As soon as I get back from Jakarta, I see in the news that the EU has added most Indonesian airlines to its "no-fly blacklist", meaning they can't fly in Europe, and Europeans will be warned off flying with them. And this only 3 days or so after I was flying with one of them! :-(
Ah well, so long as I survived the trip, that's all that matters.....
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Last Day.....
Well, I'm on my last day here in Indonesia, before I head back to the "real world"! I have a 6:50 flight this evening, getting into Frankfurt airport at 5am monday morning, then a 5hr stopover before finally getting home at about 11ish. I'm going to be wrecked! And frozen - am going from 28 degrees to 14! Is pouring rain at home as well, it looks like my first purchase from Singapore is going to come in handy again!
Will be good to get home tho, I feel a bit disconnected from reality here....
Will be good to get home tho, I feel a bit disconnected from reality here....
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The Ministry
Well, I've finally been to one of the big "superclubs" - the Ministry of Sound. We decided, seeing as it was a saturday night, to go out and see what the Singapore nightlife had in store for us. We headed back down towards Clarke Quay, where we'd been the night before. Unfortunaltey , juts as we got there, teh group became somewhat split up, as just after the canadian guys headed off to get something in the 7-11, the heavens opened and it started pissing rain - and I means serious rain! So, it was left to me and another irish guy to hold the fort in the bar. While we were there, a fight broke out between a couple of brits (who else?). This guy and a girl were having an argument, and he ups and belts her - classy bloke! A bit if a scuffle ensued between him and her mates, which ended up with him being turfed out in the rain. A few mins later tho, he was back and having a go at one of the girl's friends! Bloody brits!
The rain eventually eased off a bit, so we decided to wander over to the other side of the quay to see could we find our canadian friends. there was no sign of them, so we decided for the hell of it to go into Hooters. Now, the whole concept of hooters doesn't really translate well to the asian market - Hooter's main drawing point is waitresses with big racks, and I have to say most asian girls, while cute, don't have the necessary attributes in this area. And so it proved to be! Nice girls, good looking and all, but lacking that one definitive hooters ingredient!
After hooters, Brian, the other Irish guy, decided that seeing as he's been awake for nearly 24hrs straight it was time to call it a night. I decided to explore the area a bit more tho, so we parted ways. I decided, seeing as I was only about a block from it, to head into the Ministry of Sounds, just to see what all the hype was about. Normally at home you wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting into a place like that with jeans, a t-shirt and an old pair of runners, but obviously Singaporean bouncers aren't such big pricks as the ones at home - in I strolled with no problems!
Inside was big - real big. The dancefloor for some reason had a turntable on it, and rotating slowly on top was one of them "smart cars". apart from the main dancefloor, there were 5 other separate rooms; a R&B room (absolutely packed), a had-core dance room, an "old school" room (mostly 80s music), a 2nd R&B room and then another one which was playing the same type of bland generic dance crap as in the main room (did I mention I didn't really like the music?). I had a feeling that the canadian guys would be around there somewhere, and sure enough, I bumped into them. One of them, Vance, was seriously off his head drunk, and was trying t on with everything in a skirt. This proved to be his undoing though, as his one big score of the night turned out ot be a thai ladyboy! Unfortunately for him, he only discovered the fact after he'd snogged "her"! :-) To make it even funnier, I had to stop him making the same mistake again about half an hour later, when he was hitting on a "girl" I'd been talking to earlier (the difference was tho that I'd copped early enough on that "she" wasn't a she!).
Happy hour kicked in about 2am, at which point it was "buy one get one free" on drinks. Too bad they don't do this at home! That helped the rest of the night pass rather smoothly, and so we stayed on til they kicked us out at 6am. An interesting night I reckon had been had by all - especially Vance! :-)
The rain eventually eased off a bit, so we decided to wander over to the other side of the quay to see could we find our canadian friends. there was no sign of them, so we decided for the hell of it to go into Hooters. Now, the whole concept of hooters doesn't really translate well to the asian market - Hooter's main drawing point is waitresses with big racks, and I have to say most asian girls, while cute, don't have the necessary attributes in this area. And so it proved to be! Nice girls, good looking and all, but lacking that one definitive hooters ingredient!
After hooters, Brian, the other Irish guy, decided that seeing as he's been awake for nearly 24hrs straight it was time to call it a night. I decided to explore the area a bit more tho, so we parted ways. I decided, seeing as I was only about a block from it, to head into the Ministry of Sounds, just to see what all the hype was about. Normally at home you wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting into a place like that with jeans, a t-shirt and an old pair of runners, but obviously Singaporean bouncers aren't such big pricks as the ones at home - in I strolled with no problems!
Inside was big - real big. The dancefloor for some reason had a turntable on it, and rotating slowly on top was one of them "smart cars". apart from the main dancefloor, there were 5 other separate rooms; a R&B room (absolutely packed), a had-core dance room, an "old school" room (mostly 80s music), a 2nd R&B room and then another one which was playing the same type of bland generic dance crap as in the main room (did I mention I didn't really like the music?). I had a feeling that the canadian guys would be around there somewhere, and sure enough, I bumped into them. One of them, Vance, was seriously off his head drunk, and was trying t on with everything in a skirt. This proved to be his undoing though, as his one big score of the night turned out ot be a thai ladyboy! Unfortunately for him, he only discovered the fact after he'd snogged "her"! :-) To make it even funnier, I had to stop him making the same mistake again about half an hour later, when he was hitting on a "girl" I'd been talking to earlier (the difference was tho that I'd copped early enough on that "she" wasn't a she!).
Happy hour kicked in about 2am, at which point it was "buy one get one free" on drinks. Too bad they don't do this at home! That helped the rest of the night pass rather smoothly, and so we stayed on til they kicked us out at 6am. An interesting night I reckon had been had by all - especially Vance! :-)
My first purchase in Singapore........
......was an umbrella!
Yup, just like when we went to Bandung, as soon as the touristy part of the trip starts, so does the rain. I decided to start the day by going to Chinatown (to sort of make up for the fact that I was staying in Little Riyadh!), and everything was going OK until I got out of the Dim Sum restaurant after brunch (Ok, I got up a little late......). As soon as I started going around the stalls, here comes the rain! At first it was OK, a bit of drizzle like you'd get back home, tolerable like - even more so than at home 'cos it was warm rain. (Warm rain? Who knew such a thing existed?). After a few mins tho, downpour! I was reduced to scurrying around under the awnings outside the stalls trying to find an umbrella. You'd never guess how hard it was to find such a thing as an umbrella among stalls selling all sorts of crap, but it was! It took so long that at one stage I said "screw this" and sat down outside a food stall for a drink and to wait for the rain to stop (it didn't).
Eventually, I found the umbrella, and having exhausted the pleasures of chinatown, decided to wander a bit more. I ended up down on the riverside along Boat Quay (tourist central, full of restaurants-cum-bars, all with guys outside trying to get you inside), and wandered along until I got to the Merlion, the big statue at the rivermouth which was the symbol of Singapore, a lion with a fish's tail (how drunk do you have to get a lion before he'll have sex with a fish?). After a few obligatory pictures, I decided I was fairly done touristing for the day, so headed back to the mosque for some dry clothes and a rest.
Yup, just like when we went to Bandung, as soon as the touristy part of the trip starts, so does the rain. I decided to start the day by going to Chinatown (to sort of make up for the fact that I was staying in Little Riyadh!), and everything was going OK until I got out of the Dim Sum restaurant after brunch (Ok, I got up a little late......). As soon as I started going around the stalls, here comes the rain! At first it was OK, a bit of drizzle like you'd get back home, tolerable like - even more so than at home 'cos it was warm rain. (Warm rain? Who knew such a thing existed?). After a few mins tho, downpour! I was reduced to scurrying around under the awnings outside the stalls trying to find an umbrella. You'd never guess how hard it was to find such a thing as an umbrella among stalls selling all sorts of crap, but it was! It took so long that at one stage I said "screw this" and sat down outside a food stall for a drink and to wait for the rain to stop (it didn't).
Eventually, I found the umbrella, and having exhausted the pleasures of chinatown, decided to wander a bit more. I ended up down on the riverside along Boat Quay (tourist central, full of restaurants-cum-bars, all with guys outside trying to get you inside), and wandered along until I got to the Merlion, the big statue at the rivermouth which was the symbol of Singapore, a lion with a fish's tail (how drunk do you have to get a lion before he'll have sex with a fish?). After a few obligatory pictures, I decided I was fairly done touristing for the day, so headed back to the mosque for some dry clothes and a rest.
Catching up...
Well, I have a lot of catch-up to do on my blog here. Is what happens when you go off for a week's break! Also, I still have to fill in stuff from before I went off to Singapore as well - like Ancol and the like. I'll start plugging away at it while it's fresh in my mind, and then maybe re-arrange in chronological order.
Lovely.........
I just get back from my week's break, and see an email saying that one fo the guys I was working with over here is out of the office with suspected Typhus. Is a good job that I got all my shots before I came over here........
Saturday, June 16, 2007
What country am I in again?
Well, I've arrived in Singapore, in one piece. It took me a bit of time at the airport to get my mind out of "work mode" - and I did have a good bit of time, as I'd allowed for an hour in the taxi to get from the hotel, but we made it in 35mins, which means I had a half an hour to kill before I could even check in! The flight itself was uneventful - everyone always rhapsodises about Singapore Airlines, but I didn't find them anything special. Maybe they're different on long-haul, all I had them for was an hour and a half. They had the in-seat entertainment system tho, which was good, but I didn't get much of a chance to play with it.
After I landed, I got out of the airport in record time, and onto the metro - at last! A city with a decent public transport system! 30mins from the terminal to the MRT stop my hostel was near! At that stage tho, things started becoming a little strange. I was staying near Little India, and when I got off the MRT I was faced with streets like Arab St, Baghdad St, Kandahar St, and Haj St, all of the restaurants were serving middle eastern food (with big signs in the window saying "Halal food") and within eyeshot of the hotel was one of the bigger mosques in Singapore, the Sultan Mosque, and just as I got there I could hear the "Allah Akhbar" coming from the Muzzein, calling people to prayer. So, despite me always considering Singapore to be a predominantly Chinese city like Hong Kong, I felt like I was somewhere in Saudi Arabia!
After I checked in anyway, I pretty much ended up going straight out. This is what I love about hostels, you always meet people who are up for a bit of a night out. In this case, it was a bunch of Canadians - altho not your ususal "aboot"-saying canucks, one was chinese-canadian, one was malay-canadian, one was indian-canadian, and one was a white guy! We decided to go into Clarke Quay, as the chick at reception had told us of a good microbrewery place there called "Brewerkz". Unfortunately, in our wisdom, we decided to walk in as it didn't look that far on the map, forgetting about the 31 degrees and 70%+ humidity outside. 30mins later we stagger in the door of the place, shirts sticking to us, half dead from dehydration, and in need of liquid sustenance. Luckily, they had it in spades for us in the form of a "tower of beer", effectively our own mini-keg of beer, big enough for 2 1/2 pints each and at S$80 (or about €40), pretty good value). After that, some other bars were visited in the area, and bed was hit around 1am-ish (I think).
(and yes, that is to scale - that pint glass is sitting right beside it)
All in all, not our usual introduction to singapore!
After I landed, I got out of the airport in record time, and onto the metro - at last! A city with a decent public transport system! 30mins from the terminal to the MRT stop my hostel was near! At that stage tho, things started becoming a little strange. I was staying near Little India, and when I got off the MRT I was faced with streets like Arab St, Baghdad St, Kandahar St, and Haj St, all of the restaurants were serving middle eastern food (with big signs in the window saying "Halal food") and within eyeshot of the hotel was one of the bigger mosques in Singapore, the Sultan Mosque, and just as I got there I could hear the "Allah Akhbar" coming from the Muzzein, calling people to prayer. So, despite me always considering Singapore to be a predominantly Chinese city like Hong Kong, I felt like I was somewhere in Saudi Arabia!
After I checked in anyway, I pretty much ended up going straight out. This is what I love about hostels, you always meet people who are up for a bit of a night out. In this case, it was a bunch of Canadians - altho not your ususal "aboot"-saying canucks, one was chinese-canadian, one was malay-canadian, one was indian-canadian, and one was a white guy! We decided to go into Clarke Quay, as the chick at reception had told us of a good microbrewery place there called "Brewerkz". Unfortunately, in our wisdom, we decided to walk in as it didn't look that far on the map, forgetting about the 31 degrees and 70%+ humidity outside. 30mins later we stagger in the door of the place, shirts sticking to us, half dead from dehydration, and in need of liquid sustenance. Luckily, they had it in spades for us in the form of a "tower of beer", effectively our own mini-keg of beer, big enough for 2 1/2 pints each and at S$80 (or about €40), pretty good value). After that, some other bars were visited in the area, and bed was hit around 1am-ish (I think).
(and yes, that is to scale - that pint glass is sitting right beside it)
All in all, not our usual introduction to singapore!
Friday, June 15, 2007
Not with a bang......
"This is how [it] ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper"
Well, I've had my last day in the office here anyway - if not my last day of work (will probably be logging on from the hotel in between trips). Was a fairly anti-climactic affair. I had to leave the office around 11ish to get back to the hotel to get my stuff and get to the airport to get to my Singapore flight, and after the last few weeks of screaming and arguing and stuff falling over and not being done properly (or on time, or at all), I half expected something huge to crop up which would scupper my Bali trip plans once and for all. There was only one minor hiccup tho, which was easy to deal with. As I was leaving, the office was like a ghost town as there was some sort of "sports and social day" going on in a marquee outside, so it was like I was sneaking out without anyone ever even knowing I was there..... So, I said goodbye to the two people that were still there that I'd been working with, and left.
After I got back to the hotel, there was a quick debriefing session with Angelo, the project manager. I could tell he still wasn't happy with the fact I was pissing off with things not fully completed, but there was nothing left for me to necessarily physically do there, everything else will be a case of logging in remotely and checking from home.
So, next stop, Singapore! :-)
Well, I've had my last day in the office here anyway - if not my last day of work (will probably be logging on from the hotel in between trips). Was a fairly anti-climactic affair. I had to leave the office around 11ish to get back to the hotel to get my stuff and get to the airport to get to my Singapore flight, and after the last few weeks of screaming and arguing and stuff falling over and not being done properly (or on time, or at all), I half expected something huge to crop up which would scupper my Bali trip plans once and for all. There was only one minor hiccup tho, which was easy to deal with. As I was leaving, the office was like a ghost town as there was some sort of "sports and social day" going on in a marquee outside, so it was like I was sneaking out without anyone ever even knowing I was there..... So, I said goodbye to the two people that were still there that I'd been working with, and left.
After I got back to the hotel, there was a quick debriefing session with Angelo, the project manager. I could tell he still wasn't happy with the fact I was pissing off with things not fully completed, but there was nothing left for me to necessarily physically do there, everything else will be a case of logging in remotely and checking from home.
So, next stop, Singapore! :-)
Thursday, June 14, 2007
finishng up - hopefully!
So, I'm hopefully finishing up tomorrow. - my project manager here has to talk to my boss back home and then get back to me about next week. I'd better be getting my Bali trip! Altho at this stage I dunno how realistic that's be since I haven't booked flights or a place to stay yet.
Either way, I'm downing tools tomorrow at about midday and heading off to the airport. Singapore, here I come! :-)
Either way, I'm downing tools tomorrow at about midday and heading off to the airport. Singapore, here I come! :-)
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Bali vs Work
I've been deliberately avoiding saying anything in my blog here so far about how things are going at work. This is because I didn't want my whole blog to turn into one big rant. Remember before I came over I had the opinion of the people I was working with here as barely competent muppets? Well, my opinion of them has plummeted in the last few weeks. The engineers seem competent enough most of the time when you can get them to actually do stuff, but to do that you need to wade through so many layers of management and process that I nearly need to bring a new can of air freshener with me each day. And when they do stuff, they do no more than the absolute minimum needed to fulfil what they have been told to do. Before I came over we were supposed to have a public network for our application to run on. We arrived and found we didn't have one. I finally got it working after much effort - on Monday this week, or 3 weeks after I should have had it. This involved me being their sysadmin and their network admin for a lot of it, just to get it done. To give an idea how well things went, I discovered last weds week that the network, contrary to what I'd been led to believe, wasn't even cabled in! I asked for this to be done as a matter of urgency on the weds, and it was finally done on the Tues after. I then discovered that the cable monkey who'd set up the wires had never plugged them in - and he'd cut them all to the same length, so two of them didn't even reach the machines at the bottom of the rack! I ended up spending a whole day in the server room, physically having to connect up the cables to the switches myself, and make sure the network was working properly (which it wasn't)! And this is just one example of the problems. The base team won't even have a build for me for a few weeks as they're still waiting for data, so I'm running a generic build not the custom one I should have!
As a result, on Monday I was in the wonderful situation of having until Friday to do what I should have had 4 weeks to do - get the software running and bedded down on the network. I managed to get a good bit of it done before I got the network, but you never really know how these things are going to perform until you start everything up and start running data through it. So, I'm under serious time pressure to get stuff done here, and that assumes nothing else is going to go wrong (not likely to happen). Once I get the basics up and running the tweaking can be done from home, but I need that up first!
Because of this, my holiday next week is looking less and less likely. I was supposed to have the whole week off, and I was heading to Singapore for 4 days and Bali for 4 before I pissed off home. Singapore has to happen, as I have to leave the country and re-enter again to extend my 30-day visa, but the chances of having the work done in time and heading off to Bali are receding by the minute. Guess who's not a happy bunny! I may, if nothing else blows up or refuses to work, get to Bali on Thurs evening and come back sat morning before I fly home on sun. Maybe.
About the only solace I can take from this is that after this particular job is done, every other implementation should seem like a piece of cake - and in future my ass is refusing to get on a plane unless we have all the networks, databases etc we need!
As a result, on Monday I was in the wonderful situation of having until Friday to do what I should have had 4 weeks to do - get the software running and bedded down on the network. I managed to get a good bit of it done before I got the network, but you never really know how these things are going to perform until you start everything up and start running data through it. So, I'm under serious time pressure to get stuff done here, and that assumes nothing else is going to go wrong (not likely to happen). Once I get the basics up and running the tweaking can be done from home, but I need that up first!
Because of this, my holiday next week is looking less and less likely. I was supposed to have the whole week off, and I was heading to Singapore for 4 days and Bali for 4 before I pissed off home. Singapore has to happen, as I have to leave the country and re-enter again to extend my 30-day visa, but the chances of having the work done in time and heading off to Bali are receding by the minute. Guess who's not a happy bunny! I may, if nothing else blows up or refuses to work, get to Bali on Thurs evening and come back sat morning before I fly home on sun. Maybe.
About the only solace I can take from this is that after this particular job is done, every other implementation should seem like a piece of cake - and in future my ass is refusing to get on a plane unless we have all the networks, databases etc we need!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Back to Shcool sale on the 3th floor....
I saw these two signs earlier tonight in a shopping mall we went to to look for pressies for the folks back home......
:-)
:-)
Pictures from Sunda Kelapa and Bandung
Well, I haven't had much of a chance to put up many photos of my own so far this trip - and a lot of the ones I have aren't worth seeing anyway! A few of the other guys who were here for the first few weeks are amateur photographers tho (as in, their cameras cost a couple of grand each and are way better than anything I'll ever want to use), so I'm going to shamelessly borrow their pictures!
Here's Anirudh's site so!
Here's Anirudh's site so!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
BATS
Well, I've now been to the Jakarta version of Maggie's in Beijing. One of the guys who was here on a previous trip kept telling us about this club called BATS in the Shangri-la hotel. According to him: "The women outnumber the men 5-1 and they're all hookers. You can't even make eye contact with anyone in there as they'll be cracking onto you straight away. It's a great place for a single guy". I was inclined to take this with a pinch of salt perhaps, but it was an interesting enough description to warrant a look.
So, Saturday night, me and the two guys from home that are still here took a wander out to this hotel to see this infamous club. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I got in, but it was disappointingly normal looking at first. Then you start to notice that a lot of the girls have that look in the eye, not "I'm out looking for a good time" but "I'm looking for a customer". As the night went on it was easy to spot all of the goings-on - young fairly pretty-looking local girls dancing and getting all up close and personal with these older western men, who in normal circumstances wouldn't get a look-in probably. Was sort of sad to watch actually, all these middle-age men chasing after some pretty little asian entertainment for the night.
Angelo, my project manager, kept pushing me to talk to a few of these girls - was almost like he was wanted the weekend status report to read "Got Kieran laid" :-P There were a few nice looking girls tehre all right, but I wasn't really in the mood to chat up a woman of negotiable virtue, and besides, Angelo was starting to piss me off. If I'm going to talk to someone I'm going to talk to them, and I don't appreciate being pushed into it. Eventually he sort of manoeuvred me into a spot where I had to talk to two girls or look really rude, so I decide "what the hell" and started chatting away (as you do). Revenge was mine though, as after a few minutes of chatter one of the girls leaned over and said "I think your friend is cute", pointing to Angelo! Was nice to watch him squirm after him pushing me to talk to someone all night!
Sure enough though, despite his insistence that "they're probably not all on the game", the topic of money came up near the end of the night, so our next task was to extricate ourselves and make our exits. All in all, not sure would I go back, but was an interesting experience!
So, Saturday night, me and the two guys from home that are still here took a wander out to this hotel to see this infamous club. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I got in, but it was disappointingly normal looking at first. Then you start to notice that a lot of the girls have that look in the eye, not "I'm out looking for a good time" but "I'm looking for a customer". As the night went on it was easy to spot all of the goings-on - young fairly pretty-looking local girls dancing and getting all up close and personal with these older western men, who in normal circumstances wouldn't get a look-in probably. Was sort of sad to watch actually, all these middle-age men chasing after some pretty little asian entertainment for the night.
Angelo, my project manager, kept pushing me to talk to a few of these girls - was almost like he was wanted the weekend status report to read "Got Kieran laid" :-P There were a few nice looking girls tehre all right, but I wasn't really in the mood to chat up a woman of negotiable virtue, and besides, Angelo was starting to piss me off. If I'm going to talk to someone I'm going to talk to them, and I don't appreciate being pushed into it. Eventually he sort of manoeuvred me into a spot where I had to talk to two girls or look really rude, so I decide "what the hell" and started chatting away (as you do). Revenge was mine though, as after a few minutes of chatter one of the girls leaned over and said "I think your friend is cute", pointing to Angelo! Was nice to watch him squirm after him pushing me to talk to someone all night!
Sure enough though, despite his insistence that "they're probably not all on the game", the topic of money came up near the end of the night, so our next task was to extricate ourselves and make our exits. All in all, not sure would I go back, but was an interesting experience!
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Shopping pt. 2
Well, I got to do a bit more shopping today I was originally planning on heading out and doing some touristy stuff, but then Angelo (my boss here) said one of his friends was in town from Oz, and was offering to bring us out shopping, as he'd been here a few times before. Cool I thought, someone who knows where all the funky ethnic stuff is. So, I decided to postpone the sightseeing and go shopping with them.
Turns out tho that this guy's idea of shopping wasn't quite what I had in mind. We headed for Senayan Plaza, a big shopping mall which I'd seen already. Was mostly all high-end stuff, Gucci, Prada, Dior etc - I'd forgotten that I was going with a couple of upper management types whose pay packets weren't exactly the same as mine! There were a few more "normal" shops as well, and I managed to pick up
The most interesting part of that place was when we stopped for lunch: the cafe we went to had a very interesting way of brewing coffee! Have to find where to get one of these things!
After that, we went across the road to Senayan City, another mall I'd been to with Anirudh and Michal. I actually managed to pick up some stuff there - they had a shop that did DC comics-themed clothes, so I picked up a Superman t-shirt and a Batman pait of jeans (they have a big batman logo in denim on the ass). After that, Angelo's friend dropped us back at the hotel, where we decided to go to the ITC (the mall near the office) to look for some stuff. I was fairly successful there as well - picked up another t-shirt, a load of bootleg DVDs (including Shrek the Third!) and a batik shirt which will definitely make me stand out from the crowd back home! The t-shirt is quite intersting, I saw some like it in Japan - it's an Astro Boy t-shirt (some manga character) with a hologram pic on the front - if you look at it one way, it's Astro Boy, if you look from another angle, it's an x-ray view of Astro Boy (not as icky as it sounds, he's a robot).
So, a good day's shopping, but I still have to buy pressies for people!
Turns out tho that this guy's idea of shopping wasn't quite what I had in mind. We headed for Senayan Plaza, a big shopping mall which I'd seen already. Was mostly all high-end stuff, Gucci, Prada, Dior etc - I'd forgotten that I was going with a couple of upper management types whose pay packets weren't exactly the same as mine! There were a few more "normal" shops as well, and I managed to pick up
The most interesting part of that place was when we stopped for lunch: the cafe we went to had a very interesting way of brewing coffee! Have to find where to get one of these things!
After that, we went across the road to Senayan City, another mall I'd been to with Anirudh and Michal. I actually managed to pick up some stuff there - they had a shop that did DC comics-themed clothes, so I picked up a Superman t-shirt and a Batman pait of jeans (they have a big batman logo in denim on the ass). After that, Angelo's friend dropped us back at the hotel, where we decided to go to the ITC (the mall near the office) to look for some stuff. I was fairly successful there as well - picked up another t-shirt, a load of bootleg DVDs (including Shrek the Third!) and a batik shirt which will definitely make me stand out from the crowd back home! The t-shirt is quite intersting, I saw some like it in Japan - it's an Astro Boy t-shirt (some manga character) with a hologram pic on the front - if you look at it one way, it's Astro Boy, if you look from another angle, it's an x-ray view of Astro Boy (not as icky as it sounds, he's a robot).
So, a good day's shopping, but I still have to buy pressies for people!
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Shopping
Well, I've got my first taste of shopping here. After work, I went to a shipping center called the ITC, which is maybe 5mins walk from work, as I needed to get some stuff (a new pair of shades and a backpack mostly). There's two parts to the center, the part with "proper" shops where you can't really haggle, and the part with stalls where you can. So, I made a bee-line for the stalls!
Well it's a fair bit different to China! The layout is roughly the same - a big building wit a few floors with little aisles filled with small stalls, but the attitude is different. They're not pushy over here like they were in china, you could actually look at the stuff in the stall for more than half a second without the owner being in your face to buy something! It was only when you went over and started actively looking at stuff that they paid you attention. It's almost too polite - I didn't think I'd be missing the "Looka looka, special friend price for you! Good bargain!", but you sort of do! They're sort of apathetic enough about it over here that you'd almost feel bad about haggling!
I ended up getting my shades anyway, but I couldn't find a bag that suited me. I didn't even bother haggling over the shades either - at RPY20,000 (€1.70), what's the point? They had a few stalls with decent-ish looking glasses tho, so I may be looking for a wraparound pair for skiing next year. Were a few stands selling fake rolexes etc as well - they looked the same as the ones I got last year, but they were starting at 200,000 so I reckon I can get them for about the same price as last year of not cheaper.
There's a few open-air markets around I must hit as well. Lots of shopping still to be done! :-)
Well it's a fair bit different to China! The layout is roughly the same - a big building wit a few floors with little aisles filled with small stalls, but the attitude is different. They're not pushy over here like they were in china, you could actually look at the stuff in the stall for more than half a second without the owner being in your face to buy something! It was only when you went over and started actively looking at stuff that they paid you attention. It's almost too polite - I didn't think I'd be missing the "Looka looka, special friend price for you! Good bargain!", but you sort of do! They're sort of apathetic enough about it over here that you'd almost feel bad about haggling!
I ended up getting my shades anyway, but I couldn't find a bag that suited me. I didn't even bother haggling over the shades either - at RPY20,000 (€1.70), what's the point? They had a few stalls with decent-ish looking glasses tho, so I may be looking for a wraparound pair for skiing next year. Were a few stands selling fake rolexes etc as well - they looked the same as the ones I got last year, but they were starting at 200,000 so I reckon I can get them for about the same price as last year of not cheaper.
There's a few open-air markets around I must hit as well. Lots of shopping still to be done! :-)
Monday, June 04, 2007
Bandung pt. 1
Well, the weekend was interesting anyway. Long and a lot of it was spent in traffic, but it was good to get out of the city!
Our plan was to head to a city called Bandung for the weekend, about 4hrs drive east(?) of Jakarta, and go the slightly longer route via Punchak and the mountains to get the view there (and so that Michal could take pictures of the tea plantations!). Unfortunately, it was a bank holiday weekend here, so to beat the traffic we had to leave slightly early in the morning - as in, get up at 5am and leave the hotel at 6am! That wasn't fun!
Was pretty crowded in the car, as we had Me, Anirudh and Michal (the guys I'm working with), Joey (Anirudh's friend), Nina (Joey's boss) and Fiona and Lauren (friends of Joey's). Joey has a big jeep, and Fiona and Lauren are wee little slips of things, but it was still quite "cozy". The first few hours were fairly quiet, mainly because everyone was still mostly asleep! Wasn't really much to do but stare at the scenery out the car window. there was something not right about what I was seeing, but it took me a good bit of time to realize what it was - the trees I was looking at were palm trees! Everything went quietly enough until we got near the top of Punchak Pass, where we discovered that we had a flat tyre. So, that had to be changed in a lay-by near the top of the pass - in the spitting rain! Once that excitement was over, we motored on a bit more until we came to a restaurant at the very top of the pass. Seeing as we'd been on the road for a good 2hrs at this stage, we decided now would be a good time for breakfast (and a few pictures). I decided to be a bit adventurous and, instead of coffee, try some local drink which was made from ginger, coconut and something else(?) Was a real acquired taste, and by the end of it I still wasn't sure whether or not I liked it!
On we travelled anyway, and nearly everyone in the car fell asleep bar me and Joey (the driver). This was about the first time that it hit me that I really was far away from home: up til then we'd been in jakarta, and sure a lot of ppl didn't speak english, and things were a bit different, but we were spending all our time in the CBD, and one city's CBD is much like another's. Now though we were passing by little ramshackle villages, and palm groves, and paddy fields - even saw one guy in a paddy field ploughing with a water buffalo. Was like being in a National Geographic episode! :-) Unfortunately we were going a bit fast for me to get any pics - I tried a few, but they came out blurry.
We were going to stop off on the way at a Safari park for a look, but unfortunately we got there at 9 and they didn't open til 11. So much for that plan - there goes my chance to play Steve Irwin: "By crikey, look at the size of that lion! I'm going to try to piss him off now, see what happens!" ;-) By about an hour out of Bandung though, we started to catch up with the traffic heading that direction from jakarta, and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day - traffic jams! Was about 1 o'clock when we got into town, so we went for food in some random steak place. After we were fed and watered, it was time to head to the volcano, Tangkuban Perahu. Traffic wasn't too bad once we got out of town, but then we got to the foot of the mountain and had to pay some random guard-looking guys 300,000 to drive up the mountain. We decided "screw that" and went another road, where we only had to pay 80,000. Was some difference in the roads though - made the country roads at home look like super-highways! We were lucky Joey had a 4x4, and even then we were thrown out the bit while crawling along in 1st gear!
When we got up there, the view was less than awe-inspiring. I'm not sure what I'd been expecting (maybe I've seen too much footage of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, with all the flowing lava etc) but it pretty much looked like a quarry with a small lake at the bottom, a bit of steam coming out at one end and a really really strong smell of sulphur. You're able to walk around the rim of the crater though, and we were just about to do that when the clods came down and it started pissing rain! Seeing as we weren't really expecting this it came as a bit of a shock - we had to "rent" an umbrella off a hawker for 5,000 to avoid getting soaked! Even when the rain stopped, visibility was down to a few dozen feet, so we decided that we'd seen all there was to see so we headed back to Bandung.
After that, we decided to go to get something to eat in a resort that one of the girls knew about - a place called Kampung Daun (or "leafy village"), which was on a hilltop just outside Bandung (and by "hill" I mean mountain - Bandung itself is about 700m above sea level!). The road up to it was only marginally better than the road up to the volcano, so I didn't really know what to expect when we get to the top. All I can say is "wow!" :-)
Instead of a "normal" restaurant, it's like a jungle path with little open-sided thatched huts every few meters where you sit in and eat there - with a stream and waterfalls going down the side. Really impressive! And the food was damn good, and dead cheap too. We chilled there for a few hours and then decided brave the traffic and to head into town.
Before we did though, Joey decided to ring the hotel to just confirm our booking. Unfortunately, he'd originally said we would be checking in about midday, so when we didn't show the hotel had given away our rooms. Homeless! Luckily Nina had an aunt in Bandung, so after a few phone calls we were able to stay in her place. One slight problem: Nina didn't know where she lived! So, we dropped Fiona and Lauren off in Lauren's place, and then the adventure began. In between the heavy traffic, the 3 wrong turns and Nina arguing down the phone with her cousin about the directions, we finally got there an hour and a half after we set off. Nina's aunt's house is apparently a typical middle-class indonesian home. A bit different from ours, especially in the bathroom! The toilet didn't have a flush, there was a bucket beside it to pour down the drain to flush with, and the same bucket was used for the "shower" - a tin tub beside the loo to stand in. If you wanted hot water, you put on the kettle!
The sleeping arrangements were fairly rushed-together - Nina was sleeping in with her cousin, the other 3 guys were sharing 2 mattresses in one room, and I got lucky and got a mattress to myself in a room that just about fit the mattress! And so ended day 1 in Bandung.
Our plan was to head to a city called Bandung for the weekend, about 4hrs drive east(?) of Jakarta, and go the slightly longer route via Punchak and the mountains to get the view there (and so that Michal could take pictures of the tea plantations!). Unfortunately, it was a bank holiday weekend here, so to beat the traffic we had to leave slightly early in the morning - as in, get up at 5am and leave the hotel at 6am! That wasn't fun!
Was pretty crowded in the car, as we had Me, Anirudh and Michal (the guys I'm working with), Joey (Anirudh's friend), Nina (Joey's boss) and Fiona and Lauren (friends of Joey's). Joey has a big jeep, and Fiona and Lauren are wee little slips of things, but it was still quite "cozy". The first few hours were fairly quiet, mainly because everyone was still mostly asleep! Wasn't really much to do but stare at the scenery out the car window. there was something not right about what I was seeing, but it took me a good bit of time to realize what it was - the trees I was looking at were palm trees! Everything went quietly enough until we got near the top of Punchak Pass, where we discovered that we had a flat tyre. So, that had to be changed in a lay-by near the top of the pass - in the spitting rain! Once that excitement was over, we motored on a bit more until we came to a restaurant at the very top of the pass. Seeing as we'd been on the road for a good 2hrs at this stage, we decided now would be a good time for breakfast (and a few pictures). I decided to be a bit adventurous and, instead of coffee, try some local drink which was made from ginger, coconut and something else(?) Was a real acquired taste, and by the end of it I still wasn't sure whether or not I liked it!
On we travelled anyway, and nearly everyone in the car fell asleep bar me and Joey (the driver). This was about the first time that it hit me that I really was far away from home: up til then we'd been in jakarta, and sure a lot of ppl didn't speak english, and things were a bit different, but we were spending all our time in the CBD, and one city's CBD is much like another's. Now though we were passing by little ramshackle villages, and palm groves, and paddy fields - even saw one guy in a paddy field ploughing with a water buffalo. Was like being in a National Geographic episode! :-) Unfortunately we were going a bit fast for me to get any pics - I tried a few, but they came out blurry.
We were going to stop off on the way at a Safari park for a look, but unfortunately we got there at 9 and they didn't open til 11. So much for that plan - there goes my chance to play Steve Irwin: "By crikey, look at the size of that lion! I'm going to try to piss him off now, see what happens!" ;-) By about an hour out of Bandung though, we started to catch up with the traffic heading that direction from jakarta, and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day - traffic jams! Was about 1 o'clock when we got into town, so we went for food in some random steak place. After we were fed and watered, it was time to head to the volcano, Tangkuban Perahu. Traffic wasn't too bad once we got out of town, but then we got to the foot of the mountain and had to pay some random guard-looking guys 300,000 to drive up the mountain. We decided "screw that" and went another road, where we only had to pay 80,000. Was some difference in the roads though - made the country roads at home look like super-highways! We were lucky Joey had a 4x4, and even then we were thrown out the bit while crawling along in 1st gear!
When we got up there, the view was less than awe-inspiring. I'm not sure what I'd been expecting (maybe I've seen too much footage of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, with all the flowing lava etc) but it pretty much looked like a quarry with a small lake at the bottom, a bit of steam coming out at one end and a really really strong smell of sulphur. You're able to walk around the rim of the crater though, and we were just about to do that when the clods came down and it started pissing rain! Seeing as we weren't really expecting this it came as a bit of a shock - we had to "rent" an umbrella off a hawker for 5,000 to avoid getting soaked! Even when the rain stopped, visibility was down to a few dozen feet, so we decided that we'd seen all there was to see so we headed back to Bandung.
After that, we decided to go to get something to eat in a resort that one of the girls knew about - a place called Kampung Daun (or "leafy village"), which was on a hilltop just outside Bandung (and by "hill" I mean mountain - Bandung itself is about 700m above sea level!). The road up to it was only marginally better than the road up to the volcano, so I didn't really know what to expect when we get to the top. All I can say is "wow!" :-)
Instead of a "normal" restaurant, it's like a jungle path with little open-sided thatched huts every few meters where you sit in and eat there - with a stream and waterfalls going down the side. Really impressive! And the food was damn good, and dead cheap too. We chilled there for a few hours and then decided brave the traffic and to head into town.Before we did though, Joey decided to ring the hotel to just confirm our booking. Unfortunately, he'd originally said we would be checking in about midday, so when we didn't show the hotel had given away our rooms. Homeless! Luckily Nina had an aunt in Bandung, so after a few phone calls we were able to stay in her place. One slight problem: Nina didn't know where she lived! So, we dropped Fiona and Lauren off in Lauren's place, and then the adventure began. In between the heavy traffic, the 3 wrong turns and Nina arguing down the phone with her cousin about the directions, we finally got there an hour and a half after we set off. Nina's aunt's house is apparently a typical middle-class indonesian home. A bit different from ours, especially in the bathroom! The toilet didn't have a flush, there was a bucket beside it to pour down the drain to flush with, and the same bucket was used for the "shower" - a tin tub beside the loo to stand in. If you wanted hot water, you put on the kettle!
The sleeping arrangements were fairly rushed-together - Nina was sleeping in with her cousin, the other 3 guys were sharing 2 mattresses in one room, and I got lucky and got a mattress to myself in a room that just about fit the mattress! And so ended day 1 in Bandung.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Early
Argh. For some reason, despite the face that we're going to a place that's a two-and-a-bit hour drive from Jakarta, we have to leave at 6am to get there. Want to beat the traffic or something? Tomorrow morning is going to be worse. the lads want to catch the sunrise over the tea plantations, so allegedly we'll be up at 3am to drive from Bandung to Punchak. So much for sleeping in on the weekends!
It's too early in the morning to be this early in the morning....
It's too early in the morning to be this early in the morning....
Jakarta - two weeks in.
Well, as i may have mentioned here before, I'm not here on holidays. It's a good job this is the case, 'cos as holidays go this would really suck! Mosy of my time so far has been going from the hotel to the office in the morning, working til late, going back and eating in the hotel, booting up the laptop and doing a bit more work, then going to bed late and repeating the next day. We've managed to get out for a meal some evenings, and we had the weekend as well to do stuff, but that's the general pattern so far. Lots I haven't done around here yet!
So, just over 11 days in, here's my impressions of the place:
There we go, only one or two things - hopefully I'll have more to report after the weekend!
So, just over 11 days in, here's my impressions of the place:
- Traffic: Well, I've talked about this already, but is still mad. Any bit of space on the road is filled by a car or more likely about a dozen bikes. Indicators are optional, lanes are optional, horns are more commonly used than anything else. At least, unlike Dublin, the traffic is constantly moving - mainly I suppose because there's no traffic lights anywhere to clog things up, except on the main roads around the city. They also have bus lanes on the main roads, but the big buses just seem to stick to those - everywhere else you're going by mikrolet - small, old minibus type affairs which don't even stop to let people on/off, they just slow down. Must be fun taking them! Getting across the road is fun too - don't bother waiting for a break in the traffic, 'cos there won't be one. Just pick a car that looks like it'll be able to stop in time, and walk out in front of it!
- Food: Well, like in China, I don't know what I'm eating, but I like it. There aren't many dishes so far that I've tried that I didn't like - altho you have to be careful what you eat. There hasn't been any cases of the Galway Gallops yet, but a few things have left my stomach feeling less than perfectly calm. We've been told "stay away from the street vendors unless you want to spend a week on the toilet or worse", which is a shame 'cos some of the more interesting stuff I got in china was from the side of the road. I haven't been trying indonesian food the whole time either - for some reason we've been eating thai and indian a fair bit. You go half-way around the world and end up eating the same stuff you do at home. Go figure.
- Drink: Drink here is a bit pricey - about RPY70,000 for a beer (or about €6.40). The local beer isn't great, so I'm restricted to things like San Miguel or Corona (ain't no way I'm going to find a pint of Bulmers over here!). We tried drinking spirits out one night, but they were so watered down and so expensive (RPY100,000) that that was a once off! As for the non-alcoholic stuff, I'm drinking some pretty weird fruit juices over here, stuff you don't get at home. Mango juice you might get - but guava? Lychee? Star fruit? Hell, I'd never even heard of a star fruit before I got here!
- Heat: So this is what 32 degrees feels like! To be honest I haven't spent much time out in it - I tend to go from the air-conditioned hotel to the (semi) air-conditioned office in an air-conditioned taxi. The few times I've been out in it though it hasn't been overly bad. Walked back to the hotel from the office last night as there were no taxis to be had, and survived (altho I did need to take a shower after!) The weekend will be a good test tho - we'll be out in it all day!
- Cutlery: This is a weird one. I'm used to "asia" meaning "chopsticks", but over here they do things slightly differently. Instead of a knife and fork, they use a spoon and fork (unless you're eating something definitely western like a burger or a lasagne). Is understandable I suppose seeing as most dishes are rice-based, but still, every now and then you have to cut stuff, and it ain't easy with the edge of a spoon!
There we go, only one or two things - hopefully I'll have more to report after the weekend!
public holidays
This sucks. Is a public holiday here but we still have to work. I was working from the hotel this morning (including a conference call with the project manager) but have to go into the office for the afternoon. :-( I'm also missing out on the bank holiday back home on monday. I'd better be getting that in lieu!
At least I'm getting out of Jakarta tomorrow - going to a place called Bandung. Should be fun!
At least I'm getting out of Jakarta tomorrow - going to a place called Bandung. Should be fun!
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