More talk of traffic

This city hosted the 60th Asian-African Conference this week. Every few years since 1955 this happens. A bunch of dignitaries from various countries meet.  The first conference was in Bandung and since this is the 6oth, it was held in this city and Bandung.

What I didn't know was the impact this conference would have on traffic here. They completely closed roads several times a day to ensure the dignitaries could move about between their hotels and the main venue. I should also mention the police and military helicopters buzzed the building all day long one day. B's office had to close early for 2 days to give people a chance to get out. They didn't close the first day and it took some people 5 hours to get home.  Did I mention the main venue was located between our apartment and B's office? So, getting around was made much more difficult than usual. The tenant relations manager for our building had to walk 5km to even get here Wednesday. The buses weren't running. This morning it took B over an hour to get to work (he's done it in 8 minutes at that hour!). Here is a simple "stuck in traffic" picture.

I tried to capture just a little bit of the flavor of driving in this city in a few short videos. Sorry about the bumpiness of the video. It was a bumpy street. (You may not be able to view these on hand held devices.) Note this is of course when traffic was moving. Also, if you look carefully, you will see MANY of the oncoming scooters are actually in our lane!

Tonight B left the office early but the roads were once again shut down. The major toll road was completely closed for example. It was very frustrating but once he got very close to the building ( over an hour after leaving the office) and he could safely get out, he finally hopped out of the car and walked the short distance to the apartment. The driver could also make a turn and head back to the office so it worked out for both of them. Anyway, here is a shot of the roads when they are blocked so traffic cannot enter:

The street running from the bottom of the photo to the top is the access road away from the apartment towards a main thoroughfare. It's sort of a T. Notice there are practically no cars on the top of the T . Compare this to the next photo shot when we have lalu-lintas ( regular traffic, not traffic jams known here as macet):

And here it is in the daytime:

All things sewing

I mentioned in another post I had made B a batik shirt. Here's a photo. This fabric is a Bali batik. Very colorful, very often floral or nature motifs. The Bali batiks are very different from the traditional Javan batiks from this island. The Javan batiks are more geometric with traditional patterns in earthy tones for the most part.

Several of my crafting friends are leaving in 2015. Someone suggested the group create quilt blocks for everyone in the group, a kind of memory quilt. It would then be up to each individual quilter to figure out how to assemble each of the different blocks they received into a final item. There were really no rules except that our blocks have to be signed ( have our name on them). They need to be unfinished at 9.5 inches square (to finish as 9 inch squares). The blocks can be any color, any pattern, any technique. This no-rules thing caused my head to spin. What block should I make? Being so new to this process I began researching and researching various patterns and discovered my desires far outweighed my abilities. I finally settled on a simple friendship star pattern. I am varying the exact fabrics so I will be offering a variety of base color choice to my friends.  There are 3 themes: brown, green and blue.  Even within each category I've varied the center block. Other ladies are doing applique or paper-pieced blocks. They are beautiful. My beginner blocks basic and simple but the group wants the block to reflect us as individuals so my block is appropriate. Because we are on the island of Java, I selected Javan batik prints.

I am pretty sure I will use a fabric marking pen to "sign" my name within the pattern of the "light" background of the block.

It will be a while before we actually get everyone's blocks and then even longer until this becomes a quilt. Be patient.

B comment: This project has been fun for both of us. First, we went to four new fabric shops. This lead to selecting 6 batiks, determining how much of each we needed, etc. Whilst we were there, we also bought some fabric for P. In one of the stores, the guy kept bringing us samples and we kept saying yes. This lead to more samples and finally a few no's. As P says be patient as this saga will continue.

The Christmas tree saga

Quite a few expats are leaving and they are putting things up for sale. One of the items was a 7.5 foot pre-lit Christmas tree. The asking price was 750,000 IDR. Ordinarily I think this tree would have already been gone by the time I read the listings. However, the guy didn't list it as Christmas tree. The listing read "7 and 1/2 foot pre-lit Christmas tree."  My bet is many people completely missed it.

Not a bad price but I texted the guy and asked if it needed a transformer. It did so I offered 650,000 IDR. I mentioned I could send my driver with the cash immediately. He accepted my offer. We got it all worked out and our driver Oky went to pick up the tree. On seeing it, I discovered it had that flocking stuff on it which I wasn't too sure about at first, but then I realized that because I have no ornaments, a pre-lit tree with white lights that has some flocking on it would remind me of wintertime so I was a happy camper.

A few days later the guy texted me saying he was packing and had discovered some stuff that went with the tree and asked if I could send my driver to pick it up. I thought maybe a section of the tree? Ornaments? More lights?

I sent Oky back to pick up the stuff. Can you guess what he brought back? He arrived at the apartment with another whole tree! This one is about 5.5 feet tall, also pre-lit with no flocking. So now I have 2 trees for $50 US. Yay!  Ibu Tin and I had picked the perfect spot for tree #1 but tree #2 has no clear location yet. Now I think maybe I will get a few ornaments for tree #2 but will leave tree#1 with no ornaments.

Did the guy forget what tree he sold me? Did he really think this was part of the first tree? Was it easiest to just give me another tree? These are all good questions.

Meanwhile, since my purchase an acquaintance offered a free tree to the expats here. It was snapped up within 15 minutes but I'm OK with having to pay because I got 2 trees. I didn't take a photo of the first tree but here's a photo of tree #2.

Long time no post

It's been a while since my last post. I have lots of excuses: I volunteered at the Amer. Women's Assoc. annual spring bazaar, I finished my lavender socks, started knitting another pair, made B a batik shirt, started making some quilting blocks... the list goes on and on. B was getting ready for a visit from the French contingent and then hosting the French contingent.

Also, our assisten rumah tangga (household assistant- the more PC phrase for "maid") has been absent. Her mother became ill and Tin went to her village to care for her mother. She's been gone for 2 weeks. Tin's village is a 16 hr bus ride eastward on Java. Her village is pretty close to the other end of this island. Anyway, with Bu Tin away, I've had to "do some stuff" that's kept me away from posting.

Let me catch you up.  One day B had a craving for potato chips. This is our first potato chip purchase since living here. In the potato chip aisle we found all sorts of interesting flavors many of which I would never buy. I think there was even a durian flavor chip. These are 2 of the more harmless sounding ones. These 2 both had "chicken" in the title. The first Rasa Ayan bumbu means spicy chicken flavor. The second, Rasa Ayam Panggang Paprika, means Grilled chicken paprika flavor. They both tasted the same, a little like chicken wings. Note flavors we didn't buy included smoked rib, seaweed and salt (seems benign) and salmon.

 

Here is another Bahasa Indonesia lesson. Have you ever asked yourself, what do they eat for breakfast? This is my most frequent morning meal. You may actually have eaten these. They are sort of like shredded wheat squares but a finer grain texture. The thing on the right is skim milk. Note the cow.

National Geographic programs about Indonesia

I wanted to let you know that there will be some programs about Indonesia airing beginning in April. I believe the first show airs at 8pm in the eastern US on either National Geographic channel or on Nat Geo Wild channel. The shows are part of a series entitled Destination Wild Indonesia (?).  It looks like the first episode will air Sunday April 12 at 8 pm. I don't know much about the programs but it looks like they will mostly cover the other part of Indonesia ( Papua, Komodo, Borneo, Sumatra) rather than Java, but I thought the programs might be of some interest if you have the time. You will just have to check your own program guides, etc. to find the shows.

The shows will air here as well, beginning on April 5 so we'll try to catch a few.

Music

While hunting for our hallway objet d'art, we came upon a large musical group complete with a conductor performing in a corner of the large shop.

These instruments are called angklung. The anklung is a bamboo instrument native to West Java. There are bamboo tubes and a bamboo frame. Each tube is carved to create a single tone when being vibrated.

B managed to take a few photos and even capture a short video (sorry the video isn't longer!). The music was really pretty and it was interesting to watch the musicians perform, especially the guys working the very large bamboo tubes at the back.

 

 

Flora

We finally came across the perfect objet d'art for the marble shelf in our hallway outside our front door. This is made of painted wood and is very attractive. It can be completely disassembled as well so that reduces the chance of it getting broken in the future. When purchased, there were little labels with numbers all over it. The numbers indicated what part went where. Even each petal is a separate piece of wood.I carefully removed all of labels and recorded the numbers with a permanent marker. The labels were rather obvious. The marker numbers don't show at all. Now, any guests coming to our front door have something pretty to look at until we answer. Yay! It also is brightly colored so it shows up even if the hall lights are off.

We have also added a couple of live plants to our household. We purchased two plants for one of the balconies. We shopped at one of the nurseries opposite the Hotel Mulia. I am still not up to haggling over the prices of things, but B did a good job and talked the guy way down in price. What did we buy? I think we have a anthurium and a dieffenbachia. Now to see if we can keep them alive and thriving. The next step will be real pots and potting soil.The step after that is to hope they grow quickly because they are not very large plants right now.

Clocks aren't always just clocks

A while ago a friend had introduced me to the "show" put on by the "clock" in an area mall. Prior to this introduction, I had no idea that clock did anything but display the time. This week we happened to go to that mall for dinner and it was later than usual and we were there just a few minutes before the showtime (every hour on the hour). I reminded B about the show I'd seen previously so we decided to gather along with other hopeful watchers and wait...

 It made two tinkerbell-type sounds and the show began.

The show is almost over. This is just before the column doors close.

Food Talk

I've saved several food related items for this set of postings.

Sad food news. The Dunkin Donuts located within a very short walk of our apartment has closed. Gone. Empty building. We never visited the place but we thought about it a few times. Maybe something better will replace it. We can hope.

A friend told me about a local restaurant that has a huge barbecue once in a while. They roast a pig, have smoked brisket, sausage, hamburgers, fixins, dessert, etc. The event starts at 1pm and lasts until they run out of food. We decided to give it a try.  The food was very good and we might do it again.

We sat with a nice gentlemen who turned out to be the husband of a friend of mine. She is currently back in the US. I figured out he was her husband by just a few clues: where she is now and the fact that one of their daughters is getting married soon. When I asked him if he was my friend's husband he said, "Yes, everyone seems to know my wife."

Here are a few pix at the barbecue as they remove the pig roast from the cooker. I found it very odd that after removing this huge container of hot coals from atop this cooker, they placed it on a wooden deck directly behind the guy with the cowboy hat. It was obvious from the char marks that they had done this before.

The little boy in B just had to try this- a special item on one of our very local restaurants. The colorful layers are cake crumbs. In between is vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Staying with the "drink" topic, I tried something called a es kelapa batok. This is fresh young coconut water served in an actual young coconut with shaved coconut meat and ice in it. Yummy, too.

Last on the "drink" topic? The bubble drinks they serve here. My research indicates this sort of drink was developed in Taiwan but is absolutely everywhere here. There are 2 types with a third hybrid category. Type one is a milk tea drink and the other is a fruit flavored tea. The hybrid of the two is he third. There are balls of chewy tapioca or fruit jelly added to the drink. They serve the drink with a very fat straw so you can suck up the balls. They are chewy but we really don't understand why they are in the drink. The bubble in the name bubble drinks doesn't refer to the chewy balls, but to the fact that the drink foams up when you shake it. Mine was a special milk tea and B's was a redbean matcha. Why? Because it was green in the picture. As you can see there is a wide array of choices. Maybe not something we'd try again, but who knows?

 

Miscellanous

First, here is a great photo of what is called cuaca cerah. This is when you have a bright and sunny day. In this case, we had cuaca cerah for a brief period of time one afternoon. We don't have very many days like this.

This is the first time since we unpacked our barometer ball that we have seen the barometric pressure go so low (fluid moving up into the side tube). We really expected a whopping storm, Usually the fluid is just a little bit into the side tube and it pretty much stays that way except for major storms and then it moves slightly up the tube. This was a major shift but  we only had a little storm the night after this photo was taken. Our driver said that night it poured at his house. Today as I was working on this blog we had a torrential downpour for about 30 minutes. If any of you are wondering if we still have leaking in the apartment, the answer is yes. Today's brief heavy rain confirmed that we still have a leak in the wall of my office.

I don't think I have shared a photo of the sloping escalators we find here. There are usually grocery stores in the underground levels of the malls. In order to get the trolley(grocery cart to some of you) of groceries up out of the lower levels you need something like these sloping escalator belts. While I am not a fan of these escalators (they are rather steep), I like the idea that the grocery stores are under the malls. One stop shopping. Of course not all of the malls have the sloped escalators so you have to hand carry everything without using a trolley.

I also wanted to share that I am not yet used to having a "staff". Recently I'd gone grocery shopping and our driver was waiting outside the cashier area . As I departed the store with Ibu Tin, Pak Oky took all of the groceries I was carrying and he and Tin split them up. So there we are, 3 adults, only 2 of which were carrying anything. It felt so weird. So... not too spoiled, yet...

On another grocery shopping recently, with Ibu Tin along, she leaned over and whispered to me that a famous Indonesian actor was on the escalator right in front of us. I asked her if she was getting "weak in the knees" over this guy. That led to a discussion explaining this expression. And it turns out she prefers older actors. This guy is only 43. It also turns out he lives in the apartment building next door. Who knew?

Recently we saw a small group demonstrating about global warming etc. in an area mall. The "garbage bag guy" had a difficult time getting on the escalator but he was making a really valid point. Garbage bag waste here is a huge issue.