Feb 29

We were originally scheduled to leave Jakarta today and head to the mine site - well, more specifically, the offices at the base of the mountain where we have our mine. However, we realized we would accomplish more by delaying our trip a day and we spent today in Jakarta. Tomorrow we will leave for Timika.

It turned out to be a very wise decision as we accomplished a lot. We started the morning with a deep-dive into the design. After discussing the application "rewrite", we realized that's not an accurate term for what we are really planning to do - which is enhance some of the key components, but not rewrite the entire application from scratch. For most of the rest of the day, I did the administrative tasks required of me each week back in Phoenix as well as having a fun discussion regarding the merits of project documentation.

When we returned from lunch, we were greeted by an ominous looking sky that, anywhere in the US would have meant a terrible thunderstorm. Though this one came through with much rain, but no wind or lightening.

View from window in the AM:


View from window after lunch:


View from window once the rain started:


At the end of the day, I returned to the hotel for the evening as we will need to leave for the airport at 5:15 AM and I wanted to pack and be ready to go to bed quite early. My colleagues - who will not return to Jakarta after our trip to the mine - wanted to spend an evening out on the town. I'll have more than enough opportunity for nightlife my final two weeks in Jakarta.

That's it from Jakarta for now. Tomorrow I'll be at Timika, Papua.

Feb 28

Today is the first day since we've been here that it isn't raining. Unlike my last trip, this time the rain actually cleaned the pollution from the sky. The sky is clearer than I've ever seen it (though the sidewalks are slick with a grime I can only assume came from the sky). This has made for some great pictures of the skyline. From the office, I also saw a mountain in the distance I did not know even existed.

I woke up before my alarm again (at 5:30) and hit the gym for an hour before breakfast. I find that when I travel I actually eat and live healthier than when I am at home. I eat a hearty breakfast of oatmeal, yogurt, bowl of all bran cereal, an omelette, bacon and two glasses of Guava juice.

Today I spend the whole day reviewing and discussing the design. There are key features that do not appear in the draft of the design documents I am seeing, but upon deeper discussions with the design team, they understand the requirements and have accounted for them, they just have not completed the documentation just yet. This is the best news I've heard so far, but we still have to have the discussion regarding whether we do a complete rewrite or if we modify the existing application. I still vote for the latter but I see the merits of the first.

For dinner, our Indonesian host takes us to another traditional Indonesian restaurant. Among 12 pages of options, I find three that I can eat and select the most adventurous one - Balinese Seaweed with fried coconut. The waiter informs me they are sold out for the day, so I settle for "beaten beef" with coconut sauce on a bed of coconut rice. It's very good and I am indeed, as the menu advertised, "addicted of it".

In addition to great food, the restaurant had tremendous atmosphere. Each room had a slightly different decoration, but all were traditional Indonesian. From traditional artifacts like gongs and wooden idols to Zen gardens, each room is a new surprise. The hostess gives us a tour of the restaurant before seating us in the "haunted room" - a room that is supposedly haunted by the spirits of the many artifacts hanging in the room.

Today was a busy day that flew by and I'm exhausted at only 9 PM. Tomorrow is our last day in Jakarta before heading off to the mine site. I started taking my malaria pills today, and I'll need to take them for the next 16 days. Saturday will be our first day on the island that varies from a tropical beach at the base of the mountain to a glacier at the top. Should be an exciting time.

I've heard from my Phoenix colleagues that the blog is blocked from the corporate network there, but my Indonesian colleagues are able to access it from the office. In any event, I believe I can configure my blog to post based on an email I send it, so I should be fine either way.

I've uploaded the pictures from the trip here.

Feb 26 - Feb 27

We ate lunch on the club level of the Ritz and one of our Indonesian colleagues joined us. We had a nice lunch and spent a few hours discussing our project after we had finished. As expected, there were some surprises on both sides we had to talk through and resolve. We also established our agenda for the first week in Jakarta.

After our meeting, I took the first-timers to the mall nearby the hotel to purchase the cheap DVD's. The selection did not seem as good to me this time around as it did my first trip, so I only ended up buying 9 DVDs instead of the 30+ I did in August. We returned to the hotel, ate dinner, and then all crashed for the night around 8 PM local time.

I slept fitfully throughout the night as my body tried to adjust to the new time zone. I woke up for about 45 minutes around 1:30 and then for good shortly before my 6 AM alarm. I quickly dressed and hit the gym for stretching and a 30 minute run before joining my colleagues for breakfast.

Having been here before, the trip to the office was uneventful for me, but it was entertaining listening to my colleagues shriek and express shock as we merge into traffic with no lanes and no traffic lights. There first experience was similar to my own.

Once at the office, we checked our email from Phoenix and responded where necessary. At 10 AM, we had a project kick-off meeting and met the rest of the team. I was relieved to finally have a fully staffed project with actual names for resources instead of commitments for head count. Knowing who the resources are, as fundamental as that sounds, is something I've lacked on this project from the very first day so it was nice to finally cross that off the list.

During the meeting, the technical lead dropped an unexpected disclosure on me. I entered into the project, and the design phase of our project, with the understanding that we were simply modifying an existing system to prepare it for global deployment, then deploying to all our locations. In the project kickoff, our technical lead informed me that he had decided it was more effective to rewrite the entire application from scratch. This lead to about an hour of debate as we reviewed the merits of this approach, discussed the pitfalls of the decision, and reviewed the completeness of requirements to achieve a deliverable solution by starting from scratch. As my original requirements were a list of gaps, and not an inclusive list of functionality, I expressed my concerns that attempting a rewrite by using what we had document would surely result in an omission of key requirements. I provided specific examples of what was missing - ie, searching for data. The lead indicated he would discuss with the Business Analyst as he was under the impression that the design document he was working from included both existing functionality and the requested changes. We agreed to table the discussion until he had time to review.

We broke for lunch after the meeting and, due to conflicting evening schedules (the lead had his final practice for a pool tournament he is in on the weekend), we decided to go somewhere nice for lunch. He took us to a traditional Indonesian restaurant a few miles from the office. Due to my food allergies, I tend towards conservatism rather than adventurism when it comes to gastronomical opportunities. On this occasion, however, I partook in the opportunity to be as adventurous as I can be and ordered fried oxtail.

Since I'm on the topic of food, I'll share what I've come to recognize as the true difference between Americans and the rest of the world and it comes down to one, single word - girth. When I received my fried oxtail, it was obvious why you just don't see obese people in Jakarta - they don't eat much. I'm sure the poverty contributes, but serving size has a lot to do with it. My main course here would have been the appetizer at a traditional American restaurant. After lunch we returned to the office and I finished out the day working with the tech lead and resource manager on project schedule and deliverables.

We returned to the hotel around 6:30 and had dinner at 7. I had to go with a strictly vegetarian dinner because the club level was serving seafood tonight. After dinner, I was able to sneak in for a 1 hour massage ($38 - NICE!) before returning to my room.

Tomorrow we'll be reviewing the project design in great detail, so I'm sure I'll have a spinning head by the end of the day.

Feb 24 - Feb 26

Keeping with the tradition of my last trip, I am starting the blog for this trip with a recounting of the flight out. Last time, we flew from Phoenix, to LA, to Hong Kong and then to Jakarta. That route resulted with more layover time - a few hours in Hong Kong - but the legs of each connecting flight were nicely split. This time, our route was Phoenix, LA, Singapore, Jakarta with a few hours in LA but none to speak of in Singapore. What does that mean - nearly 19 hours on a flight only to arrive at an airport and take another flight 90 minutes later without enough time to shower, use the restroom or any other "luxury" of life. So, when we finally did arrive, I was the first to recommend we retire to our rooms for showers before meeting. I was offended by my own smell so I can only imagine how the others felt.

Now, as I've said before, the company I work for takes excellent care of its employees and that is especially true when we travel. So, it's tough to complain even when things go wrong, and I hate to start my trip with some complaining, but....

1) Singapore Airlines is not as good as Cathay Pacific - or even American Airlines. The staff was tremendous, but the "perks" were lacking. Both CP and AA provided a toiletry bag to those of us in Business Class that included, among other things, a toothbrush and toothpaste. We can't really carry these on now with the new travel rules, so it came in handy when you wake up from a fitful airplane sleep. Singapore Airlines provided slippers and a sleep mask.

2) The passenger next to me was brutal. He was a nice enough guy, and, as seems to be a trend with American companies doing business in SE Asia, he worked in the natural resources industry and did business with my company. We chatted a bit and got along quite well....until he went to sleep. Thank God the airline provided the Bose noise reduction headphones and at least one, soothing classical radio station to listen to because this guy's snoring was horribly loud. If it were just the snoring, I probably wouldn't be writing about it. Couple the snoring with a case of halitosis that made me question if the air flowing through the cabin had some how mingled with the waste disposal from the restrooms and we have a situation that had me trying to time the intake of air with his intake of air so I didn't faint. And although I cannot confirm if I was in a sleep daze or if I truly did see what I thought I saw, I think in one of my waking moments when I had to adjust to the new direction of his airflow, I swear I saw a bare, naked, hairy chest just inches from my face. I mean, do they really let you sleep without a shirt on?

3) SE Asian airlines never have food I can eat. For most of you, the menu in business class was top notch - lobster, crab legs, roast duck. For me, it's a death sentence, so I get stuck eating the veggie dish. I ate more fruits and vegetables on this 19 hour flight than I typically do in a week.

All said and done, we arrived safely, we arrived on time, and our luggage all arrived with us. So, it's tough to seriously complain.

Like last trip, I am travelling with colleagues. It's been good cultivating our relationship because I haven't had much interaction with them since I began working with this organization other than when I've been a situation where I needed to complain about something. It's nice to have an opportunity to just discuss how we're each handling the new challenges with the merger, our families, as well as our thoughts on the project we are out here to kick start - implementing a global Help Desk system.

We're spending the first few days of our trip in Jakarta, then flying out to Timika on the Papua island of Indonesia for the second week. During the second week I will get the opportunity to finally see our marquee asset - the Grasburg mine. I'm pretty excited about seeing one of the great marvels of the world, as well as working with our Indonesia team once again. After the trip to Timika, my colleagues return home while I return to Jakarta for another two weeks where we'll, hopefully, make tremendous progress on updating the existing Help Desk system to prepare it to become a global application.

A few other random items for today:

1) It's 1 PM in Jakarta and I'm dog tired. When we arrived, I was full of energy, but now that it is 11:15 PM where I came from (Phoenix), my body is going into shut-down mode. I'm going to fight it until 8-ish....I hope.

2) This is my colleague's first trip internationally for any reason. Since they only have 3 days in Jakarta, these next few evenings may be packed with outings so they can take in the city.

3) It's the rainy season. We were told that for the mine site, that means it will rain 3-6 inches per day instead of the normal 1-2 inches. In Jakarta, it's been raining since we arrived (it was raining in Singapore, too). I'm on the top floor at the Ritz, and as I write this, I'm seeing lightening flashes and hearing the thunder clap simultaneously. I have a corner room, so I'm able to see the storm from many vantage points. When the wind blows, my windows rattle. I hope the rain stops before I go to sleep, though something tells me it isn't going to matter.

4) Before I left, I asked our CIO - who spent 6 years in Jakarta before relocating to Phoenix after the acquisition - what I should do while I'm here. He recommended a drive-through zoo that sounds fascinating, so I'll probably try that my second weekend in Indonesia.

We're meeting for lunch, shortly, to create an agenda for the next two days while we're in Jakarta to ensure we maximize the time my colleagues have. I will try to update the blog each day, though my travel schedule may cause me to miss a few, and I'm not sure what access will be like at the mine site, so bear with me.

Jakarta Home Safe - Lessons Learned

My trip to Jakarta was one I won't soon forget and one I probably won't soon repeat - though I would have no issue going back. The tough part is being away from my wife and daughter for so long, the rest of it was actually quite pleasant. So, what did I learn on this trip?

1) Not all first class is the same. The business class on Cathay Pacific was better than the first class or business class on American and Japan airlines. That's probably why it was 3x the price, too. I also learned that I will not travel overseas in anything but business class anymore. The difference in quality is just too great.

2) If it seems too good to be true, it is. I already knew this, but I had a $50 reminder of this lesson with the coins I bought. All fake. I had heard that, after I bought them. I was wary, which is why I only bought a few, instead of as many as I could find. Apparently, the Chinese make barrels of these coins - and the stamps are extremely high quality - but they don't know the history. I've also learned how to tell the difference between real and fake coins, now, so I'll be more prepared next time.

3) Don't think you know more than the frauds. As a corollary to #2, don't assume that because you live in the US and have better access to the internet that the poor street vendor wouldn't try selling their products on eBay if they actually had value. They know what their products are worth better than we do.

4) Flying east is more difficult than flying west. My sleep schedule when I returned home was much more difficult to correct than going to Jakarta. Part of it was the quality of the flights home, and the spacing - 7 hrs during sleep time and 11 hrs during wake time returning vs 14 hrs during sleep time and 5 hrs during wake time on the way there - but part of it was arriving home in the middle of the day instead of early evening. I've had similar issues travelling to Paris and back.

The upside to the flight was we flew over active volcanoes in Oregon in the middle of the night and got to see the hot magma flowing. It was cool. From Tokyo to Dallas, our flight path took us over Alaska - seems odd, but it has to do with the curvature of the Earth, it's actually shorter going that route - but it was too dark to see anything.

I think my next business trip will be to Santiago, Chile later this year or early next year. I'll use this same blog for that trip, though Santiago will have much less intrigue as it is very much like Phoenix.

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.

Jakarta Friday and Saturday

Friday is Jakartan Independence Day, and no one is in the office. We decide to work out of the hotel, as there is no benefit to head in to the office. We have a meeting with the directorate and CIO in the morning - another update on what we've accomplished and the plan for moving forward. After the meeting we worked until about 2PM - just over a half day - wrapping up the week's activities and planning out the rest of the trip based on the feedback in our meeting.

For lunch, we went to an Indian restaurant - the first one I've ever been to. Our Indian travel partner is vegetarian. We've had some interesting gastronomical challenges trying to find restaurants that served vegetarian meals and/or meals without chicken or seafood. Lowest common denominator is vegetarian, so we look for that. One day, we didn't have enough time to go out for lunch, so we went to the Wendy's in our office building. The vegetarian in the group ordered a "Cheeseburger" - I ordered a salad and chilli. We were surprised when he sat down with the cheeseburger. He, apparently, was more surprised that a "cheese"-burger came with a meat patty. He thought it would be a grilled cheese sandwhich. We had a good laugh about that one.

The Indian restaurant was very good. I put myself into the hands of our vegetarian, and had lentils and chick peas. It was extremely good. So much so that I'll probably eat more Indian food. The lamb curry they served on the club level at the hotel was okay, but wasn't anything that made me curious to try more. The food at this restaurant, however, made me want more. However, I couldn't get the smell off my hands, and I tasted the food the rest of the night - I don't think my body was accustomed to Indian food. I finally crashed about 10 PM - forgoing dinner - and woke at 9 Am the next morning. It was a long week.

Saturday, while the same crew from last week went golfing - at a much better course (they had both golf carts AND caddies - they rode on the back with the clubs) - the rest of us had convinced one of our local colleagues to show us around Jakarta. The plan was to go to an area of town that sold antiques, visit the new, upscale shopping mall, and then tour old town Jakarta.

When we arrived at the "antiques", I initially thought we were going to see something no different than the shops you see in Mexico that really just sell junk to tourists. I was very mistaken. There was a lot of the tourist junk - wood carvings by local craftsman that you can find in a mall - but there was some major finds, too. They had 9 foot porcelein vases. They had artifacts from ships that have sunk in the waters around Jakarta - diving helmets from the US Navy, navigational compasses, manual calculators that look like typewriters. If I had $1000 to spend, I probably would have purchased a lot of what I saw just to sell it on eBay.

One of my colleagues had mentioned that a few years back a road merchant tried to get him to buy some coins. He was tempted to buy an 1810 US dime, simply because of its age, but didn't. When he returned to the states, he looked it up online and discovered that it was worth several hundred dollars. With that in mind, when I came across some coins, I was intrigued. I ended up buying two 1840 US Silver Dollars, and 1870 US Silver dollar, and several Spanish coins from as early as 1704 and as late as 1776. I paid roughly $8 each. I looked up the value of the 1840 US Silver dollars when I returned to the hotel and discovered they are worth up to $500 each! I can't find a value for the Spanish coins, but I imagine they are worth far more than the $8 I paid for them.

In addition to the coins, our colleague was able to locate some Kopi Luwak coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker. I've never had a full glass of it in my life - I can't stand the taste. But a good friend of mine owns a coffee shop. Ever since I've known him, he has been interested in trying Kopi Luwak coffee, as it is considered the best tasting coffee in the world. With a wholesale price of $250-$600/lb, however, he didn't want to try it that badly. For those of you who have never heard of Kopi Luwak read this, it's basically monkey poop coffee (now I'm sure you'll read about it). It's made in Indonesia, and I got it for $8/lb. If it turns out to be as tasty as its reputation, I may begin importing coffee on a small scale.

The mall was not much different from an American mall, other than the employees outnumbered the patrons nearly 2:1 in the department stores. A far cry from roaming the store looking for someone to help. I bought two Indonesian dolls for my daughter, but couldn't find anything authentically "Indonesian" for my wife or anyone else. I did find Ralph Loren polo shirts for $18, but don't need any clothes, so - unlike my wife who would have bought them because they were cheap - I didn't buy anything.

We then took a tour of the city. We toured the Jakartan equivalent of Manhattan, Wall Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue. The Indonesian Capital, Supreme Court, and other ministry buildings were interesting. The national monument is similar to the Washington Monument, only there is a 24k gold flame at the top. I was finally able to take some pictures, but I have been disappointed in how many pictures I've taken. I thought there would be plenty of pictures worth taking, but, quite frankly, Jakarta is so much like any other big city, I didn't encounter anything that I would say was picture-worthy. There is much beauty, and much uniqueness here, but it's just like Chicago, New York and other large metropoli.

The only time I've ever felt unsafe on my entire trip out here was in old town Jakarta. As its name suggests, it is much older, and much more run down than the other areas of Jakarta. It is also the busiest part of the city. Their is a major trade center in the heart of old town where they sell everything - including cheap electronics that you need to replace after 3 months. The traffic was immense. We were literally side mirror to side mirror, 20-25 cars wide. City buses would come to a complete stop in the middle of the road to unload and load passengers. We were moving about 10 feet per minute. I kept thinking someone would see the only white face in the crowd and come up and mug us. Thankfully, it was bright daylight, and I later saw a heavy police presence - and nothing happened.

The last stop on our trip was again cheap DVD's and CD's, where I bought 10 Disney cartoons for $7. When we returned to the hotel, we all grabbed some dinner, and returned to the club level for some dessert, drinks, and pool. We met colleague from the environmental group from the NOLA office. While sitting at a table having drinks, he casually asked if we were up for some billiards. We go back to the table, where he proceeds to play without ever allowing us a shot. He breaks, runs the table, and shakes our hand. "Anyone for billiards?", I guess was code for "do you want me to kick your butt in pool?"

It's now Sunday morning, and we have four days left in our trip. I've really enjoyed both the work we've done, as well as what I've experienced - but we're all ready to get home to our families. I would definitely be up for doing this again. Hopefully next time, I'll get to see the mine site. Everyone has said they prefer the mine site, but their wives prefer Jakarta for the shopping. I need to make one final trip to the shopping to buy gifts for the rest of my list, and then my shopping days are over for this trip. When I get back to the States, I'll post my coins on eBay and see if I need to send one of my colleagues back to buy a lot more and send them to me (people don't buy things on eBay from an Indonesian address or he would sell them himself).