waiting at LIPI

Well, now I'm sitting on the 5th floor of a big building in Jakarta waiting for my paperwork to get done. It looks like I'll have to take the paperwork to the local police station to get signed, then bring it back here, and get some headshots on a red background, etc. There's no way around the bureaucracy, but the folks here at the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (LIPI is the Indonesian acronym) are very nice and helpful. The taxi ride here from the airport took an hour, as all rides basically do in this very congested, sprawling city. It's pouring rain, so lots of big grey towers fading off into the distance - the building boom here seems to be continuing unabated. The taxi ride was comfortable, and this paperwork will probably eat up most of the day today, but that's just par for the course, so I'm just relaxing and going with the flow.

A hurried post in transit

Okay, I just made a quick post on a public terminal, and now got my laptop logged on and posted a couple things I wrote in flight. Singapore's airport is lovely, so it's too bad they have me on such a swift layover, but I guess it's for the best so I get on to Jakarta asap. Once I land there (after about a 2 hour flight) and do customs and all, then I'll be taking a taxi to the center of town to finish off my paperwork with the Indonesian Academy of Sciences. Then it will be an hour taxi ride or so to the home of Chris Green, where I'll be staying while in Jakarta. All that adds up to at LEAST 12 hours and possibly more before I can post again, so don't worry, things are going great!

They just did the call for boarding - more later!

Over Beijing

Written 9am PST

Tips for sleeping on a larger-than normal airline seat where you're still tilted up a bit: tuck the blanket around your feet and sit it under you so that it holds your feet up and they don't slide down when curled up on your side. The seat belt can help hold you in place too. I've slept 5 or 6 hours, but still 6 hours to go. We have taken a hugging the Pacific Rim kind of path - I don't think I've ever done that before. Sometime during the "night" I woke up and looked out the window and saw ice floes on the water - we were passing over the Kamchatka penninsula, way up in Siberia. Just passed over Beijing - lots of lights. Now we're passing over central China, on our way down to Southeast Asia. Now watching Will and Grace and the Simpsons episodes while typing - reminds me of home!

Over Nome

Written 2am PST, somewhere over Alaska

Well, no wireless Internet yet on these trans-Pacific flights, but there is an outlet for laptops so I can at least type away without worrying about draining the battery, and then cut-and-paste this into the blog when I get a chance. Singapore Airlines is incredibly plush, but an 18 hour flight is an 18 hour flight no matter how you cut it... basically the longest single flight in the world. Flying West to Asia always takes a couple hours longer than returning because of the jet stream. It must be really strong this time of year, because the flight is about an hour longer than normal and we are going way north - we are flying over Nome, Alaska right now. It's 2am California time and I tried to go to sleep just now, but too wired I think - I'll try again in half an hour or so. Note to mom: they've got Bejeweled among the video games on offer - sorta like that black and white falling bricks Tetris like game we used to play on the Mac - what was that called? I watched The Prestige - pretty good movie, so the gang at home has my permission to Netflix it without me, hee hee. Dinner was good and had a couple of glasses of wine but still not sleepy. Hopefully that will happen soon so that the flight goes a bit faster...

I'm here in Singapore!

Can't get cellphone to work or wireless laptop, flight leaving in a few mins so more later, but the flight was great and I'm doing fine!

Singapore Airlines is the BEST

Well, here I am in LAX waiting to take off. There was no one in the line at Singapore Airlines - they are so efficient and helpful. They are far and away the best airline I've ever flown and I've pretty much flown them all! It was hard saying goodbye to Bill but now I can look forward to the trip and returning home. I had to pay $9.95 for this internet connection, which is a bit silly... I bet you it will be free in the Singapore airport.

Final preparations

Well, it's my last night here in the US for a while. Bill has gone to bed and I'm up doing some final preparation, going through my luggage to make sure everything's ready. A strange feeling to be thinking that 24 hours from now I'll be over the Pacific en route to halfway (literally) around the world! I'm going to miss everyone here, but I know things will fly by once I'm there. The adventure is about to start!

Getting ready

It's now only two weeks until I'm in the air on my way to Indonesia. Two big events: I turned in the manuscript of my book Virtually Human: An Anthropologist in Second Life yesterday. I can't believe I did it that quickly! I'm very excited about the book, I think I did a good job with it, and hopefully the reviews will be positive and the project can move forward quickly. The second piece of news is that GAYa Nusantara, an organization I've worked with in Surabaya (Indonesia) since 1992 has asked me to be on their new Board of Directors. I'm honored to accept and to do all I can to support their wonderful work. I plan on getting back to Surabaya as part of this research project on HIV/AIDS, probably in summer 2008.