Sunday, April 18, 2010

Life is a Shangri-La Part 2




Honey bun and I had a change of venue just a few days ago. We moved from the Shangri-La Hotel to the Shangri-La Residence. To go from living in one hotel room for 11 weeks (well, one day short of 11 weeks), which is almost 12 weeks (one week short of 12weeks)to a three bedroom, four bath serviced apartment is a massive change. It felt odd to actually have more than two rooms to explore. You know it is time to move when you consider the bathroom a room to explore.

As mentioned before, things got a little close. However, with all of this space we now seem to loose track of each other. On the plus side, if nature calls, there is no urgent plea to please hurry up in there. It reminded me of a time during my childhood when there were six of us sharing one bathroom. With that many people sharing the bathroom, there was always lots of urgent banging on the door and lots of people yelling, "Hurry up in there."

We are living in what is called a serviced apartment. Let me tell you, that is the way to go. Every day, except Sundays and public holidays, housekeeping comes to your apartment. They strip the bed of its linens, take your used towels and wash cloths, clean the toilet, tub and shower, vacuum and mop all the floors, dust the entire apartment, wash the dishes if you didn't do them the night before, clean the kitchen counters and even wash the windows. Now that is what I call S-E-R-V-I-C-E!

We are renting this apartment month to month until the never ending stream of nonsense ends with our quest to find a more permanent place to live for the next three to five years. If the foolishness goes on much longer, I am going to say forget it and just live the life of luxury at the Shangri-oo-La-La.

The patio off the living area faces kind of South Easterly. We look toward lots of skyscrapers, high rise apartments, and over kampungs, mosques, busy streets and a cemetery. Kampungs are the local "villages." Some of them are clean an neat, some are really more like slums and rather grim. The kampung we look across has little shops along the street, a school or two and all assortment of houses. There are even a few folks who have goats, 20 or so in the herd, some geese and a few roosters. Several of them also have the bathrooms located outside the living areas. Unlike an outhouse, some of these bathrooms include a place to bathe as well. Bathrooms are called kamar(room)kecil(little or small)or small rooms. One of the reasons I mention this here is that even though they are small, they have an even smaller amount of roofing to cover the top. We have had the unfortunate timing of catching a few people answering nature's call, or like yesterday, someone trying to bathe. When we realized what was going on, we decided it was best to give them a little privacy and wandered back in to our apartment.

The master bedroom has a pretty spectacular view from the 17th floor (which really isn't the 17th floor because it is a Chinese owned hotel and residence and they are superstitious about the number 4. Therefore, there is no 4th floor, or 14th floor or 13th floor for that matter). The windows are from floor to ceiling. When you look out on a clear day, you can see the mountains in the distance. Not sure if they are old volcanoes, but it is pretty cool sight.

The master bath has a wonderful tub that you can fill at night to relax in while looking out at the sparkling lights of Jakarta. It has floor to ceiling windows as well. Therefore, just like out kampung neighbors, folks can see in so we have to make sure they don't get a lesson on how bules bathe. Unlike the photo-op at Tamin Mini - turn about is not fair play in this case. Since we are in the city and the residences are at a very busy intersection, there is lots of traffic noise. I think the next soak in the tub requires a little Balinese music to drown out the honking and motorcycles so I can attain Indonesian bliss.

Just like the hotel, the security is very good here. You still have to come in through the same main entrance as the hotel, so your car is checked out completely before they open the large metal gate to let you through. Once you finish that, you make your way toward the residences. The doorman opens the car door and the front door and you are greeted as you enter the lobby by polite staff, just not quite as completely as at the hotel - which by the way I miss along with those electric curtains that I hated to part with. Passing through the lobby you must go to the correct elevator bank to reach your apartment. An electronic key card and biometric finger print system are used to keep you from accessing anyone's apartment but yours. Once you pass that test, you are delivered to your floor and only your floor. When the elevator doors open, you step out in to a small entry way with your front door just waiting to be unlocked. Nice.

Downstairs, is a small, but nicely appointed workout room looking over a beautiful pool. There are lush tropical plantings all around. What is surprising is that just behind all that tropicalness is the kampung that I talked about earlier and an entire herd of goats. It is an incredible contrast. I know that I am immensely fortunate to live on this side of the wall even though the kampung next to us is above average and I am sure the people there feel pretty safe and lucky that they are there and not some of the other places they could be. Perspective is key no matter what side of the planet you reside.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Almost fall out of the dressing room and you most definitely will not laugh alone.


This week I went on a shopping journey to try and find a Batik blouse or dress to wear to my son's college graduation. The Batik here is so stunning and I thought it would be fun to have something regional to wear for this joyous occasion.

A couple of things became apparent during this outing. First off, I am definitely not the same size, any way around, as an Indonesian woman. I am taller, which means that most dresses are too short for someone my age. Now my high school buddy, Debbie would tell you I wore very short skirts back then. However, it isn't a good look on this mature woman for sure. My shoulders are broader and so you have to really work to find something that you think you would be able to move in without ripping the fabric. Finding something that fits across the bust is also an issue. The fear of putting someones eye out after a button goes flying off your shirt when you take a breath is real. Forget about something fitting across the hips. Off the rack clothing makes most expat woman cuss under their breath I am certain.

I have been told that there are great tailors here. I have not ventured in to that arena yet, so there is hope for me still. Just not for this trip home. I have even heard that they come to your house and bring fabrics and all you do is point, pay and they do all the work. Sounds like heaven. If I could just get into a house so I could have that joy. But that is another story.

Back to the shopping story for now. I went to a mall called Pasaraya. It is an older, less visually stunning mall than some of the newer ones here. However, it has some very interesting features. The one pertinent to this post is that there is one entire floor where they sell EVERYTHING Batik. Table clothes, table runners, napkins, shirts, dresses, slippers, shopping bags, skirts, men's bathing suits, etc. It is pretty overwhelming. There are probably 40 to 50 vendors doing business on that floor. All selling Batik.

Since it is one of the upper floors of the mall, I had to pass through several other clothing areas on my way up. Some casual blouses caught my eye, so I stopped to take a look. I found a few items to try on and then tried to find the dressing room. A lovely young woman sees me and understands that I want to try on the blouses. She gives this sweeping motion to indicate "go that way" and I move forward. I am looking, and for the life of me I can't figure out where I a supposed to go. She continues to gesture and I keep moving, but it is just not clear where the dressing room is. Finally, we kind of end up in the middle of the sales floor and there is a U-shaped, metal rod attached to a support pillar with a curtain hanging from it. I realize this IS the dressing room. I stand in the middle of the area under the rod and she pulls the fabric around me. It was a quiet Monday, so I tried not to worry.

Now might be a good time to mention that many of the malls and stores are not air conditioned the way we air condition. Some are not air conditioned at all. Many times they do not turn the air conditioning on if there is no one in that area so you are often greeted with very still, almost body temperature air upon your arrival. Once on, it is still warm, just not as warm. The temps are beginning to reach about 95 these days so that should give you a clue that you are a tad bit uncomfortable when you wander around outside or in.

I stand in my dressing room and begin the trying on process. Not too much is fitting, so I go out and get another blouse and see an elastic waist skirt. That could work I think. Back into the shower stall, maaf, dressing room I go. I try on the blouse and it fits. Miracle of miracles. I then proceed to try on the skirt. Since the floor is bare tile and it is out in the open where large numbers of people walk, I decide to not take off my shoes before I slip out of the capris I have on and into the skirt I have hanging above me on the metal bar. Since I am a bit sticky from the heat, I am having to wiggle around a bit to get the blasted capris off. With the struggling and the warmth, I am getting more sticky. As I try to remove one of the capri pant legs off of my shoe, I catch my foot. Oh, dear Lord, I have horrible visions of pitching out into the store in a pile of fabric and metal with my pants half off. I am trying to find something to grab on to. My choices are the curtain or the bar. I know that I will most like pull the entire contraption down on top of me either way. So, I find myself hopping around on one foot trying to regain my balance. I can only imagine what this looked like from the outside. I am sure they can see my elbows and knee flailing and bumping the curtain. I hope they thought I was grooving to the music in there and enjoying the clothing I was trying on. However, God was smiling on me as I managed to get it under control, not rip everything down and expose myself. After all of that, the skirt was not a go and I then had to try and get out of it and back into the pants. Lesson learned: if in doubt, remove the shoes and stand on them.

With a new blouse in the bag, I am off to Batik heaven. I stroll around and spot a really lovely Batik sheath dress and decide to give it a whirl. The young woman directs me to the fitting room. This time, it isn't a curtain I am faced with. Instead, it is pretty much a wooden crate that is sanded and varnished. Hmmmm. Not looking too good and since I am higher up in the mall, it is even warmer. I go in and peel off my blouse, drop my capris to my ankles and try to slide the dress on.

Have you ever tried to put on a damp bathing suit? You know how it sticks to you and takes off a layer or two of skin in the process? Well, you get the idea of my dilemma only I am the wet bathing suit. Also, I am trying to do this changing routine in a box about the size a refrigerator would come in. Elbows are banging the wall, the door doesn't latch so I am once again at risk of flashing fellow shoppers and store clerks if an elbow or backside hit the door. Looking kind of like a cobra moving to the rhythm of a snake charmer's music, I get the dress on. Lovely and fits pretty well, but too short. Drat. Now I have to do the process in reverse. To say it was getting a little close in there is an understatement. Good thing I am not claustrophobic or I would have come screaming out of the box and ripped the dress off of me right there on the sales floor and not given a hoot.

After several vendors, I find two lovely blouses that fit. Checking the sizes, you try not to let it hurt your ego that in order to get it broad enough across the shoulders, one of them is an XL. It is like thinking about your age. It is just a number, right? So maybe the trick to fitting in to life here is to forget what normal is back home and just go with the XL life presented to me in this crazy place known as Jakarta.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Life in the fast lane. Surely make you loose your mind

It is a left-hand side of the road driving adventure here. I must say it still feels a bit weird after all these weeks. Actually, the going in a straight line doesn't feel as strange, but the turning thing still feels totally odd. Don't assume that I think that I would be able to drive even in a straight line here. It is a frightening thought. I would cause untold numbers of wrecks if I tried to turn. It would be like a scene from The Blues Brothers. Just without Jake and Elroy.

It reminds me of my Aussie friend, Helen. She lived not to far away from me in my neighborhood in Texas. She would only make right hand turns. No matter where she was going. She planned her route out so she would only have to turn right. I now think that it was partly because she was used to driving on the left hand side of the road and turning left made her uncomfortable. It never dawned on me, before moving here, as to what the reasoning was behind that particular driving decision.

Just like in the US, people walk just like they drive. I go in a mall and walk around and I feel like a salmon swimming up stream. I am walking on the right and dodging people. This makes me look like a massive newbie bule. I have to make a conscious effort to walk on the left. Another issue with this left side of the road thing is with escalators. The up escalator is on the left and down escalator on the right. I go to the wrong one about 80% of the time. This is an improvement as it used to be 100% of the time. Whoo hoo!

Today, I learned a valuable lesson about elevator etiquette. If the doors open, you do not hesitate in any way, shape or form to get on. For if you do, the person in front of you will get on and push the close door button and take off as quick as a bunny. Today, I met hubby for lunch. After our lunch, we walked to the elevator to go from the ninth floor to the ground floor. A man walked up and waited with us. The doors open and being polite, we let him enter first. He apparently stepped in, pushed the floor button, and then proceeded to hold the close door button down with gusto. I step to the narrowing opening and try to get on, but the doors keep advancing. Being a little hesitant to stick a valuable body part in between the rapidly closing doors, I look at him. He stands there with finger joyously pressed on the close door button looking at me as the doors slam shut and leaving us in a proverbial trial of dust. I turned to my husband and said how rude I thought that was. He said he sees this happen a lot. Even if you get part of you in the opening, they won't take their finger off that highly valuable button and the door just continues to crunch you until you are able to get all of you inside. To be such polite people, this really caught me off guard.

Back to the driving topic. Some of the roads here require that you have 3 occupants in your vehicle during certain hours of the day if you want to use them without a fine. There are a couple of ways to attain this goal. One is through the use of a jockey. Jockeys are the people standing all along the sides of these specific roads and ramps on to these roads holding up one, two, or three fingers. They hold up the number of fingers to indicate the number of riders they will provide to help you fulfill the occupancy quota. They vary in age from young to old. Men and women. Women with babies in slings or children on their hip. The babies count as a rider too, so you get a twofer there. If you stop, they will climb in your car and you pay them a few thousand rupiah and off you go. No bothersome "polisi" waving you over if you've got a jockey on your side. My guess is you drop them off when you get to the end of the required occupancy level section and they then cross the street and go back the other way.

I made it absolutely clear to honey bunch that under NO circumstances was he to pick up a jockey. TB is still alive and quite well here. Don't want that kind of trouble. Not to mention that I would not stop to pick up a hitchhiker in the US. Why would I do it here?

The other way to achieve this goal, if it just happens to be you and the driver in the car, is to make sure you have a 50,000.00 rupiah note always at the ready. If you do get waived over, the number of occupants in your vehicle magically increases with the appearance of a blue colored bill with the number 50,000 on it.

So far, we have not tried out either of these methods. But that is how it is done we are told. Life in the fast lane indeed.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Hoppin' down the bunny trail


It's Easter time here in Jakarta. There are no daffodils or Easter lilies. There do seem to be an abundance of orchids everywhere and beautiful roses in arrangements throughout the hotel. Haven't seen any rose bushes in Jakarta, so I don't know where they are coming from. But have seen huge arrangements with yellow roses and white roses mixed with assorted orchids, star gazer lilies and other tropical lovelies. Gorgeous!

Yes, it is true, and probably surprising to you, that Easter is celebrated here. Tomorrow is Good Friday and it is a public holiday. Christmas is also a public holiday. In fact, the Indonesian system for celebrating religeous holidays is one I kind of like.

First off, you must declare which religion you want to be affiliated with. You do not get to say, don't have one, don't believe in one, don't whatever. For those of you who don't know too much about Indonesia (and I was amoung your ranks before I found out sweetie pie and I were moving here)Islam is the major religion weighing in with about 88% of the poplulation. Christians make up about 8% of the population, Hindus about 2%, Buddhists about 2% and Animists about 1%. Going to have to look up what Animists are, but I feel sure they are not related to Greenpeace. These are not exact percentages so please forgive that it adds up to 101%. They are just guidelines anyway.

Now about those public holidays. These are also called "red days" because they are indicated in red on the calendars. Here are the holidays on my 2010 calendar. January 1 - New Year's Day, February 14 - Chinese New Year, February 26 - Birthday of Prophet Muhammad, March 16 - Hindu New Year, April 2 - Good Friday, May 13 - Ascension of Jesus Christ, May 28 - Buddhist Waisak Day, July 10 - Ascension of Prophet Muhammad, August 17 - Indonesia Independence Day, September 10 and 11 - Idul Fitri, Novemember 17 - Idul Adha, December 7 - Islamic New Year, December 25 - Christmas. As you can see, every religion gets some kind of holiday on the calendar, except for those pesky Animist. You also noticed, I am sure, that there are some holiday designations that you might not be familiar with. Since I am learning about these things too, I will fill in what I know or have found on line about them.

Buddhist Waisak Day - "This is a Buddhist holiday to celebrate the anniversary of Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.

This celebration is enlivened by religious and social activities in Buddhist temples around the country. In Indonesia, the largest Buddhist temples, Candi Mendut and Candi Borobudur, both located in the Magelang Regency of Central Java not far from Yogyakarta, are the focus of interest and attract those observing the holiday and tourists.

Three major historical events are celebrated on Waisak. The first is the birth of Siddhartha Gautama. The second is the acceptance of the divine revelation under the Bodhi tree. And the third is the journey of Siddhartha Gautama to heaven."

Idul Fitri - "Idul Fitri, more commonly referred to in Indonesia as Lebaran, is the celebration that comes at the end of the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadhan. The Arabic meaning of Idul Fitri is “becoming holy again”.

The dates of the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, Ramadan, vary from year to year, as the Muslim calendar (Hijrah) is based on a lunar cycle of 29 or 30 days. The exact date is determined by the sighting of the new moon. These lunar calculations lead to an official announcement by the government on the eve of Ramadan and Idul Fitri so that the faithful know when to begin and end the fasting month. To understand the significance of Lebaran, an understanding about the fasting month of Ramadhan is important. During the month of Ramadhan, Muslims must refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, marital relations or getting angry during the daylight hours. In addition, those fasting are supposed to refrain from bad habits - lying, getting angry, using bad language as well as to be more diligent in prayer and give to charities. It is believe that fasting heightens spirituality and develops self-control."

Idul Adah - Is kind of a small version of Idul Fitri, and is celebrated in the tenth month of the Muslim calendar.

The other holidays should be pretty self explanatory and some are celebrated in the US so none of my wonderful commentary is needed.

I saw a fair amount of Easter decorations in the malls and the grocery stores for the last few weeks. There were even egg painting contests listed at various locations. Egg hunting seems to be popular with folks who I don't think celebrate Easter for the same reasons we do. But they seemed to love it just as much. However, there are places on the island of Java where there are more serious religious participants. There are holy pilgrimages followed beginning on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday and conclude on Easter Sunday. There were several articles in the paper covering them and the significance of Easter to some of the folks who live here. I found that most interesting.

We joined friends at the Ritz Carlton for a wonderful brunch. Even though it was not specifically for Easter, it was delightful. Here at our hotel, they went all out for Easter. In the picture at the top of the post is a the Easter scene that was constructed on the lowest lobby of the hotel. Obviously, it is directed toward children. What makes this really unique is that the entire scene is made from chocolate. From the walls down to the green grass - all chocolate and hand made at that. They put up a rope barricade to keep us hungry folks from gnawing on the ears of those large bunnies sitting in the foreground or scooping up a handful of the green tinted white chocolate grass and chowing down as we would pass by on our way to the restaraunt. It smells so good. You just stand there and take deep breaths and feel like you are in Hersey Heaven.

Sorry Animist. Get your own holiday.