asia asia we love asia
For the time being, rumor has it that I am able to access the internet. Hopefully this truth will last enough time for me to get this update up and into my blog. I am, at the moment, chattering to Christina on MSN Messenger. She is hanging around the office in Geneva. Actually, she is running up and down the hallways trying to find this particular piece of paper that I left behind. I am kind of an idiot.
I am sitting in my super posh hotel room in Jakarta. When we got here, we were rather concerned that this was a little bit too expensive for our per diem bit. But nein! Tis super cheap, like USD65.00 per night. And oh man, this place is swankarific. Free swimming pool, fitness room, salon and massages a phone call away. There are like four restaurants in the rather absurdedly grand lobby and who knows what else is down there. I am on, conveniently, the eleventh floor. If you don’t know me so well, you might not be aware of the fact that eleven is the best of the numbers. Boding well, my friends, boding well.
Anyway, the journey was something else. We flew first to Amsterdam, where we were supposed to have a three hour layover. Instead, it was six hours. Fortunately, Ajay had one of these gold card thingamabobs and so we lounged around, and I even got to take a shower. I tell you, business class is the only way to go. Eternal flight was real nice. I slept, for real, for nine solid hours. I was out cold. Colder than a fish. It was greatness, I never even opened the package with my headphones.
But the real point is this: I am in Asia. For the first time in my life, unless you count a stopoff in Singapore (which we stopped in again for some fuel, by the way, and has to be the nicest airport in the history of the world) when I was five. Which I have never been so brash as to count, friends and neighbors. Asia! It’s madness! It is the first time in my life, in fact, that I’ve ever felt remarkably Different, as they say. I feel very blonde and very very white. Which is, I think, quite good for me.
Day one was a bit of a disaster on the cuilinary front, as I managed to get stuck with some basil/tomato/parmesan pasta creation. It was good, but for the love of God. I am in Indonesia. Damn vegetarian. We were too lazy to get out of the hotel for proper dinner. Phyllida donated her fried egg from her nasi goreng, combined with a garlic/ginger, soy sauce, and chili sauce to make the whole thing a delight. I was just about fully redeemed the next day at lunch when there was yummy tofu and tempeh and peanut sauce that was just too good to be believed. Unfortunately, I fell way back, way way farther down into the deepest pits of embarassment and whole-scale lack of redemption, come dinner time. This is when we were directed, unknowingly, to a rather dodgy food court at a rather dodgy mall. (Ok embarassing. I went to a mall. I know. BUT I have had it on good authority, from an actual real life Indonesian or eight, that the best place for cheap food is mall food courts.) The particular one that we ended up at was not one of these highly recommended ones, and rather than eat at a stall that offered all night vomitousness and bellyache, instead we went (oh lord *gasp and horror*) to Pizza Hut. The degree of my shame, for real, is immeasurable. Today we were a bit better off, in that we ate at the canteen at the Statistics Office (tofu, tempeh, some kind of intriguing saucy thing, and then the yummiest chinese food I’ve ever had for dins). Redemption, friends, in the form of bean curd.
We can’t walk anywhere…even just ten feet down the road and you have to hail a cab (a Blue Bird cab, and only a Blue Bird cab). No one walks, everyone drives, in the most insane and disorganized way you can imagine. The people we worked with today told us how sometimes they spend 45 minutes commuting 5k; sometimes they spend two hours. Gadzuks! Loud, smelly, crowded, etc. Not to sound like every other person who has ever travelled to a big city in a developing country, but oh dear. It is definitely just like that. Too many people in too small a place with too many cars, too many cats, and way way too many people just standing around, directing traffic, or trying to hold an umbrella over your head.
We haven’t really been out on the town enough yet…we are meeting up with some friends of a friend on friday night, hopefully to get out and see some more of the city. But until then, we are working our brains out with the country office. Which in and of itself is a good experience. The hours are so hilarious, though. They get there between seven and nine (depending on traffic) and everybody is outtyscouty by four in the afternoon. Sweetness for us! Since they are closing, we also have to close up shop. More time for massages, saunas, and haircuts! Sweet jeebley.
All right then. Last night at this time, Felicity was on. Weird.
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