Flew to Jakarta, Indonesia this morning. Is my first trip to both Jakarta as well as Indonesia. I have to admit that my only real exposure to Jakarta up until now has been from the news and typically after some sort of terrorist attack. I can now say it is nothing what I thought it would be. I had imagined it would be more desolate and maybe even dirty. It certainly isn't as clean as Singpaore or Korea but it is a very modern city. Good roads, a lot of new buildings, and horrible traffic...could be NYC or Paris or LA or Singapore...
The people in the office were very friendly and my the training went well this morning. I was sitting in the office this afternoon and kept hearing people speaking over a loud speaker. I wasn't sure if it was traffic police or maybe something political then somebody in the office politely told me that they were prayers being spoken. This part of Indonesia is predominantly Muslim so I was hearing the prayers from a nearby Mosque. In our office we even have a conference room that is dedicated as the prayer room so that the team doesn't have to leave the office.
This evening a few of the local team took me out to dinner at an Indonesian restaurant. It was sort of a buffet. You went up to this very long row of foods and you inform them what you want. They will then heat it up and put it on serving dishes and bring it to your table. Indonesian food is quite spicy so I really enjoyed it. I tried a whole squid, some salted fish, some not so great green vegetables, and some really good coconut rice. There was a couple from Argentina that were with us as well. They are here for a few months for work and were really reluctant to try anything new. I, of course, just took at least one bite of everything that my host offered to me. Most of it was great but some was not...the point is that I tried it and decided by taste and not by fear. I haven't always been this way but am glad that I am now (thanks in large part to Alan and his mom).
After dinner we went to what I thought was going to be a night market but it ended up being a department store that had two floors of locally made items. One entire floor was filled with beautiful batik fabric items. I didn't buy any but the next time I come I think I will. The other floor was filled with beautiful wood, jewelry, and other knickknacks. I bought a gift for Alan here that I'll bring back to the US.
Was a good day at the office and a nice evening out. Am pleased to have been able to change my misconception about Jakarta.
Sunday was my last day in Seoul and I headed up to Changdeokgung Palace.
One of the things that I really like about traveling to new cities are seeing all of the signs. Every country and even different parts of the US have different ways of communicating things on signs.
On the drive back in from the DMZ we went through the center of town. I snapped this picture because I thought it was fun:
Alan mentioned to me that he couldn't get the photos on the previous link to open into a bigger format. Apologies for that...am not sure what the problem is. I've uploaded them to my Flickr site so you should be able to look at them a little better:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kmhoggcall/sets/72157622539028105/
Am back in Singapore now...arrived at 1am last night so am pretty tired today. Will post more about the rest of my weekend in Korea over the next couple of days.
Saturday I woke up bright (actually it was still dark) and early just after 5:00 am. I had to be at the USO by 7 am for a tour to the DMZ. The subway here in Seoul is a very efficient way to travel but it still takes time to get across this very sprawling city. I had an easy time navigating the subway but had a little trouble finding the right exit and almost missed my tour. Thankfully I made it...just in time.
The blue buildings are the UN shared buildings that straddle the border between North and South Korea. The big building on the other side is the North Korean building. If you double-click on the picture you can see a North Korean guard on the first level one window to the left of the sign. He stood out there the entire time we were there and the South Korean guards stood and stared back at him. Here is a close-up (not great) of the guard:
The US MP stood and talked to us about the buildings all while being watched by the North Koreans. The multi-story building in the background is the main monitoring building for the North Koreans. According to the MP we were being heavily watched and recorded during the tour...weird.
This is the security on the South Korean side:
I never felt unsafe while I was there but it was certainly weird being watched...especially by a known communist country. This is a picture taken inside the UN building. The left side is South Korea and the right side is North Korea. The microphones in the middle are the line separating the two and they also record 24 hours a day.
The South Korean guards stand at attention like that all of the time.
After we left the UN zone we went out to lunch at a local Korean restaurant. We also toured an area where you can get the closest to North Korea without going on the JSA tour. You aren't allowed to take photos there but it was cool to stand and look out at it. At this location there was a beautiful Buddhist temple:
I just had a very funny but very productive conversation with the hotel maid. She spoke entirely in Korean and I spoke entirely in English yet we both somehow understood what the other person was saying. I have had my share of frustrating situations when I don't understand the local language and the locals don't understand me. However, most of the time we are able to find a way to communicate and I usually find it pretty entertaining. I guess there were years of communicating without translation books, etc and people had to find a way. And really, there are some universal ways to communicate via hand gestures. The biggest thing that I have found is to have a smile on your face. If you show frustration people are generally less likely to stick around until you come to some sort of understanding - but if you have a smile on your face they tend to want to help you.
Anyway, the maid has agreed not to clean my room today (at my request) and I have politely taken the two bottles of water that she offered to me.
Am off to the office for my second day of training the local staff...more on that later.
Am in a new city and a new country tonight. I arrived in Seoul, South Korea at about 5 pm local time. I had a nice hour long drive into the city where I got to observe the sunsetting over Seoul. My first impressions (granted these are from the interior of a car) are that it is a clean and very organized city. As with most Asian cities, there are a ton of high-rise buildings and most of which are residences. I say the city is organized because the skyline with all of these tall buildings is very symmetrical. It is not a random hodge podge of a tall building here and another even taller building there. Instead, it appears as though some planning went into the architectural design and it makes sense. Now that the sun has set I am seeing the city via the lights of night time and have to agree with my initial impression. I like it - I like disorganized too but there is something refreshing about this skyline.
My other first impression is that the people here are really quite nice. Granted, I've only dealt with an immigration officer, a customs agent, a driver, and the hotel staff - but still, all have been very friendly. This is a city where I clearly stick out as an outsider. But, nobody really seems to mind. I walked around a local shopping center this evening and didn't even get a second look. I did have an eventful time finding an ATM that was bilingual. Not too much here is in English so getting around the next few days will be fun.
Will be at our local office the next two days and then will be touring on Saturday and Sunday. More to come...
Singapore is pretty cool because the nation recognizes the 4 major ethnic groups. They allow two national holidays for the Chinese, Muslims, Indians, and Christians. They are spread throughout the year and I am still figuring out when they all occur.
This weekend marked the beginning of the Indian celebration of Diwali or Deepavali. It is a Hindu festival of lights. In Singapore most businesses and schools were closed today in honor of it. (We didn't have an official holiday but instead got a day in lieu to take when we want.) My colleagues in India officially have today and tomorrow off and most are taking the entire week. It is a festive time where there are many lights, new clothes, and lots of food. I am going to try and get to India for the festivities next year because I have heard it is just amazing. If I can't make it to India I'll be sure to at least head to Little India here in Singapore.
Am not sure what the next official holiday will be here but am very much looking forward to seeing how Halloween is celebrated.
It is my favorite of the four seasons and this is the first time in my life I won't get to experience it. I know that I mentioned how I like to walk through the crunchiness of the fallen leaves during my Spooky post. For some reason today I am really missing autumn. I think part of it was going to the nursery yesterday. Every autumn I get mums and pumpkins for the house and being around all of the plants yesterday reminded me of it.
I also miss the cooler temps. This is a given but there is something especially nice about the changing of seasons. I like spring but prefer going from the hotter to the cooler temperatures. Being a girl I of course love the opportunity that the cooler temperatures bring by way of fashion...turtlenecks, boots, and tights. Clearly I won't be experiencing any of this here in Singapore.
Yesterday afternoon I was at IKEA and bought some candles that smell like apples and spice. I am enjoying them because they are giving me a little bit of that autumn-ness in my apartment but they may be making me miss it too. Am not sure what else I can do here - maybe some of you guys could send me some pictures of autumn around you...at least I can see it then.
Here's a picture of my new garden in Singapore. It is on the balcony off of my bedroom. I've been meaning to buy plants for it for quite some time but haven't really been around much. Today I went with a friend to 'nursery row'. I say row because there had to be 10+ nurseries in a row. They had a great selection of plants. Some of which looked familiar and some that I hadn't seen before. There was a very nice man who walked around with us and gave us information about each of the plants. He also was great at carrying things for us and re-potting plants. The best part is that they deliver for free.
My balcony had been really bare...I knew this but hadn't really noticed it much until today. It is amazing how much a few plants can warm up a space - even a balcony in a city. I am so happy that I bought these today. I need to get a few more in order to finish things off but this is certainly a big improvement over the empty space it was.
I also bought two small houseplants for indoors. They had a huge selection of orchids for both indoors and outdoors. I have heard that they are really hard to keep but the people at the nursery assured me that they are easy in this climate. I think my next trip will include some orchids since they are so pretty.
I get migraines, sometimes really bad and really annoying ones. Since I have been in Singapore they have changed a bit...likely due to all of the travel and too much work. I woke up in the wee hours of this morning with a nasty migraine. My meds knock out the majority of the pain but it was still lingering even this afternoon. I decided to go to my local massage place to see if a neck massage would do the trick.
I can't recall if I've mentioned my massage place before so forgive me if you know this already. It is a small shop in the back of a kind of dodgy looking shopping center. The primary massage that they do is foot reflexology so the shop itself is just a big open space with chairs on each side and in the back there is a massage table. It is by no means a spa so there are no frills but it is clean and the prices are great.
The massages are also great. There are always 5-6 different people working and they rotate who gives the massage so it is typically not the same person. This afternoon I was assigned this small Asian lady. She couldn't have been taller than 5 feet and probably didn't weigh more than 100 pounds. Despite the size, man could she massage with some serious pressure. It was exactly what I needed and even though I didn't mention that I had a headache she seemed to just know and massaged the tension out of all the right places.
It was some good medicine, actually better medicine than the pain killers...
Kitty treats.
I've mentioned Lucy on this site before. She is my neighborhood stray who is quite friendly. Alan had a great idea the other day for me to get some kitty treats to share with her. I finally remembered to get some tonight and couldn't find any. There is plenty of cat food and all sorts of dog bones and biscuits but nothing for cats. That is completely unfair! I'll have to see if I can find some at a pet store (once I figure out where one of those is) but they don't carry them at the grocery store.
Somebody needs to tell my cats just how lucky they have it at our house!
I finally have an office again! I had been in a cubicle since I started here but we moved into our new building while I was in Sydney. This means I have a door and can use my speaker phone. Likely not very interesting news for any of you but my previous office building was pretty nasty (ants, dirty restrooms, etc) so being in a brand new building is quite refreshing. I have been working from home a couple of days a week mainly due to all of my teleconferences. It was just not nice to my neighbors to be on the phone that much in a cubicle. I can now be in the office and just shut my door. I even have a window that opens. I also have quite a bit of wall space so will need to find some things to put up on my walls. It is kind of boring in there right now. Feel free to make some drawings or art...if you send it to me I'll be sure to put it up on my wall. I'll even post a picture of it!
Read more...Seems that most times that I come to Sydney I don't get a chance to blog while I am here. I am already at the airport and sitting in the Singapore Airlines lounge waiting for my evening flight back to Singapore.
Sydney has already switched to daylight savings time so they are now 3 hours ahead of Singapore. Three hours seems to be the magic number that messes with my sleep cycle. Anything less or anything more I am able to deal with pretty easily but I always find myself dragging when it is 3 hours. I was always this way when traveling from NC to California. I am able to function but am never at full strength and always sleep a ton. I guess I will just live in a constant state of jetlag.
Am arriving home after midnight tonight and then back into the office for 3 more days of work and then the weekend. For the first time in well over a month I have an entire weekend at home in Singapore. I have no plans and may keep it that just to enjoy every hour of the weekend at home. It is the little things that keep me happy.
Yep, am back at the airport on this lovely Sunday morning and headed from Singapore to Sydney again. The difference this time is that things seem to have calmed down significantly and are now on the right track. I am relatively confident that this will be my last trip to Australia for 2009. I know I have hoped for that previously but I feel like I can say it with some level of confidence now. This will make trip number 10 for the calendar year. A few too many if you ask me so will take a little break from Oz after this trip to try and rekindle my love of the country.
Otherwise am back on Singapore Airlines which will be a nice change from flying Northwest to and from Hawaii. Don't get me wrong, I like Delta/NWA but they are nothing in comparison to the level of service you receive on Singapore Airlines. Have a great Sunday and next post from down under.
I know it is a little early for Halloween but it is October. These decorations arrived in my mailbox today from Alan and Karie, my brother and sister-in-law. The skeleton glows in the dark so am looking forward to it getting dark tonight so that I can see it look super spooky.
Surprisingly, the grocery stores here do sell some Halloween stuff. The displays are pretty small and are just on the ends of the aisles. They have a few costumes and some small decorations but nothing great. So I was thrilled to receive the package today with these spooky things.
I really like Halloween and especially autumn so am sad that I am missing it this year. I love it when the leaves change and drop to the ground and especially love the noise they make when you walk through a pile of them. It is one of my favorite things to do. Partly because it reminds me of my brothers and I raking leaves in the backyard when we were young and partly because it reminds me of my usual anniversary vacation to Maine.
So these spooky decorations along with pumpkin spice coffee that Alan brought to Hawaii and some delicious pumpkin pie granola bars I found at Target there will give me some sites and tastes of an autumn.
That is what my windows are right now, wide open. And they have been all day long. We are in the midst of moving to our new office building so I am working from home today. My apartment had been smelling a little musty lately so opened the bedroom sliding glass door to let in some fresh air this morning and quickly realized what that it was going to be a beautiful day. The sun is shining, there is a nice breeze, and there is little humidity (by Singapore standards) - all of the criteria necessary to have the windows open. It is a rare occurrence in Singapore to have the trifecta of sun, breeze, and low humidity. Typically if we get low humidity it is because a big storm is about to blow in so you don't want the windows open.
The entire day has been like this and I am loving it! I wish I could find a way to share the weather with all of you over the blog. Although most of you have cooler temps right now and I am extremely jealous over that.
This is reminding me a bit of those few breaks in the hot August temperatures of North Carolina. It is probably a little warmer than you'd normally like it to be inside your house but your baseline is off because it has been so hot and humid for so long.
And the breeze...it is just so nice. I am not sure why but I am having so much fun today watching my curtains blow in and out of the windows (there aren't a lot of bugs here so we don't have screens). I am lucky that my building has an interior courtyard because this allows for windows on the front and backside of my apartment which encourages a great cross-breeze. The one downfall to this breeze is that it is blowing little dust tumbleweeds out from under the sofas and my bed...whoops, I may need to do some better cleaning this weekend.
I haven't even minded the street noise. I'm on the 5th floor but on a hill so I can hear traffic most of the day. It's not a super busy street but gets pretty consistent traffic especially during working hours. When I rented this place I was a bit worried but have gotten used to it and don't really notice it much. It certainly is louder today with the windows open but I'm kind of happy to hear it. I know that sounds weird but it reminds me I'm living in a city and having this fun experience.
As relaxing as vacation was it is quickly becoming a distant memory. Spent almost all day yesterday reading the gazillion (no it is not a real word but I felt as though there wasn't an adequate description in existence so had to make one up) emails that I received and my love of teleconferences is back full force beginning with an evening call last night...ugh. Why is it that vacation is too short to begin with and then we get thrown back into the daily grind so quickly? I think there should be some sort of step-down program from vacation. Maybe a few 1/2 days and slowly working up to a full work week? I doubt our bosses would agree to that but if I ever have any true power in my life I pledge to do my best to institute that as a rule.
I was walking home today and think there may be a tall man conference going on in Singapore right now. By tall, I mean over 6 feet which tends to stand out in an Asian country. What makes me think it is a conference is that almost all of the tall men I saw were wearing suits...not a common thing when you are outside in a city a few degrees off of the equator. Do you think this is a shift in my definition of normal living here? In the US I wouldn't think twice about seeing this. Regardless, I think my friend Rob should throw on a suit and get over here before the conference ends.
Tomorrow is Friday...can I get a woohoo???
Here's the link to my pictures from the entire Hawaii trip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kmhoggcall/sets/72157622401599249/
Enjoy!
In an effort at full disclosure, this post really has nothing to do with my living on the other side of the world so feel free to stop reading if you like. Instead, it has to do with an old acquaintance that I have recently re-connected with.
She and I grew up in Owosso and got to know each other pretty well in dance class when we were youngsters. We used to get asked to go out and do performances with two other girls. It was nothing too exciting and probably not that entertaining but I have to say that we were pretty good tap dancers. We stayed acquaintances through high school and then lost touch. Through the beauty of Facebook we have recently been back in touch. She and my husband actually got together to go out and do some photography in Durham this summer. (Seems a bit odd that he has seen her more recently than me.)
Anywho, she is a teacher and an amazing artist. I am constantly entertaining myself on long, boring teleconferences by looking at her pictures on Flickr. Did I say she is an amazing artist? Seriously, if you live in the Detroit area and need some pictures taken you should contact her and have her do them.
On her Flickr site she had a project where she tasked herself with taking 100 pictures of the same object. It was a bowl that her friend had created and gave to her as a gift. This summer she accidentally broke the bowl but continued to take pictures to reach 100. Here's a link to her Flickr page to see the last post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artsyt/3965093185/ In case you don't want to read through all of it, the shortened version is that she had another artist create necklaces out of the broken pieces of the bowl. Her only request to receive a necklace was to pay shipping and to donate money to Gleaners Food Bank of Southeastern MI. Here is their website in case you are interested: http://www.gcfb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage
I am truly amazed that somebody who works a million hours a week has the time to coordinate something like this so that a charity will benefit. As I was reading about this it made me think that I don't do enough and she is a shining example of somebody who makes this world a better place. So, my challenge to all of you is to do a random act of kindness today. It'd be great if you could support her efforts and donate to Gleaners Foodbank. Am not sure if she has any necklaces left but regardless of that, why not just donate to them? (Will be donating money to them myself as soon as this post is complete.) If not them, go ahead and support your local foodbank or another charity that you like. If you don't have the spare money right now then just perform some random act of kindness.
If you have been following my blog for awhile you'll know that just as I started blogging I was at the receiving end of a random act of kindness by a nice Asian man who shared his umbrella with me. I promised to pay him back in some way so hopefully this will do it.
Alan confirmed with our local coffee shop that the coffee farm we toured in Kona is the farm where they purchase their Kona beans from. I love that we can now drink a cup of the Kona from Bean Traders and visualize where it was grown and how it was processed.
Read more...My flights back to Singapore were pretty uneventful yesterday (except for the young girl in the row in front of me who threw-up all over herself and her mom - thankfully I missed most of it and it was also at the end of the flight). I had another long layover in Tokyo so rented a dayroom again. I was able to sleep a bit and just enjoyed the rest of the time playing some games. I arrived back in my apartment at around 2:00 am. Arriving home that late (or early) is always tough. I typically need some time to unwind from the travel so I took a shower and then just relaxed on the couch for a bit. I ended up heading to bed around 3:30 am only to be awakened by an early morning storm. The funny thing was that when I woke up I had no idea where I was...you'd think I'd have that happen more often but it really doesn't.
I opted to just go ahead and get up so it hopefully won't be so hard to get up tomorrow morning. Had a relaxing morning with some yummy new coffee that Alan brought me from Bean Traders. (How funny is it that Alan brought me 7 lbs of coffee to Hawaii?) My fridge was completely empty since I've been gone since early September so headed out to the grocery store. I stocked up and ended up with a heavy load of groceries to carry home.
A few hours later I am happy to report that I have a fridge full of shrimp spaghetti, roasted sweet potatoes, salad, veggies, herb chicken, and fresh cut fruit. I don't really like to cook during the week so did everything today so will be set with meals until I head out on Sunday. It is what I usually do on Sundays but since I took today off I was able to get it all done. The only other thing I did today was a ton of laundry. It was a nice and quiet transition day between the relaxation of vacation and heading back to work tomorrow.
Alan and I flew back to Oahu from the Big Island today. We had a pretty low key day (this is the first day of our trip that neither of us used our cameras). We hung out at the hotel in Waikoloa this morning, headed to the airport, landed in Honolulu, headed back to Waikiki and did a bit of shopping.
This evening, we headed down to the cocktail hour here at the Embassy Suites. We saw a bit of the show last Saturday night but weren't really paying attention. Tonight we actually watched a lot of the show and enjoyed it. It was a local group with one guy singing and playing the ukulele and another lady singing. They also had a group of 4 kids between the ages of 12 and probably 16 or 17 dancing the traditional Hawaiian dances. It was actually a lot of fun to watch...however, at a few points it was really cheesy (cue the audience sing along to Tiny Bubbles) but was overall a good show.
A nice and relaxed evening before heading out our separate ways tomorrow. I fly out at 10 am Honolulu time and Alan leaves at 4pm Honolulu time. Next rendezvous will be December 5th in Ann Arbor, MI...can't wait!
Ever wonder how things are made? Or how they are manufactured? I do, quite a bit, and I love to get the answers to my questions...especially first hand.
This afternoon we went to Greenwell Farms which is a coffee plantation which only produces Kona coffee. Any of you who are coffee lovers know well that Kona coffee is some of the best coffee in the world. It is also the only American grown coffee.
When you first arrive at the farm it is pretty underwhelming, there is just a little building where they have coffee samples and a few other things. A nice young gal asked if Alan and I wanted a tour so we headed out...was a quiet day today on the farm.
She first took us to a couple of coffee trees that were the originals planted by the founder over 100 years ago. They are still producing the coffee cherry. They don't use these for coffee any longer but instead keep them around from a sentimental perspective. I think it is pretty cool given that the farm is now being run by a fourth generation Greenwell.
She next took us to the coffee production area:
Yep, that is the production facility where just about 40% of all Kona coffee beans are processed. The Greenwell farm has about 35 acres of land where they grow coffee. In addition, they accept beans from local farmers. While we were on our tour we watched a handful of these farmers come in and drop off their freshly picked coffee.
Right now, the farmers are getting $1.10 per pound. A full bag of beans typically weighs about 100 pounds and takes about a day to pick. However, the growing season is about 4-6 months long only so there isn't a huge yield if you only have a few trees.
The beans are processed as soon as they arrive at the farm. There is only about a 24 hour period from when they are picked to when they are processed so things happen pretty quickly.
It is actually a pretty simple process. The beans get placed into the above piece of machinery which separates the beans from the hulls (red things in the back). Most coffee cherries have two beans inside. As soon as the beans come out they are soaked for a couple of days.
Once they have soaked long enough they are scooped out and placed on big drying racks (you can see them behind the soaking area) to dry. When they are out in the sun they have to be turned every 30 minutes or so.
All of this is done by hand. Since the harvest season has just arrived they have to work the hours based on the amount of coffee that comes in or is picked on the farm itself. In the past 48 hours they received over 600 pounds of coffee so the workers have been pulling 16 hour shifts just to keep up.
Once the beans are dried they get sent to the storage facility on the property. They have a shelf-life of 2 years in their unroasted stage. The picture below shows the beans from the past couple of days being transported to the storage facility.
The beans will stay at the storage facility until roasters or local coffee shops place an order. They are then sent out, roasted, ground, brewed, and then they become the super tasty coffee that we all enjoy.
Due to our little injuries yesterday, we weren't up to more snorkeling today...which was too bad because the weather was just great today. Hardly any clouds in the sky and lots and lots of Hawaiian sunshine.
We headed down the coast to a National Historical Park called Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. It is an area that was both royal grounds for early Hawaiian royalty as well as a place of refuge. It is right on the water at the edge of a bay. There were a ton of people out snorkeling in the bay and by the looks of it they were seeing quite a few interesting things.
The park itself has a self-guided tour through the different areas. The first part was through the royal grounds. Not too much to see here but there was a huge lava stone wall that was built to separate the royalty from the commoners.
There was this really interesting tree that had many parts of the roots exposed. It was one of many interesting trees that we saw on the island.
Across the bay you come to the edge of the wall as well as a temple where the bones of royalty would be placed.
There are wooden statues called Ki'i that stand watch over the temple.
On the other side of the temple and the wall is the Pu'uhonua. This is considered sacred ground and no blood could be shed here. There wasn't much by way of buildings or other things to see instead it was just beautiful landscape on the edge of the bay. The water here was truly crystal clear. So clear that we stumbled across some sea turtles out having some fun in the water.
