Jakarta

Fully settled in here at the Hotel Atlet Century Park in Jakarta.  The people here have been terrific.  Strangely enough we have no dresser, but the room is nice, the shower has enough pressure to power wash a boat, and the buffet is spectacular.  I could easily spend the entire day grazing in the restaurant.

The traffic here is a sight to behold.  It is pure chaos:  swarms of motorbikes, fuming buses, taxis and minivans choke the streets.  The city is quite modern with wide paved streets, sidewalks, and bustling downtown business districts, surrounded by sprawling low rise, high density development.  There are high end neighborhoods and crowded shantytowns with narrow alleys.  In the alleys women sell glass bottles full of gasoline on the side of the road.

Our hotel overlooks a huge park with ballfields and a driving range and conveniently enough, will serve as the staging ground for the circus festival we are headlining with another circus troupe from China.  And did I mention the pool?

8:00 am and already in the 80s.  Going to be a hot one today.

More later!

Dubai

Kind of hard to get a shot from inside the terminal that gives you a
true sense of it's size. It's really long, bustling and includes a
lot of shops and a hotel.  Another huge matching terminal is under construction.  The terminal looks something like an enormous metallic snake with it's enormous multi-story triangular windows.

This corridor goes on for like half a mile.

An oasis in the terminal.

This picture helps give some sense of vertical scale - from the level we were on the terminal went down a few levels and up a few levels.  The building had to be at least 8 stories high.  A quick visit to wikipedia confirms what I thought - this place is one for the record books. 

First Leg Complete

I wrote a whole post for this that was eaten by the foreign-wifi-iPhone blogging monster.  Given that i was tired and perhaps delirious, I will consider it a divine editorial decision and count my blessings.

The first leg of the trip went off perfectly.  No traffic to the airport, breezed through check-in and security, boarded and departed on-time, and a smooth flight.  A 12 hour flight on a full plane is no joke, and thankfully neither was the service.  We flew coach on an Emirates 777.  Roomy, comfortable seats, good food, and extensive entertainment options.  Hundreds of movies and TV shows to choose from, music and podcasts, and games all on a good size screen.  None of that satellite feed garbage that always seems to lose signal at pivotal moments (and doesn't pause when the pilot decides to play emcee) that plagues domestic flights.

Long flights are a perfect opportunity to watch movies you might have considered watching but were unwilling to pay for and/or force on your partner.  With that in mind I watched Surrogates, Daybreakers, The Wolfman, and Book of Eli, none of which I particularly recommend but which passed the time nicely.  Mia opted for It's Complicated (recommended) and Leap Year (utter dreck).

Now in Dubai with three hours to kill.

Test Post

Getting ready for the big trip tomorrow - Jakarta!  We fly out of JFK at 11:20 am Wednesday and land in Dubai at 8:05 am Thursday for a three hour layover.  Pretty much all packed and ready to go, now just tying up loose ends in Brooklyn before we disappear for a month.  We'll be using this blog to post some pictures and tales from this adventure and the many more to come!

Mia & Gary