The "Great" Earthshake

So today I was awaken by what I thought was an intruder in my room during a mid afternoon slumber. I jumped out of my bed in attack/defense mode until I realized that my hotel tower was swaying back and forth...back and forth! The quake lasted for about 2-3 minutes and was really one of the most bizarre events I've ever experienced. When I realized the ground was "quaking" I threw on my clothes, grabbed my wallet and ran into the hallway to find no one there. I thought maybe everyone had evacuated already so I entered the balcony to look outside and saw a group of hotel staff standing in the courtyard laughing and just hanging out. So at that point, once the earthquake was over, I was under the impression that it was no big deal and went back into my room and fell back asleep. But as I was writing this entry one of my fellow ETAs stopped by and told me that all of the ETAs did evacuate to the lobby and stayed there for about 30 minutes while I was asleep lol. I guess I should have freaked out more than I actually did, especially since the quake registered at a 7.1 on the richter scale and even made the front page of the NYtimes.com. Not even a week has gone by and I've already experienced an earthquake...I can only hope that this is the pinnacle of my natural disaster experience here.

I arrived in Jakarta on Sunday at around noon with the entire group of ETAs at the Soekarno Hatta airport. The night before, AMINEF provided our group with a hotel for our over night layover in Singapore, which most of us barely used as we all spent the night exlporing Singapore's night life until shortly before we had to meet in the lobby at 7:00 a.m. to leave for Jakarta. Once we arrived to the hotel in Jakarta, we were given a free day to get over our jetlag (which I'm still getting over). On Monday morning we started orientation in the hotel at 8:30 after a very nice breakfast comprised of many American dishes and Indonesian fare. Monday's orientation went on until about 4:30 p.m. Monday afternoon was met with more sleep. Later that evening I went with a group to a restaurant in downtown Jakarta called Cafe Batavia.

Yesterday's orientation lasted until about noon, so we had the whole afternoon to spend exploring the city. I went with a group to the Grand Indonesia, "the height of luxury in Jakarta". This mall was humongous, it had at least 10 floors and was packed with department stores and high end shops from all over the world and countless food options that ranged from Cold Stone to Kenny Rogers Roasters to fancy sit down restaurants. Each section of the mall was themed by famous cities/countries. The mall was so big that we spent most of the day just exploring. Later that night we met with the English Language Fellows (ELFs as we affectionately call them are our counterparts that work in Universities in Indonesia teaching classes and training Indonesian professors...all ELFs have at least a Master's Degree and have worked as a teacher or professor prior) at a night club in the Shangri La Hotel, where I was first turned away because I did not meet the dress code of long pants. We all had a good time dancing and singing to the music of the South African cover band who covered artists from Aretha Franklin to Bob Marley to Kings of Leon.

This morning eight of us were pulled out of orientation to go to the immigration office to sign some paperwork in order to receive our KITAS (an Indonesian residency card). The process was pretty straightforward, most of the experience was just waiting in a busy waiting room that looked strikingly similar to the DMV. Upon arrival to the hotel we were met with another great lunch made up of delicious Indonesian foods and dessert. Then after lunch, once I settled back in my room is when the earthquake hit.

While it has only been four days since I've been in Jakarta, I realized that I haven't held up my end of the bargain in this whole blogging thing. Hopefully, it won't take another earthquake in the future for me to sit down at the computer to update everyone. I will try my best to at least update the blog once a week or more, provided I have access to the web.

Best,
Kal