I stupidly stayed up till 2 am reading so dragging myself out of bed was especially hard. The sun rises at about 5:30 am so it was already very bright outside. AJ was taking the day to work on her finals so I spent the day doing things on my own. We drove up some steep and narrow roads starting into the mountains to a forest conservation park, Taman Hutan Raya Juanda. Bandung is really hilly. The traffic was already in full swing, but we easily got a parking spot in the lot. T went to hang out at the cafe while A and I hiked. We ended up doing a total of about 7 km, but didn’t go all the way to the end. The number of people around really picked up as well as the motorbikes on the trail. You had to keep hopping to the side as they blazed through. Apparently you can pay to get a ride up to the end… This park has two sets of military caves - one from the Dutch and the other from the Japanese occupation. The Dutch caves were nicely formed, organized with drainage canals. You could tell they had been there a lot longer than the warren of Japanese ones. Sadly the water in the river was still really polluted and filled with trash.

Supposedly you can see monkeys along the trail, but we didn’t spot any. We picked T up at the cafe and drove back. Getting out of the parking lot was quite the challenge. Weaving in and out of all the parked cars. All the “attendants” aka locals getting tipped for helping with the maneuvering. On the way back, we stopped by a cafe, where A bought me some traditional snacks and sweets. It all looked so yummy.

Later in the afternoon, post-nap, I decided to take a walk to a sculpture park, NuArt, about 30 minutes away. It was a hot walk. Sidewalks aren’t really a thing here either, but it’s a bit more dangerous with cars and motorbikes weaving around.I definitely got stared at and some hellos. Nothing too creepy, until this one guy started following me. He spoke English really well and was ranting about how he’d save my country with positivity. Of course then he started talking about the Quran and gave me his full name - like 10 names long. I think some people called him off, or because I finally got two blocks down the street when I turned, he gave up. I didn’t want to be really rude, so I kept saying okay. Here I am representing all of America with my actions. People already hate us enough.

The area around the park was in a rich neighborhood and needless to say I took a different path back near a university. The guard at the gate tried to talk with me, but all in Indonesian so I just smiled and kept walking. The outdoor sculptures were nice, but the cafe there was closed as well as the exhibition hall. The hall was under heavy construction, otherwise although it was Sunday, I’m not sure why the rest was closed. It wasn’t really worth the walk. I stopped by the grocery store to buy some bottled water on the way back. Not risking tap water here on top of street food, ha.