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.