Semarang a larger village in Central Java

It has been a long time since something was written here. Not because of lack of time, but out of pure laziness. I could blame the sweltering heat of Semarang for that, but as I said, it was my laziness. Now I'm here in Flores, turning the last two months into sentences and pictures.

After the language course in Jogja, I have now arrived in Semarang, where I will be living for the next few months until I finally pack my bags. Semarang is the fifth largest city in Indonesia and has about 6 million inhabitants in the metropolitan region. After two months, I already know the city quite well. The difference to Jogja or Jakarta is huge. While Jogja lives off past cultures and students, and Jakarta lives off the sheer number of people, Semarang leads a Sleeping Beauty existence. The city is heavily influenced by conservative Islam and therefore offers few leisure activities for a Bule (western person). The offering can be equated with that of Biel (55,000 inhabitants). A few bars distract from the workday and serve as meeting points for the hip youth, middle-aged men with their mistresses, and Western people. Nevertheless, I really like it in Semarang. The traffic is manageable, for Indonesian standards you can quickly reach the countryside, and the steadily increasing number of cafes and bars make it very pleasant. The culinary offer is also diverse and well suited to my intern salary.

I spent the first six weeks in the student dormitory of PIKA (vocational school for carpenters, designers, where I have my office). The standard is very basic and, for example, I had to buy a mirror so that I could take care of my male personal hygiene. My modest room had no air conditioning, so I spent the time there sweating profusely. This changed abruptly after six weeks. I treated myself to an apartment in the tallest building in Semarang and resided in the 15th floor of a hotel apartment building until this morning. The pool on the roof of the 30-story tower was really great and gave me a sunburn here and there. But at this point, I don't want to be annoyed about it. What I noticed here in Indonesia is that you pay the most money for privacy when it comes to housing.

What made me very happy is that I found a rugby club in Semarang right after I arrived! Paradoxically, in the city where I came from. So far, I have spent most weekends in Jogja, because the club trains once a week on Saturdays at the Universitas Gaja Mada grounds. The team members are all students from various universities in Yogyakarta and Solo, and they come from Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia, England, and various eastern islands of Indonesia, and a few from Java. Together with the guys, we were also able to participate in the Jakarta 10's Rugby Tournament in Jakarta, which was a highlight! Unfortunately, the disorganized team could not really convince. But it was definitely fun!!!

As already mentioned, you can quickly reach the countryside and climb the various peaks of the mountains and volcanoes between Semarang and Yogyakarta. On a Sunday at 3 o'clock in the morning, I also overcame myself and climbed Gunung Andong to experience the sunrise. An impressive experience!!

During one of my business trips to Jakarta, I was able to visit a university and a research institute in Bogor. During lunchtime, I visited the botanical garden in Bogor. See the pictures above for yourself.