From Wuxi to Jakarta

Ahhhhh, the warmth! It was such a good feeling to step off the plane in Jakarta this afternoon and smell the thick, sweet, humid and tropical air! It reminded me of holidays to Bali when I was younger. The heat hit you and it felt so damn good after the Wuxi cold. After a very early start, Pete and I were on our way. We flew Singapore Airlines, the best in my opinion - the staff are so friendly (and look stunning in their uniforms), the service is fantastic, the food is good and the movies were great!

Changi airport train ...... spotless!

We had a brief stop over in Singapore and were able to quickly peruse the many shops on offer. I'm glad we have a few more hours there on the way home (although my wallet may not thank me!). It was absolute heaven to be able to walk into a book store and look through all the shelves, rather than the standard "Do you have any English books?" question which is always followed by being shown a small selection of books on Chinese characters, a few dog eared novels and maybe a copy of 'Business Weekly' magazine. Singapore is amazingly spotless, the airport is divine. The train had not a spot of grafitti or chewing gum as it would have in Australia or China.

English books!!!!

During the final leg to Jakarta, I was able to spot the other teachers attending the workshops here - as I mentioned before, it's exciting to travel overseas as a teacher for work, so it was easy to pick the excited teachers, as opposed to the bored business men!! Our hotel is lovely, the rooms are beautiful (it doesn't take much to please me, coming from a backpacker background!!) and it overlooks a park which I will explore tomorrow afternoon.

Western toilet, but hose to wipe? Hmmmm, I think not.

Jakarta is great, it's wonderful to get out into another city in another country, with a totally different culture. The traffic is chaotic but nowhere near as bad as in China - maybe due to the fact that there are traffic police everywhere. There are a lot of motorbikes, as opposed to scooters though, so it is quite noisy. The city is so lush as well, it made me think how much the horses back at home would love the rich green grass! Pete and I went out for some Indonesian food this evening and found a great place where we could get nasi goreng, rice noodles (I have forgotten thename) and delicious satay sticks with peanut sauce, all for a very low price. We followed that with a western treat of Cold Stone icecream, yum! Will definitely be hitting the hotel gym after the workshop tomorrow. The people here are so friendly, always smiling and ready for a chat, you can't help but be happy here!