Philippines and Venezuela

Unfortunately, as anyone who knows me would have predicted, I am again back to my normal posting schedule of about once a year. And that, as we all know, is not nearly often enough...but it is what it is, and I can't always change my laziness. So, I just wanted to post a brief update to my adventures since my last post back in January.

Anyway, Since that time I have been around to a few different places. I finished up in Indonesia near the end of January. I was able to take a good couple of weeks off and see all of my friends and family back home. And as always, that was a wonderful time! After that, I went over to the Philippines for just a couple of weeks. It was a really short assignment this time and I didn't get a chance to do too much. We were able to get over to Subik for a night of drinking and enjoyment though! I spent a weekend in Manila before I left and took a tour of the city. The photo here is from a World War II War Cemetery and contains the largest number of graves of fallen Americans from the war. This cemetery was a beautiful memorial to those soldiers and I would recommend a visit to anyone who may be in the area.

After my return from the Philippines, I was fairly quickly shipped down to Venezuela for a second stint in South America. Contrary to what most people think, I am not actually in the southern hemisphere though. I have been down in Venezuela for almost 4 months now and it doesn't look like I will be leaving anytime in the near future. While here, I've only been able to get out and about a couple of times. With the cost of taxis and transportation and the general safety concerns around here, I don't do a whole lot of traveling except with some friends.

I've been able to do some fun things such as going to the beach, an offroad car show and fishing! I've attached a couple of my favorite pictures from when we were fishing. the people in the pictures are my friends David (blue shirt) and Fabian (yellow shirt) from work. All in all, I'm having a decent time down here, but it's really starting to drag on and on. I expect that I will be here until around the middle or end of October once its all said and done. Until then, I'll just keep on trucking and hopefully things will move smoothly.

Please let me know how you are all doing as well. I always love to hear about what's going on in your lives!

Trying to Relax

Welcome back! It's been a little while since I was able to get on here. I hope that you all had a great holiday season and were able to do something fun and exciting for the New Year. Again, I was unfortunate to not have a great time on New Years. This is starting to sound like how I start every post nowdays. Hopefully that will stop soon.

First off, I ended up working somewhat late on New Years Eve. Granted, I was only at the refinery until ~7:00 pm. That may not sound too late, but when you have to come home, eat, shower and then drive 1 hr to get to the nearest bar to celebrate, it turns into a relatively late day at work. Also, I had to get up and go into work in the morning to do some inspections. So, with both of those thoughts, I decided to stay around my hotel and celebrate here. So, I had dinner with my friend Thang, but was back in my room and already in bed and reading by midnight. Exciting, eh?

But that's where the fun ends (because I can tell you were all wishing that you had the same experience on New Years Eve). I ended up waking up at 4:00 am with a bad case of diarrhea and I've been battling problems since then in that area. But I won't get into that here because none of you really want to hear about it (if I am mistaken in this statement, I apologize and whoever it is that is interested, please e-mail me and I can give you all the details...well, I probably won't even then, so just hold your peace). So, I went into work and did the inspections that I needed to do, but called it quits shortly thereafter and came home to rest it off.

I then went into work on both Friday and Saturday, but things were going pretty slowly, so I decided that we deserved a day off. In talking to one of the refinery engineers, he recommended going to this place called Grage Sangkan in Kuningan. Kuningan is ~1 1/2 - 2 hr drive from where we are. So, Thang and I left work a bit early and we had our driver take us up to this new hotel for the night. We got there a bit late and really only had time to eat before calling it an early evening.

But in the morning, the fun commenced again. After breakfast, I decided it was long time since I got a massage. This is needed here in Indonesia because I'm finding it very difficult to just relax. The bed at my hotel really isn't that great and the air conditioning unit blows air right on my face during the night, so I haven't been sleeping extremely well. Then, when we drive to/from work, I can't relax because the roads are bumpy, we always come too close to hitting other vehicles on the road and the driver is always honking his horn to warn everyone that we are passing them. Of course, it's hard to relax at work because I'm working and all. As you can see, I'm finding it difficult to just relax, hence the need for this little getaway.

So, over to the massage area I went and after trying to communicate with the woman at the desk (who spoke very little english), she called over someone else who was able to help me. I decide to get a wonderful hour long massage (for those of you wondering, don't worry, there was no happy ending). My muscles are very tight and always have been. I think it comes from my utter lack of flexibility, or maybe the tightness is what causes the inflexibility...I don't really know. Needless to say, she had a hard time trying to loosen them up a bit, but she did it in the end. However, I do think she may have left me with a few bruises. Now, this hour long massage cost me only ~$14, so you really can't beat that!

But the fun didn't stop there, oh no. I then decided to head over to the spa area in the hotel...yes, this was different than the massage area. When I first got there, I was trying to ask about what kind of treatments they had to see what I might enjoy doing. As luck would have it, I was talking to the same woman I first tried to talk to at the massage place. So, what does she do? That's right, she calls over my friend that gave me the massage because she is apparently the only one of them that speaks english well enough. So, I opt to go for the Aquamedic treatment.

Now this is something else entirely. Actually, it's quite nice and a really interesting idea. So, I will take you on a step by step walkthrough of the entire Aquamedic treatment.

1. You lay down in a plastic "bed" of sorts that has jets of water that shoot up at your back and legs. This is relatively low pressure, or at least was when I was doing it, but it quite relaxing. So much, in fact, that I nearly fell asleep.


2. You then move over to the foot massager. The foot massager is just a high powered jet of water coming straight up from the pool floor. They are nice enough to place a bar to hang on to so that you can keep your balance as the water tries to lift you out of the pool.


3. Next is the lower back massager. This consists of a seat at the side of the pool where there are ~6 jets of water that shoot out at high pressure into your lower back. When I was at this station, they had turned off a few of the other stations and the water pressure was tremendously high. I had to hold on tight to stay where I was!


4. The next step is what I started calling the "gauntlet." Near the side of the pool, they added a short wall ~3 feet or so from the side. This formed a small path for you to slowly creep down. This consisted of 6 different stations. Each station had water jets on both side of you (1 on the main pool wall and the other on the added wall). The first station started to shoot water just above your ankles. Each station afterwards was slightly higher than the previous one so you were able to get the massage at each part of your legs. After spending ~5 minutes at each station, you move on to step 5.


5. Now we move on to the upper back massager. This is one strong jet of water that it aimed at your upper back. Very similar to the lower back, but there was no seat so you can sink low enough to have your upper back in the path of the water jet.


6. Finally, we reach the end where you get to sit under the waterfall. You can see me getting my shoulders massaged by this in the first picture and there is a woman completely submerged in this on the left side of the second picture. This is actually quite good at massaging your shoulders and neck. Quite relaxing in the end.


7. Okay, so I lied, there was really one more step to the whole process. This is of course going over to the little "bar" area and having a cup of coffee or tea (and pay the bill of ~$8 of course). I opted for tea since I really don't like instant coffee and I haven't had anything that isn't instant here in Indonesia so far.

After I finished my Aquamedic treatment, I ran to get my camera so that I could take the pictures that you see here. Then I just sat around the side of the pool and read my book. It really was a great way to relax. As we got closer to the checkout time, I decided to go back to my room to shower and pack. I went to the restaurant and grabbed a quick bite to eat. Just as I was finishing though, they turned the TV on and what did I see? College Basketball! I changed seats and watched the end of the Kansas-Tennesse game. They had a brief update about other games and I got to see that the Badgers won today too. But since ESPN was on, I thought I would wait a bit and see what might come on next. It happened to be the Utah-Alabama Bowl game. Being the college football fan that I am, I decided to sit around and watch the first quarter. It was wonderful to watch football again! After the first quarter though, I thought it was time that we should leave and begin to meander our way back to Indramayu.

So, we found my driver who had been waiting for some time for us and were on our way down to Cirebon to hang out for a bit. The first thing we did was to try and find an ATM that would accept American Express. This is a bit harder to do than it sounds. Well, this wasn't our day to do that, so we're still on a search for that somewhere...not sure where it'll be. But it was still early, so we decided to try and find some touristy things to do. I had an idea of a couple of things to do since I had my Lonely Planet book with me, but I decided to ask the driver if he had any suggestions. I thought that he might know better.

This was an ordeal in and of itself. To do this, the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Are there any touristy things to do in Cirebon?"

Driver: [blank stare]

Me: "Tourist...me" [I point to myself]

Driver: "Yeah Yeah! You tourist. I know" [Nods head vigorously]

Me: "Where?" [Shrug my shoulders to indicate a question]

Driver: "Jakarta, Bali."

Me: "No, here in Cirebon."

Driver: [blank stare]

Me: "Me...tourist...Cirebon...where?"

Driver: "Oh, in Cirebon...?" [I can nown see the wheels turning]

Me: "Yes. Here. Now."

Driver: "Nowhere"

Me: "What? Nowhere?"

Driver: "Yes, nowhere"

Me: "Nothing for tourist in Cirebon? Really?"

Driver: "Yes, nothing"

Okay, so now that I know that the driver doesn't know of any touristy things to do, I rely on the trusty Lonely Planet and decide that we should go to Kraton Kesepuhan. I decide this because it's the first of 4 sites listed in the Lonely Planet book. Kraton Kesepuhan is a palace where the Sultan of Kesepuhan still lives. Don't ask me what the sultan rules over because my answer will most likely be, "Kesepuhan." But of course I have no idea what or exactly where that is. But we went in anyway. We had a couple of tour guides that took us around, even though we didn't ask (or I don't think we did). The most interesting thing in the place was in this really small museum and is pictured there. This is a chariot that has the pictured front to it. Now, this chariot was built in the 1600's sometime and was made to pay tribute to the Hindu's, Chinese and Muslim's, all of which had an influence on the culture of this region. The Hindu's are honored with the trunk of an elephant, the Chinese with the head of the dragon and the Muslim culture with the wings.

After we finished our tour, we headed back into the city for dinner. Now this was what I was really waiting for all day! How can I be so excited for dinner over here, you ask? Well, I'm glad you did. We got to go to Pizza Hut! Now, if you're anything like I was before I started traveling, you're probably thinking, "How could you be so excited about Pizza Hut when you're in the amazingly exotic location with tons of great foods to try?" Well, after being in asian countries for nearly the past year and a half (except for a combined ~2 months), one does not want to eat rice with every single meal and a good pizza hut pizza does the trick to get you back on track. And let me tell you that it was delicious.

After we finished up the pizza, we decided to head back to Indramayu and the hotel and get ready for tomorrow. Yep, it's back to work tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to start moving forward towards startup. After we start up, I should be kept on site for ~1 week before getting released and being able to head home shortly thereafter. I'm really looking forward to that! But, until then, I just have to get by with what I have and try to relax whenever possible. This weekend (even if the weekend was only one day) sure helped me out a lot in that respect.

Merry Christmas from Indonesia!

First of all, I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful Holiday Season and that you are able to spend it with your loved ones. Of course, I am not so lucky this year as I am in Indonesia this year for the holidays.

I know that I should have expected this doing what I do and I keep trying to tell myself that it isn't too big a deal, but that line of thinking is starting to get harder and harder. Especially because this is my nephew Jackson's first Christmas. And it never hit me so hard until lunchtime today.

I was sitting at work, yes you heard that correctly, at work and it was just like any other day. Now, my lunch typically comes in a cardboard box and consists of rice and an assortment of other food. And so they brought in my lunch just like normal and I started eating. I was barely into the meal when it hit me that I was sitting in a refinery in Indonesia eating my Christmas lunch from a box. Of course, I am not technically alone, but I am surrounded by people that I only met 2 1/2 weeks ago. It's not exactly the same as being at home with the family. But this is no time to get down about the state of my job. Instead, I should be telling you all about the great things I've got to see here in Indonesia so far.

So, I got into Indonesia back on Dec. 4. I flew over in the morning from Singapore. The first thing I had to do was to go to the immigration office. Don't worry, I'm not setting up camp here for long, but you have to register when you come into the country. So, someone from the travel agent picked up my passport in the morning and then, in the afternoon, I got picked up to go to the immigration office. I got to sit around for what seemed like 1 hr, but was probably closer to 20-30 minutes waiting. Finally I got my picture taken and went on my way. My passport was to come back to me the next day.

Then on Friday, I slept in for one of the last times before I started work. In the afternoon I had signed up to go on a guided tour to Miniature Indonesia. What is Miniature Indonesia, you ask? Well I'm glad you did because now I have more to talk about. Miniature Indonesia is a tourist attraction in Jakarta that will give you a brief insight into the Indonesian culture and give you an idea of what the different parts of Indonesia are like. Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands (17,508 according to Wikipedia), so you can imagine how vastly different they all are.

Miniature Indonesia has a couple of different parts to it. The first area we stopped at (in the early afternoon to stay out of the heat) was a museum about Indonesia. I know that's a broad topic, "Indonesia", but they had everything from musical instruments to pottery to puppet show supplies to clothing etc...

In fact, the bird you see pictured at the beginning of the blog is a Garuda and is part of the coat of arms of Indonesia. The Garuda is a mythical chimera that has the head, beak, wings and legs/talons of a hawk but a mans arms and trunk (what is it with asian countries going with the symbols with parts from different types of animals?). The Indonesians tried to go a little more natural with their depiction and based it off of the Javan Hawk-eagle. And they did something really cool with it to remind everybody of their celebrated independence day of August 17, 1945. The tail of this bird has 8 feathers in it, each wing has 17 feathers, the base of the tail (below the shield above) has 19 feathers in it and the chest has 45 feathers. Put these all together and you get 8/17/1945. Pretty cool eh? And if you really want to read more about the coat of arms, you can here.

The other part of the attraction surrounded a decent size lake. In the middle of the lake, there were islands that were laid out in the general orientation of Indonesia's thousands of islands. Of course, they didn't have that many islands in this lake, but they put the big ones in there. There was a road that went around the lake and a cable car that spanned over the top. As we drove around the lake we passed a lot of small, segregated areas that each showed some of the typical architecture and hosted a few museums of cultural items from the different areas of Indonesia.

From going around Miniature Indonesia, I tried got a sense of the different types of architecture is used around areas. While to the untrained eye (that would be mine) the architecture looks pretty similar, our guide had a lot to say about the different areas. The most common look for the buildings shown here was actually kind of like a boat as shown in the picture here. Of course, the ends tend to shoot upwards, but some of them were somewhat blunted (like the one shown) and some were more pointed. Yes, that is my analysis of Indonesian architecture as of now. I know, it's not insightful, but then again I'm not writing a thesis about it, so deal with it.

Now we had the choice of whether we (there were 2 Chinese gentlemen that were on the tour with me) wanted to take a ride on the cable car or go to see the infamous Komodo Dragon. I was actually pretty excited about the possibility to go see the Komodo Dragon, so I chimed in and made my vote clear. I mean, who wouldn't want to see the largest lizard in the world. So, we went to this area where we got to see snakes, alligators (not of the DJ variety), and of course the Komodo Dragon. Here's a picture of me very tentatively bending over to touch it. Yep, we had one of the "groundskeepers" there open up the door and we got to go right in next to it. I guess I was thinking that the skin, being scaly and all, would be harder than it was. So I was kind of surprised when I could feel it push in a bit when I touched it. But, when I really think about it, why wouldn't that happen. After all, it's not an exoskeleton...it's just scales.

After going back to the hotel, I got my passport back from the travel agent. Then I grabbed some dinner at a local bar/restaurant and had a couple of drinks before coming back to the hotel and getting some sleep. At 10:00am the next morning, I was off in a taxi for a 3 1/2 hr drive to Indramayu. On the 7th I started work and have worked almost every day since...including Christmas.

On that note, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays again. Enjoy the time you may (or may not) have off. I hope I will be able to join you shortly.

Beware of the Merlion!

Grrrrrrrrrrr....it's the ferocious Merlion. Wait! What the hell's a merlion? Well, I'm glad you asked. Let me 'splain.

Singapore has traditionally always had the lion as a symbol of their nation. In fact, in Malay, the name is Singapura and actually means "Lion City." As the story goes, when Prince Sang Nila Utama first landed on the island of Singapore and began to hunt, he saw the likes of an animal that he had never seen before. His advisors said that said animal was in fact a lion. Thinking that this was a sign of good luck, the Prince decided to build a new city on this island and call it Singapura.

So, from the outset, the symbol of Singapore has always been the lion. However, one of the most important aspects of the Singporean culture is, of course, the sea. As a result, a new symbol for modern Singapore was developed, and that is the Merlion. The Merlion is a mythical creature that mixes the head of a lion with the tail of a fish (similar to that elusive mermaid that I have heard so much about but not yet seen during all of my diving adventures...of course, she doesn't have the head of a lion). The Merlion has statues in its honor in many different places around the island. The picture you see above was taken on Sentosa Island where I was able to spend most of my day on Saturday.

Sentosa Island is a great tourist attraction that has many, many different areas to explore. I was fortunate enough to get over there and meander around for the day. Inside this Merlion, they show you a lovely ~10 minute animated clip detailing a very brief history of Singpore and how the Merlion came to be. And then, to top it all off, they even let you go up top and look out it's mouth! Here is a lovely picture of me thinking about life inside the Merlion's mouth.

On top of this attraction, I was able to see many other attractions including:

Images of Singapore - This consisted of a 5-10 minute video about Singpore and then pictures and/or 3D models of Singapore throughout the years. The models showed things from the time of the founding of Singapore all the way through the current modern Singapore. It was very well done and enjoyable to walk through!

Sentosa Cineblast - This is a 3D "roller coaster" ride where they pile you into the cars of 6 people and take you on a ride. In this particular case, we were a log that was basically going through a Rube Goldberg device. We started off as a long log that got cut into many different smaller pieces. Then, for unknown reasons, we decided to fly down this series of different chutes and slides and the sort, many times we ended up flying in the air to get to the next slide. I'm still not sure of what the purpose of our ride was, but it was fun none the less.

Sentosa 4D Magix - This was probably one of the coolest things that I saw on Sentosa Island. This was a 4D Cinema experience. You may ask, "Andrew, how are we supposed to witness anything in 4 dimensions?" I was wondering the same thing when I went in and it did not disappoint. The 3D part of the experience is pretty obvious...3D glasses allow the film to come out at you. The 4th dimension is actually that of touch. That's right, there was a big element of touch to this show. So, this adventure took us along with the story of revenge of one of Captain Lucky's old crew members...just a little cabin boy. See, Captain Lucky (played by Leslie Nielson) left his former crew on this island to die. One of the cabin boy's, Davey, survived and set up booby traps all over the place for Captain Lucky and his new crew when they came back. Included in this wonderful cinematic experience are indiviually controlled seat movements (whenever a character get hit or falls, the seat moves accordingly) and personal "environmental controls." The environmental controls will spray water on you or air at your neck when there are flying beasts (bats, birds, etc...) in the area or when characters get covered in some sort of liquid (one character got the brunt of a flock of birds that apparently hadn't relieved themselves in some time). The touch of the moving chairs and other environmental controls really made this attration enjoyable. It was something that was out of the ordinary that I wasn't expecting when I went in.

Sentosa Luge - This "ride" consisted of a simple luge type sled. The sled would stop as you pulled backwards on the handles and as you let go would allow you to go forward. The piste wasn't that long and there were quite a few people on the road that you had to look out for, but it was a good, fun ride down. The big problem I had on this ride was that I was just clearly too big for the whole thing. First of all, the helmets that they made us wear didnt' fit at all! My head was just too big for them. <> This made for uncomfortableness all around. Then, to top it all off, when I got into the luge, there was a spot for my feet to be resting, and I was told numerous times during my wait that my feet had to stay in these footholds. However, when I started to go down the piste, I tried to pull back on the handlebars to brake and it wouldn't work. My knees were in the way! So, I decided to make an executive decision and allow my feet out of the footholds so that I could actually brake and not run into anybody/anything. I think this was for the best in the end.

Songs of the Sea - This was a live song show that lasted ~25 minutes. The premise was that a handful of local people went down to the beach (~7 people I think) and they "just happened" to see us all sitting there. What on earth were we doing there? So, they decided to sing some songs for us. When one of the main characters sang for the first time, there was a vision of a princess that appeared over the ocean. The rest of the show was all about the search for this princess and trying to get her to wake up from her deep, deep slumber. The really neat part about this show was the use of lights and water. Instead of using a screen on which to project many different animations, they would just use lights (lasers more like it) that would then project onto the spray of water. The effects when the water spray was stopped, but the lights were still ongoing were really cool as the images would just fade away as the mist from the spray began to diminish.

Overall, the trip over to Sentosa Island was a lot of fun. Many of the attractions really seemed to be geared towards children, but it was really a great way to spend the Saturday. It would have been a lot more fun though if I would have had some family or friends to hang out with and share the experience with.

Beyond that experience, the rest of the weekend was good fun as well. On Friday night, I was just out to dinner and trying to enjoy myself. I chose my restaurant of choice solely because they had TVs there and there was a ton of room. That way, I could watch some sports while I ate, and I can't think of a better way to spend the night. But then, a young Australian couple invited me over to join them. This was truly a blessing because I got to meet some new people and enjoy the evening even more. They were just finishing up a 2 month trip to Nepal and India (1 month in each location) and were about to head back to Australia. We went out for a drink or 2 after dinner and had a really good time. Of course, the night didn't last nearly as long as most of my weekend nights in Korea, but that was really another blessing. So, by 12:30, I was back in my hotel and ready for bed.

On Sunday, it was just a relaxing day. I started out of the hotel around 11:30 and went for some lunch and some reading. Then, I just meandered through the Orchard Rd. area and tried to find some things I needed. I had to take a brief detour ~2:00 for a drink at a local Irish Pub because it was poring outside. So, I enjoyed a couple of pints of Kilkenny and a bacon butty sandwich (thanks Hazel for introducing me to those!). And then it was on my way back to the road. It was an early night getting back to the hotel where I continued to read and watch some TV.

All in all, it was a great relaxing weekend. Now I'm ready to get back to work...or at least go to the office for now. Hope you all are well and thanks for checking in. Sorry if this was way too long for you, but sometimes when the fingers start typing, they just don't stop!

Peace, I'm out.

Mez

How the Time Flies

Oh my word...how long has it been? Nearly a year and half! Yeah, I know...I'm bad...really bad...

But I'm back! Back in the Blogosphere and better than ever. As you can see though, I have had to alter my ways. The old site, while a lot of fun, just tended to be too much work. I had to write all of the code myself, and it was more a pain in the ass than anything. Of course, add on more work with my already lazy attitude and what do you get? That's right, no blog posts.

So, now I've decided to enter the world of organized blogs where all I have to do it type and let loose. Besides, that's the fun part! Telling the stories and letting you know what's going on in my life. So, for now, it's the same old blog with a slightly different address.

So, what have I been doing the past year and a half you ask? Well, that's actually pretty simple. I've done 2 jobs: 1 in Japan and the other in Korea...yes, don't worry, it was the southern portion of it.

Last September I started a job in Sodegaura, Japan. Sodegaura is located just across Tokyo Bay from Tokyo and I was easily able to get into Tokyo a handful of times while I was there. I stayed in Japan until just before Christmas at which point I was fortunate to go home for the holidays! And believe me, that is a blessing in the line of work that I'm in.

After the wonderful relaxation that trasnpired over the holidays, I went back to the office. There was a little bit of hemming and hawing over where my next assignment was, but it was soon settled. I was going to go to Korea. So, in late January of this year, I set off for I didn't know how long in Ulsan, S. Korea. As it turned out, I was there for nearly 10 months! I had just a couple of short trips home during that time. In May, I was released from the assignment for 2 weeks and then at the end of June, I was able to get home for my nephew's baptism, but only for the weekend. Other than that, I was in Korea for the entire 10 months! During the final 4 months of the job, I continually told everyone that we were getting ready to wrap things up and i would likely only be there for 1 more month. We saw how well that worked out for me.

And now that the job has finally finished, you might think I got to head home and be home for Thanksgiving, right? Well, not exactly. You see, now I'm in our office in Singapore awaiting my next assignment. I was supposed to head there on Thanksgiving day, but the job got delayed a short time. So, now I get to have a bit more time to explore the area.

On that note, I'm out of here. I hope to be back with a few stories soon. If I can just get myself to do this regularly, I think the stories will be much better and not a simple update on what I've been doing in general. Wish me luck!

Oh yeah, one more thing...that picture up there is a picture of my friend Matt and I. It was taken during one of our many nights out in Korea when we decided to do a "Mustache Barcrawl." I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to meet me in a dark alley at night...especially with that banadana on! And Matt looks like he's carrying two suitcases...and that just doesn't bode well for anybody!

Peace, I'm out.