We arrived late on January 14.  Now 1 month later how are we doing?  Here are brief notes.

• aclimatising - you adjust alot in 4 weeks and since we are in a temporary house with no air-con - with a car that should have air-con but it doesn't work - we needed to.  To help Chonki acclimatise we treated him to a haircut as shown.  Partly you just adapt, sweat less, sleep more easily, etc and partly you change your daily schedules to suit.
• finding things - previous visits have been holdays - this time we are setting up house, so searching for the best supermarkets, hardware stores, hairdressers, furniture stores etc is now high priority.  We are progressing - but have more ground to cover.
  

•  weather - the wet season has been late arriving and is not yet very wet so no floods like in Jakarta. It brings dramatic cloud formations, dramatic thunderstorm activity, and dramatic downpours.  On the right you see Rajia silhouetted against a magnificent sunset.  The magic times are at sunrise when there are mists, clouds piled up out to sea and fascinating lighting - and the sunset, of course.
• retirement vs holidays - initially it just feels like a holiday again and maybe retirement always starts that way.  But as the weeks roll by we need some structure and longer term objectives. Luckily, getting ready to move into the house and the landscaping gives us plenty of objectives and some deadlines.  As a first idea on providing some structure we plan to make our Sundays different from the other 6 days.

•  interactions - we have met many people and are making friends.  Hendra often gets into 3 simultaneous conversations in different languages (Buginese, Bahasa and English) so has a central role - but this is exhausting.  On the left we are checking a garden done by Aries.  We are likely to hire him to do ours so there was plenty of discussion in all languages.  Over this first 4 weeks I have failed to spend time learning Bahasa - so this must change in the coming weeks.
• getting "diddled" - when you have no idea what a good price should be you are likely to pay too much.  We now know that we have paid too much for a few things (like the first rental car).  The "fix" is to talk to many people, accumulate knowledge, and use Rajia's negotiating skills.  We are improving.

•  achievements - our aim was to get involved with the house before it was finished and we have indeed.  We have been checking frequently and providing input on kitchen design, power-points and lights, and now the landscaping.  If we had arrived sooner, maybe we would have changed some  other details as well - but our January arrival has worked well.  Here is a panorama stitched from 3 photos that don't quite match up taken yesterday so you can get some idea of where its at and why it is likely to take another 5 weeks or so to complete.
• stay tuned - we will report again in another month and expect to be either in the new house or jsut about to move.