About Our Group

We are a group of 12 students and 2 professors from Calvin College venturing to Indonesia for three weeks. While in Indonesia, we will visit schools and businesses, along with seeing the sights! We fly out from GRR on January 2 and arrive back in Grand Rapids on January 23.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

January 13: Photo Bomb


More temple visits today!

We started out by visiting a museum which had many pictures and artifacts of the Indonesia royalty over the over the centuries.  Although this spot is pretty touristy and there were several other school groups visiting, we were some of the only western, Caucasian looking people there.  The people at this museum must not get to see white people often because they kept on attempted to secretly take pictures of us.  It got so ridiculous that many members of our group just started posing for the picture when people would start secretly taking them. Theme of the day: photo bomb.  Some of the people actually came up and asked if we would take pictures with them. I think we all felt time the paparazzi was after us at the museum. 


 Musical Instruments

 Lots of people!

After the museum we visited the Water Castle.

 The Water Castle

One of the pools




In the tunnel system at the Water Castle

After the Water Castle we went to a silver shop were they took us to the back of the stir and explained the process of silver jewelry making to us.  We had the chance to see the silver craftsmen in action molding silver until exquisite shapes for necklace pendants or earrings.  Those artists are truly amazing and do wonderful work!


 Miniature Temple made of Silver


Borobudur is the name of the enormous Buddhist temple we visited that afternoon.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the Buddhist mythology.  I found their stores fascinating.  It is amazing how much we don’t see in pictures and sculptures before someone explains what the artist was depicting and why everything was placed the way it was.  Many, many people wanted to take pictures with us there.  In fact, I got separated from the group for a little bit because so many other tourists kept asking me to pose in a photo with them!  The scenery around the temple was breathtaking!  We went on a rainy, foggy day, which I think added to the mystery of the place. 


Hiding from the rain


World's Largest Buddhist Temple






Professors with their umbrellas




We saw a man climbing these trees to get juice,
so Febyan, Nate, and Rachel gave it a try 

That night we visited some markets where we found Indonesia goods at very low prices.  Since our tour guide was having difficulties contacting the bus driver to ask him to pick us up to take us to dinner, we decided to take the horse drawn wagon taxis.  What an experience!

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep to prepare us for another day of touring in Indonesia. 

-Erin 

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