We have wifi!!!!

Here are the 5 simple steps needed to install wifi throughout an apartment built with impermeable walls  and only one working ADSL location point and still have an ethernet line to your desktop computer:

Step 1: buy a router of higher quality than came with original install
Step 2: buy a wifi extender of high quality
Step 3: buy a 30 m ethernet cable
Step 4: buy a 30+ m telephone cable
Step 5: Spend hours installing 56 command strip cord holders to anchor the duo of cables along a baseboard, upwards adjacent to a door frame, up to the ceiling from there, down the hallway along the edge of the ceiling, back down to the floor adjacent to a door frame, around/under the door frame, back up to the ceiling  adjacent to a door frame, across the top of an alcove opening (closet), back down the other side and lastly along the top of the baseboard from one side of the room to the other. 

Is your head spinning yet? Keep in mind we can't use any type of anchor that would put holes in the walls or frame trim so this was the only option. I hope they hold on tight. We actually used between 25 and 27 m of the ethernet cable. The phone line was longer so we had more leftover which was neatly tied up.

We have the same signal level throughout most of the apartment now which surprised me. The phone technician seemed to be insistent that the signal would drop with a wifi extender but it hasn't. Perhaps due to the quality of the extender we purchased. The signal in this building is definitely line of sight. I haven't tried every square cm of the place yet, but these walls are solidly built.

The Weekend- Part II- a new fruit!

While US foods were featured earlier in the day, later we bought a new fruit at the grocery store. Brad had tried it before and thought it was delicious. Here in Indonesia, it's called Jambu air (meaning water fruit). Another name is rose apple. There are a lot of varieties. We bought a pack of 6. They are highly perishable and bruise easily. They must be fresh-picked to be crisp which is what you want. The small tree/large shrub is a member of the myrtle family and the genus is Syzgium. The Java rose apple ( which might be what we bought) is S.samarangense. The rose apple varieties are native to the East Indies and Malay but have been cultivated and have been naturalized in many parts of India, SE Asia, and Pacific Islands. A variety or 2 is grown in California according to my research. The fruit is sort of bell shaped and 3-4 inches long. Colors range from white to pale green or green to reddish purple or crimson to deep purple. The description I found said it had a flavor similar to a snow pear. If you've had one of those, you'll apparently know what the rose apple tastes like. I do agree that the texture and consistency of the rose apple is very similar to the part of a watermelon between the pink part and the green, inedible rind. It has a lot of water to it also like watermelon. There is a definite crispness to it so that's why I described it as the part between the pink and rind part of a watermelon. The flavor is pear-like, but it reminds me more of something else I've tasted but I can't recall what that something is yet. Because they are so perishable they are often used to make jams and jellies. I will be on the lookout for rose apple jam. Sounds delicious. Here are the six rose apples along with a dragonfruit and some granny smith apples after their washing session. I used the ozone machine today.

Here is the inside of a rose apple that B had bitten in half.  No need to peel it, but generally you cut off the top and the bottom ends (bottom end not seen in the photo above). It's a very deep recess and can trap dirt and/or bacteria in there. Even the locals cut it off.  There is a very small core sometimes, but you hardly notice it.

The Weekend

Saturday was remember US foods day!  We were out most of the day so we had lunch out and opted for Carl's Jr hamburgers and fries. I made an interesting drink choice. Blueberry Fanta.

Yep, it turned everything blue temporarily- even my teeth. I couldn't finish it because it was so loaded with sugar.

To further remember the US, we finally broke down and went to a Dunkin Donuts here. They are everywhere believe it or not. There is even one that might take maybe 3 minutes to walk to if you exclude the waiting for and riding on the elevator to get to the lobby door.  Perhaps that is just a little too close. This was more like what Dunkin used to be like in the US. Fully stocked shelves all the time. At noontime, they were still cranking out fresh donuts. And the variety of flavors was amazing. Not just the regular types but kiwi filled, melon filled, and durian filled ( no, still no durian of any kind for me); black capuccino (dark chocolate with coffee flavored glaze), black triple chocolate (dark chocolate donut with chocolate filling ( real chocolate, not chocolate pudding) and glazed with chocolate, peanut butter something, black hazelnut, a chocolate mint variety, green tea, srikaya filled ( it's a fruit also called a sugar apple); there were just too many to name. The srikaya one was delicious and the donuts fresh. To balance out the sugar and calories we washed them down with unsweetened iced tea.

I know at least one person out there is wondering if they have coollata drinks here. The answer is yes and in the following flavors: cappucino, mocha, dark chocolate, green bean, Thai tea, blueberry and tiramasu. They also have Dunkachino drinks- though one of the flavors is avocado. The other flavor was banana.

Lastly, Dunkin Donuts here sells fresh baked bread all sliced and ready to go!  Conclusion? Don't worry about missing donuts in Indonesia. They are well represented by Krispy Creme, Dunkin and a host of others.

What's that wet stuff in the air and more...

Finally, the long, long dry spell was broken and the rainy season began. It rained yesterday for maybe 30 minutes and that wasn't continuous. We were out to dinner and when leaving the restaurant, there were some men with very large squeegees removing the puddles from the driveway in front of the restaurant. There was a steep ramp up and down right in front of the restaurant so maybe they were trying to avoid anyone slipping on the rainwater? So now that "wet season" has begun, we'll let you know in 4-6 months how we feel about it once it stops raining.

The restaurant was called The Goods Diner and B was excited because they have some breakfast items served all day. It's more of an American style restaurant with a few Asian items. I had a really nice pan seared salmon with roasted veggies and some greens. It really hit the spot. B had lamb chops.

We found them- 2 items- a kitchen timer and an ozone veggie/fruit cleaner.  This will make the washing of produce somewhat easier and use less water. I knew the ozone washer was difficult to find but we found it accidentally while looking for an air cleaner tonight. We got both on sale. Always good to find items on sale.

Isn't this cute? The ozone veggie/fruit cleaner looks like some sort of a frog to me.

 Do you know what this is?

It's not an alien ship in the sky. It's the light panel on the air cleaner we purchased. If you decide the lights are too bothersome, you can turn them off. B says it's like sleeping in my brother's computer room. There is a lot of light entering the alcove from the automatic balcony light so I'm not sure if we'll really notice these lights at all. Here it is with the room lights on.

I don't think I mentioned this before but we finally bought a transformer for my Ninja blender. I knew it wasn't dual voltage but I wanted to bring ONE thing with me and B promised we'd get a transformer. I used my Ninja to make "ice cream" from only frozen star fruit.  As ice cream, star fruit flavor is a little too floral for me; but it was still pretty good. The transformer works just fine, but the device itself looks like something that belongs in a garage, not a kitchen.

The last few days...

The forecasts keep suggesting we might see some rain, but so far, nothing that I've seen. I'm not all that eager for the "wet season" to begin, but on November 1, we will have been here for three months and we last saw rain on August 2 or 3. So... it's been a while.

On Monday this week Indonesia's 7th President was sworn in. Apparently he is the first not to have emerged from the country’s political elite or to have been an army general. Pretty much everyone who has mentioned him to me has had nothing but positive things to say. He is known for being honest.  His name is Jokowi Widodo and people call him Joko or Jokowi.It doesn't sound like he really wants to be called Mr. President or President Widodo except in very formal situations and only if he has to do it.

His wife also sounds very down to earth. The local newspaper made a point of reporting she has been known to go without makeup and doesn't dress in high fashion as so many wealthier women do here. I don't know anything about high fashion, nor do I care to know anything, but seriously, a $2000.00 US purse? Or even a $10,000.00 US purse? Really?You can buy these things here.  Not something I would ever think about owning. And can you image the price of the matching shoes?

I attempted to play Mahjong again this week though I didn't make it to the AWA coffee (again). The coffee is on Monday mornings and I always seem to have something else to do on Monday mornings.  Those of you who play or have played Mahjong will understand this:one of the hardest parts for me is figuring out which 3 tiles to first pass. I am so slow.  I must be improving, however, because a few seconds or minutes after I make a mistake I actually see that I made a mistake. For the first couple of weeks any mistakes I was making went right over my head.

The apartment building cleaning team will come tomorrow and on Monday our new maid starts. I am worrying about the maid. I'm trying to figure out what to have her begin doing on her first day. Maybe suggest she see if how I've got the kitchens set up will work for her.Then I wonder how long I should wait until I give her a key to the apartment rather than being here. I wonder how long it will take until I just give her money and have her do my grocery shopping so I don't have to do it. I want to go initially so I can learn something with her help, but she might prefer to shop by herself when she's doing the cooking. There has to be some trust built before I just hand over the keys and money, no matter how trustworthy her former employer says she is. Anyway, she will help us in the apartment Monday-Friday 8-5 with cleaning, cooking, laundry, scheduling maintenance items like delivery of bottled water and cleaning of the grease-trap under the sink.

Speaking of the grease-trap under the sink- I had that cleaned again today. It does appear that I will have to have that done weekly so I don't detect an odor. Wish my nose had an on/off switch. Also today I had to have the stove looked at. One of the burners wouldn't stay on. It's a propane stove and it would light, but would go off as soon as you let go of the knob. It didn't take long to fix it. There was some dirt or something somewhere. Hendra ( tenant relations) had come with the 2 men who came to fix it, but he had to leave and the 2 men didn't speak English. I wanted to ask what I should check for before I call them, but that wasn't in the cards.

Bahasa Indonesia lessons have been pushed back. We were supposed to start yesterday but B had to have a conference call with France during the time so we had to cancel. Same thing for tomorrow. He can't do it then either. More calls with France. Next Tuesday I can't do it. B decided we'll try for November 4. I volunteered to work a shift at the admissions table for the AWA October Bazaar. I'll probably share more about this after I work the shift.

On a completely different topic, our front foyer looks like any other Indonesian family's front foyer: it is now full of shoes. Many people actually leave them outside the front door. I'm not comfortable doing that so our foyer has become the shoe repository. And we aren't even neat about it. We really both like the rug we found for the foyer as well.

Apartment Tour Part 5-the last one!

We purchased a replacement router- one that is supposed to have 4+ times the range of the router that the phone company puts in. We do not get any better wi-fi signal in the apartment. Still just the 2 rooms. We just don't understand this. We will keep trying to figure it out but I wonder if the technician had to reduce all of the high power settings in order for it to work with their antiquated, slow system. Maybe that's why it's giving the same results? What they lack here is an expert that can troubleshoot this. It does not exist.

Apartment Tour parts 3 and 4

Note:I'm breaking these videos up into separate posts for those folks who get the automated updates- in case it makes a difference.

An apartment tour introduction, parts 1 and 2

I took a bunch of photos of our new abode put something together to share with you. You will notice a lack of decorative items to go with the basic furniture. We will accumulate that stuff slowly I suspect. Basically we have a very neutral palette (per the owner) that needs some punches of color. We need things on the walls as well, but that could mean the owner would require us to repaper/repaint when we leave so we have to be very careful how many things we hang and how we hang them. Why aren't the "Command strip" people working on strips that DO work on wallpaper? At least on the painted walls we can use them, when we find something to hang, if it doesn't weigh much. Many more restrictions than I am used to dealing with.

I must digress on the paint used in parts of the apartment.I may have mentioned in an earlier posting that the painter told our agent he couldn't get the easily scrubbable/washable paint I wanted. He told our agent that he was going up in step in the paint quality.  I quickly discovered he must have gone down several steps in quality. I cannot even wash off a dirty print finger print mark with plain water and a soft cloth. The paint comes right off with just water. I've never encountered paint like this. And he did not leave any paint use for touchups. This will definitely be an issue. It seems every service person or technician we have in here touches the walls and leaves dirty finger prints everywhere. Can you live in a house and NEVER touch a wall? I doubt it.

Anyway, here is a set of 5 slide-show type videos I created to provide everyone with a tour of the apartment. I tried to do this in only 2 steps, but my server won't allow large files so you'll just have to click 5 times.

Activities of Sunday, October 12, 2014

After an initial experiment mid-week where I reheated some leftovers, I thought it was now time to try to cook something from scratch. [Note: if I haven't mentioned it, the only available manual was in Spanish. I translated the important text using Google Translate and pasted the text into a digital document so I could print the sections and insert into the Spanish manual. Even with that, it's taking some practice to really get the hang of this oven. Not like anything I've ever used before.] 

Armed with flour, sugar, butter, etc., I made a batch of simple biscuits.  Don't have a rolling pin so I just patted out the dough and cut it with a glass. Well, the temperature swings in this oven seem to be wide. The temperature was way too low and so I didn’t get a good rise but they tasted great. I do have an oven thermometer and after preheat everything seemed fine. Then the temp fell and stayed down. I did the best I could to try to increase the temp, but the response is very slow.

For Vic: The dragon fruit jam was inexpensive also! Just like the fruit.

Later in the day we went hunting for some shirts for B after walking over to the mall again. In the US you pick up the size you want and pay for it. Here, they encouraged him to try them on. They removed the tags, pins, undid the buttons and then handed him the shirt. Whether he bought the shirt or not they would neatly close the buttons and fold it all back up immediately. If we bought the shirt, they did the first steps then also packed it perfectly in a new plastic bag with the label printed on the bag and then carried the shirt to the cashier for us. B was able to find 3 new short sleeved shirts today that he liked.

Activities of Saturday, October 11, 2014 How to buy a DVD player

After the interview, we walked over to Electronic City to check for a universal DVD player- we need a multi-region player--one that will play DVDs from US and from the other regions. Sounds simple, right? We’ve already looked at other locations and were getting nowhere.  We asked at Panasonic and Polytron stations (recall that here they separate things by brand and not type of item). They had nothing and directed us to Samsung. We asked at Samsung and they directed us to Philips. We asked the Philips guy (who didn’t speak much English (the Samsung guy did and stayed to help)). The Philips guy pointed to a stack of DVD players and said this one. We picked one up off the pile and they said no. He has to unlock it. So we went with them to pay. First. We stopped at a computer and were entered into the system.  Next, the two guys walked us to the cashier. The Samsung guy left and we paid the cashier. We could save 20% if we paid cash or used our local bank debit card (for once we had the right card). Once I gave her the card, we had to move to the next station and ran the card and entered our 6 digit PIN. The invoice printed so we went back to station 1, got the invoice stamped and handed it to the Philips guy. He took us to the back of the store to the Take Away or Home Delivery stand. He pointed to some seats and we sat. He handed the invoice to the counter guy. He got a DVD player from the back, put it into a bag, called us over and handed it to us. The Philips guy then came running up and took the box and bag. First thing, stamp the invoice we received the goods. Then, open the box and hook it up to a TV. He also stamped the warranty card.  He then did his thing and adjusted the regional format to 0 (all regions). He played a DVD to demonstrate that it worked. Next everything was repacked and he gave us the DVD player. We walked back to the apartment and Brad ran the DVD upstairs while I waited in the lobby.

Next, we walked over to Pacific Place mall for dinner. We ate at an Asian place and then went to Best Denki for another HDMI cable for the DVD player. We looked at printers (they didn’t have the model we wanted). We then headed to the stationery store in the basement where we bought some pens, highlighters, and other stuff. We found they had THREE Wi-Fi range extenders and will research them tomorrow. Then home to the apartment, hooked up the DVD player and watched one of the DVDs we’d air shipped while starting to draft some belated updates to the blog.

Activities of Saturday, October 11, 2014 Smaller needed items/ new maid candidate

Today was another day filled hunting for more essentials. Purchases today included pen holders so I can take my pens out of their Ziploc bag. No, we don’t just have an extra container to use as a pen holder. That’s what’s so difficult about starting here with so little. You have to obtain all of those big items and then also all of the little items.  {Example:  Because of the drinking water issues you don’t see refrigerators with automatic ice makers. They come with these very small ice cube trays you manually fill with potable drinking water, then freeze the trays. They have a sort of flip it over switch to empty the trays but that’s as high-tech as it gets. Because of this I would like to have some American style plastic ice cube trays. I have not located any yet so the hunt goes on. The typical Indonesian person does not use ice by the way.]

First to in Kemang (a grocery plus store). They have cheap prices.  Then it was back to ACE again, but this time we went to the one in Lippo Mall so Catherine wasn’t there. Still, we found pretty helpful people as always. Didn’t fully complete our lists but we are making huge progress. We decided to go back to Hypermart to buy the perishables we hadn’t purchased earlier because we were running out of time.  Shopping takes much longer here because of the language barrier mostly. Another item continues to elude me. I can’t locate a proper razor scraper. This is the type of scraper that you slide a single edge razor blade into. It opens and closes to expose the blade. This device is great to scrape labels off of glass, goo off of solid surfaces and especially tiles floors,etc. I need it to scrape some stuff off the marble floors in spots. Everyone just keeps mopping over it but with the right tool, it can be scraped off. The hunt will continue. 

Why the rush? We had a 3 pm interview appointment with another maid candidate. We learned of this one because her current employer posted a glowing reference. He is posting back out of Indonesia. It is nice and common for the current employer who is leaving to try to help their staff find new jobs. Anyway, I read about her, contacted her current employer and finally spoke to her and arranged the interview for today. We like her and we hope that it will all work out but we’ll see. Her current boss is out of here on October 25, so we’ve asked her to start with us on October 27. She will live out and work Monday – Friday. We think ultimately we will be happier with this arrangement than with a live-in. 

Activities of Tuesday, October 7- Friday, October 10, 2014

Was our printer plan a good one?

More work on the apartment, organizing cleaning. B had his boss here from France so he worked long hours each day. I tested the slow cooker again, this time it was a pot roast.

I got my office set up pretty well and now have a printer! However, the life is the printer seems to be fairly limited. I was not aware that I cannot purchase replacement cartridges for my Canon printer here. Once they started putting chips in the cartridges, they don’t cross regions. We will probably end up purchasing a new one here to make do. Canon has given me the model number of my same printer as it was released in Indonesia, but the cartridges are not the same.  So, we might purchase a new one and be able to actually buy replacement cartridges here. The other option is that we buy multiple sets of cartridges while back in the US at the end of the year and bring them back with us. We’ll see. I brought one spare set, but I’ve already had to replace one and another one is almost empty. It is so nice to have a printer, however. We purchased one package of 250 sheets of paper to start. Couldn’t find full ream packages. And the weight/quality is better than I need, so we will continue looking for a reasonably priced, less hefty paper for whatever printer we end up using.

Spent a chunk of time researching various things and continuing to organize. Had the housekeeping crew back again on Thursday.