Visa Run Singapore

Every year I have the (mis) fortune to have to go and have my working visa renewed or have a new one placed in my passport due to my working terms and conditions with my Indonesian employer. This means that I have to be sent to Singapore to get my new visa.

For some, Singapore is a great place to visit and travel through and enjoy the sites, the city and the attractions like Universal Studios, China Town, and Sentosa. However for me, its a day trip. Starts at 4am and ends at 11pm or later when I finally get back to my house. Singapore is wonderful but in a day its just a place to sit and wait so I can go back to Jakarta and be all legal for another year.

So setting off in a taxi just before 4am on Friday meant waking up at 3.30am which is never enjoyable. Happily everyone was asleep and remained so when I left. The trip to the airport takes less than 35 minutes at that time in the morning and so there I was at Terminal 1 queuing to get into the building when I am told I am at the wrong terminal. I needed to be at Terminal 2. That annoyed me. Whether the taxi driver took me there by mistake or I believed the Internet and departure websites for Jakarta Airport which state Lion Air flies internationally via Terminal 2 or maybe I was still asleep made no difference, I still needed to get to the correct terminal. 

Hailing a taxi, the cheeky sods wanted 30k to go 10k journey. I offered them 20k but 2 refused and started shouting when I just got out of the taxi leaving the car door open. A kindly bluebird picked me up, stuck on the meter and took me to the correct place. I gave him 20k for his trouble and then found my way into Terminal 2.

This Terminal is a mess. For Lion Air there were no signs, no staff and no direction or screens telling you anything. So, after asking several 'staff' there I was put in a long line of people each with 6 bags in one of the 2 lines to check in with. After 15 minutes of standing still, I asked someone else and they told me I was in the check in line for Bangkok and I needed to change lines. So I did. Then after another 10 minutes I was eventually able to check in for my flight.

(JT*) Lion Air 154

(CGK) Jakarta, ID to (SIN) Singapore, SG

Status:

Scheduled

Last change to status more than 3 hours ago

DEPARTURE ARRIVAL Scheduled Departure: Scheduled Arrival: 11:15 AM - Sun Mar-9-2014 2:00 PM - Sun Mar-9-2014 Departure Terminal:   1

General Flight Notes:

• We do not have the necessary data sources to detect the departure of this flight; however we can detect the arrival of this flight.

The information above is from WWW.Flightstat.com telling me I can fly to Singapore from Terminal 1 with Lion air when it is Terminal 2.

Actually to get to the plane, we boarded a bus, went out of Terminal 2, past Terminal 1 and to the Cargo area where the plane was waiting. So that was exciting and a waste of time.

Immigration this year was a breeze and the office was almost polite and then after grabbing a Starbucks Coffee I headed to the information board for confirmation of flights. My ticket said D4 but the board said E4, who to believe? This is Indonesia so something is always wrong. So I headed to E4 and asked. I was told to go to D4 and as I walked there someone announced the change in departure gate for the flight. 

The flight to Singapore was simple enough. Being surrounded by Bank Mandiri staff on a weekend to Singapore they looked confused to see a western man sat in the middle of it all, laughing because he was watching The Family Guy on his tab but hey its my flight as well.

No issues getting through Singapore Immigration after walking the mile or so to get stamped out, it is a big airport. 

Driving through the city the driver used his GPRS on his Samsung Phone to get me to somewhere near China town and the journey involved going through a long tunnel and past the container port which was nice and despite going too far and not getting to the correct place, he told me to walk a little bit and I would find the street easily (where as he never) and he apologised so that was nice.

The old place to hand your passport over was outside McDonalds in Orchard Road but now you have to go to the actual office of the agent and do it under cover and that felt a little less dodgy. Handing over 2 passports because one was full and one was not was met with, 'I am not sure how we do this but we will try, come back at 4.30'. So I did.

views of Singapore

Waiting outside the building with the other people collecting visas that day is always interesting. Everyone looks either hungover or dead tired or very excited. I go with the dead tired look. Eventually some man turned up with a ruck sack full of passports, handed mine over and to my delight my new 11 months (never know why its not a full year ever) visa is in my new passport so that means I can retire my old one.

I headed then back to the Airport via the MRT which is the simplest and quickest option and was back in Changi 45 minutes later.

Views of International Departures Singapore

No issues with checking in or immigration but I never expect any, the wait for the flight was nice enough. 

Happily the flight back to Jakarta was on time and so that made a change. I was sat in row 10 and some fool in front of me decided to fully recline his seat into my space so I stuck both knees into his back and kept moving until he complained directly to me. I told him to sort his chair out which he did and the rest of the flight was simple enough.

After the bus trip across the airport like the one to get to the plane to fly to Singapore, I got stamped in by Immigration, again with no concerns and stepped back into the smoggy hot air of Jakarta at 10.40. By 11.30 I was home. 

Next stop is the Immigration office in the city to get finger printed and photographed like every other year.

Fogging

I have been far too busy with family and work through February to really provide my normal narrative on life out here but that does not mean it has all stopped, quite the opposite, it continues.

Throughout the majority of February I have been soaked daily due to my working schedule and the frequent passing storms and the rain they dispense. It has even taken the pleasure out of riding.

My shoes always damp, my helmet smells, my new water proof coat and trousers leak and the bike has changed colour to a browny dirty one.  The house has got damper, the water features on several walls are interesting and the mould which has moved into one corner of the kitchen ceiling as put by the landlady's builder 'is to be expected, it is raining hard and so houses leak'. So thats OK then. I won't fix it or try too and if something like the water pump breaks down, I will let it rather than telling the landlady because clearly something's out here are not important; like preventing things from getting worse. I don't know why I am surprised I deal with this a lot.

It seems that out in Indonesia, a problem is something that has broken beyond repair otherwise it is not important if it can be taped over or ignored until it breaks. This way of life means that people save money on repairs because it is cheaper to buy new. Everyone excepts this. I try not too but seem I have too because, that's the way it is. The idiom painting over the cracks seems to spring to mind and with the cracks in my walls then it needs filling then painting over. The cracks could be the normal ones you get in new houses or the due to the plasterer who when plastering the walls, did half a wall one day and then the other the next and in between it dried and shrank, like its supposed to do. Sigh.

Still moving on, its still a nice house when it dries out and the sunshines and that is now starting to happen again and the temperature is back to the mid 30's in the sunshine so that makes it better.

One thing with all the rain is the fact that bugs and things grow and reproduce and once the rain has stopped these things then come out of the water and go and find you. Things like mosquitoes which carry dengue fever.

So on the first dry, sunny and hot Sunday of the year the ominous sound of a petrol driven leaf blower could be heard and that meant the man with the killer smoke for the drains was coming and so we had to shut all the doors and windows for the next.

Basically someone wanders around the streets of Jakarta with this death machine blowing some kind of insecticide into the open drains and drain holes and the like in the hope of killing larvae and other nasties lurking below. It can't be a healthy job nor nice for the person doing because of the abuse they must suffer.

More smoke and god knows what else to breathe in

 The smoke is blown through the street and then once he has passed the great migration of cockroaches starts and they all run onto the streets to die unhappy deaths through either poison or the locals killing them all. A lot of these horrible insects ran under the gate and at the house to escape this but ultimately died anyway but it is quite a sight watching them all run at you.

Scattered around the car port to die

After about 30 minutes later they were all pronounced dead and whilst some continued to scuttle in there were very few left. In our house all the drains are covered to prevent mice and the roaches from getting in so we never had any, maybe one.

You don't see this in the guidebooks

Once they were all dead, it was up to me to collect them all up and dispose of them in the bin and the clean the carport down, check the shoes and washing and then open the windows again. Happily though I think this happens no more than twice a year so we don't have to breathe it all in.

Jeremy's health

With all the wet and humid weather around recently it seems everyone in the house has been battling with some kind of virus or bug recently.

I seem to have been blamed for it all because I spent a lot of January with a bad throat and cough and a voice threatening to leave and leave me silent, but it went eventually but then the cough and flu like symptoms decided to creep into everyone else, leaving Yovita sick, Belvan sick, our house keeper sick and Jeremy sick as well. None of which was good.

Jeremy had a small fall the other week and after a trip to the hospital and some xrays etc he was deemed OK and to be honest once we cleaned him up he cheered up and was not really worse for the wear. However he did develop a fever and a cough but we put that down the recent measles jab. His fever became a little more intense recently and so we took him back to the hospital for a check up. He has also contracted a stomach bug and so has a lots of runny poo, not total diarrhoea but enough to be worried about. He had a thorough examination and the only that is currently bothering him is the stomach bug, but it has not slowed him down and he is excited and happy as ever now the fever has gone. He still wakes around 1am for food and then is content to sleep in til 7 as are when we can.

Hopefully it will clear up this weekend otherwise we need to take samples to the lab at hospital to find out what is wrong. I am sure that will happen :(

His teeth are coming through and he has taken to try to bite things and people which is being hugely discouraged. He is teething a lot and has itchy gums but that does not seem to upset him too much. He still eats and drinks away which is always the best sign.

We are still waiting for the first real unaided steps and also the first real words to come and I am sure that those things will be happening before his first birthday.

January in Jakarta

Well that is January pretty much over and done with, all that is left is Chinese New Year and to welcome the Year of the horse.

Been a long month, and so much seems to have happened, which it probably did.

The biggest thing has been the weather out here. The floods have caused problems all over the country and Jakarta again found itself in many places knee high in brown river water. Some of the biggest rainfall I have seen here happened in January and it was loud and impressive and damaging but mainly impressive.

Photos borrowed very kindly from http://statik.tempo.co/ the Jakarta Post / sigmanew.us / stasiareport.com / floodlist.com / englishastroawani.com

(Because it was too wet and too damp to take my own).

The rivers have been very high with most flooding or looking like they will. The weather has given me a bad chest and croaky voice as well which has not been helpful. The roads are now being fixed after all the pot holes created through the rainfall which will help but all they do is fill the hole with tarmac and not seal it and so it will let water in and then sink and the hole reappears, cheap and cheerful and will  make it alright for now.

 My contract renewed itself and so I remain happily with EF and continue to help and support my teachers and students best I can. There are big changes on their way and already happening but I am more than certain we will get through them quite comfortably.

One of the changes is through its marketing approach and this video is the latest awe inspiring one to hit Indonesia. Sometimes it is good knowing you work in a global leading business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Q6xnnQ3P914

Other more random things I have seen and explored this month.

There is a guy who has a 3 meter long snake near where we live and I must try and get a photo of that. The Red Cross here have snow mobiles which look totally out of place but I guess are ideal near volcanoes etc.
The McDonalds near the school served a raw Big Mac last week to a teacher, who used to work in McD's and he was amazed as were the rest of us with seeing that.

I got stopped for riding through a red light the other evening. The fine was 500k, I protested my innocence and was let off after being told off. I am sure it won't happen again.

Jeremy has continued to grow and develop and is now over 10kg in weight and 75cm in height and is 9 months old in a couple of days time.
He continues to explore and crawl and try to stand. He dribbles like there is no tomorrow, smiles when he sees someone he knows and is learning to wave. His laugh is amazing and happily for the grans' his hair is growing back. He is still trying to talk and is getting better at it.
His curiosity is boundless as is his energy and it does confuse me how someone so small can take so much space in the bed up. His teeth are coming through and he is learning to bite.
We are now awaken around midnight to feed him and then again at 4 and if we are lucky he will sleep from 7 until 12 but for now the sleeping pattern has changed and it is starting to make me very tired.

But he is still the most fun ever and I spend so much of my free time playing with him and talking with him and it feels great. His favourite toys are the simplest ones, an orange plastic hoop, a set of stacking rings, a Fisher Price play phone and some soft toys courtesy of mum and Auntie Margaret :).

He now crawls around the house or in his walker thing and he still does not really cry or sulk and is very patient and does not seem scared of anything, well perhaps my sneezing!!!

February is around the corner and  hope the weather changes, it gets warm and the blue skies return. 

House Keepers

Since being in Indonesia I have always had access to a maid or housekeeper. As a teacher living in a teachers house there was a maid who did all the work and we just slept and ate there. Then when I moved to my apartment I could have used Yovitas maid if I wanted but I choose not too as I am very capable of doing stuff on my own.

When I moved to Mampang, Yovitas maid would stay over at the weekend and sort things out and once married she stayed with us permanently. However it was during the time where I was not married that my house was burgled and everything was stolen. At this time it made me realise that a maid or house keeper is essential to living in a house here if you are working all the time because the house needs to be kept occupied to keep unwanted attention away. Being western and living in Jakarta in a 'non expat' area you are constantly watched and the house is under local surveillance all day and night long, comforting and worrying at the same time.

So once we were married Yovitas maid moved in and we stayed with us until Jeremy was born in 2013 and then left to look after her daughters who were coming to the city.

Most maids or housekeepers are from dots on the map, from villages or towns across the country where there is nothing. No employment other than working in the fields or forests for next to nothing, limited access to education and no real future. So they come to Jakarta and work in houses cleaning, washing etc and earning more but working just as hard for their employer. 

So when our first maid left, we decided we needed to have a house keeper rather than a maid or nanny with the main purpose to make sure the house was occupied, however, with the arrival of Jeremy the role turned to something bigger and that was housekeeper and baby sitter. 

The next  housekeeper to arrive was called Nani and she stayed with us for about 3 months and was really useful and helpful and trustworthy (which is key) and then she decided to quit to go back to the village to look after her children.

This sent us into a panic but luckily we had some help and found another maid called ooh-um and she was strange. Mainly because she was in her 30's and had been married 3 times already, since being 14 and had several children she had never seen. So with all that in her past, she began worrying us almost immediately and within 3 weeks of being with her, we let her go because she was she was acting weird and the house was a mess. Luckily Nani had made contact asking to come back to work with us because she needed to work to pay for her children's schooling. We said yes.

Housekeepers do not get paid a lot of money, they have little legal status and are often abused because of that. 1 day off a month and limited cash normally less than a million a month for salary, out of which, food and phone credit etc has to be bought. We however are a more fair and pay a good wage (not telling you here) with a daily food allowance and 2 days off a month plus when we are home, then they are not really needed to do much unless asked, so in truth a lot of down time. Looking after Jeremy is hard work and we acknowledge that and so that is why we pay more and give them more time off. Our housekeeper normally finishes her duties around 6.30pm.

2 days before New years eve, Nani asked permission to go home and spend New Year with her children back in her village to which we agreed. On he first of January Yovita finds out that she has no desire to return and then never spoke to us again, leaving us high and dry with no housekeeper. Great.

When this happens, Yovita has to take time from work and I will as well because Jeremy needs to be looked after as does the house. Again, luckily Yovitas brother knew of someone was looking to be a house keeper and so a deal was struck. 

This one was called Ainan and she was 16 and had already spent 2 years working as a maid somewhere. We had to pay a few people who helped and so come Sunday she was on the house and things were hopefully going to be OK again. However, it turned out that she had people pushing her to get more money and using her to earn more money, moreover one of these people came to the house and confronted Yovita asking form more money. He was told very nicely I am sure to go away and he did. It was time to get another housekeeper.

So we now have Tia who resigned from another place because she was being paid very little and her salary was 3 months in arrears. Yovita did the negoiating and agreed terms and so now here we are. I am hoping that she will stay at least the year to make it easy for us all. Time will tell.

We could have gone to an agent to make this less painful but there is no guarantee that the maid supplied will be any better, you have to pay them a consultancy fee and then there are other issues as well. So sourcing locally seems to be better for us.

So getting a housekeeper who can wash, clean, baby sit, not leave after 3 months, is honest, trustworthy and then keeping them is a challenge and not as easy as some might have you believe.

Views of Jakarta

I was lucky enough to spend the first weekend of 2014 in a 5 star hotel to help celebrate Yovitas birthday and just enjoy the time there. The hotel was the Mulia Senayan and I have stayed there a few times and it is always a good place to stay.
This time on arrival the hotel was deserted, it was the quietest I have seen it which was nice. We were lucky enough to have a Junior suite up on the 35th floor.

The room itself was huge and like the times before full of all the luxuries you need including a fantastic bathroom complete with an electronic toilet, which lid opened when you went near it, closed when you left. The seat was automatically warmed for you and the spray could be controlled at the end by the touch of a button and then the drying was a weird warm air up your bum sort of sensation. It was interesting but not really that interesting.

What was interesting however, was the view. From my windows we looked out to the west and and the north, so much so I could see the mountains to the southwest and also the ocean and some Thousand Islands.

I spent much of my time looking out to the view because for me, it was a rare occasion to see the city like that and it was well worth it.

Yes that's a volcano in the distance

That's the Java sea

Jeremy enjoyed the view as well

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