Sometimes Things Go Off Script

My sub-team had all of yesterday planned out. We had some finalizing to do to our documents, a couple of meetings with our client scheduled and then planned to take Candra, our project assistant, and Bayu, our translator, out for a nice lunch. Than, around 9am we received a message that we were required to be back at the hotel at 11:15am to take a tour of the Palace of Surakarta. So, we had to move and combine a couple of our meetings and cancel our lunch plans.

Around noon most of the CSC team headed to he palace. It turns out the Prime Minister of Surakarta is the former President of IBM Indonesia. So, our local IBM CSC host scheduled a tour for us. Honestly, there wasn't a lot to see.

The palace is under major renovation and there was scaffolding and half painted walls and ceilings everywhere. It was interesting to hear the history of it, but it was a hot day to be walking around in fairly dressy clothing. First we were given the standard tour. Then, the Prime Minister came out to meet us and we visited with him for awhile. The bonus we got was that the PM took us on a behind the scenes tour of the palace. In order to go further into the palace grounds we were all required to put a red and yellow ribbon around our necks and the women in pants had to put on a sarong. Additionally, before entering any of the palace area those of us who did not have closed toed shoes had to take off our shoes and go barefoot. Really, it was quite an attractive look. The tour took about two hours and we were all definitely hot and tired by the time it was over.

We thought we on our way back to the hotel, but sadly, the bus passed the hotel and kept going. Little did we know it was in the plans unknown to us that we were going to have lunch. I can't recall the name of the restaurant. We had really delicious lamb satay and if we weren't hot, tired and caught off guard we probably would have enjoyed it more. We certainly enjoyed each other's company, however.

We got back to the hotel around 3pm and had a traditional Javanese meal to attend at 6pm as guests of the hotel. That, however,, will have to wait for another post.

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