The same week I went to Singapore I went to Taman Safari with my housemate and two of our students. The animals there seemed much happier than at Taman Mini. They mostly had free roam of the park. As we drove up to the safari we went past about one million ragged villagers who stepped out into the road to wave carrots at the car. We stopped and bought a bag from the one who clawed his way to the window first.
As we drove to the different enclosures I stopped eating my carrot mid-chew when a zebra stuck its head through the window. Elephants and what looked like Ankole-Watusi wandered down the road and grabbed them from every car down the lines of traffic that formed whenever people stopped to look at an animal. I was having great fun stroking all the stragglers and it looked like everyone else was doing the same. I couldn't decide whether it would be miserable walking down lines of cars all day eating carrots and having people poke at you or whether it would be awesome.

When we arrived at the event area there was a sea lion show. We arrived five minutes late so we were amazed to see that the entire front row was free. We were amazed right up to the point that the sea-lions completely soaked us with a spray so powerful it blasted my wallet out of my pocket. Other people had clearly been before.
The only miserable part of the safari park was the petting zoo where you could pay to take photos with a lion tiger or leopard that had been doped up. Whenever they made a weak attempt to bite a customer who teased or stoked them too aggressively an attendant jabbed a stick in their mouth. All the guys tried to persuade me to take a photo with one but I refused because I didn't want to promote the practice in any way. My flat mate tried to argue the lion he took a photo with wasn't drugged but his argument was made redundant when he lifted the lions head and it half-opened its eyes instead of ripping his face off.  I did take a photo with a baby orangutan that looked happy enough.
Other than the petting zoo the contact with the animals was delightful. I had to stifle tears of joy after watching a small child crawl under a fence into the kangaroo enclosure. It stepped on a baby kangaroo's tail and received a savage kick to the face. This was particularly wonderful to see after a week of teaching the little treasures. 

  

Because of bureaucracy in Jakarta the way to get a work visa isn't through an embassy. Instead you have to fly to Singapore and give your passport to some bloke in Mc Donalds who gives it back four hours later with a visa inside. My DOS needed his visa done at the same time as me so we set off at 3am on Friday morning. The school booked the tickets with the cheapest airline possible. They are also notorious for being the worst airline in the world. They hold the record for most engines blown upon landing because of inexperienced pilots landing too fast. One of the girls at work has a boyfriend who works for Lion Air and he said they had a pilot working there who was fired in New Zealand for drinking on the job. When talking to the boyfriend at a works dinner, he told me proudly how it took him only two years to train. 'My literature degree took longer than that' I thought 'and I still don't get Jane Austin.' I asked him if you still needed 20/20 vision and he laughed and said he needed glasses nearly as thick as the bottom of the beer he was holding. He then pulled them out and put them on.
'Wow, you have green eyes?' he asked, before walking into a table. 
'Not really.' I said. Then his girlfriend came along and told him to stop drinking because he didn't want another incident at work. I hoped to myself that I would never have him as a pilot. This was a hope I would come to sorely regret. I would gladly have had him or the pilot who was fired for drinking over who I had on Saturday.
I was very glad to have the DOS with me the morning we left because I don't function without sleep. I miss-spelled my name on the departure card and kept drifting off while I was walking around. I might as well have been reading 'Pride and Prejudice.' I had no idea what was going on but it was making me more sleepy with every minute. When we got on the plane I plugged my ears and put a blindfold on. There was no safety announcement and no bullshit. The pilot whopped that plane into gear and made for the runway. I ignored normal take off protocol and reclined my seat. Then I started dreaming about a City that doesn't smell like shit all the time. My peace was short lived.

As the plane wound up for the take off and rammed us all back into our seats there was a big clunk a group of women screamed near the front of the plane. The plane wound down. One of the doors had fallen off.
'Standard Lion Air take off.' I joked.
'I'm glad we aren't sitting there,' said my DOS 'We'd be holding the door on for the next one!' We laughed with another white person who overheard us. Then the pilot came over the speakers to reassure us all about the 'rejected launch' and each of our smiles was wiped. I looked over at my DOS and he had gone very pale. Everyone on board was suddenly frozen as the cabin crew exchanged nervous glances. The babies stopped crying. By the time the announcement was finished you could have heard a pin drop on the carpet. People didn't need to understand English to get the message. It was a woman's voice coming through the speakers. The pilot was a woman.
Understandably a few poor bastards couldn't take it anymore and made a dash to get off. It was no use. Our fate was sealed. It would have delayed the plane so much to let them off that the passengers who were crazy enough/ needed to get to Singapore so badly they would risk there lives gave them such stares that the shame was too much for them to bear. This was particularly true with Asian culture as it is.  We waited for the door repair and the paper work then set off again. Of course nobody could get any sleep after finding out about the pilot so we were forced to endure a flight where everyone jumped out of their seat at the faintest hint of turbulence. Thank God we made it.

Changi airport in Singapore is incredible. It has a free cinema, free water, free phone calls, a snooze lounge and many other wonderful features. After we dropped off our passports with the most stressed man to walk the earth,  we took a walk through the city. There were hardly any cars on the roads because apparently there is a kind of lottery to get driving licenses. Every road, pavement and toilet seemed cleaner than most tables in Jakarta. We wandered around a huge market place and I bought a fridge magnet for my nan and an 'I love Singapore,' t-shirt. When we got our passports back we went straight back to the airport and tried to get some sleep in the snooze lounge before the return flight. We were both still a bit shaken from the flight over.

Little Trouble in Big Jakarta

I've had a friend visit a few times over the last few weeks. The penultimate time they visited I walked her back to her car, which she left just behind the security gate, and someone had smashed the back window. She said not to worry and got her to insurance company to repair it. The last time she visited I walked her to her car at about 11pm and started to chatting to the security guys when she pulled up alongside us because someone had slashed two of her tyres. The security man said that the area was rife with vandalism and that she should park inside the gate in the future to avoid more mishaps. He then sent one of his boys on a motorbike to drive to a nearby garage.
             It took about an hour for the guy from the garage to unscrew each of the wheels drive them up the road on the back of his motorbike, repair the sidewalls -which is illegal in the UK- pump them up, then screw them back on again. On the last run we followed him up the garage for the bill and I clenched my teeth in anticipation of the rip off. As soon as he said the bill was £3.50 I became a gentleman and offered to pay for the repairs because I felt guilty it happened in my area.
          When she dropped back at the house I thought about the infamous double puncture I got from a pot hole in Birmingham. I ran down to a nearby tyre shop and they refused to serve me because it was 4:55pm. I offered them £30 to wait for me to take the wheel and off and they muttered something about 'company policy' and said 'unlucky mate.' All I wanted to do was buy tyres from them and give them money but they looked at me as if I had just walked in the room and farted then demanded someone stick their tongue up my nostril. Eventually I had to pay my breakdown cover company £75 because of some loophole in the contract I signed and they sent a bloke out, who arrived in two hours, and who dumped me and the useless car back at my flat.
           That experience was a long way off the bloke who worked for over an hour for £3.50 to get the car functioning again. Initially he asked what we'd like to pay and when we said whatever you want that was the first price he gave. The poor guy probably doesn't have a lot and looking back maybe I should have given him a tip but I was tired and not thinking straight as it was a hot night. Maybe having people like that around is a bit extreme but I did find myself laughing when I thought back to the service I received in the UK.

In the UK I always drink 100% fruit juice. Many companies try to hide the bullshit they stick in their drinks with titles like 'juice drink' or 'orange flavor' and there's always some chemical in the ingredients list with a warning that it affects the concentration and behavior of children. I'm wise to every trick and I can safely say that there is no 100% juice anywhere in Jakarta. Every ingredients list starts 'water, sugar.' Being lazy I find it pretty annoying that I now have to peel or wash or fruit instead of just pouring out an unwashed glass for myself but at least tropical fruit is readily available.
             Imitations and fakes are popular throughout Indonesia. My flat mate recently bought a new phone. While he was researching local brands like 'smartfren,' he came across a phone made by lenovo which is only available in Southeast Asia. The reason it's only available in this part of the world is because it's a samsung note 3 and contains all the exact same parts and has all the same specifications. This means they can't release it anywhere else because of copy-write restrictions. It's under half the price of a normal samsung.
             The charms of cheap technology come at a price however. Jakarta is a disgusting city. I love walking and nature. I just went out for a walk and I feel sick and have a nasty headache. All the crowded car and motorbike stuffed roads look the same. The smell of shit blasts up from every open drain and the roads are littered with decaying dead rats, cats and the occasional dog. Thirty seconds after setting off I was dizzy with petrol fumes and after a few minutes I was retching intermittently. The only respite from the strong smell of shit or dead animal is when you pass one of the many restaurants or a big bus or car which overpowers the smell by choking you. On my way back a lizard clearly couldn't take it anymore either because it died and fell out withered tree in front of me. I can't imagine what kind of hell it must be to work as a vendor on one of these roads as a short walk was enough to make me see why nobody walks anywhere here. I had a quick look at the sea in Pluit (North Jakarta) the other day and somehow even that was black and had lots of dead fish floating in it. If I ever get a Saturday off it would be wonderful to see a part of Indonesia without concrete on it.

Here I am ice skating with a work colleague earlier today in one of Jakarta's many, many malls. As I left the rink I was approached by two girls who asked to have a photo taken with me.

Last weekend I went on a laser tag event organized by work and came second last. I took the random picture on the way because my phone is finally back in working order. After samsung tried to charge me a fortune, I gave it to one of my students who handed it back two days later with a jolly roger where the warranty sticker used to be and the SIM card wedged in with a piece of tissue. The screen displays more colours than black now though and I couldn't find the part it needed online for cheaper than the repair cost.
I thought about the picture while I was cutting out materials for a co-workers lesson. The reason she couldn't cut them out herself was because she was pregnant. Half way through cutting out the materials I asked her again why she couldn't do it herself and she told me it was a superstition. My other co-worker refuses to cut her toenails at night because then she won't be able to see her parents in the after life. I thought superstitions that stop you from doing something generally had a reason behind them. 'Don't walk under a ladder,' because a brick might fall on your head. 'If the wind changes direction your face will stick like that,' because the face that kid is pulling is really fucking me off. Why would anyone want to stop you from clipping your toenails at night when that is the most convenient time? I hardly have time to open my eyes in the morning and I start work at 3pm. What's the story behind cutting things while pregnant? I've tried to ask around but I haven't had any definite answers about it.
That's probably because their aren't any. In the picture there is a baby sandwiched between the two adults that you can't see, and that isn't the most people I've seen on a scooter. Maybe a better superstition would be don't take your baby on a motorbike? At least people are free to do so. There may be a nanny for every child at work but at least people can be spared being nannied by their government.

On my way to laser tag