I’m 11 hours in front of Tallahassee, but oddly, even though it’s Tuesday morning here and Monday evening there, I am watching Sunday night’s NHL highlights. When that’s done, we move to some football game where Pittsburgh and Green Bay played several months ago. Perhaps you watched it.
So far, Jakarta is simply sprawl – farther than my eye can see. For three nights at least, I’m to stay in a furnished two-bedroom hotel/apartment. They didn’t have a one-bedroom available.
There’s also a study, a living room, a wash room (with washing machine), a somewhat Spartan furnished kitchen, two bathrooms plus a squattie pottie. 
I got in late last night (and apologies, couldn’t figure out the Internet and was too exhausted to trek back down from the 55th floor to go back and ask) and essentially went directly to bed for the first time since Friday.
The airport was quite different. The paper had told me they’d send someone to meet my flight side, which I didn’t even think was possible, but as soon as I went down from the gate, there was a man holding a sign that said “Linley.” I guess people assume that’s my surname, because by the time I checked into the hotel I’d been promoted to (or demoted to) “Mrs. Linley."
With the help of this guy, whose name started with a W but I’ve forgotten, I breezed through security – he already had my temporary visa and I essentially was guided backstage while it was being processed. I never had to ask any hard questions, which I’d been concerned about.
I mean, I have no return ticket, I wasn’t sure of the name of the hotel (it was in my checked bag, which I didn’t have at the time) and I blanked on how I should fill out the “how long to you intend to stay?” blank, seeing as how I marked I was a tourist. I figured if I put I was there to work, it would open up a big can of worms.
So having W there was really great, even if he seemed impatient to pass me on. It took awhile for my bag to arrive, but since the gate agents in Seoul, for some reason, made a point to tell me it had been loaded I figured it was.
And sure enough it arrived and W guided me out of the gate where he passed me off to someone else whose name, and its initial, also flew by me. (I was absolutely dead tired by this point.)
He drove me to the hotel and pointed out the office building. I also spoke to someone at the office and I’m to head in there a bit later this morning.
This is the farthest I’ve made it in any country without having local currency. I was intercepted too quickly to do so at the airport and it took so long to get my room I figured I’d just not waste any more time and get to sleeping. 
Still mentally in a time zone of my own, I woke up at 3 a.m. for a bit and then 6 a.m. for what appears to be for a while. I’ve putzed around this palatial apartment and taken picture of my amazing view.
The city reminds me of the day I spent in Cairo, visiting Tarik. It’s sprawl, sprawl, sprawl braided with traffic, traffic, traffic. I’m sure the non-metro areas of the country are beautiful, but you have to love architechture and quirkiness to find any beauty here. (Looking down from the 55th floor, I thought I saw some giant milk-looking bottles floating, but upon closer inspection they’re some kind of twirling billboard waving in the wind.)
I haven’t eaten much since Seoul, and even then it was a smushed blueberry muffin I’d taken from the plane.
Korean Air, incidentally, has much worse food than TAP Portugal. And I chose very, very badly. I opted for the beef, which was OK, but the side was some kind of tofu, which I avoided. The guy next to me went with the thing I didn’t understand, and it looked good. 
Then, as my snack, I thought the option was “rice chips,” but it turned out to be ride or chips. The chips was a very, very bad decision – they were shrimp flavored.
“Flavored,” though, is a strong word. They tasted like that biodegradable stuff that comes in some packages (True. I’ve tasted them.) I’d go more with “shrimp scented,” which is NOT something I want to recollect, thank you. It was disgusting.
I did try guava juice, which was good but really sweet. I diluted it with some water.
Water. Joy. Judging by the warning signs everywhere, it looks like something you can’t drink straight out the tap, as you can in Morocco. I am not going to be into buying bottled water for the next six months so I’ll need to come up with some option. Boiling tea might be one; that’s what I’ve just done in my kitchen. I also boiled a big pot of water to drink later, but I need to verify that works as a purification method first.
I’ve posted some pictures of the apartment-hotel, and I have no idea why they came out so blurry. My camera battery is almost dead, though, so I’m not going to bother re-taking them.
The newspaper is the one where I’ll be working; I found that copy hanging on my door this morning. It’s a little intimidating to know I’ll be working there shortly.
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