My 4 month "East Java tour"

Goodbyes are always sad

In the last four months I:

• Lived in 5 different cities.
• Taught in 8 different EF schools.
• Took 2 trips to other islands as well as countless weekend trips and adventures in East Java.
• Went to Singapore twice.
• Slept in 11 different beds (this sounds suss, but it really isn’t).
• Taught 1,500+ different students (estimated).
• Took 8 flights, 8 trains, 4 “travel” cars and travelled along the Surabaya-Gresik toll road 17 times.
• Earned 4,013 GOpoints (and 625 Grab Points).
• Went to 12 different malls (this is super depressing).
• Fell in love with one gelato place (and visited it 5 times across 3 cities).
• Laughed a million times.
• Got accused of being “a spy from head office” three times.
• Took hundreds of selfies.
• Completely changed my long-term plans twice.
• Visited my old office for no real reason more times than I can count.
• Made the newspaper twice.
• Cried 2 times (almost 3, thanks Sidoarjo) actually lost count in the end.
• Met a load of new friends and (hopefully not, but possibly) made some new enemies.
• Felt bored exactly 0 times.

And, I’m exhausted.

Well, it’s been a long and tiring but mostly enjoyable journey and as of yesterday, it’s complete. Last week, even a GoJEK driver commented that I went to a different EF school every day and I started to think that things had gotten out of hand. So at the end of this long journey let me share with you some of my favourite moments of my East Java/ world tour. 

MALANG

I loved living in a walkable city, being able to walk to work put me in a good mood for the whole day. Breakfasts in the Library (the best café ever) and working with a load of fun people made things easy. I experienced a brief “culture shock” when we were about to go out for after work drinks and everyone kind of looked at me weirdly for changing my clothes. Wearing the uniform after work would never happen in Surabaya, but when in Rome… By the end of my 3 weeks here, you could find me out after work wearing those beautiful khaki trousers.

JEMBER

This was the most surprising as I thought it was going to be really painful and that I’d hate it there. You know that life is unpredictable when the place you dread going to the most ends up being the one you love the most. I had a social life, I had amazing people around me and I would absolutely love to repeat this month over and over again. Not much to say because it’s all HERE but looking forward to reuniting with my Jember friends again soon.

my Jember family <3

SURABAYA

Many, many highlights including seeing my family, marathon hang out sessions with Devita and Lily, sleepovers with Tria, taking baby Jazzy for her first girl’s day out. It’s somewhat therapeutic to go back to my old office of 5 years and teach again after I thought it was all over. When I said goodbye last time it was teary and sad, so another chance to see everyone again and not be an emotional wreck was much appreciated.

any chance to stalk her is good for me :D

SIDOARJO

The highlight will always be eating ice cream and chocolate on the swing set outside Aditya’s boarding house with Adit and Amanda, laughing about everything that happened and bonding over oranges (wish I could tell that story here but I can’t). I was seriously exhausted most of the time I was there but it was good to know that at the end of the day there was a swing set waiting for me and good people to have a laugh with.

who knew oranges could bring people together?

KEDIRI

This place was the calm after the storm that I needed. And I loved it for everything being simple. I was well looked after and had positive and fun people around me the whole time. I got to eat delicious food, climb a volcano, made it into the newspaper for no real reason and got to run a workshop which allowed me to treat the teachers like kindergartners. 

GRESIK

Though I got sick of spending two hours a day commuting to work pretty quickly, there were actually some great times. Chatting to Yoke on the way to work, laughing excessively about all the “semen Gresik” signs (‘semen’ is Indonesian for ‘cement’ which is what Gresik is known for) and again, working with a bunch of cool, positive people.  

This International "Semen" University made me laugh every day

Not only will I carry these memories with me, but I also have souvenirs. I stole something from every office I worked in ranging from pens, scissors, a pencil case (they were quite practical initially), a full packet of blu tack (and I ended up distributing it to all the teachers in Jember which made me feel like Robin Hood), a button, a colour picture of oranges, a binder clip and correction tape. If any of my bosses are reading this, I’m sorry for stealing. Please don’t fire me.

And what’s next?

Tomorrow I’m moving to Malang for 3 months. I’m excited for now to really get to know a place, to not spend my weekends travelling between cities, to not have to figure out a new school every few weeks and to actually be able to get to know some student’s names.

But I will miss my travelling. I’ll miss meeting cool people in every new place, sharing ideas and trying new things. So, finally, a big thank you to everyone who was part of my “East Java world tour”. I’m so grateful for everyone who took care of me along the way. It’s been really fun.

Until we meet again on my next tour. :D.