Jeroen was my first international guest on Jakarta Walking Tour. Back then, I was surprise he believed me to tailored him to do City Tour Jakarta when I had no experience at all. He was the first international friend who trusted me to run this tour.

As a male guest in general, he just simply booked my city tour jakarta offer and did not ask further question. We just had two or three conversations by e-mail and one Skype call before the day. Then, Sunday morning we met on meeting point we agreed before and start Jakarta Walking Tour by taking a Transjakarta Bus ride.

Me and my friend, Vira, who joined the tour later, guided him to visit Jakarta Old Town. We visited some old building and museums on that area. I do not take much picture of our trip, because I have been busy  explaining history of the place to him. For example, we visited Toko Merah Jakarta, a 300 years old building that once become a Dutch’s governor house, bank, hotel, Chinese shop and always change the function from years to years. He also feels horrible when I told him that on third floor, Dutch imprisoned a lot of Chinese local people there in the past time.

Then, I took him to visit Wayang  Museum Jakarta. In there, he learn traditional story about Wayang and know one simple Wayang can be built from one month of hard work. He also see puppet from Netherlands, the same puppet in his mom house, but surprisingly he just know the story behind it on that day. I think it was funny, because Jeroen needs to fly across the sea to know his own local puppet story. :p

Right now, Jeroen and I still passing information about language and music of our own country. I feel glad, right now he learned Indonesia language in his home town, and know some ‘slang’ in Indonesian language from me. When we met on Jakarta Walking Tour, I taught him about ‘funky way’ to speak in Indonesia language.

So, I have a special message for him : “Hi Jeroen, makasih ya udah mau lakuin city tour jakarta sama gue.” 😀