My first week

---

Thursday 16th August

After teary farewells at the airport I headed off on a British Airways flight. As Jess and her dad were on a separate flight to me that left at the same time, we met up at Changi airport in Singapore. It was quite daunting to head through the departure gate on my own but I think it meant I kept it together more, because I only had strangers around me. The flight was good but felt quite long, especially since my entertainment was working properly. The flight was one going to London, so all the meals were geared around that: at 5.30pm they served dinner, then switched the lights off at 6.30pm and switched them back on at 11pm to make us eat another meal. I had this lovely old guy sitting next to me who was heading to London with his brother to look at industrial museums. He was a really nice and open-minded guy. It was good because we were both sitting on our own and could help each other out.

Friday 17th August

We discovered it was the national day in Singapore. This of course didn’t mean that the shops were closed. It was raining for most of today so we just wandered around the mazes of shopping malls. We were staying in a five star hotel, thanks to Jess’s dad, who had got a good deal because he works for Qantas (hence why he was travelling with Jess - so that she could get a cheap flight). We went out for dinner on the river, which was really nice. I battled through a dish with 5 enormous prawns, which I enjoyed thoroughly, especially since I figured it would be the last seafood I would be getting in a while.

Saturday 18th August

We spent the morning walking around the Marina and then headed to the airport to fly to Solo, which is the neighbouring city to Yogyakarta. The flight was uneventful, for once none of the Indonesians on the flight had to be asked to not use their mobiles while in the air. As soon as we’d landed they’d all jumped up to unpack the overhead lockers while the plane was still taxiing. Stepping out of the plane and looking around was really weird. We were in the middle of nowhere, but you could see some dry rice fields and houses scattered around. It was strange because I was looking at my home for the next year. The landscape was so different yet I felt quite content and comfortable with the idea of settling in here. Getting through immigration was quite a saga. Solo isn’t very accustomed to foreigners, so most people were staring at us when we got in the Indonesian citizen queue that we’d been instructed to get into by ACICIS (the organisation looking after us) because of our student visa. People in the queue either tried to get us to stand in the foreigners queue or queued in front of us because they assumed we were in the wrong place. So we wound up at the very back of the queue and were the last ones to get through, I had to keep calling out to the 4 people hovering around our bags wondering who they belonged to that they were ours (the airport was so small that the baggage area was about 5 metres away from immigration). We got through it all eventually then got a taxi to Yogya. Unfortunately, our Solonese taxi driver didn’t know the streets of Yogya so we had to keep stopping to ask for directions. In the evening we wandered around roadside stalls looking for sim cards for our phones then settled into our hotel.

Sunday 19th August

This was the first day of the Orientation program run by ACICIS. It was mainly getting to know each other. We all moved into a guesthouse in UGM (Universitas Gadjah Mada, my new uni) for the five day program. There are around 30 Australian students here for this semester, around about a third will continue on next semester. Most are from Monash, Flinders and ANU. They are all quite nice, for many of them its their first or second time in Indonesia, so many of them feel quite daunted by it all.

Monday 20th August

We mainly had briefings today on health and security. Security-wise, we are pretty safe here, with no real risk from anything in particular (apart from traffic accidents, the roads are pretty wild here, with very few road rules). We’re living in the northern suburbs of Yogya, I suppose its sort of like Hornsby if I was to think of an Australian equivalent. The days are usually around 30 degrees here, which is hot but its so consistent that you don’t really notice it after a while. It’s the dry season here now so its not too humid. Its really quite pleasant. I’m losing weight already because I’ve done so much walking over the past few days. In the evening we met our pendamping (our helpers), who have been allocated to each of us to help us find accommodation and to help us settle in for the first few days. The meeting was quite awkward at first but things loosened up over time.

Tuesday 21st August

We spent the morning doing a placement test at the INCULS language school. We were allocated into beginner, intermediate and advanced, and from that we choose how many language subjects we want to do and how many immersion (classes with other Indonesian students in Indonesian) we want to do. In the afternoon we set off with our pendamping to go kos hunting. Mine took me on her motorbike, which when one on the quiet roads was quite exhilarating, while on the main roads quite terrifying. Whenever we stopped in the middle of the road to wait to do a right hand turn I was praying noone was going to run into the back of us. Kos hunting was quite stressful, because a lot of the kos was already full or really not suitable. I had a particular area that I wanted to visit, Karang Asem Baru, because I’d heard the more expensive kos there were quite nice. But my pendamping seemed to take me anywhere but there, despite my requests. At the end of the day she asked if we could head back to the guesthouse she actually didn’t know where Karang Asem Baru was. Despite my overwhelming desire to tear my hair out I agreed, and back at the guesthouse actually found another pendamping who could take me to the area. So at 5.40pm I found a kos. Its one of the more expensive ones but its quiet and quite big and has a tv (which I don’t watch), hot water (that doesn’t work, apparently I have to find someone to connect the gas bottle up for Rp60,000 but haven’t bothered yet), a fridge (yes it already has some chocolate in it) and airconditioning (which is normally on 27-28 degrees because I’m finding anything less than that too cold!).

Wednesday 22nd August

We went to one of the two huge new shopping malls in Yogya, Ambarrukmo. Its enormous and very very western. It also has a shop called Carrefour in it (there was one of these in Singapore) which is a one stop shop for everything. Its kind of like Big W. It also has a supermarket downstairs. In the afternoon I headed back to the guesthouse for talks on Malang, which is where I’ll be heading next semester.

Thursday 23rd August

This morning I enrolled in my subjects. I’m doing 4 immersion subjects, 3 of them politics and international relations related, Javanese language and one of the advanced INCULS classes on writing (always my biggest weakness in Indonesian). In the afternoon I moved into my kos. It was so good to finally unpack and settle into my own space. I didn’t get to spend long in my room though, as I went back up to UGM to go along to an SRC meeting with some of the others to help one of their committees organise an international symposium on Australian and Indonesian relations. It was a really interesting experience to go to a committee meeting here, we all sat on the floor for starters. This committee meets every day to organise the event. We don’t have to go every day though.

Friday 24th August

My first night in my kos featured a couple of idiotic moments. Firstly, I had set my alarm for 7am, forgetting that my phone was still on Australian time. So when I was woken up it was actually 4am. Then, I’d attempted to fix my aircon during the night and managed to set it to 30 degrees. So I was dying when I woke up. Today was an exhausting day, as it featured shopping for things for my kos and then trying to find a bicycle. I reckon I spent 5-6 hours walking that day, so I was pretty stuffed by the end of it. Finding a bike was the hardest part, I’d been given vague directions from my pendamping, but wound up spending 2 hours walking up and down one of the main streets. The worst moment was when we stopped to ask a security guard for directions. He told us there were heaps of bikes for sale on the second level of the department store behind us. We were so relieved and thanked him profusely. However when we got to the second level they told us they didn’t sell bikes there, and we realised we’d been tricked. It was incredibly frustrating and all I could think was “you bastard”. Because we’re white we stand out a lot, and have to be careful not to carry too much money on us because people assume we’re rich. We also get tricked and conned a lot by people who think we’re tourists, or simply that we’re young white girls who can be taken advantage of.

In the evening all the ACICIS students went out to one of the good resteraunts to have dinner because it was a couple of people’s birthdays. Afterwards we went to a bar in one of the more touristy areas (Bintang in Jl Sosrowijayan) to listen to the 14 son of one of the students perform his songs. Afterwards there was a great cover band. It was good to listen to music and relax after quite a tiring week.

Saturday 25th August

I didn’t do much today, mainly tried to take it easy. In the morning I went up to the ACICIS house with my bike to see if they could help me make some adjustments. They could do a bit but Phil (the resident director of ACICIS) recommended I take it to a bike shop to get serviced. Unfortunatly the bike shop is around 20 mins away by car and its too dangerous to ride there. I spent around half an hour trying to find a taxi who would take me and my bike but had no luck so gave up on the idea. I went to the bike shop anyway to buy a helmet. Its on Jl Malioboro, the main street. I don’t like Malioboro very much because there’s heaps of people who hassle you because they think you’re a tourist and that they can con you into going to batik shops etc. I had around 3 of them laugh and say “nice glasses” to me, referring to the sunglasses a few days ago. I feel very self-conscious about my sunglasses now!

I’ve decided my kos is a ghost kos, as I never see anyone around, which makes it hard to make local friends.

---