Statues in Jak@rta

Ind0nesia, in general, and J@karta, specifically, has many many statues. There is a statue or a monument at almost every junction of the road. I wish I had the opportunity to take the picture of every statue I saw, because all of them were beautiful and exquisitely carved. Unfortunately, most of them were seen out of the windows of a travelling car, albeit in a macet (traffic jam), still, not a good condition to take pictures.

These ones were taken at Taman Monas, short for Monuman Nasional (National Monument Park). It was new year's eve, so there were lots of people hanging around at the park waiting for the celebration and fireworks to begin, even though it wasn't for another 7 hours.
The one Ilham is 'holding' is the aforementioned National Monument. It sits right in the middle of the park, surrounded by a wide cobbled circular path. On this path you can get rides on a horse driven carriage/buggy. (As tourists, of course we got on a ride!)
Surrounding that cobblestone circle are large areas of grass where people can sit and play kites and eat kacang. There were fountains and flowers, and of course, more statues.
One of the statues is of Raden Ajeng Kartini, shown above with Anis (who is trying to imitate her). This statue was a gift from the Japanese government. I'm not sure who she was, but from the statues, it looked like she was some sorta of princess, who helped the nation when they went through a very difficult time. (Maybe diah can tell us more?)
The statue of the guy on the horse was of Fatahilah, a prince who led a revolution against the dutch. He was imprisoned for his 'crime' by the ruling Dutch.


Taken from pikofdawik.slesta.com
This is Tugu Tani, a sculpture dedicated to the farmers in J@karta, which was extraordinary. The flowing fabric, the depicted movements, the expressions on the still bronze faces were just amazing. (Sorry that the picture does not capture that). Tugu Tani is not in Taman Monas, but at one of the junctions in the center of Jakarta. A very congested junction if I may add.

Anyways, if you like looking at statues, (ehem, didi) you would love Jak@rta. If I wasnt travelling with 4 kids (and one of them whom I had to carry around all the time), I'd probably take walks around Jak@rta and just spend the day takking pictures of their many statues.