Sudden trip

my college friend, Bayu said he wanted to go to Cirebon to visit some rattan industries. since he promised me a long time ago to show me the industries, he asked me and some of my friends to come along. at first i hesitated because i imagined it will be a long ride and i could get carsick as usual. at the same time, i'm also curious. so after thinking about it for two days i decided to come along. together with Bintang and Dian. (seems it's always the four of us that always hanging out together, since we're the ones with the least things to do.)

we departed from Bandung at five in the morning. the road, as i expected turned out to be the one that could get me carsick but this time i came prepared (tolak angin and koyo!!)

after three visits to the industries, we headed out for lunch. we had nasi jamblang near the harbor. nasi jamblang is a dish that served on top of teak leaves. we only got the rice and sambal, for the side dish we are free to choose whatever we like and pay according to what we had.

Dian and I insisted to look at the keraton before we went home, it's just around the corner. the boys agreed since it's still noon. we parked the car and a man came to us with a parking ticket. now, i already think Jakarta's parking ticket is expensive, but this aji mumpung guy gave us the ticket with Rp. 10.000 on it. not printed, but hand written. refused to start a fight so we payed. :(

one thing that embarrassed me a lot about this country, the superstitious stupidity that tells people to throw coins in every single thing. literally. in front of every object in this keraton, stood a chair or table and several people around it banging the top of the chair saying "ayo nyawer dulu!" with a pushy manner. the whole place smell with kemenyan, and even we saw a woman that wipe one of the "sacred" object intensely like she hope she'll get some fortune out of it. i mean, come on! for crying out loud.

we decided to get out of keraton and headed home. the stupidity was unbearable, then we sat under a tree for a while just to see our surroundings. we realized the tomorrow is Maulid Nabi, and it's a ritual in this area to visit the keraton or what we call 'ziarah'. this was my first time (our first time) to encounter something like this, so yeah, we're in shock.