TMII-Too Much Indonesia Information?

 Saturday, "Nas" the mission driver drove Rob, Ryli and I to Taman Mini Indonesian Indah. TMII. It's a huge sprawling park that took all day to walk around and we still only saw maybe a third of it. We've never been to Epcot Center but it seemed to have a similar aim and scope; to have pavilions for every area and culture of Indonesia and it's 17,000+ islands, and a plethora of museums of every possible kind and subject to explore. So we had to be selective. We were first off intrigued with the unique and varied architecture of the buildings .

Believe me, this is only a small sampling, every roof from every place had its own particular slant and identifiable style and flair.

All day long we had many happy encounters with Indonesian people. There were several school groups and ALL of the young people wanted to take their picture with us, the mysterious foreigners. We felt a little like celebrities for a day. Indonesians are genuinely friendly, the girls are shy and giggly. 

Tegar was a lone wolf who introduced himself to us. He was a very sharp young man and outstanding at explaining things about his culture to us in his understandable English.

  One woman taught us a dance from her native. It was interactive and enjoyable! 

          We saw warriors and peacemakers:

                       What'll you have, Hun? 

                        Guardians of the Gate

We accidentally crashed a wedding party. They didn't even flinch when we walked in on their abandoned luncheon spread. But we weren't invited to stay so we left rather sheepishly. 

We had several encounters with animals throughout the day:

     Reminiscent of Pee Wee's Big Adventure

The coolest part of the day was the Komodo Dragon Museum. We witnessed the feeding of the adult dragons and crocodiles. Very Intense! 

                            Shall We Dance? 

The 2 year-old toddler Komodo posing w/ Rob

                                 Big Daddy

You gotta be crazy to do this job! Feeding beef to Komodo Dragons and whole chickens to crocodiles?! We watched a guy change a filter in his bare feet in the albino crocodile pond. His co-worker held him off with a two pronged stick. But he was watching his co-worker more than he was watching the crocodile. I was so worried for him, I couldn't snap a picture for fear of carnage. But it all ended fine. 

I take it back, there was actually something even cooler than the reptiles...once you start looking for temple imagery and motifs in ancient cultures, you see it everywhere! Many buildings had outer courtyards, inner rooms, and holy of holies. All of their native dress included crowns and headdresses. Very intriguing to see "fig leaves" and aprons too. 

We walked the full perimeter of the park and never once took the shuttle. We were super tourists. But the shadows and exhaustion told us it was time to call it a day.

           The sun was getting low in the sky

The only thing we knew for sure is that we had  barely scratched the surface. There is so much more about Indonesian culture we don't have a clue about. But we were exposed to a lot and now know a smidgeon more of it than when we arrived and it was truly a wonderful and interesting day spent together. 

                                     It's epic

"And verily I say into you, that it is my will that you should obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, and of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen"

Doctrine & Covenants 93:53