Day 4 (18/3/2008) - T-shirt and Jeans

That was what Mutiara wore. MP and I had just finished checking out our driving license when she arrived. I had expected her to be formally dressed. She had mentioned that the errand was some sort of paper work at a government office. Unfortunately she couldn't run her errand because of some incomplete documents. I could see in her eyes that she was kind of agitated. She could have stayed over the night had she know the documents weren't ready yet.

Anyway, we were still going to the government office. We were going to meet two of her friends. Leaving behind my big hiking bag, we left MP’s place. At the main road, we got on an "angkot". I lost track of our route. We soon arrived at a busy crossroad. There seemed to be cars, motorcycles, van, buses, and "angkot" from every direction. Above us was a new and huge pedestrian bridge. We waited at a bus stop under the bridge.

Soon, a lady with a very fair skin and long straight hair, walked toward us. She could be considered attractively dressed. Not like the two ladies out-of-fashion-magazine previous day, but nevertheless "cakep". I met Mutiara’s first friend. L, as she would be known from now, is an Indonesian Chinese – which explained her fair skin.

After a brief introduction by Mutiara, the three of us made our way to an ‘angkot’ across the road. I thought we would be using the pedestrian bridge above us. I should have taken the cue when Mutiara held my left hand. Immediately after one of the traffic lights turned red (there seemed to be many traffic lights at the crossroad), we dashed across what seemed to be 6 lanes road! We crossed yet another road (a smaller one) and hopped into an ‘angkot’.

As I sat, I could felt that my heart was still racing, even though my legs had stopped running. Eventually I calmed down. Mutiara chatted with L. I fell into my habit of keeping quiet. Mutiara noticed, and she told L that I couldn’t understand them if they talk too fast. I laughed. I explained to them that it was sort of my habit to just keep quiet and just listen. Before long, we reached our destination.