Indonesia Trip 2019: Last day in Penang! (August 2nd)

Our last day in Penang involved heading up to Penang Hill to see what it was all about. It started with a fast and steep train of sorts up to the top of the hill. Once at the top, we took the mandatory panoramic shots from the hill overlooking the city below. We tried to find the place where we were staying at, and we were able to find it! Which was pretty neat.

We walked around for a little bit before deciding we wanted to go to The Habitat on the hill. We bought some food first (fried local cuisine) and entered the area. There were a lot of beautiful plants and butterflies. Supposedly some squirrels lived in the trees, but we were unable to find any.

 Among all of this greenery and plants, there are a few swings where people can just get on and swing. It's definitely an interesting experience, but a nice break for tired legs.

The big interesting thing about The Habitat (other than the plants and animals) is that there are bridges and walkways in the canopy, which looks very cool in their flyer, but when you get there, it's a bit underwhelming. However, there is a large circular structure above the tree tops, and when you go up there, you're debriefed on the rules (like no running or roughhousing), and in case of sudden bad weather, the person at the bottom would blow their whistle and everyone had to immediately go down. Definitely not a place to go if you're afraid of heights.

Another crazy thing was, we were apparently there at the same day some governmental person was there. I want to say some ambassador or secretary. It was interesting, since there was this huge crowd with a bunch of cameras just there with us. 

After a long day up in The Habitat (we spent nearly the whole day there), we returned to the hotel to have one last dip in the pool. Which is a pretty nice place since it's on the 11th floor of the building, and opens up to the city beyond.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Third Day in Penang! (August 1st)

We first visited the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, which is a chinese jewelry museum. Everything about it was ornate and gorgeous. The building was covered in carvings, and with every turn you'd find either beautiful jewelry, gorgeous tapestries, or dainty pieces of glass. It was very interesting for me because I also got to learn more about my heritage, and I got a key chain with my Chinese name on it!
From there, we went to Batu Ferringhi where most of the afternoon was spent playing in the sand and watching the sunset. My sister and I played with the rocks to build a rock tower (she was unfortunate enough to get wet), and my dad was determined to get some pretty shots of him doing yoga with the sun behind him.
For dinner, we ate at another hawker market (basically a street food, food court) and walked through the night market a little. There weren't many interesting things, so we headed back to the hotel where we were staying at.

Tip: Getting Around

In Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, instead of Uber or Lyft, we use Grab. It works just like Uber and Lyft. It's an app on your phone where you designate a pick up spot, a destination, and it tells you how much it costs. We've never had a bad experience, and the prices are very cheap when you're converting it to USD.
It's everywhere, in high traffic places like the airport, there can be a designated spot like this.

Or, you can just be driving on the street and you'll see a fleet of people in neon green driving by.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Day Two in Penang! (July 31st)

Since the reason behind the trip to Penang was for my grandfather to get a check up, that's what we did. It took us nearly the whole day to go through the whole process.

For dinner, we went to the Chulia Street Food Stalls. It was quite hectic, the moment we sat down there were probably three people talking to us in hokkien about how we needed to get drinks. It was quite hectic, even though I couldn't understand it.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Off to Penang! (July 30th)

My grandfather doesn't trust the doctors in Medan, so to get a doctor's visit, he goes to Penang, Malaysia. It's a couple hour flight, and all of us went together.

My friend happened to be in Penang on that day, and we really wanted to meet. The two of us met a few years ago over the internet, and through that time, we have worked on many collaborations together. It started with us singing a cover together, then she introduced me to more collaborations, and our friendship grew from there. We'd stay up all night chatting with each other about life, making jokes, and working on YouTube videos. She is the closest friend I've made on the internet, and since I happened to be flying across the world and would be in the same country, I told her about it. From there, we planned to meet in Penang. Time would be short, since she'd have to leave later the day I arrived, but a few hours was better than nothing.

Amazingly enough though, her parents were able to find a room in the hotel we were staying at, and booked a room to stay in. It was crazy, because then we were able to spend the whole afternoon and evening together. What was even crazier was I said "let's meet in the lobby," thinking that it was a public space and that there would be other people in the area (as a safety precaution). We ended up meeting in the elevator as we both went down to meet in the lobby. The stars must've aligned for us that day, because so many things went so well.

Since we hadn't eaten lunch yet, that was our next step. We (meaning my dad) decided to walk to a nearby Nasi Kandar with thousands of reviews on Google. It was sweltering hot, sunny, and humid. So it wasn't a great time. It would've been easier to use Grab. The line was extremely long, and we waited nearly half an hour in the sun before we could eat.

After that, we spent the rest of the day filming videos and singing together.

Tip: Norit

Now, if you are a foreigner (like me) coming into Indonesia, your stomach might not be able to handle the food very well. According to my cousin, street food and ice are especially dangerous. Ice because you don't know where they got that water from, so you can get food poisoned. So, what do you do when your stomach is causing a storm? Norit.

Image credit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/NORIT-ACTIVATED-CARBON-CHARCOAL-FLAUTULENCE-INDIGESTION-GASTRO-DISORDER-TOXIN-/233155712806

It is the only medication that I know in Indonesia. You may have seen things like this floating around the internet when the "black foods" craze was happening. It basically helps when you have diarrhea, so, if you're one of those poor people who are suffering from that while you're in Indonesia, search for this.

Indonesia Trip 2019: To Medan! (July 29th)

It was time to say goodbye to our family in Jakarta as we headed off to the next leg of our trip. One side of my family is from Jakarta, while the other side is from Medan.

We met my grandfather and more old friends of my parent's. We ate kwetiau, a dish with wide noodles with vegetables, eggs, and chinese sausage.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Back to Jakarta (July 26th-July 28th)

We returned to Jakarta in the morning, and for the rest of the day my sister and I took a nap...well, it's more of we went to sleep. I woke up for dinner, but my sister didn't wake up until around 15 hours later. For the whole trip we had been getting up early and going to sleep late, so naturally, we needed some time to catch up on our sleep.

The first thing we did on the next day was eat mie alip, which is some really good bakmi, noodles with chicken, some vegetables, and some wonton as well. I'm salivating just thinking about it! In the picture below, we're in the upstairs of the building, so if you go and there's a lot of people downstairs, considering going upstairs. It was empty up here while it was packed downstairs.

Then, me, my mom, and sister, went to Bogor, the place where my grandmother grew up. We visited the Botanical Gardens there, and happened to be there when the President of Indonesia was there. There are a lot of plants and very tall trees.

We ate some ngohiang, which is some vegetables, potatoes, and meat in a sort of gravy. It's very good.

Then, for dinner, we joined up again to eat Bebek Begil, or duck. This is more food that I'm just salivating while thinking about it. The tea with lychee is really yummy too! To get there, since there were a lot of us and we didn't want to battle the traffic, we used the MRT system.

The next day was also a quiet day. We went shopping, and also ate some martabak. There is martabak manis and martabak telur. Martabak manis is like a thick pancake with chocolate and nuts inside. Normal martabak is more savory and uses egg. Both of which are delicious, so if you have the chance, definitely try some!

Indonesia Trip 2019: Labuan Bajo (July 25th)

This was one of the most exciting days of the trip. We got up early and got on a little motor boat to begin island hopping.

Our first step was a gorgeous panoramic point. We had to walk up a bunch of steps to get to the top of the island, but I don't think it was as bad as the waterfall.

From there we went to Komodo Island to see the Komodo dragons! There are a few islands that have dragons, the ones I remember are Komodo Island as well as Rinca Island. We only went to Komodo Island. There are a couple guides on the island, and we trekked through the forest to find some dragons.

The first dragon we went after involved us speed walking off the path in an attempt to see it. It was well hidden in the bushes and the only way we could see it was when it was walking. This was a treat because they are cold-blooded creatures, so they will most likely be basking in the sun instead of walking, so that was very cool.

The next thing we saw was a dragon laying down close to the middle of the path. We were disheartened to hear that it was dying, and as soon as it died, other Komodo dragons would come in and eat it. These creatures are quite scary. Even from birth they start eating each other. Also, the small dragons are able to climb up trees, they can run up to 12 mph (20 km/h), and our tour guide has seen them swimming from island to island.

We were lucky enough to see a couple more dragons within the shrubs in the forest. It was very neat! They're huge.

We thought we were done with seeing dragons and took a stop at the cafe on the island, but then our nature guide pointed out a dragon that was sitting under the stairs. We were able to get some really cool pictures with it!

After that, we went to the pink beach to do some snorkeling. It's honestly not that pink, near the water you can see it's more pink, but it's not a vibrant pink. It's mostly sand with some flecks of pink.

Here's an FYI for those who want to come here, there isn't a bathroom at the pink beach. So, you may want to wear your swimsuit underneath your normal clothes, so you don't need to try and figure out how to change under a towel.

From there we went to find manta rays. Our tour guide hadn't seen a manta ray since around spring time, so it was amazing to get to see them. They are huge, majestic creatures that fly around in the water. Honestly, this was one of the coolest moments in the entire trip. We were somewhat in the middle of the ocean, so there were a lot of waves that were a little frightening.

After we saw the manta rays, we hopped back into the boat to try and find some sea turtles. Most of them were sitting on the ocean floor, so if you're like me and can't see without glasses, it's hard to see them. We were able to see a couple swimming up to the surface, so that was really cool as well.

And with that, we headed back to Labuan Bajo. Here's a note from me, make sure you dry off and put on some clothes, because later that evening I caught a cold which plagued me for the rest of the trip. We finished the day by watching the sunset on the water. It was also very pretty.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Labuan Bajo (July 24th)

The morning started with us getting on a flight from Denpasar/Bali to Labuan Bajo, the closest airport to Komodo Island. It's a very small airport.

First, we visited a cave where there were bats and spiders. None of us were cool with spiders, so when the tour guide asked if we wanted to see, there was a resounding "no." It's a small and kind of hard to maneuver cave, so if you have time, go and check it out, if not, it's not that big of a deal.

After that, we drove around the island a little bit and took some panoramic photos of the area.

There wasn't much to do after that, and we took the time to hang out at the hotel. It was a very nice hotel, and since it was right along the beach, we gave snorkeling a try. Since the day after we were going to go snorkeling, we wanted to practice it. (Especially since my younger sister was terrified of going into the ocean.)

It was an easy day after a few days of constantly running around.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Bali Day Two! (July 23rd)

The day started with a gorgeous sunrise overlooking rice paddies and a fog slowly dissipating from the treetops.

After we ate breakfast and packed up, we headed out...to eat...again. That was a bit of poor planning on our part, but the food in Indonesia is delicious, so we wanted to try as much as we could. Again, I don't remember where we ate, but we ate some good duck.

We then went to see the GWK/Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park. This is a huge statue. You can see it from the moment you land in the airport, and according to our tour guide, from base to top, it's even taller than the Statue of Liberty. There were a lot of cool statues along the way, and we got a bunch of cool photos. 

The Garuda is on the National Emblem of Indonesia, and just so happens to be an airline as well.

From there, we went to see a Kecak dance. A very cool cultural dance. When we watched it, there was a point when they put bundles of hay in a circle and brought out a torch. When I saw it, I thought, "they're no going to do it, are they?" They did it. They set it on fire. The area was jammed pack too, so get there early!

After this, we went to eat some food on the beach, which was very cool. It was near the airport as well, so while our feet were in the sand, and food was in our hands, airplanes flew overhead.

Tip: Check your visa!

In most (if not all) countries, when you go through immigration, you get a stamp in your passport. Make sure you check this! The immigration officer may not have put ink on the stamp before they stamped your passport, and it may end up very faint. My visa into Indonesia showed up very faint, and when I tried to leave the country, the officer told me I used a different passport to go in because he couldn't find it. This was really frightening, and I had to point out that yes, I had a visa, but it was super faint.

Moral of the story: Check your entry visa stamps! Make sure they're clear!

Indonesia Trip 2019: Going to Bali (July 22nd)

Komodo Island is one of the few islands that have Komodo lizards, and my cousin wanted to go and visit it. So that's what we did. We flew from Jakarta to Denpasar/Bali, and on the way, we passed by some mountains formed by volcanoes. As someone who comes from a mountainous region formed by plates moving instead of volcanoes, I found this pretty interesting.

When we landed, we went straight to our first destination, the Tegenungan Waterfall. It's very beautiful, but there are a lot of steps. We had to take a couple breaks to catch a breather. There's also a waterhole at the bottom, so if you want to take a dip, you are free to do so! We didn't want to because we didn't want to get our feet wet with no way to dry them. Plus, some of us were wearing jeans, which was a mistake. 

From there we went to get some lunch. Our tour guide kept on describing it as suckling pig (which my uncle disagreed with), but nevertheless it was very good. Unfortunately, I forgot to get the name of the place. 

We then went to a monkey forest in Ubud. Which was quite an experience for me. There were monkeys everywhere, and they're not afraid of people. Our tour guide warned us that the monkeys are not afraid to steal from people. So leave your food in the car, hold onto your phones and cameras, and take off shiny things like necklaces and watches. I'll add my own advice here, just take off anything dangling from your bag, because a monkey took one of my key chains. I had a colorful pink, beanie baby sort of toy that was hanging off my backpack, and a monkey just leapt onto me. It was on my back, so I didn't do anything, for fear of getting bitten. I just let it do it's thing. I heard a snap, and it leapt away to munch on my poof.  

After that, we left (the monkey kept the poof, we didn't try to get it back) to go to the Tirta Empul temple. Which is a temple famous for its holy spring water, and many Balinese Hindus go there for ritual purification. When you arrive, if you are wearing shorts, you'll be requested to wear a sarong. Which is kind of like a long skirt. Also, if you're a female and are menstruating, you're not allowed to enter. The carvings everywhere are very pretty, and it's overall a gorgeous area. You can go around to the back and see a pond where the water comes out. 

If you visit there, you might see some swastikas over the doorways. This isn't the Nazi swastika. Nazi swastika's are rotated a little bit, so it is standing on a point, versus a flat edge. 

From there, we ate more food before checking into our hotel and going to sleep.

Tip: International Flights

I've noticed that in some airports, you can't do the check-in by yourself. You need to go up to the front desk where there are people from the airline helping passengers, and get something checked off on your boarding ticket. For example, a stamp.

I'm not really sure why they do this, especially since we still scan our passports in the self-check-in, but it's definitely something to keep in mind, so you don't end up rushing through the airport trying to get to your gate on time!

Indonesia Trip 2019: Day Two in Jakarta (July 21st)

Since it was my grandmother's birthday a few days ago, my uncle was hosting a party to celebrate.

My mother wanted to get some flowers for her mother (my grandmother), so we stopped by a flower shop on the side of the road. There were a lot of cool and pretty flowers.

When the party came around, many relatives (who I had no idea how I was related to them), came by. There was food, there was talking, there was cake, there were flowers, and I spent a lot of time just talking with my cousin (because we're all awkward and don't know how to hold a conversation).

All the grandchildren in one place!

After the party, my parents went to meet some friends, and we decided to use the MRT system, a brand new subway/light rail system in Jakarta. It was a pretty nice experience. It wasn't too crowded when we went, and it's nice and cool in the train cars.

Unlike where I live, malls in Indonesia are still very much in use. People go there all the time, and it's a great meeting spot. So we went to the mall and met friends. I was still somewhat jet lagged, so by the time 9PM came around (they use military time in Indonesia, by the way), I was falling asleep in my chair.

Tip: Dry Skin

Going into the trip, I thought "hey, I'll be going to a humid place, I won't need any lotion." I was very wrong. On my hand I have some eczema that occurs from dryness. Living in Colorado where it's a desert climate, I have it nearly year-round and I have some prescription level ointment for it. Since the container is over 3 oz and it kind of gets everywhere, I didn't want to bring it.

However, planes are dry. The cabin is dry, the air they put in it is dry, just overall very, very dry. Next thing that happens, my eczema flares up and there's nothing I can do about it. By the end of the trip, my hand is going all "hulk mode" on me and my spot of eczema is splitting open and bleeding. It wasn't pleasant.

Even for the rest of my hands that didn't have eczema, they felt dry and not comfortable.

Moral of the story: Bring lotion. Even if you don't have problems with dry skin.

Indonesia Trip 2019: First day in Jakarta! (July 20th)

Since our flight arrived in Jakarta in the morning, we still had the whole day to do things. Except...we were all jet lagged and exhausted, so we spent most of the first day just sleeping. However, we did make sure to wake up before dinner and eat.

We ate at Sate (pronounced Sa-tay) House Senayan. My cousin (the same one from the airport) was telling us how he remembered this place and was one of his favorite places to eat. I too, remember eating here when we came to Jakarta. It's really good. 

For those who don't know what Sate is, it's basically chicken on a stick and grilled. They also serve chicken skin, which is really good as well (even if it's not healthy). They serve it with a peanut sauce, soy sauce, and some cabe (pronounced cha-bae, it's the general word for chili sauce).

We also got some Durian to try, since my younger sister doesn't remember trying it. It has a very strong smell, and nobody in my family likes it. Naturally, I didn't like it. The smell is way too strong. Fun fact about durian's, because of their smell, they are banned from public transportation. I've seen it in Singapore, Jakarta, and Penang as well. 

The thing that's said around Durian is you either love it, or hate it. I have a friend who really likes it because it's sweet and tastes good. So if you have the chance, give it a try and formulate your own opinion! It's a large, spiky fruit with yellow on the inside, not to be confused with Jackfruit!

Image credit: BigBasket on Twitter https://twitter.com/bigbasket_com/status/776412884830081026?lang=ca

If you're ever in Jakarta, come give Sate Senayan a shot!

Tips: Denver International Airport

The airport is connected to the Light Rail! It goes straight into the airport and it's a simple escalator ride to get into the airport. It's really convenient, and for long trips, it may end up cheaper than paying for parking at the airport. The line goes all the way to Downtown Denver, Union Station. Which is the central hub for light rails and bus routes! So, if you're interested in finding out more about this line, it's the University of Colorado A Line.

Another tip for people going through DEN. Bridge security. There are a few signs around that show the wait time for all of the TSA checkpoints, and every time I've gone there, bridge security is always the shortest. Don't go through the main line that you see right when you go in. Ask one of the employees how to get to the bridge security. It seems a little niche, but from there you can get to the rest of the airport as well (I believe). I've gone through there for both domestic and international flights.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Traveling There (July 18th-20th)

The first step in traveling to places is...well, traveling to said place. (Well, if you want to get technical, it's booking and planning everything, then packing, but that stuff is boring.) And for this trip, we were going to be traveling for almost two days.

Our itinerary for our stay in Indonesia included going to Jakarta, as well as Medan, and we didn't want to fly to Jakarta, to Medan, and back to Jakarta (which, in hindsight is probably the easiest route to go), so instead of booking a flight from Denver to Jakarta, we booked a flight from Denver to Singapore. Which wasn't bad because Singapore is a very cool country. Considering how much of their economy revolves around tourism, they have a lot of intriguing tourist-y landmarks. I'll get more into that later.

Going back to my main topic, our flight path going to Indonesia involved going from Denver, to Seattle, to Tokyo (Narita), then to Singapore. We then used a different airline to go from Singapore to Jakarta. It was unusual for me to not go through LAX (the Los Angeles Airport), since I seemed to always go through there, but I wasn't complaining. I am still scarred from the experience three years ago. (I made a blog post about it here.) We used Delta for the big part from Denver to Singapore, and JetStar from Singapore to Jakarta. I don't have any complaints against them, flights were on time, no drama, no heart-stopping moments of fear. Overall a good experience. Also, Delta has a ton of in-flight entertainment.

Now that I've given a brief overview, I'm going to go more into the details that happened over the trip.

It started 2 am in the morning on July 18th. It's a thing in my family to procrastinate on packing (partially because of work), but the night before we didn't finish packing until around midnight. I learned in my psychology class that a sleep cycle is around one and a half hours, so guess how much sleep I got that night. If you guessed one and a half hours, you are correct! But excitement was keeping me going. I'm not sure when the sleep debt from this hit me, if I were to guess, it was probably during a day in the middle of the trip where I got a chance to sleep and ended up sleeping for around 15 hours.

So we head out the door after making sure our water boiler is turned down, our appliances unplugged, and our air conditioner set so it wouldn't run. Colorado has a snazzy RTD light rail system, and because parking at the airport is expensive, we decided to park our car in a park and ride, and use the light rail to get to the station.

We get to the airport, and try to check in by ourselves. It...didn't work very well. Without going into too much personal details, I've noticed at some airports, if you're going international, you need to check in with the people at the check in desk. Either to get a stamp, or confirm your passport, so please be aware of that! It's a good thing we allotted a lot of buffer time! (Also, it didn't help that the desks weren't open when we arrived, so there was just a crowd of people from waiting there for who knows how long. I feel bad for the people who need to go to work at 3am in the morning.)

Luckily, we get everything sorted out, and we're on our way to security.

Also, one more funny thing about DIA/DEN. Currently they're under construction, but they're making an amazing joke out of it. Search up #DENFILES, there is a bunch of funny things that they're doing to make the construction less painful.
Like....this

Credit: https://www.flydenver.com/great_hall/denfiles

 I've only seen the gargoyle once, and we were in a hurry, so sadly, I didn't get a chance to interact with it.

Another thing, can anybody tell me why there are birds inside the waiting room? I've seen this in two different airports now. How do they get in? Why do they get in?

Next stop is Seattle, which, I didn't remember much of. It's a 3 hour flight from Denver to Seattle, and we had a 3 hour layover there. According to my sister (who remembered this a whole lot better than me, it was all a lost memory to me), we ate some ramen and that was about it. The rest was presumably spent trying to catch up on sleep.

From Seattle, we flew all the way across the ocean to Tokyo, Japan. It's a 10 hour flight that was mostly spent sitting in my seat and watching movies. I finally got to watch the Princess Bride, but other than that, nothing really happened.

When we arrived in Narita we had a 4 hour layover. We bought a box of unique grape flavored kit-kats, and just walked around. A cool thing that happened, was right before we began to board, we found out that my cousin was also in Narita. It was my grandmother's 90th birthday, so to celebrate, all of the grandchildren were coming over, which was why my cousin was at the airport at the same time. He arrived in Jakarta earlier though, because he went straight to Jakarta from Narita, instead of going to Singapore first. We almost met up, but his gate was a significant walk from our gate, so we decided it wasn't worth it.

    

Here are some pictures from the plane rides from Denver to Singapore.

However, I do remember stuff from Singapore. It was a 7 hour flight down to Singapore, but I think I slept on that flight. I don't remember much from the flight itself. When we arrived, we had to go through immigration because we were switching companies and so we needed to claim our baggage. The line was awfully long. We spent a good half hour in there, but I used the time to chat with a friend who lives in Malaysia. It took us so long to get through immigration, the conveyor belt had stopped running and they had taken the luggages off of it. Whoops.

Anyhow, our attention was then taken by an autonomous floor Zamboni. As someone who has worked with robotics for six years, and has participated in the local Autonomous Vehicle Challenge, this was pretty awesome. Also, even if you're not a robotics person, it's still pretty funny to see a zamboni with a face vrooming around happily. The sensors it uses are pretty good. My dad tried to antagonize it by stepping right in front of it, and it stopped without hitting him.

We also went to check out the Jewel. A new addition to the Singapore Changi Airport, and let me just put it out there, it's crazy. It's a literal waterfall in the middle of a building. When we arrived it was past midnight, so the waterfall wasn't on, but the surrounding area was crazy. There were plants and lights everywhere. It was very, very cool.

My dad had some friends who lived in Singapore, so they were kind enough to come join us and say "hi." We ate some Singaporean food, and drank some Singaporean drinks. The only thing I can remember is the water chestnut drink, which was quite delicious. It's sweet, which you wouldn't expect from a chestnut. I learned that because Singapore is such a small country, that able-bodied (and male) civilians get called for a sort of "boot camp" every so often. Just to make sure that the country has an army if the time calls for it. I also realized that Singapore is basically a city. For some reason I had the image that Singapore was a bigger country, but no, it's a tiny country on the same island as Malaysia.

After a while of chatting and hanging out, we decided to check our bags in and find a place to sleep. Unfortunately, checking in our bags was surprisingly hard. JetStar doesn't count it by piece, but by weight. So when they weighed all our carry-ons (the rolling carry ons as well as backpacks), we were way over. So we had to check in a few of the rolling carry ons. Which wasn't too bad, as it was just one flight. With that settled, we passed through immigration and looked for a seat to curl up and sleep in for a few hours.

As we walked through the airport, we wondered, when was the security going to happen? Because with many airports, security is one of the first thing that happens. Not in Changi. The security happened right before the waiting room in front of the gate. This meant that every gate had an x-ray machine. Not only that, but the waiting room doesn't open until a little before boarding time. So security is something that comes pretty late in the process.

And with that, we boarded the plane and were on our way to Indonesia to see family!