Running around today!

After a quick jaunt to the hospital to pick up our medicals, we returned (30 min walk) via the Co-op, a local grocery store.

We now had the medicals we needed to finalize Tri's adoption, but we still needed to print out one more letter about our temporary residency in Jakarta. You'd think this would be a simple task, but not when you don't speak the language. I thought for sure that someone could point us to a small shop that we could print out the letter.

Unfortunately we were consistently told that we would need to go downtown to do this. Instead, I opted to hop on a bicycle and go exploring, sure that I could find someplace to print. Sure enough, within a few minutes....I had sniffed out the internet/gaming cafe. In I went, leaving the bicycle out on the sidewalk unlocked. A woman asked if I wanted to lock it up, and I waved her off, saying it was no big deal.

After about five minutes of deciphering the Korean language on the computer (a Korean kid had last logged in), I was able to get the documents printed. I paid my bill, and went outside to my bike......

Can you guess what had happened???

Probably not. My bike was there, but it was locked up to some other bike and there was no one around!

I figured this was some scheme to charge for bike parking and so I asked around. Eventually I found out that the owner of the cafe had locked it up trying to be helpful. No problem, where is the owner? Oh, he's gone to the market to buy food for the day. I was a little annoyed, but quickly spotted a tavern with cold beer. I was about to go wait it out, when someone came running from the cafe with the key.....crisis averted (though not my thirst!)