It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas Day 2011

One of the nice things about Christmas here is that you can have as much or as little as you like.  The malls are decorated to the max, carols are playing, albeit softly, in the supermarket, there are trees in the apartment lobby and the staff wear Santa hats, and there are lots of vacationing families, but it's not the all Christmas all the time frenzy which is so exhausting.

We have been to a few Christmas events and at noon today will go to a brunch at the Sheraton with a group of Americans which will include some Peace Corps volunteers.  We have been given three cakes as gifts.

Last night we went to a Christmas Eve mass with the American Consul General and her family.  I have long heard about the vibrancy of the church in the third world and it was on vivid display last night.  The service was joyful and inspiring and included lots of young people ( including the young priest) and wonderful music.  The priest gave a humorous homily that had people laughing out loud.  The choir sang everything from jingle bells to Silent Night.  It was funny to hear them singing about snow and sleigh rides.   It lasted for an hour and a half and was preceded by a half hour concert, but was worth the time and a great start to the holiday.  Even though it was billed as an English mass, we were about the only white people there.  I guess there may have been Asians from other countries who spoke English.  Or maybe that was just the mass with the most music.

Anyway, quite wonderful.

Many thanks for all the holiday emails.  And from hot and sunny Surabaya, we wish you all a joyous 

 Merry Christmas!

Anne

Sunday dinner in the village

When we were in Jogjakarta I had asked my language teacher if she knew of a cooking class I could take while I was there. She said that her sister owned a restaurant that was closed on Sundays, so if I liked the idea, I could have a class there and we could all share a meal. That sounded fine, but as I found out more details, I began to fret about hygiene issues and regret my acquiescence. But it would have been too rude to back out. We were consulted about the menu which was ultimately decided to be 2 vegetable dishes, a fish, a curry, and a tofu dish.So at the appointed time we (Tom was along as well)headed to her restaurant which was in a village, adjacent to her home and set among rice paddies. My fears were confirmed on arrival by the look of the place- open to the air with no screens on windows or doors. But the welcome was warm and so we got to work. She had prepared the two veg dishes and the fish, a d they were covered with sheets of kraftpaper to keep off the flies, but I would "make" the lamb curry and the tofu. She directed me to the bathroom to wash my hands- a good sign perhaps?In class we had learned a nice way of referring to the bathroom is the "little room out back". And so it was to there I went. It did have plumbing, but consisted of a "squatting toilet" ( see photo) and a rectangular enclosure full of water with a faucet and a bar of soap. The idea is to use the toilet, then scoop some water with a dipper into the hole to flush it. I did as requested and noticed upon leaving that there were rectangular ponds with mud walls behind the house where she raised fish for the restaurant. Thank goodness I had said we preferred ocean fish or we might have eaten some of that and it looked most unappetizing.

 I worked on demo examples as she and a servant had really prepped everything. I began by grating fresh cocoanut for the coconut milk. The shreds are soaked in the coconut water and then squeezed. Next I began to grind in a mortar and pestle the fresh ingreds for the curry. I must say I had never seen fresh turmeric, which is a rhizome something like ginger. I peeled and pounded that along with black peppercorns, coriander seeds, and a few other things, then added garlic and shallots. That gets fried in a wok for a while, then coconut milk is added along with lime leaves. After simmering for a while we added cubed lamb. Then we started on the tofu. She said (thru her sister) that we had to deep fry the tofu before we stir fried it or it would fall part. We did that and drained it well, then commenced to stir fry it with vegetables. Indonesians are very fond of tofu and tempe and it is a major source of protein in the diet. 

 Meanwhile other people began drifting in, the owner's husband and her daughter who is a college student and speaks perfect English. Later our teacher's husband arrived with their 4 year old daughter and his mother-in-law. Lastly, the owner's high school age son showed up, just in time to eat. While the food was finishing we had some excellent ginger tea.When all was ready, we sat around the table and enjoyed(?) all the food. Of course, it goes without saying that there was a huge bowl of rice. One of the veg dishes was with a peanut sauce, which we already knew we liked. The curry was tasty but the lamb in it was inedible due to gristle. It was embarrassing, but neither Tom nor I could eat it. The tofu was very good and maybe my favorite. I feel like it was probably a real feast for them. My only cost was our share of the food, although AMINEF would be billed for the time.There was a surprisingly lively conversation around the table with translations where necessary. we practiced some of our new language skills. Our teachers husband is an entrepreneur who dries flowers and exports them. In the US he sells to Pier One and World Market. The college student asked a lot of questions about the US. She is a senior in accounting and will go to work for the government in a tax office after graduation. The grandma had strong opinions about everything. The four year old behaved typically.We finished the meal with rambutans from a tree in their yard. I asked about the business the restaurant does and it is mostly farmers and students from a nearby university who come for lunch. She serves about 25 people per day. I find it interesting that she also made sure her children went to the best private school in Jogjakarta, hence their good English.Although it was an experience that stretched the limits of my comfort zone, I am glad I did it. Not so much because of what I learned(not really much, although I have since experimented with fresh turmeric) but just the experience of dining with an extended family in a traditional village setting. And neither of us got sick afterwards!

This and that

Thank goodness for fruit. Just a note of what I currently have in house.  Apple, papaya, watermelon, mangosteen ( not to be confused with mango), star fruit, pear, mandarin orange, grapes, snake fruit, banana, not to mention lemons and limes.

An update on the rainy season.  It hasn't been too bad.  It never rains all day and almost never in the morning.  When it rains, it's usually between 3 and 6 pm and it can pour.  It rained so hard on Dec. 24 that we thought we might have to cancel our Christmas Eve plans.  Since we are up high we can see the flooding down below us (there are two areas that always flood) and we can watch the cars md motorcycles trying to drive through those areas.  Shortly after the rains stop the water all drains away. The biggest impact it has on us is that we sometimes hesitate to walk to the mall for dinner as we don't want to get stuck.  It's such a short way that a taxi would balk at driving us.  But overall, not much of a problem.

An acquaintance of mine (American)had a very unfortunate experience.  She works for the consulate as public affairs officer.  On dec. 26, there was a news article about her on the front page of the (national)Jawa Pos newspaper.  It seems she had reported her boyfriend(indonesian)to the police for taking money from her bank account by ATM.  All the messy details were there and he was detained for questioning.  It seems so un- newsworthy except for her position.  How would you like to lose your money (3500), your boyfriend, and your privacy, all in one fell swoop.  Ouch!

At the consulate Christmas party, Tom met rectors of many universities.  Presidents of universities are called rectors here.  He exchanged business cards with many of them and he has already visited one of them called Narotama.  They wanted  him to give a talk on global warming and mentioned something about a conversational Enlish class.  Well, THE VERY NEXT day there was a picture of him meeting with the rector, and a news article about him being a Fulbright Scholar, etc., on their website front page.  Although it was in Indonesian, I could figure out that they sort of implied he was at that university and mentioned his upcoming talk and also said tht he was "helping" them set up a conversational English program.  Pretty audacious.  They are not a top tier school, but are pioneering a lot of unusual things like an evening degree program and are becoming known for having a "paperless" campus.

It's now dec. 30 and New Years Eve approaches.  It is a very big deal here.  There are two events here at the hotel.  The rooftop restaurant has a special meal for $55 each- no booze included.  And there will be a party around the pool called Wet 'n Wild.   It's a barbecue meal and entertainment including a "sexy dancer".  We have decided to have a quiet meal at home and are splurging on a bottle of wine( a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc for $38).  Then we will go out on our balcony and watch the pool party directly below us.  Also people have said it is wise to stay home as There is a tradition of teenagers riding their motorbikes around wildly and creating traffic havoc.  I've heard they even sometimes take their clothes off.  And all this without alcohol!

I shall report back.

Daily life in Surabaya

While we were recently in Jogjakarta we realized that we have come to think of Surabaya as home and we looked forward to getting back here. Jogjakarta is a tourist city and we got tired of the harassment from touts and vendors selling everything and becak (pedicab) drivers pushing us to take a ride.  Surabaya is not a tourist destination, but it is, much as they say about Chicago, a city that works.  The business elite are ethnic Chinese with their usual vigorous work ethic. They steer clear of politics, by and large, but own businesses large and small.  We continue to be surprised by the wealth around here.  It is visible in some large homes and elaborate weddings ( often in this complex where we live).  There are many large fancy malls and often on Sunday we eat at a food court at one nearby.  It is a good place to people watch as many multigenerational families come to eat after church.  Most of the Chinese here are Christians (often there is nary a headscarf in sight).  One can just tell by the clothes and accessories that they are well off.  It is hard to miss that many of the children are overweight.  A friend told me that here fast food is relatively expensive so more patronized by the well off.  At another mall recently we saw a child's birthday party in a fast food place.  Tom tried to surreptitiously take a picture and we immediately became the center of attention with all the children wanting to have their picture taken.  There were probably 40 children present. 

 There are also fancy 17th birthday parties.  Surabaya has its problems, most notably traffic, but it is big enough to offer just about anything one needs.  There is an airport with good connections and plenty of five star hotels.

In addition to the wealthy, there are a thriving middle class and the very poor.  The classes can also be defined by one's mode of transportation.  The upper class drive cars, the middle class motorcycles, and the poor walk or ride becaks or crowd into ancient minibuses which ply the streets.  The poor may have a food cart or do very basic manual labor.  I will say there is a strong entrepreneurial spirit here.  I saw guys washing cars in the parking area at the mall and people will set up on a sidewalk doing motorcycle repair or selling gas by the liter.  Believe it or not free lance traffic assistants appear every rush hour and drivers will tip them small amounts.

We have come to see our apartment as a haven from the chaos and we are establishing our routines.  We both wake up early with the sun which rises about 5 AM, but are coming and going in different directions most of the morning.  Tom arises first for his morning exercise which can be tennis if his partner is in town, or his tai chi on Tuesdays and Thursdays, ( it is a  local variation of tai chi called ling tien Kung) or just an hour long walk around the neighborhood.  I get up between 5:45 and 6:15 and check email and the overnight news as the US day is winding down and have breakfast.  Tom gets back, showers and breakfasts, and I head downstairs to the fitness center shortly after 7.  It is packed then(Chinese), but begins to clear out by 7:30.  I want to be back by 8 to watch Anderson Cooper as it is the only US based news broadcast I can get.  Tom leaves about 8:10.  After AC 360 I usually swim for 20 to 30 minutes in my gorgeous pool which I usually have all to myself.

Then I shower and do morning chores like dishes and laundry (I have a washing machine, but air dry things on a laundry rack.). On Tuesdays and Thursdays I leave by 11 for my volunteer job and on MWF I walk to the supermarket.

The afternoons are less hectic.  I read or go on the computer or blog.  My cleaning guy comes MWF at 1Pm.  I get the English language Jakarta Post delivered which comes around noon.  At first I read it cover to cover, but I have gotten a little bored with the labyrinthine details of Indonesian government.  There is an astonishing amount of corruption which reaches to the very highest levels of government.  The paper reports freely on it but it seems unstoppable.  There is something called the Corruption Eradication Committee whose doings are almost comical.  Stephen Colbert  and the daily Show would have a field day here.  It does have a good business section which covers all the financial markets as well as every twitch of the Rupiah exchange rate.

Tom tries to be home by 4 (as do I when I volunteer) because traffic gets ferocious from then until 6.

We usually eat dinner at home, but sometimes venture out into the surrounding area for a meal.

Then it's a quiet evening and an early bedtime around 9.  Although we have about 50 channels there isn't usually much TV worth watching.    We have CNN international which seems much less robust than when I watched it in the Middle East and other English language news programs from BBC, Europe, Russia, etc.  I find I like Al Jazeera English quite a bit.  The Russian one is interesting as you have to pay careful attention to determine it is Russian.  It's called RT and it has anchors who speak accentless English and has a snappy set, but if you watch often you can detect a decided Russian bias to the news.  By far the best news show is on cnni which has anchors and analysts in NY, London, and Hong Kong and covers mainly the financial news, but has covered the politics of the Euro situation very well.  I guess that is the one time during the 24 hour news day that most of the world is awake.  Lately HBO (?) has been showing episodes of Mad Men which is nice, but they can be from season one or season three or whatever.  Hard to follow.

Visit to an agricultural station

In addition to teaching behasa Indonesian, our teacher, Ria, has a fellowship from the government to get a PhD.  She worked for the agriculture Dept for several years and talked them into allowing her to do this.  She will have to work for them for at least 7 years after getting the degree.  Most recently she worked on certifications for ag products for both import and export.

But her first job was working at the ag station in Kaliurang, on the slopes of Mt. Merapi.  On our day trip to the area we stopped to walk around so she could visit with her old colleagues.  It turned out to be quite interesting.  Three activities happen there, bull semen processing, a dairy operation, and research on growing feed for the cattle.  

The land is quite rich due to the volcanic ash soil and they put all the manure back into the soil, but still need some chemical fertilizers.  One of her jobs was to determine the optimum amount of those chemical fertilizers.  They mainly grow something called elephant grass, which goes from seed to maturity at 7 feet tall in 45 days.  Amazing.  You can sometimes see people on motorcycles with huge bundles of this grass on the back.

We didn't spend much time at the dairy operation but the cows spend most of their lives in stalls due to insufficient space, but when cows are pregnant they get turned out to graze.

The most interesting part for me was the bull semen processing.  It is run by a remarkable woman for whom Ria has a strong affection.  She is a real rarity in Indonesia, a career woman who never married.  She is smart and well travelled and speaks fluent English, and although she officially retired 5 years ago, still shows up and works most days.  She is very knowledgable about the cattle industry and we had an interesting and wide ranging discussion.  The island of Java, where we all live, is the most densely populated island on earth and she says there really isn't enough land for people and cattle, but the people see a cow as an investment and want to own them.  They can't make any money selling the milk as the large milk processors hold all the power and pay the farmers only what they want to pay.  There is not a culture of cheese making here although that could be a value added product otherwise.

The bull semen is sold at or below cost to farmers in this region.  I wasn't sure whether I was relieved or sorry to hear that we had just missed the collection process.  She became very emotional and teared up when talking about the bulls going to a slaughterhouse at the end of their useful life. They are like her children.   The bulls get walked like a dog on a leash every day - not enough room for them to roam.  

The station is about 3000 feet above sea level so has a delightful climate and the staff has planted various fruit trees around.  The ag station has a beautiful view of Mt. Merapi, which erupted in dramatic fashion just about one year ago.  They had to evacuate the animals, and thehumans in a large area had to wear masks for 2 months.  It was a real hardship as the airport was closed also for 2 months and tourism was negatively impacted.  They had about 5 inches of ash on the ground in Jogjakarta which is about a hour's drive from Kaliurang -about as far up the mountain as one can drive.

I have several photos from our visit.  Note the government office with the typewriter.  That says volumes about how the government spends its money but that is a topic for another day.

Yogyakarta

We have finished our language training here (14 days) and I can say that it has been the mental equivalent of running a marathon.  Most days we did 4 hours ( 2 hrs in AM and 2 hrs in PM)of tutoring (just the two of us) and one hour of homework.  Sundays we had a lighter schedule of only two hours.  One day we begged off the morning class so we could visit Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in the world.  We were there when it opened at 6 AM and it was quite magical in the early morning light with some light fog.

We also had a couple of field trips with the language teachers.  We went to a huge traditional market which sold everything from vegetables to furniture.  We had a cooking class which I will write about in more detail in another post, and we had a trip up into the hills onto the slopes of mt. Merapi, a volcano which erupted pretty dramatically last year.  And another trip to a Hindu temple called Prambanan.  This area is famous for batik products so when we had time we shopped a bit.

So, as you can imagine, I did not have time to write for the blog, but I have a lot of material for future posts.

Here I will expound on what it is like to learn a language at my age.

I imagined my brain as a large room in which I needed to clear a large space to make room for all the new words.  So I (mentally) packed up a lot of memories, especially other languages I have learned and crammed them in closets to free up brain space for the new language.  It worked, sort of, although by the 4th day or so the space was so packed that I had to remove some words to make space for the new.  And at night while trying to sleep those new words ran around that space like squirrels frolicking in an attic.  I would wake up and think, "what is the word for airplane " or whatever.

I want to spend some time on the process because it was interesting.  We had two teachers, Ria and Ari, each doing two hours a day.  They began by asking what food and drink words we already knew and listed them on a sheet of paper, such as chicken, eggs, fruit, milk, beer, tea, etc., along with the two verbs for eat and drink.  We then learned how to make simple sentences such as:

I drink milk.

He eats chicken.

Does he drink beer?

On succeeding days we just ramped up our vocabulary and the complexity of the sentences.  It is deceptively simple but surprisingly effective.  We learned a huge number of words in the first 4 or 5 days, so that we were mentally drained every evening, but then we slowed down the vocab and worked on adverbs such as always, never, sometimes and some grammar in the sentences.  We got to the nasty stuff like irregular verbs at the very end of the course.  They have a perfectly good verb like sopir (drive) but it has another form where they drop the s and add a prefix of meny, so it becomes menyopir.  She said we can always use sopir but written material will use the longer version so we need to recognize it.  As you can tell they don't much look alike.

Food Part 2 The Supermarket

It's been a while coming, but as promised, the supermarket. Much as I do at home, I don't just shop at one store here, but several:
Ranch market -this is my clear favorite. It is a clone of Whole Foods, and much like Whole Foods, the quality is good, but the prices are high. It's not nearby but when I am near it, I always try to stop in. It's one of very few places to sell pork.
There are three places within walking distance:
Giant- this is where I shop most often. It is about a 5 or 6 minute walk on a decent sidewalk and mostly in the shade. It has a good variety of stuff, but the quality of the produce varies a lot. Staff is friendly.
Hypermart -think Walmart. Huge, impersonal, lots of variety. It is in the basement of a new, hi fashion mall. I think the mall uses them as a draw to attract customers to the mall. We often go to the mall to eat and so usually stop by on our way home. It is also about a 5 or 6 minute walk, but the sidewalk is a real hazard. There are supposed to be brick pavers, but most are missing or very uneven. You have to maneuver around rickshaw carts and food vendors and tree roots. It's such an awful walk that we usually take a longer way around which adds several more minutes.
Cosco -this is a small Mom and Pop type Japanese grocery. Owners are very friendly and helpful and they have a small selection of very nice, fresh produce. They sell frozen pork.

Nice, but not practical:
Hokky - this is a wonderful place known for its fruit, but is quite out of the way to get to
Papaya - this caters more to westerners, but is very small, crowded, and also out of the way

Lastly, there are vendors who set up sort of like a farmer's market between 6 and 7 AM near the entrance of the gated community behind our apartments. Tom is out walking then and sometimes buys stuff. ( he is doing tai chi with a group there on Tues. Thurs. and playing tennis some other days. Realize that sunrise is 4:30 so people are up and about early.)

Of course we have no car and our refrig is small so we shop often and buy small amounts at a time. The result is that we eat out quite a bit. I really like to cook, but so many ingredients are not available, that I wander around the stores trying to think of meals I can make with what I see. There is lots of rice (30 pound bag, anyone?) and many, many kinds of noodles, even Italian pasta( its a noodle after all ). I really miss beans like black beans. I have found chickpeas in one place, but nothing else. On the meat side, it's mainly chicken. The beef isn't good. You may have heard it said that the Chinese eat every part of the pig except the squeal. Well there are many things the locals eat like tongues and brains, chicken feet, etc., but we aren't interested in that. Tom was considering a soup once in a restaurant until he heard it was "goat's knuckle soup". The saving grace is that there is so much wonderful fruit.
We also treat ourselves to something like a "Dove Bar"- chocolate ice cream inside and dipped in dark chocolate. Yum.
There is a lot of fish, but we have no idea what most of it is. There are tanks with live fish which I think is farm raised fresh water fish. We do recognize red snapper and have had it a couple of times, but it's almost as expensive as at home. We have noticed that on Saturdays some places make a big show out of have a whole large fresh salmon that they filet and will cut to your order. It's usually reasonably priced and very nice. I notice that they package up the head and bones and sell them.

There are more supermarket pictures here on the web:

https://picasa web.google.com/117712396372323795770/supermarket

Let me know if there are problems with the link.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me comments about the blog. I would love to hear from others who are reading it. I do this as a way to reach a lot of people at once, but I do answer individual emails.
Anne

A perfect storm

The upcoming week may be a perfect storm. There are two major events this week and most of the consulate staff(there are only 12 Americans here) are in Bali for obama's visit. You did know that he was coming to Indonesia, didn't you?
One Is international education Week and I am scheduled to give talks on "Preparing a Statement of Purpose" for a college application and "Finding the right college for YOU" on tuesday and t hursday.Tom is to do a talk on careers in the STEM fields on Wed.
Additionally there is a big high school fair sponsored by the Jakarta Post. The consulate has a booth there that needs to be manned 11 hours a day and they are pressing all available Americans to help out. I will do an evening shift on monday and a day shift Wed. Tom will help out with the day shift after his STEM talk. I was originally double booked, a day shift and a talk at the same time, until I protested. It doesn't help that they are at different venues, about as far from each other as its possible to be. Additionally two of the Fulbright English teaching assistants are manning the booth all day Sat and both live 30 miles out of town, so we invited them to stay overnight here - our first houseguests.
We survived our moves and are now happily ensconced in what we hope will be our home for the next 8 months. I must say that the staff was extremely helpful. Tom had asked for a shaving mirror in our old unit which they had installed. When we walked in here for the first time today, he noticed they had already installed the same mirror ( or moved the other one). I get to keep my same cleaning guy whom I really like. He speaks passable English. Some of my friends are jealous. He come three times a week and changes the linens and empties the trash and cleans the floors and generally makes himself useful.
The unit is a mirror image of our old one so we keep getting confused about which direction to go.
I have my photos back. I just guessed at what google was asking me in Indonesian and presto.
Here are some.
Our unit is the one just under the penthouse on the left- 20th floor.

Numerology and A Working Vacation

Today I want to write about numerology. As you may remember we moved into a complex that has a hotel tower and an apartment tower. There was to be a "nicer" apartment available in a few days that we could move into. But we were also told then - three weeks ago- that we would have to move to a hotel unit on Nov. 11 and 12. We tended to dismiss this latter. Surely someone would cancel, etc. Meanwhile we continued to live in 1881 and occasionally they showed us a different unit to see if we would like to move. Note that they all have the same layout, but are decorated slightly differently. Finally we saw a unit worth the hassle of moving - unit 2082. We noted a few things we wanted fixed before we moved and we planned to move several days hence. But alas, they found a water leak so another week went by. Then we were told that indeed we would have to move to a hotel unit for the weekend, but when we moved back to the apartment tower we would go into 2082.
As you might imagine none of this made us very happy. So yesterday we packed up and moved to the hotel. It took the bellboy two trips with a full cart and this all fell on me as Tom was working. I will say that they gave us a vey nice room in the hotel and, after asking, vouchers for the breakfast buffet. They also moved in a full size refrigerator as I had frozen and perishable foods in my apartment. But until yesterday I didn't understand that the reason we had to move is that the date was 11-11-11 and that is considered a lucky day to get married by both the Chinese and Muslim communities (for different reasons). The hotel is hosting wedding parties for four different weddings so of course it makes sense that they would have booked well in advance.
We are learning a bit about Chinese numerology. Nine for example is a lucky number. One of our favorite restaurants is the "3.6.9 cafe". You will note that 3+ 6=9 and 9+9=18 which also means that 1+8=9. Interesting. Also the towers here don't have a floor 4. 4 is an unlucky number because it sounds like death. A friend says that the floors in her building have 3, 3A, 5, 6, etc.
This move would have been far worse if we had moved to 2082, then had to move here for the weekend, and then back. At least I only had to pack up once and the staff has been very helpful, although we have had to pry the details out of them. We decided to treat ourselves and eat at the very nice rooftop restaurant, City lights. It's outside on the 21st floor. The night was spectacular with clear skies, a full moon, a perfect temperature, and a slight breeze. The rains of the past few days had washed everything clean and the city sparkled all around us. A magical night.

On another topic, we are going on a working vacation. The day after Thanksgiving, for which we have been invited to the consul general's residence, we will travel to yogyakarta for two weeks of language training. Known to everyone as Jogja, it is supposed to be a wonderful city. It's been referred to as the soul of Indonesia. It has decent weather and interesting history and politics and is near Borobudur which is a " must see"sight. Although Indonesia is a democracy, Jogja is ruled by a hereditary sultan. And that is the people's choice. He is much loved. His daughter got married last month and the festivities rivalled will and Kate. Of course the down side is that we will have intensive language training. As best we can figure out, it will be tutorial rather than classroom based. I'm sure, especially at our ages, that it will be exhausting.
One last note. I spent most of last weekend updating my iPad with the new operating system, iOS5. Other than the time it took, it mostly went well. The one problem relates to this blog. I got a message that I would have to re-link my photos and YouTube to the blog site. I do this through google, but google insists on communicating with me in indonesian rather than English (on this issue only) so i can't understand the instructions. All my other interactions with google are in English and my preferences are clear in my settings so I don't know why this is happening. The result is that once again, I don't have access to my photos. It's something I will be working on. You might surmise correctly that we got the broadband issues mainly solved. We bought an external modem and the highest data transmission package available. It works fine but we have to manually reboot it every morning.
Anne

Reading in America

What a day we have just had. The consulate had asked us to give a talk at Tronojoyu university in Madura on the general topic of American literature and drama. We tried to get more specific information, but it was not forthcoming. So I put together a short general PowerPoint called "Reading in America" where I talked about encouraging readers from an early age by bedtime stories and school activities to promote reading, summer reading lists, and on to book clubs, best seller lists (which they don't have) and so on. Then I talked about what genres are popular, and finally trends like ebooks. I showed my kindle.
Tom prepared a part on drama from Broadway to Community theatre and high school musicals, etc. and listed some of the drama critic award winners from the last few years.
Thus our preparation. My supervisor was very surprised that the consulate was not sending anyone along with us in case there were any problems, so she asked a student, Fitri, to go with us. The university would send a car and driver to collect us.
So this morning we set off for Madura, Tom and I, Fitri, the driver, and two students from Tronojoyu univ. for the hour long drive. Madura is an island off the coast of Java, about 70 miles long and 20 miles wide, famous for batik. The landscape changed dramatically once we crossed the bridge from urban congestion to agricultural land and narrow roads. We saw rice paddies, and goats on the road as we made our way to the campus. What can one say about any campus here? It is clear that there is little money for infrastructure or buildings and grounds maintenance. So no beauty awards. Anyway we went to the building and received a warm welcome. We were to speak in a theater type classroom with tables at the front and tiers of seats sloping up. The room was packed with about 100 or more. The first surprise was that everyone took their shoes off when entering the classroom, professors and students alike, so we did also. After introductions and several welcoming remarks, I began my part of the program and when I finished and asked for questions, there were none. I had been warned of this (I donesian students never ask questions in class although they are very inquisitive if you meet them on the street) so I had brought a few bookmarks and pencils from home and offered them to students who would ask questions, so slowly they began to ask. Tom then did his part and by now the questions were coming quickly of both of us. We got some great questions as follows:
How can We develop a reading culture like you have in the US?
does the military ever put on plays? (we had talked about community theater groups)
What is the value of reading?
Are there plays that celebrate folk tales?
Is there street theater? ( No but we talked about flash mobs)
Are mysteries always about ghosts?
A question about feminism.
The question that took the cake for me was:
Did we know of any plays written in the great depression that dealt with LGBT issues? Wow, where to begin with that?
We talked almost two hours and really enjoyed ourselves. I think the students learned quite a bit about the US. The class was american studies which uses american literature to learn american history. The teachers were ecstatic at the interaction.
Afterwards there were many photos and some more questions. I gave out my email address quite a few times so we'll see what that brings.
somehow they had figured out that we were interested in shopping for batik so a large contingent of faculty and staff headed off for lunch with first a stop at a batik store. The shop was not air-conditioned and i was so hot the clothes were sticking to me as I tried things on. I don't much care for shopping in the best of times and it was a bit un- nerving to have 8 or 10 people hanging around and giving advice. I finally bought something just to bring an end to it. Tom got a shirt also. Later it turned out that they gave us presents of batik sarongs.
On to the restaurant. It was open air and supposedly famous for duck. After we sat around for a long time, they indicated it would be much longer, so suggested a different place. Fine, and it was air-conditioned. All the food is served to be shared, so much discussion ensued, very little with our input. When the food arrived it was all very good. We had duck and several types of fish and rice and vegetables. They had ordered a traditional soup. I am not very fond of their soups as they are mostly bones or chicken feet and they spoon the broth and meat(?) over rice. But of course I took some.
After another round of photos we headed home. All in all, a great day. Feeling like we made a difference in someone's life, priceless.
PS. I was very impressed with Fitri. I mentioned the Jodi Picoult book, My Sister's keeper in my talk. She told me later that she had just read it- in English.

Getting a Rabies shot

We had discussed, but eventually decided not to get, rabies shots before we left the US. Cost was a big deterrent- $250 per shot each for the three shot series. That's a total of $1500 for both of us. Of course Medicare wouldn't cover it unless we got bitten by a rabid animal first which seemed like a drastic step. But when we got here we were strongly encouraged to get them if we are going to Bali.( of course we are!). Why rabies? Bali is largely Hindu and they don't like to kill animals so there are lots of feral dogs and aggressive monkeys. So we arranged with dr Albert to start the shots. He would meet us at Mitra Hospital and administer the shots.
We ran into trouble right way as the taxi driver wanted to know which Mitra Hospital. We didn't know there were two. We had had the tour the previous week and the coordinator was a young lady named Dewi who spoke very good English. She had given us her business card and Tom had put her number in his phone so he called her and she got the taxi driver straightened out. When we got to the hospital she was waiting in the lobby for us to see how she could help. We explained about the shots so she had us sit while she found Dr. Albert. After a bare minimum of paperwork we went into the emergency room and sat on a bed in a cubicle. He explained about the shots, took our blood pressure, and asked if we had any allergies. That was it for a medical history.
Then we had to go to the pharmacy in the hospital to pick up the vaccine. Dewi went along and showed us how to take a number and wait to be called. After a few minutes we went to the pharmacy counter, paid for the medicine, and went back to the emergency room. Dewi reminded us that we should check the expiration date on the meds. The shots were administered and we took our bill to the counter to pay. Dewi was still with us and she made sure we understood the charges and got a receipt and then called a taxi for us. It was extraordinary customer service. I asked her what her job was and she answered that it was to be of service however she could. It's been a long time since we had customer service like that in the US.
Oh yes, the bill was $56. That's not each, but for the two of us-vaccine, doctor, and hospital inclusive. The whole thing took less than 30 minutes.

Food Pt 1

This is the first part of an intended 3 part post on food; in the supermarket, in the restaurants, and cooking at home.
Today we'll focus on restaurant eating. Much like the rest of Asia this culture has a history of street food and regional varieties. For obvious reasons we won't be eating street food, but there is a healthier alternative. There are a huge number of malls here (more on those later) and all those malls have food courts with a bewildering array of choices. Like food courts at home you go up to the counter, order the food ( they have pictures which help) and take your food to a table. Food is very cheap and hygiene standards seem good. The malls also have more upscale places where you can be served at a table. Also quite inexpensive. There are of course all kinds of cuisine, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Vietnamese, regional foods, seafoods. Pizza hut, KFC and McDonalds are everywhere. Pizza hut is quite upscale, the Colonel serves spaghettii as well as chicken, and the McD's are the biggest outlets I have ever seen. There are kiosks elsewhere in the mall serving various frozen treats- Japanese gelato, frozen yogurt, baskin Robbins. Oh yes, Starbucks and its copycats are everywhere. All of these places are packed, leading to the conclusion that no one cooks at home. It is common when we will be eating with someone, for them to ask,"what ki ind of food do you want to eat?"
Then there are restaurants-not in the malls and usually not much to look at on the outside. We have only gone to ones that have been recommended to us. The most interesting was a seafood place with large tanks of live fish and crabs out front. You give your order to someone and pick out the individual fish or crab if desired, and tell them how you want it cooked. One of the choices is on the grill outside right next to the tanks. Then find a seat at a table and wait for it to be brought to you. I think this place is relatively expensive, but someone else was picking up the tab both times so I don't know how much. One of my frustrations is that they overcook the fish. They cook it till its almost chewy. Once i get better language skills, i will try to modify that. There is western food, notably La Rucola, an Italian place more noted for pizza and good beef ( the chef/ owner is said to be able to get his hands on good Australian beef.). The four and five star hotels have western type restaurants among others, with mixed results. The very best western style meal we have had was here in our hotel/ apartment complex. It seemed to be a glorified coffee shop, but they said they served food so we tried it. Tom had osso buco and I had chicken cordon bleu. Both were excellent and the total bill $23. We will eat there again.
The portion size at most Asian places is quite small by western standards. The protein piece is very small, usually a bite or two and often there is tofu or tempe as a filler, even though it wasn't mentioned in the description. But overwhelmingly there is rice or noodles in abundant quantity. We are learning how to eat like Asians, which is probably not a bad thing.
Indonesians are said to have a sweet tooth and they have embraced western style pastries. Shops are everywhere. Fortunately I lost my sweet tooth some years ago so I am not tempted.
A word about alcohol. Beer is cheap and widely available. Wine is outlandishly expensive. As noted, a nice meal can cost about $20-25 for two and a bottle of Jacobs Creek Shiraz ($12-14 retail in the US) is $57.00. So we are forgoing wine right now. Spirits are likewise expensive and we are only drinking gin and tonic with the duty free gin we brought in with us.
Cheers,
Anne

Bandwidth blues

We've got the baandwidth blues! Since we moved to the new apartment we haven't been able to download or upload much of anything. We can check email and slowly access websites. This is a huge disappointment and we are working to rectify it. We actually have two paths to the Internet. The hotel has a wired cable connection in the room ( and supposedly a wifi connection in the lobby- it didn't work for me.) I have a 3G connection thru a sim card in my iPad. I only pay $10 per month for unlimited Internet use which seems like a great deal except it's slow or non existent. But it's better than nothing. Here are some of the things we can't do:
Download New Yorker articles to my ipadi
Upload any pictures from either iPad, camera or phone. This means I can't put any pictures on my blog, much as I want to. Or Tom put any pictures on Facebook.
View pics in emails
Do anything at all with YouTube.
Dowload books to kindle.
needless to say, I have not even tried to get the new iOS 5 or update any of my apps that utilize it.

We have talked to various people about this. There is something called speedy which works off the cable somehow and would need the hotel's approval. Tom talked with the IT guy at his university and he recommended an external modem and a fast connection on a service called aha to create a wireless network. We found a place to buy the modem, but we want to check with aha to see if they can really deliver. As Tom says, the only problem with everything being in the" cloud" is the speed at which you can get it up or down. It will cost $40 per month which is about what we would pay at home.
I know I sound whiny, but I can put up with a lot of the hassles of living in a third world country ( and there are plenty) as long as I am connected.
Tomorrow I will go to the education USA office which has the " speedy" service and see how it works with my gadgets.
Also we will move to a better apartment in the building tomorrow or Wed., so we don't want to set up anything here.
Anne

This and that

Several small observations:

The biggest pleasant surprise is the weather. After hearing from everybody about how hot it is here, the weather has really not been bad, not nearly as bad as the past july in the US. But I want to write about it now because the "rainy season" will start soon and the extra humidity may increase the discomfort. And I may change my mind. I can't figure out exactly how much it will rain except it is not all day, every day. Short downpours I think.
I had an app for my iPad which showed the worldwide weather and I set it for Surabaya and every time I checked it, it said 95 -97 degrees. So I was rather dreading that aspect, but if it has been 97, I will eat my hat. It does get hot midday, but there is always a breeze and if you are in the shade, it is fine. As soon as the sun goes down (5PM!) it cools right down. I do like to make my five minute walk to the Supermarket early in the morning. Right now the wind is howling. We are on the 18th floor and it may be that these tall towers make their own wind.

I am getting amazingly busy. I will be volunteering at education USA two or maybe three afternoons a week and helping with special events. One will be to talk about writing a good essay for a college application. The GM of our apartment complex asked if I will do an hour English class per week for his staff, most of whom speak some English, but need some practice. I said I'll give it a try. The consulate staff asked if we would be willing to go to a small college on a nearby island and give a talk on "literature in the US". We said ok. I am no literature expert, but I figure I can manage. It's also an opportunity to see that island which does a lot of handmade batiks and also is known for bull races. It is connected to Java by one of the longest bridges in Asia. And I am signed up to help with a charity bazaar.
This is in addition to trying to work out and/or swim everyday. And shop for groceries every couple of days since my refrig is so tiny. So it goes.

I watched the republican debate from las Vegas on CNN this morning. It was on here live at 7AM. It's hard to believe Herman Cain has the staying power, but I can see why people like him. His 9-9-9 plan seems simple, but when one looks under the hood, I think it's terribly regressive. But I know from my days doing taxes how popular the idea of a flat tax was to my clients. I would argue it with them, as in it's not a panacea and means giving up the mortgage interest deduction, for example. But most of my clients saw it as a fairness issue. Studies back then indicated it would take a 17% flat tax to raise an equivalent amount of money and they indicated they would be happy to pay that as long as the rich did as well. The devil is in the details.

Later,
Anne

A home of our own

I wrote the following almost two weeks ago, but just realized it never got posted to the blog.

Well, maybe. Saturday afternoon we moved here to the Java Paragon. It's two tall towers-one is a hotel and one is apartments. It's really spacious and way more than we need ( or want to pay), but there is very little else that is decent. It was the only place we saw that has any kind of a kitchen and, as most of you know, I like to cook. That said, the kitchen is very basic. It has a sink with cold running water, four burners, a very small refrigerator and a good amount of counter space. At first the entire set of equipment was 3 cups, 3 plates, and 3 sets of flatware, and an electric teakettle. After explaining that I really intend to cook, they came up with a set of Teflon lined pans, a microwave, and some cooking utensils. Fortunately there are two supermarkets within walking distance so we rounded things out with a few purchases of our own. I am trying to buy cheap stuff as it just has to last a year, but that may prove to be foolish.
There are two bedrooms and an office, living and dining areas and three baths! High ceilings make it feel even bigger. I didn't want to live my time here in a bubble, and this is somewhat of a bubble, but we are the only Americans here and a third of the units are longterm rentals to the consulate of China whose building is next door, so I guess it's at least an Asian bubble. And when I walk to the supermarkets, I am definitely not in the bubble.
We have taken this for a month's trial as it is quite far to Toms university and he wants to see how long and costly the commute is. He will take a taxi as we would never think of driving here. They drive on the left and traffic is nuts. Two other fulbrighters have hired a car and driver for about $800 per month. That buys a lot of taxi rides, so maybe Tom can make good use of his time. If the commutes become too burdensome, we can start looking again.
There are a few other wrinkles. Even though we are renting by the month, we have been advised that the unit is rented for Nov 4 and we will have to move out and go to the hotel part. I told them ok, but that I am going to have a lot of stuff that will have to be packed and stored somewhere. That is still under negotiation. Also we were very anxious to unpack our stuff, having lived out of suitcases for a month, but they said a nicer unit (same layout) will be available in a day or two if we want to move, so I am holding off getting too settled here. One thing going for us is that the GM is an American and I think he will make things as good as possible for us here.

Singapore botanic garden

Famous for the orchids.

What if we get sick?

Today Tara from the consulate arranged a visit to two hospitals and a lab for routine tests. Accompanying us was Dr. Albert who is on retainer to the consulate for 40% of his time and in private practice otherwise. He is an Indonesian. There were 5 Americans on the tour. The purpose was to show us where the hospitals were and how to use them if we need to. The hospitals, Mitra and Siloam, were obviously two of the best. Both are for private patients only and seemed pretty good (although I hope I never have to find out for sure).
Unlike the US, we were encouraged to go to the emergency room for anything other than routine. They have a
"triage" system of red, green, and yellow. Yellow and red go straight to the emergency room, while green gets to see a doctor not so urgently. Interestingly, although they have 10 beds in emergency, no one was in there. We were treated like visiting royalty with just about everyone on the marketing team who could speak English accompanying us as we saw operating rooms and patient rooms and ICU. They have MRI and CT. Siloam even has an ambulance service.
Some prices might be of interest. They have several levels of patient rooms. They were quite proud of their super VIP rooms which have a bed for the patient, a bed for a family member, a dining table, sofa, chairs, 2 televisions, microwave, refrigerator, etc. Of course private bath. The price is $200 per night.
They also indicated the government was pushing them to make some cheaper rooms available so there are rooms with 5 or 6 or 7 patients in one room in individual cubicles. Those prices vary with the number of people in the room- the seven person room is $15 per night.
Siloam is also undergoing an accreditation process to meet standards set by an international consortium. They will be done by next year and will be the only hospital in Surabaya and only one of only four in Indonesia.

Although the hospital was overall very quiet, one area was very busy. That was in vitro fertilization. One cycle of treatment costs about $3000 to $5000. ( 45% success rate). I don't know what it would cost in the US, but I am sure a lot more.
Dr Albert strongly recommended rabies shots if we are going to Bali. They are about one-fifth the price here so I guess we'll start the series of three.
Again, good comforting information, but I hope not to need it.

Who's who and what's what

I'm sorry for that very long post. This may seem simple but it actually has a steep learning curve. There were lots of technical issues, not to mention that google was "helping" me by trying to give me information in behasa Indonesian. One the one hand I had my blogging platform and on the other, the actual post and I could not get them to "marry" so I just kept adding to the first post. My intention is to make the posts shorter and about one topic.

Today I want to give you a who's who and what's what so in the future when I refer to a person or place you can come back here and figure it out.
AMINEF-the Fulbright umbrella organization here in Indonesia. It's headquartered in
Jakarta so we don't expect to see too much of them, but the director is in town today.
Staff are:
Nellie
Astrid
Mike
CIES -Fulbright administrators in DC
Education USA -the flip side of aMINEF, they encourage Indonesians to study in the US. I expect to do some volunteering there.
Ratna - director of Education USA
The Comprehensive Agreement -this is an agreement signed between Obama and the Indonesian president to promote educational exchanges both ways and is the reason Tom was eligible for a third Fulbright.
American consulate staff:
Kristen Bauer -American Consul General
Emily Norris -public Affairs
Tara Visani -community liason
There are others but only a total of 10-12 Americans on her staff. These plus spouses and a handful of teachers at the American school are most of the Americans here in Surabaya. Overall no more than 50 so we will be quite visible.
ITS - the university where Tom will teach. It stands for 10th of November Institute of Technology. That date was important in the battle for independence from the Dutch. He will be part of the Environmental Engineering Department which is part of the Civil EngineeringFaculty.
Dr Yulinah - Tom's main liaison (a woman). He has an office in her lab.
Dr mardyanto head of Civil engineering
Dr Ketut part of civil engineering faculty, but currently part of administration. He'll be back to the department in a couple of months. He is a very interesting person. He's Balinese, his father was a farmer, and he sold souvenirs on the beach as a boy. But somehow he managed to get a superb education. He has a Masters degree from the UK and a PhD from Kobe Japan. He speaks fluent English as well as Balinese, Javanese, Indonesian, and Japanese. Tom thinks Ketut played a large role in getting him here to this university and has gone through his resume with a fine toothed comb to see how they can best make use of him..
Java Paragon -where we expect to live. There are two high rise towers. One is a hotel and one is apartments and they share a pool and fitness center. Right now we are still in a hotel and getting pretty tired of it. I will do another full post on the search for housing later.
Surabaya, East Java - where we live. The metropolitan area is about 3 million. I will do a full post on that later as well.

I guess that's all for today.
Sampai ketamulagi. (see you later)
Anne

Hi everyone

Hi I'm anne.

Well, here we are at the Seattle airport waiting to depart to begin our year long adventure. It's Sept 27, 2011 and it's been a long and winding road that has gotten us to this place and time.

Tom will be fAcebooking, but I am going to try the blogging thing. My friend, Hilary, helped me set this up, but I can see I have a lot to learn.

The story of how we got here is a bit strange and has been very frustrating and I am going to chronicle the whole thing once for posterity and then quit whining about it.
It really begins in august of 2010 when Tom got a notification that the Fulbright program was waiving the two time limit for people interested in going to Indonesia to teach science. (it turns out that they also waived the limit for Pakistan- gosh, I wish we had known about that! And also dropped the science teaching requirement so it was open to any discipline.) The deadline was imminent so Tom scurried around and got his application off ASAP.
Then there was the wait.
Mar 7 2011. We were doing our volunteering at Pipe Spring National Monument in Arizona when we got the word that the application was successful.
We arrived home at the end of March to find a packet of info including that we would be at Petra Christian Univrsity in Surabaya. That was interesting and we began to google and find out all we could. It was a bit puzzling since they didn't seem to have a science department,but...
Meanwhile there were medical forms to deal with. Tom called for a physical and was told it would be three months, but he said it was urgent so they got him in in a few weeks. My most recent physical was less than a year so my doctor just had to fill out some forms. It was also recommended that we visit a travel clinic for advice on shots, etc. We decided on Lifecare Alliance and had the first of several visits. We learned that malaria is common in much of Indonesia, although not where we would be. Take pills if in those areas. Also a different mosquito carries Dengue Fever for which there is no prevention except avoiding getting bitten. After much discussion we decided skip the rabies, but got typhoid and Japanese Encephalitis. We also got a full barrage of other medical tests- blood tests, mammograms colonoscopies eye and dental exams, whatever.
We talked to our son ,Steve, about whether he would be willing to move into our house And rent out his ranch house nearby. He agreed and now this is a fact although none of us knew how much work that would be to get his place emptied and ready to rent. But the deed is done and we are very grateful to him.
After some gentle probing which yielded nothing, Tom came directly to the point and asked if Petra was a good fit for him. No response for three weeks and then finally a note that they were changing his assignment to ITS also in Surabaya. It is a technical university with undergrad and grad programs.
For a long time heard nothing more.
In mid July we went to DC for a three day orientation. It was very useful because we met many of the staff we will be working with both from dc and Jakarta. There are about 50 English teaching assistants, but they have different issues and they are young so I won't talk more about them. The rest of the people are about 10 senior scholars (Tom is one) and about 10 junior researchers who usually are working on a masters or PhD. The best part was getting to know them and exchange email addresses and start to form a loose network to find out who knows what and help each other deal with the frustrations.
We had been told they would like to have all our paperwork done by aug 26 when Ramadan would end and a week long holiday would begin. Then we would have to get a short stay visa called a VITAS In our case from the consulate in Chicago. So we began thinking about a Labor Day departure. But the August date came and went with no word. Around Sept 1 we were told that things should be done by Sept 5. That day also came and went.
Finally on sept. 11 we got a call from Nellie in Jakarta who told us with some trepidation that her staff had mixed up some of my documents with another Fulbrighter. But... She said we could get our visas in Singapore in one day.
So, finally! We immediately began to make final departure plans. Our plans were to fly to Seattle at our own expense and spend several days visiting friends and family and then AMINEF would make flight arrangements to Jakarta and on to Surabaya. We spent a couple of days making all these arrangements and were on our way.
We still didn't have the paperwork needed to get the VITAS, but it arrived while we were on the west coast. As I was checking it ( it was all in behasa) I saw the word Chicago. So Tom wrote to ask if that would be alright. Of course not! So several more days were necessary to fix that and we got the final (correct) documents about 24 hours before departure from Singapore. Included were instructions for how to get the visa in Singapore. I will quote them verbatim:
We should come to a meeting point at the McDonalds next to the Hilton hotel under the red smoking canopy between 9 and 11am, give them our passports and $200 each, then return at 4 pm to pick up passports with the visa.

ARRIVAL IN SINGAPORE

Arrived in singapore after a 21 hour flight. Thank goodness for business class. I can go to Europe in economy, but my days of crossing the Pacific that way are finished.
Singapore is a highly efficient city. Some have criticized it for being too much so, but I found it pleasant in view of the purported vast inefficiencies where
I am headed.
A couple of things have surprised me. Of course there is an abundance of shopping centers carrying American goods, luxury and otherwise, but I was not prepared to see a lot of bread shops with everything from rolls to croissants to beautiful pastries. Probably not a good thing for them to have absorbed from the west Also we have been taking the subways (again very efficient) and I notice that while I hang onto a rail or strap that years of riding these rails have given them an exquisite sense of balance so they can stand and check their phones without holding on to anything. Singapore has solved it's traffic issues by a couple of measures. It is very expensive to get a permit to buy a car. Those fees are ploughed back into public transportation which is very high quality. We can get anywhere in town by metro or bus. Furthermore personal cars have to pay a surcharge every time they enter the center and taxis are prohibited from stopping on the main streets to pick up fares. There are taxi ranks where one can get a taxi. All this means that traffic flows very well.
We were able to get our visas yesterday. We dropped them off with the man outside the mcdonalds at nine fifteen and picked them up at 4pm. We only had to give him the passports and money and our long awaited Vitas form. Had we applied at Chicago we would have needed 10 or so more documents and waited four days.
Lots of observations. Most of the people we see in the city and on the metro are very young,say 15 to 30. They are all dressed very fashionably, although some young girls frankly look like hookers. It does make me feel my age, not as in decrepit, but generationally.
We got back to our hotel too late last night(after a river cruise) to eat at any of the regular places, but we had noticed a 24 hour food court nearby and it was either that or a Wendy's and I didn't come all this way to eat at a wendy's. So we went in and looked around at about 15 vendors and made our choices. I got Singapore noodles which were tasty but very hard to eat with chopsticks. Tom fared better with a fried noodle dish. We ate at different food court today-more upscale with about 30 vendors. This has been a good introduction to the foods we will get, but, alas, the hygiene in Indonesia is such that we are advised not to eat so called street food there. Here we can also enjoy salads and iced drinks, but not there.
All told Singapore has been a good entry point into the culture. But I have to say the glitz and over the top architecture wears thin quickly with me whether it is here or Dubai or Las Vegas. I am going to coin a word and say that I am a "heritagist", meaning I enjoy finding the historic places and ways. Not much left of those in any of these cities.

I did find a place that values heritage. We missed our Chinatown tour by a few minutes so decided to tour the Chinese cultural center. It was an original building that showed how the Chinese immigrants lived when they first came to Singapore in the late 1890's. Their life had been hell in china and it wasn't much better in Singapore. It didn't whitewash anything and showed the opium dens and brothels. I know immigrants to the US in that time period had a hard time, but I think their lives were easy compared to those to Singapore.
I want to write more about Singapore but now we are in Indonesia and I want to begin getting thoughts down about that.