The Weedas in Indonesia

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Typos

In 1994 Soccer World Cup, Orlando (where Janet and I lived at the time) hosted a group that included Dutch national team. Orlando vendors were ready for the onslought of Morrocan, Dutch and Belgian fans. Unfortunately, the vendors assumed that the Dutch team would use their national colors (red, white and blue), rather than the national soccer team color of orange. It's good to see that ignorance regarding the World Cup isn't isolated to America (and in this case the manufacturer also needs to learn how to spell Holland).

Dutch hat on display with other World Cup Countries

Our last night on the island Lombok for our holiday, we needed to find a restaurant after the place we had hoped to go to fell through. We ended up at a nice cantina-type restaurant with a full menu. After sitting down to order, we realized this place decided on the phrase below as its motto (the waiters and waitresses wore shirts with the same phrase complete with misspelling). Regardless, the food was still pretty good.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Lombok

The Economist magazine has a fun way to measure Purchasing Power Parity (how much buying power the equivalent of a US dollar has in different currencies). It is called the Big Mac Index and it basically compares the price of a Big Mac at McDonalds’ in different countries. The prices for Big Macs range from $1.90 (Hong Kong) to $7.20 (Norway) in the latest index (http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/?CFID=142952265&CFTOKEN=66843563 ).

Perhaps another interesting indicator using the same restaurant would be the McDonalds availability index. It would measure the number of McDonalds per million people as a way of gauging the assimilation of the country or area into “the world”. For example if New Mexico has 50 McDonalds and 2 million people, it would have a McDonalds availability index of 25 and if Jakarta has 35 McDonalds and 12 Million people, it would have a McDonalds availability index of 2.9.

Lombok, an island adjacent and similar in geography and population to Bali, became our latest tourist destination for 6 days. We were told to “visit it now!” and see it in its traditional state as the Indonesian government has targeted it to be the next Bali and is building a new international airport and has invited in big tourist resort corporations from Dubai etc… to develop large resorts around the island.

Here’s what we currently found in Lombok:

Great mountain waterfalls

friends at a Sasak Village (Sasak is the main tribe of Lombok)

great beaches and snorkling. Exotic sea life spotted included giant turtles, parrot fish, clown fish, flying fish, angel fish and tang fish. Unfortunately I lost my wedding ring (again).

great mountain vistas after a 6 mile trek through the rain forest (only Eric, Neil and I did this). The mountain in the background is Rinjani (around 10,000 feet) and the caldera below contains a huge lake and smaller cinder cone (google Mount Rinjani images for truly amazing pictures).

trash on our Rinjani Trek, which is ironic as Indonesia is hyping Rinjani treking as part of it's eco-tourism development. Apparently they forgot to tell their guides, who throw trash everywhere.

traditional Lombok weaving and clothes. Hope and Janet did this while I was trekking

giant insects

Quite by accident, Janet and Hope also found and ate at the only McDonald’s on Lombok (population 6 million), giving it a current McDonalds availability index of 0.16. I bet that index will be much higher the next time we visit. I just hope the index for all the beautiful traditional things on Lombok remains as high or higher too.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Independence day

This was the image today on Indonesian google http://www.google.co.id/ for Independence day The red and white letters mimic the Indonesian flag, the flowers are orchids and the woman is a balinese dancer. For some reason, I liked it and it gives me a great excuse to write a bit about my day off from school. Not only did we celebrate with a BBQ, but I caught up on work and got to play sports with Neil. Eric skateboarded all day with friends and Hope went swimming with Janet. No fireworks for us tonight though.

Tomorrow at school we have a mandatory flag ceremony (for over one hour) in which Eric and the band will play the national anthem followed by some whole school games. All this makes this week very different.

Friday, August 13, 2010

15 minutes of fame...but maybe that's not such a good thing

Billboard in Lippo Village (photo by Kim White)

Neil is the latest Tropical Weeda to enjoy his time in the limelight. Included are the billboards and presentations he has been included in.

Neil likely has a "kick me" sign taped on his back

Sunday, August 1, 2010

New house and new year

first day of school

Janet Reading (View of Living room from top of stairs)

(Kitchen and Dining room)

Backyard

Living room with view of stairs up to bedrooms

Outside (street view)

Monday, July 19, 2010

By the numbers

By the numbers… Our trip back to Indonesia for year 3.

1- Number of laptop computers brought from America for our first year teaching in Indonesia in 2008.

2- Number of laptop computers brought from America for our second year teaching in Indonesia in 2009 (a new laptop plus an old one which had a accompanied us both ways).

3- Number of laptop computers brought from America for our third year teaching in Indonesia this summer (a new laptop and netbook for Janet, plus an old one which had accompanied us both ways) bringing our total number of laptops in the house to 4. My financial planner hopes this trend doesn’t continue in the future, but as our family depends on computers more for work and school (as well as for a stereo and telephone), two additional new computers makes sense.

4- Number of the worlds oceans (out of 4) seen on our recent trip from Grand Rapids to Jakarta. While this may seem impossible, here is the explanation. Leaving Chicago to Hong Kong, our flight proceeded due north (see abbreviated flight path below) in which we traveled close enough to Hudson Bay (connected to the Atlantic Ocean) to see it. After that, we continued north flying significantly over the Arctic Ocean which was very iced over (see picture). Then as we approached Hong Kong, passed over the Pacific Ocean. Finally, as we swung over Jakarta (West Java), the Indian was close enough to view.

5- Number of jet lagged members of the family. 19 hours of in flight time. It’s now 3 days later and we are still exhausted.

Our flight plan from an IPhone app showing our improbable route over Hudson Bay and Arctic Ocean

Ice sheets over the Arctic Ocean

As cool as our flight path was... it didn't stack up against what Hope discovered in the Singapore airport transfer lounge. Check it out and put it on your Christmas list!