BOGOR

About one hour south of Jakarta is a town named Bogor. I went there with Treena (Canadian work friend who is in Jakarta for one year, like me). We spent the afternoon at the Botanical Gardens. It's a beautiful little oasis outside of town. There is a very large variety of trees, plants, cacti, etc. (I stink at botany, so that's about as detailed as I can get). There were a ton of locals there that kept on walking up to Treena and me saying "Sir, sir, picture, picture". All these people wanted was their picture taken with one of us...it was very weird!!
After the gardens, we went in search for the gong factory in town. It was closed for the day, but there was a guy there that showed us around (it's actually a concrete shack-type building with the words "gong factory" spraypainted on the front). They heat up the metal and pound it into the proper size and thickness and hand carved wooden frames for the gongs to hang on. I haven't bought any yet, but I defintely plan on it...wouldn't a gong look good in my front hallway?
Then on to the main purpose of our trip to Bogor. Dinner with some new friends we met in Ultimate Frisbee...all in all a great daytrip. We still did partake in one of Bogor's most famous pasttimes...shopping!! Bogor is well known for it's outlets for clothing, bags and purses. We'll save that for the next trip!!!