Residents swarm recreation centers, museum

Jakarta's blistering heat was not a deterrent for Febrina and her two friends, Kayla and Sonya, all in their early twenties, as they posed for the camera at Ragunan Zoo's new Schmutzer Primate Center, in South Jakarta, on Wednesday.

"Wedding pose!" they squealed in unison as the camera clicked away, posing accordingly on the wooden bridge connecting mock tree houses, the trees casting leafy shadows on their sunglass-masked faces.

Beneath the tree houses, families lined up to take pictures of their children playing on the tire swing and posing in front of gorillas lounging about behind the glass screen.

Such was the scene at Ragunan Zoo, one of Jakarta's busiest recreation parks, which is traditionally inundated with visitors during the Idul Fitri holidays.

"Me and my friends got bored of hanging out at the mall, so we wanted to try something different," Febrina said.

"So I stayed at my friend's place in Ragunan and we hit the zoo in the morning."

The zoo's Wahyudi Bambang Priyanto said he expected Wednesday's visitor numbers to exceed Tuesday's 156,000 people.

"We've already had about 120,000 people come in as of noon," he said.

"We expect that number to increase, surpassing yesterday's total, because from what I've seen, the zoo is completely full."

Ragunan Zoo expects 800,000 people to visit throughout the Idul Fitri holidays, which run from Sept. 19 to 30, an increase from last year's total of 660,000.

Another of the city's popular recreation parks, Ancol Dreamland Park in North Jakarta, expects 1.1 million people to visit.

Sofia Cakti, corporate communications manager at Ancol, said the park saw 64,500 people on Sunday, 140,000 on Monday and 132,000 on Tuesday.

"*On Wednesday*, as of 3 p.m., we've seen about 99,000 people coming to Ancol, so we expect more than 100,000 people to visit the park because we are open 24 hours," she said.

In the Old Town area of West Jakarta, the holiday atmosphere was in full swing as thousands of people strolled around the former colonial site. Sahuri, a guide at Fatahillah Museum, said the museum had recorded more than 2,300 visitors since opening at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

"People are enthusiastic about coming here, because we were closed from Sunday to Tuesday for Idul Fitri," he said.

Dozens of would-be visitors had to be turned away at the closing time of 3 p.m.

"It's open for such a short time, isn't it?" said latecomer Ronny Tjiu.

He added he wanted to show his family and friends the historical places in the area, including the museum and Sunda Kalapa Port.