Catch Up

Hello everyone. I have to apologise for my lack of recent updates. This is mainly due to a combination of being busy and lazy. So, to bring you all up to speed, here is a synopsis of my last month.

Perhaps the most interesting food I have eaten was stingray -

It was absolutely delicious, like a combination of really good fish and chicken, and I would definately recommend you to try it.

Also, at a food court I found this amusingly-named restaurant;

(If you dont get the joke, 999 is the same as 911 or 112 i.e. the number to call for the emergency services)

Also, a few events have happend since I last posted, the first of which was Halloween. We had a mini party at the school for all the kids, I dressed as a zombie pirate, but the best costume was probably that we wrapped one of the teachers, Yanu, in toilet paper so that he could be a mummy.

It was fun watching him slowly unravel as time went by. The kids mostly came in fancy dress too, and we did face painting, pumpkin carving, bobbing for apples and scared the life out of the kids with ghost stories.

After all that activity, I needed a little break, so one weekend I went down to the gym for a workout and a swim. After swimming I decided to dry off in the sun for a little while. Unfortunately I fell asleep, and even more unfortunately I had a beard at the time, so when I shaved I had these very interesting tan lines;

Also, I have been given a morning class three days a week with an individual student. He's 18 years old and really hard work because he always says he understands, even when he obviously doesn't, and seems to hate writing and speaking. Anyway, I was explaining to him what 'describe' means, and when I was reasonably sure he actually understood, I asked him to describe me. He said "You are tall." I encouraged him to say more. "You have white skin." I wanted him to be giving good descriptions with clothes etc. so I pushed him some more; "You are fat."

Thanks for that, now do lots of writing and grammar work.

Nat had a birthday, for which we went bowling again and I developed some more unusual techniques. After that we went to a very good Indo-Chinese restaurant and ate delicious food, including chilli frog's legs. After the restaurant Nat, Steve and I went to Steve's house and made a bonfire, drank beer and had manly conversations. At 1 a.m. I headed home, but the taxi driver dropped me in the wrong place, and I had to walk through Kampung Bule to go home.

On my way through, there was the usual array of people trying to get me to go into their bars, but I just said, "I haven't got any money." and most of them left me alone, but one group insisted I come inside anyway. When I went inside I saw the ladyboy I had previously briefly met (photo in an earlier post), and she proceeded to give me bacardi and cokes, so I stayed and had a little chat and made friends before winding my way home.

Last Friday I again went to Singapore, for the penultimate passport stamp I need, and this time I had a lot of time to spend there while my papers were being processed in the embassy. I was in the Orchard Avenue area of town, where there are more shopping malls than one would think is strictly necessary for even the largest city. I walked around a lot, and took in the sights such as the streets lined with elephants;

(I think it was raising awareness for some sort of elephant charity), and the tall buildings;

and I ate some really good food, including duck noodles, sushi and McDonalds.

Whilst I was looking at my map, I saw the Polish embassy wasn't too far away, so, with opportunities to speak Polish very rare on this side of the world, I walked to the building it was in and went up to the right floor. Unfortunately it was closed, so I took this photo and left.

I then stumbled upon a huge bookstore, and went a little crazy, buying some new books by my favorite authors, a book about the universe and (remarkably for Asia) a book on Polish grammar!

The rest of the day was spent amusing myself with Singaporean strangeness, such as these things (read the name of the food aloud);

Then, Saturday was two events. We had a parent's information day at school, where were were all required to work to meet the parents, and it was also Michelle's birthday. The parent's day was a bit of a failure, as only 3 parents showed up (apparently our administration forgot to tell the parents about this), and we had nothing to do, so Nat taught me how to play cribbage and we also amused ourselves by making birthday-ish things to stick on Michelle;

Then in the evening we went out to a really nice restaurant by a pool which made delicious western food, including burritos and roast dinners and I ate a lovely Greek salad, before going out for a few drinks to a bar which is owned by the girlfriend of an English guy who used to work in the school.

Then, on Sunday, I started renting Tommy's motorbike because it works out a lot cheaper than taking taxis, and makes me feel more Indonesian. If you are worrying (yes, you Mum) I will drive carefully and always wear a helmet.

Now, I am getting more excited by the day, because, on the first of December, my girlfriend, Jo, will be arriving in Batam to stay with me. I really can't wait and I'm counting down the days (9 left!).

Anyway everyone, that's all I've got to say for now. I'll try not to wait so long until my next update. Thanks for reading.