where are we?

On Thursday we got our car that we will be driving over the next few years. It is called a Toyota Kijang. It looks like part SUV, part car, and part station wagon...it seems like the automobile of choice here. The car pictured in the middle is very similar to the one we have. We decided that after our team met together on Friday morning, a few of us would go out to eat and then we would just find our way back to our house...easier said than done. We still have yet to figure out this city and driving here. They have lanes for you to drive in, however, they are very rarely used and most of the time people straddle the lines painted on the road. There is also a lot of swerving going on to get around people riding bikes and these rickshaw looking things called becaks (pronounced 'bay-chak') shown at bottom.




After we ate lunch we headed out to find our house...we should have known that it was going to be an adventure because in the first 5 minutes Roger got pulled over by a cop for going the wrong way down a one way street...luckily one of his teammates talked the officer out of making him pay a fine! The next hour or more was spent trying to find the part of the city we live in; somehow we ended up at the port of our city (near the sea) which is way out of the way. Our journey came to an end after we flagged down a taxi so we could follow it back to our home turf! But there is a silver lining to this experience, after such a long time of driving, Roger is no longer terrified to drive in the city!