The Journey...

As expected, the trip was LONG. A few stats to put things into perspective:

-Door to door total travel time: 42 hours

-Left Manhattan Tuesday, June 1, 8am EST, arrived in Bogor Thursday, June 3, 2pm local time (we're +11 from East Coast, check it at the top here)

-It's hot here.

In order of the flight paths:

JFK to Tokyo: 13 hours. Surprisingly, this leg of the trip went quickly. Dan sits down in his cozy window seat (we've discussed flight seating arrangments for at least 6 weeks prior to this) only to find that the former passenger left a pleasant puke surprise in the seat. They promptly move him and his neighor, a lovely nameless fellow who Dan fell in love with because of their shared joy for all things Bahston. Dude sniffed me out as a Yankee fan almost instanteously. He turned out to be OK in my book because he ran in college with Bill Rodgers. Also they shared their free "sorry about the puke" wine with me, so I'm not complaining. Jess zonked out for 12/13 hours, I kept busy with some preparatory work reading and learning to count to ten in Indonesian. A few SCREAMING babies on this flight... You better have a damn good reason for flying an infant from New York to Japan. My calf compression sleeves (THANK YOU ZENSAH!!!) yet again demonstrate their versatility, saving my legs from the pain of a long flight.

Tokyo airport 4 hour layover: Super clean and organized but this is no surprise. This is a shot of their musical toilets, something I can't imagine you would ever see in the US. Sushi was nowhere to be found.. weird. Time goes quickly and we board for Singapore.

Tokyo to Singapore: 7 more hours. By this point I've been awake close to 24 hours and manage to be in and out of consiousness the entire flight. Good thing, somehow we ended up with middle seats. NOT ok on a trip like this... I attempt to watch Alice in Wonderland and Invictus, but fell asleep not more than two minutes into each.

Singapore: THANK YOU TO PATRICK MAHER (pictured here, with Dan, in his awesome condo) for entertaining us to pass the time. Having a familiar face and leaving the airport for about 12 hours was essential in surviving our marathon journey.

Singapore is an interesting place. I'm not sure there are many places in the world where you can find right smack in the middle of a shopping mall a spot that has karaoke and hoards of women dancing on the bar. Welcome to Asia. We enjoy a little of the nightlife followed by a delicious hotel breakfast buffet, play on Pat's jungle gym (see below), and promptly make our way back to airport just in time for our last flight.. at which point both Jess and I are charged over-weight fees for our two bags. Thank you Air Asia, the Ryan Air of this part of the universe.

Singapore to Jakarta: 1.5 hours, I have an entire row to myself, delightful.

Drive to Bogor: 60-90 minutes. I fell asleep. So exhausted. Jakarta is hot. Sadly my first impression of the city is of the miles and miles of informal housing settlements. All I can think of is the poor construction sitting on a dangerous fault line.. You can also see the heat/pollution/humidity pouring out of the ground.

Although upon arrival we hoped for a nap, that was not the case.. we end up running around all afternoon taking care of our rooms, setting up internet and cell phones, and getting ready to start work the next day.

Preparing for the Journey

Today is Monday, May 31 (well, technically June 1 by posting time) and I’ve spent the entirety of Memorial Day Weekend 2010 packing. Not just for the next 2.5 months I'll spend in Indonesia -more to come- but also to move into storage until I return. Why am I moving again, barely ten months after I arrived on the lovely Upper West Side? A brief journey of what got me here. And some shots of what my entire life looks like in boxes.


My WHOLE life

My life for the next few months, even Ken Basche told me I did well packing






In Winter 2009, despite being assured what a vital part of the team I was a few short weeks prior, my cozy Account Manager position with Smithsonian Media was eliminated and I found myself a victim of this recession. In retrospect this is the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Although it sounds totally cliché it is completely accurate in my life. It kicked my ass into gear to go back to school and find more fulfilling work. Work that hopefully took into account my childhood joys of bugs and dirt and my undergraduate sufferings through Fordham’s Bio dept and more semesters than I would have liked in physics/organic chem.. By some miraculous feat I applied and was accepted in CU’s Climate and Society program, a one year “intensive” MA program geared to train individuals to utilize climate information in improving human livelihood. After coming out the other end nearly alive, I can say that intensive is an understatement.

Every day since September was grueling, requiring a tremendous amount discipline and sacrifice. More sacrifices than I would have liked or anticipated. I want to apologize now for:

Any phone calls, texts, emails I've failed to respond to.

Any special events - birthday celebrations, weddings, kickball games, happy hours, gossip sessions, concerts, or general fun with friends - that I couldn't attend.

I know at times for many people close to me it’s probably seemed that I’ve flaked out, but this was not the case! I hope that in the end my friends can see this: its been a challenging year but never felt like I was making difficult decisions because I believe in the value of what I am learning.

Although I finished with exams in the beginning of the month, the work’s been nonstop ever since: everything from renewing my passport, securing a visa, ensuring I had one of about fifteen shots and medications, jumping through Columbia’s "cover their own ass" hoops, and who knows what else.. I am pooped. Exhausted. Tired from the whole year, or year and a half of rapid change. Topped off with a move right smack before I depart for a LONG journey. The timing of my lease did not mesh with the trip, so I’m saddling into storage until I move to the other side of the park in August. But I’ve got a whole South East Asian adventure ahead of me before I need to think about move #2 of the summer.

What exactly will I be doing in Indonesia? I'm completing the internship requirement of my degree working with CCROM, the Center for Climate Risk and Opportunity Management. CCROM is based at Bogor Agricultural University, a large and prestigious national university about two hours from Jakarta. See map – its ok if you don’t know where Indo is or that the language spoken there is Indonesian.


View Indonesia in a larger map

Our specific project will investigate the impact climate has on agriculture and the challenges that local small scale farmers face in this tropical climate. Over the past year of study I’ve grown fairly obsessed with the intersection of climate change and food systems, not only because agriculture is central to development but because it can play an important role in mitigating dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. I am also fairly convinced my food obsession stems from the constant hunger I feel as a runner. Hence why the opportunity to work on this project was so appealing to me.

I’m hopeful that West Java will provide a slightly slower pace of life, allowing for adequate sleep and reading for pleasure. Stay tuned on this one. Other wildcards for my new home:

-How will I deal with the flight path? Tomorrow’s journey includes: 14 hours to Tokyo, 3.5 hour layover, 7 hours to Singapore, 12 hour overnight layover, 1.5 hours on to Jakarta, 2 hour drive to Bogor. Yikes.

-How will 90 degree daily temperatures suit me?

-If I can endure the heat, will I be able to run comfortably and safely?? This has been a big concern since I committed to the trip.

More to come!