And we're off! Indonesia or bust!

We made it to the Jakarta airport (where we have a bunch of hours until our next flight). The plan is to travel for 2.5 weeks in Central Java, Lombok, and Flores. Now let's backtrack a little to what it took to get here.

The days before most trip departures tend to be stressful, but life seemed extra chaotic before this trip. Planning this trip to Indonesia has been fun - I enjoy researching places and figuring out a plan. It seemed like everything was falling into place with my multi-tabbed, detail oriented spreadsheet. However, the decision to have our floors refinished while we are away meant that we had to remove everything on our 1st floor from the floors, walls, and closets. Oof! That was a bear! 

Luca is not sure what to think of the house without furniture.

We had to tape off all of the book shelves to protect them from the floor refinishing dust.

Our empty bedroom 

We left the couches for James to remove in a week 

Luca is suspicious of the packed bags...

Then came the big whammy - we ended up having to put Fundy, our dog of 13 years, down the day before we left. I have been a hot mess as a result. She was such a good dog for our family - always ready for an adventure. She crossed the Rainbow Bridge peacefully in our arms and I imagine her frolicking with her shadow, Fabio, and her doggo sibling, Tasch, who crossed before her.

Our old pup, Fundy, on her last day

A last family walk together 

I went straight from the vet to hockey, which was just what I needed (especially since I would be sweating my biscuits off in the heat of Indonesia for a while). And in the morning, we caught the 8:30 Dartmouth Coach to Logan Airport. We grabbed some food and boarded Japan Airlines to Tokyo (about 14 hrs). The food on the plane was kind of like bento boxes which was cool, but it was just middle of the road for taste.

Kara's Orange Crush hockey team 

Food at Logan Airport 

Ready for take-off 

Boston skyline 

A cool heart shaped island just outside of Boston 

Bento box type meal on Japan Airlines. The miso soup was poured out of a juice pitcher into paper cups 

In Tokyo, we had a 2 hr layover where we had fun with playing with all of the buttons on the toilet and Dan caught some more Zzzz's.

So many buttons to press on the toilets in Tokyo. Of course, I tried all of them.

A weary traveler 

Much of this meal was a mystery as to what we were eating.

After over 24 hrs of flights, we made it to Jakarta. The visa line took a while even though we had done it online, but once we cleared immigration and customs, it was smooth sailing to our Airport Hotel of capsules where we would spend a handful of hours trying to get on local time before our next leg of the journey to Yogyakarta.

Welcome sign at the Jakarta airport 

Our airport hotel 

The capsules are perfect Kara size

It would have been a tight squeeze for both of us to fit so we had 2 capsules for the 2 of us.

Dan had the top capsule which looked fun

Nighty night Dan - sweet dreams