Trip to Beijing, China

Last week, I took a business trip to Beijing, China.  The original plan was to bring Julia and the kids, but plans changed when Julia couldn't get a visa (as previously mentioned).  Luckily, my visa came though and so went by myself to the training course. 

My initial impressions:

You have to be careful as the locals like to charge high prices to foreigners.  Sometimes you can negotiate down, but other times not.  I did however, meet many nice people and enjoyed the efficiency of Chinese society.

Public transportation was pretty extensive and traffic wasn't an issue during my stay.  The roads are big and the buildings are spread out in the city, which I didn't expect in an asian city. However, smog was really bad. It made Jakarta air quality look great and that is no compliment. Apparently, they made temporary changes back in 2008 to clean up the air for the Olympics, but unfortunantly, that didn't last long.  The Bird's Nest stadium above was built for the Olympics and now is barely visible as you walk by.  You can feel the air as you breath... not good.

Many people rode electric bicycles with manual pedals as backup.  This is a novel idea that should be used in other places more.

 

 

I did have a bit of time to see some tourist spots like Tiananman Square and Forbidden City (pictured above).

I also visted the Gread Wall at Mutianyu about an hour outside of Beijing.  The Great Wall was the highlight of the trip and after an hour of hiking one way, I had to turn back as my legs turned to jello.  It got progressively foggier as well, so my friend and I decided to move on after about 2 hours on the wall. 

All in all, it was a memorable trip and it is great to back home in Jakarta.  :)

Gone to America

Julia and the kids left for Texas on Sunday night to spend time with family and friends during the summer break.  They flew Qatar airlines and seem to have had a good trip (well, as good as it gets traveling to the other side of the world with three kids).  ;)

The original plan was for everyone to come to China with me next week, but there was complications getting visas, so we had to scrap that and get new tickets for Julia and the kids.

Anyway, Julia and the kids are excited to spend lots of quality time with our loved ones in Texas, and we feel blessed to be able to spend so much time with them even if it is concentrated to only one part of the year.

More new furniture

Last week, our new bench was delivered.  It was made by a local shop called Batavia 3 that specializes in making custom furniture from old, recycled teak.  The teak often comes from old houses that have been demolished. 

We saw the bench at her shop the first time we stopped by and were intrigued by the rustic look of it.  Apparently it hadn't sold because most buyers want the entire piece completely sanded smooth.  Julia and I like the rustic look of the bench, so we had the shop add some Dayak style carvings (inspired by my Iban headhunter shield that I got from my mission days on Borneo island).  The Dayak style carvings on the upper portion of the bench replaced the previous carvings taken from a old house in Madura island (that we didn't care for).  The result is striking and interesting to look at and is as solid as a rock.  It is also quite confortable to rest on as well.

We also commissioned a coffee table that also will have similar style carvings and character in the wood.  We look forward to it being delivered in August.

New furniture

Julia has been wanting to get some quality Indonesian made furniture even before we arrived in Jakarta. The other day, one of friends in the apartment complex was selling a nice teak piece that Julia really liked so we bought it and had our cleaning guy bring it over to our place. It is solid "old teak" and is quite heavy. We are quite pleased with the quality and style of it as well.

Now we'll have to figure out how to get and any other pieces we acquire back to the USA. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Doss

Thoughts on food storage and preparedness

I was raised in a LDS home that valued self-reliance and preparedness.  I have many childhood memories working with my parents and siblings in the family garden raising our own food.  Now as an adult, I would like to teach these values and skill sets to my own children and also be as prepared as we reasonable can be. 

Back when we lived stateside, we had a small (mostly defunct) garden in raised beds and a couple months worth of food and water.  It was a good start, but we never did reach the ideal goal of a year supply due to a variety of reasons, the main one being that we frequently moved with my job. 

Now that we live overseas, it is even more challenging.  As I talk with other expats, I have come to realize that we all feel a bit vulnerable knowing that we don't have our family network nearby to rely on in an emergency.  Luckily, we have made many friends here in Jakarta and are actively involved in the Mormon church here which makes a great network for us.  The catch is that few expats stay around for much more than 2-3 years, so the network is always changing.  Also, I have not found a place to buy supplies for long-term food storage in Jakarta.  Even so, I think it is prudent to have a plan for preparing for possible emergencies.

We currently have a couple weeks worth of food, water, and butane for a small, portable cooking burner.  We also have the other basics like 72 hour kit, flashlights, batteries, hand tools, 5 gallon gas can, a small tent, etc.  I think a reasonable goal is to work up to having a 3 month supply of food.  We can always eat it down before we leave.  We are also planning to increase the number of edible potted plants on our balconies.  We also considering staging long-term food storage (shelf life >25 years) at family members' houses back in Texas so that they can use it if needed, and we can also pick it up when we return.

Any more than 3 months of food is likely just going to be given away when we leave and never used under any reasonable scenario.  It would allow us to ride out the most likely emergency situations like significant storms, flooding, earthquake, volcanic eruption, power/water outages, and even short-term civil unrest.  If things get worse than this, the company should evacuate us to a safe place.  Also, if I was laid off, the company policy is to pay for my family and myself to get back to our home location and we would then get our stored food storage.

If we encounter an end of the world situation, well then, all bets are off.  Obviously, we would not be able to count on hopping on a plane or boat to get back home.  And traveling from Indonesia back to Texas without modern transportation is a bit beyond my current skill set.  In reality, I am not sure I'd want to be one of the "lucky" ones to survive the initial crisis.  As has been popularized by so many recent movies and other media about the end of the world, it wouldn't be a fun time anyway. 

Although, finding a deserted island to live on does have some appeal (I thoughly enjoyed reason Robinson Crusoe).  After all, Indonesia has ~18,000 islands and only 1/3 are populated...

Indonesian wedding reception

Last night, we attended a wedding reception for one of my co-workers.  The event was held at a large hall purpose built for holding gatherings like this one.  There were literally hundreds of guests in attendance and abundant food located a different locations around the venue.  We stayed for about an hour until it started to get too hot and the kids started getting too tired.  It was nice to be invited and socialize a bit with some of my co-workers.

The couple are from west Sumatra near Padang and are wearing traditional dress.  I didn't take the picture below, but one of my other co-workers did.

Camping

Joseph and I went camping last night on a father and sons' campout with friends from church.  We went to the same place as last year, but got a different campsite.  The road to the campsite was significantly rougher to get to the new site.  My friend's mini-van had trouble climbing the loose rock trail, but the Kijang climbed like a champ.  We had a great time and headed back to Jakarta mid-morning.