Jakarta, Day 5, I think

September 30. Well, finally got my first cell phone today, and it's cheap as heck to do Short Message Service (roughly 6 cents anywhere in the world). So,if you can receive SMS, give me your number and I may surprise you one day soon...

I'm sitting in a wireless cafe across the street from my hotel Tuesday evening (Tuesday AM, about sunrise, where most of you are). It's very nice,very Asian, lots of red, plush furniture, strange still unrecognizable sounds coming out of people's mouths, tall leafy plants I don't remember seeing before all over the place. The pool table in another section of the room and the sound system playing modern jazz, blending with the dimmed lighting make this a familiar, living-roomish kind of place. Very comfortable. And the food is great, and would be even better were it not for the expected mild bout of Traveller's You-Know-What that arrived early this morning. Oh well, it's not much of a bother, really.

Went out looking for apartments this AM with a very friendly employee of the Indonesian side of this still-evolving joint venture. The neighborhood I'm in now, in fact the corner my hotel and this cafe is on, is supposedly the best in town for a single ex-pat: lots of greatfood, several of the bars and shops I'd read about before coming over within walking distance, safe streets due to all the businesses open long hours to cater to foreigners, a huge international foods supermarket right next to this cafe and the big English bookstore next door to the hotel. But walking here is truly unpleasant because of the mind-boggling traffic flow on this particular narrow street, and the constant hideous fumes. It's only good to be inside here...

There's a pretty nice ex-pat apartment complex two blocks from here that offered me a good deal, but we went driving into a couple ofother areas, and I discovered that there are parts of Jakarta that are cool in the morning, have *nearly* fresh air, and are only a little more expensive than the area I'm currently in and a buck or two further from my University by cab. So this evening I'm leaning towards a two-bedroom apartment in a gigantic gated community that has a nice pool and adequate fitness center and tons and tons of trees (oxygen) with virtually no traffic. Probably have to hire a maid, who will probably have to live in, but she'll shop, cook and clean and live a very easy life as I don't require much maintenance.

As for the people in general -- they remain nearly all very warm andbubbly, whether with each other or me, and whether they have a car and driver or make their living collecting rp. 100 (1 cent) from someone else's driver by blocking traffic so said driver can make a turn (it's the only way here)... I assume at least half the folks I'm looking at are Muslims, and it looks like they're doing fine with the other half of the people I'm looking at...

As for the pic -- I've only taken two so far, and this one was yesterday at the restaurant that probably gave me my unwelcome visitor this AM. The people around me are the joint-venturers, a driver, and a printer. We'd spent the morning finishing up the marketing materials I'd spent the WHOLE weekend reworking (GeorgeMason legal regs. and English language usage...), so they could go off to the printer... Coulda been a nice shot but the waitress taking the photo had never used a digital camera before, and I'm there gesticulating telling her to "hold the button DOWN"... Of course, I got back to my hotel room and read in my "Everyday Indonesian" book "Never point with the index finger, only the thumb..." so who knows what she thinks of me now...The adventure continues. One day I won't wake up at 4:30 after passing out around 10:00... that'll be chapter 2.