Help!

One of the many luxuries of living in Indonesia or anywhere in Asia is having domestic help. We were spoilt in Phnom Penh for 6 years because we had 2 housekeepers. Our last one Sokha was the best.....

We have been in our house now for a couple of months and we still dont have one. I love the look I get when the subject of housekeepers comes up in conversation amongst friends, especially when I tell them that I dont have one - YET! Im sure half of them think Im crazy. Having domestic help is one of your keys to surviving in Jakarta. Simple as that. Imagine coming home to a clean house, clean and ironed laundry, homecooked dinner. Its Bliss! You can go out whenever you want if you have a nanny for your kids. Its quite affordable to have domestic help.

You see its kindve unheard of for an expat not to have some sort of domestic help, I know a couple here who have 7 staff and there is only the 2 of them!!!

There are days both Mike & I wish we had one.... especially those days where you notice the laundry basket is overflowing and so is the ironing basket! The other week was especially crazy and everything to do with the house was getting out of hand.. the kitchen had flooded after a rainstorm and the laundry had gotten wet as well!

Sitting at lunch the next day looking a bit frazzled I shared my predicament with friends who suggested I just grab all the laundry and take it to the drycleaners!! Drycleaning is really cheap here!!

Yes we were desperate!! We just needed to be ontop of something in our house and it was the laundry! So off we went with our laundry under our arms.

I guess I will eventually get a housekeeper/cook, actually we did trial one and she was great but she kept getting things out of our garbage to take home and she never gave us change from groceries she was asked to purchase.

So its back to the drawing board again!

Meet the new addition!!

We have a new addition to the Johnston Household...

The still to be named kitten. So at the moment its stuck with " Here Kitty Kitty"

I havent got much to write about him/her yet as I still have to pick him/her up from the people who found her walking along the road.

She/He is only 4 weeks old and fits into the palm of my hand - yes Im such a sucker for all things cute!!

I will try and keep you posted over the kitten saga...

Mike's busy week!

In one week Mike had been to Yogayakarta for a meeting where he stayed at the Hyatt and enjoyed these beautiful views of the hotels golf course, came home for a day and then flew out to London for another conferance where he was one of the guest speakers on their panel.

He had the chance to stay at the beautiful newly refurbished Luton Hoo Hotel in London. So unfair Im telling you!! Business class all the way and then 5 star accommodation, I think I got the short straw on this one!!

Luton Hoo opened as a luxury five-star hotel with 18 hole golf course, magnificent spa and more than 1,000 acres of parkland and gardens.

Besides being bitterly cold he enjoyed his trip over as it was a complete contrast to being in Asia.

nat & becka's new beds!

Here are your beds that we had made last month - pretty cool huh. They were such a bargain at USD$500 for the both of them. They are made from teak at a local furniture shop. Now we just have to decide what kindve bed we want made - believe me its not as easy as it sounds!!

If you dont have a picture of what you want made then you have to start from the basics. What style you want, what colour, what size, everything!! So at the moment we are still sleeping on our mattress on the floor!

Bali

A few weeks ago Mike & I went on our first trip to Bali. Mike had a conferance there so we decided to take a few extra days before hand to make the most of it.

Bali was great, Kuta was your typical beach town, it had all the shops, markets, restaurants & of course tourists.

We stayed 2 nights at the Hard Rock Hotel in Kuta and then transferred over to the Laguna Resort & Spa in Nusa Dua.

This was one beautiful resort with 7 lagoon type swimming pools on the grounds.

We also had the chance to enjoy a great dinner at a restaurant called Ku De Ta in Seminyak. Ku De Ta is popular with expats for their cocktails at sunset. They have beach lounges facing out towards the beach so you can relax and watch the sun go down and then after the sun has gone down they have a spotlight shining out to the sea. So romantic!!

We will definately spend a few more weekends in Bali.

Heritage Society / Explorers Group

A few months ago I joined a group called explorers through the Jakarta Heritage Society. Once a week we do a tour that we have pre chosen at the beginning of the season.

So far we have done a number of them from pottery, visiting a stained glass factory, learnt about Islam, and visited an orangutan sanctuary and more.

The orangutan sanctuary was a hoot... as cute as they were one felt it upon himself to stalk me and one of the other ladies. There was no hiding from this one as he grabbed your hand and crawled up the side of you so that you could carry him. He was darn heavy!! There was no hiding from him.

Below are some photos of the trips that we have done this season.

Our first item of furniture

Out of desperation Mike and I jumped into the car and we were determined to come home with any peice of furniture we could afford. We didnt care if it was a bookshelf, coffee table, bed etc. We just wanted something to help our house feel and look like a home, as we had been surrounded by unpacked boxes and huge spaces of emptiness.

So here it is our first bit of furniture:

We love it ..... a teak buffet.

Now all we need is a dining table with chairs, sofa or 2, beds, coffee table, bookshelves, drawers... the list goes on and on.

Trafffic & Rain

As we all know rain and traffic are never a good mixture especially when trying to get from A to B.

Yesterday seemed to be the longest day Ive ever spent in Jakarta (i know Ive only been here 2 months!) but still it was long!!

Wednesday is the day that I go with my Heritage Society Explorers Group to local sites etc. Yesterday our tour was somewhere just out of Jakarta to a Stained Glass factory. More about that tour later ... I still need to vent my frustrations of travelling in Jakarta first... ahem!

Well being down to one car Mike decided that he would drop me off at my meeting point on his way to work (he wont be offering that to me anymore), he said it should be ok as his first meeting didnt start until 9am.

So we set off at 7.30am for a trip that usually takes 10 minutes, instead it took us an hour thanks to morning traffic!

It was 8.30am and i was feeling the stress from the traffic already, our group set off on our tour bus for the factory a little late but not to worry we werent going to be that late for the factory tour. (So we thought)

Our (ahem) knowledgable bus driver lost his way several times, making us almost 2 hours late for the tour. He also couldnt find his way to the country club where we were to have lunch afterwards which we were late to as well.

All in all we ended up 2 hours late back to the drop off point in Jakarta thanks to the rain and traffic ( and of course our knowledgable driver)

My day wasnt over though ... it took me another hour and a half to get home because of the darn rain and traffic!

So all in all I figured I had spent 6 hours in traffic yesterday for a journey that would usually take an hour or 2 tops on any other normal day (if those exist in jakarta)

I thought to myself once i got home that if i started making myself a drink or two to destress, I'd be an alcoholic within months! (Since alcohol is expensive here - I would be homeless too!)

So dont get me wrong I love the rain. the joy is shortlived though as I remind myself that some poor buggers house is getting flooded!

Language Lessons

Yes I have finally started the all essential part of our survival in Jakarta, Bahasa Indonesia language classes!!!

I have enrolled myself in a Level 1 class at the local community centre JICC . I have to admit that I am one of the worst students you can find. I have the shortest attention span so before the class has even started Im yawning. Sad to say Nat & Becka bore witness to their mum's bad studying habits, where not once but twice did they catch mummy cramming the night before class and trying to get my homework done!

Bahasa Indonesia has to be one of the easiest languages to learn, not only do you learn how to speak it but you also learn how to read and write it at the same time. Alot easier than learning khmer I'll tell you now! It does help to have a good teacher of course!

(Colleen you wouldnt need rescuing from your classes if you learnt this language!!)

So.... ive been to 3 classes and I must say I think Im doing pretty well, I can now ask my driver how long does it take to get from here to there, I can tell the time, and tell people where Im going, where Im from .... of course my driver finds this amusing and has resorted to finishing my sentences because I take too long to form them!

Another week, and i think Ill be ready for the market!! Thats the true sign that Im finally getting the hang of the local lingo... a bargaining adventure!! Everything will have to be under $10 because Ive only learnt to count from 1-10!

We have a home! But still no furniture!

Home sweet Home

Yes, we have finally found ourselves a home and we love it. We havent officially moved in yet as the landlord is tweaking it for us.
I requested wooden venetian blinds and being the great landlord he is - he agreed!
Our shipment will be delivered to the house in the next couple of days so we are excited (well I am)

We still have a slight problem that needs to be fixed before we can move in .....

We dont have any furniture, no beds or tables, drawers etc

On our "Look and See" trip I decided that the furniture here was great so i decided that we would sell all our furniture in Cambodia and just bring the essentials.

Well now that we have the house we dont have any furniture, its actually proved to be a nightmare....
We have been to so many furniture shops that everything is starting to look the same.. I want to walk into a place and be able to choose them all off the floor - just like home (yeah right)

So we might be sleeping on a blow up bed if I dont find something soon!

The girls and I have been out the last 2 days looking but we seem to always find ourselves at a pet shop! We havent found beds but we have found a gorgeous Tshitzu puppy and a cute kitten instead! We are still working on mike to let us get them!

Will have to keep you posted on that scenario!

The Bribe!

We have been waiting for our belongings to arrive for almost 5 weeks now. We didnt mind the wait at first because we still didnt have a house.
We found out last week it had arrived and customs were just going through the process of clearing it all - yipee!
Yesterday we received an email from the shipping company handling it on the Indonesian side that they have ceased our shipment because they have discovered some illegal contents.

They sent us a list saying that they had found pornagraphic magazines and DVD's and alcohol.

The packing company here in Jakarta advised us that we would have to go to customs and sort it out ourselves - yeah right mate!

We asked a rep from Mike's company if he could intervene and help us out and to also get more info or pictures of what exactly they were describing as porn!

The photos were emailed to us and as we suspected it was all a fast!

Legally Blonde 2 was our pornographic dvd!
White Wine Vinegar was part of our alcohol! (There was a bottle of contreau in there as well)
Mike's fitness magazine was our pornographic magazine!
(I guess a guy showing his abs is like soft porn)

Of course they told Mike's colleague that they would release everything if we paid 7 million Rupiah which is almost the equivalent of USD$700!

Thank goodness we have managed to get it down considerably....

Lets just say the lesson has been learnt..... my advice in these matters would be the following:

Never deal with customs on your own unless you want to pay a huge bribe! (we used an indonesian colleague)
Always use a big well known moving company! (The smaller ones have no leverage in customs)
Never pack magazines showing a shirtless man on the front!

Well it all arrives on Friday after all the transactions have been made - Finally!!

Bandung

Last weekend we did a trip to a place called Bandung which is located about 2 hours east of Jakarta in West Java.
Bandung is known as the place to go shopping , it has numerous outlet shops selling everything from Armani suits to Abercrombie polos.

I managed to drag Mike and the girls to just about every outlet shop there was in Bandung... in the end we agreed that the best ones to visit were the 2 big ones called Rumah Moda and The Heritage. The Heritage was great because it not only sold clothes but had a section that sold furniture and household items as well.

Bandung reminded us alot of home (NZ) With its streets lined with big beautiful trees and houses with small fences. What we really noticed was that they had footpaths and some even had grass kerbs. Some of you might not think this is strange but after living in Asia this sight is rare indeed. We were once told by local friends in Cambodia that footpaths werent necessary as noone would be seen walking anywhere because its too hot! Only poor people walk they said.

A colleague of Mike's recommended a restaurant called " The Valley" for dinner. It was located up in the hills about 20-30 minutes drive from the centre of Bandung.

We found this to be one of the best restaurants to eat at since our arrival into Indonesia. We tried one of their specialties called the Zuppa Zuppa Soup and it was to die for.

What made this place great was the spectacular view you got from their outside dining area which was located outside on a huge balcony.

We arrived just as the sun was going down for the evening. It was absolutely gorgeous!

Nattie, Becka and I ended up taking a trip to see the Tangkuban Perahu volcano. As we opened the door of the car we noticed that this place smelled exactly like Rotorua in NZ. It took us 1 hour to get up and down the bad road to the volcano and because the lack of activity and of course the strong smell of sulphur we only stayed for 5 minutes, took a couple of photos and jumped back in the car to go shopping again!

The legend about the volcano tells the story of a prince who loves a queen who didn't return his feelings. But after a while she agreed to marry him on the following condition.The prince would have to build a dam and a huge boat in one night. The prince worked very hard, and as the night wore on, it looked like he would actually accomplish his task! Seeing this, the queen convinced the gods to make the sun rise early. Hearing the cocks crow as the sun rose, the angry prince turned his almost-completed boat over. Tangkuban Prahu is the boat.


Our friends version of the story was slightly different where unknown to the prince the queen was actually his mother, (She had given him up earlier) The queen didnt know this until she met the prince and noticed that he had the same birthmark as her. In the end she prayed to the Gods that they would raise the sun early so she wouldnt have to marry her son.


Thank goodness for that!

Sleeping Beauties

This is a typical scene in the car after 15 minutes of driving in Jakarta traffic, somedays we can actually stay awake for the whole car trip! It takes us so long to get anywhere in Jakarta that we always end up nodding off to sleep sometime during it all.
Actually people have told me that the way to surviving Jakarta traffic is to have a survival kit in your car. This may involve books to read, water and snacks or even having your laptop to work on. These would be all fine of course if you didnt get motion sickness from reading or working on your laptop. I try not to drink much in the car as to avoid the need to use the toilet, a bit hard to get to a bathroom if your stuck in traffic!

Great thing though is that we have a screen in the front of the car to watch DVD's, but yes once again I get motion sickness from watching that too.... so the only way to survive a long trip in traffic is to fall asleep. The girls seem to agree!

Taman Safari

This is by far the best safari that I have been to in South East Asia.

Taman Safari Indonesia is located about an hours drive between Jakarta and Bogor, West Java on 168 hectares. Before you reach the safari you will find kids on the side of the road trying to sell you bunches or carrots or bananas to feed the animals . My advice is to stop to buy them as the first part of the safari allows you to hand feed the animals from your car window!

It was hilarious, the girls and I were sitting in the back seat and a buffalo of some sort put its head through our window to get fed carrots, all you heard was screaming and Becka trying to wind the window up with its head still inside the car! It was an amazing experience to handfeed zebras and camels from your car window - we loved it!

They have so many animals there along with a bird sanctuary, so once you've had time to walk around them you can enjoy one of the many shows that they put on. We took time out to watch an elephant show where they painted on T Shirts which you could later purchase. There is also a lion show and in the afternoon a Cowboy show.

The highlight of the whole safari for the girls would have to be the Baby Zoo, here you could pay 10,000 Rupiah which is just over USD$1 to sit with a tiger, orangutan or leopard and take photos. Each one was only 10 months old.

The safari is a whole day trip, but a word from the wise.... arrive early and leave early! we arrived around 10am and left at 2pm, that way we missed all the traffic and it wasnt busy at the safari.

http://ind.tamansafari.net/

Looking for a new home!

If you have ever experienced relocating to Jakarta then you will understand what a long and tedious job finding a home could be.
It has proved to be a nightmare as we have looked at dozens of houses and apartments in the city. We saw old ones, new ones, big ones, small ones, beautiful ones (out of our budget), ugly ones..... we worked with KOLL and via websites or the local newspaper.

Mike and I thought it was going to be easy, we thought we had it all planned! (Yeah right, who were we kidding!) Not having the girls with us we thought it would be great to live in the CBD area. Lets get an apartment we thought, that would be fun and it would be a nice change after having a big house. Yep, I'll say it again, we thought we had it all planned!

OK, let me explain what Ive learnt in regard to finding a place to call home in Jakarta.

First things first, you have to know what area you want to live in. There seems to be 2 simple choices..... if you have kids then you want to find a house in South Jakarta as thats where all the international schools are. The second choice is quite simple... if you have no kids then you want to live as close to your workplace as possible! So we thought the second choice was good for us as Mike works in the Golden Triangle (CBD) of Jakarta.

Your choice is always centred around the question of " How long will it take me to get to the office?"
If we live in South Jakarta it could take Mike anything from 1 hour to get to work to 2 hours in the rainy season. Imagine 4 hours of your day being stuck in traffic! Forget it!

So we found an apartment in Menteng, 30 minutes from Mike's office. The Ascott Apartments, swimming pool, security, and hey it was serviced (cleaned) everyday oh and not forgetting Mikes preferance in an apartment - a good gym. Did I mention that across the road from it are 2 shopping malls!

It was great, we thought finally we have a place to call home and all those people who live in Kemang (South Jakarta) were bloody crazy!!

BUT wait it didnt end there........ after a week in the apartment I started to feel claustrophobic. I was always complaining about not having my own space or how I couldnt open the window to let the fresh air in (i can hear all you Jakartans laughing) but you know what I mean.
So..... to Mike's dismay we started the house search again.... we looked everywhere in the CBD area, and what we came across was alot of old stuffy houses in need of repair.
We did find a great apartment at the Pakubowono Residence (http://www.pakubuwono-residence.com/intro.html) that was just a little over our budget... that fell through as the tenant couldnt make up their minds on when they wanted to move out.

So guess what? ... yes we ended up going back to one of the first houses we saw (and believe me like alot of other expats in Jakarta) we had looked at over 20 places! AND wait for it... it ended up being in South Jakarta (Kemang).
We love this place, its new, has security and a great pool! At the moment we are waiting for Mikes company to settle up the rent and letter of agreement. BTW did I mention that renting a house in Jakarta requires you to pay at least 2 years of rent in ADVANCE! Crazy i know but ho-hum thank goodness its not coming out of our pockets! Did I also mention that it only took us 40 minutes to get there in peak hour traffic from Mikes office! 40 minutes is way better than an hour!

I will keep you posted on the move in... and the drama of finding furniture!!!

Christmas & New Year in Jakarta

Christmas was spent with just the 4 of us on our lonesome! This would have to be the first time ever that we have spent Christmas without friends or family.
So yes it was a non event for us.... the girls didnt do to bad this year in the present dept though
Christmas lunch was spent at the JW Marriott along with a couple of hundred other people. It was an awesome buffet with everything we couldve of thought of eating on Christmas Day. (It didnt have my mum's famous trifle though!) but the chocolate fountain more than made up for that!

Next year we are definately going home to NZ for Christmas!!

New Years was spent at The Ascott where we have been staying over the last month. We had a spectacular view from our window to the city's fireworks display. This city really knows how to put on a show for New Years. ( Sorry no photos for this one)

Friends while in Cambodia

Today the girls asked me how many friends do you have in Jakarta mummy?

Then they both burst out laughing and said " Mum you only have 1 friend!" I must say that sounded a bit depressing when I realized they were right!

Moving to a new country is never the easiet thing for a wife or even the kids to cope with in the area of making friends.

The curse of being an expat wife or kid.... all your friends are transient! Sad to say but its true... everyone is here either for short term or long term, unless your blessed to have some local nationals for friends (but then you are transient friends to them) So you are always saying goodbye or starting afresh with someone else you have just met.

The husband or partner always have it easy in this department i found. They just simply immerse themselves into their work and the thought of making friends doesnt seem to concern them as much as it does us. The kids struggle for the first couple of weeks or months (some even the first year) trying to settle and find replacements for the friends they left behind.

I learnt though after a few years of living in Phnom Penh that even though i was tired of investing time and effort into my expat friends, in the long run it was well worth the effort!

I knew I was going to leave one day and they knew they too were going to leave as well. It was in me to make friends, call me needy but I liked meeting new people from different cultures. I think it was out of fear of going on that emotional rollercoaster of saying goodbye over and over again that it made me think what was the use of making friends, if I was only going to say goodbye to them in a week, month or year/s.

So to finish up this post I will say that it was well worth the effort to invest and make friends while we were living in Phnom Penh. I dont think I would have the same appreciation for other cultures including my own if i didnt experience that.

Plus side to it all is that you will have the oppurtunity to visit so many different countries that you wouldnt normally go to, but now you can visit those great people that you met as an expat.

Plus side for our kids is that they grew to have a world view on life, they can now see that life doesnt only happen in their own backyard (country). They also have this weird appreciation and patience for other asian kids. Why, because they finally have an understanding of why asians do what they do! No text book can teach them that!

Where would I be without all the great friends I made in Cambodia, it makes me sad just thinking about them all and how much I miss them already. We are truly greatful that we surrounded ourselves with people who found it in their lives to invest in us.

So.... I may only have 1 friend in Jakarta (according to my daughters, they said the guest services guy at the Ascott doesnt count!) I look forward to making new ones!

The Big Move!

We have finally made the big move to Jakarta!


The last 2 months have been hectic with sorting and packing, organizing flights for the girls from NZ and a number of flights between Jakarta and Phnom Penh.

2 weeks before christmas and I finally decided to start packing the house.... not a good move on my part. Sorting and packing a 6 bedroom house is a nightmare in itself, especially when your doing it on your own. I didnt mind the packing (might be because all I had to do was point it out to the packers and they took care of that part) It was the sorting that seemed too overwhelming! Where does one start! Well to make a long story short ... I managed to get most of our furniture sold to friends and the rest we donated.

Thank goodness Colleen and Rosalie were around to finish packing my bags the night before we were due to fly out!

35kgs overweight (in luggage that is!) the girls and i managed to get on our flight in time, the weirdest feeling was getting on that plane and letting it sink in that we were moving and leaving Phnom Penh after 6 years. I think most people can understand the feeling of leaving a country that has been home for awhile.

You think it wont sink in that your leaving until you are sitting on that plane. Well for us it still hasnt sunk in that we have left, we all made the comment that it just feels like we are away on holiday. Hopefully over time that will change.