The final presentation and the official closing

On Monday we had our final presentation for the client with great success. We had 15-20 stakeholders in the room, who were enthusiastic and active.
Generally the young generation (tour guides, university contacts) had the most comments on our recommendations, but the Tourism Office, our client was also really interested.

My part was the efficiency of cooperation between the public and private sector in tourism. I highlighted some key points, such us the need of a Tourism Board to control all the activities and initiatives, the importance of volunteer and trainee programs with local universities, the human resource distribution among the different bodies of tourism and the need of visiting tourism fairs in Europe and North-America.
We have distributed CDs which were containing all our materials (Social media presentation, Final presentation, Detailed manual for next steps).

On Thursday morning local IBM leaders (Santi and Hattini) have arrived, for the closing conference, which was held in the office of the Vice-Governor, Sri Paduka Pakualaman (The king of Pakualaman, one district of Yogyakarta province).
The vice governor had offered us jasmine tea and we had the chance to speak about the outcome of the projects and he really appreciated our effort to develop his city.

The King of Pakualaman, our clients and the Team

Tourism team and clients - Pak Heru, Yuanyuan, Daniel, Pak Didik, Nicole, Elisa and Pak Sinang

We have decided to go to buy the last souvenirs and try the most expensive coffee of the world, the Kopi Luwak. If you have seen the movie "The bucket list" now you know what I am speaking about.. Actually it was cheaper than in other countries (there is a Kopi Luwak farm about 10km from here), but the cost of a cup of coffee has reached the 8 dollars... Claudia and I have taken a becak to home, just for the feeling :)

The crazy Mexican and Hungarian ?(

Roger, Claudia, Alberto and myself - Kopi Luwak experience

Becak ride to Jambuluwuk

In the evening we went to a fancy restaurant to celebrate Waya's birthday and to give to her and to Diane a small memory of us (well designed photo albums with our personal greetings and thanks).

Today is Friday and we are packing our luggage... But, before going we have used the opportunity to take a trip to Prambanan using the local transportation, the TransJogja bus. It was a long, but cool trip, with the backpacker colleagues :D

The adventurer core team - Alberto, Antonella, Rosa, myself and Jay - photo by Claudia :D

Now it's time to pack and go to Thailand - tomorrow morning we will leave the hotel around 7am and we will arrive to Bangkok at 7pm!

The Team with Diane and Waya after the closing dinner

The last weekend in Jogja - Zoo, Tamansari. Pindul cave, Indrayanti beach

It has been some days I haven't refreshed my blog, due to Internet issues. It is not stable neither in the office nor in the hotel.

Luckily we have finished our material for the final presentation on Monday, we have put together a manual with more then 30 pages, then we have burnt 20 CDs for the stakeholders and our client to keep the recommendations  sustainable and build capacity here.

We were happy to  start the weekend well prepared. The first half of the weekend was self organized, the other half was put together by an agency.

On Saturday morning we went to Tamansari, the Water palace, with Antonella and Rosa.

This palace was the summer palace of the Sultan, who carried the children and wives to have a bath. We are not talking about a few children, all the previous sultans had more than 50 children...

We also realized that the volcanic ash is a blessing here, not a curse. It helps the plants growing and people are collecting it to use as natural fertilizer.

After the Tamansari with my two Indian colleagues we have chosen to visit the local zoo and see the famous komodo dragon which is naturally living on the small islands near Java. We have found a beautiful reptile collection and some really weird fish.

The next day we have been taken to a trip to a waterfall (where the area was totally flooded so we couldn't get closer), then to the Pindul River, which is crossing the Pindul cave. There we had a nice cave tubing experience, with lots of bats and stalagmites. Later on we visited Indrayanti beach, which is quite popular among local people and tourists to. unluckily, the Indian ocean is really strong, so I couldn't have a proper swim in it, but at least I could have refreshing bath in the 35 degrees. I was the only one among the team who tried it...

With my albino python friend in the zoo

Pindul Cave, at the entrance

Drinking out a coconut with Jay at the "waterfall"

At the ocean shore - Indrayanti beach

Cave tubing

Exit from Pindul cave

Heading forward on the way of fulfillment...

The last few days were mostly about work. We have delivered our social media and marketing planning presentation and we have started to work on our final presentation for our client.

On Wednesday we delivered our presentation about Social Media and Marketing Planning for municipal and provincial Tourism Authority employees and for different tourism stakeholders. The Tour Guide Association delegates were really curious about the project outcome and they gave as some valuable inputs too. My part was about practices and concrete examples of social media usage. We used our survey results to show them how powerful social media could be - having more than 500 responses in 36 hours is a good example of snowball effect - thanks for everybody!

Successfully delivered Social Media presentation

Talking about our final presentation, we have split the 5 different topics among the sub-group.

Elisa will speak about the new slogan and some website and marketing material improvement.
Nicole's share is the improvement of international tourist experience in Yogyakarta - mostly about the development of local Tourist Information Centers, offering packages and better service for the international tourists.
YuanYuan will analyze the results and trends of our international survey.
My topic deals with the issue ho to extend the effectiveness of networks in public and private sector. I like it, because I can put 'cooperation' in the middle of the recommendations.

We will deliver two different presentations, one really detailed for the Tourism Authority, our main client and other stakeholders we got in contact with (Tour Guide Association, Restaurant&Hotel Organization, Gadjah Mada University, Travel Agency Association, the Organization of Borobudur, Prambanan and Ratu Boko, etc.). The presentation will be on next Monday. We are preparing a detailed word document (about 30 pages) for the further improvement and sustainability.

The second presentation will be delivered to the governor (the sultan of Yogyakarta) on the Next Thursday, but the message of our presentation will be simplified till this point. We have scheduled two buffer days to restructure and cut the final presentation.

So as you can read we were working hard during these days, mostly from the hotel, because the conditions in  the Tourism Authority building were not the best and we had all the input needed. The internet conditions were really intermittent in the hotel, because a conference of education have started in the hotel, with around 200 participants who are using the net constantly.

The hard days of work were broken by little breaks when we went to different restaurants.
We have taken a look into TripAdvisor's restaurant suggestions and visited Milas restaurant (the best vegetarian restaurant in town), ViaVia (the favorite place of backpackers in town), R&B grill (I've consumed one of the best burgers of my life - you will be able to read about on the Hungarian BurgerBlog next week).

FUN FACT: Actually yesterday we have revisited R&B grill for dinner with Roger, Seth, Antonella, Alberto and Claudia and we had a really nice time.
I could make my own steak on the hot stone in front of me!
Seth  showed us some sign language signs for different nations, so now I know that deaf people identify Hungary with a sign of moustache, the Mexican sign is related to the sombrero and the Italian signs symbolizes the form of the country. 
We were laughing on the fact that Roger, the sign language interpreter of Seth owns a meat locker in Texas - I would like to have a meat locker too! :)

FUN FACT II: I've never been so happy to see a big amount of rain - it cleans the air and also the environment of the remaining ash-smudges.

 

Noodles Night

IBM security was still not advised to leave the hotel on Saturday, so we were still grounded in the hotel with a need of socializing. Our supply-buyer heroes Elisa and Claudia have realized, that our situation is not as bad as it seems like, so they invited the team for a Noodles Night in Claudia's room.
We used bottled water, instant noodles, fruit and biscuits from our nearly unlimited emergency supplies - we needed only kettles to ease the process and some chair-like things to sit on. You can see the outcome below.

Noodles for everybody!

The mystical "floor M" our usual playing place

We had a nice dinner together and later some of us have decided to play some games. As I have previously written I have Avalon, Dixit and King of Tokyo with me, all of them are enhancing team spirit and inspiring creativity. Yesterday evening Dixit was in focus, because some ladies wanted to try it (they loved the abstract cards).
Actually both of them have won a round, congratulations Rosa and Claudia! Before going to sleep we played a round of King of Tokyo and I won - so I had no nightmares yesterday :D
If you would like to see more pictures you can read Claudia's blog, we can call her the official photographer of the CSC Indonesia Team!

Batik Lounge fun - describing the rules

Creative method for counting the points, it saved some place in my luggage :D
 

Yuanyuan, Alberto and me in masks

The new, IBM security qualified N95 masks have arrived yesterday! After 2 days of hotel-prison, we have decided to go and have a look on the city. We went together to a souvenir-shop complex and then to a mall to have lunch together (finally not noodles and rice) and play some arcade games. Seth, one of our American colleagues have beaten me hard in "Airhockey" but I have won against him in live basketball.
In the mall it was the day of an "arcade dancing" competition, teenagers were dancing on the machine, and hundreds were watching them - traditions are different here in Asia...

Dante's peak? Or good time for boardgames? :D

Which will be the next destination?

The week went well, with hard work, long brainstorming sessions, so I was feeling we are getting closer to our final recommendations. On Thursday we prepared a workshop for the Tourism Authority workers about social media and marketing strategy to deliver on Friday.

Working hard in the "office"

The team was nice, the weather was nice and we have discussed also our weekend trip (cave tubing in Pindul Cave, watching a really cool waterfall, and then finishing the day at a hidden white-sand beach).

The plan was awesome, but Mother Nature had a different idea...

This morning I have woken up, had a shower and dressed in batik, ready for work. I made a mistake, I haven't opened the window. I went down to have a quick breakfast before leaving and I've checked my phone, realizing that the workshop has been cancelled due to unknown reasons - it's Indonesia I was thinking, quite usual that people were cancelling meetings. 

During breakfast I've met with my teammates and this was the real shock. I wiped the dream out of my eyes and I've looked through the big windows in the dining hall. The tropical flowers were covered by a 3 cm ash layer. It was unbelievable. Then my teammates have informed me about the eruption of the Mount Kelud which is around 250 km to the north in Java.

I've suddenly realized that my clean laundry wouldn't arrive today :D. 

The streets were empty, IBM security contacted us, advising to stay in the hotel until further communication. 

10 years ago I was on the Etna 2 days before the eruption and I experienced a little earthquake and I could feel the warm earth under my toes.

This is totally different. During the morning it was like a dead city (the call to the prayer was also missing during the morning, which is kind of unusual).

 

Our hotel provided us with basic facemasks today, and our in country contact Diane went looking for special face masks called N95 masks that are mandated by IBM Security for these situations. Unfortunately the conditions were very bad outside and several stores were sold out - but we're very lucky that the special masks are supposed to be hand-delivered to us tomorrow all the way from Jakarta (Thanks Kiki, the Security Manager of IBM Indonesia!).

Claudia and Elisa with the supplies

Ladies in mask - Elisa, Rosa, Claudia, Antonella

 We had some local heroes from the team, who have decided to go to buy the supplies we will need if the things are turning worse. Claudia and Elisa visited the store to buy some noodles, cracker and biscuits in case the hotel would not be able to serve as with food. Thanks so much ladies, your are real heroes!

We are grounded here in the hotel, so I decided to organize a board gaming afternoon with the people who were interested. Finally Antonella, Elisa, Rosa, Shannon, Alberto and Jay shown up, so we played some Dixit, King of Tokyo and Avalon. I decided to open the bottle of palinka, brought from Hungary, it is really strong, we couldn't finish it, yet :)

Boardgames, masks, pálinka

Wonderful weekend - Borobudur sunrise, Prambanan chill out, Ramayana ballet, Merapi lava tour and so on...

After we have set up our weekly schedules (which composes of such elements as composing meeting plans and checkpoint meetings with our client and other stakeholders, packing the loundry, planning the dinner destination and so on...) the time was passing by fast.
We have arrived to the weekend which was planned and organized by Waya, our genius local delegate from ABV (the NGO IBM collaborates with).

On Saturday we went to see the Kraton (Sultan's Palace), then we went to a bus tour to have our afternoon in a private resort with an amazing swimming pool. By night the plan was to see the Ramayana Ballet near Prambanan. It was a well organized trip, although the heavy rain damaged my team building tools (I was organizing a board gaming afternoon in the resort). The Ballet was wonderful, and luckily I had Jay from India, to tell me the story behind the dance scenes. The rest of the group have left to the hotel to have some sleep before dawn, I have decided to watch also the second part, because this was a once-in-a-lifetime show. I think the pictures can tell more then any words.

On Sunday we had to leave the hotel at 3 am, because we went to see the sunrise from the top of Borobudur temple (UNESCO World Heritage). It was an outstanding experience seeing the sun arriving from the fog which was covering the whole valley. Later on we went to the Merapi vulcano, which is still active, it's last eruption was 3 years ago, and the destruction could be seen in the region. We had an organized jeep tour up till the highest point possible (which was really far from the top), we could see a geyser which was heating up the earth really much and we visited a small museum in a lava-destroyed house. Watching the pictures you will understand why was this trip the most remarkable tour of my life.

Sultan's Palace - gamelan orchestra from the back

Sultan's palace - gamelan performance from the front

The Kraken conquests Tokyo - board gaming afternoon with the team

A wonderful view from the pool (Prambanan in the background)

Pranbanan by night

Ramayana ballet near Prambanan - I was lucky enough to have an own hindu storyteller :)

Borobudur before sunrise

The mystical moments of the sunrise on the top of Borobudur

We have survived the sunrise :)

The international core :)

Me and the Merapi volcano

Merapi jeep tour with a vehicle from WW2, without seatbelts

The beginning of a fruitful cooperation

The first week of the project passed by, but the enthusiasm is still on the surface. 

We have a new member in our sub-team, from China - Yuanyuan. She has application design background, but she has bunch of valuable information about the tourism in Asia so the team has welcomed her with a warm hug!

Every day a car picks us up and we are going to the tourism office to participate in meetings with the stakeholders and to analyze the situation from different viewpoints. I like this really much, the cultural differences are there, but the client is getting more and more open. 

The team was so enthusiastic, that yesterday we were working from 9 am till 7.30 pm to finish the project plan for our key stakeholders :) Elisa and Nicole are both veterans and they never stop till the job is done.

Here you can see that I am wearing batique, which is the official dress code for office hours (at this time we were in the hotel, so the ladies have changed dress). 

Brainstorming in the library - Yuanyuan, Nicole, me and Elisa

A key element of our output is going to be skill-building - so that the recommendations of our project have a better chance for sustainability and success well after we leave Jogja. This morning was a key milestone for us as we and our clients settled on our plans and we left our meeting feeling very positive about our direction and the steps that lay ahead.  We have settled on our main goal of making recommendations that will lead to increased international tourism in Jogja.  This is no small feat but we have identified several subtasks that will be achievable in the time we have remaining.

We are also lucky, because we have nearly unlimited opportunities to eat our lunch, one of the shopping malls are nearby and they serve the needs of locals and tourists also. Every day we are eating different, but local dishes (for example "Nasi goreng" is a really fine spicy rice-dish usually served with chicken, eggs and baked shrimps - it has become my favorite local food). 

With Claudia in front of Xo

Yesterday, our group leader, Waya have taken us out to eat in a really nice place, called Xo. It was located in a shopping mall and offered different types of soups in "dim-sum" style.. Actually they were not different, because the heated up two different types of soups (a spicy and a soft) and you could choose what would you like to cook in the soup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What should we cook today? :)

The 'dim-sum" experience

The soup was delicios, although I didn't really now what I was eating, it contained mushroom, chicken, some kind of local veggies and pasta based ingredients. We were using chopsticks to eat the content of the broth and then we mixed the soup with rice to finish the dish. According to Waya, it's not only delicious but healthy too!

In Indonesia we have to divide street food and restaurant food. Street food is designed for the locals, and they prepare it with not too many hygienic caution (unclean water and ice, not well prepared meat), but it is really cheap - you can easily have lunch from 200 forints. The restaurant food is more expensive around 1000 forint for a lunch), but not really dangerous, it is advised though to order bottled soft drinks also in these places. Alcohol is not served, or it has a really high price (today I have seen the price of the red wine in the restaurant, it cost 5-6 times more than in Hungary).

 

In the next two days will visit Borobudur, Prambanan and Ratu Boko temples and also the Ramayana Ballett, a snakefruit farm - it will be tough, because we have to leave the hotel at 3 am to arrive in Borobodur for the sunrise. I hope it will worth the effort! :)