According to some, Jakarta sucks

So, evidently my family and I live in the 2nd worst expat city in the world. This is not counting high conflict cities such as Baghdad, but according to this report the only worse city to live in as an expat than ours is Lagos. And while I've never been to Lagos, my impression is that there would have to be a big jump from Lagos to Jakarta.

My friends and I have been discussing it and we are all quite surprised at Jakarta's low ranking. I tried to find out from the ORC Worldwide website, which conducted the survey, what all of the criteria were for the survey and who they surveyed, but I was unsuccessful. I do know from the article that the firm looked at 55 cities that could be considered "hardship posts" and considered aspects such as pollution, disease, political violence, and availability of goods and services.

I will be the first to admit that pollution is pretty bad here. While I don't see a grey cloud hanging over Jakarta, I also don't see clear blue skies all that often. I also believe that the pollution is part of the explanation as to why I've gotten sick so much here (colds and other respiratory infections) and why the illnesses hang on for seemingly ever. However, it doesn't hurt to breath and I'm sure there is worse pollution in other cities.

Jakarta is in the tropics, so with all this humidity and heat year round there is bound to be more diseases here than in many other locations. And Jakarta isn't the cleanest town, but I've seen and heard about far worse. Related to the disease criteria, I would guess that access to medical care was also one of the criteria that was considered in the survey. Again, medical care here is better than some places, and worse than others. Having lived and traveled all over Africa however, I have to say access to medical care is much better here. And, Singapore, which has premiere medical care, is only 1.5 hours away by plane.

The survey also considered political violence, and I can't believe that Jakarta would have scored poorly on this criteria. For one, Indonesians are not a violent people in general. Just last month Indonesia had elections and I heard of very few instances of violence. There are demonstrations and rallies like in any truly democratic society, but violence is rare. I imagine the threat of terrorism was also considered during the survey, and I know that the US and other governments consider Indonesia to be a high risk country for attacks. The threat of terrorist attacks does exist here, but there hasn't been a large scale attack since the Bali bombings in 2002 and no significant small attacks since 2003. All of the hotels, malls, large office buildings and some restaurants screen both cars and people for weapons and bombs. I rarely even think about the threat of terrorism here, and I honestly feel no less safe here than I did living in the D.C. area.

Jakarta must have scored well on access to goods and services. I can get almost anything I want here, and there are plenty of nice restaurants and opportunities for entertainment. The malls have Gucci stores, the movie theaters show current movies and have lounge chairs and hi def speakers, there are 2 Starbucks within a 10 minute drive of our house and several nice grocery stores where you can procure almost any ingredient. There are playgrounds and water parks and a Sea World and a zoo for children. There are first class international schools, high speed internet, and almost everyone speaks English.

All of this leads me to wonder who they asked! I'm guessing they surveyed executives of for-profit companies who have either never lived abroad or only lived in 1st world countries. They probably spend hours stuck in traffic, which is horrible here, but who don't really know Indonesians well and who may not have children. Did they survey people who work for a wide variety of companies? Did they survey the non-working spouses? Did they survey parents of young children?

All in all I think they got it wrong. Jakarta is a great place to live. Yes the pollution is pretty bad and the traffic can really suck, there are way too many people and motorcycles, and there is a small threat of terrorist attacks and a big threat of natural disasters.

But, there are so many wonderful things about Jakarta. For starters, Indonesians are really wonderful people. They are open, kind, patient and they love to laugh. Living amongst people who welcome you to their country is to me probably the most important criteria of whether a city is a good expat city or not. Did they even consider this? Furthermore, the expat community is large and diverse, there are plenty of creature comforts, domestic labor is cheap so we are well taken care of (this sounds a bit crass but so true), it is a financially advantageous place to live, we have access to good medical facilities and schools, and there are many exciting and nearby travel destinations. Basically, I think ORC Worldwide is pretty off the mark!

Spa-ing, Jakarta style

Surprisingly, I haven't yet bragged about the amazing spa opportunities here in Jakarta. If you love to indulge in a spa treatment from time to time but don't like the hit it takes on your pocketbook, then Jakarta is an ideal place to be. There are endless facilities and treatments to indulge in, and there is something to suit everyone. After more than 2 years here I have found my favorite spots for the different treatments, but I am still searching for just 1 location that does everything well and has the best atmosphere. I don't think I'll ever find it, but it's awfully fun to look!

My most favorite treatment is a plain old massage. The best massage I've ever had is in Eau Claire, WI from a professional massage therapist who is also a dear family friend. I don't think any massage will ever be as good as her's. However, while I haven't found a massage here that is as good as the massages you can get in the US, they are far less expensive and are often in more beautiful surroundings. The cheapest massages I've heard of in Indonesia are on the beach at a hotel or resort, but from women who are not affiliated with the hotel. One hour of massage from one of these ladies can cost between $2-5. Yes, one hour, on the beach, for less than a value meal at McDonald's.

In Jakarta prices are more, but not a whole lot more! I know of a business that will send a masseuse to your house for the bargain price of $8 for 1 hour. I have a friend who regularly uses this service - why I haven't yet is beyond me...! One hour massages at most of the salons cost well under $20. The price varies by a couple dollars (or by thousands of rupiah I should say), but this price seems to be fairly standard. It's more expensive in the hotel spas, as you would expect, and quite a bit more in the Bali hotels (although still cheaper than in the US). My favorite place to go is just 5 minutes away from my house (one of the benefits) at Allure Spa. I like the treatment rooms, they smell good, there are showers and a sauna, a cafe if I'm lucky to have that much time, they give you ginger tea, and of course the massages are very good. This place is hit or miss with the massage therapists, so I only go there if I can get someone I like. The cost for 1.5 hour massage: 240,000 rp or about $20!

Manicures and pedicures are also popular here. The best thing about having them done here is that you can have it done simultaneously during another treatment, such as getting your hair done, getting a cream bath (more later) or a facial. Indonesia is a full service sort of place when it comes to spas! This is a fortunate thing here as with wearing sandals year-round your feet can get pretty messed up fairly quickly. Almost all the hair salons and spas do manis and pedis, and I often get them done somewhere close to home to cut down on time. But my favorite place to get them is a spa called Rangoon Feliz. They are one of the fastest places (somehow most places take 1.5 hours to do a pedi) and definitely have the best atmosphere - nice decor, open room overlooking a tropical garden and with the soothing sound of bubbling water. It's very peaceful.

A wonderful discovery I had upon arriving in Jakarta is this treatment called "cream bath". If I ever wanted to open a salon in the US I would definitely import this treatment. First you have your hair slowly washed and deep conditioned. While they leave the conditioner on you sit in a chair while they massage your head, neck, shoulders and upper back for about 1 hour. And remember that they do several treatments at once? So imagine sitting there with someone massaging your shoulders, while another woman is giving you a manicure, and a third woman is giving you a pedicure, while you sip ginger tea (or champagne!) overlooking a beautiful garden. It is amazingly ridiculous, and feels so wonderfully indulgent! And it only costs about $10!

My mother's and mother-in-law's favorite treatment here is the facial. When we moved here one of J's colleagues recommended a woman from Mil-n-Mat salon for facials. She told me she was the best in Jakarta so I never bothered to look anywhere else. For about $20, not only do you get a facial (using a European skin care product), but you also get a fantastically relaxing head and face massage. It usually lasts 1.5 hours and it is wonderful. My mom and J's mom both loved it and I suspect it is at the top of their to do list when/if they come back to Jakarta.

Reflexology is also very popular here and you can find reflexology spots in most malls and neighborhoods. I think they're very nice, although J wonders why anyone would subject themselves to that kind of torture and actually pay for it.

My latest discovery in the realm of self pampering is a "fish spa". This concept is an import originally from Turkey, and is becoming popular all over Asia. Basically, you sit with your feet in a pool of water where 100 or so Garra Rufa fish (also known as Dr. Fish species) nibble at your feet! It is by far one of the most bizarre sensations I've ever experienced. It didn't hurt in the least as they fish don't have any teeth, but it tickles and is just very odd. In the beginning I felt a bit hysterical having all these tiny fish nibble at my skin, but by the end of the 1/2 hour it did feel kind of good, and my skin felt nice and smooth afterwards. Evidently this treatment was historically used to treat some skin diseases, and now is also used for relaxation, exfoliation and to promote blood circulation. It was quite an experience that I'm glad I've had, but if I have time for a spa treatment I'd definitely prefer something else. Plus, at 120,000 rp ($10) for 1/2 hour it's actually on the expensive side. For anyone who is fairly ticklish on their feet, this would be pure torture.

Fish spa therapy

Ramadan again

I was about to write a whole post on the holy month of Ramadan, which we are 10 days into here in Indonesia (and for all devout Muslims around the world), and then I realized that I've been writing this blog for well over 1 year and probably wrote about it last year. And I did! Yippee! That's one post I don't have to write because if you're interested to know more about it you can go here to see what I wrote last year. Not much has changed since last year. The biggest change is that we moved to a new house in a complex last year, so our neighborhood isn't nearly as noisy. We can still hear the mosques, but they aren't as loud and we can no longer here the neighborhood "festivities". Since we're non-Muslims and we're in a huge cosmopolitan city, Ramadan doesn't change our lives in a big way. There are a few minor inconveniences here and there, but compared to what our Muslim neighbors are doing it is nothing. This year for Idil Fitri we will be staying in Jakarta. We were late in our planning this year and by the time we looked into getting away airline prices were already pretty steep. Jakarta will pretty much shut down for the 2 days of Idil Fitri, as in, I don't even think we can order a pizza or go to the grocery store. So it's a good time to get away, but on the other hand it will be nice to live in such a quiet city for once!

If you want to read more factual information, you can click here. I "get" the principles behind Ramadan; I can see how fasting all day and sacrificing sleep could make one more humble, more patient (maybe), more faithful. But, I also think it's crazy. I can't imagine not being able to drink a glass of water for 12 hours straight, all the while working, taking care of children, tending fields?! Plus, in order to eat enough calories to last throughout the day, you have to eat a lot during the night. So, you're eating at the expense of sleeping. I understand that during the month of Ramadan people will eat on and off from 6-9 p.m., and then sleep until 3 a.m., when they will wake up and start eating until the sun rises about 6. That's 6 hours of sleep every night for 30 nights.

That's gotta take a toll! There have been plenty of sleep studies showing that people need an average of 8 hours of sleep/night and that sleep deprivation makes people overly emotional, less capable of working machinery and doing general tasks, influences the brain's ability to make memories, etc. It makes me wonder just what a month of fasting and sleep deprivation does to people and to their country as a whole with regards to productivity, incidences of traffic, home and industrial accidents, etc... If anyone comes across any studies looking at this, let me know!

So, as you're enjoying your 8 hours of sleep every night (hopefully!), your morning coffee, your lunch, that refreshing glass of water during the day, just remember that during the entire month of September millions of people around the world are not...

Happy Independence Day Indo!

Yesterday, August 17, was Independence Day here in Indonesia. This date marks the declaration of Indonesia's independence from the Netherlands in 1945. The Indonesian National Revolution lasted for 4 years between Indonesia and the Netherlands, as well as some internal conflict. Fighting during this time was sporadic but violent and was one of the largest revolutions of the 20th century. The Dutch military was able to prevail in the urban areas of Java and Sumatra, but unable to do so in the rural areas throughout the country. Outside forces also influenced Indonesia's eventual success. The Netherlands was crippled by losses during the second world war and were therefore unable to pour a great deal of resources into their fight to hold on to Indonesia. In addition, the United Nations and the United States both supported Indonesia in their quest for independence. The revolution came to an end in 1949 when The Netherlands officially recognized Indonesia as a sovereign nation. If you're really interested in this topic, you can go here for a lot more information.


Indonesians take a great deal of pride in their independence and there are flags and banners all over Jakarta. Indonesians celebrate with food and family like Americans do, but grilling out is definitely not a part of the tradition. Most of the neighborhoods (and I suspect villages) in Jakarta organize their own small celebrations, and have many games for the kids to play (like potato sack races, water bobbing, etc) and have music and parties. You can also hear kids lighting fireworks throughout the night, but I don't think there's a large fireworks display hosted by the city or national government.


For us it's been a quiet and relatively lazy long weekend. Saturday we took C to see the movie Wall E, which he seemed to enjoy quite a bit. He got upset whenever Wall E was in trouble, but for the most part he laughed a lot. Saturday night J and I spent the evening saying goodbye to our very good friends in Jakarta who are moving to Oman. We're extremely sad to see them go as they're amongst a very small handful of friends who we really enjoy and can relate to, and who we really like all members of the family. Sunday we took the kids to Ancol, where Seaworld is, and had fun going through the tunnel (where you're surrounded on 3 sides by water with fish, manta rays, sharks, tortoises, etc - LC especially loved this!) and then taking a gondola ride over the beach and amusement park. And today is a lazy day (both boys are taking a nap, how wonderful!) and later today some friends will come over for a bbq. All in all, a good weekend.

Expat paddywack

I thought you may be interested in hearing more about the expatriate (expat) community here in Jakarta. Compared to my Peace Corps days and my travels for work around Africa, the community is very different here. I had been assuming that it was an Asia - Africa difference, seeing as Asia is farther along the development road than Africa and there is far more private enterprise in Asia. I have mentioned before that my previous travels have routinely brought me in touch with expats from the development community, and few others. Here, on the other hand, it is the opposite. Only when I am at work do I meet expats from the development community. I have the definite impression that we are a relatively small bunch, completely dwarfed by private industries (oil - with all its related businesses to support it - being the big player, and then a random assortment of people in food, finance, accounting, banking, real estate development, etc).

Lately, however, when discussing this subject with friends I have learned that Jakarta (and Indonesia?) may be unique even within Asia. One woman who lived several years in Vietnam and another who has lived in Singapore and Korea said that the community here is quite clicky. They thought it may be because the community here is so large that when planning a social event you often have to choose who to invite. These women and another who lived in Mongolia said that they're surprised here by how few women work. Evidently where they've lived the wives usually held down part-time or full-time jobs, but here we are a minority. There are plenty of opportunities for partners who want to work here. While getting a work permit is difficult, it is common to work under the table. All of the men I know who have accompanied their wives here have found full-time jobs. On the other hand, there is so much to do here that there are plenty of non-work opportunities as well. You can pursue anything that interests you here and there are plenty of volunteer activities which many of the women are involved in.

When I first arrived I was amazed at how easy it was to meet people and make friends. Within a few months, however, I realized why. You have to constantly make new friends here because everyone is always leaving! A few months after I arrived I knew 3 families who were moving away. Now, a year later, there is another mass exodus. I have 5 pretty close friends who are all moving away this summer, and I know another 2 women who are also moving. Can you imagine if you lost 5 friends in one summer?! Ugh... It's a bit devastating, and I don't really feel like having to make more friends! But I will, and I must, and it will all be good. Hopefully.

I have to say this may be the number 1 reason why the expat life may not be for me for the long term. Many of my friends here plan to do this for their foreseeable future, probably until their kids are out of school. We've thought about it. There are many, many advantages to this sort of life. On the other hand, being away from family and close friends is really difficult, and the constant ferris wheel of revolving friendships that defines the expat life is draining. Like everything in life, there is give and take, and it's just a matter of figuring out which gives and which takes are the most important.

Mother's Day Jakarta style

We went to our favorite place for brunch last Sunday to celebrate Mother's Day. We went with some friends who live in our complex, so it was a tame, relatively small gathering and very enjoyable. Brunches here are amazing events. All of the big hotels do a Sunday brunch. They're all very similar and about the same price, but some have separate kids rooms or no kids rooms at all. Food wise there aren't many differences, so really any of them are very nice. We like to go to the 4 Seasons because of the variety of food they present and because there's a kids room attached to the main room. We took my mom there when she was visiting and she can attest to how amazing it is. There is a huge selection of breads and cheeses, fresh juices, salads, Indonesian, Chinese and Western foods, sushi, pan fried foie gras, soups, a huge dessert buffet with chocolate fondue, and for about $5 extra all the champagne you can drink. One of these days we'll go without the kids and take advantage of that!

So brunch was very nice, delicious, and filling. The rest of the day kinda sucked thanks to C being a brat. But oh well, at least there were some high points.

The boys at brunch wishing me a happy mother's day!

Moving on...over

In addition to the many things that happened in October, we moved into a new house. It's something we had been considering for a little while, and finally we got around to talking to our realtor about it. Well, the first people to see it loved it (which made us reconsider, of course). The following few weeks was a roller coaster. There were several complications to our moving, including the 2 year lease we signed when we moved in (very common here), the requirement that we could secure our new house at the same time we finalized the sublease, the landlady agreeing to the special considerations that must be given to the new tenants as Belgian embassy staff, the new tenants' willingness to not have much done to the house as a condition of their move, and the timing of moving around idil fitri and our trip to Bali. One day it looked like we'd move, and the next it wouldn't. Well, the day before we left for Bali it all came together, and we moved 3 days after we got back.

Why, you may ask, did we go through all this pain and agony? At the time we wondered that ourselves. But now that we've moved we feel we were right in doing so. One of the main reasons was that the motorcycle noise was annoying us, and it was on the kids' side of the house and we worried about it waking them up. The last thing J wanted to hear after spending 1 hour in Jakarta traffic to get home was the sound of the ever present motorcycles. A big reason for me to move was the constant mosquito problem in the house. It was an older house and not well sealed, and no matter what we did there were always lots of mosquitoes in the house. We had to have it sprayed once/month to try to get rid of them, and god knows what those chemicals might do to our young kids. Then again, I also didn't want them to get dengue fever or malaria. In addition to these big reasons, there were many other minor inconveniences that all added up to a desire to move.

Our new house is in a complex of about 35 houses, just a few blocks away from our old house. There are 3 playgrounds (very sparse in Jakarta) and lots of children. C is able to ride his bike on the streets and take walks without inhaling exhaust fume and dodging motorcycles. He has already met several of the neighborhood kids, one of whom is an older girl. That's right, C is charming a sweet 7 year old down the street. We'll definitely keep our eye on him when he hits puberty! The house is much more conducive to family living and the management company is amazing. And while the mosque's call to prayer is actually louder here, there is NO motorcycle noise! We've given up the grandness of our other house, an incredibly gorgeous yard, and more exposure to Indonesian culture, but we think we made the right decision.

I have lots of reasons why I haven't been blogging in so many weeks, the move being just one of them. I'll try to get to all the other reasons soon.

Correction

A couple quick corrections about the elections. It was actually for the governor of Jakarta, but for we Americans we would use "mayor". Also, the man who won used to be the vice-governor of Jakarta, not the vice-president of Indonesia. This is therefore a step forwards for him, and makes a lot more sense to us. Just another good example of the challenges of communicating across different languages...

All is fine

The earthquake off Java occurred shortly after midnight on Thursday and measured 7 on the Richter scale. It was felt in Jakarta, even by people living in our area of town. There was some destruction in Jakarta but no injuries have been reported. We didn't feel a thing and didn't know about it until we looked at the news the next morning. For those of you who might have seen the headline and worried, we're all just fine.

Exploring Jakarta

This past Saturday we went to the old Dutch colonial area of Jakarta, in an area known as Kota. The central cobblestone square, Taman Fatahillah, is still there, as are some of the old colonial era buildings. Unfortunately many of the buildings are in ruin and nothing has been done with the square. It is a real shame, as it could be quite lovely around there and most assuredly a tourist destination. I could still get an idea of what it must have been like in its heyday, but now there is little to do or see. Someday, perhaps the Jakarta government or some enterprising, rich businessperson will take an interest in it and develop it.

We did go to the puppet museum, or Wayang Museum, which has one of the best collections of wayang puppets in Java. The museum itself isn't terribly impressive, but some of the puppets were very interesting. A museum worker told us some of the history of the puppets, what they're used for, etc. For example, the flat, intricately carved leather shadow puppets, called wayang kulit, are often used to teach children about right and wrong, morals, etc. They are produced in Bali and Java. We also saw many wonderful examples of wayang golek, which are the 3-d wooden puppets typically found in West and Central Java. Wayang theater comes from the Hindu-Buddhist heritage in Java, and the stories of the wayang kulit are often based on the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mohabharata. A whole night might be devoted to just one story, and in addition to being used to teach children, they may also be performed to protect a crop, a village or people. There is only one puppeteer manipulating all of the puppets, and the show is sometimes accompanied by a gamelan (traditional orchestra of 60-80 musical instruments).

Wayang kulit

There is also the Jakarta History Museum and a Fine Arts Museum in Kota, but unfortunately C didn't enjoy the puppet museum as much as we had hoped so we figured visiting another museum was not a good option.

After the museum we went and had a drink at Cafe Batavia, which is located on the same square and is housed in apparently the only very nicely renovated colonial building in Kota. It is easy to be swept back in time and imagine yourself as a Dutch colonialist, well dressed and sipping a cocktail after a long hot day in Jakarta. The upstairs bar and restaurant is constructed in all teak wood, and the whole cafe is filled with old pictures and photographs. It was evidently included in Newseek International's 1994 and 1996 Worlds Best Bars editions. The place reminded me of The Tobacco Company restaurant in Richmond, VA, where I have been a couple times with my sister-in-law, husband and my best girlfriends for a girlfriends weekend. We will definitely return to Cafe Batavia another time, without children, and when I can truly enjoy one of their many cocktails.

From here we went to the old port of Sunda Kelapa, which was full of Makassar schooners. There wasn't much activity but it was a fun add-on. We were expecting more majestic looking boats, although I don't know why now that I think about it.

Being there, at a fishing port, made me think of one of my all time favorite experiences. While living in Mali J and I went down to the Ivory Coast for a vacation. We stayed on the beach in a little hut, had fresh fish for dinner every night cooked by the "hotel" owner, almost drowned in the undercurrent... Anyway, we went into the town of Sassandra one day to take a boat tour of the mangrove forests, and were fortunate enough to be there when the fishing boats came in. This wasn't a "port", but just the beach where large, brightly painted canoes came to shore bearing fishermen and the day's hauling. The sun was bright and the beach was bustling with fishermen and customers busy bargaining the price of fish, and the beach was filled with manta rays, small sharks, and large fish being cut up and sold. It was incredibly colorful and active and a lot of fun, and one of my favorite memories of West Africa.

Spread of America

A friend asked me some questions that I imagine others of you may wonder as well, so I thought I'd answer her here on the blog. She basically asked me what sort of American things we can find here in Jakarta, and her questions relate to some things I had been thinking of mentioning on my blog anyway. So here goes...

1) Do you get any American tv shows there? The answer is yes, yes, yes. Most importantly, I get American Idol, in all it's wonderful current season glory. We are 1 day behind and of course can't vote, but I can't tell you how thrilled I was when we arrived here and I saw that it would be shown here as well. Seeing the trailers for American Idol and 24 before we left the US was killing me. So yes, I am fully up-to-date on Sanjaya finally and mercifully being kicked off, Simon's latest cracks, and Melinda's amazing talent. 24 is also shown here, but it is not the current season. We have been really getting into Heroes, which is the current season but a few months behind. All the CSIs are on, as well as Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and others like Scrubs, Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, but none of these are the current season. But no, we are not forced to watch Alf or Green Acres in order to get our American tv fix. We also get CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Discovery channel, Disney Playhouse, National Geographic channel, ESPN, HBO, Cinemax, and Star Movies which shows good movies in English with Indonesian subtitles. Definitely not a bad selection.

2) How about the radio? The radio pretty much sucks here. Given that it is horrible in the US as well though, I'm not surprised. There are a couple "good" channels that seem to play a better assortment and have some commentary in English, but it's still pretty hit or miss. They just play the most random selection of songs. One minute we could be enjoying Coldplay or U2, and the next we're stuck with Olivia Newton John or Tiffany. Our car also only has a tape deck, so we have started buying some cassette tapes. The availability of good cassettes is pretty small though, so it looks like we're going to be stuck with only a few good tapes. Remember all the fun of making mix tapes back in junior high school? Well, if you've still got a tape deck in your stereo, why not relive the glory days and send us a few mix tapes!

3) What American movies do you get? We get American movies in the theaters here, although a bit late and a pretty random assortment. We have gone to 2 movies here, Music and Lyrics with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, and last Friday was Shooter with Mark Whalberg. I expect that most of the big summer movies will make their way here. Let me tell you about the movie theater we went to though. It's the nicest movie theater we've ever been to, and this is for the regular theater. They also have a VIP theater where I guess you are served food and drinks. The theater we went to is in one of the nice malls, Plaza Indonesia (stores include Cartier, Tiffany's, Valentino, Nine West, Benetton), and the price of a ticket is a whopping $3. You get to choose your seats when you buy your ticket, and they have a full concession stand as well as a cafe or something in the lobby. The theater itself has fantastic surround sound (was great for Shooter) and the seats are heavenly - big, plush recliner like seats with plenty of leg room. We will have to check out some of the other theaters around town because it can take us 1 hour to get there, but at least it's a nice experience once we're there. We can also get just about everything on DVD. We can buy officially released movies, but we can also buy pirated ones for about $.70. The quality is usually fairly good, and you can get most of the major movies as soon as they hit theaters in the US. We can also get a lot of tv shows on DVD. We have been really enjoying Entourage this way, and have bought past seasons of Scrubs, West Wing, and X Files (oh yeah!). I just recently bought part of the current season of Grey's Anatomy and 24, but only some of them work in our dvd player. But we can't really complain at $.70/dvd.

4) What's the availability of American food? Believe it or not, but just about all the major restaurant chains have reached Jakarta. There is at least one TGIF, Tony Roma's, Chile's, California Pizza Kitchen, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, KFC, Dunkin' Donuts, and Starbucks. Krispy Kreme has also just arrived, and has become my favorite treat. I don't remember liking it quite this much back home... One nice thing is that these places are here, but another nice thing is that you don't find them everywhere. America has definitely not taken over. As far as the grocery stores, you can find just about anything, at a price. We can buy Cheerios here, but no thank you at $11/box. We can get Ben & Jerry's, and it's not too much more than back home. We have certainly been able to find everything we "need", and sometimes we treat ourselves to something we don't need. And there are a couple things we have either not found or have a difficult time finding, like arugula, pine nuts, Goldfish crackers, some liquor like Bailey's, etc. The other challenge is that in order to get everything I know is available that we might want/need, I'd have to go to about 5 different grocery stores. In a big city with bad traffic, this is not fun. So usually we just live without.

So as you can see we aren't doing without very much. It's quite a comfortable place to live. Many of the people I am coming to know here work outside of the international development industry, and have either never been overseas before or their expat jobs have been in the middle east or Asia. I take their complaints with a grain of salt. I find it quite amusing when they get worked up over not being able to get x, or having to pay so much for it if they can find it. Considering that we expected our overseas assignment to be in Africa where you can't get at least 3/4 of what I described above, we think we're living in a pretty posh environment.

Hope this has been at least mildly interesting. Feel free to ask me any other burning questions.

Indonesian safari

Sunday, we all went on safari, Indonesian style. Since arriving in Jakarta we have gone to Sea World (a very miniature version in a not-so miniature amusement park), Taman Mini Amusement Park, the zoo, and now Taman Safari. It is amazing how much this city has to offer, and that we've gone to this many amusement parks in such a short time! Amusement parks are not regular fare for our family, but it's something to do and we're trying to see what this place has to offer.

Taman Safari was quite impressive. It wasn't at all like a safari you would go to in Africa, but rather like a drive through zoo. Many of the animals were quite tame from years of being fed carrots out of car windows (there were stalls upon stalls of carrot vendors on our drive into the park), but hey! it was fun seeing zebras and blackbucks so close, and unlike a safari in Africa, we actually saw all the animals we were meant to see. We saw elephants, giraffes, lions, tigers, leopards, hippos, rhinos, brown bears, gazelles, llamas, orangutans, and camels. The park is outside of a town called Bogor, which is in the hills/mountains. The park was in the forest and it was very lush and pretty, and cool! For the first time since arriving in Indonesia we weren't all sweaty by mid-day. After the "safari" we ended up in the amusement park section, which had a ferris wheel, a carousel, bumper boats, etc. They also had a kids zoo, where we got to pet a baby tiger, baby orangutan and a snake. C was fearless. That is until the orangutan tried to take a bite out of his head. Then C dissolved into tears, quite understandably, and J got ready to rush him to the nearest hospital. He recovered quickly (C that is, I think J is still wary) but I think he will talk about this for quite a while. That was a little scary, but all in all I must admit I really enjoyed it. I've never had the opportunity to touch a tiger, hold an orangutan's hand or feed an elephant before! I think C is going to grow up with a very scewed outlook on normalcy. After all, he's been on 4 different continents, fed giraffes in Kenya, gotten a hug from an orangutan in Indonesia, and seen Big Ben before he turned 3. Not "normal".





Before we left the park we decided to check out the cowboy show. We don't know how this fits in exactly with a safari park...perhaps Indonesians have some fascination with the Wild West, I don't know. It was very odd. There were explosions (real explosions that we could feel the heat from - I think I've ranted before on the lack of safety here), gun fire (not real), horses, Indians, cowboys, a sheriff, and the "town" had a bank, saloon, etc. It was mostly in Bahasa Indonesian so we didn't understand most of it, although we didn't really need to understand the words to understand what was going on. Basically it was just very surreal. Why does it seem there are always these sorts of oddities in developing countries? Do they make sense to the citizens of these countries, or do they seem strange to them as well?

This week J and I finally started learning Bahasa Indonesian. We have both hardly learned any so far and I am quite embarrassed at times when I can't communicate something very simple. We've learned quite a bit already and hopefully over the next couple months we will make some real progress. It is a little strange to take "classes" with J. We work very well together as a couple, at our marriage, as parents, but we decided long ago we could never do anything like The Amazing Race. We can't even move a piece of furniture without getting annoyed with each other and without nasty looks flying between us. We seem to be doing well so far with the classes though. I think we're just both so relieved to really be learning the language. At this point in Mali, after 3 months of intensive language classes, we could already have a conversation in Bambara, bargain in the market, etc. But, at least now we can say a couple sentences in Bahasa Indonesian - it's a good start.

Also, I have added a new section to the blog (on the right side) - Come Learn Bahasa Indonesian. I plan to add a new word or phrase every time I post a new entry. Happy learning!

Traffic, glorious traffic

It was bound to come up, so I might as well get it out of the way, even though I'm sure the frustration will get the better of me many more times and you will have to again endure my rants. Everyone warned me about the traffic problem here in Jakarta. At first I hardly ran into it and I foolishly hoped they were just exaggerating. After all, Washington, DC is no picnic. Now that I have been here over 2 months however, I have come across it a few times, and it is indeed bad. The worst traffic episode was due to flooding, and it was when we were moving our stuff into our house. Mercifully C was not in the car with us, as it took us about 2 hours to get from our house back to the hotel, when it should have taken about 25 minutes. And this was at the end of the day, after J had been moving boxes to the house all day and we had spent a couple exhausting hours shopping. This past Friday night we ran into traffic again, and a 10 minute trip took 30. Then again on Sat. when we went shopping. The problems arise unexpectedly and for no apparent reason. J tells me that the population of Jakarta is supposed to grow by 50% over the next 30 years. I don't know how this city could possibly handle that. It is busting at the seams as it is.

Part of the problem stems from the sheer number of people and cars, of course (Jakarta has a population of about 13 million). However, I think the Dutch, the last country to colonize Indonesia (following after the Portuguese, and other influences such as the Indians and Arabs and other SE Asian countries), are also to blame for their idiotic road system. It is one of those designs where if you are on the north side of a main street and want to go south, you have to travel north in order to get to an overpass or roundabout to get to the southbound side of the street. Basically, you can't get across many streets here without first getting to an overpass or roundabout. This causes more cars to have to merge into traffic and get off exit ramps, which leads to more congestion. We have wasted 20 minutes in this situation before, just trying to get to the overpass to go the opposite direction.

Given the bad traffic, low wages and expense of cars, there are millions of motorcycles and scooters on the roads. And they are incredibly brazen. Evidently size doesn't matter to them, because they will dart in front of a bus without a second thought. They also seem to think they have the right of way, because they rarely slow down if the car in front of them slows down for a pedestrian or turning vehicle, etc. I am scared to drive just about anywhere in this city, mainly because I am so afraid of hitting a motorcyclist. They come out of nowhere! And yet despite the millions of cars and motorcycles on the road, the terrible traffic, the audacity of the drivers, and the disregard for lane markers, I have yet to see an accident.

Since we're on the subject of driving and roads, the numbering system for shops and houses is also very frustrating. Even with an address it is very challenging to find your destination. One road can end up having several different names. Evidently a slight curve in a road is enough reason to change the name. The numbers are also not necessarily sequential. A shop with an address number 30 can be next to a shop with a number 50. It is terribly confusing and time consuming to find a destination.

J and I have already suggested that it will likely be the traffic and congestion of this city that will drive us home.