Today will be a mixed (but low intensity) day.  I need some R&R ... Decy and Stela returned from their "excursion" to Jogyakarta and Surabaya.  Sounds like they had a tremendous amount of fun - visiting ancient temples in Jogyakarta to riding horseback up a mountain to see the sun rise over a volcano ... and then driving over to the dormant-but still smoking volcano.  They had so much fun, we are considering doing the same with Chris and Paul in December.

No sooner did D&S arrive then we took Stela out to eat Nasi Padang (a traditional food here) then took her to Club CJs ... then went and ate porridge on the street (well, street cafe).  Made it home at 445am.  9am Decy and everybody are up ... but me (I got up at 1030am) ... heading up to an area called Ancon ... which is an mini- Indonesia version of waterworld, seaworld, disneyworld.

I stayed home to rest, plus one of my friends Nat is supposed to come over at 1230-1pm.  D&S and the girls say they will be home around 4-5pm .... and I think one of the waitresses (Dia) from CJs will be over this evening to enjoy some friendship and karaoke.

Tomorrow, Monday, will be a very odd day here ... ANYTHING can happen.  US President George Bush will be here in the afternoon for a meeting with the Indonesian President.  Security has been growing for weeks - and so are the protests.  Some say as many as 150,000 protestors will be around the area that Bush will be - which will be in a city called Bogor about 20 miles from us.

Many parts of Jakarta will be in gridlock tomorrow due to the various protests in key traffic areas.  Hopefully, I will be able to avoid all those areas.  My biggest concerns are (a) bombings, and (b) mob-type attacks on Americans.  Tomorrow will be a very good day to keep a "low profile". - - - So far, I have not received any unusual security briefings (and I'm one of our company's security wardens) ... so we must not have any specific intelligence pointing towards something imminent .... stay tuned ...

ciao ciao