Long Time, No Post

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything on this blog, just wanted to give a status update. We moved house a few months ago, I really like the new one, it has a much better design and backyard. We had friends come from Australia for two weeks which was really nice. Playing quite a bit of basketball, we managed to find a really good indoor one in the Oil Company compound. Learnt loads more Indonesian now and can have a really basic conversation.

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)

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 :)

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

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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).

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!

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.

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!

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 :)

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 :(

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