Visit in IBM Indonesia and some local monuments

Yesterday we have agreed on to  visit some monuments of Jakarta so in the morning we had a trip in the really impressive National Monument (or as the local slang says "Suharto's last erection"), having a small insight on local history from the beginning till 2011. I went through the exhibition with Alberto from Mexico and Jay from India, it was really nice that we could compare our own history with the Indonesian.

Later on we visited the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia, with a local guide who bombed us with cool stories about the place. It is the symbol of the Indonesian equality among the religions, a catholic designer have planned the structure, with  a 45 meter radius dome and a 200.000 people capacity - it was gorgeous.
We have been told that the tower of the Mosque is 66,66 meter high, because the Koran has 6666 pages and in centimeters you can get this number.
The Indonesian Mosques were using drums to call the believers for the daily prayers, in the old times they could hear from 5 kilometers, now from only 1 km, because the traffic of Jakarta's streets.

After the visit in the mosque the plan was a visit in a Balinese restaurant. We have split up to 4 small groups and our local leader, Waya (who can speak a bit of Bahasia Indonesia) told the adress to the drivers.
Unluckily we could not arrive to the restaurant, because our taxi driver have taken to an other restaurant and it was closing in 10 minutes - this is a good example of the mentality of the Indonesian people, they are laughing and nodding also if they cannot catch the information. Later on also the IBM management confirmed, that this behavior is common among the Indonesian people.

In the evening we had a meeting with the local IBM leadership, Santii, Tan, Kiki and Suryo. We have discussed the upcoming agenda, IBM Indonesia's expansion plans and some security topics.

Jay and the history of IBM in pictures (IBM Indonesia was funded in 1911)

Good idea how to dress-up an elevator door :)

IBM Indonesia has a big kitchen with nice view on the 16th floor

After we have finished we visited a really nice local restaurant.
I was lucky to sit at the table of Suryo, so I could hear the charismatic leader's personal stories about his 24 year old IBM carrier and his meetings with our CEO, Ginni Rometty. Time passed by and we have tasted various delicious dishes, from fish grilled in banana leaf, till a mango-chilli local dish. I have found a really good drink which is made from fresly squeezed orange juice and young coconut milk, it was excellent!

Tomorrow we will fly to Jogja (pronounce: "Dzsogdzsa") early in the morning, but the monsoon weather has arrived, and it is raining like I've rarely seen before...

. . .

The rain continues also today, but we have arrived safely to Jogja. We had our briefing and received some items, hint and tips for the upcoming weeks. Tomorrow will be the big day where we will attend to a press conference and we will have the chance to meeting with the Sultan of Yogyakarta and a government delegate from the Indonesian Parliament.