Fishing in Jakarta

For over a year, our daughter and eldest son have asked to go fishing.  Our son even pretends to fish in our pool.  They've never seen anyone fish other than on TV, so I've always been surprised by their interest.

A few weeks ago, we went to the Waterbom water park with another family.  On the way there, we noticed a fishing lake where one could rent gear and bait and go fishing.  We took the opportunity of a mid-week holiday to take the kids fishing for the first time.  There were a few surprises.

First, this wasn't a normal stocked lake.  This was a lake for competitions.  They wouldn't let us just buy gear and fish.  We had to wait until noon (an hour after we arrived) and join the competition.  Twenty dollars to join, fifteen dollars to rent gear and bait, and five dollars for a "caddy" later, we listened for the lottery to call our name and assign our spot.  Lucky number 8.  We caught our first fish with the first cast.  In thirty minutes we had four fish.  And these aren't small fish.  The smallest weighed in at six pounds.  The heaviest was about fourteen pounds.  None of these were going to be enough to win the competition and a $300 prize.  It usually takes twenty or more pounds to win.

Second, the caddy did everything except reel in the fish we caught.  He baited the hook, cast the line, took the fish off the hook and even told me when it was time to reel it in if I wasn't paying attention.  I tried a few casts.  My first cast was awesome.  My second cast caused the people next to me to object.  That's when I noticed the numbers on the pipe in the middle of the lake.  We all had lanes.  We could only fish in our lane.  After that, I let the caddy do the casting.

Third was the bait.  I was glad I had a caddy.  They didn't use lures, or worms, or raw meet dangling from a bobber.  We watched them prepare it.  They mixed a flavored powder with water to create a plasma-like substance.  They then covered this plasma in fish pellets, created three small goopy balls for three tiny hooks and then one golf ball-sized clump they put above the hooks.  The fish are all bottom-feeding carp, so you cast this group of food out into the lake, let them fall to the ground and the fish grab it from there.  Pretty effective, but we did also catch one plastic bag.

The kids had fun and even got into the action of reeling in the fish, but they were bored after ninety minutes, which was halfway through the competition.    We left our caddy to finish the competition and try to win.

I'm looking forward to some real fishing when we get to Michigan.  We'll need smaller poles, though.

 

 

 

Candy Party

Our daughter's birthday isn't until mid-June, but that's when all the non-working spouses and children return to the home country for the summer while the working spouse remains in Indonesia.  If we wanted to have a party her friends could attend, we needed to do it this month.  May 17th was a holiday in Jakarta (Ascencion of Christ), so we chose the afternoon of the day before.

When we asked her what kind of a party she wanted, she said a "Candy Party".  We imported boxes of candy from the US, decorated our house like peppermint sticks and lollipops, and hired a cotton candy and popcorn machine.  The same company also offered several different types of games that we hired, too.

One of the more interesting events was one of our daughter's friends asking to perform a magic show at the party.  We agreed and it was pretty good!  We also let our son invite his friends so the party doubled as a farewell party for the kids, too.

 

 

The Big News

The first week of May we were able to confirm our return date to the US.  We leave Jakarta shortly after midnight on 4 July and arrive in Phoenix with enough time to view the fireworks (after eating at Chipotle, of course).  We've enjoyed our time in Indonesia, but we are ready to go home, and stay home.  Jakarta isn't home.  Arizona is home.  We'll be home soon.

Our baby decided that our repatriation date couldn't be the only major event that happened in May and decided he would grow his first two teeth.  He is now capable of eating Oreo Cookies....well, at least capable of scraping off the cream filling!

Two of the things we will miss from our time in Jakarta:  walking through the kampungs and feeding the chickens; and our weekly trips to Hacienda.  I think climbing on daddy will continue.

 

April

April was a busy month both in Indonesia and at home.

We started the month by taking our staff and their families to the local copy of Disney, Dunia Fantasi (DuFan), on the Good Friday holiday.  This was a big treat for them.  Most had never been before.  It's pretty expensive for locals.  On Sunday we then celebrated Easter with a bunch of sleepy kids.

Later in the month, on Earth Day back in Arizona, we had a fundraiser for our niece who is fighting a tough battle with Pulmonary Hypertension and two holes in her heart.  I had the idea to use our retail store, Kid to Kid, as a fundraising opportunity to help pay the medical bills.  All of the profits earned on that Saturday went to the medical bills fund.


In March, our daughter started two soccer leagues - a coed league on Friday afternoons and an all-girls league on Saturday mornings.  I help coach the one on Saturday.  She is one of two girls on the co-ed league and didn't enjoy soccer very much until she started the all-girls league.  She's getting pretty good.  I hope she sticks with it.

Our youngest son reached a new milestone by starting his cruising phase.  Anything that he can hold onto and walk, he does.  Including the little kids chairs that will scrape across the marble floors like nails on a chalkboard.  He's pretty proud of himself, though, so we just grit our teeth and let him go.

My wife and I also try to find time for fun.  We took the kids to another Disney on Ice (we've been to all four visits from them since we arrived in Jakarta).  We also made it out to dinner with friends - something that happens far too infrequently.

 

 

 

March

Where I grew up, we often said March would arrive like a lion and exit like a lamb.  Things are different in Jakarta.

For us, March arrived like a lamb.  We had a nice family vacation scheduled in Singapore, I was buying the first property for our new Real Estate business, and we had tickets to attend the St. Patrick's Day ball and spend that night in a suite at the JW Marriott, the location of the ball.

Then the lamb bared its teeth and transformed into a lion.  The Friday before the ball, my wife and I joined our friends at an Irish Pub to welcome in the holiday and watch traditional Irish dancers.  We had a great time and were looking forward to taking the kids to a carnival at our daughter's school the next day and then attending the ball with the same group of friends. 

We arrived home from the dancing to find our two-year-old son struggling to breath in his sleep.  We had taken him to the doctor earlier in the day due to a persistent cough.  The doctor said he was fine.  His lungs were clear and he did not have a fever.  They gave him some antibiotics and an antihistamine.  When we arrived home, he still did not have a fever but he was definitely having difficulty breathing.  We woke him up, planning to give him some medicine, and he immediately vomited.  We observed him for about twenty minutes before deciding to take him to the emergency room.

The ER put him on a nebulizer minutes after our arrival.  The nebulizer should rapidly resolve breathing issues.  His blood oxygen wasn't improving and remained below 90%.  The doctor also indicated that his secondary muscles were now controlling his breathing.  Those muscles kick in when the primary muscles become so fatigued from labored breathing that they fail.  There is no back up to the back up.  Jakarta lacks a respected pediatric respiratory care center, so the doctors advised us to do a medical evacuation (MedEvac) to Singapore immediately in case his lungs started failing and he needed assistance breathing.

The next twenty-four hours happened very fast....and without sleep.  My wife and son took the MedEvac flight.  I worked with the airlines and hotel to reschedule all the flights and room reservations we had for our vacation and I followed them with our other two kids about six hours later.  I even had time to take our daughter to her school's carnival for about an hour before we caught our flight.

After checking us in at the hotel, we all met up at the hospital where I spent the night with our son while my wife returned to the hotel with our infant son and our daughter.  For the next four days, I slept at the hospital at night and spent the days at the hotel with our other two kids.  My wife did the opposite.  Thankfully, our hotel - the Rasa Sentosa - had a Kid's Club that entertained our daughter all day, every day.

Our son spent those four days on antibiotics, fever reducer, and getting blood tests and chest x-rays.  Nothing conclusive in any of them.  Eventually he started feeling better and they decided he had a non-specific viral infection in his lungs that caused him respiratory distress.  He never really felt sick, but the doctors were really worried.  We just tried to keep his spirits up and have as much fun as we could.

On Wednesday, our son received a clean bill of health and checked out.  The pediatrician seeing him requested we have a follow up appointment on Friday.  Our "Family Vacation" was also the time for my wife and I to receive our annual physicals, so I had mine on Wednesday while my wife swam with the kids, and she had hers on Thursday while I went to the beach with them.  We had big plans for the weekend to help everyone forget the medical stress we just experienced.

The appointment with the pediatrician was Friday afternoon.  He had been swimming all morning so we expected a clean bill of health.  To our surprise, she said his lungs sounded bad and readmitted him to the hospital.  We ran through the same battery of tests.  This time, they discovered he had Influenza B and started him on those treatments.  He remained in the hospital until Monday.  We finally left Singapore on Wednesday.

What was supposed to be a five-day medical vacation with two days of physicals and three days of fun became a ten-day medical emergency for our two-year-old.  This is the second medical scare he's given us.  I hope there isn't a third before we get to leave.

Hospital Pictures:

 

Having Fun Pictures: