ni hao, it's nika on tour: 2015-12-06

Halloooo apa kabar!
Welcome to Indonesia and the many sided and fast life here.
Jakarta, a city of horrible air polution, endless traffic jams, dirty streets, no public transportation and no walking ways. Trash is burned around the city or thrown to the harbour and the contrast of poverty and welth is far to big. Local food is too spicy, too oily, never vegetarian and production is crazy cheap. From outside, the city seems to be very dark in daytime and nighttime, while all the light is inside: The local peoples favourite thing to do in their freetime is hanging out in shopping malls or clubbing.
However I also had positive first impressions of the city. One of them would be the people I met what is one of the most important points in travelling for me.
Indonesia is populated by people of various migrations, creating a diversity of cultures, ethnicities, and languages. The Islam became the dominant religion from the end of the 16th century. For the most part, Islam overlaid and mixed with existing cultural and religious influences. Bali and some small parts of other islands are the only places that stayed untouched and nowadays are Hindu or Buddhist. The Dutch became the leading power in the 17th century but their rule ended with the Japanese ivasion in 1945 after what Indonesja became independent. An attempted coup in 1965 led to a violent army-led anti-communist purge in which over half a million people were killed. The Chinese minority was also a victim of the rebellion.
If you ask me, Indonesia has an interesting but also a hard history that leaded to a various and many sided population on the one hand but also a population that has a reserved attitude to live especially in a metropole region around Jakarta, that is filled by 30 Million people of the 200 Million in Indonesia, that is the forth populous country in the world.

However, I met open minded happy people which always smile and find something to laugh about. Thanks to them, I went to places where I had delicous dinners such as fresh seafood from the ocean and of course had fun during the nights going to beautiful rooftop bars, festivals etc.
In general, I should stress that Jakarta is not a touristic attraction and except of good museums that tell the deep history of the country one can't really visit historical places or do a kind of seightseeing. Jakarta is good for work and business, so if you have a fulltime job and something to do until the night you don't get bored or will stuck in traffic. The most important thing is to care to have enough free time and holiday to visit the great nature of Indonesia or the wonderful beaches on the islands, where the live is more easy going and the attitude of the people is more free, so that you can just walk around and enjoy your time.
Nevertheless, my first week in Jakarta was amazing.
I arrived Wednesday night but my adventure started straighlty, on the same day. Surprisingly, there was only one girl left in the agency and she was about to leave in 2 days also. All the other girls went home for christmas or their contracts ended and there were no new girls coming for the next 2 weeks as they told me. In my flat lives a guy who works as an assistent in the agency office and Varia, the only girl left who have stayed here for 3 months showed me and another guy from Greece that day. Maybe I should start by telling you where I would live. It is a huge complex of appartements with their own few shops containing fresh fruits and vegetables and a small supermarket, such as 2 huge swimmingpools with a restaurant and bar next to it and a gym. All of this is on the 5th floor above the parking with a nice view on the Skyline. I suppose they have even more things around but thats already everything you need to stay alive without going out of a building complex.
To continue, it was a beautiful sunny day, so after the very long sleep we went to the swimming pool with the restaurant and ordered some drinks and food and listened to Varia telling us how live would be in Jakarta. This evening she was up to celebrate her last night in a club and invited us to join her. Of course we joined her and this night I met so many important people already such as one of my bookers and a couple of people who planned to go to the huge electronic festival that weekend called DJakarta Warehouse Project. We had a lot of fun that night not regarding of having a schedule the next day. The agency planned to shoot a new campaign for their 8 years anniversary, so we had to get up at 7 to get make up and hair styled. After a very sleepy styling we went to the old town of Jakarta where we shooted a very sleepy campaign together with local boys and girls. That night another guy arrived from Italy and the four foreign models of us we decided to go to the highest floor of their building to check out the view and chill around there. We were bad guys and broke the rule by breaking the door upstairs with a knife. However, it was worth it, I really loved the view and I am sure I will come back. The next day was full of 3 Castings, what is a lot as we all go there by car. Its similar to Shanghai, we get a pick up and go from one casting to another. Just the traffic is worse. As Jakarta has no public transportation everyone goes by car everywhere, what causes the biggest traffic jam's I have ever experienced. Ways that normally takes you less than a minute last half an hour and waiting for the green light can feel like ages. So three castings usually start in the morning and end in the evening. When I arrived back I got a message of a new friend who got a ticket for this festvial for me in his VVIP area. You can believe how happy I was to go out that evening after sitting in the car the whole day and to the top it was this huge festival that supposed to be fun. So I had one hour to get ready and was picked up by his friend and a girl who came from Singapore just for this concert weekend. So we went to eat and drink something first and got to know each other better before we were heading to the concert place and straightly dived into the deep crowd but didn't stay there for to long as we moved to the nice area with space champagne and a perfect view. The night was amazing, we partyied to the music of JackÜ from Skrillex and Galanits which I really enjoyed. Next day I slept long until I got a call to go for a lunch with the same guys and we spent the whole afternoon together until we went to the second round of the concert but this night I didn't go to bed. After the last good song we drove to a huge club with a cool light technic but this was even boring for me after the huge concert. So we went for a breakfast close to my appartement. I woke up for lunch with them again and we hang out around the restaurant having coffee and talks. In the evening I was picked up by a guy who borrowed his guitar to a model that left the appartement already, so they asked me to give it back to him. As a thanks to that he invited me to his own restsurant where I had a delicious salmon filet, salad and dessert and met some new people such as a famous actor of Indonesia too. As we were on the same wavelength we decided to meet up again this week. The next day was a big day for me. I had my first job aleady and it was a campaign shoot for a cosmetic brand called PAC. It was a long day, a shooting of 12 hours, but the team was nice and it was fun to work with them. As I was very tired when I got home I decided to take it easy that night and it was the right decision. One of my friends called me and asked me out for dinner reminding me that I had only breakfast. I had a nice rest that night as I could sleep enough before going to the immigration centre in Jakarta to apply for a Kitas, a kind of work permit. I've done that pretty fast and got home to start getting ready for the agencies party, the 8 years anniversary celebration. A lot of clients were invited, company owners, designers, models, actors and their friends. I was picked up with the model guys of my agency and we were supposed to arrive in 30min but it took us 2 hours to go there. However, I was not too sad about it, as I managed to take 2 skype calls and start writing this blogpost. The evening was very nice. I met friends, had a great salmon dinner and lots of good red wine and useful talks with regular clients. I had a good ending laughing and joking with some investors from Holland. Getting home within 15 minutes I fell down in my bed and slept for whole 5 hours, as I had another job the next day for little money but good reference. It was a magazine beauty editorial called Baccarat.
The team was awesome, they ordered me breakfast from Starbucks and let me sleep on a couch for around 1 hour as the make up artist was too late. Everything was easy going and the pictures will be great as well.
In the evening I was invited by the guitarist to a rooftop skybar. I met some colleagues of him and we had some wine and nice cocktails before we met his good friend the actor again and went to a club and danced a bit. I met my friend from the Dwp festival again and he dropped me off home soon.
I hope now you understand why I couldn't write you for such a long time.
I will try my best to come back to you very soon!
Cheers :)