Jakarta Sunday and Monday

Sunday, as has become our standard, was a do nothing day. I slept in late, and then joined a few of my colleagues for lunch at the Indian restaurant at the hotel across the street. We stopped by the new Bellagio hotel on the way back to check out their mall - but it was empty. Must be REALLY new. The rest of the day I lounged in my room reading and sleeping.

Monday was a very busy day at work. We worked well into the evening to try and work through some of the more complicated scenarios for a system we need to design. We did break for lunch, but after lunch was hours of diagramming and walking through various scenarios to validate we had everything covered. As another day has passed without much to blog about, I'll share a few more observations.

When Phoenix's downtown started erecting large buildings, the AZ Republic ran an article on the importance of cranes. Apparently, cranes are very expensive, and hard to find. When a city is building something that requires the types of cranes needed for tall buildings, it's a big deal. The article mentioned that when the World Bank visits third world nations to see if they are a growing economy or a struggling economy, they literally count the number of cranes they see in the major cities. If there are two cranes, the economy is doing well. By those standards, Jakarta is exploding. From our office, I can count no fewer than 6 cranes hard at work. On the other side of the building, there are several more in operation building a new mall with a Ritz Carlton hotel. If Indonesia can only shore up its piracy - both digital and nautical - issues, they could really have something here.

Driving here - even as a passenger - always amusing and an adventure. Motorcycles are definitely the way to get around. When a light first turns green, it's like someone has waved the starters flag at a bike race. All the motorcycles have weaved their way through the stopped cars and trucks to the front of the line, and when the light turns green, you have literally dozens of bikes out in the front of the pack. They also get very creative with their driving "rules". When traffic is extremely bad - which is M-F, 6 AM to 8 PM - you'll often see motorcycles drive on the sidewalk to get past the traffic. This must be illegal, or I think we'd see everyone doing it.

Elevators here are weird. You push the button for up or down, and the light of the elevator you'll be using immediately goes on and the bell dings. The elevator, however, continues to make its stops along the way before opening its doors. I've even experienced a time when the elevators apparently changed their minds! The original light went off, and the light went on at a new elevator. I'm beginning to think that maybe one of the government required jobs is someone to act as the "logic" for elevators.

Finally, "rudeness" is definitely a subjective term. The French are notorious for rudeness, but American's are not far behind - internationally speaking. However, I really think this is cultural. For example, Americans have nothing on the Asians when it comes to hospitality. Every day it's "hello sir", "nice to see you sir", "thank you for coming, sir" - and that's just from my hotel room to the car! But when it comes to getting on an elevator, it doesn't matter if you are the first one there - or if you are male or female - whoever can push their way into the elevator is geting on. I've never seen that in America. While I'm on the topic of elevators again, I've noticed that in addition to not having a 13th floor, none of the hotels have floors that end in 4. I tried looking online to see if this is a Muslim thing, or an Indonesian thing, but I couldn't find anything. Our office building has a fourth floor, but none of the hotels have a 4th, 14th, or 24th floor.

Two more days and I'm on a flight out of here and back to the States. I've really enjoyed my time here, but I am anxious to get home. We are supposed to have thunderstorms the next two days, so my trip out should be an adventure. We leave a thunderstorm in Jakarta and arrive in Dallas as Dean bounces off Cancun.

I probably won't blog again until I am safely back in the States, so wish me safe travels and I'll see everyone soon.