ni hao, it's nika on tour: Jakarta 2015

Working working working

My second week had a good start and the best end ever. It started with a job for a jewerly show together with the guys of my agency. It was easy going and very nice as we were in a great hotel and the make up was done in one of their rooms so I could sleep the whole day until the show on their huge comfortable bed. In the evening I just had some dinmer of local food with my roommates and went to bed early as..guess what? I had a job the next day again. It was for a clothing catalog in another city called Kerevaci. The team was super nice, we shooted in the house of the photographer which was huge, I had endless coffee and fruits and everyone cared a lot for me. I have to say that there were many clothes to shoot and some of them even twice as they needed them for for lookbook poses and for catalog as well. What was specially cute is their small dog which was always happy running around and cuddling with everyone and asking for kisses and hugs. As a final team pictures I took her on my arms and she seemed to be veery confortable there. I came home late and just went out for some light dinner and rested in bed. The next day was free for me so I went to our great pool upstairs with my roomie guys and we had some fresh fruity shakes and a good morning swim. In the afternoon we all went to a mall for lunch together with the guys models and I tryed a vegetable cake Indonesian style called Martabak for the first time and I liked it. After that we decided to see something of the city as I asked the guys to show me around for many times and they said there is only one historial monument outside that's worth to visit. Its the national monument of Indonesia and it was build to symbolise the freedom and independence of the country. Its very high and the top is formed as a fire flame. Around that monument is a park where we walked around and you can see the big white mosque and also a cathedral of the city from there. We had very nice afternoon and came back home and I went for dinner with my friend and his good friend a good photographer here in town especially for underwater shootings. We had a nice talk and decided to wait for a free day to shoot together. Arriving home I met my new roommate, a girl from Ukraine arrived, so we were two female models now. We talked arrived bit but then I slept early as I had the earliest pick up ever at 5am for a job in Bandung, a city 2 to 3 hours away from Jakarta. But that was no problem for me as I was looking forward to moment I waited for months for. My lovely and super missed mom was going to arrive that day in the evening. She booked her flight a few weeks ago as she knew she couldn't wait until my comeback to Germany in February. There would be holidays around Christmas and New Years Eve and how could I spend those days alone? Next day I just woke up got into the bus with my pillow and cozy clothes and continued sleeping. I finished the job quickly as it was for a simple catalog and lookbook shoot. It was outdoor but we shooted on some french looking street eith shops and restaurants instead of the wonderful nature that supposed to be there. I heard the city is surrounded by mountains and rainforest and has a beautiful lake. However I was happy that I didn't have the white wall behind me and could see at least something of the city. Finishing I still had around one or two hours until my bus back home so I decided to buy some nice local food for my mom and beautiful flowers like a huge white lilia. Getting all the presents I was ready to go home as soon aspossible as I couldn't wait to see my mama here finally. Guess what happened to me 5 minutes after I got into the bus? Riiiight I was stuck in traffic. I reached home after 4 hours and after my mom. So I couldn't really welcome her and she had to look around the flat on her own what made me sad a bit. However, I hugged her for 5 minutes then I cried hen I laughed and i still can't realize she was here. She really liked the flowers and the local sweets I brought her and first thing she did is take out the different kinds of cheese that she brought me from Germany as milk products in Asia either don't exist or are not good and cheese is just far too expensive. Not to forget she also brought a few bottles of wine and I had the best pick nick dinner out of small things and fruits with wine for a long time. All the models of the agency had castings on the next day but luckily there was a spot left in the car so my mom could join us. We drove around the town for almost the whole day. The last casting was around 3 hours driving from home close to the seaside. As I saw it on the map I asked the driver to take us a bit further to take a look at the ocean, but that was a mistake. What we saw there was nothing else than a dump, the dirtiest harbour I've ever seen. The water was kind of brown and yellow and the view we had was just rubbish everywhere. However we catches some nice wind did a picture and left home. Arriving home finally we needed to go for a walk because sitting in the car for such a long time was annoying and painful. I showed the new girl Darin and my mom around so my mom knew where is our pool and the restaurant where she can spend time when I'm on the job what would be the next day. Wanting to show them where is a good spot to buy the local vegetarian meal, a kind of heavy salad with veggies and potatoes topped with peanut source, I decided to take a different way home. What a mistake! Or not? I still can't really tell. I thought logically that a small so u centre et on the left would bring us on the main street as good as the same way back but that was wrong. We walked and walked but the street didn't end and we didn't want to turn back coz the street was full of a one way traffic and some cars were too bright for the street and had to drive very slowly and there were still people on bikes and motorcycles coming from the other side and disturbing the traffic even more. We felt overdressed eve though we just we are our simple clothes and the people looked at us with an expression on the face that could say "where do this divas come from and how and what did they loose here?!" But we just kept on walking and walking until I managed to find a route back home on Google maps. We passed dirty places poor people laughing and smoking eating while sitting on the ground on rubbish with animals such as goats and sheeps in the background. Finally we saw a modern building that showed us the way out of this different world. Still shocked and surprised of what we just saw we were noticed that we walked for half an hour more than it could be and decided to always take back the right and old way home to avoid these little interesting surprises. Why did I say I am still not sure whether it was a mistake or not? Because it was an experience. A huge experience about the life behind those huge building we are living at that cover the "real life" of the poor people here, right around the corner in are small hidden street. I think it was necessary to see it, for being aware of it.
We found the shopping mall right in front of our appartement and went to buy some Christmas presents as there would be a Christmas evening in the agencies private dining club in another of the building complex. We needed to buy a present at the price of 5 to 10 euros and it should be unisex because they planned to do crossing presents picking random numbers and surprising others. We had to be dressed up whether in red or green and come there hungry what we did. We were in a good mood, my mom met all my bookers and assistants, we drank wine, had food, danced together with the guy models, local and international, and got some tasty cupcakes in the end. Our presents went to the guy models what we were happy about as it was a skin care set from body shop. I got a small travel hair dryer and Darin got a bracelet. We had a great night. I had a job the next day so I woke up with my mom, had a light beakfast and accompanied my mom to the pool so she could relax while waiting for me. My job was very nice, I worked with a guy who is freelancer and we had to hold an eagle in the hands to pose with. We shooted until lunchtime when I took my salad and went back home. I spent time with mama until the evening where we were invited to the same location as the Christmas party the day before to meet the owner of our agency and his girlfriend. We had a nice dinner and some interesting talks.
We went home to sleep early as we had some amazing plans for the next day, which was the perfect start into the perfect next week: vocation mood! Keep posted.

Cheers,
Nika