Jogjakarta, Indonesia

On July 31st I stayed at Jogjakarta, Indonesia for 3 days. I lived in the house of my dad's colleague whom my sisters and I call Auntie Celia. My grandparents lived in a hotel called Puri Artha. Auntie Celia is a single mother who adopted a little girl from China named Camilla. She also has a helper named Mba Tini (pronounced batini) and a friend named Auntie Suraya who lives with them.
The first day I went to Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple. There was an earthquake though, so they was still construction, so we couldn't go in all the temples. Prambanan is made of thousands of temples, focusing on six main temples. Each of the temples have inside either a god or goddess or their transportation. One was Shiva, god of destruction, whose transportation is Nandi, a cow. Another is Vishnu, the highest god, whose transportation is Garuda, an Eagle. The last one is Brahma, the creator, whose transportation is a swan. We only walked into the temple of Nandi and Shiva.

The second day I got mosquito bites. A bunch of them! All over my face and arms. I also got a few on my eyes and because I have an allergic reaction to mosquito bites on my eyes, they got really swollen. So I didn't go to the bird market, where they sold pets, mostly birds, and I didn't get to go to the water palace. While everyone else was gone, I fell asleep and woke up around 11:15 am, and then started reading until my mom called and asked me how I was and if I felt well enough to eat lunch with them. But I did get to see the Ramayana ballet. Sadly, I fell asleep half way through, and I missed the part where they use REAL fire to burn a "house."

The next day, we went to Borobudur. Borobudur is the biggest Buddhist temple!! We went all the way up to the top. At the top there were many stupas, ("a dome-shaped shrine erected by Buddhists," according to the dictionary.) All of them, except for the biggest one, had a Buddha in it. Some of them didn't have heads! We all tried to touch the Buddha inside because it is said that if you wish something and touch the Buddha inside the stupa, the wish would come true! And I touched one!