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

Down my road part 2

I thought that from my last post I would share some more pictures if Mampang and Pancoran with you to help illustrate some more of what life is like away from the apartment lifestyle or leafy suburbs of Jakarta.

 Busy street, motorbike helmets are not considered as a priority around these streets

Taking a break from pushing his toy barrow around the streets and he is sat with a fruit seller

 Plants in odd pots often hide the open drains

 Discarded logs

 Broken and vandalized phone booth

 A small cemetery between houses

 Over piling rubbish is often seen

 Dirty brown rivers are common through the city

Another Toy vendor

 A big mosque 5 minutes from my house

 Another mosque with a canopy for the overspill at prayer time

This street heads towards a very busy road

 Small local store

A man selling Tofu

Sunday afternoon traffic heading into the city

 

 Garbage collectors waiting for the Rubbish truck to arrive

 

However the garbage truck had broken down

 An empty side of the road eaterie

 Some random housing

This view is looking toward my house with a mosque, clinic and all sorts in view

At the corner from my house (far left)

 He sells nothing I want

DVD and Fruit stalls

And for my dad...

 yesterdays prices of fuel from Shell. Super is just over 60p a litre where as Pertamina subsidised fuel is 30p

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

Down My road

Living where I do in Pancoran Barat, which is in the south of the city and in a densely populated part of the city, I am subjected to, albeit in a positive way, to real living in Jakarta.

I don't live in a guarded or gated complex which is sterile and full of trees and birds and drivers washing their cars at 6am but rather I am in a full on area where the noise and motorbikes, food sellers and mosques never stop, yet there is also a lot of peace and calm as well.

You get to see more of the culture and diversity of people and behaviours which allow you to understand less about the people than before. Being the only 'bule' on the block, the stares remain but they lessen as I have been living here now for over 6 months however the people who still stare are comical to watch.

I am and am continuing to adapt to life in this area so much so I have started to compile a list of the oddities and the things I encounter through the day.

I am pretty sure this will get updated ...

1. No Gallon water bottles for sale on occasion. This time the area has run out because the truck driver has gone to his home town and so shops have run dry.
2. Weddings. Weddings happen frequently around me. If next to the house we get fed if not we are still treated to the music from midday to midnight.
3. Funerals. Someone dies then there are mass prayers said in front or in the persons house.
4. Food. Everything is available in terms of Indonesian fare. If you want rendang you have to buy it before 5pm as the restaurant will sell out.
5. The new food seller in the area sells corn and has a horn to announce his arrival
6. You can get food 24 hours a day because there is always someone open.
7. Indomaret sells Beer. Alfamart does not.

Hooray for Indomaret

8. The Mandiri ATM in Indomaret has been out of service for the past 6 months.

9. The coconut stall gets 3 deliveries of coconuts a week. A delivery being a small truck load

Coconuts and Ice

10. The next door neighbour washes her bike at 2am

11. The night watchmen patrol the streets (when they are not sat smoking cigarettes) and bang lamp posts at certain time intervals to let each other know all is well

12. Cooking oil, sugar and eggs are cheaper in the small stores than in the supermarket. Eggs are bought by the kilo and are just pure chicken eggs with no added anything.

13. Every small store sells Magnum ice creams

Local Shops

14. There are 2 mosques I can here and see. Both start up at 3.30am

15. Local petrol is 20,000 a bottle

16. The bike shop opposite charge 3,000 for air

17. The local barbers is 10,000 and the local salon is 50,000 for hair wash and massage

18. Blocks of ice can be ordered as the ice man comes round twice a day

19. The plants we put outside the house to stop parking have not been destroyed by the locals rather have been left to grow

20. The roads flood 50 metres either side of the house in the rain but within 20 minutes of it stopping it all disappears

This is just down the road from me (courtesty of news.detik.com)

21. The local bike wash is also 10,000 a wash

22. There are at least 10 small stores selling phone cards and accessories

23. By motorbike I am 5 minutes from the main road and the busway

24. It costs 2,000 rupiah to take the small mini bus to Giant which is about 2 km away but also 2000 to go 100 meters

25. Taxis wont come to the house at 8am as all the roads are jammed tight with people trying to get to work

Fried Rice

Jakarta by Bus

Thursday was a national holiday so that meant a day off and a chance to relax. Indonesia has a lot of public holidays that fall in the week and the closer they are to a weekend the less people in the city. Knowing,  it was time to ride the bus.

I am not a fan of the bus but I do take them sometimes as they can be quicker to move around the city and they are cheaper. I only take the TransJakarta buses as I feel they are relatively safe compared to anything else on offer in the city.

To get to the nearest busway shelter, Pancoran Barat, I have to take an Ojek through the backstreets to the main road. It costs 7,000 and takes about 5 minutes.

The pricing of Ojek, Bajai and Mikrolet or Angkot vary hugely wherever you are. I pay 7,000 for the motorbike taxi to get to the Busway. That never changes. I pay 12,000 for the Bajai from Giant to my home, although it can be 10 if with my wife. The blue mini van or bus that rides around the area is 2,000 flat fee regardless of how far you go and it runs from the Zoo to RCTI studios at Mampang. TransJakarta Bus is 3,500 flat fee as well and you can ride all over the city as long as you dont get out from the busway for that price.

So on Thursday we took the bus to Semanggi to do some shopping. The bus took about 20 minutes to get there and the total price for the trip there was 10,500 idr each. The taxi back (because its more complicated getting back) was 30,000 and took 30 minutes.

A rather quick trip on the bus, but the best thing about the busway are the views from the bridges themselves as they offer glimpses into different parts of the city that are not often seen. I must take some more bus trips and take more photos.

 A building site just starting up and the chance to play with cranes and large blocks

 Inside the shelter

 Looking at a local bike accessory store

 A view of Sudirman looking south

 The toll looking west at Semanggi

 The toll looking east

 The unseen waterfall wall at the Crowne hotel

Out front of the hotel is an Electricity sub station garden with plants and 250,000KV