Not Long Left Now...

Hello everyone, again it's been a long time since my last post. I reasoned that there is not much for me to do in Batam that I haven't already told you about, so I would wait a long time for the next post, but then looking back on the last 2 months, I have actually been quite busy... so here we go.

I made some new friends through CouchSurfing (for those of you who don't know it, it is a community of travellers organised around the basis of providing help, local knowledge and a sofa to sleep on for people who are travelling. Go to couchsurfing.org and check it out if you like to travel or meet interesting people) there is a small couchsurfing community in Batam, and I met up with them to try and make some local friends.

First we went to a movie, and then I offered to give them almost-free (in exchange for food) English lessons which were really relaxed and fun. Then I met one guy, Frank from Belgium, who was just about to marry an Indonesian girl, Laurina. They invited all of the couchsurfers to their wedding reception, so I have now been to a wedding in my 4th different country.

The wedding was interesting, this being Batam, the mixing pot of Indonesia's people, there were various groups, some completely tee-total and some sloshing down the alchohol almost in a Polish fashion (almost...). I'm sure you can guess which group I was in. There was also karaoke there and, with me being the only white guy present other than the groom, I was forced (although with a few drinks inside me it didn't take much forcing) to get up and sing - I just put on a raspy voice and sang Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and it went down ok.

In work I am still trying to make my classes as interesting as possible for my students, and one of the cool things I created was an instruction-based game drawn entirely on the whiteboard. The kids had to tell Simon the Pirate what to do to save the princess, get the treasure and return to his ship, and it sneakily included all of the vocabulary and grammar points I had to teach them;

Last month I hosted my first couchsurfer, a guy called John from California, he was really cool, had some great stories and we had a few drinks together and some good conversation. To be honest it was nice to meet someone new who wasn't from Batam, and showing someone around actually gave me a new perspective on the place (although the tour was nothing compared to my Krakow tour).

One weekend I went to my favourite restaurant (Goodies) when they were giving out free beer - yay! Steve came too, and afterwards he showed me a bar that brews it's own ales on site, including this, seaweed ale;

It was very light and refreshing and made a nice change from the fizzy lager that is usually the only thing available to drink here.

After that we went to a food court, one of the places where you can choose which fish, crab, or even frog you want to eat;

But I just played it safe and had noodles.

A couple of weeks ago I went with the couchsurfers to the "Asian Jazz Festival" which was interesting but I didn't really enjoy it so much. There were a lot of people there, but I think most of the went just because it was free and something to do. Nobody at all danced, and it was hard to spot a smile in the audience and it was a big contrast from music events I have been to in the west. When the band started doing self-indulgent solos I knew it was time to go.

Then, last weekend, I was invited on a boat trip by Rob, a guy who used to teach at EF but now runs his own school. Rob's girlfriend, Ayu, and her kids came and there was also a Australian, Phil, and a Scot, Jim, who both work in more industrial businesses on the island. We found a boat for rent and told the captain we wanted to go somewhere nice. After a lot of miscommunication, and a couple of stops to ask for directions, we told he to just go around until we saw a beach we liked. This is what we found;

It was a paradise island - I could really imagine Robison Crusoe living there, it had jungle, a perfect sandy beach with lots of crabs and even a lagoon. After we sat down for a while we even discovered it had monkeys. One of them came out and approached us, and as I had a couple of apples in my bag I started offering them to it. It was taking the apple pieces straight out of my hand and being really friendly, but then it smelled some fried rice (with chicken) and decided to go for that. I ran over clapping my hands to try and scare it away from our food, and it took a swipe at me, scratching my arm (no blood drawn so I don't need to worry abour rabies). So we let it have the food;

Then Rob, who had been prepared enough to bring vodka, sprite and even ice all in a cooler informed us that he had forgotten to bring glasses, so I improvised by attacking some water bottles with a key, and in the end it wasn't really a problem.

As the sun started to go down we left the island, stopping on the way at another island with a town, where we had a delicious seafood meal at a traditional restaurant, before heading back to Batam.

I also played football last week, and had what was probably the best game of my life. In one hour I scored 13 goals, and 6 assists, including 3 perfect (and a little lucky) volleys and 2 goals from in my own half. It was the day after England got knocked out of Euro2012, and my students were telling me Roy Hodgson should have picked me - and it really cheered me up after staying up late to see England lose on penalties.

In other news; Nat's wife, Marine, gave birth to a baby girl a couple of weeks ago, and yesterday I went to visit Luisa for the first time. It sounds like a cliche, but it really is amazing when you see a newborn to think that it will one day grow into a walking, talking, intelligent entity. So here's a pic of Luisa;

And congratulations to the new family.

Also, next week me and the couchsurfers are planning a trip to go paintballing and go-karting. I'm really looking forward to it because I've never been paintballing before and I love go-karting (hopefully I won't flip my kart this time).

And finally, I now have only 6 weeks left until I go to Australia - how exciting! I will try and write another post before I go, but I'm not promising anything. Kangaroos and Koalas (and Jo) here I come!!!