Friday, July 30, 2010

The One With The Mickey Mouse Stamp

Sometime 2006.  This is what happened after "Tutup" motioned me to go to the other teller.  There was a line so I had to wait for my turn.  I handed my dollars to the teller and she closely scrutinized each dollar bill.  She handed back a few bills and was pointing to a stamp on the bill.

"What's this?", she asked me pointing to the Mickey Mouse stamp at the backside of the 100 dollar bill.

"Uhhhmmm, Mickey Mouse," I retorted with a confused look on my face.  I thought Mickey Mouse was known worldwide. 

"Hhmpph, I won't accept that because of Mickey Mouse," the teller said with finality.

Lesson learned when in Jakarta make sure that your dollars are "clean and crisp", no marks whatsoever.  Mickey Mouse not accepted.

My First Tutup Encounter

Sometime 2006. On my first trip to Jakarta, I went down to the lobby of our office building so I could go to the bank to change my US dollars.  When I got in, I saw two tellers.  The other one had a line while the other one was free.  As I made eye contact with the teller where there was no line, I walked towards her place.  In front of her was a neatly made up sign which said "Tutup".


Indonesia Posts...Coming Soon...Hopefully

It's funny but out of all the Asian countries I've visited, I've been to Indonesia the most and yet my posts have been very few.  I will try to unearth pictures and make a few notes.  Hopefully I do get to do this.  I always tell my friends that if there's any asian country I'd like to work in, Indonesia would be it.  Jakarta is so like Manila.  Take note- their malls are so much better.  Shopping at Bundung is wonderful too.  Bali is just a cheap plane ride away.  It even costs less than what we'd pay from Manila to Cebu.  I love the krupuk, nasi goreng, etc. Plus, I do have really nice friends over there.  You'll probably get to see their pictures in future posts.

Talking about backlog...this is way too late.