Yesterday we took an outing to the Jakarta Zoo, and our low expectations proved to be ill-founded.  It’s about 5 miles from our building down a big road which reminds us of the valley in So Cal.  There were shops and little restaurants just packed along the sides endlessly, sort of like a more run-down version of strip malls. 

The zoo is really big and it was fun to see the types of animals they had there.  We never knew that there are so many species of peacocks, gibbons and civets (whatever they are).  Most of the orangutans were absent, but there were two funny ones that we watched for a while.  The only thing that sucked was that all the other people there were throwing peanuts and cookies to the animals, who were apparently used to it.  One of the elephants spat on Tom because he thought Tom had some snacks for him.   We also saw lots of big cats, including three of the most gigantic lions we’ve ever seen.  As is to be expected, they were all lazing around, because that’s all big cats at zoos ever do (at least here the heat makes it entirely understandable).  There were also the famous komodo dragons which are indeed as big and ugly as they look in pictures.  They’re pretty impressive, and now we don’t have to go to Komodo.  (I think the only thing on that island is a platform where you can watch guys throw goats to the lizards to eat.)

When we stopped for a snack, we also saw the usual housecats hanging around looking for food.  But we saw three cats and we’re convinced all three were very pregnant. And then we saw yet another pregnant one around our apartment when we got home.  Weird.

And to answer the question of how wet you can actually get during a rainstorm in the tropics during the wet season?  Very.  No we mean it.  Our clothes were so wet that we had to put them in the washing machine and showering made us drier.  I think everyone who saw us running home without our umbrella was shaking their heads and thinking, there go some more stupid white people.