rice padi fields. But in the middle of the bridge is a door that is open during the day for workers to come in and out, but closed at night.

This guy had no problem posing for the picture...I'm sure his friend carrying the big load appreciated that :)

These are just a few pictures that I happened to have. I know they're not the best quality(most of them are taken with my phone), but it gives you an idea! Indonesia is in itself such a unique place and I'm finding more and more things that add to that as I live here.