Once upon a time, an emissary from the polity of Maynila sailed into the port of Sunda Kelapa to warn of Jayakarta's destruction and the establishment of the new city of Batavia, and prophecied that on 31 August 2023, his descendant will eat ice cream for breakfast in the modern city of Jakarta and pee buckets of Singaraja in his pants.
The Descendant did come on that date via Bali and was feted with a 5-starred sketch to capture his moderation of the toilet at Le Meridien that was eternally flushing with Smirnoff vodka from Laos in consequence of the just energy transition from lavish buffet meals to the daily dose of a chubby 3+1 beer promo.
But unlike the universe of Intramuros, Batavia's lone star is the old town square with its array of museums, rented red bikes, loud buskers, colorful human statues and dating teens who competed in moving cannon balls from the cobbled park to the old bridge with many names that smelled like an old train station.
The Descendant left the bridge of Jakarta's fallen medical frontliners on Day 12 for the dimmer stars of Artotel Suites Mangkuluhur and the Blue Birds who don't have change for a 100,000 rupiah but can only drop him a block from the ASEAN Weekend Market's lone Flipino booth where he collected his badge and a free cup of chicken adobo flakes.
The same Blue Birds with unreadable QR codes brought The Descendant to the wrong Ritz-Carlton for the ASEAN Women CEO Forum where his badge was found to be corrupted, so he went back to the ASEAN People's Forum for a lunch of oxtail soup that was kept warm with the weak airconditioner of a waterless hotel room.
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