Christmas in Karimunjawa

Merry ******* Christmas! Before I write anything else look at these seven photos of unreal beaches throughout Karimunjawa and its surrounding islands.

Well I started off my Christmas holiday by taking an eight hour train ride, followed by a two hour bus ride, and then a four hour wait leading to the finale; a six hour crowded ferry to a string of remote islands in the Java Sea. Here’s me on the ship and if this photo doesn’t scream ‘I’m from the suburbs!’ then I really don’t know anything anymore…

If you look at a map of Indonesia first find the biggest Island, Java. Just above Central Java and Semarang lays a number of islands. Karimunjawa is the biggest of the bunch but even it is extremely small. A number of motorbikes but only a handful of cars and half a dozen streets are claimed by this paradise. Here is the main road; I think this captures the kind of quaint, homely, relaxed environment surrounding Karimunjawa

Here was our homestay, a cute two story house with a beautiful balcony. There were eight of us in total here’s most of us in front of the house.

Here was our boat, her the name was the ‘Asian Lady’ (they get points for originality and creativity) and she was captained by the gentleman in the Kayak, I know what you’re thinking; do they get any better looking than that? And no they don’t. Unfortunately Captain Jack wasn’t a huge fan of photos and although I could talk about him for days….

Here are some of the stops we made throughout Christmas day 

Here is our Christmas feast. Obviously I caught all of these fish by hand and grilled them myself.

I hopped right in with the sharks. The guide said they were too small to bite any of us but I am willing to bet he’s never seen shark week. Either way watching the sharks up close and underwater was incredible. Sharks are such beautiful creatures and the way they move so gracefully really is amazing. I was awestruck the entire time.

Phenomenal scenes from the second day

A day in Singapore

I was extremely impressed with Singapore. The city is spotless, the downtown vibrant and futuristic and with English as their official language no need to use hand motions to ask people where the bathrooms were. Unfortunately since I was only there for a day I wasn’t able to travel out to the islands just off of the coast but some of the beaches on East Coast Park were beautiful

A Japanese friend of mine told me she felt Singapore was plastic, plastic, meaning not natural, not real, or lacking culture in this context.

Perhaps the official language being English or the blend of a number of Asian, and European cultures contributes to that viewpoint. However, I don’t believe you can look at a culture and seek out the negatives. If you do that you'll always be disappointed. Occasionally the differences will smack you in the face but that wasn’t the case in Singapore. Singapore is a beautiful city with beaches all around and that’s hard to beat?\ my friends.

Basically, I landed in Singapore around 9:30 am went to meet the guy dropped off my passport to get my work visa for Indonesia then took the train to the beach. There I fell asleep for the majority of the day and then had some dinner and took the train to the airport.

 This picture is of one of the many mall entrances on Orchard Road and the first sign of a Christmas tree in Southeast Asia, though at 87 degrees Farenheit it didn't feel like Christmas in the Northwest

East Coast Park is shockingly located on the East Coast of Singapore City and though my cab driver told me the beaches here were nothing compared to the beaches on the island I found them absolutely beautiful.

Thankfully I was leaving the beach as this rain cloud came through.

I can't give a specific number but I would guess more than a half dozen connected large beaches form East Coast Park. I was standing on a rock walkway when I took this.

This fantastic looking dish is called Kway teow. Unfortunately I found it awful, looked great though.

Strolling around the city

This little beauty is known as "Sukarno's last Erection," seriously. Sukarno was the first president of sovereign Indonesia after years of colonization from the Dutch and the Portugese though primarily the Dutch. Sukarno wanted a memorial built commemorating the new republic, a museum to educate its people on the struggles of colonization and the culture that united the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia today.

With white skin and not much else you can often find yourself in a position similar to a D-list celebrity. At malls, or in this case at a museum a number of girls took photos of me, and with me. I couldn't leave without getting one of these adorable girls, right?

Here resides the president of Indonesia, currently his name is Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (Yes it's kind of fun to say)

A local told me that many of the people in metropolitan Jakarta feel that this tree has some sort of mystique around it whether it be good luck or a calming ability in times of duress, but yes we are all thinking the same thing... AVATAR!!!!!

These jack fruits are about the size of my head and although I wanted to get one, I was far too lazy to be bothered by a bit of exercise....