Post new year's day daze, Bogor to Jakarta Kota.

Perhaps left without an inkling of an idea on how to wrap up a fruitful tour of the Bogor Botanical Gardens, I decided to take an early morning train from Bogor to Jakarta Kota, also known as Kota Tua, on the day after the New Year's Day. With the hustle going back to normal, the morning commuter crowd filled the train cars like sardines in a can, and before I knew it, I was caught in a teeming full train car with no possible space to move. After a few stations, I got out for a breath of air and a change of trains (luckily the following train had some more free space, however it is still standing only). About an hour later, I arrived at the most historical and largest train station in Indonesia, which is the Jakarta Kota Station. It has the classical and typical features of an old station, befitting its location and name ('Kota Tua' in Indonesian means 'Old Town', and so it is also known as 'Jakarta Old Town'). A walk around in Fatahillah Park outside, in the vicinity of the station let one experience the other old buildings in the area, built in the architectural style of colonial Dutch, with some of the Dutch language signs and labels still preserved. The quaint façades of the buildings - namely Jakarta History Museum, Museum Bank Indonesia, the Post Office, the Fine Art and Ceramics Museum, among others - and artifacts, such as cannons from the 17th century speak louder than the streetsweep cleaning up the trash from the New Year's party the night before and the schoolkids going about their way, before opening hours in one of this city's busiest neighbourhoods. Then, right before getting the flight out, I managed to find the best place for a bowl of laksa Betawi, about a few minutes walk from the famed shopping havens of Senayan, an appropriate conclusion to the day after the first day of the new year. #indonesiatrip