Surabaya

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Selamat pagi from Indonesia.

Arrived here 11.30 Tuesday night after 32 hours travelling and 5 different flights. We were feeling a bit shattered and sweaty from the journey, but what came next threw away any lethargy. The place we are living and working in is amazing---but amazing. We were shown out of our taxis and entered the building , which is like a sort of Marriot’s hotel. My jaw just dropped in disbelief—I will try and get a photo later. The apartment is unbelievable---really classy , with 2 big bedrooms, both en-suite and a guest toilet, massive salon , very tastefully furnished, large entrance hall, big kitchen and laundry area and storage space everywhere + a maid’s room (+ 5 air conditioning units). All this is hotel serviced (beds, cleaning etc) and it is included in the deal. We have squash courts, tennis courts, huge swimming pool, gym, badminton courts and if we are feeling lazy, we can call up food on room service—but for that bit we have to pay---tough isn’t it? We sat round the pool until 1 a.m. this morning drinking Bintang (local beer—and very good) with the head of school and the other new teacher.. It is of course very early days, but we do really seem to have landed well and truly on our feet and went to bed in a glow of relief and incredulous of our luck.
Wed. morning (having been in residence for nearly 9 hours, most of which was spent sleeping) 2 houseboys turned up to make the bed, change the towels and clean everything! I had been for a swim at 7am and then we unpacked and started our first list ready for the shopping spree which was after lunch (provided in school). The mobile sim cards have already been provided, the internet connection is being ordered for our apartment (although we are wi/fi in school) with promised installation on Friday, and the exchange man came to us to get us going with the local currency which has lots of noughts…..rupiah (9,000 =$1). Our first Mall shopping spree came to 3 million! (toaster, hairdryer, i-pod docking station/speakers + basics for the apartment such as foodstuffs and mosquito plugs and adapters!
We have 10 English channels on the TV (including one dedicated to footie!), we have been invited to join a couple of the teachers in Bali for the weekend 29/8 and we are off to Malaysia on a week long residential trip with years 7,8,9 (15 kids) in October!!! We have just got back from a local Japanese restaurant where we had freshly made 2 lychee smoothies each and terryaki and sate with sticky rice for the equivalent of £7 for the 2 of us. We then played pool in the bar to try and stay up late enough to counteract the peculiarities of jet lag.
Today we also met our “girls” - 6 Indonesian graduates/teaching assistants, and the one allocated to meet all out needs, Inda, is very smart indeed - a computer wiz, thankfully, and keen to re-arrange my classroom and put up all the display backing as well as show us the way round the impressive technology in this so well resourced little school. The bank came to us to open an account - 2 English speaking officials came to school with forms etc. and will return on Tuesday with our Cards etc......bit different from Spain!

Tomorrow we are off on the city tour and starting to put together some schemes of work and lesson plans if we can stay awake and alert enough.
We really have landed on our feet here with regard accommodation and the school and personnel……just awaiting the students to add the icing hopefully to this amazing cake! We have 4 Y7 students, 5 Y8 and 3 Y9.....all that marking!!!

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