Friday, October 31, 2008

Rickshaw Idol

I absolutely love this story... having been pushed and pedaled by many a rickshaw peddlers/drivers, I love that they are getting so much attention and the chance to do something that they love! What a beautiful story :)


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7699861.stm

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Various Views

View of my room
View from my room
My usual view of Jakarta: from the back seat of a BlueBird Taxi

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Chocolate sprinkles & Rubber time


Funny things about Jakarta...

-The chocolate sprinkle section in the supermarket can only be compared in size, volume and variety to the cereal aisle in the US... for those of you who don't know what that is like, think of the most overwhelming selection of your favorite supermarket product, be it pasta or fruit or shampoo then stick mirrors on both ends... yeah, they like their chocolate sprinkles... I think it is the only thing they got from the Dutch.

-"Chocolat" is the word for brown in Bahasa Indonesian... that must get confusing when you want white chocolate :)

- The minimum wage is 800,000 Rupiah per month. Today that is $84. But this town aint cheap so I don't know how that is done?

- 'Rubber time' or 'Jam Karet' in Bahasa... yeah, sounds like hammer time, but in fact it is how they describe time's stretchiness... I'll be there at 7-ish...boing! 9:30 boing... traffic jam, boing ... 10 see you at 10... Rubber time! And it just so happens that the part of the city that I live in is called "Karet"... yes, I live in Rubber... da na na na...can't touch this... Rubber time!