Topic: Have you ever visited Indonesia ?

Yo, i opened a Discussion forum about my country Indonesia since i am Indonesian user here.
Indonesia has so many islands. There are 6 Biggest Indonesia's island such as Sumatra, Java (I live in Surabaya, East Java), Kalimantan (Borneo), Bali, Sulawesi and Papua.
I believe one of you have ever visited Indonesia or interested with beauty of Indonesia islands.

Even Tyra Banks chose Bali as International destination of America's Next Top Model cycle 20 on year 2013 , 5 years ago. And some of High Fashion outfits from Indonesian Fashion designer were chosen in America's Next Top Model cycle 24 for Avant Garde High Fashion photoshoot (Episode 1).

Feel free to share your opinion or your experience in Indonesia. Please be nice & be polite with your comments here.

No, but we have a close family friend who moved from Japan to Jakarta to accept a job offer.

@Anti-Matter serious question.
How do you feel about the dutch-indonesian history? How do they teach that in indonesia?
I’m dutch myself but only know dutch opinions about it. So I’m interested to know yours.

@darkswabber
Well...
3 years ago, in my school (my working place) there was a foreign teacher from Dutch started to work at the same time as i accepted in new school to work as librarian + Drawing teacher. He was able to speak English very fluent and he taught Geography (Foreign Curriculum) for grade 1 until grade 6. He didn't teach History , only local teacher taught Indonesian history from Social Studies subject (It called IPS, Ilmu Pengetahuan Sosial in Indonesia, consist of: History, Economy & Geography. Geography here was a National Curriculum on IPS, talking about Indonesian geography, very different with Foreign Curriculum of Geography subject that taught by Dutch teacher).

As i knew he was a Dutch, people from country who colonized Indonesia for more than 350 years, i was acquaintance with him because we were the generation after the colonialism so we had no avanged feeling each other. And the students had no negative feeling about him despite the local teacher taught about Indonesian history that mentioned about Dutch colonialism long time ago. The students were eager to ask him about Dutch colonialism and he could explain what was happened in Indonesia long time ago.

And also, during Flag ceremony & Celebration of Indonesia's Independence Day (by make a Fun Competition such as Eating Hanged Crackers without touching, Tug Wars, Sack Race, etc) he was joined with other local teachers & the students to follow the activities. We (local teachers) & foreign teachers (China, UK, Philppines) had No negative feeling about Dark history in Indonesia because we were like Family (Also remember if England had ever colonized Indonesia too during year 1811 until 1816 at the same time during Dutch colonialism).

Too bad, he was resigned on June 2018 and moved to another school in Surabaya.

The closest I've been is Singapore, been to there a few times. I've lived in Thailand now for nearly 9 years and have some friends who visit Indonesia. One day I may go. I would really love to trek through the rainforest of Borneo and see an Orangutan. Something I've thought about for many years. I'll probably never do it though, I'm 40 year old and feeling it.

My grandma was like 80 and and still loved traveling and visiting new places. The only thing that managed to stop her was Alzheimer's.

So @OorWullie, you could have another 40 years of fun experiences ahead of you. So don't leave them waiting.

@Yosheel : Or 40 seconds. Death does not discriminate.

Y'all heard it here guys. You could drop dead at any moment.

So stop making plans and start saving for a coffin.

I used to live and work there in Jakarta in 2012 and 2013 and traveled all over for projects as far as Timor before the border of East Timor. Spent a lot of time in Central Java too and Surabaya. Last visited in 2016 but it was Bali.

@Yosheel You actually save money if you start a payment plan and start paying now, the price won't change so it will be cheaper than the price when you die because of inflation

-sorry that's really random but my Mum works in funerals so I hear that quite often. It's true though! It's just not a great thing to think about ...

But anyway I haven't been to Asia but I would love to go one day! I'm not very good with high temperatures but I'm not letting that stop me, after all I'll need some memories for when I'm old and in a rocking chair

@Kimyonaakuma
"But anyway I haven't been to Asia but I would love to go one day! I'm not very good with high temperatures but I'm not letting that stop me, after all I'll need some memories for when I'm old and in a rocking chair."

By any chance, if you want to visit Indonesia, be sure to choose Surabaya, East Java as your vacation destination.
There is Citraland in Surabaya, located at West Surabaya, peoples called Citraland as Singapore of Indonesia. I oftenly go to Super Mall Surabaya / Pakuwon Trade Center as my ritual to play DDR X2 Arcade at TimeZone and it located near of entrance of Citraland. Maybe if you lucky enough, you can find me at Super Mall Surabaya playing at TimeZone or hang out at my local game shop Game Inn at Pakuwon Trade Center (Super Mall Surabaya and Pakuwon Trade Center were merged into 1 building, now added Pakuwon Mall as New Expansion). Recognize my face from my avatar.

I will be honest, I don't know much about Indonesia. I am originally from the US and in the US they teach an extremely America-Europe central version of "world history". Meaning the rest of the world aside from the US and Europe is taught in the context of how it relates to them. Since aside from the colonial era Indonesia has had little major interaction with America and Europe, I learned very little about it. Personally I choose Japan to study, as I have studied the language and history, purely out of selfish personal interest. Thus I now live in Japan.

But I am always open to hear about places I know little about and regret that my education was so self-centered. Perhaps someday I would be able to visit Indonesia. One never knows what the future may hold.

Don't worry, no country would force their kids to learn every single thing that happened in every single country in the world ever.

And every country will decide to teach their versions of events whenever possible.

It's not just the US.

@Anti-Matter Sounds like a fun place! Maybe I will see you there

I'd say that Scotland is similar by having a self-centred education too for the majority of time. History at my school was basically "Countries that Britain Colonised and/or Destroyed", which was miserable. We only occasionally learned about other countries if something terrible happened like a bombing or a dictatorship. I wish I was able to learn about other countries such as Indonesia, because Asia seems like a great, beautiful place but here it just gets narrowed down to 3 or four countries...

Hey Anti-Matter,

What school do you work at?

I have visited Surabaya before for a short period. I took a train there from Bandung, where I used to live. It was over Idul Fitri, so it was jam-packed full of people, everyone smoking and no one wanting to open a window because masuk angin. That was back in 2008.

I also am a librarian (and a teacher). I got to work as the librarian at my school outside of Bandung for a year. Now I'm a librarian at a public library near Wollongong, Australia. I'd really like to come and visit my friends in Indonesia again, but I have two young babies right now, so the timing is not right. Maybe in a few years my family will make a return to Java.

@Nitwit13
I'm working at Godwins School Surabaya as Librarian & Drawing Teacher (Extra Curricular).

School Academic year 2018 - 2019 will be started on 16 July 2018, Monday.

You can check my Instagram & my Deviantart on my Profile.

Btw, my avatar is my Real looking.

Are you really ok with sharing the address to your school on the internet just like that?

@Yosheel
Well, since No one from my working place (my partner teachers, principal and owner of the school) ever knew if i was an User here, i guess it's okay.

Well, you see, the real danger is the people you don't know.

Who knows what kind of weirdos could see the address.

@Yosheel
I think i will edit my last post.

Edit: Done. I erased the address, but still mentioned my working place name because he asked me.