13 things I WON'T miss about Indonesia

1. Unwanted Attention
Those people who make fun of you in a language they don't think you understand, who say rude things and laugh with their friends, being pointed at or stared at is not appreciated! Easy enough to deal with on a good day, but when you're sleepy/in bad mood it's not gonna work out well. Not only does it make you feel awkward and uncomfortable, but it also makes you feel like a caged zoo animal.

2. Photo Mister!
I'm sure I have taken thousands of photos with strangers over the years. The first few times it happened I felt like a celeb and loved the attention but it quickly grew old. I can understand why people would want to take photos with me if we'd had a chat for a bit, but when a stranger comes up to me and the first thing they say is "foto Mister?" it drives me crazy. Joy and I have gone to lengths of running across a park, climbing some children's play equipment and speaking in Spanish to avoid awkward photos with strangers.

a few examples of photos with random people

3. Asian-style queuing
I don't know how many times someone pushed in front of me in a queue until I learnt how to be aggressive. If I know someone was there before me I'll let them go before me (Aussie style) but I get some weird looks from everyone else around me.

4. Being "interviewed" by strangers
Yea I don't know you but you're going to ask me if I have a husband, why I don't have a husband, what my religion is, what my salary is, what I eat for breakfast, what my home address is, my preference in men... But I've started just giving different answers every time. 

5. The struggle to stay healthy
Yea, good luck eating well in Surabaya. The preferred snack is gorengan ("fried stuff"). You can get fruit juice, oh wait it's not healthy because it's full of sugar and condensed milk. They even put sugary peanut sauce on their salad (gado-gado is awesome though) and drown their Pizza Hut salad in thousand island dressing (seriously, if you ever go to Pizza Hut in Indo, sit next to the salad bar, it never fails to entertain. I swear this should be a recommended activity in the Lonely Planet). Anyway, in Australia I'd stay fit by taking a walk in the evening, not so fun here due to points 1 and 2.... 
I am kind of dealing with this eating well thing by cooking for myself but still it's a trip to 3 supermarkets just to get my ingredients for the week (seriously took visits to 3 supermarkets to find a potato). It's not easy but definitely worthwhile.

6. Saying goodbye
Yea, it becomes part of the lifestyle with people staying for only a year. Some of the goodbyes were okay, but some were particularly gut-wrenching. Eventually you learn to have faith in the fact that if that person is important, you'll find a way to keep in touch but it still hurts like a bitch every single time.

7. The struggle to find alcohol
This never was a problem before but the laws changed and now buying beer is a nightmare. You used to be able to get it at every convenience store but now you've got to go to specific supermarkets every time you want to have a few chilled out beers after work.

Stocking up is important

As is taking precautions to minimise the risk of your housemates drinking your beer

8. Indonesian doctors
Doctor: You have sakit maag
Me: I don't believe in sakit maag so I can you give me a different diagnosis?
This conversation happens every time. It's either that or masuk angin (enter wind). And then they give you 5 different medications to keep track of EVERY TIME and some of them are for things you don't even have and every time I go to the hospital I just cry because of how hopeless it is. 


9. People smoking in nightclubs
Yea, probably awesome for smokers and terrible for everyone else. Coming home with hair that reeks of smoke and having to wash it 3 times to get it out is getting old to be honest.

Even the anti-smoking campaign guy makes smoking look cool so  what hope do we have?

10. The rain
The rain literally stops everything. Getting to work by motorbike in the rain is awful. Everything is awful. Everything! And I think once a year it seems to be so bad that it floods which SUCKS because the traffic is awful and you've gotta swim home because good luck getting any vehicle down the street. I do look pretty good in my raincoat/ astronaut suit.

11. Shoe shopping
I don't know why but shoe shopping is always a nightmare here somehow. My shoe size is pretty average in Australia but seems to be too big here as there are never any shoes in my size. 

12. Cockroaches/ rats
 I feel pretty sick seeing rats running around especially in my front garden. But having a cat makes me feel a bit better than about the rats, not that I know what my cat would do if there was a rat in our house, considering the rats are almost as big as him.

Having a rest after a long day of being responsible for keeping rats out of the house

13. Airports
I know I will still spend time in airports when I leave here but I feel like I've spent a significant amount of time to airports over the last 3 years as it is necessary to fly almost everywhere in this country. For starters, airports are horrible overly air conditioned places which are over-priced and boring. As someone who took 24 flights last year and expects to take at least 20 this year, I have lived it and I am over it. More often than not the flight is delayed but actually it gets to a point where you find out your flight is delayed 3 hours and you just say "Hooray! It's Lion Air and it's not canceled! It's only delayed!". 

Boy Crazy

I don't think the following information will paint me in a good light but what the hell.... 

Two weeks ago, I was in West Surabaya, my former home and the memories of my life there flooded back even though I hadn't thought about it all in so long.Please note that the following stories all happened more than 3 years ago. Yes, they may make me sound boy crazy (because I was). I have grown up a little (or a lot) over the past 3 years and my perception of the world is totally different. I previously felt that having a boyfriend was everything whereas now I have found happiness in more than a year of being single. So this is me, before I realised I was just fine on my own.


In August 2012 I found myself in Surabaya after I "followed" a boy here. That story is HERE. At that time I was doing my teacher training and often hung around with the people in the course and the people who run the course. One night we went for dinner at the Plaza Hotel. Venan (the guy I was sort of but not really seeing) came along too. Sitting at our table was a friend of my friend Adryan- a guy called Robert who was quite good-looking and very well-dressed. I couldn't really talk to him too much because Venan was with me but I found him very interesting. Venan told me later that Robert had asked him at some point during that meal how he "got a foreign girlfriend". 

Anyway, time went on and Venan pissed me off by lying about his age and then disappearing to Bali for the weekend (or possibly pretending to disappear to Bali so that he didn't have to deal with the aftermath of his lie). So, the next night I went out with the people from my course. After a couple of beers, I asked Adryan what Robert was up to and if he wanted to join us. 

Not long after, Robert showed up and we got talking. He actually was really nice and sweet. We decided to go to Colors after we were done in Sutos and Robert offered to give me a lift. So we drove there together singing songs in Indonesian the whole way there (man I'm just remembering that he was actually a fun guy too). We didn't stay at Colors long but he asked me if I'd go out with him the next night. I was a little drunk and told him I'd only go on a date with him if he took me somewhere that had es cendol (a traditional Indonesian drink/dessert). 

For some reason Robert was okay with this ridiculous condition and asked around for recommendations for places with es cendol (it's actually easier to find in Melbourne than Surabaya). On Saturday night, Robert picked me up and took me to a place called Kahyangan Art Resto which was really nice. I had a really nice dinner with him. After dinner I wanted to split the bill but he insisted on paying. I let it go. 

with my precious es cendol

the food that we ate

Next, we went to Citilites which is a fancy bar/restaurant on the top floor of the Java Paragon Hotel with an amazing view of Surabaya. I told him I wanted to pay for the drinks as he'd paid for dinner. 
"You can pay when I run out of money" he told me.
When I asked him if that would ever happen he just laughed and shook his head. That was actually a massive turn off for me as I'm an independent person and I like to pay for things too. 

After Citilites, Robert dropped me off at home. I guess it kind of fizzled out which seems kind of silly now because he was actually a kind, fun person. When I'm complaining about the guy who wouldn't let me pay for his drink and then went on to date some actual assholes it seems rather silly, but anyway it's done. I did meet Robert once more at the end of 2012, we went for es kacang ijo together but I haven't seen him since.

When I officially moved to Surabaya in November 2012 I was still in this weird boy-crazy state and was quite interested in the idea of finding an Indonesian boyfriend. Luckily due to being part of a very small expat community in a very large city I got plenty of attention from guys. The fact that I spent a lot of time wandering around alone aimlessly also made it easy for randoms to strike up conversations with me (that's one thing that doesn't seem to happen anymore). Just over a week after I officially moved into my boarding house in Pradah Permai I was walking to one of my favourite eating places- a small restaurant that sold many Indonesian favourites for 7000 rupiah (70cents). As I was walking a motorbike pulled up next to me and the guy driving it asked me where I was going. He offered me a lift and I got on his motorbike and he took me to the restaurant. I asked him if he had eaten and if he wanted to join me. I don't actually remember at all what this guy looked like. For some reason I seem to remember him carrying a backpack and I don't know why that sticks in my memory more than his face. I'm pretty sure his name was Joshua or Yoshua. Anyway, after lunch Yoshua/Joshua told me he was going to watch a movie and invited me to join him. So, obviously because I was brand new to the city I had no life/plans which meant I could go with Joshua/Yoshua. We watched a movie together in Lenmarc. Sometime not long after that Yoshua/Joshua either gave me a lift to work or picked me up from work, I have a vague recollection of this event. Again, it never went anywhere.

Maybe 6 months after that my friend Dila at work told me a guy called Joshua was in the lobby to see me. I couldn't even remember who he was until Dila said "He was that guy that picked you up one time". I don't know why it wasn't at all memorable for me. I told Dila to tell him that I had a boyfriend and he left. Sorry Joshua/Yoshua. 

I was kind of lonely back then, I guess a mix of homesickness and also the effects of living in a boring boarding house and being alone too much. I actually choose that boarding house because my American friend lived there. But we had very different schedules- he started work early in the morning and I worked late and we barely saw each other. I had a routine at the time. Every morning I'd walk about 30 minutes away from my boarding house, have some bubur ayam (chicken porridge) for breakfast and then walk back, stopping at a tiny food stall for a glass of hot tea and a chat with the lady who owned it and a man who worked nearby and was always there. At the time I considered them my "Surabaya parents". A few times in the evening I sat outside a photocopy shop on my street where a group of local guys would sit drinking arak (rice wine) and talking shit in Javanese every night. I didn't drink the arak or understand what they were talking about unless they spoke directly to me in Indonesian, but somehow sitting there seemed better than sitting alone in my room.

Outside that photocopy shop was where I met Dinsa. He told me he was 19 years old but I suspect he was 18. From the beginning he very interested in me. One night I went to karaoke with the photocopy boys and it was there that Dinsa asked me to be his girlfriend. When I refused he pleaded with me to give him a chance. Eventually, I told him that I'd get to know him and see how I felt which he seemed to take as a "Yes, I'll be your girlfriend". Ahh, language barriers causing awkward moments as usual. So, there was a two or three week period during which Dinsa and I would sometimes spend time driving around the city on his motorbike and eating together.

This was Dinsa's T-shirt. Interesting English there...

One night Dinsa asked me to buy him some cigarettes. He explained that he had no money and I felt bad for him so I paid for his cigarettes. For some reason I thought it was really cute that he asked me to buy them. The second time he asked it wasn't cute anymore and I refused and he seemed angry. One night, he invited me for dinner with a friend of his. I didn't know that that meant I was supposed to be paying for dinner for the 3 of us. I got really frustrated and felt like he only wanted to hang around with me so I'd pay for stuff. I sent him a text later that night telling him how I felt and that I didn't want to hang out anymore. Dinsa responded by camping out outside my boarding house until I'd go out to talk to him. 

Eventually after 2 hours I went out to talk to him. I felt a little scared of him because I didn't think waiting outside someone's home for 2 hours was reasonable behavior. While we were talking the security man at my boarding house came over.
"You can't have this boy in your room", he said.
"I know. We are just talking here" I explained.
"If you want to have sex you need to go to a hotel"
"We are just talking" I said feeling embarrassed.
"I can give you directions to a cheap hotel."
"No, thank you"

That security guard went on to ask a lot of inappropriate questions over the next week which prompted me to move out of the boarding house after only a month. Over that next week I just acted nicely towards Dinsa but also tried to distance myself because I felt a bit afraid of him. A week later I told Dinsa I was going on holiday to Bandung and I moved out. All the way from the west to the east. A week after I moved out he worked out what happened and I got a lot of strange facebook messages from him but since I blocked him I don't have any idea what he's doing.

Around that same time I met another guy. It happened accidentally. I went to Tunjungan Plaza with Dila who was actually the first friend I made at work. It was December I guess, as it was the first time we hung out together so it was probably in the middle of the Dinsa story. We ate at Hachi Hachi and I noticed him. 

He was a waiter and yeah he was pretty cute but I don't know that it warranted the fact that I acted like a giggly school girl every time he came near our table. I don't know why I acted like that. Maybe because I never did that when I was a teenager I had to get it out of my system as an adult? Anyway it was blatantly obvious that I thought he was cute. To everyone. To him, to his co-workers and probably to every person on all 6 floors and all 4 towers of Tunjungan Plaza because that's how ridiculous I was being.

I did that cool guy thing where I wrote my name and number on a piece of paper. Like in the movies (a move that should probably just stay in the movies) I planned to cooly hand it to him and say "call me" and probably wink or something. But actually, I couldn't because I'm not that brave. So we went up to pay and I planned to ask the cashier to pass on my number but I didn't have to because she had noticed that I was into that guy and asked if I wanted to meet him. I nodded and I was introduced to Bagus- I shook his hand awkwardly, handed him the paper with my number on it and left, trying not to giggle.

A date in Puri Garden- a ridiculous idea.

He messaged me, but didn't seem overly impressed with my behavior considering everyone at his work was teasing him for it. We did meet for one lunch at Puri Garden in Delta Plaza and it was really weird and awkward and there was no chemistry so it didn't work out. Probably for the best.

Not long after that I met Monkey who I went on to date for a year, who knows how many more stories like this I'd have if I hadn't met Monkey. To be honest, looking back on these stories I feel like it wasn't even me. I have grown up and changed a lot since then and I barely recognize that person as myself and for that I am extremely glad.

There's no place like home

One of the (many) perks of my job is that my work provides teachers a house to live in. It's a big house with 7 rooms, shared with other teachers. It's a nice house in a great location and overall living here has been a great experience. In the three years I've lived here, I've had 16 different housemates. Despite the many changes to the house, mostly it has worked really well.

The (incomplete) "people who have lived here" wall

In our house we also have a housekeeper/maid. Her name is Parmi and she's a really nice lady with an interesting background. Parmi only went to school for a year. She dropped out of school when she was 9 and was forced to marry a 14 year old boy. Her first husband divorced her because she couldn't carry children (which seems obvious to me seeming she was still a child). She went on to marry (and divorce) two more times. Later, she moved from Cepu, a village in Central Java to Surabaya.

She has a few interesting habits. Firstly, she seems to speak her own language. I guess it's a mix of her village's local dialect, Surabaya language and a sprinkling of Indonesian. Basically no one can understand her but that doesn't stop her. I've never seen anybody with such an amazing ability to speak to someone who has no idea what she's saying but she has long conversations with us everyday. Parmi's favorite pastime is cooking and the food she cooks STINKS! The smell of her cooking is one smell I can never wipe from my memories. I guess it's the smell of home. Her other hobby is watching super dodgy gossip shows (the ones that get their exclusive inside scoop from the celebrity's girlfriend's neighbor) and she enjoys reporting back on what the celebs are up to. It's always interesting to know what celebrities you've never heard of are doing! As well as celebrity gossip, she certainly does keep track of the comings and goings in the house. Everyday when I arrive home from work she tells me if I'm first, second or third to arrive. In the past, she had another favorite pastime which was terrorising our cat Raka whose name she never got right and instead she called "Rangka". There's a couple of meanings of the word rangka in Indonesian. It can mean skeleton or bones but that doesn't seem to fit such a fat cat. I always thought of the other meaning of rangka (frame or framework) so when I heard her talking, I heard this: "Hey Framework! Eat your food, Framework! Go to sleep, Framework". Our new cat isn't afraid of her yet.

Parmi and "Rangka"

But when Parmi's not up to her usual shenanigans, she finds time to do some unusual things. For example, not long after Joy moved in to the house, Parmi found a small bat that Raka had killed and put it on our kitchen bench. Yes, the same kitchen bench that we use to prepare food became a dead bat's home! Another time Ashley came out of one of the downstairs bathrooms holding a dress. "Whose is this?" he asked Joy and I. It was neither of ours. That dress migrated around the house a lot until we realised Parmi was using it as a mat for some reason. We had so many legitimate mats in the house already so I'm not sure why we needed it. That dress lasted a long time.

Overall though, she is a nice person who means well. I am grateful to have someone helping with the housework as I would really hate to wash the floors myself.

our living room- 2013

Overall, I have been blessed with high-quality housemates but unfortunately not everyone is going to fit in. There's been a few that haven't really adjusted to our house (to be fair this life isn't for everyone and that's okay). 

One of the difficult ones to deal with was Stinky Steve. He actually seemed really nice at the start so I was happy when he moved into my house. Actually, he wasn't so bad overall but he was a bit of a hobo and he hadn't seemed to have discovered deodorant. Some nights he would stand in front of a fan in the living room and it'd blow his odor straight into us. One day I ran into Stinky Steve at a cafe near my house and he asked me for a ride back on my motorbike, at the time I wasn't confident enough to ride with someone else on the back of my bike, so I asked him to drive. On the way home, the air blew his stench straight back into me and he was trying to make conversation with me but I couldn't even breathe. 

He was a bit of a dick when he was drunk unfortunately. One night he decided after a few beers that he'd listen to music blaring from his room while he was downstairs despite the fact that we were trying to watch TV downstairs. When asked to turn down the music or close his door, he refused causing drama (our house doesn't get a lot of drama so that really felt like drama). Two years ago at Christmas we did secret Santa in the house. He got me and bought the laziest present (a few bottles of Bintang beer which he gave to me in January) and them complained about the actual nice present he was given (a funny T-shirt). 

Eventually, Stinky Steve left the country (without even saying goodbye!) and then we were faced with the task of getting the stench out of his room before our friend Jules was supposed to move in. We left the door open, the air conditioner on, we sprayed stuff in there and even tried leaving plates of instant coffee in the room to absorb the scent but I'm pretty sure when Jules moved in it still stank like Steve's stinky ghost was haunting our house. Sorry Jules!

Several months ago an American guy moved in and that was the worse. Let's call him James. He arrived on a Saturday night. I let him into the front gate and he seemed to be all over the place. Immediately, he was yelling at the guy who picked him up from the airport. I tried to introduce myself but he was too busy going through his things, wandering around and making a cup of tea to even say hello. Finally he took a seat on our sofa and chatted to people for a bit. Right before he sat down the living room fan had blown an empty french fries packet onto the floor (I'd just had dinner). "Oh this is like a frat house!" he said looking at the one piece of rubbish on the floor. All I could do was exchange awkward glances with my other housemates. James had arrived a week before my birthday party and I invited him to the party, telling him it would be a good chance to meet a lot of people. He responded by asking when I thought the party would be over so that he could make sure he was out of the house for the full time. I guess he didn't even want to try.

He didn't seem to really fit in naturally as every morning seemed to be a struggle to get a taxi, with a lot of yelling at taxi drivers (in one case from outside my bedroom at 7AM). Despite this he complained about my housemates being loud on a Saturday night (seriously it's only ever loud here on Saturday nights despite the amount of people living in the house). Once he came with us to the swimming pool. As we were getting a taxi home he loudly said to the taxi driver at the start: "Do you have the right change? Because we aren't giving you even 1,000 rupiah more than what the meter says, okay?" which was really embarrassing for us (especially considering 1,000 rupiah is 10 cents and no one cares). As well as that he left food around the house, left the gas on, used up other people's coffee, cooking oil and strawberries without ever asking. He walked in on people in the bathroom (when the door was closed) on more than one instance and never apologised, accused Parmi of taking his food when he'd just forgotten where he left it and asked the same questions over and over again. 

And even worse than that I had to work with the guy as well. There, he did some interesting things such as tucking his socks into his work pants, leaving stinky fish on his desk all day which made the teacher's room uninhabitable and using the one computer in the teachers room (provided for the 10 or so teachers there) for at least 3 hours a day. Having to live with him and work with him was pretty much the most annoying thing ever. I was aware fairly quickly that eventually I'd lose my patience with him (understandable considering the fact he was around ALL the time). For two months I remained patient and then finally one day I'd had enough and explained that the computer in the teacher's room was supposed to be shared between all the teachers. I feel like I said it nicely enough despite my frustration but he didn't take it well. He told me I had a bad attitude and then went on to not speak to me or make eye contact with me for 2 weeks which was extremely awkward seeming we worked and lived in the same place.

But he left our "frat house" 3 weeks ago and I'm very relieved. I'm back to sharing my house with chilled out people. Things are nice once again. I'm grateful for the fact that the majority of memories in the place I call home have been pleasant ones. So, I'd like to end this post with a few pictures of some good/ interesting memories in this house:

Dancing in the rain, Christmas 2014 

Random street cat comes in and eats Raka's food. Poor Raka has no idea what to do.

The time when Gunung Kelud near Kediri erupted and we woke up to "Indonesian snow" (volcanic ash) all over our front yard.

Parking motorbikes in your house should be considered ridiculous enough but the best part of this picture is the mirror selfie happening right there (if you look closely enough).

(By the way guys, just want to talk a moment to apologise for the lack of action on this blog. The end of last year was rough and I just couldn't do it. But, I'm in a much better state of mind now and hope I can continue to write. Thanks for the support!)