The Sakura Lounge in the Tokyo Narita airport has the coolest machine! You take a glass and put it on a stand. Press the magic button and it tilts the glass, gently pours in a half glass of beer, tilts the glass back to the original position and fills the glass to about 3/4 full. Then the stand shifts the glass and positions it beneath another nozzle where it adds a bit of head to it. Once it has filled the glass, it again shifts it into position for you to remove the glass and enjoy the frosty beverage. I think I will go try to find a make and model number!

You may be wondering what the hell I am doing in Japan. It is just a layover on what is yet another trip to Indonesia. It will be much like my previous trips except this time I get 1 full day in Bali before heading off to the job site. More fresh seafood, cheap DVDs, etc…

I will try to do a few updates while I am over on this site of the world, so stay tuned…

I will be home and ready for celebration just in time for Tasha’s graduation.

Congrats babe!

- peeps

Well, in case you weren’t aware from the previous couple posts, I went to Indonesia again for work for what was supposed to be 2 weeks on site. I won’t re-hash the issues with the flights; you can read it below….

Other than getting in a round of golf the first Sunday I was in Soroako, the rest of the time there was pretty uneventful. I have highlighted the exciting events below:

My co-worker that I was traveling with had scheduled his arranged marriage to coincide with our trip, so I got to go to an Indonesian wedding reception. He had kept it quite around the office and I didn’t even find out until we were in Bali. Quite a surprise! All I can say is I am glad our wedding decorations were not selected by an Indonesian Basically, they line a walkway with all the family members, have the wedding party up on a stage decorated with bright colors and other decor, with food lining the exit aisle. So you have this huge receiving line with local food at the end. I guess if you know all the people there you might work up an appetite by the time you get to the end of the line. I didn’t stick around for the dancing, but he said that it went on for a few hours. I think he even left before the dancing ended….Now he gets to deal with all the Visa requirements to get her back to the US.

I think because its life would be short with any decision it makes and no decision is a realy good one….on the same side, the other side, or while crossing. I think during the 9 hour drive from Soroako to Kolaka last sunday, my driver almost hit about 10 chickens while passing through the villages. And then maybe 3-5 on the 3 hour drive from Kolaka to Kendari last night. So that covers the middle of the road. Now on either side, the chicken must know that one of the locals will be snatching it up soon for dinner, so it better not hang out too long. I think just constantly crossing the road makes the chicken feel that its life will be longer by avoiding being eaten. That is if it can avoid the cars….

Sometimes it is scary to see the chickens pecking at scraps and whatever it can find to eat on the side of the roads or the fields….especially after you were just next door having chicken for lunch. Perhaps the chicken I ate was running around trying to get run over the day before Oh well! It was all pretty tasty and I didn’t get sick.

Finally back in civilization (Jakarta Airport) and headed towards home after departing home on January 30th and adding an extra week to my trip to visit another client on the same island.

More to come when I have time to jot it all down….and tons of pictures.

- peeps

So after hanging out in the Hong Kong airport for a bit the other day, I headed to the gate and got on the plane. I thought it was strange that I had the same seat assignment as the previous plane. Turns out it was the same plane that I had deboarded hours earlier…the same one with the video problems. About 30 minutes into the flight, the video system wigged out on everyone this time, not just me. They finally got it working though and I got to watch the Robin Williams movie Man of the Year…

I’m not sure what it is, but I always find something that really annoys me on a flight…mostly stuff that other passengers do. One lady on the flight to Bali decided that she wanted to play with playdough during the flight to help her arthritis. I never really realized how the smell of playdough can get to you, but when you are in a confined space, it can be overpowering.

Bali was pretty nice. Hotel was good, city was filled with all sorts of shops. Bought 15 DVDs for ~$15. We ate at a market on the beach where you pick out your raw seafood by the kg for them to grill. I had a kg (2.2 lb) of grilled squid that was excellent. In the morning we flew out to Makassar. While there, in order to get the new temporary work permit, we had to fill out a ton of paperwork and get fingerprinted 4 times. I told Tasha that I thought we had less to do to get out concealed carry permit in Texas! After all that was done, we had to board the plane to Soroako. It is a small plane that probalby seats 30-40 people and it is not setup for tall people. My knees were pressed into the back of the seat in front of me for the whole 1.5 hours. As we approached Soroako, we got into some heavy rain. We even lined up with the runway, but the pilot decided the weather was too bad to land and we were headed back to Makassar…another 1.5 hours with my knees drilled into the seat! Ughhh!!

So ended up that we spent an evening in Makassar at a swanky hotel near the beach. Rooms were nice, had a nice steakhouse that ws just a pricey as some nice placecs in North America. We had to leave the hotel @ 4 am, so we didn’t get to spend too much time checking out the big city of Makassar. We finally made it into Soroako about 7:30 am on Saturday…a day later than we anticipated. Oh well, I don’t think I will miss one less night in Soroako.

I got checked into the dorms and this room is much nicer than the house I was in last time. Maybe I can catch a replay of the Superbowl on the 13″ TV here in my room….

That is all for now….

- peeps

Well, here in Hong Kong now. This trip was much better than my last flight to Hong Kong. If you recall, my in seat movies and music did not work for the duration of the 14 hour flight plus our flight left 4 hours late and missed our connecting flight. Well, this time looked to be more of the same, as halfway through Invincible (the cheesy Marky Mark feel-good movie), my movie froze up. It continued to fail after rebooting the system a couple times. Luckily business class had a bunch of empty seats, so I just moved across the way to another seat for the rest of the flight and all was good! Three more flights to go until I get to Soroako, plus a stayover in Bali tonight. I should get to see some of Bali this time, as long as there are no flight delays.

I will be in Soroako for 2 weeks and make the same trip back to the States, just in reverse…except we go through Jakarta instead of Bali and the stayover is in Hong Hong and Los Angeles instead of Vancouver…so maybe it isn’t the same trip back .

More to come later….

- peeps