Asian Invasion: Day 11 - Another Day of Travel

Today has come to an interesting close. As we left East Asia this morning, we set off for the islands of Indonesia in the South Pacific. We took a very early flight from our previous location and we had to get up around 5 this morning. Long traveling plus early mornings equals a weary student attempting to finish his homework. After I cleared the sleepiness from my eyes around mid-morning, I buried my head in projectile motion equations and graphs of trigonometric functions with derivatives. Those made for a long day, let me tell you. The math for physics and the graphing we have done for math has convinced me that Calculus is straight from the devil. The TI-83 is the rebuke to said demons (thank you Texas Instruments!). Though math and physics consumed the majority of my day, it helped my sanity to make a nice dent in the pile of school work. We left Hong Kong after about 6 hours, and it was at the gate that we had our first glimpse of Indonesia.

As we began to line up for boarding, the line was filled with woman countless house maids from Hong Kong, all returning home for the end of Ramadan. It was incredible that at least three-quarters of the passengers were these women. After a short four hour flight, we arrived in Indonesia to an amazing welcome. From the air I could see fireworks shooting up across the city to celebrate the end of their month of fasting. It was quite a welcome. My first impressions of the country have been different than any other place. Since the majority religion is different, there are many more mosques and head coverings. Also, we drove by an area that has been covered by a gigantic mudslide originating from a drilling operation that penetrated a volcanic reserve (no bueno..). This happened back in 2006, but the mud is still bubbling up into homes and stores. It is a very unique problem. I am interested to see the city in daylight, but this country promises to be quite different than anything before. Until tomorrow…

On another note, there will be no more pictures temporarily for the blog. I know you are heart-broken, but I no longer have the cord to transfer these pictures, so I can’t see them either. It’s quite sad. Please speak to Father about this situation so hopefully I will get it back. Thanks.

nate.