Our day of travel

One final talk at IWOGL today and we were off to Borobudur outside of Jogjakarta. We had a 2.25 hour car ride to Jakarta followed by a 1 hour plane flight to JOG and the a 1.25 hour ride to the temple. So, a travel day pretty much, but some fun stories.

1. I really liked AirAsia. Friendly, "leather seats," all announcements were in English and Indonesian, you could see the A/C coming out of the vents, they were playing that Goete song when we got on board, the flight attendants had cool uniforms. Good stuff. And we were taking off at our departure time...not leaving the gate.

2. Our hotel inside the grounds for Borobudur is nice. We got to see the temple a bit before the sunset, walked around a bit, and then had dinner. It's about 8pm here and we're headed to sleep. 4am wake up tomorrow so we can climb to the top of the temple and see the sunrise.

 

3. Nothing makes you feel like home than meowing cats at 345am. They said they'd give us a wake-up call at 4am, but I didn't know it would be of the cat variety. :)

 

Here's some pics of our welcome drink, dinner, and one of those cats.

 

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Pics

Thought I'd post some pics of our last day here while the Internet actually worked. There's a pic of me giving my talk, the restaurant we ate in every day, and some pics of our trip to the animal safari park. We rode around in a little bus and saw all these animals. More pics later. Internet getting slow again. Good times. New adventures tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





 

 

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Some first thoughts on Indonesia

When we first arrived in Jakarta and got out of the airport and onto the toll road I felt like we could have been on any major highway on the east coast of the US, but with a few more banana trees. I told Jeff I expected a much different looking place. More exotic or something. My wish came true once we turned off the main tollway! Holy people on scooters! Crazy traffic and tons of road side stands. I''ll try to take some pics on the way back to the airport tomorrow. I was too distracted to do so on the way here.

Our hotel compound is nuts. It's huge. And ornate. Jeff did not have to go to the math conference, so he explored the hotel. Here are some photos.

 






The day we arrived was the first day of Ramadan. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world and it turns out there is a mosque very close to our hotel. During Ramadan, the Muslims fast from sunup to sundown. So, every night at sundown and every morning around 2am there are these calls to eat. They are amazing. I don't even mind hearing them in the middle of the night. Fascinating. I tried to capture a video of what it sounds like. It lasts for quite sometime. --hope to post video when I have better Internet.

 

I typed all of this on our patio. This was my view. Pretty fantastic.

 

 

Food: still figuring this out. They love their rice. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm eating. The first night we went out and had satay at a local joint. Yum! All our other meals are here at the hotel. Jeff's taken some pics.

 

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My math conference

Today I spent most of my day at the International Workshop on Graph Labeling. So, that's what this post is about. Jeff will post pics of what he did later and that may be more exciting. :) But, if you want some observations about math and the conference you can read this.

1. I'm constantly impressed by everyone's amazing English language skills. I would say English is the native language for about 3/50 participants at this conference (if that). But, you would barely know it. It makes me sad when they apologize for their poor English because I'm constantly thinking how great it is (or barely even noticing it's not their first language). It also makes me wish the US would force younger students to earn a second language. It's so useful and awesome. And it makes me want to take more German or Spanish. And it makes me further want to stress study abroad to our students AND to a country that speaks another language so they can appreciate the difficulty in learning a second language.

2. I chose well in taking Jeff on my trip. He's tech savvy. I used his cell phone to call the organizer when we couldn't find our person at the airport yesterday. Today he figured out why my stupid new iPad wouldn't show my presentation. Apparently you have to plug in the VGA adapter and then open Keynote. Bad move Apple. I expect more from you!! Oh and he has much knowledge of the random plugs in our room. So, big thanks to Jeff.

3. After organizing CombinaTexas I have a huge appreciation for the conference organizers. I'll send them a big thank you when I get home. They've been awesome. And I can't imagine all the chaos that comes with organizing an international conference.

4. I got an awesome conference bag. It's green. Judith would like it. :)

 

 

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Singapore and its awesome airport

Yesterday I spent about 2 waking hours in Singapore and 2 at the Singapore airport. I enjoyed my time there, but certainly need to go back!! Jeff and I took the subway to the river and had a traditional Singapore breakfast at Ya Kun Kaya This included some soft boiled eggs, kaya toast (toast with butter and this sweet sauce) and some tea. It was freaking delicious although it was a bit too much butter for my taste. After that we walked around the city for a bit and took some pics. It was hot and we needed to get to the airport, so we went back to Jeff's hotel and checked out. While he was doing that I collected all these flyers of awesome things to do in Singapore! There's one of the world's largest ferris wheels, a toy museum, an art museum that had an Andy Warhol exhibit and a Harry Potter thing, a cool science museum, and this cool luge thing! Not to mention the night safari deal at the zoo that Jeff went to on Saturday night. This place is awesome and I need to go back. Clean, good public transport, safe and they speak English which helps. Pics from Singapore:











If that wasn't enough I might have to say that Singapore may have the most amazing airport EVER! Free foot massages, a garden trail including an outdoor sunflower garden and a butterfly garden, a movie theater that shows free movies all day and all night, a gym, spa, tons of shops. You name it, they've got it. You could definitely live there! I look forward to our return trip's layover. Airport pics:

Quick hello from Singapore

Hi! Jeff is packing and then we're off to see Singapore for a couple hours before we catch our flight to Jakarta. Speaking of flights here is my flight update: 1. I watched The Lorax, Jeff who lives at home, the Best Exoctic Marigold Hotel, Young Adult, and the first Episode of Homeland on the flights. Good stuff. Love those individual TVs!! 2. I sat on the upper deck of the plane. I'm sure it's the same as the main cabin, but it's was cool to be upstairs...on a plane! 3. Food was OK. I didn't feel well on most of the flights...fever, chills, and upset tummy so just the smell of the food was enough to not want to eat. I ate a lot of rolls. I guess it's no surprise that our first objective here in Singapore is to get a yummy breakfast. Jeff liked that they had real silverware. Fancy. 4. I loved the stewardesses outfits! Super cute! I'll take pics on the way home. Overall I was a fan of Singapore Airlines. 5. On the flight from LAX to Tokyo, a small child sitting directly behind me may have been going through an exorcism. My only knowledge of exorcism was when Marlena was possessed on Days of Our Lives. The sounds coming out of this kid were kinda like what Marlena sounded like only live in person directly in my ear for a solid 10 minutes. It was awful. She started doing it as we landed but somehow calmed her self down. Terrible! Maybe that's where my sickness came from. More later...hopefully with pics! Sorry for any typos or missing capital letters. Still figuring out typing on the iPad.

New items i purchased for the big trip

Tomorrow I begin the 25+ hour journey to Indonesia. It's crazy it takes that long, so I had to buy some goodies for my travels.

1. A travel pillow. I like to sleep. A lot. And if I'm going to be on a plane that much I don't want my neck to be broken after trying to find ways to sleep, so while looking for item #2 in Bed, Bath and Beyond I fond the Total Pillow...an As Seen on TV Travel Pillow!! Perfect!!! Here's hoping it works!

2. A $20 20" rolling duffel. I have fit my entire 10 days worth of stuff in here. Awesome.

3. An iPad. Crazy, I know! But, I wanted to blog from abroad and I am giving my presentation at the conference and I didn't want to lug my expensive and somewhat heavy MacBook w/ my entire life on it halfway across the globe. So, after some convincing today I purchased the brand new iPad, a photo adapter, a VGA adapter, and a case cover. I'm still a little stressed about such a large purchase, but I put my presentation on there about an hour ago and it looks pretty amazing. AND it's super easy to edit. So, YAY! I'll let you know how it goes.

This may be my last post for a few days, so enjoy the pics of our accommodations and I'll post as soon as I can about my flights (Houston-LA-Tokyo-Singapore-Jakarta)!! :)