Learning to See Jakarta | A Reflection on the City
When I left Bali, one of the things I was afraid of losing was the sunset. I had spent more than twenty years in Bali, so I was used to a certain way of life. Jakarta was completely different. I had only visited for a few nights before, so I had no real idea what living here would feel like.
I came to Jakarta in November 2024 because of a work opportunity. There was no big plan behind it. I simply decided to try. The first two months were difficult. The days were long. Leaving home around eight in the morning, working until seven or eight in the evening, and sometimes arriving home around nine became normal. Traffic made everything feel even longer. I used to see people sleeping on buses and wonder how they could do it. Then, not long after, I became one of them.
That was probably my first lesson from Jakarta: sometimes adaptation happens before acceptance. You don't always decide that you are ready. You simply find a way to continue. At first, I compared everything with Bali. The pace, the traffic, the way people interacted, the way work was done. But eventually, I realized that comparison was not helping me understand the city. Jakarta was not meant to replace Bali. It was showing me something different.
Learning to look up
The first thing I noticed, once I stopped comparing, was the skyline. I had never seen skyscrapers like this in Bali. Nothing there reaches so high, or stands so close together, catching the last light at the end of the day. So I started photographing them — not because I planned to, but because I kept looking up without meaning to. From a bridge over the highway, from a rooftop, from the window of a car stuck in traffic, the towers kept rearranging themselves against the sky, and I kept reaching for my phone.
It became a small habit. Then it became a way of paying attention. I began to notice how much of life here is shaped by time, movement and opportunity. People are constantly making decisions about where to go, what to pursue, who to meet and what comes next. Connections matter. Reputation matters. Knowing how things work matters. It made me understand that ambition is not always about wanting more. Sometimes it is simply about trying to keep your place in an environment that moves very quickly.
Work also taught me another side of Jakarta.
Not every professional relationship is as sincere as it first appears. There can be politics, competition and kindness that comes with expectations. It was not always easy to experience, but it taught me to become more observant. I learned that being careful does not mean becoming cold. Being strong does not mean becoming hard. And surviving difficult situations does not mean losing the better parts of yourself. That became one of the more important lessons I took from living here.
The sky kept surprising me
What I did not expect was how much the sky here would move me. There is a particular blue that appears after it rains — washed, almost too clean, sitting behind wet concrete and glass towers like nothing had happened at all a few minutes earlier. I have stopped more than once just to look at it.
And the moon. I did not expect the moon in Jakarta. But some nights, standing on a balcony above the traffic and the noise, it is there anyway — quiet, unbothered by all the movement below it — and for a moment the whole city feels smaller.
The sunsets are different from Bali's, but they are not lesser. In Bali the sun goes down into the sea. Here, it goes down between buildings, caught for a few minutes in the narrow spaces between one tower and the next, turning glass orange before the lights of the city take over. I used to be afraid of losing sunsets when I left Bali. I did not lose them. I just had to learn where to find them.
Small thing, still growing
Jakarta also changed the way I think about people. A city can be full of people and still feel lonely. Everyone is moving through their own story, often without knowing anything about the person standing beside them. But I started noticing the smaller things too — the flowers that still find a way to bloom along a walkway, a fence, a rooftop garden, in between concrete and traffic and glass. I did not expect to find that much color in a city I thought would be all grey. And the smiles — a street vendor, a stranger holding a door, someone in traditional dress at a festival — small, unplanned, and somehow more noticeable because the city rarely slows down enough to offer them.
At the same time, there is a strange kind of connection in that. Everyone is trying to move forward in their own way, and every so often, someone still stops to smile at a stranger. Perhaps that is why Jakarta can feel both overwhelming and motivating. It constantly reminds you that life continues, whether you are ready or not.
When you lose something here, the city does not stop.
When work becomes difficult, people still go to work.
When you are tired, the trains still arrive and the traffic still moves.
You simply learn to continue........
Understanding, not judging
Over time, I became less interested in judging the city and more interested in understanding it. I started noticing the small contrasts around me. Comfort and struggle. Opportunity and uncertainty. Confidence and vulnerability. Speed and stillness. Concrete and flowers. Skyscrapers and the moon behind them.
They are not separate sides of Jakarta. They exist together. And perhaps that is what makes the city difficult to understand from the outside. You can see one version of Jakarta and completely miss another. My camera roll is proof of that — glass towers next to a single flower, a chaotic skyline next to a quiet balcony moon.
I also began to understand why so many people come here. People come because they are looking for something: work, opportunity, independence, a better future, or simply another chance. That made me look at my own journey differently. I came here without knowing exactly what I was looking for either.
Maybe that is why Jakarta became important to me — not because it gave me the answer, but because it gave me the question. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being unsure of everything. I started to know what I want. And just as clearly, I started to know what I don't.
What Jakarta gave me
Not because it was easy.
It wasn't.
But because it challenged the way I understood work, people, ambition, resilience and even myself — and because it taught me to look for beauty in places I did not expect it.
Bali taught me softness.
Jakarta taught me perspective.
It taught me that I can adapt without losing myself, become more selective without becoming distant, and become stronger without becoming harder. It also taught me to keep looking up, and to keep noticing the flower, the smile, the moon — the small proof that softness never really left, it just learned to exist between the concrete.
I still don't know whether Jakarta will eventually become home or remain one chapter of my path in life or Maybe it doesn't need an answer yet. For now, I think of Jakarta as a place that cLearning to See Jakarta — A Personal Reflectionhanged the way I see things. Not necessarily better or worse. Just differently. And despite everything, that may be the most valuable thing this city has given me.
Comments