Sundays when people would be at church praying for their sins, I’d usually be in the city performing great dirty biblical style sins onto my credit card… yes, I’d be out clothes shopping.. how heterosexual of me…
Today i needed some spiritual guidance. Thankfully Jakarta is indeed a shopping heaven.
Knowing i was bored shitless, my cousin offered to drive me to the closest shopping mall. It was huge.
No, I mean HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE.
Several storeys high, jam packed full of outlet stores, a multiplex cinema and a food hall featuring dishes from every corner of the globe, the place was absafuckinglutely packed. There would have been tens of thousands of people there, christmas eve at the centro galleria wouldn’t be remotely as busy as it was here.
Things weren’t that cheap in comparison to home - unless you went for the higher priced stuff. I spotted Pierre Cardain business shirt and tie i has bought last season in David Jones for $120. They had it for $35. not bad.
About an hour into it, i stumbled into a book store and immediately fell in love. books lined the shelves at a quarter of the price of home. there was a book I immediately HAD to have - it was an architecture book detailing unique building designs used in Europe in the 80’s. a hardcover monolith, it was as thick as a box of tissues, as wide as the Sydney Morning Herald and weighed a tonne thanks to it’s ultra glossy fully illustrated pages. I had to concede though. It simply was too big and would severely cause luggage issues. A book like that would easily cost a few hundred bucks at home - assuming a book store would even import it. There it was, taunting me with it’s $50 price tag. damn book tease.
As i browsed the English hardcover aisle I bumped into Heather, a tiny 5 foot something brunette law student from Brisbane with piercing blue eyes, a mischievous impish smile and a flawless tanned complexion. She had taken a year off from her studies to travel Asia. We met while both reaching for the same book about the rich history of the American democrats. She immediately recognised my Aussie accent when i apologised and we started to chat about our mutual interests of the American political system, their upcoming elections and how corrupted the Indonesian parliament was. The topic then swung to tastes in music, literature and the usual casual fluff. i didn’t care what the subject was - out of the thousands of people in the jam packed mall that we were in, i had found a friend.
A friend me likey.
After 20 mins of banter, i invited her for a coffee at the Starbucks round the corner. She momentarily stared off into space as if she was having an internal debate with herself, then she apologetically declined explaining she only popped into the store while her partner Gina was in the shop opposite browsing for wigs.
Hmm, a traveling lesbian law student in Jakarta.
Good for her.
We exchanged email addresses and i bid her farewell with a kiss on the cheek. She grabbed the book we both were looking at and promised i could have it if i ever visited Brissie. Then she vanished into the crowd as if she was Lestat and the crowd was smoke pouring a shitload too much fog onto a movie set.
damn, i really wanted that book.
I then moseyed on over to the over sized food hall. It had everything I would have needed. KFC, A&Ws, Wendy’s, Kirispy Kreme, Boost Juice, Taco Bell, White Castle and any other American classics. I love cheap yankie fast foods and aussie food that pretends to be cheap yankie food but pretends it doesn’t.
I crave it. Like a junkie who craves for a cheap smack pack.
If you want to impress me, turn up at my front door naked. if you want to make me fall in love with you, turn up naked with a taco bell meal with extra cheese in one hand and a 2 litre bottle of a root beer in the other. If you brought along a Starbucks caramel frappuccino, I’d probably pleasure you orally as well….. not sure how you could hold the cup though. given you’re using both hands to hold the meal and the root beer….
Tonight tho, Japanese seemed the way to go. I ordered as much sushi, sashimi and yakitori as AU$50 could get me. I ended up eating enough raw fish to reconstitute half a whale and got a bad case of heartburn. I didn’t care - the food was fresh and cheap. Plus it was the first real food i had feasted on in what seemed like weeks.
My phone chimed, i had spent 5 hours at the shopping mecca but it had only felt like an hour. My ride would be waiting for me downstairs. I trundled down the escalators and the crowd parted in front of me. This seemed to be a religious moment for me… I was moses, escaping a cruel world in search for better life.
But it was all in reverse.
Beyond me was my past life which I had to return to. Behind me, my own personal paradse. I turned to take one last look at the holy pilgramge i had just took.
My deciples: overtly cheerful shop assistants.
My god: the giant plastic colonel sanders thar stood before the food court.
My heaven: the tubs of fake cream cheese stored under the counter at Taco Bell which beg to be poured over my begging nubile body.
I promised myself that i would someday return, i doubt know when and i don’t know how. But the second coming IS imminent. I swear to god and the root beer floats at A&W, the all American family restaurant. you know I’m serious when i swear on a fast food menu.
forever and ever, RAmen.
Over the past hour I’ve been lying in bed staring at the ceiling. For some reason my sleeping tablets I took on the way back from dinner haven’t kicked in so I’m here wide awake.
