Meeting krumpers in Jakarta

📍 Jakarta, 12th of August 2018.

Whatever the reason - either the beers the previous night, the weather, the jet lag or the extensive walking, but we slept long and well. Although this meant no yoga nor pool (boo), we felt rested and ready to start a new day.

Getting a SIM card in Jakarta

After having relocated and having had a yum quick lunch in a restaurant adjacent to our new accommodation, we set off to finally get a sim card for Indonesia. This kind of food is perfect for lunch - it is light, yet filling. Althought the soup was hot and spicy and made me sweat a lot, I still enjoyed very much 🙂

In May 2018 Indonesia passed a new legislation whereby every SIM card issued needs to be properly registered. If you don’t have an Indonesian passport, it means you must go to the official telecom shop. Yey! *raised eyebrow* We opted for Telkomsel which supposedly has the best coverage even on remote islands (David needs to be connected to work). Luckily, in Jakarta there is a 24/7 Telkomsel office (isn’t it funny, no matter where you go everyone seems to have issues with their telecommunication providers ?). 12 GB for 6 EUR sounds fair.

Krump community in Indonesia

A couple of weeks before we left Berlin, David reached out to the Krump community over Facebook to arrange some meetups or just collect some tips and insights for traveling. So, today we were meeting Lil Shutdown and his lovely girlfriend, who is also a dancer and a dancing teacher. The session was arranged in South Jakarta at a neighbourhood community and youth centre. We arrived in the early afternoon and before the session started, could somewhat sneakily watch local athletes train in cheerleading (impressive!), martial arts, dancing and doing general work-outs while chatting with our newly met friends.

Personally, not being part of the krump community, I find it amazing, how tight, supportive and welcoming it is. Not knowing each other at all, the two dancers instantly connected and could exchange impressions, opinions and ideas about their common topics (tbh, I really had nothing to add there except for asking some (perhaps silly) questions ). If you think about it, isn’t it amazing that sharing the same passion, you can travel to the other side of the world and meet like-minded people eager to connect?

A bit later, the two guys were joined by a female krumper. The session was fun and intense, especially because on top of the weather, David, having forgotten his shoes, was dancing in flip-flops (not the best choice of footwear for this kind of dance). In-between the rounds there was a call for prayer, so a little pause was made. From what we understood so far, Indonesia has a wide spectrum of religions practiced, all in an apparent harmony (not completely convinced about that, but at least the people we have spoken to share these believes). The majority are Muslims, although seemingly not as religious as in other parts of the world. We will definitively be following up on this in the future posts.

The ten rounds of krumping were fascinating to watch and to see not only the moves, the cheering and hyping that accompanies it, but also the emotions that go into every performance - there is always a story being told. Although still not my preferred dance style, I can understand how people are drawn to the dance and everything that comes with it.

Delicious street food dinner

As energy resources were depleted, it was time for a well-deserved dinner. Lil Shutdown took us to a corner of Jl. Kemang Raya and Jl. Kemang I– a nice street food location, where we finally indulged in trying out all sorts of stuff upon recommendation of our hosts. In the first round (super hungry) David got us a plate of all sorts of food from a 28-item buffet (40K IDR or 2.4 EUR) – rice, fried tofu, chicken, egg, beef… (sorry, we’ll get better at reporting on food – we were way too hungry to take pictures nor to think of remembering what we were eating). This was great to have a taste of different things – kind of like padang, but with choosing what you actually want to try beforehand (maybe not ideal for when you’re hungry ).

Next came a bakso soup (Asian meatballs) and other kinds of boiled meat and dumplings. I loved the flavourful bouillon, David – the rest (teamwork!).

The dessert was the absolute winner – sop buah (or es buah) – iced fruit soup (with a bit of condensed milk?) with all sorts of fruits like jackfruit, melon, apple, avocado, pitaya (dragon fruit), mango and and… I could eat this every day! Sooo delicious for near no nothing (24K)!