Fishing at Pasir Mukti

Today we went fishing at Pasir Mukti with another family from our church.  We ended up catching 5 or 6 fish after a couple of hours.  We caught several carp and a bawal hitam.  Then we had them cooked up at the onsite restaurant.  A great way to spend a saturday morning!

 

 

 

 

p.s.  As you can see, Julia is not in the pictures as she was taking them.  I need to be better about grabbing the camera from her and taking shots with her in it.  :)

 

 

SIS Family Day at Taman Mini

My employeer had a family day at Taman Mini this last weekend.  We had a fun and full day.  Here are some of the highlights:



As we arrived at Taman Mini, there was a gathering of Bob Marley loving, dread-lock wearing, Indonesians that raced stretched and lowered Vespas.  Gotta love their ability to make a functioning (sorta) moped out of scrap metal.  :)

Once inside, we made our way to the Oil and Gas Museum where the activities included, a tour, batik making, games, and food.  We even won some movie tickets as door prizes. 

 

One the back side of the museum, there was a 1940's wireline truck that my company donated after retiring the truck in 1992.  I thought it was pretty neat.

 

 

We finished the trip by a walk around one of the bird parks.  The kids took pictures with the birds and we saw lots of cool Indonesian birds like this hornbill.  We have been to Taman Mini twice now, and we have only scratched the surface.  There is nothing "mini" about this place!

 

Blok M Plaza

We went to Blok M Plaza for the first time. It wasn't a super nice mall like many of the malls around Jakarta, but it felt comfortable. It felt like one of the normal malls in the U.S.

We picked up a few things at Matahari. The store seemed well stocked and organized and the prices were very reasonable. I have found Sogo and Metro to be rather pricey.

While we were walking around the mall, we even came across a super cute vintage Honda. I don't know that I have ever seen a convertible Honda in the U.S. My kids all thought it was the cutest thing.

Blok M Plaza also has a Pizza Hut and Burger King, 2 of my kids' favorite places to eat. My son also said he noticed that Hotel Transylvania was playing at the theater. He has been wanting to see that movie. So...I think we will be back to Blok M Plaza sometime.

Rainy Thanksgiving

This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving with a group of friends from church.  However, our friends live in Kemang (a naturally low-lying area), and during our drive over, it was raining, alot.  The rain kept coming and pretty soon, our Kijang was more of a boat than an SUV.  Luckily, we were able to avoid the truly deep water as we saw people in waste-deep water wading across the road.  It took 2.5 hours to arrive, but at least we made it!  Luckily, the water quickly drained away and we had an uneventful ride home after a great evening with good friends and stuffing ourselves with turkey, yams, and pie.  Mmmm, pie....

2014 Ford Transit Connect

Ford just announced a new fuel efficient family hauler: the 2014 Ford Transit Connect.  This is exciting as it will be available as a 7 passenger van that should get 30+ mpg with the EcoBoost motor.  I must admit that I've always liked the quirky styling of the current Transit Connect and am pleased that the new version will have a similar feel. 

I think my wife will like driving it as it would be similar in size to our 2008 Mazda 5, which is much smaller than "mini"vans and SUVs.  I grew up driving full size trucks, but I certainly don't like trying to park them.  Also the sticker price and fuel cost for the larger vehicles is a pretty strong deterent for our family.

Too bad the new Ford won't be sold with a manual transmission, but I shouldn't be surprised as most Americans can't (or don't like to) drive stick shift.  All of our current vehicles have 5 speeds, but that will likely change in the future as our car needs to be larger, and I am not aware of a 7+ seater that offers a manual tranny.

We really are pleased with our Mazda5, but always wished it had an extra seat so we could fit all three kids in the second row.  With all three rows of seat up, there is very little cargo space behind, so we had to invest in a roof rack and bag setup to carry luggage.  This works pretty well, but isn't completely water proof and does take some effort to setup.  Plus the car is already 4+ years old, and we'll likely buy something new for reliability for long trips when we return to the US.

Pricing isn't out yet, but if it starts in the low 20's it should sell well.  It won't be out yet for another year, but that's ok.

Hidden Light

Anyone see the red light hidden behind the tree? 

Tall Buildings

The beautiful mosque looks so tiny compared to the towering buildings behind it. 

Fishing

Back in July, my buddy, Edgar, and I went fishing at Pasirmukti.  We caught quite a few bawal hitam and ate a couple of them for lunch at the onsite restaurant.  Good times.

 

 

 

Doss

Duri, Sumatra

Over the last couple of weeks, I have made a couple trips to Sumatra for work.  There are several Chevron camps there, and I took a couple pictures in Duri while I was there.

 

Duri is a small city three hours by car north of Pekanbaru.  It is actually a bit bigger than I expected, but has no traffic.  :)

 

Here is a shot from the Chevron camp.  Nice empty roads and everything is well manicured.

 

 

 

 

This the Schlumberger base.  It is basically a metal building with a small office area (surprising nice inside), vehicle shop, and tool repair shop with company trucks parked all around.  There is also a small cantina serving Indonesian food for lunch. 

 

I found it interesting how some of the trucks are clearly marked with the company name and others aren't.  Also the last truck here says Sugarland, Texas on the door.  I assume that is where the truck was modified before being sent to Indonesia.  The truck is a 6x6 Peterbilt that appears to have a large pump on the back.  Maybe it used for frac jobs or some other field activities. 

 

I have to admit that since I work in the office, I don't know my field trucks too well.  I haven't done field work since my previous job with an environmental consulting company, but we didn't even get 4x4 trucks; much less something cool like a wireline truck or the other high tech tools the field engineers use. 

 

I did get to go to the field while they were drilling and to a frac job once a couple years ago, as an observer.  I actually got to wear the blue Nomex coveralls that the company gave me when I first hired.  Not sure why they gave them to me as I support software...  Maybe I'll get to relocate to a remote location like this where field trucks are a normal site in the parking lot.  Then I'll have a field engineer or FSM (field service manager) explain all the trucks to me.  ;)

 

Doss

 

 

No Traffic

I know I am always complaining about the traffic in Jakarta.  It really is that bad.  Well, there are a couple of weeks out of the year where traffic is actually non-existent to quite tolerable.  It’s during the week of Idul Fitri and the 2 or 3 weeks after that.  I love this time of year.  It doesn’t feel so claustrophobic.

Amazing!  No Traffic! And this is on one of the major roads!

The last few weeks, it has taken me between 10 and 15 minutes max to visit my friends in Kemang and Pondok Indah.  Normally it takes me at least 30 minutes to an hour or more to get to the same places in the mornings.  Then it takes 45 minutes to over an hour to get back home again. I love this time of year when 7 million people exit Jakarta for “Mudik.”  I think it is the largest exodus in the world, or so I’ve heard.

This is how it looked today when coming back from the SOS clinic in Kuningan.  It’s still not that bad, and it is about 2 weeks after Idul Fitri.  Normally there would not be empty spaces between cars at this time of day (between 5 and 6 pm).


I can’t say that I am excited about things slowly returning to their usual state.  These last few weeks have been great!  Below are some of the normal views I have from my car window…lots of traffic!

Lombok and Gili Meno, Indonesia

I decided to take a weekend trip to Lombok and Gili Meno.  I flew into Lombok very early Saturday morning (due to Lion Air's delays, as usual) and crashed at the Puri Saron Hotel.

After checking out the beach, I chartered a boat to go from the hotel's beach to a tiny island called Gili Meno.

I was amazed by the water color at Gili Meno.

I stayed at the Adeng-Adeng bungalows which was fantastically rustic and had A/C although the breeze would have have kept any place very comfortable.  The food was great and the atmosphere was uber-relaxed. 

I chilled by the beach watching the sun set over Gili Trawangan and Bali.  Only two people passed by me for the hour I sat there.  I eased back to the bungalows and spent the evening chatting with the Swedish owner, Anders after having some delicious grilled fish.

Then, the next day, I spent part of the morning snorkeling in the reef near the bungalows.  I saw lots of coral and small colorful fish.  I was hoping to see some sea turtles as they are quite common, but no luck this time.  After lunch, I chartered another boat back to Lombok.  The waves were bigger but the big wooden boat handled the white caps pretty well.

I had a fantastic time and had a pretty smooth trip all things considered.  I definitely would love to come back and further explore Lombok.

Yogyakarta and surrounding temples

I had the opportunity to take a training course for work in Yogyakarta this last week.  I stayed at the Sheraton hotel which had large rooms and amazing grounds.  The hotel had an unusual arrangement of having the lobby on the top floor, but it did make for scenic views.

This structure seems more Central American than Indonesian, but its still impressive.

I decided to fly out on Saturday evening so I could explore some the area's famous sights.  I opted to do an 8 hour tour starting at 3:30 am so I could see the sun rise over the world's largest Buddhist monument called Borobudur and then explore the world's tallest Hindu temple called Prambanan.

I had a driver from the hotel send me over to the sites and paid about $25 USD to get into Borobudur (It is over $30 if you are a foreigner without a work permit).  The sun rise was quite scenic and you can see the volcano Merapi in the distance which blew last in 2010.  Luckily, only about 20 people got their early enough to the see the sun rise.  It was really neat to experience the quiet of the early morning in such an old structure.  But after 7:00 am, the tour buses started rolling in... and I left.  :)

I headed back to Yogya and saw some Hindu temples.

Prambanan temple was pretty busy when I went, so I had a tour guide tell me all about it instead of just exploring on my own.  At $8 for an english speaking guide and $3 entrance fee (with KITAS), it was definitely worthwhile.

This is Sewu Temple which was nearby Prambanan, but saw very little traffic and didn't cost anything once you paid to see Prambanan.  I did splurge to rent a bicycle for $1 as the other temples are on the other side of the complex.

The Hindu temples in particular still needed a lot of work to finish them as earthquakes and scavengers have taken their toll over the last 1000+ years.

Overall, I had an amazing tour and was even lucky enough to catch an earlier flight back to Jakarta.  What a full day!