Well, the girls and I are officially on our own today. Jeff got asked to attend a forum going on at the hotel today and probably a dinner event tonight, so Sofia, Belyn and I are navigating solo today. We are going to go to a different complex (BDI complex) and spend the afternoon at their pool - I saw it on our look-see trip and it's a great facility for kids, and I guess a lot of other expats take their children there in the afternoon, so hopefully we'll get to start meeting some other people today!
Lessons learned the past couple of days:
1. Always look at the receipt they give you before you leave - if they tell you it's 5.5million rupiah, and you pay them that, and then you get back to the hotel, and the receipt says 5.4million rupiah, guess who got the other 100K in their pocket? Not me!
2. Always make sure the taxi meter is on and running - otherwise, you get charged a random amount for the trip, and it'll never be less than it was supposed to be!
3. Cheese strings were a staple in our fridge in Calgary - I could find 16 on sale for $5; here we pay about $12 CDN for 4 cheese strings.... they are officially a luxury and not a staple in our fridge!!! More than anything else we've seen, cheese is very very expensive here.
Onto the food... it's been three days and I'm already craving a kitchen to cook some of our own meals!!! The food isn't bad, it's just different. Sofia will probably have the hardest time, as she's not a huge fan of any spices, and most things here have some sort of spice added. They have a lot of different foods that we don't eat either - things like oxtail soup and oyster and squid dishes.... and everything looks like what it is... Jeff had a work dinner last night, and they went to a seafood restaurant where they had fish, crab, etc... and it's a whole fish that comes out on your plate. He said it was delicious, you just have to pick and pull it apart to eat it... a little bit of an adjustment for us!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
En Route
We made it to Singapore and are spending a few beautiful, relaxing days at the Fairmont before we finish our journey with one more flight to Balikpapan tomorrow morning. We had quite the journey to this point with delayed flights, missed connections, "almost" missed connections due to me thinking it was one hour earlier than it was (I've never been rushed down the tunnel onto a plane to quickly!) :) Through it all, the girls were absolutely fantastic - they slept on wooden food court chairs put together into a make shift bed in the airport, played quietly with each other on the airplane, and all in all - were better than we could have ever hoped for such a long trip.
We've spent the past couple of days in the pool, napping, and walking around a bit of Singapore. The girls are getting onto the time zone (sortof!) and tomorrow morning we leave to find out where we'll be living in Balikpapan until our house shipment arrives. We were at dinner last night and were accosted by a Canadian working for Fairmont - apparently the Canadian accent doesn't come through this part of the world very often :) I ended up going for a few drinks with her and her friend last night, and maybe found a couple of people to come and visit next time we're back this way! A good start for me :)
What I've learned so far:
1. Our blonde, blue and green eyed children are an anomaly and I think we've made it into at least 3 people's picture albums so far - everyone wants to hold them, and hug them, and kiss them, and while I'm smiling and saying how nice they are being to the girls, part of me in my head is thinking I don't know where these people have been, who they are, and what germs they have and now they're holding my child! I'm the new spokesperson for hand sanitizer :) LOL
2. We should have sent half of what we packed in suitcases into our air shipment - but seriously, with all of the changes last minute, who knew???
3. No over-planning allowed - between house shipping dates changing, not knowing where we're living tomorrow, flights being delayed... it's enough to make every "planner" in the family half-crazy!!! (in our case, that would be ME - I like to think that I'll be growing as a person through all of this ;)
Once we get to Balikpapan and get settled in, I'll be able to upload some more photos to show you what our new home looks like! Hope everyone is well, we miss you and love you!!!!
We've spent the past couple of days in the pool, napping, and walking around a bit of Singapore. The girls are getting onto the time zone (sortof!) and tomorrow morning we leave to find out where we'll be living in Balikpapan until our house shipment arrives. We were at dinner last night and were accosted by a Canadian working for Fairmont - apparently the Canadian accent doesn't come through this part of the world very often :) I ended up going for a few drinks with her and her friend last night, and maybe found a couple of people to come and visit next time we're back this way! A good start for me :)
What I've learned so far:
1. Our blonde, blue and green eyed children are an anomaly and I think we've made it into at least 3 people's picture albums so far - everyone wants to hold them, and hug them, and kiss them, and while I'm smiling and saying how nice they are being to the girls, part of me in my head is thinking I don't know where these people have been, who they are, and what germs they have and now they're holding my child! I'm the new spokesperson for hand sanitizer :) LOL
2. We should have sent half of what we packed in suitcases into our air shipment - but seriously, with all of the changes last minute, who knew???
3. No over-planning allowed - between house shipping dates changing, not knowing where we're living tomorrow, flights being delayed... it's enough to make every "planner" in the family half-crazy!!! (in our case, that would be ME - I like to think that I'll be growing as a person through all of this ;)
Once we get to Balikpapan and get settled in, I'll be able to upload some more photos to show you what our new home looks like! Hope everyone is well, we miss you and love you!!!!
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