Chinese Lunch at Lotte Shopping Avenue

As of today I have spent two full months in Indonesia, but had only been out a couple of times with others, never by myself, as I have been attempting to stay out of COVID's way as much as possible. The small pharmacies in my neighborhood did not have the medicine I needed to obtain, so I decided to venture out on my own today, jumping into a taxi armed with the 14 words of Indonesian my feeble brain has learned thus far.

The large pharmacy that carried my medicine is located in Lotte Shopping Avenue, a large mall by most any standard, probably 10x the size of Bishkek Park for you Kyrgyz folks, and 5x the size of either of Spokane's major malls. My Indonesian colleagues tell me that Lotte Shopping Avenue is one of the city's more modest malls, as the larger malls like Grand Indonesia Mall are supposed to be far bigger and more opulent. 

Lotte Shopping Avenue was certainly sufficient for my needs. I found my medicine and was able to check out the food court in the basement with the fast food outlets like Carl's Jr. and Dairy Queen and the one on the third floor with Pho and Thai Food and elegant Indonesian fare. I chose the Chinese Restaurant with the 76-page menu specializing in duck.  The roasted duck with noodles, pork and honey barbecued dumplings, and the leek dumplings stuffed with whole shrimp were all scrumptious. And afterward, my medicine, my 14 words of Indonesian, my cans of black and refried beans and taco shells I found in a supermarket, and me somehow made it back to my apartment in one piece and between downpours, that alone quite a feat in Jakarta's aggressive and persistent rainy season. 












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