Sea World and Ancol

On Saturday morning, I went to Ancol (an-chol), a neighborhood in northwest Jakarta, on the Java Sea. You have to pay to get into the neighborhood. I’m not sure how much, because I handed my cab driver some money and he paid for it and gave it back to me. It was a few thousand, I guess.

My first stop was Sea World. It’s a big aquarium. From what I could tell, there was only one show, which I think involved feeding the piranhas. There were a lot of people gathered around the piranha tank and a guy on a loudspeaker talking about something.

The rest of the tanks had different kinds of fish and sharks and eels, all colorful. The descriptions were in both Bahasa Indonesian and English, which was helpful. Most of the fish were local, found in the seas around the islands here. My favorite was the dugong. It’s in the same family as the extinct sea cow and the manatee, with a funny, aardvark kind of mouth, used for grazing grasses off the bottom of the ocean. It was huge, slow-moving, and sweet-looking. Its front fins are jointed. They can be used for swimming and also for shuffling along the bottom—walk, walk, drag.

There was a long tunnel where people stand on a slow-moving conveyor belt going along under a tank of fish and sea turtles and rays swimming around and over the tunnel. It was so cool when the rays would brush the top of the tunnel and I could see it’s white underside with its mouth and gills.

The last thing I did before I left was to touch a shark and a ray. It freaked me out a little bit, but they were swimming around in a small tank specifically for the purpose of being touched, so I figured I couldn’t be hurt by it. The shark was little and velvety, which surprised me, and the ray was slimy. I couldn’t bring myself to touch an eel or this spiky, wormy, looking thing. But I’m glad I touched the shark.

After Sea World, I walked through the park around it and over to the gondola ride, which took me across the theme-park part of Ancol. There is Sea World, another sea life place with dolphin and whale and sea lion shows, a water park, an amusement park, and a Universal Studios kind of place.

The other side of the gondola track exited into another park, where I walked along the water and was solicited for boat rides and tours. I thought the sailing trip sounded great. It was a half-hour for 10,000 rupiah and it included lunch. I was by myself but thought I might come back sometime with friends. Then, I sat down in an outdoor café and had a Sprite and watched as the boat attempted to sail out from it’s dock. They raised the sail and went straight into the wind, getting bumped about by the waves and not moving an inch. I still want to go sailing, but maybe I’ll look around for some more experience sailors first.

In the neighborhood of Ancol on the other side of theme park central there are some historic sites, like a maritime museum and a fish market. I decided to save that for another day because the sun was hotter than I’ve ever felt before and my housemates texted me and asked me to join them for lunch back in my neighborhood. Besides, I should probably get to the fish market early because by mid-day I imagine it’s quite smelly!

I'm Not in Kansas Anymore

If I were in Kansas, babies would be strapped into car seats instead of sandwiched between their (helmet-wearing) parents on a motorbike. Yikes. It was, by far, the most shocking thing I've seen. The kid was no more than 10 months old. The fact that he was fast asleep and looked uber-comfortable hasn't done much to alleviate my concern. I guess the good thing is that traffic moves relatively slowly here because there is so much of it.

I'm up to six classes. I almost had seven, but one got cancelled. That means I am teaching 20 hours per week. I have a good mix of ages and levels, so it will keep me on my toes. Today, one class was trying to guess my age. First guess: 23. Obviously, this is my favorite class.

The picture above is Jakarta as seen looking north from the top of Monas. There is pollution here, like in any big city. But so far it doesn't seem too bad. You can't really notice it from the ground unless you happen to step behind an angkot just as it's shooting exhaust out the tailpipe.

This weekend, I might go to a district called Ancol (an-CHOL) which is in the northwest part of the city. It's where I will someday catch a ferry to the Thousand Islands. It's more like 300 islands, actually, but it's supposed to be a relaxing place to spend a weekend. There's also Sea World. While Sea World here is more like a big aquarium and less like Sea World in San Diego, it only costs about 50,000 rupiah to get in. That's $5. Other choices include spending 10,000 rupiah to gain entrance to the sports club where we can lounge by the pool for the morning and afternoon. Apparently, it's empty until about 4 pm because Indonesians don't like to go out in the sun. I might also get a pedicure. And I will probably end up at the mall at some point.

So, while I am indignant about the babies on motorbikes, it's unlikely I'll turn into an activist here. There are just too many other interesting things to do.

Spoiled Beyond Belief

When I left for work today, there were dishes piled in the sink. The floors were a mess. The whole downstairs smelled of stale beer and cigarettes from the weekend. I had several shirts hanging on the drying line from when I did my own laundry on Saturday.

When I got home from work, the kitchen was clean, the floors were clean, the house smelled just fine, and my shirts were nicely ironed and folded and waiting for me in a basket.

I effing love it here.

Monas

Saturday, I decided to go to central Jakarta to see the Istana Merdeka (Presidential Palace). I picked it from a list of sights. I told the taxi driver where to take me and settled in for the 20 minute ride (which cost me less than $5). It had just rained, so the sky was slate blue and the clouds were still hanging heavily over the city. What I noticed most on the ride was just how green everything is. There are trees everywhere. Palm trees, of course. And some that look vaguely like deciduous trees I am used to, although I don't think these ever lose their leaves. There are these trees that I like that are shaped like Christmas trees but the leaves are dark green and waxy looking. I haven't worked out yet whether they grow like that or are trimmed but they seem to be all over the place.

When we got to the Presidential Palace, the taxi driver wanted to let me out across the street but there wasn't a pedestrian crossing and I wanted to go inside and I tried to use my dictionary to communicate that he should drive to the entrance. He wasn't budging and there was no way I was walking across. Luckily, he had pulled over right in front of the entrance to Monas (Monumen Nasional). So, I did that instead. After I got home, I realized that the Presidential Palace is only open to the public on Friday afternoons and that was what my taxi driver was trying to tell me. Oops.

Monas was a perfectly good alternative. It's is a large, phallic statue smack in the middle of a huge park which is smack in the middle of Jakarta. It was built in the 1960's, during Sukarno's presidency, and it commemorates Indonesian independence from the Dutch. The park was practically deserted. Sunday is the big day of rest and relaxation in Jakarta, so that is the day to avoid tourist destinations. I wandered through the park toward the monument, practicing my meandering and noticing basketball and soccer courts (yes, courts--on painted cement, just like basketball and tennis courts), fountains, and small historical statues. A few people were lounging around.

To get into the monument, I had to walk through an underground tunnel that was liberally air-conditioned, which was a welcome relief from the sun and after-rain steaminess of the outside. At the end of the tunnel was a place to buy tickets. Because I can't read even basic Indonesian yet (lessons start Friday), I handed the guy a 50,000 rupiah note. That equates to about $5 and nothing outside of the mall ever costs more than that so it is my default when I don't know what something is going to cost. He handed me my change and two tickets--one green and one yellow. I followed the people in front of me up the stairs, figuring they knew what they were doing.

The stairs come up on street level in a big open terrace surrounding the monument. There is a wall around the terrace that depicts three dimensional scenes of what I think are either from Indonesian history or mythology. At the entrance to the terrace, a woman tore my green ticket. Again, I followed the crowd and a roped off path straight into the basement where there is another large open room lined with dioramas of Indonesian history, concentrating mostly on rebellion, revolution, and Independence. After walking around the museum room for a while, I went back outside and up the stairs to the platform where there was another ticket booth for the elevator to the top. Again, I gave the guy some money and got a pink ticket this time. Then, I stood in line for a really long time. Lucky for me, the student groups arrived just after I did, or I would have been in line for a couple of hours. As it was, I think it was about a half hour.

At the top, there is an open-air observation tower from which I could see the whole of Jakarta. It stretches endlessly in all directions except north, where the water of the Java Sea stops the city from expanding further. It was windy and cool at the top, so I spent a lot of time peering out of all sides and taking lots of pictures (which I put on Facebook, for anybody who is interested in seeing them).

After a while, I took the elevator back down and meandered some more through the park before getting a taxi home. My taxi driver, who could speak a little bit of English, was from West Jakarta and I live in east Jakarta, so he didn't know where my neighborhood was. I was very proud of myself that I was able to direct him (using Indonesian words-yay!) to my gate. All in all, a nice afternoon. I am once again struck by the overall calmness of Jakarta. There are so many people and so much traffic that it seems almost inevitable that it would be more manic. But the heat keeps everybody a little bit lethargic so things sort of roll along without incident.

I Am Weak

I couldn't help it. I woke up on Friday morning and even after I had my tasty cup of Indonesian coffee, I was craving a caramel macchiato. Once I got to the mall (which is basically a place I now go every day either on my way to or on my way from work), I tried to resist, but the pull was too strong. I walked right by and went to the office supply store to pick up the things on my list, but then I had to walk back. And I was way early for work. So I buckled. It was expensive. A grande caramel macchiato costs 43,500 rupiahs. That works out to about $4.68. When I bought enough local coffee to last me three or four weeks for 65,000 rupiahs ($6.99), Starbucks is a ridiculous luxury. But it tasted so good.

Impressions

My first week is over and I can’t believe it’s only been that long. I’ve settled in pretty easily and, since culture shock doesn’t really start to kick in until weeks six or seven, I’m still starry eyed. My housemates are great so far. In addition to being patiently willing to answer my questions about everything from where to get soap to where to vacation, they are also all bright, engaging, and fun. My bosses are also great so far. There is a system at my school that has been in place for years. It makes teaching, or at least planning, very easy. The pacing is set out for me. The goals of each lesson—in terms of vocabulary, grammar, speaking, listening, and writing—are set out for me. There is loads of supplementary information available that is designed to go with each course. And, I am welcome to use my own supplementary material whenever I would like. My students are adorable. I have, so far, one group of mostly 9 year olds and one group of 10 to 12 year olds.

There are definitely a few things that have stood out for me this week.

Indonesians like to be helpful: From the security guards concerned that I was caught in the rain to the twelve saleswomen who try to help me every time I enter a store at the mall, they want to know what I need and they want to help me get it. I can see it getting old or feeling overbearing, but it is definitely a cultural trait, so I’m going to try to keep smiling and roll with it. Besides, when I actually do need help, it’s fantastic. For example, in an angkot when I thought I’d missed my stop, I said the name of my neighborhood like a question and all three of the women I was riding with jumped into action. One talked to the driver and told him to pull over and the other two used hand motions to show me how to walk back to my neighborhood.

There is very little that I am used to that I won’t be able to find a little piece of in Jakarta: There might be a specific item that I start to miss or crave but for the most part, when I feel homesick, I’ll be able to find some comfort. There are American brands of food and chains of restaurants. There is bread and there is cheese (yay!). There is liquor and there is wine, although both are quite expensive and I’ll have to get used to beer again if I plan to drink regularly. There are even more personal hygiene items than I would find in a Walgreens. There are air-conditioned taxis with comfortable seats—for when I am too hot or tired or laden down with shopping bags to ride in an angkot. Kelapa Gading is hot and sticky on the outside, but cool and lush on the inside.

Mosquitoes are not my friends: They are stealth little bastards that bite me all day and all night long. Mostly they attack my feet because I wear long pants and, at night, long sleeves. Yes, I know it’s hot, but staying covered is a defense against the buggers. I saw my first cockroach yesterday. It was in our utility room, which is the only thing I can think of to call what I think would be the maid’s room if our maid lived in (She comes twice a week to do laundry). We have giant black ants that scurry here there occasionally and various other bugs that apparently come up through the drains in the bathroom. I haven’t yet had the pleasure. We also have a gecko that roams around, hopefully eating all of the above. I saw him once and he’s very cute. I have a surprisingly laissez-faire attitude toward the crawly inhabitants of the house. Except for the mosquitoes. I wish the mosquitoes horrible, torturous deaths.

Traffic is insane: Added to the confusion of driving on the left side of the road is the sheer volume of traffic. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles (with seriously risk-taking riders) all drive alarmingly close to one another, creating five lanes out of three and weaving back and forth constantly. I honestly don’t know how it works out, but somehow it does. I can say with absolute certainty that I will never drive in Jakarta. Crossing the street is more than enough danger for me.

Things move slowly: With the exception of traffic, which seems to be in a hurry no matter in what country I find myself, things move at a leisurely pace here. Even when I think I’m strolling, I’m still passing by other pedestrians and I have yet to be passed. Probably it’s the heat. The slower you can move here, the less sweaty you will be. When I’m on my way somewhere, I can’t really help but be deliberate. It’s ingrained. But when I have nowhere in particular to be, I am trying my best to learn to meander.

By Indonesian standards, I am making a ridiculous amount of money: By American standards, my monthly salary is a pittance. By Indonesian standards, however, many of the people around me are making the equivalent of a dollar or two a day while I’m making almost 25 times that. It’s shameful. It’s very strange for me to have a maid. I haven’t decided whether I’ll have her wash my clothes yet. But it’s nice that she’ll take them off the drying line, iron them, and fold them neatly into a basket. We also have a rotation of sort-of housekeepers who work for the school. They come by the house Monday through Thursday to take out the trash, do the dishes, and clean the floors. It feels a little uncomfortable to me at the moment, but they are all paid by the school. It’s probably not a great wage, but maybe it’s more than they could make doing something else.

It rains a lot: October through April is the rainy season in Indonesia and so far it has rained every day. But it doesn’t rain all day. It seems to rain more in the morning or evening, leaving the middle part of the day available for moving about. This is convenient for me since I go to work in the middle part of the day. I’d much rather get to school relatively dry (except for the sweat) and then come home in the rain.

Last night, starting at about five, we had the heaviest rainstorm I’ve seen. By seven the streets were flooded and it rained all night. Unfortunately, this flood has coincided with my running out of groceries. So, this morning, I’ll have to pull on my Wellies and go wading to the store. Wish me luck!

Where Am I?

At Teri's request, above are some pictures of the interior of my house.

And, for those of you who are map junkies like me, here's a Google map with markers for my house, my school, and the mall I keep talking about.

Food

I've discovered that, if I wanted to, I could eat pretty much exactly the same foods in Jakarta that I ate at home. I've been to two different grocery stores, one that carries a lot of imported food and one that is more local. At the first, they have just about anything I can think of that I'd want. Except bagels. I haven't seen bagels yet. I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

There's a Pizza Hut, a Starbucks, a Gloria Jeans, a Krispy Creme, a Baskin Robbins, a Coldstone, and a Sizzler (gross). And that's just in the one mall I've been to. Last night, some of the other teachers went into central Jakarta so they could have dinner at Chili's. I've also seen every brand of chips, pop, sugary cereal, and candy. What I want to know is how are Indonesians not fat?

So far, I have been avoiding these familiar places and items, keeping them on reserve for when I start to feel homesick. But I also haven't found truly local places to eat yet. The language barrier is an issue, as is the sheer size of the city. There are multiple restaurants on every block and which one to try is decision overload. I'm not totally stressing about it yet, but I will have to do something soon. I've been surviving largely on yogurt, crackers, and fruit--and I'm getting hungry.

First Day at Work

I had my first day of work today. It amounted to an hour of administrative details and three hours of observing other teachers. Tomorrow, I have exactly the same schedule. Then, on Wednesday, I have my first class. That’s it. One class. On Wednesday, I have to teach for exactly one hour and twenty minutes. Figuring in planning time, and the fact that I’ll have to review the course beforehand and do some planning, I’ll probably work three or four hours again. Thursday will be the same, because it’s a different class. But that’s it. Two classes, each two days per week, for a grand total of 6 hours of teaching per week, plus time for lesson planning, which will decrease as the course goes on. There is a possibility that I will have new classes after the school holds an open house at the end of January, but how in the world will I fill up my time until then?

Rain and Showers

Over the weekend, it rained a lot. Not the kind of rain I’m used to. Rain comes down in gigantic drops, so fast it sounds a bit like the Indy 500 is happening right outside my door. My housemate says it’s hardly raining at all. When it really gets going, it falls in sheets. In the worst storm he’s ever seen, he couldn’t even see sheets. The sky was dumping buckets of water instead of drops.

When there is a break in the rain, the air remains heavy with moisture. It’s beyond humid, a woolen blanket of air weighing me down when I try to move. I have to remember to take a deep breath every now and then because the air stubbornly tries to avoid my lungs. It’s good for my skin, bad for my hair, and all around fantastic.

Some of my friends from Chicago might remember a trip to the Taste of Chicago in 1999, when we hid under trees and trash can lids and whatever we could find while it rained hard and fast. After just fifteen minutes, the drains were overwhelmed and the streets had collected four or five inches of water. The weekend was like that, only for hours. There were large puddles everywhere, but it didn’t flood. I understand that it does flood here quite often though. That’s why I came equipped with a pair of Wellies.

Last night at dusk, around 6:30, I ventured out. My ATM card hadn’t worked at the ATM I tried at the mall and I needed to get some cash. By the time I’d walked the two blocks to the security gate, it was starting to sprinkle. The guard smiled at me and said, “Miss, hujan, hujan,” as he pointed to the sky. It means “rain.” I smiled back and said, “I’m ok,” because I only know about five words of Indonesian so far. (Now six, thanks to the guard.)

The ATM was another block, and it was sprinkling a bit harder by the time I got there. I got my cash without incident and came back outside to proper rain. But instead of going back the way I came, I continued on to the shop. I was hungry and I only had breakfast-type groceries (the grocery store is so overwhelming, I have to shop in small doses). By the time I turned the corner from the ATM, it was pouring down rain again and I was soaked. It felt wonderful. I’d been so hot all day (not a complaint, just a reality) the cool water was a welcome relief. I made it to the shop and got some stares from the other customers. I just smiled. I have found rather quickly that if you smile at an Indonesia, you’re rewarded with the warmest, toothiest smile in return.

After leaving the shop, I found the rain had returned to its earlier pace and there was no avoiding getting absolutely soaked unless I wanted to wait it out. Not knowing if it would be a few minutes or a few hours, I just went. I was wet already anyway. The streets were empty. There weren’t even people out with umbrellas. It was about a five-minute walk back to my house and I had to pass through another security gate to get back. The guards inside all shouted, “Miss, hujan, hujan,” like maybe I hadn’t noticed. I smiled and waived and told them I was ok. Just inside the gate, I saw the first flash of lightning. I was a little bit concerned, not wanting to get struck down before I’d even taught my first class, so I picked up my pace a little bit. The flashes were infrequent and far away, so I just kept on walking. About two blocks down, one of the security guards ran up behind me with an umbrella. In the time it had taken me to walk two blocks, they must have been debating what to do about the weird American who was out in the rain. I told him I was really okay and that it was a little bit late for an umbrella. I’m not sure whether he believed me, but he did go back to his guardhouse. When I got home, I squeezed the water out of my clothes while standing under a tin awning, hoping the lightning was still far away. I came in, changed, and felt much cooler for the first time all day.

The guards’ concern for me was so cute. I learned from my housemates that Indonesians simply will not go out in the rain. They stay where they are until it stops. Since sometimes that is hours, I don’t really get it. But I get the sense that, in general, things move more slowly here than at home, so it might not be that weird to hang out for hours and wait for the rain to stop. For me, I wouldn’t want to be caught in a deluge on the way to work, but when I was out for a Sunday evening stroll, I was unfazed.

Since I’ve been talking about rain showers, a quick word about the other kind: there is no hot water here. Even in the heat, it still takes my breath away to step under a cold stream of water. The first day, I went straight from my air conditioned bedroom into the shower. When I realized there were no temperature controls on the faucet, I tested the water with my shin. Brr. But there was nothing else to be done if I wanted to get clean, so I splashed some water on my shoulders. Yeow. Slowly, I introduced the cold water to my stomach and my back, and finally, after several minutes, I took the plunge and stuck my head under. After a few seconds, it was fine.

On Saturday, the day of my second shower, I came downstairs first, to thaw out after sleeping in the cold. It was a smart thing to do, but it didn’t make the cold water any easier to get used to. On Sunday, I resolved to suck it up and put my head right in. If I’m going to take a shower every day, it is ridiculous to spend so much time working up to it. But when it came time to do it, I chickened out and went through my splashing ritual. But when I finally stuck my head in, I counted to see how long before my breathing returned to normal. Ten seconds. That’s it.

I’m about to go have my shower for today, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. When the dry season gets here and it gets really hot (or so they tell me—right now it’s about 86 every day, so that seems pretty hot already), maybe the shower will feel refreshing, especially after getting home from work at night. I read somewhere recently that most Indonesians take at least two showers a day. It’s a terrible waste of water and the fact that there is no recycling here already hurts my heart a bit, but maybe I’ll change my mind about that come October.

Left, Left, Left

I've been to the mall twice and both times I found myself listing to the right. Mall traffic tends to move like street traffic, with people walking on the left-hand side—although, also like street traffic, some people prefer to create their own lanes. I remember when I was little, my mom teaching me that it was polite to walk on the right and this life-long habit is hard to break. It’s like putting on your shoes or brushing your teeth. It’s sense memory and you just don’t think about it. In the mall, it’s not such a problem. If my legs unconsciously take me to the right, I move back to the left as soon as there is somebody in my path to remind me that traffic moves in the opposite direction here.

On the street, it’s a little more important to pay attention. Another lesson I remember my mom teaching me is to always walk against traffic, so that you can see the cars coming. So, in the street, my unconscious tendency is to walk on the left, with the cars driving on the right coming toward me. Here though, cars drive on the left, hence I should be walking on the right. On the big streets, it’s easy to remember because there are always cars present to remind me. On the smaller streets in my neighborhood, I find myself listing again. Thank goodness for horns.

Day Three

Today is Saturday. I woke up around eight thirty and was in the shower when my housemates got home. I went to dinner with them last night, but chose to come home afterwards because I was feeling a little bit tired from the jet lag. On reflection, I think this was a wise choice. They are a fun group, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up. Even in the days when I was going out three or four nights a week, I was always home before the sunrise.

It was raining heavily when I woke up this morning, so I lounged around, reading and writing until 1 o’clock. My housemates were all still sleeping so I decided to take a walk. The picture above is a small park at the end of my street. Much of what I’ve seen so far is green, but the streets outside of my neighborhood are not nearly as pristine. It’s a big city, after all.

Yesterday afternoon, I managed to take a trip to the mall to pick up a few things. One of my housemates took me over in a little bus/taxi thing called an angkot. It’s only a five minute ride, but it’s not practical to walk because of the traffic and, in the middle of the day, the heat. The angkot costs about 30 cents. It’s kind of like a small pick up truck with a canvas cover and two long seats in the back. Taxis are also available and cheap. That’s how we got home from the restaurant last night. It was maybe a ten or fifteen minute ride and it cost about a dollar and thirty cents. Suck it, New York.

We got to the restaurant in a very nice minivan with a driver because my English housemate knew some guy he ran into in a bar who lent him the car and driver to transport us. They were chatting and he mentioned that he had to meet some people for dinner. So, the guy just gave him his car. Things definitely work differently here.

The most challenging part of my day yesterday was crossing the street. There are six lanes of traffic and no stoplights. My housemate left me at the mall because she had to go to work. She said that some people she knows wait until an Indonesian person shows up at the crosswalk to follow across. It was good advice and, lucky for me, just as I was getting to my first crosswalk, an Indonesian woman appeared. I stuck close to her—like three inches away close to her—and watched what she did. She took a step out into the street, held up her hand toward the cars, and waited until it looked like one would slow down for her. Then, she stood between the first and second lanes and did the same thing, and so forth. So, I was able to cross the street to and get on the correct angkot back to my neighborhood.

I couldn’t see very well out the windows, so I missed my stop. Fortunately, I realized it within a couple of blocks, so I didn’t have too far to walk back. But I did have to cross two more streets without any local assistance. I was so proud of myself.

Safely Arrived

Here I am in Jakarta. It’s my first morning and I’m up early, or at least earlier than the rest of the house. Outside on the street, there are some sounds I would expect--birds chirping, dogs barking--and some that are new. For example, some guy just rode by on a bike singing out the same word over and over and pushing a large cart loaded down with something he must be selling. I couldn’t tell what because I don’t even have my contacts in yet. I’m sitting in bed, bundled up in my blanket, and peering out the window. I can’t see too much from that position, because of the aforementioned lack of contacts and also because there’s a big tree in my front yard and it’s blocking my view. In case you’re wondering, I’m bundled up because of the air conditioning in my bedroom. I could open my door and let the warmth in, but at present my bedroom is mosquito free and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Today is Friday and I have no particular place that I have to be. My plan is to explore a little bit. To my dismay, part of that exploring is going to include a mall. There are apparently six malls in Kelapa Gading, which is the area of Jakarta that I am now living in. (I believe it’s a sort of suburb, but I’ll get back to you on that.) So, six malls. I’m not even sure there are six malls in all of Chicago. Probably there are. But I hate malls, so I never explored enough to find out. Last night, I learned that even the grocery stores are at the mall, so there’s no avoiding them. Must be Karmic payback for something really bad that I did.

Getting There

My trip to Jakarta started on a Tuesday morning when I hopped in a van with Becky, Megan, and Liberty and we drove up to Chicago for lunch at Café Iberico. After a stop at the RIC to say good-bye to Tanis and my aunt, it was off to the airport. I had two big suitcases and I thought they weighed about 70 lbs. each, which meant an extra $50 per bag at the airport. But I’d been through them both multiple times to remove items and everything left was necessary, so I was going to suck it up and pay the charge. I had stepped onto the scale with both of them and done the math. Only, I’ve never been so good with the math. So, when we got to the airport and actually weighed them, one was 49 lbs. and one was 51.5 lbs. I told the nice man that I was going to find a pound and a half to remove from the overweight one, because paying $50 for so little is silly. But he said that I didn’t have to and he put them through.

The flight to Los Angeles was uneventful except for one thing. I realized that for the past ten years I haven’t owned a watch. I’d been keeping time on my cell phone, which I now no longer possessed. Once I got to Los Angeles, I bought a cheap watch at the gift shop because going four hours have no concept of time is okay. Going 13 hours is not. I absolutely had to have one for the next leg. I checked the duty free shop and there were some really cool choices. But they started at around $100 and went up from there. The watch I ended up with is really ugly. But it did the job and cost less than $20. In some ways, I am definitely my mother’s daughter.

The international terminal at LAX is a bit of a zoo. O’Hare is, or at least used to be, the busiest airport in the world. But on Tuesday it was downright sleepy compared to LAX. There were masses of people in masses of lines. Announcements were made over the loudspeakers every few minutes, calling for flights. For my flight, there wasn’t an announcement. Instead, a woman came out with a sign on a stick, announcing first class boarding. No joke—a sign on a stick. She walked through the crowd like she was marching in a parade. When I realized they weren’t going to call for boarding by the number on my boarding pass, I got in line. Just before I got to the lady checking boarding passes, I noticed that she made a man get out of line and wait. When it was my turn, I didn’t have the right number either, but she couldn’t explain it to me in English so she waived me through.

When I arrived in Seoul, I had to go through customs because I was leaving the airport. My friend Neeru made the best suggestion—that I book a day-rate hotel room so that I could sleep and get a shower. I’d been traveling for 21 hours at that point and had another 15 to go. At the hotel, I took a four hour nap. Then, I got cleaned up. There was a computer in the room and I would have gotten online to send some emails, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the monitor. I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights in the bathroom either, so I showered in the dark.

In Seoul, the airport was much more calm than in Los Angeles. When I got to the airport, my stomach was upset and I was feeling sort of strange. I think it was because my body thought it was night because I felt a lot like I do when I have to get up really early. I was just starting to hope that I wouldn’t feel gross for my final flight when I noticed a Starbucks. One tall caramel macchiato later, I was golden. I love comfort food.

The flight to Jakarta was also uneventful, though for the last couple of hours I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. To get here, I had a four hour flight, a thirteen hour flight, and then a six hour flight. Like I said earlier, I’m not so good with the math, but I know that adds up to way too much time stuck in an airplane seat. I was so relieved to finally land in Jakarta, though there was a tiny problem in the immigration line.

I told my travel agent that I needed a return flight before 30 days from my arrival so I could enter on a tourist visa. Turns out, my return flight is actually 32 days from my arrival date. Ultimately, it’s my fault, because I knew the date of my return flight but I figured my travel agent knew what she was doing and, again, math. The man working at my immigration line was probably 21 or 22 and very grave. He said, “There’s a problem,” and explained to me what the problem was. Somehow, I remained calm as I asked him what my options were. I could either pay an overstay penalty of about $200 or I could change my flight. He actually started flirting with me at this point, saying something like if I stayed over I should come back and see him. I wasn’t paying really close attention because of the overwhelming relief I was feeling when I realized he was going to let me into his country on a promise that I would call my travel agent and move my flight up by two days. I wasn’t exactly lying. I am going to change my flight. Once my work visa is processed, I’ll be changing it to next January instead. Can you imagine a United States immigration official waiving somebody through like that? It would never happen.

Saying Good-Bye

It's been snowing for days. Every time I go outside to my car, I have to clean it off, or defrost the windows, or kick enormous ice blocks out of the tire wells. It's a pain to drag boxes out of my house in this but it makes me even happier that I am moving to a place of permanent warmth. With about 70 hours left before my plane takes off, it's starting to sink in that I'm leaving. I'm glad there is still enough packing to keep me busy so I don't start freaking out. I'm excited to be headed to Jakarta and to a teaching position but, as with any new beginning, there is anxiety.

These last two weeks have been a sort of good-bye tour, with lots of lunches and dinners and drinks. I have complained a lot these last seven and a half years about how I haven't made very many friends in Indiana. I'd like to revise that complaint now: I've clearly made too many friends. Saying good-bye is not easy and I've been doing it over and over again. As much as I've truly enjoyed spending the last bits of time with good people I am not likely to see again for some time, I think I might have preferred to slip away unnoticed. Less melancholy that way.

These last couple days I'm going to spend as much time as possible with my family, enjoying their company up until the last possible second. And then, Tuesday morning, it's off to the airport to begin a thirty-six hour trip to my new home.