Jakarta Airport and City Traffic

I got a new teacher :) so thats marvellous. I got a new female teacher so that is fantastic.

Good things this month so far.... Band of Brothers on HBO, Snow White and the 7 dwarfs on Disney channel, helping my girlfriend with a new phone, seeing the floor tiles shine after cleaning and polishing them and getting a new and female teacher. One could almost argue life is good.
Oh and I have hits now from over 50 different countries. Its not all bad. Oh I also caught the mouse terrorising the teachers!!!! I am a man of many talents....

Next month going to be even better...........

So I have to go to the airport and thats always nice. I have my classes covered by other teachers and put all my work on hold. Sit in the car and get driven to Soekarno Hatto airport in the province of Banten in the city of Tangerang Jakarta. Just like Heathrow airport London, the main airport is not actually in the city but about 45 mins in a fast car from the city.

 

Getting to airport, I discovered theflight from Dubai was delayed by 2.5 hours. There's a shock. So that meant I could not be back for my final class and so had to spend the next 4 hours at the airport waiting.  

What joy.

So I went to Toni Jacks for something to eat. Its used to be McDonalds but the franchise collapsed and so it was now Toni Jacks. The slogan "ours is better than that one" is in my opinion very misleading unless you eat the fried and then they might be right. The burger was pitiful. If the owner had spent so long making burgers then why was the one I ate awful.           

The only consolation was the guy who served me looked like and acted like a pirate so that helped.

So here I am waiting for something to do. I have spoken to the school sorted by schedules out and now sat waiting. Twitter updated. Facebook updated. Girlfriend spoken too.

Hmmm

The best thing abut hanging around the airport is watching all life there live and survive together.
I did not want any perfume, hotels, watches etc as normal. But this time I spent my time watching 2 girls from the west getting harassed by the local men and followed and sat closely with talked too. I then watched one man sneak behind one of the girls and try to take or touch something. Bored and fed up with this I went over and asked if they were ok.
They were from Russia and needed to get a taxi into the city to help them to their place.
The airport is nice dont get me wrong but it is not welcoming or friendly or helpful or anything that an international airport should be. A tourist coming here has no chance of any help as no one wants to help just extort money.
So I stepped in and helped them out. Took them to the blue bird stand got the man there to ensure they got to the city ok and that the fare was going to be correct. I can only hope it was.
That was pretty much my only highlight.
The flight landed at 6.25. My new teacher wandered out at 7.30pm

Finally...........

The ride back to the city was nice and quick.
After dropping her off at the house. I met the teachers and we all went for a beer at Cafe Pisa at Puri. I needed that.

Saturday was city tour afternoon and so me, Yovita and a couple of teachers got into the car and headed into the city. It was really a nice day and we went to the usual places. Sunda Kelapa harbour to see the old wooden ships and the men loading them by hand. They send everything from here all over the country from bottles of waters to motorbikes. All in these huge ships.
From there we drove through the city.

We stopped at Kota first for a wander.

Random views around the square....

From there we rode around the city a bit looking at the skyline after seeing the Monas and the Presidents palace. The skyline is great here and there are lots of great buildings

Different views through Sudirman and then upto Semanggi and back towards Taman Anngrek.








Our final destination was at Batavia Marina, one of the nicest places in the city to eat and chill out. I must admit its great there.

I will I am sure have more photos of this place over the months but it is nice to visit there in the evening as the sun sets to the east and we sit facing north,

That was the week. A good week full of nice things.

Oh yes. I am with Permata Bank now and they speak English in the local branch in Puri and it took 5 minutes to get my account open. Yeay