tokek

Went to my job interview this morning and turned out it was for one of Indonesia's biggest privately held companies. I think the interview went well but they did mention that for someone with my experience, I'm qualified to be a manager. Again with that weird standard. I'm actually kind of hoping I'll get an offer for this job.

The girl I went on a date with the other day is definitely really into me. She already said she likes me and can't wait to see me again. I think we're gonna on another date on Saturday or Sunday. However, tomorrow my parents are going to take me to meet up with the girl of their choosing, along with her parents, for lunch, hahahah! That should be interesting, at least it's better than us going to their place with the sole reason of me introducing myself. If that's not a blatant set up, I don't know what is.

Attended my friend's dad's funeral last Sunday and it reminded me of how much traditions (or superstitions) surrounding deaths here. For one, you're not suppose to watch as the casket is being moved and when it's being buried. We were given box lunches when we got to the cemetery since it was 2 hours away from where we were and my friend reminded me to say "excuse me" before I sit down to eat, just in case the spirits wandering / living nearby mind the intrusion we caused by eating near its place of living.

On a happier note, I went on my date yesterday and it was, surprisingly, good. We hung out at the local mall and just walked, talked, drank some tea, ate and did a little book shopping. This girl is goofy, like me, so we clicked right away. I haven't hung out with a girl for that long and not once ran out of things to talk about. We also talked pretty much all day before the date over IM and all night after the date via IM again. I think this girl is really into me and it feels good to be desired again. Also felt good to be who I am and she's completely ok with that.

I also landed me an interview for tomorrow, supposedly with a pretty big company with huge budget. The job posting is pretty old and I didn't apply for it until about 3 weeks after it was posted, so I didn't think I would get a call, but they did call and they want me in tomorrow for an interview. My dad's excited about it since it's a huge company, I think he's more excited about it than I am, lol. I figured since it's been a while since they posted the job posting and they still called me, they haven't found anyone yet, so my chances are pretty good. I hope. Let's hope I don't botch the interview up tomorrow, lol. I better think of questions to ask them during the interview.

Anyway, that's it for now.

It's been a pretty uneventful couple of days here. I'm starting to adjust to the weather and the mosquitoes are pretty much leaving me alone, so that's good.

Been spending my evenings at the wake for my friend's dad with a bunch of old friends, so it's been somewhat of a blessing in disguise. Met quite a few eligible bachelorettes there and finding one in particular to be quite interesting. However, since I'm one of the last of my friends to remain a bachelor, a few guys (and my mom) are determined to play matchmakers. So it has been interesting to say the least.

Went and saw "Ninja Assassin" today with one of the eligible bachelorette and I'm not sure if that constitute as a date or not. I'm leaning towards the not side myself, but it did feel like a date. But then again, I'm not sure what counts as a date here, lol.

Nothing new on the job front since it's a long weekend here, hopefully I will hear back next week. Again, the wake has been a blessing in disguise since the new people I met are forwarding my resume to either their companies or people they know.

Tomorrow is the funeral and it starts at 8am, bus leaves the mortuary at 9 for the cemetery so I better hit the sack.

Oh, another thing about wakes and funerals. You're suppose to shower as soon as you get back from either a wake or a funeral and wash all the clothes you wore there. And if you or your spouse is pregnant, they're not suppose to attend. So that's the belief here

Went to my job interview today and they gave me a 3 page application to fill out and then a 10 page IT questions. I could've sworn they took some of the questions from an MCSE question book or something since they're all pretty similar. After about an hour of filling out stuff and answering questions, they're finally ready to see me. Turned out the IT Manager that was suppose to be conducting the interview is out on an emergency run, so the HR lady had to do my interview.

She took a look at my previous experiences and salary and said that I'm overqualifed and they don't have the budget to accommodate me but they do have a managerial position that she's going to bump my application into.

So with my current experience, in the States, I'd still be a grunt, but here, I'm qualified to be a manager. It's weird but I'm not complaining, hehe.

On a not so happy note, one of my friend's dad died this morning and I went to the wake tonight. It was surprising how fast they moved. He died at 8am and by 7pm, he was already at a different place for the wake. They already had flowers from different companies and families at the place and thank you cards printed out for the visitors. They also sealed the casket during the wake and he will be interred there until Sunday when the burial will take place.

It's very surprising how fast things move for that particular event. In the States, the thank you cards alone would've taken a few days or really crazy expensive to be done on the same day.

I got a really nice phone call today, it's one of the companies that I applied for and they want me to come in for an interview tomorrow. It's exactly 14 days after the job opening was posted online. So I guess the 2 weeks application period is pretty accurate and if that's the case, I'm hoping to start hearing from more potential employers soon as their submission deadlines end.

So tomorrow I shall experience, first hand, what the job interview process is like here in Jakarta and frankly, I'm a bit excited. I wonder what questions they will ask and if it's any different than a US job interview.

Oh, on another note, Thursday is Thanksgiving in the States and coincidentally, Friday is a Muslim holiday of Idul Adha. While it's not anywhere near Thanksgiving, it's just kind of a funny coincidence. Apparently, for Idul Adha, you're suppose to sacrifice either a goat or a cow and share the meats with your family, friends and neighbors, so I see a lot of cows and goats being sold right on the side of the streets. If you don't know what they're for, it's kind of weird. I mean, you're driving along a major thoroughfare and you see cows and goats tied to posts or trees right there on the side of the streets. I tried to take pics but no dice, I have a couple of days to try still though, so who knows, I may be successful.

I mentioned before about the job hunt, I found out something new today about the whole process. Apparently, they give you a deadline to submit your resumes or CV and won't even call potential candidates before the 2 weeks is up (or whatever deadline they put up). The typical job openings also have age limits, I think it's like a progression ladder of some sorts. Entry level job maxes out at 25, mid level maxes out at 30-35, beyond that, you'd better be upper management already or you're screwed when you have to look for new jobs.

Here's an excerpt from a job opening ad:

# Male.
# Max 25 years old.
# Residing around South / West Jakarta or Tangerang is preferable.
# Fresh graduate are welcome.
# Bachelor Degree from reputable University majoring in Information Technology with min. GPA 2.75

And another:

# Male, S-1/D3 degree majoring in Computer Science / Information Management / Information Technology from recognized University in Indonesia
# 28 years old maximum, fresh graduate are welcome
# Hold relevant professional qualifications
# Min 2 year experience in the same position

Apparently, for most IT jobs, it's required that you be of the male sex. Weird.

Today I went to the Police Station to get my driver's license, for both car and motorcycle. The process was somewhat painless, just a lot of waiting around. It would have been a helluva more complicated if I didn't have help navigating the system.

Remember how I mentioned how inefficient things are here? Today I got a taste of it. Apparently, when you get 2 different classes of licenses, you get 2 actual physical licenses and here's the kicker, they both take up different entries in the police database, so they had to input 2 addresses for me. How did I know this? Because My motorcycle license has a slightly wrong address, while my driver's license is fine. Weird! When it was time to take my picture, the guy had me check my address, twice, and both of them were wrong. Instead of changing it right there, he had me go back to the registration windows to have them fix it and then come back to him. I did that and when I finally got back to the photo station, the guy looked at it and there was another wrong item on the motorcycle license, but not the driver's license. He finally just said "eh, just let it go" and sent the license to print, lol.

I figured, what the hell, I don't feel like going back to the damn registration window, wait in line, fix the address then go back to the photo station, and wait in another line. Not like I'm going to use my motorcycle license too much anyway. It's too chaotic to ride a motorcycle here anyway.

So now, I just have to get used to driving here again and get me a car.

I've started my job hunting efforts, it's a little tough to do when I can't comfortably drive yet. One thing I learned about job hunting here, it's more "who you know" rather than "what you know." If you know someone in the company, they can get you in quicker. I know it's almost like that in the States too but here it's much more so.

Banking here is a little different too. A lot of banks offer raffles with prizes ranging from Cars to iPods. If you use a certain bank's credit card to pay for food, you can get up to 50% off in certain places or 0% interest for 6 months if you buy items. It's nice in some regards but it does "make" you carry a bunch of different bank's cards in your wallet just so you can be able to take advantage of those offers.

Security is still pretty high in the malls, every time we go, they will stop all cars going in to the parking structure and have them open the trunk of the car to check, as well as check the bottom of the car. Sadly, none of them really take more than a cursory look at the cars, so they just give an illusion of security. Most of the bigger stores have a "concierge" service of sorts. I bought a printer yesterday and they actually offered to either hold them for me while I shop or if I'm going home right away, send someone to carry the item over to my car for no extra charge. That is nice. Some stores also have bag checks, where you can leave your bags until you're done shopping at no extra charge, sort of like coat checks but for bags.

Things definitely move slower here, that's something I really need to get used to. Everyone seems to take their time to do things. Maybe it's good for me to live life slower for a change.

Went to church this morning for their 6:30 am mass, it wasn't my idea, I'm not a morning person. I've forgotten a lot of the hymns, lol. One thing I do realize while I'm inside the church, I'm pretty tall compared to the regular masses. I don't mean I tower over everyone but I can see all the way to the altar pretty easily, lol.

When the mass is over, outside was a veritable cornucopia of street foods and snacks! Tons of food I recall eating and loving as a youngen'. It was set up on a small part of the parking lot and consist of a lot of mobile food cart, either on bicycles, motorcycles or hand-carts. There were fruit stands, bbq pork buns, shiumai stands, drink stands, BBQ pork seller, traditional snacks, and porridge and a few others.

Mom and I ate at the porridge stand, it's Indonesian style porridge, with bits of chicken, tons of peppers, soy sauce, chinese donuts and a lot of other ingredients thrown and mixed in. It was yummy! I also bought a bunch of other snacks. My stomach is full to bursting and still brought home tons of snacks to much on.

I forgot how easy it is to get snacks here, they're everywhere and of every variety, sometimes they even pass by your house in the afternoon. I was hoping that the smaller food portion will make me lose weight, while that may be true but the sheer amount of snacks will probably negate the smaller portion, lol!

I was watching the news earlier today and saw this particular bit. In West Aceh, they have a division of the police force that is called the "Syariah police" and their sole duty is to enforce Syariah law (Muslim law) and apparently, they're doing roadblocks and citing Muslim women who are wearing tight pants / jeans in public since that's against the Syariah law.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about enforcing laws, but, and I must apologize in advance for sounding like an ignorant bastard, that law is stupid! The fact that it's a law is one thing, but the fact that they are actually dedicating a substantial manpower and man hours to enforcing it and discussing appropriate punishment for said offense in a provincial governmental level is completely idiotic and a total waste of time. There are TONS more pressing issues that they could dedicate those manpower and man-hours to, like fixing the roads and enforcing laws that do make sense, like traffic laws.

Now I think of myself as a pretty tolerant guy but I have no tolerance for nonsense and stupidity and this is one of them. I get that it's a religious law but, like I said, a complete waste of time and manpower that could have been put to much better use that would benefit a hell of a lot more people.

I guess I better get off this soapbox and stop ranting.

Today I went and opened a bank account here in Jakarta. I decided to use one of the largest bank around, BCA (Bank Central Asia), just because their ATMs are frickin everywhere.

In the States, this process would've taken all of probably 20 minutes, here, not so much. Just the wait alone to see a new account person was almost an hour (the fact that it was Friday around noon, prayer time, probably had something to do with the wait), then the form to fill out was again filled with non-banking related questions, such as religion. WTF is my religion has anything to do with my bank account? Will it give me extra cash as a gift on Christmas day just because I'm a Catholic?

Apparently, they still give you a savings book here and the ATM card that they give you has no name on it, just the numbers. Oh, another thing I noticed is the numerous amount of ATMs and each one just does 1 thing, like cash deposit, another does the balance inquiry printout to your savings book, another dispenses cash in Rp 50,000 denomination and another dispenses Rp 100,000 denomination. So technically, if I'm depositing cash and pulling cash and trying to get a printout of my balance in my savings book, I'd have to wait in 3 different ATM lines. Damn inefficient!

The interest rate you get on your savings also depends on the amount of money you have in said account, the more you have, the more interest you make. Pretty much the case of the rich getting richer, lol.

Anyway, enough ranting for now. It's raining pretty hard again with thunder and lightning, so I better get off the laptop in case a lightning hit. Besides, it's Friday night, time to go.....err, nm, time to stay in. Damn rain will probably make the roads flood and traffic at a standstill everywhere. Plus my internet connection keeps cutting off every few minutes.

I've started my job search, earlier than I had anticipated. The good thing is, I got the phone number of a girl I used to go to high school with and found out she works for the HR department of a local company. I asked her to review my US resume to see if I need to adjust it for Indonesian job market.

The first thing she said was that I'm missing the personal data section and that section should contain: full name, address, birth place/date, marital status, religion, health status and a recent photograph.

WTF?!?!?

I guess that's the norm here, but coming from the States where those items are pretty much a no-no to include in any resume, it's completely foreign to me. I guess the adage "when in Rome.." applies here.

Looks like it's time I adjust my resume to conform to the Indonesian standards.

Is it weird that I'm thoroughly enjoying this crazy, pouring rain, complete with crazy lightning and thunders? This is seriously the most gnarly rain I've seen in ages, and I'm actually outside, on the patio enjoying it as I type this on the Blackberry.

Love the smell of fresh rain, the nice breeze and the soothing sound of falling rain broken by the occasional thunder. I'm not looking forward to the flooded streets and the traffic jams that comes with a rain of this magnitude though. However, right now I'm savoring it. I'm sure it'll get old eventually, especially if I'm caught outside in a rain like this, for for now, I'm enjoying it.

Ahh, the simple things in life. Yes, I know, I'm weird.

It's true, there's no WalMart in Indonesia, there are however, a French version of WalMart called Carrefour. According to my dad, Walmart tried to open here but got beaten back by Carrefour and Makro (an exact copy of CostCo) and a bunch of others Indonesian chains. One thing I noticed in Carrefour is that 99% of the female employees wear too damn much make up! I mean they look like frickin clowns! Their faces aren't tanned anymore, they're white and red. WTF? I guess it must be the common thing. And another difference is that there are TONS of employees that are willing to help you out or hinder your shopping progress by offering too many damn things at once, lol.

I also went to Ace Hardware, yes, there's one here. I haven't seen Home Depot yet though. The Indonesian version of Ace is more like Bed Bath and Beyond, they sell everything, even bicycles! I think they have their own brand of stuff, called Kris or Krisbow or a variation of that name. Most of the products bear the Kris / Krisbow name. Saw a foldable bicycle there for around $50, that would've been useful when I was taking the Metrolink back in CA.

Also went to the Makro market, it's pretty much an exact copy of Costco, down to the layout. I do see a heck of a lot more fruits and fish though.

One major difference though between buying stuff here and in the States, you have to try all electronics you buy, including light bulbs, before you buy them. In the States, if you walk in to WalMart, you get a light bulb and proceed straight to the cashier, take it home and know that it will work 99.99% of the time. Here, the employee will take the bulb out of the packaging, test it in front of you to make sure it lights up then repackage it and give it to you. They have testing stations near the exit of Makro for pretty much all electronics, including TVs, they actually have an indoor antenna set up so you can hook up said TV and test it out, and they have phone jacks to try out phones.

I also noticed that the customer service here is a little lacking. I may be biased since I was trained by the "leader" of customer service, the Walt Disney company. I keep seeing employees sleeping on the job, talking on their cell phones even when customers are waiting, talking to other employees about personal stuff while helping customers, etc. Those are just the blatant stuff, there's also leaning on a post or table while waiting on a customer (that's a Disney no-no). Like I said, I may be biased.

Got hit by a real torrential downpour while I was visiting my grandma from my dad's side. The heavens literally opened up and poured down like crazy. And while we were driving home, we literally passed a line where the rain hasn't started yet, it was weird, like looking at a wall of water from the sky. It was cool too and scary at the same time since flooding is a very common occurrence during rain like that.

Ok, enough rantings for today, it's dinner time!

Got one of those yesterday, right after a nice sized rain, so the heat was still pretty bad and the humidity was almost 100%. I was sweating just sitting around by the patio door.

This rolling blackout thing is getting old, 2-8 hours a day. The only refuge is the local mall and they get really crowded since everyone have the same idea.

I still can't make sense of the cell phone plans here, but one of my mom's friend's son helped me out by getting me a pre-paid number, so now I have a number but no minutes, lol. I will try to refill the minutes later today. Here's hoping there aren't anymore rolling blackouts.

I thought I was free and clear of the stomach issue that everyone's talking about when you first get here. Turns out mine is just a bit delayed, got them starting yesterday. It's no fun I tell you but I guess it's a necessary process of adjustment.

Oh, here's a little tidbits that none of you may want to read, lol. The public restrooms have no toilet paper! Instead, they have a bucket full of water and a small pail. I shall leave it to your imagination on how to use those items to clean after yourself. If you go to a westernized hotel, they do have them, but shopping malls, banquet halls, etc, will most likely not have TP.

With that, I shall end today's posting.

Went to an Indonesian wedding yesterday, my friend from high school. I wasn't exactly invited since he didn't know I was back but a couple of friends who were invited asked me to tag along to the church service and I figured, since there's no food being served at the church service, I should be ok to attend. I saw a bunch of old friends there, some still remembered me and some didn't but the groom did and promptly invited me on the spot to the reception being held later that evening.

After the service, we all went to eat noodles called "lomie." Man it was good, I forgot how many variety of great, cheap, foods there are here.

The dinner reception is more of a "buffet" style with plenty of food stands serving individual food choices, the ones available last night were: Chicken Satay, Bandung Shumai, Betawi Stew and ice cream (es puter or translated as "spinned ice") and my favorite dish of the night, spit-roasted goat! There are also a table for chinese style main courses and desserts.

Despite all the foods I've eaten here, I've lost roughly 2 lbs since I arrived, pretty soon, I'll be rail thin again like my friends and will be able to better blend in, lol. It's pretty much the common theme of the night when someone I knew saw me for the first time "Omg! You gained weight!" lol! The average weight for my friends here are about 65 kg, which is roughly 143 lbs. I'm about 80 kg (176 lbs), so to them, I'm huge. But I'm also way taller than all of my friends, so that kind of helps, lol.

The goal this week is to find me a cell phone service, I'm leaning more towards a blackberry now instead of using my iPhone since this way I can still talk to my US based friends through BBM.

A couple of my friends did note that I didn't have any accents when I speak indonesian and I was able to pick it back up almost to where I left off, so that's a good thing I guess. No major stomach upsets either, so that's also a good thing. Haven't really missed the States yet, but it still seems like a vacation to me instead of a permanent move, so it may hit later. Traffic is still really intimidating to me, most of my friends who left and came back said it'll take about 2-3 months before I get used to the traffic again.

Had my first taste of the fruit called Salak this morning. I forgot how good they were and how I used to love them. That's another thing I love it here, the abundance of fruits.

You know it's bad when my dad who's used to driving here in Jakarta said "nuts!" as he was driving and had to avoid a motorcyclist or another car. Suffice to say, my life flashed before my eyes many times, lol.

Went to the "Manga Dua" (translation: two mangoes) market, it's not your typical market, it's HUGE! They have clothing section, stationery section, and my favorite part of all, the electronics / PC section. It's one of those "anything you want, you can find there" market. You can literally find anything there. My dad and I went to try to find me a new monitor and the first thing that I saw when I got to the electronics section were the DVDs and PC games for sale there. They have movies that are still playing in the theater in the States on DVD and walls and walls of PC games and programs, it's jaw dropping. They have stores after stores selling laptops, custom made PCs, printers, etc. I was like a kid in a candy store, but it was also sensory overload. You have to haggle for everything here, even a pair of shorts. That part I still remembered. This place is also very crowded, definitely not recommended for claustrophobic people (I think I'm sensing a trend here).

One thing I love here is how cheap the food is. Meal for 4 ended up roughly under $15 total. That's complete with appetizers and drinks.

I did go home empty handed since I couldn't haggle a decent enough price for the monitor and wifi router but that'll give me an excuse to go back there and buy them, as well as a few games and movies to try out. Purely for research purposes ;)

Got in touch with a couple of my high school friends and had a long talk. Man it's good to hear from them again. It's weird how friendships just resume from where they left off. I thought it would be weird reconnecting with them but I didn't have any of that awkwardness. One of them will be picking me up tomorrow for another friend's wedding ceremony tomorrow am. I'm looking forward to that, I'm sure I will run into more high school friends there. Yes, I intend to crash the wedding but in my defense, it's not the reception, only the church service, so I think that'll be ok.

As I'm typing this, my mom has "casually" mentioned of a girl that I should meet. I was wondering how long she can hold off from doing that, apparently, 4 days is the max, lol! I don't even have a job yet and she wants me to meet women. I wonder how the conversation will go? "Hello, I'm an unemployed 'refugee' from the States. Oh, did I mention I can't drive yet? That means you get to pick me up and drive me around." Lol! Yeah, that'll go over well.

I learned something new today in terms of paying for stuff, in this case the Internet service at my parents' place. There's no such thing as "online payment" so my dad and I had to go to the payment center to pay for his DSL service. I'm used to lines and somewhat of an illusion of efficiency and order and this was completely weird. There were 2 guys working the payment desk but only 1 is actually talking to customers, the other one just sat there. After about 20 minutes of waiting in the "waiting area" the employees stood up and announced that their network is down and they can't process payments. The good thing is, most of the people left and I guess soon after, their internet is back so we were able to pay for the internet.

Here's the major difference with the system here. They have promotion where you pay half price for the internet service for 4 months but the promotion expires at the end of December. And the weird thing is, if my you sign up today and got the promotion rate for 4 months, you won't actually get it for 4 months, only til the end of the promotion period, so you'll get it for 2 months. If you sign up in December, you only get it for that month. Weird!!

Then my dad took me to the IT expo that's being held in the convention center here and it was so different than what I'm used to in the states. Companies were selling stuff here and people were constantly bringing in merchandise that was just stacked out by the entrance, laptops galore! There were a lot of familiar companies, like Dell, HP, Asus, Acer but also tons more that I've never heard before. There were a hell of a lot more people trying to shove the literature and price lists in your hands, it was a mad house. The number of people attending was also a surprise, definitely not recommended for claustrophobic people.

Was looking to buy a monitor and a wifi router but had to bail out early since my Dad took me to eat at one of those alley / roadside food vendors. While the food was excellent (I had goat fried rice), my stomach was ill prepared for the onslaught of new bacterias and promptly rebelled, lol. So we rushed home, well, I wouldn't say rushed, more like crawled in horrendous traffic, lol. Took us an hour to get home but I made it without incident.

Here's what I learned about driving in Jakarta: Only look forward, the vehicles who's ahead has the right of way, lol. Let the other vehicles and pedestrians watch out for you, lol. If you want to get anywhere, you need to be aggressive and cut people off, otherwise you ain't moving. Get as close to the car in front of you as possible, if you leave even a tiny bit of space extra, someone will cut you off and take that space. Horn is an essential tool, use it liberally, especially at intersections. Working traffic lights at intersections actually make traffic jams worse, most of the traffic lights were either ignored or non-functional. Honk your horns. Watch out for public transportation in the fast lane, sometimes people would actually get off in the middle of the damn lanes. Motorcycles will go 90 degrees to traffic or completely the opposite direction and that's completely normal. Oh, did I mention use your horn? Lol.

I'm still trying to understand how the cell-phone plans here work, I think most are pre-paid only and there are TONS of providers but there are no explanations on how the plan actually works, how much per minute, how many text messages you get, or if there's data plan included. It's weird!

Right now it's pouring rain, out of the blue. There were no signs of rain earlier during the day, at least not that I'm used to seeing. Suddenly, there were thunder and a downpour of rain followed shortly thereafter. I forgot how I love the smell of rain. I think I shall go out there and play in it for a bit.

Did my first mall trip today with my dad, went to the Orchid mall. Supposedly it's not one of the newer malls but it's pretty damn big and since it has a hotel in it, security was there. They had my dad stop his car and open the trunk to check.

They had a tuned car show on the lobby of the hotel, a bunch of Honda Jazz (or Fit for US folks), that were tuned up with racing stickers, sound system, crazy engines, etc. Pretty cool. That mall also has a fitness center and a frickin ice rink!

I didn't really buy anything there, just went to see prices and try to find me a new cell phone provider, but so far all the stores sell unlocked phones but no providers. I also looked at what kind of tech stuff are available, so far, pretty much everything is available. I keep having to convert every prices to dollars just so I can kind of get an idea if an item is cheap or not, lol.

Another thing I'm starting to do is feel self-conscious about my weight. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not obese by any standard but I feel like it. 99% of the people I see here are THIN! Like almost rail thin! I gotta get back up to standards again, lol.

Deposited some cash in my bank account that I've had for 13 years and got me a new ATM card, lol. Went to lunch at GM noodles, they were good and cheap! My dad and I spent $5 total for the both of us, that's pretty much unheard of in the States.

I still can't seem to get used to the traffic here, it's REALLY chaotic. The surprising fact is that I didn't see any traffic accidents at all, even with the chaotic traffic. The internet is crappy today, kept going down after about 15-20 minutes, but it seems to have stabilized now.

For some reason, I can't seem to watch TV here, the programming just seems really weird to me, not to mention the language, lol. I keep wanting to find US shows that I'm familiar with but no one seems to be playing them. The big thing going on in the TV nowadays is the release or leak of some wiretap recording of a couple of government bigwigs. Something about the guy is recorded of making some backroom deals or something.

Lessons learned today: Food are cheap (compared to US standards), TONS of unlocked cell phones for sale and xbox games are $3.50 each (copied of course).

Tomorrow my dad is taking me to Indocomtech show, IT show that's currently going on in Jakarta Convention Center. It'll be a good chance for me to check out what's available out here in the IT world. My mom also mentioned that one of my old friend actually invited me to a wedding this weekend, sadly, I can't remember if I know the groom or the bride, lol!

After roughly 21 hours of flying time, 3 hours of transit in Taipei, 3 hours of sleep, I finally made it to Jakarta.

It was hard leaving LA but boss kindly let me keep my office blackberry and had the international roaming activated, so I was able to keep in touch with my Sis and my friends throughout the trip.

All the bags made it ok and the lady at the check-in counter only charged me for 1 extra bag fee, no overweight charges fees, she was cool.

The meals on the LAX - Taipei flight were awesome, sadly, my craptacular digestive system was acting up due to the cabin pressure and seating position, so I didn't enjoy the meals as much as I should. First meal was pork and rice, chinese style, really good, and then porridge for breakfast, also excellent. Had a great seating companion, his name is Misha, from San Diego, he's heading to Bali for a 2 week surfing trip. Real nice guy, fun to talk to. Hope you have fun Misha!! Also on the flight were a LOT of LDS missionaries going to various Asian countries, like Philippines and Malaysia, nice bunch of people when they're not trying to convert you (there goes my few LDS readers, no offense meant). Watched a bunch of movies on the plane, like UP, The Ugly Truth, GI Joe since I couldn't sleep, I think out of that 20+ hours flight, I only managed to get about 3-4 hours of sleep.

Had noodle soup with chicken and mushroom in Taipei airport, it was good. As soon as I sat down at the restaurant and just got my food, I got a support call from Stateside, I just got off the plane halfway round the world and I get a support call, go figure!

Said my good byes to Misha since he's heading straight to Bali and I boarded my plane to Jakarta. The food on this leg of the flight wasn't as good as the previous leg. 5 hours later, I arrived. As soon as I got off the plane, the heat and humidity hit me. My mom arranged for someone to pick me up right off the gate, and he was there. He breezed me through immigration and customs without any fuzz, questions or hassles and off I go.

The first thing I noticed was how chaotic the traffic is. I was in the passenger seat and I literally cringed, jumped, startled and did numerous double takes to what the other vehicles around our car was doing. Traffic was horrendous and it wasn't even near rush hour. Cars were driving on the shoulder, coming real close to hitting your car to the point that you can reach out and touch the other car without even having to extend your arm too much out the window, and motorcycles going the wrong way and not think twice about it. Cars coming out of the intersections without even stopping. It's going to take me a while to drive here, if I was driving then, I wouldn't move an inch, it was that scary. Some of the streets are crazy narrow too, with no dividing lines and yet it's a 2-way traffic.



Did I mention it's HOT and HUMID here? Took me all of 5 minutes to be out of the shower and literally soaked my shirt in sweat.

I also figured out where my pack-rat tendencies comes from, my dad! My parents house is full of crap, he doesn't throw anything away! I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, lol.

Ok, I'm gonna change shirt for the 3rd time since I got here and sample some long forgotten Indonesian snacks.