Java

After our trip to Bali we flew to Java, the next island over.  John's cousin Marc is a foreign service officer and was working at the consulate in the city of Surabaya.  We got to stay with his family for a few days and it was, seriously, so much fun.  By now they are already moving on to their next post in Russia.

The first night we were there their cook maid "flying fish" for us.  Yum!  Just kidding.  I didn't actually try any. 

The day after we arrived, Amy (Marc's wife) took us to Taman Safari.  It was probably the highlight of our entire trip to SE Asia.  It is a zoo that has a drive-through section and a petting zoo section.  We drove past all sorts of animals who came over to the car and took bananas from our hands.  When we drove through the sections that had predators in them, there would be a sign indicating that we should roll our windows up.  But we could have rolled them down if we wanted to, no one was checking on us.  So crazy. 

 Anna was asleep when we got there and she woke up with this llama's head a couple of inches from her face!  This picture is a few seconds after that.  I am so mad that I didn't have my camera ready when it happened.  She wasn't scarred, but she did have a really surprised and confused look on her face!

There were hundreds of deer that we drove past and after a while I was like, "why do they have so many deer at this place?" and then I realized that they were probably just food for the lions and tigers and bears.

I didn't get a good picture of them, but we drove past a lion and some lionesses.  One of them started chasing the car, and then its started attacking the bumper as we were driving away!  There were huge bite marks on the bumper!  That was one of the only times I've seen John get scared.  He had Anna on his lap and I think it scared him to think about what might have happened to her if we had had the window rolled down when that Lion came after us.

Hippo crossing.

This was awesome.  We got to go in and hold a baby Orangutan.  She was about the same age as Anna.  At first Anna was curious and wondering what it was.  We tried to switch and have John hold the Orangutan while I held Anna, but the Orangutan wouldn't go to John and only wanted me to hold her.  I couldn't hold both of them and suddenly Anna got frustrated and made a head dive toward the Orangutan, trying to attack it or something.  It was really cute.

Then she got to pet a baby tiger!  This was scary.  I mean, who has ever been to a place that lets children pet tigers.

And then she got to pet baby Simba!  We concluded that these guys must have been sedated because they were awake, but they just sat there and were so tame when we were hanging out with them.

We also saw a group of grown-up Orangutans.  We got to toss them some bananas and it was so weird to see how human-like they were.  Especially when they got up and walked on two legs.

We got to ride an elephant!  It was a little scary for me, because it was such a wobbly ride and Anna was also wiggling around.  But it was awesome.

We ate lunch at a restaurant that looked into a holding area for these white tigers.  One of the tigers came to see us and Anna was really excited about that.

This picture is an example of what happened to us everywhere we went with Anna.  Everywhere in Indonesia people wanted to take pictures of Anna.  They were just so fascinated with her.  

I am missing other pictures from our trip, including a visit to a cigarette factory where hundreds of female employees hand-roll cigarettes at lightning speed all day long.  The rest of the time we just relaxed and hung out with John's cousins.  They are one of the neatest families we have ever met. They have four kids who are all extremely smart, kind, and funny.  I hope we get to visit them again someday.