Watching Leonard Cohen in Jakarta

Well, it may not be quite the same as reading Lolita in Tehran (or even reading Playboy in Indonesia, which is quite a hot topic here at the moment) but it was quite strange watching a documentary about Leonard Cohen in a theater filled (for a few minutes, at least) with Indonesians at the Jakarta Intl Film Festival last night.

Tickets were free (as they are for all documentaries at the festival) and, because you needed to get there a couple of hours before the 6:30 showtime to get them, the crowd was made up of mostly students who have come every day after school during the festival and seen whatever film they could get into. Therefore, of all the attendees I talked to while waiting in line, only one actually knew who Leonard Cohen was.

So we didn’t take it personally when most of the crowd walked out shortly after the movie started. I just don’t think it was their kind of music. The write-up in the festival booklet said that U2 was in it and people may well have been expecting music along those lines. (For our liking there was actually way too much Bono and The Edge yammering on about their love of Leonard Cohen.) The film did touch on Cohen’s religious background a little bit, but it didn’t seem to faze anyone who was left in the theater at that point.

All in all we quite enjoyed the film, which was a combination of footage from a tribute concert and interviews with Cohen and other artists. Pretty typical concert film, really, but the topic and the venue made it feel a bit different.

Oh yeah, and when the credits came on we discovered that the film was co-produced by none other than Mel Gibson.

Our New Favorite Restaurant

Haviva's back in town so that means we get to try the new restaurants I find while wandering around our neighborhood. Last night we went to the BBQ seafood place just down the street, past the rib place. Haviva did a fine job of ordering us one of the local specialties she had tried in Jayapura, a fish cut in half the long way, grilled and covered with all sorts of chillies, ginger and lemon grass. Fantastic stuff.

Tonight it is off to the Jakarta International Film Festival. Don't laugh, it's actually got quite an impressive lineup. We're hoping to see Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man tonight, which we've heard good things about. Haviva's off again in the morning, but hopefully we'll get to see something else when she gets back.

Global Conference 2006

Okay, it was not really global - English First only has offices in China, Russia and Indonesia - and don't worry, not too many work details are about to follow. It was a little more exciting than it sounds from the title.

The conference was held here in Indonesia - those smart other countries have decided to take advantage of the only country where it is beach weather in December - about 4 and 1/2 hours outside of Jakarta at the lovely Kuda Laud Resort. This is not a place you can easily get to as a tourist; somewhat in the middle of no where, but absolutely gorgeous. Every day we ate our meals right on the beach and the walk to my villa provided beautiful views. Of course, we spent most of the time sweating inside a meeting room that was not quite as big as it should have been, as well as it lost power around 4 PM each day leaving us in the dark for the last 2 presentations of the day. Meetings ended at about 7 PM each day and the evenings were filled with karaoke, a band with dancing, and the drinking of liquor purchased at duty free. And there was some night wading in the ocean, although the nights were a bit too dark and the current a bit too strong for night swimming. I did get a couple hours the last day though to take a dip and enjoy the waves. The only real draw back were the over 50 some odd steps to my villa on the cliff (not the widest or easiest path to take each day, especially after that duty free liquor) and the creepy crawlies that liked to join me there. Killed some pretty big spiders - yes, after I squeeling like the complete baby I truly am - and learned to sleep through night despite the giant lizard in my wall that decided this week was the best time to mate. Never saw, but I heard him. (He did leave me little "present "each day though on the bathroom floor.)

Check out the pics I added to our album - http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva

and, just to clarify a little, the weird pictures on the stage are the very "interesting" performance by the Indonesian team (Jean and I were regulated to making the sound effectes on the side of the stage for some reason.) The sheep on the beach I just cannot explain.

Phones, phone numbers, etc.

Not the most exciting blog post, but I figured this was a good place to put our phone numbers in case anyone ever needs them. We just got our home phone hooked up today. It only took two visits by the phone guy and three holes cut in our ceiling trying to find the correct wire.

The country code for Indonesia is 62 so from the US you'd dial 011 62... Our numbers are:

home - 21 3004 0584
Haviva's mobile/cell/hand phone - 0856 9183 0784
Howie's mobile/cell/hand phone - 0856 9722 7686

You'll notice that our mobile numbers are not at all easy to remember and don't have many repeating digits. That's because we're cheap. You pick your phone number from a giant list of numbers which are sorted by price. Indonesians tend to be quite superstitious, so having a good phone number is quite desirable. We paid about two dollars for the SIM card that gives you your phone number. Some of the 'better' numbers were going for upwards of 10 dollars.

What do I do when Haviva's not here? Good Question.

Haviva's been out of town since Thursday at a conference, so I've been filling my time with Ultimate Frisbee and wandering aimlessly. The Ultimate Frisbee 'club' plays for a couple of hours on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons. It's made up of about 20 or 30 expats and a few locals, of which about 10 or 12 show up each time to play. Good fun and really good exercise. Thursday nights are nice but two hours in the sun on Sundays is pretty rough.

Today we followed the two hour game up with an hour or so at a local school playing with the kids. Some of the people I play with have started going around to a bunch of the schools as a way for the kids to meet Westerners in a way other than yelling "Hello Mister" to us from across the street. It's a lot of fun. Unfortunately Haviva has the camera with her, so I don't have any pictures, but you can see some at the Klub Frisbee blog.

In between playing frisbee I've done some good wandering around the city. No photo evidence to prove it, but I made it up to the North of the city where the harbor is. Quite interesting. I'll take Haviva there when she gets back and we'll take some pictures.

Anyway, Haviva's back in town Monday for a couple of days - then she's off again. I'm making a little progress on the job front. If nothing else I should be able to pick up some English classes as I'm meeting with a school director this week.

Next post should be Haviva telling us about her weekend at a beach resort with EF staff from all over the world...

Photos Are Online

Howie's spent more time playing with Google and his newest toy is Picasa, Google's photo software that has its own version of online photosharing. We put up some random photos from our first three weeks. Sorry there are no captions yet - it's a work in progress. We'll keep adding more as we go so you can check it once in a while to see what's up there. The link is http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva .

The Rainy Season Cometh

As you can see from the video it doesn't just rain, it pours. It's been a daily occurrence for the past few days and we're told it is the beginning of the rainy season that won't end until March. The rain isn't all that bad. It thunders and lightnings for a while, then pours for 30 minutes. But the traffic jams it creates are brutal. It was hard to believe the traffic could get worse but first, when it starts raining, the motor bikers all take cover under the overpasses, completely blocking them, then the streets flood bringing everything to a standstill.

Jayapura

Just returned from Jayapura. A small town (750,000 people) on the island of Papua. Right on the border of Papua New Guinea. There is about 4 blocks of city and the rest of the area is jungle and beaches. The area is predominantly Christian and tribal, and although most people never go to Jayapura, the missionaries do seem to make it. Very different than Jakarta. On our drive from the airport to the school, the morning church service blasted thru the radio and on about every corner was a church. In the mix are people with bones thru their noses (sorry no pics of that!) and clearly tribal influences. What I found most interesting was the influence of alcohol in Jayapura. As the people are Christian, they drink freely and drunk men seem to roam the streets in a way you just do not see here in Jakarta. After 9 PM the place shuts down and no one leaves their homes, except the drunk men who stumble the streets and sing karaoke. The school itself has a fabulous group of teachers and despite nothing to do in Jayapura (literally nothing - there is no movie theater, bowling alley, mall....nothing!) they have become part of this close knit community and enjoy being there. Very interesting place. If only you did not have to take an overnight flight to get there. The worst overnight flight ever by the way - what kind of red eye stops twice and makes you get off the plane at 2 AM???

View out our window at prayer time.

This is the view out of our 32nd floor (sort of - there's no floor #3,4,13,14,23 or 24 because they're unlucky) apartment overlooking the Central Business District of Jakarta. The video starts out facing northwest and ends looking southwest. You can hear the call to prayer from the mosque directly below our building and also from a number of other mosques, but the noise level doesn't bother us at night when we have the windows closed and the AC on.

Getting Settled

Sorry for our absence. We're in our new apartment but have been without internet until now. We're starting to settle in here on the 32nd floor of the Casablanca Mansions after numerous trips to Carrefour (the closest thing to Target to be found in Jakarta). Our internet connection (which bizarrely comes in through the electrical outlet) is okay at times and unbelievably slow at others, but when it is okay we'll post some pictures and maybe a video tour.

Nothing terribly interesting to report from the past week. We explored our neighborhood and found a fantastic restaurant just up the road. It is the first restaurant that at all resembles what we expected to find more of - it's not in a mall, but is also not on the street selling food that looks days old. It is a simple, open-air place that seems quite popular. One of the things that makes Indonesia very easy for non Indonesian speakers is their habit of putting pictures on menus, so it was easy to figure out that this place specializes in big beef ribs and skewers of beef, which were cooked in a spicy peanut sauce and fantastic.

We also explored another of our local malls, Pasar Festival. Nothing special, except that it has a bowling alley and an Indian Restaurant. At this point I feel obligated to report that not only did Haviva beat me in our second game of bowling the other day, but she did it in style. Going to the 10th and final frame we were tied but Haviva then threw 3 straight strikes (yes, a turkey to you bowling aficionados) to beat me good.

No big plans for this weekend. I'm alone in the big city as Haviva is on the road visiting a school in Jayapura, which is a 10 hour (and 2 stop) flight away near the Papua New Guinea border. Just got a text message from her reporting that all is well in the jungle. I've still got plenty of stuff on the list of things we need for the apartment, so that'll keep me busy (toaster oven tops the list because we don't have a regular oven and some sort of foam pad for our incredibly hard mattress follows closely).

Orchid_Garden.MPG

Here's our first attempt at a video blog. Just a little clip from our very sad visit to the Slipi Orchid Garden last weekend.

Home Sweet Home. We're finally in our apartment. It is great to have a place to call home, athough it is shocking how little stuff we have to put in the apartment itself. We headed to the Carrefour and Ambassador shopping mall where all the deals are to be had. Carrrefour is like Target for Indonesia, there is pretty much nothing you cannot get and the Ambassador mall itself is more like a giant flea market, also where there is nothing you cannot get. Recommended any time you are looking to buy cell phones or DVDs, the Ambassador is a real shopping experience.

As it was a long day at work and we did not want cranky Haviva to surface, we started with dinner and then hit the Ambassador to pick up some DVDs. Our new apartment does have cable, but it also has a great surround sound system, so we thought it would be good to pick up some 60 cent dvds and curl up on the couch with a movie. Yes, you heard me right, 60 cents. Tables of DVD sellers line the mall and since the food court was on the top floor, we started there. But, alas, they wanted 70 cents at that table since their DVDs came in fancy boxes, so we headed back to the first floor where they were only 60 cents. You would not believe the amount of movies they have. Even things that have not come out yet in the theater, or just came out yesterday - The Departed, Borat, even that small independant movie about Jews and Passover that did not make a big splash in the US. Howie and I sifted through and decided to take advantage of the "Buy 10 get one free." We had chosen about 10 and the woman was playing them all in the DVD player for us to prove they worked (she was even so nice as to tell us what not to even bother buying because of thei poor quality...) About half way thru the process, she walks away and clearly is not helping us anymore. We look around....suddenly, no one is buying DVDs. The women behind the counter grab their bags and start to run. Still confused Howie and I stand there, holding about 8 DVDs that we have not paid for, but we know work. It was a raid. Undercover policemen starts dumping all the DVDs into big garbage bags and shooing people away. Deciding that Indonesian jail is not where we want to spend the night, we put the DVDs back and run upstairs, hoping the raid started on the first floor and they have not gotten to the upstairs tables yet. No such luck. The hundreds of DVDs we had seen only minutes before were all gone. People were just standing around, looking confused and, like us, wishing they had just taken what was in their hand and walked away....

All that excitement warrented a rootbeer float from A&W and we continued on to Carrefour to stock up for the apartment. We are still missing a few key items, but we are slowly making it home. We will post pictures soon.

Happy Thanksgiving! We spent ours at the American Club, a very nice social club in the compound where most US embassy staff live. They had a full spread complete with a big turkey, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce and pecan pie. Not quite homemade, but it did the trick. I don't think we've been gone long enough to really crave western food, but it was nice regardless. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and joined Haviva's family's Thanksgiving via webcam.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

In a sudden wave of sentimentality, we decided we really wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving in Jakarta. Originally, we had hoped to have been moved into our apartment and we planned to cook on our own, but as that is not the case, we started our search for an American evening. Stumbling upon the "American Club" we asked about a Thanksgiving dinner, but we were sadly too late. It was all booked and there was no pity for the new people with no place to go. I left my cell phone in hopes for a cancellation. Feeling let down, we considered seeing a movie or going bowling as an alternative - doesn't get any more American than that, does it? - but in a wave of good luck, the American Club had an opening last minute and we are headed there this evening for a real American feast. Turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce and maybe we will even meet some other American's hanging out in this crazy city (probably pretending they are Canadian.) It will not be the same as home, but at least it should be an adventure.

We hope you all have a great holiday. Thinking of you!

Apartment update... We're still at the hotel for now, but have started the process of signing a lease. We found an amazing apartment in a very fancy, brand new building. It's only 2 miles from Haviva's office, which should mean that her commute will only be 30 or 40 minutes. We're hoping to move in on Thanksgiving Day, although the lease has a few interesting clauses that we're working on revising, so it could be delayed.

Rent in Indonesia is paid upfront for the year. Insane, right? Haviva's office is going to pay our rent for the year and then we'll pay them back monthly.

The biggest issue we have with the lease is the clause that says that if the apartment is damaged and we need to move out while repairs are being made then the lease is automatically extended rent-free for the period of time we are unable to live there. So, if we move in and there's an earthquake the next day and they have to rebuild the place then they'll keep our money and let us live there for a year after it is rebuilt. No thanks.

You may have heard that our esteemed president was in town the other day. He wasn't actually in Jakarta, but in Bogor, which is a few hours south of here. There were quite a few protests here in Jakarta, but they were very peaceful - mostly a few hundred students holding signs with pictures of Bush & a monkey and grammatically incorrect English slogans. I saw video on CNN that was taken about 10 minutes up the street from our hotel. We were tempted to go join them, but don't worry, we thought better of it.

One thing that we've found interesting is that Indonesians have no problem protesting against Bush, but are surprised that we don't like him either. They may have voted against their president in the last election here, but they won't tell you that and think it is strange that we're willing to say we didn't vote for Bush and don't support him.

Look kids... Big Ben...Parliament...

One of the things we heard most about Jakarta before coming was that it had the world's worst traffic. Hard to argue with that statement, really, but the craziest part might be the traffic pattern. They don't believe in the American-style "cloverleaf", where you can get off one divided road and onto the next in either direction. Here you can only get off in one direction, so you are constantly making u-turns and going in giant circles to get to the other side of the road. It's a bit disheartening when you get in a taxi and 20 minutes and a couple of miles later you are across the street from where you started.

Still can't say hello....

...but we can say "thank you" - Tri (pronounced tree with a rolled R) Makasi. For some reason Indonesian has been going in one ear and out the other, but we are hoping this one will stick.

We are still living in the hotel, but an apartment should be around the corner. We have almost settled on a very nice place, but when the contract came thru, Arleta, my Indonesian boss, told us we were getting ripped off. She has called a friend of hers who is a realtor, who thinks he can get us something cheaper...we are wondering where he was the past couple days as we dragged around in the heat looking at a billion apartments. But ,we are happy he has at least surfaced now. It seems to be par for the course here. Unlike in China where you had to beg not to helped going to the bathroom, here help needs to be asked for. Everyone has a friend who has a discount on this or that, but good luck finding that out unless you mention what you happen to need at that moment. Indonesians are a little less infatuated with the westerner and do not feel any need to coddle. We are a bit undecided about which lifestyle was better, but we are sure that we could use a little help. They think it is a riot thar we have not been able to buy cell phones yet, but god help us if we ever understand the sim card...do you know what a sim card is?

You cannot imagine the heat here. Secret claims to be ph balanced for a woman, but there should be a little note with that mentioning that woman does not live in a tropical climate with 12 million people.

For all you foodies out there, tonight was our first local meal. (that is the picture above) To give you some background, until now we have stuck to the local faves - mei goereng and nasi goereng, which is basically lo mein and fried rice. This is NOT because we are too chicken to eat something new, but these really are the local dishes. All Indonesian places seem to only have about 8 things on the menu and they are all slight variations on this same theme. Indonesians love their malls and, as we mentioned, it is HOT here so eating at the food court is where most people go. You still get local food, you just do not sweat as mch when you eat it. So, tonight was a grand seafood dinner. Everything is spicy and everything is delish. If you like sambal, this is the place for you and Howie ordered a young coconut with his meal that was not only refershing, but supposedly good for the stomach. Indonesians eat fast. Eating is for eating, not for socializing (socializing is for the hour cab ride it takes to get anywhere.) All in all, a great first experience and we are hoping someone will take us out again so we can eat more things outside a mall.

Goodnight for now.
Haviva and Howie

We have finally arrived!

We would say hello in Bahasa, but we do not know how to do that yet. The good news is that we are here safe and sound and sorry that we have not been in touch as we would have liked so far. Internet is spotty here in Indonesia and if it exists it seems to be slow. The plan was to "pop" into the office and get some emails out before we go apartment hunting today, but here everything takes longer than you expect so we will have to keep this short.

The trip was long....We somehow got delayed from Newark and that just set the long hours into motion. Missed our connection in Taipei (after what ended up being a 13 hour flight from Seattle) and had to connect to Bali and then Jakarta. An extra stop and a cruel joke to make the girl headed to work sit on a plane with honeymooners and vacationers, but our luggage made it somehow and our ride was even there to pick us up. I was quickly wisked back to the airport the next morning and left Howie to explore.

Work is actually good and I think I will enjoy this job, although it will not be an easy one. Howie found his way around Jakarta - a lot of shopping malls and traffic - and today we apartment hunt together. This place is crazy with really everything Western you can imagine. Hot and humid, but very exciting.

We promise more soon!!!
Haviva and Howie

The last goodbye....we promise!

Yup, this is it. The visa is almost complete, we actually have a flight, and althought the bags are not packed, we really are going this time. Leaving from Newark on the 13th at 11:15 PM and arriving on the 15th at 1:15 PM. Short flight. I emailed my office with the information about our arrival and they sent me my agena for the next couple weeks. Looks like I will get to rest the day we arrive, but the 16th I am flying to Medan (on the island of Sumatra) for an "emergency visit" to the Medan school. Your guess is as good as mine, although I have yet to see an emergency visit that is good news. I just hope they do not expect me to talk too much. Clearly these people have not met sleep deprived Haviva. Howie will be tasked with the job of finding us a place to live, although they were gracious enough to give me next Saturday off to check out some places....and catch up on some sleep.

For all of those who recommended we see Borat we go, it is on the agenda for Wednesday night. Sharon is firing up the grill and there are just a couple more goodbye for nows to go.

Freaking out a little. (okay, maybe a lot.) Excited, nervous, wondering what the heck we have gotten ourselves into and hoping I will be dressed right for my first business trip.

Next entry from somewhere that is not Hamden!