Indonesia!

Helloo. I've been here in Palembang for over a week now. The journey here from Singapore was interesting. I had to change planes in Jakarta and this involved a confusing time at the passport check where I managed to make friends with most of the staff just by filling in an arrival card. I then had to collect my bag and make my way to a different terminal. This was a very confusing affair but I was kindly directed to a bus stop where I could get on a little yellow bus complete with crazy driver to be taken to Terminal 1. Inside the terminal was crazily busy with trolleys everywhere and long queues. When I had checked in I went up to the gate area which resides in a big wooden structure like a giant log cabin on stilts. Very weird. I then sat and waited to hear the word Palembang as the display screens didn't really seem to be working. After a slight delay we got into the air and on our way.

Jakarta Airport domestic flights section - the log cabin

So, the first week of work went pretty well. I'm just learning the ropes but should properly get the hang of it soon. I teach between two and four classes a day with a wide variety of ages. It's nice!

I've met lots of nice people since being here. I have four housemates, Beth, Amy, Sarita and Zach; 3 British and an American in that order. All very cool people. I've also met quite a few of their friends who all also seem like nice and jolly people. Today we took a trip to Jakabaring, the venue for the 3rd Islamic Solidarity Games which is being held in Palembang at the moment. We rocked up and walked around trying to find where to buy tickets. Not as simple as one in a non-chaotic country might think. We were bombarded by manr requests to take photos of us. Some people just grab you while others ask nicely. Very strange thing to get used to. So we decided to hide out in the shade where loads of police officers were hanging out... Who then asked for a photo with us. We had a chat with them and stuff and they showed us where to get the tickets. We went for the VIP option at a very reasonable price of about £3. We made our way to our seats ready to watch an epic battle of a football match between Turkey and Saudi Arabia. By epic battle I just mean that it wasn't really that exciting. Not being a football fan myself, what I would say about it is that it was not very fast moving and the players seemed to fall over a lot, even when doing simple kicks. Anyway, Turkey were victorious with a final score of 2-1.

The score at the start: 0-0!

Now I'm back at the house. I've just had a jacket potato and I'm going to chill for a bit. I'll try and write again soon, promise!

The view from my window!

The Next Day

The next day was visa day. I got a taxi from the hotel around nine. The streets were busy as the Formula 1 was looming. The supposedly short journey cost about the same amount as going to the airport. When we reached the address I went to the 10th floor of this tall building where I would find an unexpectedly tiny office for a visa office with a desk and lots of piles of paperwork dotted around. I gave the required documents to the jolly fellow at the desk and he told me to come back after 4.30pm.

 So what to do with my day? Go to the S.E.A aquarium, the biggest aquarium in South East Asia obviously! Boasting the biggest perspex viewing pane in the world. Goodo. The aquarium is on Sentosa Island, where I had been with Joyce a year before to go to Universal Studios. The aquarium was fantastic, you should definitely go there! At first it doesn't look like an aquarium as there are lots of displays of shipping history through the ages, and how main ports have changes location over the years. And one of these displays was on Palembang, my soon to be home for the year. Spooky! After this display of information you take an escalator down into the basement where they keep the fish. There is so much to see there, including sharks, dolphins, and an animal I've been wanting to see for a long time. The manta ray! They can reach about 2 metres in length and are really cool. They had loads of other nice rays too. And eels. It was really amazing to see dolphins that close up too, I think I like them a bit more now.

After the awesome-ness of the aquarium I decided to go and find the beach, which you get to by passing a giant purpose built merlion and then carry on in a straight line to the other side of the island. Once there I had a little paddle and sat down. A girl came over to ask me a question and we got talking, turns out she's from Kingston. How crazy seeing someone from your home town half way across the world! Opposite us there was a little island reachable by a rope bridge. We decided to go and take a look. There were some viewing platforms you could climb up so this we did. The view was pretty cool. I later found out we were standing on the southernmost point of continental South East Asia. Cool!

After collecting my visa I went for a coffee and then on a search for some dinner. Now I am all set for Indonesia!!

While I wait for the shower to heat up...

... Which according to the sign on the wall should take fifteen minutes.

Helloo there, I'm in Singapore! For my avid followers, I am starting a job in Indonesia next week being an English teacher and am currently at a pit-stop on the way. Talking of pit-stops, it's the Singapore Grand Prix at the weekend and I was lucky enough to share my flight with the Caterham Formula One team. I had to google them to find out if they were actually famous, but there were loads of them and they had uniform-everything. The first thing I noticed was the shirts, with the name emblazened across the back, only then to see that they all had exactly the same jeans on. Whilst behind them in the passport queue I noticed that each of them was the owner of the exact same design of backpack. If that's not enough to make them look uniform then in addition to this there were the suitcases, very smart.

I got to my hotel at about 11 am, once again got no sleep on the plane. I sort of had a lie down but then decided it would be a better idea to go out and try to stay awake. I got some maps and things from downstairs and decided to have a walk into Little India. It's very bright and colourful there, the buildings are painted some crazy shades, it all looks very jolly. After this I took the train to the botanical gardens - amazing! There were lots of different trees and plants and different themed gardens. My favourite was called the Evolution Garden. It took you on a walk through time starting off at the beginning of the garden which consisted of just rocks, like before life began, then continued with mosses and things and primitive plants and finally on to present day and the plants we have now. They also had some petrified tree trunks. I've never seen them up close before, very cool.

I also took a verging on embarrassing amount of photos of orchids whilst visiting the National Orchid Garden, such beautiful flowers!

 
I came back to the hotel after this and had some free coffee, checked my emails and all that jazz. My taxi driver this morning had suggested that I go to China Town this evening because it's currently the Mid-Autumn festival. Seasons must be very different here as I'm sure it basically still summer, definitely not MID autumn. Anyway he said there'd be lots of lanterns and things, which there were, and that I wouldn't stop clicking my camera. I took one or two pictures and I'm pretty sure most China Towns I've been to have a lot of lanterns. It was still very cool though. I was drawn into a Thai restaurant for dinner by a chatty restaurant lady. I had Thai green curry. It was spicy but really tasty. It reminded me of my travelling days with Joyce (the nickname lives on). After that and glancing over the stalls at some of the tat available, I returned to the hotel. I've not long been back. And as you can see from the title I'm going to have a shower soon. It's all very exciting.

Tomorrow I have to go to the Indonesian Embassy to get a Visa so that I can actually continue my journey and start working. It seems pretty straightforward. I haven't decided exactly what I'll do with the rest of the day but I've heard there's a light show in the evening by the marina which I might check out. Anyway, I said to a few people that I would get back into telling you about the oh-so-thrilling events that I experience, so here I am. Enjoy if you like! 

Now, operation find phone charger so I can wake up in the morning. See ya!