Wednesday 8 September 2010

Sort of Wordless Wednesday - Taman Mini

One of the most fun days I had in Indonesia was the one U and I and our friends spend at Taman Mini, a theme park / museum of Indonesian culture outside of Jakarta. It is a crazy mix of traditional type houses with cultural displays and B-rank theme park (no big rides but there was a gondola going back and forth above the park, a monorail going around it, swan boats on the central lake, bikes for four for rent, and a range of other "rides").

I spent a lot of my time giggling - until the heat and lack of food got to me and the rest of us and we all just about collapsed en mass!

So here's Taman Mini:

the "traditional" houses and the gondola


the castle (because all good theme parks need a castle)


the fake animals (only seconds after taking this picture I had my head between the jaws of the tiger... tee hee!)


and the characters off-duty



(The characters, with their heads on, would run up to you, pose for a photo, and then ask for money... it kind of freaked me out when I saw them all later without their heads to find out they were this dodgy looking middle aged guy and a couple of toothless women in their sixties...)

4 comments:

  1. That last one is terrifying! I hate characters like that, they just freak me out. Looks like it was an interesting day ;)

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  2. I wasn't able to catch the cigarette in the guy's hand - I think he caught on that we were taking pictures of him, he came over to us (we were waiting at the bus stop) and half-heartedly tried to demand money from us... I had thought the characters were kind of oddly and very randomly cute, but after discovering who they reall were I was rather weirded out and kind of disgusted...

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  3. I love the castle - looks like Germany! I've never entirely trusted these costume-wearers - who in their right minds would pretend to be a human-size red rabbit all day? A cigarette-smoking bunny would really fit well in a Simpsons episode...
    love, Cath

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  4. The weather was somewhat cooler in Jakarta than it was/is in Tokyo, but it was still hot, and I barely wanted to wear my hat let alone a fuzzy full body suit! Ugh! But the anonimity of putting on a costume and having eerybody pose for photos with you... I can see how it might be fun.

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