Day 4, or last night and spicy Gado-Gado

Last night we attended a concert at the Salihara Center, which contains a concert space, art galleries, and studios. It was a concert of new music for winds and piano, hosted by composer Dieter Mack. They came from Freiburg, Germany, and are on their way to New Zealand. The music was interesting and the performers were excellent. Watching the concert inspired us for our own performance Friday night. Afterwards, we got to meet the performers and some other important musicians in Jakarta.

Speaking of our Asian debut concert Friday night, today we visited Erasmus Huis, the Dutch cultural center that is hosting our concert. We got to test out the acoustic in the concert hall, which seats about 540 people and sounds great. We'll have our dress rehearsal Friday afternoon before the big night.

Afterwards, we decided to forgo another cab ride in the dense Jakarta traffic and took the new Trans Jakarta bus to the mall for lunch. The bus runs down a dedicated lane in the center of the street. It's more expensive than the little green Kopaja buses, but still costs less than 50 cents a ride (3.500 Rp!) and is well worth it.

We shopped for postcards, Kathryn bought a batik sun dress, and we enjoyed a sampling of authentic Indonesian food and fruit drinks in the mall's food court. We took the bus back to our neighborhood and then walked the rest of the way to Tante Linda's condo to rest. There are no sidewalks, so at times we literally had to walk in the busy street. Luckily, drivers seem to look out for pedestrians, motor bikes, hand-pulled carts, bicycle taxis, and anything else that wanders into the street.

Tonight we'll have dinner and rest for our big day tomorrow: our meeting with UNICEF staff and our first masterclass, at Jakarta Conservatory of Music, followed by a practice session.