HOLIDAY IN BALI

Last Thursday we got back from an 8 day holiday in Bali, which was absolutely fantastic. Bina Bangsa gave us a two week (paid!) vacation for the Lebaran (aka: Idul Fitri, aka: Eid) holiday which follows the end of the Ramadan month. ("Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri 1433 H!" as banners everywhere proclaim. Guess it's kind of like seeing "Merry Christmas!" everywhere in December.) Anyway, a group of 11 new North American teachers made a plan to go to Bali during school orientation in June, and we all stayed at the same hotel in Seminyak, in the southern, more touristy part of Bali. The rooms were large, I guess they were actually suites, and (somehow) managed to squeeze all the girls into one and all the guys into another.

We did a lot of amazing things, and I will do my best to describe what we did in concise paragraphs. Okay, here goes...

Wednesday the 15th: We left Jakarta and flew to Bali on an Air Asia flight. Like other Asian airlines, the plane has seats in the emergency exit rows, which is a little worrying. No matter, we got there in a little more than an hour and took a taxi from Denpasar to Seminyak. Our hotel, Centra Taum (which was really lovely and I recommend it to anyone who might happen to find themselves in Bali) was located down a dirt road in what I can only imagine was formerly a rice paddy. Other rice paddies, hotels, and the occasional convenience store were also located along the same road. We headed down one of the main roads to find dinner that night.

Thursday: Spent and hour or two shopping at Seminyak square at the open air market. It's mostly gifts and clothing there. I bought a dress. We then went to the beach where we sunbathed and I boogie boarded (which was a lot of fun, even if I seemed to get knocked over by the waves half the time) and left only a little sunburned on my back. The beach was about a 20-25 minute walk from our hotel down that same street where we ate dinner the first night.

Friday: Woke up at 1 AM, three hours after I had gone to bed. Left the hotel at 1:30 to meet the vans hired the day before to take us to Gunung Batur, a voclano in northern Bali. One of the vans showed up on time, the other was still MIA at nearly 2 AM. When Nicole called the driver, I'm pretty sure he was still in bed. He got there at 2:30 and the second group to leave booked it over in the dead of night. As for our van (which left first) I was asleep half the time we drove, but I do remember passing through a really strange night market that was completely full of people.

We arrived at 4 AM and began the climb in the pitch dark and cold. At the time I wished I hadn't worn shorts and a T-shirt. As we got hiking, I started to sweat of course, but when we paused I was all the colder and clammier. Hiking in the dark was a little challenging because we had to hold flashlights as we went and all of your concentration was on your next step. Seeing as we were climbing a volcano, the path was mostly sand, gravel, and loose pumice-y stones - not very stable. I had chosen to wear my sports sandals, which maybe wasn't the best choice, as all the sand and rocks fell in and got trapped under my feet and didn't fall out again. We got to the summit at about sunrise, where we were treated to a spectacular view out over the ocean, another volcano, and fields stretching out to the horizon. As a bonus, we were also treated to the scene of tons of Indonesians gathered around big flags singing their national anthem at sunrise, because it just so happened to be Independence Day. I don't know much of the national anthem, but we sing it every Monday in school at assembly, so I know a couple of words in the chorus. It was an awesome sight to behold.

We hiked up a little further and took a break at the highest point on the volcano. Our guides (we were required to have two guides for our group of six) cooked us eggs in the steam escaping from vents in the side of the volcano and made banana sandwiches, served with your choice of coffee or tea. Although all 11 of us had met up at the summit, the other group started their descent before us. I certainly didn't mind taking in the view at the top and listening (now for the fifth or sixth time) to the national anthem sung again. Then we began our own descent. The next part was absolutely terrifying and amazing. We were literally walking on the very lip of the volcano, winding our way around to the other side. I felt (mostly) safe but my heart was pumping adrenaline because walking along the path that was only five or six inches wide in parts, and in other parts a foot wide but with absolutely nothing (and I do mean nothing) on either side except the long, steep, slope of the volcano, and the feeling that too strong a wind might just blow you over... well, I had a healthy amount of fear underneath my seemingly calm composure.

The way down was easier, not least of all because now we had light and didn't need flashlights. Sand and gravel were still filling my sandals every 5 seconds, and I did slip once on a particularly steep and loose part of the gravel path. Scratched up my right leg pretty badly. This wasn't a deep cut or anything, but a big, wide surface scratch, about the size of my hand, that took off a decent amount of skin and really, really smarted. At the time there was nothing but to put up with it. The next time we took a break I poured water and hand sanitizer on it (which really, really smarted.) Also got a cut on my left knee from a pumicey rock with a little sticking out bit, but that cut hurt far less.

By the time we were at the base again, we were all pretty tired. Waking up at 1 AM and climbing a volcano can do that do you. But we will always be able to say we climbed all of Mt. Batur, and got some absolutely wonderful views and photos out of it. I especially loved standing and walking on the very cusp of the volcano crater ridge. The mixture of amazement, fear, awe, and appreciation I felt is a bit beyond words. That night we had a dinner at our hotel and got to watch Balinese dance and listen to traditional gamelan music.

Saturday: Went to the trendier, more touristy town of Kuta (jam packed with Australians) to do a little shopping and each lunch. That night we went to a restaurant / bar / lounge called Potato Head, which was directly on the ocean and had it's own beach front. The place was recommended by one of our Singaporean friends who has been to Bali many times before. The place was (to use our group's new favourite adjective) very chill. We had had to make reservations two days beforehand but it was worth it. That night, a few of us went to a bar in Kuta and danced the night away. The place we went, Tavern bar, was very crowed, loud, bright, and noisy. It was a little weird seeing only Indonesians working there and only Australians and Westerners dancing and drinking , but I was a little too busy having fun to worry about it too much.

Sunday: Sunday... What did we do Sunday...? Must not have done anything very productive in the morning, but in the afternoon we went to a beach in the very southern peninsula of Bali. This beach was filled with beautiful, huge boulders, sea caves in the surrounding cliffs, and tons of tanned, near-anorexic, Europeans. Swam a little bit and had some lunch, and then we went to meet up with others in our group to go to the famous temple of Ulu Watu. We had meant to all go to the beach together, but travelling in a big group and needing to take at least two or three taxis meant that we often got separated. The group I was with met up with the others just as they were leaving the temple. We stayed and watched the sunset (which was very beautiful) and walked around the temple. I had imagined Ulu Watu to be this secluded, mysterious bit of spirituality tucked away up a mountain in a jungle, but I should have known better. Like most of Southern Bali, it was full of tourists. So much for my visions of the Mystic Orient and it's mystical temples. Actually, I'm sure those are out there, just not in Southern Bali.

Monday: Left for Ubud in the morning. Ubud is a town in central Bali (and it's also apparently featured in Eat, Pray, Love.) There were still many tourists there, but the town itself has a far less touristy feel than Seminyak or Kuta. We went to the Sacred Monkey Forest there, which was super cool. I'm not exactly sure how old everything there is. The whole place is lush and green and beautiful. We walked around some interesting statues and down a little river path before heading back to the main temple area. There was a Hindu religious ceremony going on, so you could peer in through the gates but not enter. (Obviously. You'd feel like a real jerk walking in on the equivalent of someone's Sunday church service or ceremony with a camera in hand, snapping away.) Macaque monkeys were everywhere, big and small, energetic and calm, eating, running around, and nursing babies. I got some really good photos, including a few of a couple of adult female macaques who came and chilled out by me, about two feet away! They were very calm, so I tried to stay very calm, and we were all very calm together.

On our way out, something unexpected happened. It really shouldn't have been unexpected though. I was crouched down on the ground taking a photo when a cheeky little toddler monkey seemed to suddenly and magnetically attach himself to the metal water bottle on the side of my backpack. My reaction, which I fully admit was a stupid one, was to  whip around and grab the monkey, trying to pin him to my backpack so that he couldn't escape with my water bottle. If I had gotten bit I would have completely deserved it. Of course, he got away and started playing with my water bottle. I asked very politely for him to give it back, but he wouldn't. Then, also perhaps stupidly, I was taking a picture of this rascal, waiting for him to hopefully abandon the thing, when another, adult macaque came and took it. I have a photo of the baby monkey walking away from the water bottle and the next one is the adult turning it over with his hands and feet. I definitely wasn't about to fight this monkey, so I just waited. Fortunately one of the temple supervisors who deal with the monkeys every day distracted the culprit so that I got to take back my water. That's what I get for not zipping it up in my backpack.

After nearly fighting a monkey in the Monkey Forest, we walked around Ubud for a while, down some very beautiful streets, and then finished out day at the Elephant Cave nearby. This cave is apparently from the 11th century and looks like a giant demon head coming of out a hillside. You walk inside and there are a few alcoves with statues, include Ganesh, the Hindu god of education, as it is. The cave was worth it alone, but the surrounding area was also awesome. There were some absolutely beautiful paths that ran around hills and past boulders and waterfalls. I only got to explore part of it, but it really looked like something... I don't know... out of a National Geographic, on a postcard, but 20xs better. All in all, our day in Ubud was great.

Tuesday: Went with Lynsey, Eduardo, and Josh to try scuba diving for the first time! We traveled south to the beach area of Nusa Dua (which was also jam packed with tourists, but all Indonesians from other islands.) The driver got us a good deal so we only paid about $45 each. Our guide, a laid back guy whom I'm sure takes tourists out dozens of times a week, gave us the basics of how to breath underwater and what hand signals to use. Suited up in half-wetsuits and weight belts, we traveled a little ways out and stopped by where many other boats were parked. We got to do the compulsory flippers-over-head backward flop into the ocean and then our guide and his assistant helped us into the jackets with the oxygen tanks. They brought us down about 6 meters to an area with a metal fence around some coral. Apparently they bring all the newbie divers here. We stayed at the coral for the duration of the 25 minute dive and fed fish from bread in plastic bags they had given us before hand. Then it was back to the surface and back to shore. In a way it would have been nice to swim around a bit more, but I really didn't mind having a fairly mild dive seeing as it was my first time and I had no training other than a five minute session on how to breath and use hand signals.

Later that evening we went to the beach again for only a little bit, and threw ourselves in some waves. I imagine I ate dinner somewhere, but I really can't remember at the moment, so it must not have been that memorable.

Wednesday: Was completely lazy in the morning: read by the pool and then slept. Later, I went with two other friends for a massage (and was practically accosted by the overenthusiastic workers there.) Wasn't about to get a body massage with my back still sunburned, so I opted for a pedicure, which was a bit shocking (not to mention scary with all those weird metal tools they use to scrape and snip) seeing as I really don't like anyone touching my feet. But my feet did turn out much nicer looking in the end. Later still, I got a bit of time to myself to walk to the beach and write in my journal as the sun was going down, which was very peaceful.That evening a small group of us went back to Kuta to once again to get drinks and dance the night away. It was... shall we say, an eventful evening, full of lots of drink and dancing, and I even kissed an Australian surfer guy from Perth!

Thursday: We flew back to Jakarta. Our holiday was great. Already miss the relaxed atmosphere, clean air, beach, and mixture of adventure and laziness. We have another holiday coming up at the end of September, for one week. (That's the thing with year-round school - more frequent short breaks.) Right now a few friends are brainstorming ideas about going to Thailand or Vietnam, but there are no definite plans. Probably will do whatever is cheapest!

12 HOURS IN SINGAPORE

Visas are funny things, especially when you're living in a country that's riddled by slow bureaucratic processes and corruption. As of the 2nd, I'd been in Indonesia on a tourist visa, good for one month, and extended once, but I had to go to Singapore for the day to officially get my work visa. All I had to do was bring my passport and the application fee (which the school gave me) and then Julia (another teacher who went with me) and I were free to explore Singapore for the day while the visas were processed.

It was a full day because I was picked up by a school van at 4 AM and got back to my apartment around 11 PM. We ended up with about 12 hours in Singapore, which flew by. Singapore is awesome! It's only about a 90 minute flight from Jakarta but the two cities are night and day. Jakarta is actually less hot and humid than Singapore, but Singapore is CLEAN! The streets aren't full of rubbish (for good reason, you wouldn't litter either if you got a $500 fine,) the subway system is efficient and easy to use, and it's just a really interesting, diverse place. We had time for really only two things: first we went to Little India where we window shopped at the market selling Indian clothes and had lunch, and second, we went to Marina Bay, walked along the harbor, and went on the Singapore Flyer, which is a big observation wheel, kind of like the London Eye.

The first adventure of the day was meeting up with Julia. We had separate flights so I arrived at the airport by myself. We both had been given similar directions ("Go down one level, and out exit door #2 to meet the agent.) But, it turns out, we had arrived at different terminals! Add to that my phone wasn't receiving any text messages and wasn't connecting to the agent's Singaporean phone number and I was a little worried. Eventually I got ahold of Julia and made my way over to terminal three where we met up and found the agent, a woman named Fiona who handles all of this visa business for BBS in Singapore.

Fiona drove us to the agency in Chinatown where we dropped off our passports and got our pictures taken, and then we were free for the day until 5:30, when we were supposed to come back to the agency. I was impressed with my sights of Singapore, in the airport and driving to the downtown area. For instance, in the airport bathrooms there were touchscreens on the walls as you exited, asking you to rate your experience of the bathroom with five correspondingly happy or disgruntled smiley faces. On the bottom of the touchscreen monitor it read: "This screen is sanitized every hour." That's just the sort of place Singapore is: smart, efficient, modern, and scrupulously clean. Also very impressive (and completely mesmerizing) in the airport was the metal-raindrop-mechanical-artwork (that's the best way I can think to describe it) where a grid of at least a hundred ceiling-suspended raindrops moved in formation to make various shapes and patterns. It was awesome and I watched it for quite a while.

As for the rest of my day in Singapore, let me transcribe for you some of my journal entry:

"8:22 PM. Today was great. We did two things mainly: visited Little India and went to Marina Bay and in the Singapore Flyer. Spectacular view! Apparently Julia has a bit of a fear of heights, but she did fine. Coming back to Chinatown and the travel agency, we came up the escalator and found ourselves in a splendid, colourful, bustling street with all kinds of small clothing and souvenir shops. And... a Tintin boutique! I resisted the temptation to buy anything, but I did get my picture taken in front of the store, like a dork. I would really like to come back. Singapore is such an interesting, diverse place. It really deserves three or four days to explore properly. Who knows? I may very well be back sometime in the future."

"10:35 PM. (Still Singapore time, though we must be closer to Indonesia than Singapore by now.) I remember what I was going to say: I really enjoyed the Singapore airport. At any airport I love to people-watch, and the exhilaration of seeing all sorts of people from all over the world coming and going to all parts of the world. But the Singapore airport especially creates that feeling. I especially enjoyed seeing the Westerners. So many white people compared to Jakarta! Maybe every one in thirty are white in Singapore, compared to what feels like one in five hundred in Jakarta. There are particularly a lot in the airport (including, fairly frequently, a white man with his Asian girlfriend or wife and biracial school-age children out on holiday.) You can spot the Europeans fairly easily, especially the continental Western Europeans. And so many with sandals and straw hats and baggy pants and dresses, big, heavy-duty backpacks full, arriving in Singapore or on their way to the next leg of the great Asian journey.

"I saw three people whom I believe were German. A young, mid-20s couple dressed stylishly and a woman in her sixties with them, dressed in baggy, white cotton pants and shirt, in a typical Southeast Asian style, and black tennis shoes. I saw many families too. European I'm sure, because North Americans just don't go on family trips to Singapore. I wish I could sit down with a lot of these people and chat, hear their stories, find out where they're from, where they've been, and where they are going.

"Anyway... Singapura was great! I hope to go back. There's so much to see!"

WEEKEND ADVENTURES

My weekdays are falling into a pattern, and I'm still getting used to the unusual setup of my schedule (it's the teachers who travel around to the classes and the students who stay in one classroom for the most part, and what and when I teach varies everyday.) However, I have been able to get out and explore some different areas around Jakarta on the weekends. Any sort of small adventure, even close to home, is fun because it's all new for me. So far I have visited Puncak, Taman Mini, Bandung, and Anyer. There's probably a lot I could write about each of them, but I was talking to Katie just now and she reminded me that it's probably better to just tell my stories in shorter versions, rather than waiting until I have time to write lengthy prose. (Which will never happen...) So that's what I'm going to do. (Or attempt to do anyway.)

Puncak was the first weekend trip. I was there with all of the other Bina Bangsa teachers for a two day retreat at the end of teacher induction. This was the 29th and 30th of June. It was a beautiful setting in the mountains just southeast of Jakarta, and it was wonderful to get out of the city. For those of us who are new, it was our first time outside of Jakarta and I think we all really enjoyed being able to see blue skies and greenery and breath the air. Our days were filled with unexciting lectures and classes so unfortunately we didn't get to go exploring outside of the area where we were staying (a hotel and small campus with other buildings.) Everyone was pretty tired, and many were sick. The night before (the last day of new-teacher induction) the school took everyone out for a seafood buffet. Not sure exactly which seafood the culprit was, but a lot of people suffered digestive mutinies the next couple of days. And not just the expats, but people who have lived in Indonesia for a long time too. So, as beautiful as Puncak was, we were happy to go home. However, there was one more obstacle we had to face before we got back to Jakarta.

We were meant to leave around noon according to our schedule, but

were dismissed at 12:30 with a verbal announcement that we could leave no later than 2pm. So everyone took their box lunch, boarded the buses and ate, ready to go. Everyone except a number of the leaders and veteran teachers, who sat down to eat. When we actually did leave, we only got to travel for about 20 or 30 minutes before we got stuck in a traffic jam. At least that's what I thought it was at first. We inched along, and then got stuck again in an unending line of vehicles down the mountain side. For four and half hours. Turns out they just close one side of the mountain road for about 5 hours or so on the weekends, then open up that side and close the other. And the worst part is that the school organizers knew this was going to happen! Grrr!  So, it was frustrating, but on the other hand... being stuck for nearly five hours, we climbed out of the bus and strated to explore. There were roadside stalls (warungs) all up and down the roadside. Their presence along the roadside and not in a town had been a mystery on our ride to Puncak, but now it was clear why they were

there. I had wonderful fried noodles (mie goreng) and corn cooked on coals out in the open. I also tried a popular sweet-tea drink called Teh Botol and encountered (and conquered!) a truly authentic pit toilet for the first time. I would be very happy not to get stuck in another 4 1/2 hour traffic jam again. Ever. But, it wasn't so bad because of the exploring it lead to.




The next weekend adventure to share is Taman Mini, which is in south Jakarta. "Taman" means "park," and the mini part refers to the theme of this park, which is to represent all the different regions of Indonesia. There are buildings and houses in traditional regional styles, and you can go in and see artifacts and clothing from the given region. There's even an artificial lake with little chunks of land that are a scale model of the major Indonesian islands. The best however were the traditional dances that we happened to come across when we first arrived at the park. They were beautiful and mesmerizing. We also went on a ride over the park in a slightly creaky sky trolley thing. Another interesting aspect of our day (I went with Lynsey and Kristina, who both teach at my particular school campus) was all the photographs people wanted to take with us. We felt like regular celebrities, which was both good and bad. Mostly it was 20-something year old guys who wanted pictures. One big group of guys asked us to hold up their favorite soccer team's scarf with them. They would take a couple pictures, then another friend would run and join the group and more pictures were snapped, and then a couple more would come over and decide they wanted a picture. Eventually we just had to say, thanks, we're moving on now. With another group I joked that the picture would cost them 5000 rupiah. I've decided that when this happens from now on (I count five or six times total this has happened in different places,) I'm going to ask for a picture on my camera too so I can start a collection of my friends and I with random Indonesians.

Third weekend adventure: Bandung! Lynsey (my flatmate,) Nicole and Kristina (who are also flatmates) and I went to the city of Bandung for a three day weekend from the 20th to the 22nd. Compared to Jakarta, Bandung feels like a small city, but it's still about 2.5 million strong. We tried especially hard to do nature-y things during our weekend because in Jakarta there are pretty much no trees and no greenery.  : (

The first day WE CLIMBED INTO A VOLCANIC CRATER!!! Granted this wasn't the crater with the smoking, belching, rumbling, sulfuric gases escaping from the ground - we walked around that one - but it the whole thing was beautiful and breathtaking. We also tried ziplining for 20,000 IRP ($2)! The next day we attempted to find hot springs with so-so success. We found them, but not exactly what we were looking for. Still, we got to stick our feet in a hot springs pool. We went to the hot springs north of Bandung, but if we go back we decided to try south of the city, where apparently there are also abundant strawberry fields.

On Saturday it was the first day of Ramadan and everything looked like it was closed because the warungs put sheets up in front their stalls, but really it's just to keep things quiet and to block out the sight and smell of food because everyone is fasting. We learned from our driver (yes, we hired a driver; odd as it still seems, it was very convenient) during the Ramadan fast (which lasts until 6pm each night) you are not even allowed to drink water. I don't know how people do it. On Saturday night we met up with a friend of a friend of Lynsey's and his girlfriend. They have been in Bandung for 6 months and are teaching English through the English First program, which sends them to local schools. They have their own house and invited us over after we ate dinner out. It was great to hear their insights and travel experiences so far. The next day they took us for one of their usual walks through the market. The weekend had various ups and downs (the downs were mostly frustrating moments when plans fell apart or got complicated) but overall it was really nice to take a break from Jakarta.

The last weekend adventure was just this past weekend. This one, I promise, I'll keep short. I went with two others (a teacher at my school and her husband) to check out the beaches on the west coast of Java. It was about a three hour drive (again, we hired a driver; it's just what you do) and part of the long trip was due to horrible roads and construction. We stopped at a couple of places in the town of Anyer and just south. I was wary that the resorts there might charge an entrance fee and be too touristy, but fortunately they were free and gave us great access to the ocean. I got to so swimming in the Java Sea! I tried to body surf but was unsuccessful because the waves were so small. But the water was warm and it was a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll go back again sometime. Another reason to go back to that area is that it's very close to Krakatoa and you can easily hire a boat to take you there for the day. I'm determined to do that before my time here is done.

I doubt there will be any weekend adventures in the next couple of weeks. Or if there are, they'll be small ones. In two weeks a big group of the North American teachers are going to Bali for our two-week Idul Fitri break at the end of Ramadan!

30 THINGS I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT INDONESIA IN (NEARLY) 30 DAYS

1.  Indonesian vehicles have steering wheels on the right side and they drive on the left side of the street.

2.  Traffic is absolutely atrocious, and it can take an hour to travel just a few miles in Jakarta, no matter what time of day. The only time I haven’t seen congestion on the highway is about 3AM or so. When we were going to the other Jakarta campus for induction, our daily commutes used to take about an hour, even though we were only going 4 or 5 miles. When it gets really bad, you might creep along for half a mile during half an hour. Part of the problem is an inefficient highway system. There are crazy one-way stretches and weird configurations so that you often have to backtrack or loop around or go out of your way to get where you are going.

3.  Also on the subject of traffic, driving through the near-constant rush hour can be scary because cars, taxis, motor bikes, and pedestrians all go at the same time. It’s a free-for-all with no rules and no right of way. Everybody squeezes by at the same time at very close proximity and usually honks their horns while doing so. How to drive in Indonesia: NEVER back down: go right on ahead, and if you have three inches of room to squeeze by, that’s plenty.

4.  Modes of transportation include: taxis, SUVs, questionable looking mini-vans and mini-buses, a big bus called the TransJakarta, and motor scooters, which are everywhere. I’m surprised by how few compact cars I see. The taxis are all compact cars, but people mostly drive SUVs or large cars for their personal vehicles. Maybe it’s a status symbol? Doesn’t make much sense given the tight roads and bad traffic.

5.  A layer of smog lays over the city at all times. If you look straight up, the sky might be blue, but if you look out, it’s only hazy gray. Each morning, when Lynsey and I walk to the elevator, we look out the big window there and see a dense layer of gray smog cloaking the city skyline. It’s depressing every single time. We call it “pixie dust,” although that doesn’t lessen how gross it is. I do worry about breathing sometimes.

6.  Homeless people live under the highway underpasses. There are small groups of people sleeping and hanging around there. At night it looks almost surreal in those dirty, shadowy places, sometimes dimly lit with a single florescent bulb on a movable street cart. The street carts are ubiquitous in the city and sell food, water, household goods, medicine, and other things on the street and at corners.

7.  Medicine is very accessible. No prescription needed to get your hands on it. You just get it from the store or street seller. They were handing out anti-diarrhea medicine like candy at Puncak. (Puncak will be its own blog entry; there’s plenty there.)

8.  National dish: nasi goreng, or fried rice. The majority of my vocab at this point consists of food words. “Nasi” means rice, “goreng” means “fried.” As a fun activity on the first day of school I asked the students to move to one corner of the room if they agreed with a given statement. When the question was “What would you choose if you could only have one food for the rest of your life?” there were about 6 boys who chose nasi goreng, a handful of girls who flocked to the sushi corner, and a few pizza and KFC loyalists.

   9. On the topic of KFC, it’s very popular here. Probably the most popular American fast food chain around.

   10. Also very popular in Jakarta: Angry Birds, SpongeBob, Korean pop music (K-Pop), nori-seaweed flavored Lay's, and Bintang beer. Cannot emphasize enough: ANGRY BIRDS IS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!

   11.  Call to prayers happens regularly, but also for unexpectedly long stretches too. There are mosques everywhere, like churches and bars in small American towns, except that it’s a city of more than 10 million, so there are simply tons of them. We can’t hear it from our apartment because we face traffic and that drowns out everything else. But there are several mosques near our school. The loudspeakers point out in all directions from the minarets, making listening unavoidable. The other day I swear someone was reciting the entire Koran through a fuzzy microphone, because the chanting lasted the entire day at school – from before 7 am to 3 in the afternoon or so.

12. All Indonesian toilets (in modern buildings) come with a water hose or built-in jet to wash yourself (which is done instead of or in addition to wiping.) Lynsey and I couldn’t figure out why there was what looks like a very long kitchen sink hose next to our toilet in our apartment. We thought it might be for cleaning the bathroom; turns out it’s for cleaning yourself. The first time I used a public toilet here, there was a little diagram on the back of the lid showing how to use the water jet, by turning a knob on the side of the toilet bowl. I bent over the toilet, thinking I would test it to see what it was all about, and subsequently got a lovely, high-pressure spray of water all over my shirt, the floor, and all the walls of the bathroom stall. I wiped it all up as best as I could with t.p., but was still left with a big wet spot on my shirt. The cleaning lady who was standing there when I opened the door just laughed to herself as I emerged from the stall.

13. Toilet paper comes in tiny roles. When you take it out of the package, it looks more than half used already.

14. You can’t flush toilet paper; you throw it away instead. There is a wastepaper basket next to the toilet for this purpose… IF you are in a modern building. If you are not in a modern building, but say, a roadside warung waiting out a 4 ½ hour traffic jam, you needn’t worry about what to do with the toilet paper: there is none. After you have relieved yourself in the pit in the ground, you take some water from the bucket next to the toilet and use this to wash yourself. This is always done with the left hand. That’s why you do everything else with your right hand.

15. There are no tampons for sale in Indonesia. Fortunately, they do sell them in Singapore, which is where I will need to go soon to renew my visa.

16. The majority of health and beauty products for your skin (lotion, face wash, sunscreen, body wash, etc.) come in skin-whitening versions. Having light skin is sought after, just like having tan skin is sought after in the West. But since I don’t know what sort of chemicals are in those, and I don’t really want to be any whiter than I already am, I carefully avoid them.

17. Having maids, nannies, and drivers is the norm. Our apartment has a tiny maid’s quarters (just big enough for a bed and there’s a tiny bathroom with a pit toilet and bucket for water.) We use the area for storage, but we wish we had larger bedrooms or living area instead of the maid’s area.

18. Few people speak English fluently. Many have some key vocab they can use, but most don’t speak English well, which gives me an excellent opportunity to practice speaking Indonesian.

19. We usually just call Indonesian “Bahasa” because “Bahasa Indonesia” is what you call Indonesian in Indonesian. “Bahasa” means language. “Bahasa Ingriss” = English.

20. How you greet people depends on the time of day. Not so very different from other places, but there isn’t really a generic “hello” that you use all the time. “Selamat pagi” is good morning; “Selamat siang,” is good afternoon, “Selamat sore,” is good late afternoon / early evening, and “Selamat malam,” is good evening / night.

21. The word for “water” in Indonesian is “air.” Bizarre.

22. The Dutch colonized Indonesia, and when they got here, they did what they did back home: build canals. Consequently, Jakarta is filled with canals. And those canals are filled with rubbish. They are absolutely disgusting. “Cesspool” is probably a better way to describe them.

23. Indonesia has a large Chinese population, but is not always well received. Apparently some Chinese did dirty work for colonizers in the past, leading to grudges and mistrust. Also, Communism was ferociously shunned in the past and as a result, Chinese language and culture were banned. A whole generation of Chinese Indonesians grew up with Indonesian names, and were/are unable to speak their ancestral language. Part of Bina Bangsa’s mission is to reteach Chinese language and culture to kids. The Chinese business class is very wealthy and circulates most of the money in Jakarta. And most of the money circulating in Jakarta represents the majority of money circulating in Indonesia.

24. The slums are very slummy. The fancy areas very fancy. There is no in-between, or at least not very much. 

25. There is no avoiding litter on the ground or pollution in the air. The worst air is probably in the parking garage. It’s a little less noxious out in the open. We sometimes wash underwear or socks by hand and hang them out to try on the tiny little balcony; when we bring them back in they have a scent we have dubbed “Jakarta Fresh.” It’s not so bad.

26. Going out to eat is very cheap. I will probably have trouble readjusting to US prices, when you can get a heaping plate of fried noodles and beef, a bottle of water, and a bottle of tea for 33,000 rupiah (about $3.30 USD) as I did just the other day.

27. When you’re out to eat with friends at a restaurant, don’t expect the food to come all at once. All the meals come one at a time and it’s often a long wait for the last one to arrive, so you can’t really wait until everyone has their food to start eating.

28. Smoking in restaurants is a-ok. It’s okay indoors and there are no smoking and non-smoking sections. The best advice is to avoid a table where people are chain smoking Marlboros.

29. Service is cheap. Gratuity is included in restaurant bills. At buildings there are lots of guards. In stores there are tons people waiting to help you. We get our laundry washed for 6000 rupiah per kilo. I got two weeks' worth of laundry washed for the equivalent of $1.25. It comes back wrapped in plastic and labeled with your name on a small tag on each piece of clothing. At our school, we employ two people all the time to run the copy and laminating machine. Because you don’t do something if you could hire someone to do it for you. It’s frustrating at first, and it’s still frustrating later, but it helps to remember that there are a ton of people living here and they all need jobs.

30. Last but not least: Just stop expecting things to make sense, and you'll have a much better time of things.

HOME AND WORK

Hello family and friends. First of all, happy 4th of July! Although it's the 5th here, I know it's still the 4th back home, so that counts right? We were given a few hearty handshakes at school, with wishes for a Happy Independence Day! And last evening, some of the principals took the North American teachers out to eat at Chili's to celebrate. All but two were there I believe, bringing the total to 14 Americans and 2 Canadians, because, you know, we couldn't exclude them.  Their independence day was on Sunday (or so they tell me.)

Anyway… I have so much blogging to do, so much to write about! And so very little time. Actually having a job keeps me busy most the day, and we have also been working on Saturdays, and still busy with other things on Sundays. Very little time to sit down and write. But, I’ll need to make a habit of it if I’m going to get anything written at all. Once the new semester starts, I’ll be even busier.

I will attempt bring you up to date on my accommodations, the new-teacher-induction, and what consists of my daily life in the two + weeks I’ve been here. I’m not writing about everything in a strictly chronological order. I think this blog will end up with a topical focus instead of a chronological one, although I will still try to post once a week or twice a month at the least.

Where to start… How about with where I live? I live in a big, towering apartment. It’s part of a complex with several buildings: Mediterranean 1, Mediterranean 2, and Royal Mediterranean, which is the newest, and is where I live. Specifically, in Tower Lavender, which stands opposite Tower Marigold, across the pool.  As I wrote in my previous blog entry, when we first arrived we didn’t have anything except the teacups and saucers with the Formula One racing logo. Some school people soon brought over some things for us, including two pots and a pan, two glasses, two teacups, two saucers, two plates, two bowls, silverware, a cutting board, two ladles, a broom, a mop, and some other things. They also gave us a rice cooker. A single burner stove unit was already installed. I think it’s good that we only have two of everything, because we have to wash our dishes right away, and we don’t need any more than that. Most importantly, we have a water dispenser, which is essential as you never drink tap water here. (Although I have been using the tap water to rinse my toothbrush and I’ve been fine.) We’ve made many trips to Carrefour (only takes about 5 minutes to get there – if that) to get various essentials and other apartment stuff. Of course, my most vital purchase so far would have to be the mini French press I bought, which I use to make my morning cup of Java java. I guess if I’m going to be grammatically correct, it would be Javanese java. But for once in my life I’m truly drinking local coffee, because I live on the island of Java. Perfect for a coffee lover such as myself!

We live in small bubble of upscale commercialism. The Lavender tower lobby has escalator that leads directly to a tunnel walkway to the mega-mall next door, called Central Park. There is another huge mall next to that one which we sometimes walk to because it has a good grocery store, a department store with good prices, and some other clothing stores with larger sizes, because all the sizes are scaled way down and usually aren’t meant for people taller than, say, 5’6” or so. (At least three of the new North American guys are over six feet tall and find it difficult to find anything that fits.) Outside of the shopping malls and apartments, the streets immediately dissolve into residential areas with houses and shops of varying niceness and cleanliness, and the streets are always busy.  Unlike the States, there is no neat grid-like pattern to the streets, or uniform look to the buildings. They are all unique and seem to organically meld into one another. There are little to no middle-class boutiques, no mid-size businesses. There are just mega-malls and street-side vendors, or at least that’s the impression you get looking around. Also, I can’t quite seem to find the center of Jakarta, and I’m starting to think there might not be one. The closest you get would be the national monument (Monas,) which I glimpsed just briefly, but which is rumored to be at the city-center. There are clusters of skyscrapers here and there, but no one definite cosmopolitan nexus so far as I can see. But what do I know? I’ve been here just over two weeks.

I hope you now have an idea of where I live. Let me fill you in a little on what I’ve been doing. In a nutshell: preparing for the new school year. We can’t drive and or take public transportation, but the school basically buses us everywhere we need to go (including church services on Sunday if you sign up.) All new recruits attended seven days of new teacher induction at the PIK Jakarta campus, from June 21^st to the 28^th. A word about the school: Bina Bangsa School (hereafter BBS) has a few different campuses. The one in PIK (which is an abbreviation for a neighborhood in north Jakarta) is both primary and secondary. There is also the Kebon Jeruk campus, which is where I work. The KJ campus, as it’s usually called, is in west Jakarta, and the name translates to “Orange Grove” or “Garden” – it’s another neighborhood. The primary and secondary are in two separate buildings, quite close to each other. Outside of Jakarta, there are campuses in Bandung, in Malang, and in Semarang, all cities in Java. All the new teachers who work at the KJ campus live in the Mediterranean apartments and we travel together and more often than not go out to eat together too.

Here’s something I wrote a while back, but didn’t post as of yet:

“June 21 2012

Today was our first day of new teacher induction. Everyone in the Mediterania apartments got onto one of the school’s mini coach buses and we were whisked away to the PIK campus, also in Jakarta. It was nice to get out of our apartment-mall area, where we have been living exclusively for the past three days. The streets are not very clean and there is quite a bit of rubbish on the ground. The canals in particular are littered and pretty bad looking in places. We went by shops and residential streets and houses with open porches and doors and corrugated steel roofs. But even with all the people and traffic and litter on the ground, I felt invigorated more than intimidated by travelling through the city. I might just be in the “honeymoon” phase of my cultural adaptation, but that’s okay with me for now.”

What can I say about the rest of induction…? There were lots of corny getting-to-know-you and ice breaker games, a plethora of mild-mannered PowerPoints, boxed lunch, usually noodles or rice, two tea breaks per day, more PowerPoints, and meetings with principals and heads-of-department. I think you get the idea. Typical stuff. It’s amazing how you can travel halfway across the world to teach and Kagan Cooperative Learning groups and Bloom’s Taxonomy will still follow you there. By the end of the seven day induction we were all pretty worn out. We have to write three weeks’ worth of lesson plans, although since I teach three subjects, I’m only writing lessons for the first five days of school. I'm sure the lessons will change once I actually meet my students. (Also, we keep getting new information, even in the last few days before school starts! That's kind of frustrating.) During induction, we also had to demonstrate a lesson. I did one about reading an informational report on sloths. Did you know that sloths are extremely lazy and never clean their fur; in fact, green algae grows in their fur. Also, they give birth hanging upside down. C’est fou, ça.

Last Friday we went for a retreat / more PowerPoints in an area called Puncak in the mountains, but that’s its own blog entry. You’ll see why…

At the moment, we have moved from the PIK campus to our regular campus, KJ Primary. All the teachers have their desks in one big room, which is actually kind of nice. You get a sense of community that way and don’t feel isolated. Also, once the school year starts, it’s not going to be full of people all the time. I also saw “my” classroom for the first time. I put “my” in parentheses, because it’s just barely my classroom. More properly, it belongs to the class of P5 Hope (i.e. primary grade 5, class name “Hope” – all the classes have virtue names; we’re a Christian school in case I forgot to mention it.) This is my form, or homeroom, class. I see them a little bit for homeroom time and I am also their English teacher. They stay in their classroom, I move to my other classes, which are P4 English and P4 Science. Although I teach more English than science, I am somehow under the science department, and in fact am level rep. for 4^th grade science, which means that I set all of our unit tests, prepare the practice-test activities, and write the weekly schedules for 4^th grade science. I also teach a class of remedial English for both 4^th and 5^th grade, and will coach an after-school (co-curricular) activity (or CCA,) as of yet to be determined. Every teacher coaches one. I’m hoping for some sort of debate, art, book, or music club. It might seem like a lot of hodge-podge teaching, and it kind of is, but once I get my schedule down, I think it will be manageable.

Right now I’m in the process of preparing my classroom, preparing lessons, requesting materials, and making sure the first day of school will go smoothly. I'm nervous, but excited.

I hope my accounts of home and work weren’t too boring. At least you have a sketch of where I am and what I’m doing. Soon I shall regale you with more amusing stories about toilets and traffic jams.

ARRIVING IN JAKARTA

(Note: I wrote this on two different days, so the passage of time might sound weird.)

Well, I’m safe and sound and settled into my new apartment after about 42 hours of travel. My body and mind are completely messed up as to time. I don’t know if it’s been one day or three since I left home.

I left home at 8AM on Saturday, had a one hour flight to Chicago (which was delayed so I arrived at O’Hare at noon.) My original flight was supposed to leave around 3:15 from O’Hare, but a last minute flight change meant that we (Lynsey, my travel partner, and I) took a flight at 10:20PM instead on Turkish Airlines. It was a big flight, one with a row of two seats on each side and four seats in the middle. Lynsey and I were square in the middle of our row. That was a long flight, but since I was exhausted and it was around midnight before we were gliding through the air, I slept for a few hours. We also got a good meal and a big choice of things to entertain us on our personal “TV” screens.

We had about a 7 hour layover in Istanbul. I really enjoyed seeing what the currency looked like, picking up some new words, and hearing spoken Turkish while we were there. Then we got onto another Turkish Airlines flight. I mistakenly thought it would be a three hour flight, because I thought I had read that we would arrive at 6 AM. Nope. It was actually 6 PM and we had a 10 hour flight instead. I watched a movie and slept.

In the middle of all this, we flew over some Middle Eastern desert. The waves of pale sand and the thin ridges of sand dunes were endless and kind of beautiful. I thought at first it might be the Saudi desert, but looking at the map, I saw we didn’t go over Saudi Arabia at all. Instead we flew over Afghanistan and Pakistan. I think we went right over the mountainous Waziristan area. You know, where al-Qaida members live and train in caves and do nasty things to other human beings. Fortunately, we were okay so high up the sky, but it still made me nervous.

Next we arrived in Singapore. Lynsey and I were actually fairly worried for a while because nowhere was it written that we stopped in Singapore and we thought we might have gotten on the wrong plane. As it turns out, most of the people got off in Singapore and the rest were given plastic re-entry tickets.

We only had about 15 minutes before we reloaded. We stopped in the bathroom, which was appreciated after such a long flight. As I sat there, relieving myself in the women’s, I had a flashback to jr. high when I learned that you could be fined for not flushing a public toilet in Singapore. I apprehensively scanned the ceiling for a video camera, just in case there was some hidden authority somewhere watching to see who didn’t flush and slap them with a fine. I didn’t see anything except a little red light on the ceiling which I don’t believe was a camera. There was also a small anti-bacterial spray dispenser which instructed you to take some toilet paper, spray it with disinfectant, and wipe down the seat. I didn’t know if it was required, but I took time and really made sure to wipe the seat down well so that the imagined Singaporean authorities would know that not only did I flush the toilet, I left it better than I found it.

Finally we arrived in Jakarta around 6 or 7 PM. A man was waiting for us when we disembarked with a sign that read “Ms. Danna Rose, Ms. Lynsey Sue.” Our middles names always seem attached to our first names here, like lonely, little kids that just want to be included. He had obviously talked to customs beforehand, because he checked our visas, and seeing that I needed a Visa On Arrival, took me over to the VOA payment counter, told the man there we needed “satu” visas (which means the number 1 – one of the words I actually learned before arriving.) I handed over the required sum of 25 USD and was immediately handed back a VOA sticker for my passport. Easy as pie. We didn’t even go through immigration or customs.

After we got our luggage, we were left to wait for the Bina Bangsa people to come get us. We had just enough time to exchange some money, and then three women staff members picked us up, including Ms. Jane, who has been arranging all of the travel for us. The poor woman is the only person doing the arrangements for the 80 new expat teachers they hired this year!

The school has its own vans, and we got into a minivan and were taken to our apartment, the Royal Mediterania Apartments. Traffic was not so bad just then, we were told, although it still looked fairly bad to Lynsey and me. I found out then that Indonesian cars drive on the left side of the road, with steering wheels on the right! I never knew!

Our apartment is very nice and rather posh with a big swimming pool, workout room, and other amenities. We live on the 20th floor and our apartment is new, full of fresh white paint with the plastic still on the TV and stove burner. There were sheets, pillows, and blankets on the beds, but no towels, toilet paper, or kitchen things except for the burner and a set of tea cups, saucers, and plates with an ever-so-attractive Formula One logo on them. There is also a maid’s quarters, which consists of a tiny bedroom (literally just a space of room) and a bathroom with a pit toilet and bucket. Unfortunately, the bedrooms are not equal. One is larger, the other, more cozy. I ended up with the larger bedroom while Lynsey took the smaller one, and we decided we could switch after year one to make things fair.

After setting our stuff inside, Ms. Jane took us to meet another new teacher who had just arrived earlier in the day. Nicole is from Indiana, and just finished student teaching. The three of us went with Ms. Jane and Ms. Ira to the gigantic mall just across from Mediterania. It’s called Central Park and has seven stories chock-full of brand-name clothing, electronics, food, and everything else. It’s the Mall of America of Indonesia. Or one of them at least.

On the bottom floor, they took us to a casual Indonesian restaurant. I was very tired of course, but hungry too and had soto betawi: a soup of beef, coconut milk, and eggs. It was delicious! We also found there is a big Carrefour on that level. Carrefour is like a Super-Wal-Mart or Super-Target, but it’s a French company. We can find almost anything we need there. On the first night we bought toilet paper and towels.

After that we just went home and after a little unpacking, went to sleep.

GOT MY NEW TICKET, ENJOYING MY LAST WEEK AT HOME

Ah, yes, the craziness of last minute preparations. Turns out the flight the school originally booked on Cathay Pacific was full. (Maybe this wouldn't have happened if they had booked two months in advance instead of two weeks in advance. Maybe, just maybe?) So, Lynsey and I will be travelling the 16th, as planned, but now we will go via Turkish Airlines. No longer are we going Chicago to Hong Kong to Jakarta; now it's Chicago to Istanbul to Jakarta. Going the other way around the world now, but it's still going to be a very, very, very, very long flight either way. I am excited to stop in Istanbul, however.

In the meantime, I'm packing and repacking my bag, trying to get the distribution of weight and items just right. My suitcase is 45lbs (35lb of stuff, 10lbs of suitcase,) which doesn't sound too bad, but it's a little unwieldy all the same. I justify it as being necessary for a two year move. I wouldn't have so many things with me if this was only a short stay. Still, in the remaining days I might just dump everything out on the floor and resort it all again.

I'm also enjoying my last days at home with my family. (There I go, sounding morbid again!) We have some nice family dinners planned and tomorrow, Katie and Sarah, my two dear friends, are coming over for dinner and a bonfire and to wish me bon voyage.

Despite having no visa and a last minute flight change, I'm feeling surprisingly calm. I am confident that I will get there one way or another. It will be a weekend of travel and checkpoints, but once I'm in my new home in Jakarta, I can settle in and start exploring the city!