As I am writing this, we are en route to Paris by Thalys. We left Amsterdam about 5 minutes ago. Well, I should say we managed to leave… We got to the train 3 minutes before it departed after a 10-min rushingly dragging our luggage all the way from Dam to the Centraal Station. There was an accident that caused the tram we were in should cease its operation.
Thalys is not as good as the train we had from Frankfurt to Amsterdam – ICE, a new train that travels 220km/h. Thalys is older, less neat, and less comfy. It might also be a reflection of the fact that the Netherlands is a little less developed than Germany. (But we are enjoying the service in Thalys: mozzarella and pineapple sandwiches – ICE offered nothing).
Of course is not that Amsterdam is less attractive than Frankfurt. In fact, we kind of like Amsterdam more. It’s an old city with friendly neighborhood. It is kind of small compared to Jakarta, you can walk or ride a bicycle to see around; or if you want to explore the canal, you can take canal bus. We stayed in small but cozy hotel, La Boheme, in the Leidseplein area, the center of city activities.
We walked around, from Rijkmuseum to Van Gogh Museum, from Leidseplein to Dam to Centraal Station, passed over Red Light District, Magna Plaza, National Monument and Madam Tussaud Museum. We learned that Amsterdam is a city of bikes and museums. However we only visited one museum: Van Gogh due to time limitation.
We also went to Rotterdam, the second largest city in the Netherlands, however we found nothing much to see.
So that’s for 3 days of Goethe and Van Gogh experience. Now, we are looking forward to ‘meet’ da Vinci in Paris and Picasso in Rome.
If you like to see some pictures that we took, click here
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Sunday, June 26, 2005
frankfurt
writing from friedberg, less than an hour drive from frankfurt. just arrived yesterday, 6 hours after anna came from chicago. whether frankfurt is really nice or not is to be explored today. so far, it is.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
freakonomics of toll road
while anna was en route to u.s. i was contemplating on the thing we had been talking about. it's the toll booths. or more specifically, the ticket persons in the toll booths.
i once told anna that it seems to me that the ticket persons in the toll booths in jakarta outer ring are way slower than their counterparts in toll booths within the city limits. the farther the booths from the city, the slower the ticket persons. i had been hypothesizing that this could be due to higher flow of traffic inside the city that outside. need to test this against data.
we so far just rely on naked observation. here's the thing. the city toll road ticket price is Rp 4,000. in indonesia there's no such single paper or coin for that -- you have to give either four Rp 1,000 bills, eight Rp 500 coins (unlikely, who wants to grab eight coins while rushing?), or any of the bigger denominations: Rp 5,000; Rp 10,0000; Rp 20,000; Rp 50,000; or Rp 100,000 (the latter two unlikely -- many times the booths are not prepared to give change against these big bills).
now, what is your reason to choose the toll road and not the non-toll ones? to save time -- and you are willing to pay for saved time. so, you want to maximize time-saving. at least, i maximize time-saving. this is what i usually do when i am about to enter a city toll booth. i show (or even, waive) my money (usually i got no time to collect four Rp 1,000 bills. it's easier to grab one Rp 5,000 or one Rp 10,000) before i really reach and stop at the booth. and the ticket person who has seen my money give me my ticket and the change at the same time.
compared that to toll booth outside the inner city. i do exactly the same, but trust me, the response from the person inside the booth is ... different. no matter how obvious i showed my Rp 5,000, he or she will take it first, then ring the register, and then give me ticket and the change (fyi, the ticket costs Rp 2,500 -- but it's irrelevant to my story now; except that it is of course more difficult to manage Rp 2,500 than Rp 4,000, since the former should include one coin, for exact amount). from 2 weeks of observation, the average time i spend more on the outer jakarta toll booth is about 2 minutes, compared to the inner jakarta toll booth.
you would say: what would you make from 2 minutes? yes, that's small. but think about this: if it costs me an extra 2 minutes, what does it cost the person(s) in the vehicle right behind my car? assuming a fixed inefficiency rate of 2 minutes per ticket, that makes it 4 minutes. what does it cost the person the 15th car behind me (trust this long queue is not unusual in here)? it's 2*15 = 30 minutes! that's a real "late to the meeting"!
but i'm more intrigued by the question of why a ticket person in outer jakarta toll booth slower than that in inner jakarta toll booth? is it true that the flow of traffic higher inside jakarta than outside? maybe not. so what is it? anna offers another way out: probably only the better ticket person can be in the inner jakarta (and "better" is a reflection of a person who appreciate time in the sense of having a sense of urgency). this is interesting.
after all, i ask mysef. if i'm so picky in this thing, why don't i just prepare my exact amount of money before even driving? well that's true. but still, our friendly ticket person will take that exact Rp 2,500, then ring the register, then give the ticket with a smile...
addendum: anna just reminded over the chat: "you're exaggerating. it's less than 1 minute". maybe she's right. i was exaggerating. but even if it is less than 1 minute, the math remains. in fact, anna was telling me that if we happen to be number 10 or 15 in the line, one minute inefficiency in the booth translates to 10 to 15 minutes.
i once told anna that it seems to me that the ticket persons in the toll booths in jakarta outer ring are way slower than their counterparts in toll booths within the city limits. the farther the booths from the city, the slower the ticket persons. i had been hypothesizing that this could be due to higher flow of traffic inside the city that outside. need to test this against data.
we so far just rely on naked observation. here's the thing. the city toll road ticket price is Rp 4,000. in indonesia there's no such single paper or coin for that -- you have to give either four Rp 1,000 bills, eight Rp 500 coins (unlikely, who wants to grab eight coins while rushing?), or any of the bigger denominations: Rp 5,000; Rp 10,0000; Rp 20,000; Rp 50,000; or Rp 100,000 (the latter two unlikely -- many times the booths are not prepared to give change against these big bills).
now, what is your reason to choose the toll road and not the non-toll ones? to save time -- and you are willing to pay for saved time. so, you want to maximize time-saving. at least, i maximize time-saving. this is what i usually do when i am about to enter a city toll booth. i show (or even, waive) my money (usually i got no time to collect four Rp 1,000 bills. it's easier to grab one Rp 5,000 or one Rp 10,000) before i really reach and stop at the booth. and the ticket person who has seen my money give me my ticket and the change at the same time.
compared that to toll booth outside the inner city. i do exactly the same, but trust me, the response from the person inside the booth is ... different. no matter how obvious i showed my Rp 5,000, he or she will take it first, then ring the register, and then give me ticket and the change (fyi, the ticket costs Rp 2,500 -- but it's irrelevant to my story now; except that it is of course more difficult to manage Rp 2,500 than Rp 4,000, since the former should include one coin, for exact amount). from 2 weeks of observation, the average time i spend more on the outer jakarta toll booth is about 2 minutes, compared to the inner jakarta toll booth.
you would say: what would you make from 2 minutes? yes, that's small. but think about this: if it costs me an extra 2 minutes, what does it cost the person(s) in the vehicle right behind my car? assuming a fixed inefficiency rate of 2 minutes per ticket, that makes it 4 minutes. what does it cost the person the 15th car behind me (trust this long queue is not unusual in here)? it's 2*15 = 30 minutes! that's a real "late to the meeting"!
but i'm more intrigued by the question of why a ticket person in outer jakarta toll booth slower than that in inner jakarta toll booth? is it true that the flow of traffic higher inside jakarta than outside? maybe not. so what is it? anna offers another way out: probably only the better ticket person can be in the inner jakarta (and "better" is a reflection of a person who appreciate time in the sense of having a sense of urgency). this is interesting.
after all, i ask mysef. if i'm so picky in this thing, why don't i just prepare my exact amount of money before even driving? well that's true. but still, our friendly ticket person will take that exact Rp 2,500, then ring the register, then give the ticket with a smile...
addendum: anna just reminded over the chat: "you're exaggerating. it's less than 1 minute". maybe she's right. i was exaggerating. but even if it is less than 1 minute, the math remains. in fact, anna was telling me that if we happen to be number 10 or 15 in the line, one minute inefficiency in the booth translates to 10 to 15 minutes.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Monday, June 06, 2005
Thursday, June 02, 2005
moving in
Finally, we moved to our own house last Tuesday, after all the fixing, cleaning and filling in the house done in quite a while. We’ve never had experienced in managing a house before, which we thought that 2 or 3 weeks was enough to prepare it before we move it. Turn out, it took almost 2 months! Actually, up to now, the house still needs some fixes and cleanings; however Aco told me that the house should be a living thing, it will grow as we do, it won’t be ready, clean and perfect if we don’t live in it.
Our small but cozy house is a double-deck 75m2 Japanese-style house, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. All the bedrooms are on the second floor, one bathroom on the first and the other on the second. We painted the living room with broken white, one bedroom with light green and another one with cappuccino brown. Our kitchen was planned to be light orange, a very warm orange as shown in the brochure. But the paint came out differently on the wall. Shinny bright orange. It is so bright, even when the light is turned off during the night, you can still see. Never trust the brochure. We repainted with light green.
The house is located in Karawaci, Tangerang, 20 km west of Jakarta. When there is no traffic jam, it is only 20 minutes drive (with 100km/hr) from Central Business District (Semanggi). However, during the peak hours, 7am-10am and 5pm-7pm, it can take 1.5-2 hours drive! So, better avoid those hours if you like to visit us.
Our house is in an estate that is developed by Lippo group. The neighborhood is well managed by the town management. Our neighborhood is clean, quiet and secure (hopefully!). It also provides all the facilities such as shopping mall, school, hospital, transportation, not to mention abundance of food stores and cafes. One thing that Aco and I like very much is to have a cup of morning coffee at Coffeebean which is located on the side road in front of UPH. Aco said, it reminds him of Harvard…
Our small but cozy house is a double-deck 75m2 Japanese-style house, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. All the bedrooms are on the second floor, one bathroom on the first and the other on the second. We painted the living room with broken white, one bedroom with light green and another one with cappuccino brown. Our kitchen was planned to be light orange, a very warm orange as shown in the brochure. But the paint came out differently on the wall. Shinny bright orange. It is so bright, even when the light is turned off during the night, you can still see. Never trust the brochure. We repainted with light green.
The house is located in Karawaci, Tangerang, 20 km west of Jakarta. When there is no traffic jam, it is only 20 minutes drive (with 100km/hr) from Central Business District (Semanggi). However, during the peak hours, 7am-10am and 5pm-7pm, it can take 1.5-2 hours drive! So, better avoid those hours if you like to visit us.
Our house is in an estate that is developed by Lippo group. The neighborhood is well managed by the town management. Our neighborhood is clean, quiet and secure (hopefully!). It also provides all the facilities such as shopping mall, school, hospital, transportation, not to mention abundance of food stores and cafes. One thing that Aco and I like very much is to have a cup of morning coffee at Coffeebean which is located on the side road in front of UPH. Aco said, it reminds him of Harvard…
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