My Facebook feed is filled with photos of friends off to some faraway land. It is that time of the year again, when families go on their June vacations and the head of the household has to figure out where to take the brood.
After a few clicks, checking airline and hotel websites (and complaints from the kids that they always ended up in Malaysia), I decided to take the the kids, the wife and my mom to Semarang in Indonesia.
I had NO idea what was in Semarang, but hey, the kids wanted to be on an aeroplane so it seemed like a good place as any. It was cheaper than Isaac's suggestion ("New York!") and Joy's ("Paris, Papa!").
My biggest apprehension was Faith. This was a longer flight that the previous one to Bandung so I was worried that the experience may overwhelm her autistic senses. But we made it! Faith was mostly calm throughout the flight and didn't fuss even when we had to clear the long immigration and customs queue at the tiny Semarang airport that probably was not used to large crowds.
After a quick lunch at the KFC at the airport (the kids were famished because we were training them not to order overpriced food on budget flights), we grabbed a cab to our hotel in town (which had a pool, a very important travel criteria for kid-friendly vacations, and free wifi, very important to Papa).
Here, the kids learned a few new lessons, like:
1. Sometimes, the Cartoon Network is in broadcast in the local language;
2. The hotel minibar snacks are off-limits, and;
3. How air-conditioning works.
Wife: "Why is the hotel room so cold? The windows are all fogged up already! Wait, who set the aircon to 19°C?"
Joy (age 7, wearing two sweaters, one of which is my mother's): "Sorry Mommy! I thought the lower the number, the weaker the aircon."
