This morning we headed into Yogyakarta to a local school for a community reach-out event at a local school. IBM is donating several "Kidsmart" children's computerized learning stations to the local library. Unfortunately due to some recent flooding, the equipment didn't make it to Yogyakarta on time, so we improvised and loaded the software onto our laptops to show the children. The children in my group were very curious about my computer, but were reticent to actually touch it. They did seem to enjoy the software though.
After our community activity, we went to lunch at a local fish restaurant. I didn't realize it was a fish restaurant until I saw the workers actually selecting the fish. They selected them out of big tanks, put them on the floor (sanitation didn't seem to be a concern), used a stick to quickly take care of them, and then cooked them. The preparation was quite shocking to Western standards but the end result was a very delicious meal.
After lunch, we all went to go meet with our clients. Me, Daniel & Nicole joined Waya and went to the local Tourism office. The interest from the office employees is very high and more than 10 of them attended our meeting. After a brief round of introductions, we started talking about how we can help them. The next few days are going to be very busy as we work to finalize the statements of work and lay out a gameplan for what we hope to accomplish in the next several weeks. I am starting to sense already how time is going to fly by once we immerse ourselves in our project.
After our meeting we decided to shop around Malioboro Street for some batik. Batik is a local handicraft made of fabric, dye & wax. The dyes and waxes are applied at different intervals and in different patterns to create some very intricate patterns. In Indonesia, all workers are required to wear Batik to work on Thursdays and Fridays, so we were in a rush to find some to wear to work this week.
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| Antonella & Yuanyuan in a becak riding to Malioboro Street for some batik shopping |
Food in Indonesia is a very consuming affair. Basically every business meeting or event has a plethora of food at it. After our late and large lunch, most of us did not feel like going out for a dinner. I snacked in my hotel room for a bit, and then met up with the team for a gift exchange. Several people brought food or gifts from their local country to share with the rest of the team. Among other things, we had pecan pralines from Texas, dried persimmons and dates from China, biscotti from Italy, marzipan from Hungary, and tequila from Mexico. It was a really fun evening and a nice team building experience.
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| Starting to gather the country gifts & food |
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| Alberto's nice tequila contribution from Mexico |
Our gift exchange was held on the outdoor rooftop patio of our hotel. We had some great views of the hotel at night and the surrounding town.
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| The rooftop patio of our hotel |
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| Looking out at the city of Yogyakarta at night |
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