Peaceful in Pontianak

Well, I made it. We flew to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, from Singapore, and then the other ETA, Adam, and I headed to the outdoor terminal of the Jakarta airport to catch a flight to Pontianak on the island of Borneo. I didn't take any pictures of the Jakarta airport (sad day...), but hopefully in the future I will remember to capture a snapshot or two of the awesome outdoor terminals of Jakarta. So for now, just create a beautiful image in your head of lovely walkways leading to seating areas perched just on the edge of the Tarmac. (Now I fear I may have built up this image a bit too much, so I'll have to take SUPER AWESOME pictures to do the airport justice.)

Anyhow, after having a minor mix-up with the gates, whereby Adam and I found out 20 minutes before the plane was scheduled to take off that our plane had been moved to Terminal 2 instead of the quaint Terminal 7 we so eagerly sat in front of, Adam and I set off for the great unknown region of Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Can we all just take a moment and notice that the equator runs RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF PONTIANAK?!?! Really?! (As Connie would say.)

Upon arriving in the airport, I was greeted by my counterpart (the individual who's supposed to look out for me while I'm in Indonesia) and the principal of the school I'll be working at. Adam and I said quick goodbyes as he headed off with his counterpart, and I left with Fitri (my counterpart), Mr. Iswaldi (the principal), and two assistant principals.  We drove to a nice restaurant in town where I had my first Pontianak meal of seafood and rice (which would prove to be an ongoing theme as Pontianak is located right on the water). Fortunately, for those of you who don't know, I LOVE SEAFOOD. So at least maybe I can check off food as being something that I won't have a hard time transitioning to! Between seafood and the A&W and KFC in the mall twenty minutes from my house, I think I should be able to survive the food war... Until it becomes time to cook! But that's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.

After the wonderful meal of fish, squid, and of course, rice, Fitri and the rest of my welcoming committee drove me to my place of residence for the next 8 and a half months. So, I'll devote the rest of this post to the house I'll be living in during my time in Pontianak. Bring on the pictures!

So this is my house. Giant, eh? When one of the directors of the Fulbright program informed me of my house, she said that it would be "perfect for me and my 10 kids." But don't worry mammy, I don't plan on having ANY children while here :)  I'll just hog all the space for myself or possible visitors.

As you can see inside, I have a giant common area. Basically three different seating areas! So much space to clean... When looking in my front door, you can kind of see the kitchen on the right side. The kitchen is nice, including an oven, microwave, and stove that I'm not sure yet if I can use... Up on the left you can kind of see the railing of the loft, making my home 2 stories! This place is intense. In the entire place, I have three bedrooms, two of them with AirCon. In the back right you can see a sink that is next to one of my, fortunately, Western style toilets! And next to that is a door to my back kitchen...

I hope you like what I did with the pictures... I'm trying something new :)  Anyway, the back kitchen is where I have my gas burner, refrigerator, and water tank. I skip between here and my other kitchen when preparing food. Also, for whatever reason, I have this awesome 3D mural on my outside wall next to the stairway to my roof! Note the little fisher people with the awesome hats. The stairway leads to a small area where I can hang my laundry, but I will show you that later. Now, let's go beyond the panda and bird screen, to see my super awesome bedroom!

So this is my bedroom, complete with a massive king size bed, dresser, and personal bathroom.  I'm not going to fill you in on the bathroom yet, because I'm not fully adjusted to it, but eventually I will share all! My room is pretty darn big, and fortunately there is open space where I can hunt down the cockroaches! I'm winning the war 8-1 at this point! There are two other notable bits about my room:

The AirCon! I would probably never sleep without this cold piece of machinery. Actually, the nights when my electricity doesn't work, I often don't sleep...

And the other, most important part of any room I stay in -

My memories from home. A card from my sister, the Dickmans, and my friend Paige. The text of the graduation card the Brockmeyers, and a picture of Mammy, dad, Abby and I from Glenn & Fran's wedding! Of course there's always a photo album of friends and family, Eeyore to remind me of Maria, and the Beanie Baby Cheery from Shirley.  And, as with all of my adventures, I have the pictures of my Aunt Karen and Uncle Wheat alongside Abby and my Family.  See Aunt Karen, I'm always thinking about you :) You know where you stand! So of course, if you want to be a part of my bedside table, just drop me a line or a photo! Oh, and of course the last bit that always travels with me around the world: The Blue Bunny, in memory of Gran. I always miss her as much as I miss all my friends and family at home and abroad.

So that's a glimpse of my house in Indonesia. I hesitate to say 'home,' because home will always be Sayler Park. But it honestly is nice here.  I apologize if this was a bit long and boring, but I wanted you to get a bit of an idea where I am. Hopefully my next post will be about some awesome site in Indonesia!! This shall be the first of my 'domestic life' posts. We'll see how they go.

Oh! I also now have an address!! Let me know if you would like it. Apparently mail could take 4 months to get here, as well as 4 months for me to send something to you, but I'm gonna try! I've got 8 months, right?! 

"Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."  -Oliver Wendell Holmes

Talk to you soon,

Ryan

A Quick Stopover in Singapore (Sept. 2nd, 2013)

Since the flight to Indonesia is fairly long, it makes sense that we wouldn't fly directly there, but instead bop around a few different cities and countries before arriving in the capital of Indonesia, (which is still an hour and a half from the city I'm supposed to live in). So my total journey would take me from camping in Indiana (wahoo!) to the Cincinnati airport, to Chicago, and then to Hong Kong, followed by a day and a half layover in Singapore before carrying on to Jakarta and then Pontianak, Indonesia (my town for the next nine or so months).  So the question that I'm sure is on all of your minds is: "What the heck did you do during that day and a half in Singapore?!" Let me tell you.

For starters, we had a mini one day orientation where we were informed of certain "need to know" items that would hopefully keep us from getting into too much trouble during the four days we would spend in our host cities before returning to The Jakarta area for orientation. These tidbits were things such as how to find water, what we should expect from our housing situation, a few local customs, etcetera.  So with the basic Indonesian information jotted down, we were given the rest of the day to explore the city of Singapore. And this is what we saw...

The "Mer-Lion," a mascot and national personification of Singapore. Half lion, half Mer, all awesome.

The city of Singapore is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever had the pleasure of wandering around.  Along with a group of 5 other ETAs (English Teaching Assistants), we toured the inner part of the city that surrounds a bay of water.  The buildings and streets were so incredibly clean, leading some of my compatriots to be creeped out by the eerie utopian feel of the city.  Some would say it felt as if there were secret police lurking behind each bush and inside every trash can, just waiting to jump out and terrify any wayward pedestrian who dared to litter their beautiful city.  Personally, I greatly enjoyed the intense cleanliness of the area, even though the awesomeness of the sparkling city was overshadowed by one thing... BENCHES. The city is chalk full of intense street art, my favourite of which is all of the absurd benches. I never thought I could get so excited about a platform that you sit on... 

This one was a parabola!!!

 Some cool fake trees. And what is that in the background, you might ask? It's a boat. On the top of three buildings. No big deal. Except that it's the coolest thing ever!  Let's check it out up close - 

And the round half disk thing is meant to replicate a lotus flower, and has a beautiful lotus pond underneath of it. That white building is actually a science museum, which makes sense since it looks like a lotus flower. Here's a picture of the aforementioned lotus pond, with e armored ETAs sitting on its edge:

After wandering around the inner city by the water, we walked through the giant 3 buildings with the boat on top, crossed over some major roads, and visited the Gardens by the Bay.  Singapore's quest to become the City in a Garden is no more evident than in the Gardens by the Bay, where the Singaporean government compiled trees and plants from all over the world (except Antartica for some reason...) into a giant park for tourists and the people of Singapore. Hopefully the following pictures will do the garden justice, but I just want to quickly say that they was so much of the garden that we didn't get to see due to time restrictions. The place was super cool though, especially the giant metal trees with plants growing off of them!

Check out all the greenery...and the giant metal trees with random bromeliads on their trunks.

Grounds crew in serious haz-mat costumes keeping things clean and tidy.

An awesome double helix bridge leading back into the city! It was wobbly, but architectural!

A artsy photo of flowers for my sister who taught me all I know about artsy flower shots.

So that was Singapore. An awesome city by a bay, soon to be known word-wide as the "City in the Garden."  Spending just shy of a day and a half in Singapore was definitely not enough time to see all of the awesome bits and pieces this city has to offer. But for now, it must do :)   Now it's time to head to a country known more for its natural beauty! And so, with VISA in hand, we all headed off to Indonesia!

And if you couldn't tell, this post was started over a week ago, and I just wrapped it up... So basically you can expect delays in my blog posts from time to time! But I'll do my best to keep up.

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." - Roald Dahl

Talk to you soon,

Ryan

Here I Go, Again (...on my own)

Shout out to Whitesnake for the title. At least I'm pretty sure Whitesnake sings that song. But anyway...

So this is my second attempt at blogging while abroad.  As some of you may know, my last blog, Just Plain Ryan, went under when I run into an e-mail snafu that caused Google to shut me down.  Fortunately, I now know why that happened, and therefore will be able to keep this blog up and running during my entire sojourn in Indonesia.  Just so you know, I did not misspell the name of my blog... Since my last blog was Just Plain Ryan, I had to choose a new domain name, and therefore chose "Just Plane Ryan." Personally I am happy with the name change because while the meaning of the blog remains the same, it also now incorporates a mathematical term! I think it fits.

As for an introduction to this blog, I'll say nearly the same thing I originally put out in my last blog.  Just Plane Ryan is meant to be an account of my travels abroad in Indonesia, as well as possibly some reflective posts on previous trips I've taken since being in college. (I actually unearthed some of the old material from my Australia trip and can repost it! Haha!) So just remember that you're welcome to read posts by subject by clicking on the "tags" that should appear on the top of the page. (Unfortunately I will be posting from my iPad so I have no idea what the format will look like on a computer, but we'll work through that together!) 

I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I will enjoy writing it.  And just so you know, I will not grill any of you on my trip details once I get home, so don't feel as though you have to read if you don't want to. This blog is for your enjoyment as well as mine, so read as much or as little as you like. I can always recount stories in person when I see you next :)  

I want to thank all of you for reading and putting up with my ramblings! If you need me, feel free to contact me at justplaneryan@gmail.com. You all have been a crucial part of my life thus far, and I would love to share my journey with each and everyone of you - hopefully this blog allows us to accomplish that.

And lastly a quote: “Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” ― Albert Camus

Talk to you soon,

Ryan