Life in Jakarta

Hi, my name is Bing, and I live in Jakarta. Today I'm gonna tell you some general thing about this city, in case you curious about it, or you just want to know things in a place you never been before.

1. Giant Oven
One first thing that crossed my mind about Jakarta is heat. The city very hot and dry, sometimes dusty and full of traffic pollution. The temperature is usually around 28-36, but it could be 38 in some crazy days. If you missed summer, or hate winter, this place is right for you. Come to Jakarta, you don't need to pay much for sauna.

2. Traffic Jam
I know, it happens in most of busy city. The problem in Jakarta with traffic is because too many bus, too many cars, too many motorcycle. Even with thousands buses robbing serving the city, traffic jam still is a problem. Based on my personal experience, one of the cause is too many people live in west area, working on east. That's why in the morning, everybody go from west to east region, and after the work done tired people going home to west. And probably wrong construction of roads could be one of the reasons too.

3. Forget about park, go to Mall
Yep, don't even think about finding a good inspirational park here, Jakarta is about mall. And they will suck your wallet to dry. If you are poor, get ready to date with your lover to the nearest stinky giant trash hole called "Ciliwung".

4. Street Food sometimes contain poison
No kidding. People might poison the other to feed their own belly. Even some local channel on television had their own show to discuss this issue. The price keep rising, some people might lose their job because they can't buy basic ingredients to the food they selling. As an alternative, some street food seller you might find on the side road might kill a rat to make a meat ball for you to eat. I know we used to eat rats too, but you don't wanna know how rat lives in Jakarta's sewer. More rumors about that, they mix some preservative substance as borax or formaline into those food. Sometimes to make their fries crispy, they melt plastic into the frying oil before they fry tempe, mendoan or batagor.

5. Some Street Singers are actually thugs
When you eat in tent restaurant in Jakarta, big chance that street singers approach you. They sometimes sounds awkwardly loud, harsh as if they rob you with their tone. They will not leave until you give them one or two thousands, and will get upset when you keep your cool and ignore them completely. I'm not very sure, but I think they are thugs. Because some of them even threaten bus passengers to give them money without actually doing anything. If the driver report this to police, they will be in danger.

Okay, those are my 5 lists about what you might find in Jakarta. I hope you find this informative and useful. Welcome to Jakarta!