On the weekend

We located another green drink — are you surprised?  This one is a green tea grasshopper. It's a sort of  matcha green tea smoothie. B enjoyed it.

At another venue on the weekend, we visited a Turkish restaurant together. I had been to this place several times but B had never eaten there. It's a mini version of a larger, more expensive restaurant owned by the same family in another part of town. (B has been there- fabulous pistachio baklava.)

This version of the restaurant actually has 3 floors. First floor is smoking, second floor is non-smoking and the third floor is the party room. It's all glass walled and looks like it would be a really nice place for a party. 

This is the hot, very sweet apple tea. It really tastes like a nice hot apple juice to me, but there probably is tea and lots of added sugar. I don't have this very often but it seemed a little chilly that day so I went for it (yes, I said chilly). It's served in its own teapot kept hot ( and I mean hot) sitting on top of a tea light. Since the tea stays very hot, overfilling the teacup can be hazardous to one's fingertips. Very nice presentation.

Here's something that seems a little odd to me- the napkin rings at the place. They are small little paper bags. On my first visit ( before they even officially opened) my friends and I all thought these were toss-away items. NOT! The second you pull your napkin out of them, one of the waiters swoops in to pick it up. They must be recycling them.

Last thought of this post: Remember the recent post where ice was discussed? Here's another reason why you don't drink drinks with ice that's not formed cubes.A typical ice transportation system:

Team Building in Bogor

B’s work held a team building event. Why? They have contracted with an EPC (engineering procurement and construction) company for the detailed design and construction of the plant. There will be millions of man-hours of interactions and activities and being comfortable with each other and working well as a broad team is required. 

They left Jakarta early on buses that picked people up at the two offices. The destination – Bogor; about a 1 hour drive from Jakarta. The last 20 minutes was on small, windy roads that necessitated an escort and movement of scooters and other traffic out of the way as the road was as wide as the bus. Difficult to navigate unless the road was clear.

Here is a photo of the pond and flowers. It was very peaceful and serene and smelled great-- clean air!

The theme for the day was SATU.

This is “one” in bahasa Indonesian. Spirit was applied to S, Action to A; Teamwork to T, and Unity to U. There were warm-up activities, then each person picked a ribbon out of a slit in the top of a box. The color of the ribbon determined one’s team. There were 9 teams in total and approximately three teams were at each station rotation. Notice how the number of people involved in this project has swelled since our first photos a year ago.

At the S station. The teams had to transport themselves by walking on bamboo sticks held be other team members. The distance was 8-10 m and they had to go and come back. Station A involved filling plastic bags with water from the pond using a scoop to a bucket. The bags were then used as ammunition to rescue the team leader who had been taken hostage. Yes, the bags were thrown at the hostage takers.

Station T was a series of removing rings from poles. Station U was all done together. Each team had to build a raft like this.

On B’s team, there were 9 people. With 6 inner tubes and only 7 bamboo pieces, it was tricky loading everyone. In fact, when they started out one of the people who couldn’t swim got nervous and tipped the inner tube and they had to do some repair work. Note: the water was only 1.5 m (~5ft) deep but had a thick layer of mud. Each team had to race around the island, touch a flag, go to the next flag and then to the finish. All in all it was a lot of fun. Though I might add a comment about how XXX the water was. 

The activities were followed by everyone “signing” a pledge to be SATU. This was done by selecting a purple, blue, red, or green pad that had been soaked in paint, covering one’s palm with the paint and affixing one’s hand print to the SATU sign. 

By this time. It was early afternoon so lunch was served followed by Karaoke. Last were a number of games like sack races, racing on skis with four people on a ski, tug of war etc. The EMCEE called for different types of people from the group. At one point they asked for the women and only four volunteered for the tug of war. So they put all four on one side and selected one of the bigger engineers (1.94m and 127 kg (6’6” and 280 lb)) to compete against the four. B’s says it was a hoot as he was winning until they figured out how to literally drag him sideways across the finish line.

Here is a photo of some of the team standing next to one of the many banners around for the day.

The trip home hit traffic and took more than 1hr 45minutes. 

A Walk in the "Park"

After living here a year, we finally decided it was time to take a look at the zoo. Most expats we know consider it more of a park than a zoo. And that's actually a good way to approach it. You have lower expectations in terms of the exhibits, etc. In fact many folks use the zoo grounds only for walking, running, biking, etc. B and I had each spoken with folks who go there regularly to get in some exercise. This is probably especially true on weekends, weekend mornings that is.  If you want a nice quiet experience you need to be there when it opens at 7 AM or as close to 7 as you can. By
9 AM a lot of people were there. The entrance fee is certainly reasonable. At today's exchange rate, the cost for adults is 32 cents. See—I said it was reasonable.

A map. We entered and departed from the west gate- Pintu Barat.

WAZA (World Association of Zoos and Aquariums) lists the following stats on the zoo: 350 acres, 295 species, 4040 individual specimens, established in 1864. We were there at 7 AM  I think we also stayed mostly on the major walkways (for runners, walkers, cyclists). The walkways are paved and very uneven in many places. The major walkways are more even so it's easier to walk.

To be honest, the main reason for going was to walk. The secondary reason was to see the animals. Smaller, more uneven walkways seemed to lead closer to the animal areas. I think in many cases, the yards were still being cleaned at that hour. I also presume that due to possible intrusions of the zoo grounds after hours many animals (major predators, valuable specimens) are locked in at night and not allowed access to the outside until proper staff has arrived and the yards have been cleaned. The zoo's website lists an opening time of 8:30 AM so while the gates open at 7 AM, one shouldn't expect to see too many of the larger animals out and about in their exhibits until later.

Here are some visitor stats for you: On New Year's day in January, the zoo saw 186,456 visitors.  On Idul Fitri weekend in July: Saturday afternoon visitor numbers swelled to 67,000. On Sunday 203,300 visitors were at the zoo.  Wow! I would not wish to be there with that many people.

The zoo has adequate signage but we both thought some were turned around. Many animals sadly are in areas  that lack modern standards, natural vegetation or atmosphere, i.e., many cages/concrete flooring, but some are better. We didn't see the primate area which I've read is nice. I'm glad we did not visit this zoo prior to now, it gave us a chance to view it differently than we might have fresh off the plane.

It is interesting to note that the zoo apparently received 209 billion IDR in 2015 and I read that the zoo would like to meet modern international standards by 2018. Towards that goal, some of the 2015 monies can be used to improve the welfare of the animals, not just operating budget.  Still, I am concerned that 2018 might be too short a time-frame to achieve the goal. Hope they do.

Here is an unusual activity for a zoo—at least I've never run into it before—delman (ponicart rides).

Another unusual activity for a zoo? Many, many warungs ( small food sellers) setting up shop all over the zoo grounds.  There were a couple of more permanent food selling stations. [Side discussion on ice in Indonesia. We all know we should only get ice in drinks at larger hotels and restaurants and the ice should be shaped rather than chips. The reason for this really became clear when we saw blocks of ice lying on the ground (see second picture) and vendors were chipping at the block and using the ice. I am hoping they used this ice only for chilling drink bottles, but still, if you buy a bottle you cannot wash it in clean water before use. Wisely, we did not avail ourselves of any of these food vendors.]

There were a few interesting artistic entries on the grounds: rocky carving and an orangutan sculpture.

Found the free toilets. I guess they are free because you are not supposed to tip the bathroom staff (yellow and blue sign).

Here are a few living collection signs. I thought my zoo friends especially might like to see the bahasa Indonesia information for a few animals.

And a North American backyard favorite:

We will probably do more walking at the zoo on Saturday mornings. And we will go early!

PS I noticed a sign about an app for the zoo. I didn't do anything about it but traffic was heavy leaving the park because of a nearby traditional Betawi wedding so I found and downloaded the app. Looks like a pretty nice app. Will make use of it on our next visit.

The Mega Car Show/ other sites

The IIAS (Indonesian International Auto Show) was held the end of August at the new Indonesian Convention and Expo (ICE) center in BSD (a city near Jakarta). We decided to go. We also decided we were going to surprise Oky and buy him a ticket.

The show opened at 10:00 and we wanted to be there at 10:00 as we were told it would be very busy later in the day. Saturday morning, Oky picked us up early and we headed off. As we approached the ICE center, traffic got really bad. Just as we were about to turn onto the main street to approach ICE, a police escort blocked our way as the Jakarta Porsche Club proceeded through the intersection. We snuck in with them and leveraged their escort to cover the remaining distance to the expo quickly. 

Oky couldn’t drop us off in front ( no one could be dropped off right in front) and said he would have to park and we would walk; for reference, this meant crossing the street and walking maybe 50 m to the entrance. This was fine with us! As he parked, I said to Oky will you walk with us? He said of course Pak. He thought we wanted it for security reasons. Then I said to him. You’re coming too. After all, Oky is a car buff. He was all excited and we set off.

We bought our tickets (about 4.50 USD each) and got in line to enter. Here is a picture of the line (YES, this is the uncrowded period). 

We went in, agreed with Oky to meet in 2 hours, and separated. The ICE center is massive. 10 interconnecting  halls. 

We entered at Hall 1 and found all kinds of stands and displays for everything automotive. This ranged from customization, to wax, to seats to…. Next came the truck area. Many different versions of everything from buses to carry your scooter, to troop transports, ambulances, cement mixers, ice cream and freezer trucks to… There were a  multitude of manufacturers from all over the world.

We found the interconnecting passageway to Hall 5 (BMW and Mini). From there on it was smooth sailing and we found the main hall.

The dress of the “workers and models” varied immensely from “classic car show” garb of short shorts and tight t-shirts with beautiful models (note they were very willing to take a picture with you (note2: we did not take advantage of this)), to dress suits and ties. Jaguar had a live pianist. Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, Porsche had well-trained people willing to schedule a test drive at your convenience. At Hyundai and Suzuki, their personnel had notebooks with brochures and prices for any car and one could buy it there and then. These cars are entry level here and so very popular. The Hyundai saleswoman was the most pushy and kept handing us information, price sheets, showing us features of her cars etc. 

At the Audi area, we discussed our old A4 and asked about why no A6 on display. The response?  Oh yes, Pak, we have them and can order anything you want. At Lexus, they had the new RX (in fact this one had a left hand drive) and the new (to Indonesia) ES350H. Despite being available in the US for the last 3 or 4 years, it had been available here for only 3 days. 

Here is one example of the customization that is available. This one combines the "superhero" aspect with traffic control. The gatling gun in front will certainly be one way to keep someone from cutting you off.

On the outer hallway, there were many, many food and drink stands. At first, B was puzzled as they all said ICE Food Stand. Yet, they were serving HOT food. Do you get it?  (Recall ICE is not ice as in cold but Indonesian Convention and Expo center).

All in all it was a great cultural experience and worth crowd watching. Over the 9 days of the show (note the first day is only for the press and VVVIPs) more than 500,000 people attended.It was really getting packed with people when we left. After our 2 hour sojourn, we met back up with Oky who had picked up a large number of brochures and was waiting at the entrance for us. He had had a great time. So did we. 

Completely off the topic of the car show, near the auto show we saw this place. Research revealed this is an educational facility called The Froggy Edutography. It is allegedly inspired by the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk and the purpose is to guide young Islamic generations to achieve their goals. There is a 3-part program which includes the formal, the informal and non-formal.  It's supposed to look like it is floating.

There isn't much around it, but the area is supposed to be the next thing to be developed so the surroundings will change in the future.