Week 19
Day 125
Serpong, Indonesia
6°15’5″S 106°37’39″E
Sunday the 22nd we headed to Serpong, a suburb of Jakarta where I had arranged a teaching position for a month from the end of Dec to Jan.
We flew into Jakarta and caught a cab to Serpong.
The yoga studio had already arranged a cab so we thought getting to our apartment outside the city would be a piece of cake.–We thought wrong.
The first step was to take our confirmation code to the Blue Bird Taxi Desk just outside of the baggage claim.
We couldn’t find Blue Bird, but we found the information desk and they told us we were in the right place. The told us to go outside to the curb to find the Blue Bird Group.
On the way we asked a taxi driver if he was part of the Blue Bird group. He said yes and began to escort us to his taxi.
Travelers Tip: Taxi Drivers are not very helpful and speak poor English. Their only goal is to get you in their cab. So make sure you are clear where and how you would like to get to where you are going before you arrive in Jakarta. It helps to write where you want to go in Indonesian. “Tolong bawa aku ke serpong dekat Teres Kota” (Please take me to Serpong, near Teres Kota.)
When we got to his taxi it was obviously not the Blue Bird group. As we were walking away he tried to convince us to get in for “Fixed Price.” We tried to explain that we already had a taxi paid for and walked away.
When we finally found the Blue Bird group we showed them our confirmation number and they threw us in a cab. Luckily I had written our address down, because while the confirmation code was supposed to tell the driver where to go something was definitely off.
When we got our apartment we weren’t sure if we were in the right place. We walked inside and asked the manager if they were expecting a Courtney. –They just stared at us blankly. We were quickly learning people in Bali speak much better English than the people in Serpong.
The driver showed my written address to the owner, said something in Java and began putting our luggage in the room so we assumed it was the right place.
After all was unloaded the driver asked for his money. Once again, we tried to explain that our taxi had been paid for already. Not understanding us, he asked if we could call the yoga studio so they could explain. He handed over his cell and luckily Inda, my contact at Bikram Yoga Serpong answered and said she’d be right over.
Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect. She had just finished teaching the Sunday 9am class and arrived in less than 5 minutes.
Inda and the taxi driver had a heated conversation ending with her handing over money.
Apparently there are 2 divisions of the Blue Bird group. The normal group of cabs in which the taxi driver we went with was a part of and a silver bird group of elite Mercedes cabs that we should have been given. The two while part of the same company have different booking codes so the confirmation number we had been given didn’t work for the “normal cabs.”
As I said before–DON’T EXPECT TAXI DRIVERS IN JAKARTA TO BE HELPFUL.
So happy to finally be settled, we didn’t even mind that we missed out on our Mercedes cab ride from the airport.
Starving Marvin’s from the trip, we gladly accepted an invitation from Inda to go to the market with her family to get Lunch and groceries!
Inda took us to Pasar Modern (across the street from the Catholic Church on the map above). Inda described Pasar Modern as a “traditional market.”
Treating us to lunch, Tommy and I were quickly full and ready to begin shopping.
Had we been alone we would gotten ripped off, but we listened as Inda negotiated fair prices for us as we stocked up on chicken, veggies, coconut milk, and fresh curry paste.
There were a couple times where Inda told us they wouldn’t give us the same price, but she was able to get them as low as they would go and at the end of the day, we got all of our groceries for under $8.
We celebrated by getting some freshly made juice at the Fruit Box right outside of Pasar Modern.
As if Juice and Lunch wasn’t enough, Inda insisted that we try an Indonesian crepe dessert.
Stuffed we headed back to our Kost (we learned from Inda the type of semi-permanent month to month housing we are living in is called a kost.)
We took a short nap and then headed to the studio so we could take class and I could familiarize myself with where to go before I taught Monday morning.
The Yoga studio is located in a Mall that’s approximately 1KM from our Kost. Also located in the mall is a Starbucks, a Coffeebean and Tree Leaf, a Megablitz 3D movie theater, plenty of shopping, a Celebrity Fitness, and restaurants.
We finished off the evening eating dinner across the street from our kost.
There is an awesome food court with about 20 food stalls that sell street food. The average dish costs 15000rp or about $1.20.
Monday work began for both Tom and I.
I took the 8am yoga class and then taught the 10 and 7pm, while Tom began the final marketing work for his first publication of the Creative Entrepreneur.
We’ve quickly fallen into a routine:
- Wake up
- Get Coffee at Starbucks (there is also a starbucks in the hospital across the street from our kost)
- Walk to Teres Kota to the yoga studio
- I teach and/or take while Tom works, Tom practices at some point each day
- Walk home and get food across the street
- Sometimes repeat depending on how many times I teach during the day
- Come home and watch movies from Ice Films before crashing it doing it all over again.
Tuesday, Christmas Eve I taught class in the morning at 7 and then took the 9.
That evening we went for a run chasing the sunset to a hill side where we could see a castle along the horizon.
We later figured out that castle is an elementary school and when you get close up, it is far less impressive looking.
Stopping on the way home at a large Target like store called Giant we stocked up on important Morkes Family Christmas essentials: Beer, Chocolate, and more beer. (We would have gotten Bailey’s and Wine, but those items are hard to come by in Serpong.)
We ate some street food across the street and then as a Christmas Eve Treat, we headed back to Teres Kota to catch a 3d showing of the Hobbit!
The movie theater here in Serpong is amazing!
We got tickets to see the Hobbit in 3D, a large popcorn, and 2 bottle waters all for 130000rp (about $10!)–Needless to say, we’ll be catching up on movies during our stay in Serpong!
Christmas morning I was scheduled to the 10am class.
Surprisingly the class was pretty full.
Despite the Christmas decorations you see all over the place, very few people celebrate Christmas in Jakarta because the majority of the population is Muslim.
Confused about why there were so many decorations and people wishing me a Merry Christmas, I asked Baby, the manager at the studio I work at, why so many people celebrate Christmas and put up decorations if they don’t actually celebrate the holiday.
Her response was to point the the calendar and show me it’s a holiday.–Which I guess makes sense. If the majority of the world shuts down on Christmas it only makes sense to take a holiday as well.
Following class, Tom and I headed to our food court across the street from our Kost and ordered up a feast!
I decided to top lunch off with some fresh juice made from one of the street vendors across the street. Adding 4 fruits together turned out to be a huge splurge as the juice was 20000rp (Less than $2.00, but still more than any of the food dishes above!)
Stuffed and full we headed home to Skype with our families!
It can be hard to be away from our families, especially at the holidays, which is why we are so grateful for skype!
Taking a short Christmas nap, we woke up around 4 to head to 5pm mass.
The Catholic Church is within walking distance from our Kost, but as it was pouring down rain we took a taxi there.
Mass was in Java, but Mass always translates and the Indonesian Catholics welcomed us into their church. My favorite part was when they played Silent Night and Joy to the World. 🙂
Walking home from church we saw a beautiful sunset.
Thursday, the day after Christmas we fell back into our normal Serpong Routine.
I taught class at 7 and 9am, followed by lunch and chilling in the Kost as Tom did work.
We ended the day heading back to the theaters to catch 47 Ronin.–It kept us super entertained, but we both hated the ending.
Friday, beginning to get a little stir crazy in Serpong we decided to venture into the big city.
We caught a taxi around 10:15 and 2 hours later we’d traveled the 32.4 KM.–Yes you read that right! 2 hours!!
Traffic is super bad in Jakarta! I can only imagine this is in part due to the fact that most drivers do not actually stay in a lane. At any time there are often 4 lanes of traffic on a 3 lane highway.
At one point we were at a dead stop for over 15 minutes, during which we had multiple street vendors approach our cab attempting to sell us random toys such as the blue man on the 4 wheeler. →
We finally made it to Kota around 12:15 only an hour late to meet up with a fellow yoga instructor Carrie from my teacher training. Luckily she was stuck in traffic too arriving 5 minutes after us so we didn’t make her wait.
We all had lunch a small cafe then headed out to explore the harbor around Old Jakarta.
Along the Harbor in Old Jakarta there is a maze of homes and businesses. The structure it built out over the water. Everywhere you turn there is a new alley way or street leading somewhere new.
Walking down the street there were kids constantly calling out “Mister Mister!”
In Indonesia Mister is a term for anybody boy or girl.
The kids loved asking us where we were from and loved having their picture taken! As I was taking one kid’s picture, I would have another tugging on my shirt asking me to take theirs as well.
Finishing up our walk, we headed to catch a cab to take us to the Senayan studio to take class.
Once again we got stuck in traffic, taking an hour and 15 min to ride the 10km to the studio.
Unfortunately while sitting in traffic, Tom felt the dilemma coming on so we had to skip class and head straight home.
The dilemma for those who are unfamiliar as I was when I first heard the term is not knowing whether something is going to “work itself out” from the top or bottom of the digestive tract…I’m guessing there’s no need to explain further.
Luckily whatever was upsetting Tom’s stomach moved through him quickly and he was feeling better on Saturday.
We had a pretty chill weekend, sticking to our normal yoga/eating routine.
We added hitting up the gym to the mix as we were given a free 7 day trial membership to the Celebrity Fitness in the Teres Kota mall. We’ve taken full advantage of this every day so far and both Tom and I are feeling the DOMS (Delayed onset muscle Soreness.)
There isn’t a ton else to report as both Tom and I are enjoying having a place to call home for a bit after 4 months of being nomads!
The workers at starbucks, our food stalls, the mini mart, and the movie theater are all starting to know us as regulars.
We’ve especially endeared ourselves with the food stall workers as they are impressed and surprised we like our food as spicy as the locals do.
The first day we ate the street food across the street, the cook actually took a picture of Tom and I eating her food because she didn’t believe we would enjoy it Pedas (spicy).
I know there are a couple mothers and Aunties out there concerned with our safety so I wanted to let you know (you know who you are!) we feel very safe here.
- The yoga studio has done an excellent job of taking us in and continues to answer any questions we have on the best ways to get around and where we should go.
- Tom and I never go anywhere without each other. While Tom’s beard may have done a better job of warding off harm doers, (if there was actually a need) I would say his clean shaven face and boyish good looks have won over many an Indonesian woman and I don’t do too bad with the Indonesian men or women myself–except for Taxi drivers!
As for quality of life:
- I will admit the septic systems could use some work.–There is a lingering smell of sewage most places you go.
- It’s always a gamble as to if there will be toilet paper when you go to the bathroom. Every toilet I’ve used has had a bidet, but I still prefer some old fashioned western toilet paper.
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Kids hanging in the streets There are quite a few flys, but they seem to go away for a while whenever it rains and lucky for us it’s rainy season.–And at least they don’t bite like the sand flys of NZ!
- There is a LOT of pollution. The lack of public trash cans in most areas means that most people throw their trash on the ground. We’ve also witnessed people burning trash quite frequently probably contributing to the mucky/hazy air.
- The beer selection could use some work.
At the end of the day, I’m not sure if I would choose to live here forever but we’re definitely enjoying ourselves now! Like I’ve mentioned before we met some amazing people who have really gone out of their way to look after us. The cost of living can’t be beat (well actually I’ve heard it can in other countries but it’s the lowest cost of living we’re seen and we’re loving the prices here!) We love the local food–at least the favorite dishes we’ve found and we’re enjoying seeing movies in the theater for less than it would cost to buy the DVD!
Before I wrap this post up, here’s a couple pictures I forgot to post last week! Tom was holding them hostage on his phone!
Hope everyone is gearing up to have a fun and safe New Year’s Eve!
We’ll be counting down to midnight on the 31st at 12pm East Coast time, 10am for those in CO, and 9am for my West Coast peeps.
As you head into the new year and set your resolutions, remember:
Peace out Mister Mister!
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