More from Jakarta

We were able to see that there were actually mountains in the distance only very early on the last morning we were in Jakarta.

View from the hotel room.

All of the hotels, malls, etc. have security guards in front. They will open the trunk and stick a mirror underneath the vehicle to ensure it's not loaded with explosives. You also had to open your bag or purse, and walk through metal detectors, whenever going into a public building.

Our hotel was just a few blocks down from the Marriott that was bombed in 2003. The Australian Embassy was bombed in 2004.

The companies that I am training are always very good at being with us every moment, and their drivers will take us everywhere so there is no worry about using taxis. Don't worry Mom - travel here really is not as dangerous as the news makes it seem.

Indonesian food

A few of the MIB guys took us to a very local Indonesian place. They brought out about 20 different dishes of food.

These little fish were fried and crunchy. It seemed a bit strange to eat the whole thing, bones and all, but they were pretty good. I also had a papaya shake. One of the best things about the Indonesian food is the fresh fruit. I have never gotten to experience fresh papaya, mango, etc. like I have in Asia.

Perk ordered a drink that had a lot of different fruit, jelly-like stuff and various liquids in it.

I had been making fun of Perk taking photos of all of his food, but I had to do the same when I ordered a fresh strawberry shake. Just ground-up, fresh strawberries. Yum.

Rooftop view of Jakarta

Jakarta is known for its "jams" - the traffic is almost endlessly grid-locked. When you ask someone how long it takes to get somewhere, they always add the disclaimer "without a jam."


The roof of the hotel was pretty cool. The pool went out to the edge of the roof and just disappeared into the darkness. I would have liked to check it out - it looked like you could actually just swim off the edge - but we didn't really have time. Plus, it wasn't a super-warm pool.

Bandung, Indonesia

These are older photos from my trip to Indonesia.

Ira, from MIB, took us to Bandung to see the newest Daktronics ProStar display there. It was a couple hours drive from Jakarta.

First she took up to a restaurant on the top of a hill.

It was what I imagine a rain forest to be like. Each one of the tables was in it's own little shelter, with a low table and cushions. Very tropical. Yvonne or Perk - send me a photo of our group!

There are tons of little tiny shops everywhere, more and smaller than Shanghai. Much more run down and dirty too.

This is the new display! It is owned by Djarum, a cigarette company.

Ira's house

We had the honor of being invited to Ira's house for supper. It was amazing. Many buildings seemed to be a blend of outside and inside, as was hers. For example, one bathroom I was in had an open roof over part of it, with palm trees growing up out of the bathroom floor through it. Most of the buildings had doors wide open, so it seemed as if they had fewer walls.

Ira's house was built around their pool on three sides. It was very, very open. It just feels like you are outside the whole time.

Her husband is an architect, so every detail of their house was well thought out. See the slates next to the window? Those are permanently there - they don't close like shutters or move. They are all open to the elements, no screens or anything. Bugs, rain, whatever can come in, but he didn't want to take away from the design element by enclosing them. It is hard for me to get my head around ever being able to have anything so open (I'm thinking blizzards, dust blowing, billions of mosquitoes, thunderstorms, etc.) but it works for them. How awesome to live in a climate like that! If water comes in, the ayis clean it up. No big deal.

The front entrance, with outdoor patio ahead, the guest room just inside to the right and the pool to the left.

Digital Content Training

On Monday, Yvonne and I flew to Jakarta, Indonesia to give digital content creation and management training. Perk and Victor from LEDtronics were also there. The local company is called MIB.

Ira, from MIB, like the training the first morning so much that she called a guy who works at this billboard magazine called B&B.

This photographer (who was also the editor-in-chief) actually took about a million photos of me for this magazine. He told me they would put me on the cover, but I’m not sure if he was joking or not. In one issue, they had a 4 page spread of a new LED billboard in Bandung (which happens to be a Dak ProStar.) 4 pages is a little excessive….. it wasn't a very large or unique display. On Thursday, two journalists interviewed me.

Perk and I during V1500 training.

Gabriel (photographer) took 181 photos the first day, and 86 during the interview. I think that is a little excessive!!!

Gabriel gave me all of the photos too. I don't have so many of me on the blog so I thought I would post a few.