Sunday, December 9, 2012

Christmas Is Here!

 We've got the tree up with decorations and everything, lights on the front window. Every time my friends see it the they point it out and say Natal! (Christmas)

Friday, December 7, 2012

Ah! The Sweet Smell Of Cricket Season!

Personally I really like watching and playing cricket. I was watching the Aus vs RSA match and I felt the urge to go out and hit around the tennis ball. My brothers were not too keen to play but my dad said he would, we played a few balls and then I hit the ball under a tree in our backyard. Guess what was in that tree...
If you said Wasps you would be correct, I got stung twice on the ear and once on my side. At the time we didn't know what got me, so my dad had a look and decided that it was just a spider. So he went under and Buzzzzz he got stung, funny to watch I must say :)

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Rugby! No, Australian Football :)

The indonesians always thing that the AFL ball is a rugby ball, and every time I have to tell the that it is not. I brought the footy down when I went to play soccer and taught them how to bounce the ball,  at first they held it sideways, which I quickly corrected. Now for any Aussies reading this you will remember the first time trying to bounce a footy, it was the same for the Indonesians, the ball would keep rolling forward, which was quite amusing :P

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

It's Batman! Oh Wait, False Alarm...

It's really cool at dusk because there are massive bats that fly across the sky along side the tiny birds. And I really like the way their wings flap when they fly. The indonesians tell me that they are "Devil Bats" which I think means vampire bats, or something like that.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Eid-al-adha...

This Festival is one of the more interesting of the Muslim Year. It involves the killing and eating of Cows and Goats. They cut the necks and let the blood drain into a hole, then skin, gut and cut up the meat which they eat for lunch. For those who have a weak stomach for blood I will not enclose any images :)

Monday, October 22, 2012

Getting a Grasp on Language

I finally am getting good at Indonesian, I can understand quite a lot of words now compared to what I had when I got here.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Night Safari!

When we were in singapore we went to this really cool zoo called the night safari, it had a tour of the place and little walking tracks off to the sides. At the start of the park there were fire breathers and tribal dancers which were really cool.

Soccer In The Rain

Yesterday was really cool. I was play soccer with my friends, as usual, and it started rain really hard. So we decided to play through it. There were massive puddles of water and the wet grass was perfect for sliding on :)

Dumai

On the weekend I went to Dumai, which is directly north of Pekanbaru on the East coast. I went with a friend to an event for his English school, which was pretty cool. Firstly I have to say that on the way to Dumai I was really interested to see small wooden huts with massive satellite dishes! We don't even have TV! Secondly, I'm not sure that the Indonesians have a very good market sense, on the sides of the highway we saw so many pineapple shops right next to each other. Hmmm should I go to this one or that one? No, maybe that one over there...
On the whole, I had a good time on that trip.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Soccer

I got my work cut out for me playing with these indonesians, they are really quick and agile. I am slowly improving over time but I still am not very good. The playing field is really interesting because it has a big telephone tower in the middle (about 30cm x 30cm at the base).

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Home Sweet Home

Finally left Singapore, after a long time of waiting :S Our stay went from being 3 days to 5 days to 1 week to 2 weeks. Had an awesome time anyway and got to do all the things that we wanted to. Goodbye Singapore!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

They're Speaking English? No...Really?

We have been told that even though Singapore is an English speaking country their accent is so so strong that it is really hard to understand, people call it Singlish.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Apartment

This is the view from the apartment that we are staying at, it is pretty cool.

Checking In?

We saw this funny scene at he airport when we were checking in our bags, these too men were checking in their guns and bullets at the counter, we think that these were for the Pon Games.

Singapore

Got to Singapore without much trouble, it was a bit difficult at customs because we did not have an entry stamp into Indonesia because of our new passports. We bought some of the things that we could not get in Indo like Vegemite, salty bread and to Matt's delight Fruit Loops!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Yep, Understood That Completely :S

When indonesians talk it sounds like gibberish to me, and when they speak to me I just smile and hope they weren't asking me a question :)

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Random Stuff

I have been hearing lots of Big Booms this morning, no idea what there about.

Made this cool game yesterday, check it out at
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/ScratchMaster120/2762156

Rubbish

A few days ago one of the kids I was playing with gave me a mint lolly. I took it, took off the wrapper and put the rubbish in my pocket. The kid looked at me quizzically and motioned to me to drop the wrapper on the floor. I knew that they just left rubbish all over the place but to drop it just like that! I told him that we don't do that in Australia. I couldn't bring myself to do it, so the wrapper stayed in my pocket.

The rubbish is awful though, they through huge bags of it onto the side of the road :(

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Language

I feel like a caveman having to communicate with the indonesians, I have such a small vocabulary :S, I am getting better and can speak very basically "Di mana bapak?" "Bapak Di Rumah" etc
We played soccer today which was fun, I was the goalie and a pretty good one if I do say myself :)
I find it very interesting how much people burn here, we were walking past the university and they were burning piles of leaves, very casually too.
I'm getting very used to "Photo Mr.?"

If you have any questions that you would like to ask just send me an email at Jeremy@Thorne.id.au

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Football and Celebrities

My family and I went to see a Football(Soccer) match, Indonesia vs Brazil, which was quite a boring match until it got to half time and then both teams scored a goal. The score was 2 to 1 in brazils favour and then in the last few minutes the indonesians scored a goal but it turned out to be an offside. There were seats that cost 40,000Rp or there were seats that were 500,000Rp, I wonder which ones we chose :)

There were so many people wanted there photo taken with us and I felt like a celebrity, pose for the camera!

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Lovely Rain...

It is amazing watching the downpour outside, with lightning flashing and thunder booming.



Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Motorbike

We final got some means of transport, a small black motorbike. It has a very small speed range. Not like the bikes we get in Australia which can go really fast.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Pasar!

Today I was off to the Pasar, Helping my mum buy some fruit and vegetables this morning. We caught the oplet to the pasar. Things we bought were very cheap when you compare them to Australia. We bought a pineapple for 10,000Rp ($1) and 7 tomatoes for 7,000Rp (70c).

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Post Views?

Why are the most page views from the US, I haven't even told anyone there?
Weird :|

Night Soccer and Fireworks n Stuff

Played soccer with some of the kids from around our neighbourhood last night, just showed me how terrible I am. I had fun still, bit sore this morning :)

It never ceases to amaze me how cool fireworks are, especially when you can let off your own. It also shows why they were banned in Australia, they are so dangerous :S


It's a bit late now but I've been to the twin towers!

Monday, July 30, 2012

Elephant Riding!

We rode on an elephant today, the best part was getting off, the elephants spine was really sharp. Was fun though.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Money

Here I have 95,000 Indonesian Rupiah and 7 Malaysian Rinngit which adds up to $11.86 AUD

Home Sweet Home

Arrived home yesterday from Malaysia, the flight was awesome, we went really high into the clouds and the was even condensation on the windows of the plane. When we got home we found a Scorpion under Anna's bed which Dad caught with a bucket.



Monday, July 16, 2012

Malaysia Trip

I have had an awesome time in Malaysia, we went to Kuala Lupmur for the first week and then to Port Dickson for the next one. We stayed in a hotel next to the beach. Now I have to come back to reality, starting school and getting into a routine.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Frogs 'n' Icecream

We saw some frogs at the market today, the owner of the frogs killed them right in front of us. Our host family served us durian Ice cream, it tasted alright.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Motorbikes!

Went to check out some houses today, we went on a little bus called an oplette. So many motorbikes! There are motorbikes everywhere.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Lots Of New Things

Well, today was a day of new experiences, I was in a taxi with my family, 4 seats 6 people, hmmmmmm? problem? I think not, Matthew and Anna sat on Mum and Dad's Lap, problem solved :) There are shops everywhere selling many different things instead of one big supermarket selling everything, very interesting in my opinion. Also managed to fit in a Star Trek episode, was cool. Indonesian is a very cool language.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Time Diffrence

This time difference thing really messes with your head, I just have to remember that I am 3 hours in front of Australia. This means that I have to get up at 7:30 to attend an online class :P

A Few Photos

 This is the bathroom you use the bucket to pour water on yourself. It is very nice and refreshing. The water is cold which helps in the hot weather.
 This is the view from the front window.
This is the living room of the house that we are staying at for the first week.

School

I may be in a new country but school is still boring, I have lots of work to do :P

First Thoughts

It is really hot here and humid and whenever I get in the car I always reach for the seat belt and then realise that it is not there :P (they do not have seat belts in the back seat). Today I went to a local pool with my family and friends and the pool had really cool water slides, after that we tried some Chinese-Indo Food. We are staying at a friends house at the moment.

Introduction

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my blog, I will be posting regularly with text and images about what I have done.

Hope You Enjoy,
Jeremy