Idul Fitri in Bandung

Selamat Idul Fitri semua! (happy Idul Fitri all) Today is the first day after Ramadan (i.e. the first day that Muslims are allowed to eat (or drink, or smoke, or ...) during the day. Last night the city was pretty electric with people celebrating: lots of fireworks, people driving around in the back of trucks banging on drums, etc.
Then today the city seemed pretty empty (most people spend this day with their families; think Christmas day I guess), but I didn't see that as much as a bunch of us went hiking outside of Bandung. We started off seeing some bunkers (basically just man-made tunnels into the mountain side); there were WWII Japanese bunkers as well as some Dutch bunkers. After we wandered through those, we covered the 5km to a waterfall. The waterfall itself was pretty nice, but all of the garbage really detracted from it. The wild monkeys (i.e. still afraid of people, not running towards us looking for food!) did add to it however. I took a bunch of pictures (couldn't catch the monkeys though), and when I get a chance, I'll put them in this ongoing album:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=32636274&l=fe03cc49cf&id=15804233

Let's see what else has been going on? Yesterday after getting in a nap after lunch (the night before we celebrated one guys birthday) a couple of us took an angkot (short hand for public transport, but not quite the buses you might be thinking; more minibuses with bench seats placed around the outside...interesting, but cheap) to go do some shopping. Easy enough right? Unfortunately we took the angkot going the wrong way and ended up taking an hour to cover what is basically a 20-30 min walk. Anyways we eventually got there. I ended up getting a pair of legit Abercrombie $40 shorts for $10, a $30 T-shirt for $3.50 and two pairs of Clairborne slacks for $5.50 each!
After that I met up with some people for dinner, but first I had a strawberry juice. I bring that up to highlight all the delicious juices I've been having here. The 2 odd ones (at least to the US) are avocado (plenty of added sugar makes it more like a milkshake) and a green bean juice (again plenty of sugar). Both of them are amazing! While on the topic of fruit, I've added to my list of foods while here: durien (smells absolutely disgusting, rotten garbage and eggs, but I like the taste), snakefruit (surprising texture, and very unique flavor, but pretty good) and mangostein (again surprising texture, but very good flavor)
While on the topic of food, last night I ate at a really good duck restaurant, but the more exciting experience was when we ate at a place called Blind. As you might be able to guess, the calling card for this restaurant was that you ate in the dark. When I heard this I assumed it was just a little dark; oh, no! Pitch black, get led to you table and have to shovel the food into your mouth (or at least I did!) dark. It was interesting, and I'm glad I went, but I don't think I'll be going back any time soon!
Ok that oughta be enough for now. Hopefully I'll get another posting in before I leave for Sidrap (next Saturday morning).