Things we miss and left to do

When you move to a new location and leave almost everything you own behind, it is interesting what you start to miss. Early on, we missed cable TV. The cable company finally arrived and rectified that issue late last week, though we still don't watch anything other than the news. Below is the list of items that we, collectively, seem to be missing most after two weeks:

1) Mexican Food. Yes, there is a 'Mexican' restaurant walking distance from our home. No, it does not taste like Mexican food. Their 'salsa' is just pico de gallo. Most of the 'spicy' food is also sweet. We also cannot find tortillas or the necessary spices at the grocery store to bring home and make our own. Cilantro would be a blessing.

2) Convenience. Nothing is easy, nothing is quick. A "quick trip to the mall" is a 6-hour event. If the location is not close enough to walk to - not that you necessarily would - then it will take at least 30-minutes unless you go when everyone else is working. Half of Jakarta - so likely 75% of Indonesia - is 20 years behind in financial transactions. We need cash in a lot more places than I had imagined. Some places take credit cards only if issued from a local bank. We can improve convenience, to some degree, by opening a local bank account - which we will likely do.

3) Being able to drive. When I was a child, I always imagined how cool it would be to have my own driver. Having a driver was, and to some extent still is, a major status symbol. It's also frustrating to have two perfectly good cars in the garage, the keys at hand, and not be able to drive them. More challenging is weighing the decision to ask someone to sit around waiting for you with the risk that you may never go anywhere versus giving them the day off and then needing to drive somewhere. It requires a greater degree of planning out our weekends. For their part, I think the drivers prefer to be on the clock getting overtime even if they only sit around and wait.

4) Electronics. Specifically, a wireless router, a stereo system that can play our MP3's, cell phones and a second TV. All of these, of course, we could obtain by visiting a local mall. But who wants to spend 6 hours buying four electronics? I have a work-issued cellphone, but we still need to buy one for my wife.

5) Familiarity. When things are easy to get to, lack of familiarity can be exciting. You get an opportunity to explore your surroundings. When everything takes forever to do, you have a strong desire to be efficient, which means you need to know where you are going and what you want to achieve when you get there. Hopefully my wife will find some opportunity to familiarize herself with the area while I - and the rest of the city - are busy at work instead of clogging the streets.

At the moment, we don't have much time to miss those items, however. There is still much to do:

1) Buy rugs for the house. Marble floors are definitely beautiful and elegant. They also cause a loud echo and are hard on the joints. We need to buy rugs for every room to help absorb the sound waves and lessen the impact when we walk.

2) Enroll our daughter in school. There is a great Montessori school abutting the compound. However, my wife and daughter will be living in Singapore for the months of September and October until our new baby is born. If the Montessori charged by the month, this would not pose a challenge. Instead, they charge an annual fee and they want it in full in advance. They are also closed in June and July. So, I part with $7,000 USD and then don't use a school for four months. Not something I am amenable to. Luckily there are several other options that we have yet to explore.

3) Buy more furniture. A dresser would be nice. We can custom make teaque, rattan and mahogany furniture here for about 1/10 the price it would cost to buy used in the US. For example, a colleague of mine custom designed a 12-drawer dresser and paid $80 for it. We plan to purchase several items of furniture that we bring back with us to the US. A dining room table, some armoires and book shelves are among the items on our list.

4) Learn more about the city. On Thursday we had hoped to do some shopping. However, everything was either closed all day or did not open until 11 AM. Of course, we didn't know this until we arrived - 90 minutes too early. This afforded us an opportunity to drive around the city. We discovered some museums, botanical gardens and other buildings that we want to return to and visit. We have much left to learn about Jakarta. The only real way to do it is grab a map, a local guide, and just get out in it.