I’m back! I’ve been back from Indonesia for a week and a half, but I’ve been recovering from jet lag and a horrible cold. The cold isn’t fully gone, but I feel human again and I’m able to think about writing a blog post.

I went to Indonesia with the Chin Lees. Bernie and Chris are the parents. Rebekah, Therese (Tez), Simon, Jc, Josh, Mikey, and Nicho are the kids. I met Therese when I lived in Boston and since then, I’ve spent a lot of time with her family. So much so, that they’ve now adopted me as their daughter and sister and they invited me on their family trip to Indonesia for Simon’s wedding. The Chin Lees are from Trinidad and Tobago, though most of them now live in the US. Simon is currently living in South Korea and he met his wife, Amelinda, there. Amelinda is from Indonesia, which is why the wedding was there.

I flew from Chicago to Jakarta with Therese, Patrick (Tez’s husband), Luci (Tez’s 9-month-old daughter), Josh, and Nicho. Everyone else arrived before we did. We had a layover in Taipei and thought the airport was very cool. Each gate had a different theme. There was a movies gate, a birds gate, a music gate, and many others. Our gate didn’t have a theme, but it did have wonderful massage chairs. The massage felt really good after being on a plane for 15 hours. After a few hours in Taipei, we boarded our 8 hour flight to Jakarta.

We arrived in Jakarta at around 1 pm. Jakarta reminds me a lot of Ecuador, which makes sense since they’re both third world countries on the equator. By the time we got to the hotel it was 3 pm. We had an hour to eat something and change before we had to go to the Sangjit. A Sangjit is like an engagement party. It usually happens months before the wedding, but they did it the night before so the Chin Lees could be there. When we got to the restaurant where it was happening, the Chin Lees had a family photo shoot, so I waited in the Sangjit room with the rest of the guests.

During the Sangjit, the groom’s family presents gifts, such as jewelry, clothing, and household items, to the bride’s family. Later, the bride’s family gives some of those gifts back to the groom’s family. There were lots of pictures taken: pictures when someone entered with a gift, pictures when they’re handing over the gift, pictures after receiving the gifts. As you’ll soon realize, pictures are a key part of Indonesian weddings. After exchanging the gifts, we had dinner, and then Simon and Amelinda introduced all their guests and gave out gifts. Then there were more pictures taken, and finally, we got to go to the hotel at around 10 pm.

At this point, I think it’s important to remind you that we had traveled for 24 hours, so we were all exhausted. In addition to that, I’m incapable of sleeping on planes, so I had only gotten a few minutes of sleep during the flights. Thankfully, I’m an adopted Chin Lee and I’m not related by blood. Otherwise, I would have had to get up at 3 am the next morning to get my hair and makeup done before a family photo shoot. Instead, I was going to have breakfast delivered to my room at 6 am, so I got to sleep a little more than everyone else.

Everything on the wedding day ran early. My breakfast arrived at 5 am instead of 6 am. I had been told to be downstairs at 8:30 am to head to the church, but Therese texted me at 8 am, saying they were being sent downstairs. They had to wait for me, because I was there right on time at 8:30 am. They had a woman in charge of shuffling the family from one place to the next and making sure everyone was where they should be when they should be. When I got downstairs, she was looking for me frantically. Fine, she wasn’t frantic, but she did look at me like I was making everyone late. I was right on time though, so I didn’t feel bad about it.

We got to the church with plenty of time to spare. We had about an hour before Mass started that was spent taking photos and rehearsing the bridal party’s entrance. Mass was beautiful! It was in English, but the choir sang in Indonesian. My favorite part was an Indonesian tradition where, after the bride and groom say their vows, they kneel in front of each of their parents and get a blessing from them. After Mass, there were more photos and then we went back to the hotel for lunch.

At that point, I realized that I didn’t feel well. After lunch, I went to my room to take a nap, hoping that I’d feel better after sleeping. The family had a tea ceremony and more photo shoots to attend, but I had a few hours to rest before the reception in the evening. After sleeping for a few hours though, I felt worse and I knew that if I went to the reception, I’d be miserable the whole time, so I skipped it. I ordered some ramen for dinner and I went to bed early.

On Sunday morning I was feeling better. I heard all about the reception at breakfast. The family had to learn a dance for their entrance 5 minutes before they entered the venue, there were speeches, first dances, a buffet dinner, and a lot more photos taken. Everyone was surprised that there was no dancing, but all the weary travelers were happy when they got back to the hotel by 10 pm. The entire wedding was very performative. It seemed like it was more about the pictures than the actual experience. The pictures did turn out beautiful though.

Now we need to talk about breakfast. It was a buffet and there were many different stations. There were Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Western stations. There was an egg station. And there was a bakery station where you could also get crepes and pancakes. I had breakfast there two mornings and it was a delicious feast. I tried to get a little of everything because there was so much variety and it was all so good.

After breakfast, we went to Mass. It was in Indonesian, but we went to a Japanese church, so we had to take our shoes off to go in. At first, it was weird to be barefoot in a church, but then I got used to it and enjoyed it. In Indonesia, instead of ringing bells during the consecration, they strike a gong. I didn’t know Mass would end up being such as interesting cultural experience.

That night, we had dim sum for dinner with Amelinda’s familt and then got ice cream for dessert. We went to the grocery store so people could buy goodies to take back home. I went in not not planning to buy anything and came out with tea and herbal medicine. They had little packets with a strong herbal concoction that tastes like peppermint. When you take one, you feel like your sinuses are cleared immediately. I asked Simon where to find them since I was still feeling under the weather and he ended up loading my basket with different versions of the medicine and some cough syrup. Little did I know that they’d come in handy in the next few days.

That’s it for Jakarta. On Monday, we flew to Bali, but I’m going to leave that for another bog post.