Mountains and countryside for me.  I don't really have any real use or reason for them, I just get romantic about exotic beauty. (Of the nature kind.)

Sea Shells - to tell the truth I have not been to the shore at all. What we are doing keeps us pretty busy and so we have little time for touring. However we were visiting a home and one of the things they collected were sea shells. The collection was fascinating with some that looked like they were inlaid with turquoise - gorgeous. The next time I am there I will ask if I can take some pictures.

Thanks for the concern about the earthquake. As you probably know Indonesia is made up of some 16 thousand islands with the majority of the population on two of them. The earthquake - and the tsunami of 2004 - was on Sumatra and is about 600 miles away from where we are in Jakarta. The real worry about these last two earthquakes - the first centered in the sea some 17 miles off the coast and the second inland - is that they set off two active volcanoes that sit right in the middle of the island. If they should happen to go off together it will be a real mess. BTW Indonesia is the fourth large country by population in the world - some 240 million people.

Indonesian are quite use to natural and not so natural disasters. The main one right now on Java is ongoing. A number of months ago a drilling operation hit a pocket of hot mud and it blasted to the surface. It quickly buried villages and roads making it very difficult to get anywhere in the area. It continues to flow and continues to eat up land and anything else in it's way. They are not sure when it will stop or if it will stop. Mudslides are another major problem - a recent one buried a couple of villages and they are still trying to find the bodies. But the people are resilient and once the land stops moving, they dig out what little they can save, start leveling the ground, and go on with their lives. They do not expect much help and appreciate any that they do get.