Anniversaries

Been a busy couple of weeks all in all what with one thing and another. The month of July is now drawing to a close and the rainy season I hope is now drawing to a close as well,  although going by the rain on Saturday there are still some storms to come. 

Work has been its normal frantic self and with the departure of 3 teachers in the spate of a week, thats left the teachers room a little forlorn and desolate, add holidays and spartan schedules then the place has turned into a very quiet place. If it was not for the racket the kids make when they are there then it would be the most peaceful place in Jakarta!

EF has also introduced to the world Magenta coloured cars. There is nothing to say about that apart from, yep thats a bright colour and feels really good when people watch who gets out from one of them.

it's not pink it's magenta

Outside of work, everything else has been again go go go. Jeremy has been to the Doctors twice in a month for inoculations and the last one was the BCG one. He took the pain fairly well and seems to be OK with needles. This is good because in another 2 weeks he will be back for more. Lets not discuss the cost but knowing that this stuff which is being pumped into him will help fight and stop disease. So I am not concerned at all.

Last week saw my first wedding anniversary. Its already been a year since I got married to Yovita. Time has flown by. The storks have been and everything seems to have been a blur since. We spent the night celebrating it (with Jeremy of course) in the Mulia Hotel. It's always nice to stay in 5 star luxury and that is exactly what we did. Huge room, bed for 5 and a bath tub you have to spend as long as possible in and with no worries about running out of hot water, that was exactly what I did. The hotel itself is looking a little weary but it is still an awesome place to stay so I won't complain. 

The bed in the hotel. Jeremy is on there to help with understanding how big it is

panoramic view from one of the windows of Jakarta

Jeremy also reached 3 months old and he has grown and has changed so much. He is smiling and chatting through noises now and is visually alert as well as auditorily. His ability to grip has come on huge and whilst he has not started grabbing yet, its only a matter of time before he does. 

I took a trip to the driving license center on Dann Mogot on Saturday morning for the annual renewal of my bike licence. Happily for the price and use of an agent, I was there for no more than 40 minutes and left with new SIM C and another year of hassle free discussion if stopped by the police. I can't say it is a great place to visit but the centre seems more organised and quick than before so that was good. 

like mine but mine has a picture of me

So only a week to go now and then I am on holiday for a week. Probably a week of Jeremy watching although I suspect I will be allowed out in the week to go play on the buses and go and have a wander around the city. With up to 10 million people expected to leave the city in just over a week, Jakarta is going to be great.

Welcome Ramadhan

Ramadhan has started in Jakarta and the city has changed and people so far are happier and are enjoying the fasting and events that start the fasting festival.

What this means to me is the following:

No Beer freely on sale in Indomaret, Giant, or Super Indo all near my house.
The Mosque 50 meters down the road overspills between 6 and 7 for prayers, closing the road meaning a detour
Someone bangs a drum every couple of nights at 3 and 4am to get me to wake up and go to the mosque
The food stalls do not open until 4 or 5pm
The roads are quieter after 7pm which is nice
My students are quieter and more tired

A Drum on a truck inviting you to prayer (courtesy of http://twocupsofjava.wordpress.com/2012/08/)

And thats about it for me and how it affects me, in other words it doesn't. Life goes on freely and willingly and the traffic madness reigns supreme, the rain continues to fall in the dry season and there seems a never ending supply of coconuts in the store opposite.

The fasting will continue until the 7th of August and then the 2 days of feasting happens. I expect fireworks and even less people in the city as they will go home to their home towns and celebrate it with family.

So it's been a strange few weeks all in. Last week I went to meet a new teacher at the airport and on the way not only did we get lost but the driver managed to get himself a ticket for no real reason other than not having any cash to bribe the policeman with. Totally outrageous but that's the quality of some of the police here. Not all, just the ones that stop cars and demand money.

Breaking the law is wrong but you can pay 20,000 on the spot to dodge the court trip
(picture from the Jakarta Post)

Yovita has gone back to work and so Jeremy is being looked after by his gran. This went well for the first week of her returning to work, lets hope that continues.

The weather has been scorching hot to cool and very stormy with lots of afternoon and evening rain. Recently every time I have worn my Adidas trainers to work it has rained so hard I have had to let them dry for a day. I have stopped wearing them in the hope that it will make the ride home more dry.

The price of fuel went up, there were some demonstrations. A few stones thrown, a few thousand litres of water from the water canon used but nothing drastic compared to last year. It sort of just slipped in and very little fuss has happened since. Food prices have naturally increased again and some are getting silly expensive but it will all calm itself down.

Pizza Hut appear to have put up their prices for Pizza, Dominos will not deliver as we are too far away from the nearest store so we have gone back to PHD,which is good as the pizzas are big and cheap and there are lots of offers. This makes me happy. Burger King running out of burgers does not.

Breaking Fast is busy and chaotic time but fun for those who observe it
(picture courtesy of www.cube-mag.de)

Happily enough, I can more see good things on the horizon. A night at a 5 star hotel, renewing my SIM, and a week off from work at the end of Ramadhan.

8 weeks on

Eight weeks ago I became a father and a parent to Jeremy.  How time has flown by.

Jeremy has grown in size, noise, confidence, alertness, smiles and in my life and I had considered none of those things when he arrived.

Parenting and being a father is for me, rather like being an explorer, every day is different and you see and learn so many new things. One new thing is how to sleep like the dead one second and the next feeding a screaming child without really thinking.

Jeremy now sleeps mostly through the night and sleeps from around 10 to 2 and then from 3 to 6 which is pretty good. He sometimes sleeps longer and sometimes shorter. He gets a little grizzly when he is hungry but thats about it. He likes to smile and make noise wave his arms around. He is currently enjoying YouTube random baby program nonsense and Captain Calamari, which is a hanging Octopus with that moves about. He looks at everything, seems transfixed somedays with corners and random spots in the room and can sleep through the loudest of noise, Pancoran Barat can make.

Captain Calamari

He also enjoys shopping so much in the malls that he sleeps through it all, wakes up in the taxi, has some milk and goes back to sleep. Which is a joy.  Mothercare is a whole new world to me and once he is big enough Next and Gap will be more fun to visit as the clothing is great.

The last trip to the doctors was a good one and he is getting his jabs and drops to help him and takes them like his dad, without fear and is currently very well behaved.

His inoculations last for the next year in somewhat seemingly abundance and then Peter out to nothing which is also good.

I can't wait now for him to finally start crawling and trying to sit up and then hopefully his random noise will begin to turn into language. Should be interesting and fun to listen to him speak in both English and Indonesian. 

Day 1

First few days at home

Last month

Last week

Please feel free to comment and I will reply as soon as I can. Thank you