Thoughts from a 9 year old~

My thoughts about Indonesia are  . . .

1. It's always hot here

2. The plants here are a lot more interesting and they draw a lot more attention to me. 

3. We have an American Club that is a place that is close and has a restaurant that is close, a pool that is close, and  a market that is close and it's a good hang out area.

4. It's really cool that we have a # that if we are lost somewhere we can just say we are # 4 and they know where we are in the compound.

and 5. The main difference that I notice from Virginia to Indonesia is that we live on an island, and that's it.

 So, I am hoping to get the girls point of view more and more while overseas. I asked Abby to tell me some things she liked about Indonesia, and this is exactly what she said. 

I love hearing the point of view from the kids because there are a lot of times that they will notice something or think about something a completely different way.

Enjoy!

Garbage cans . . .

Something you don't really think about in the US, but you do here! This is our outside garbage can . . .

You take the garbage out and throw it in here. There is a door on the other side of the wall that they come and clean the garbage out of. Sometimes they do it with their hands, sometimes they do it with rakes. Sometimes they have a bigger truck, and sometimes they put it into one of those carts that they pull on their backs while they are walking. It is such a little thing, but it is so different.
Then you look at where the choose to go through the garbage. There is no recycling center like there is in the states. They will just stop on a corner and start sorting through everything. WHY NOT, right? Why not? That is what I have been asking myself a lot while here . . . why not?
There is such an extreme in this country,  you either have extreme wealth, or extreme poverty. There is not really a middle. One of the things that is very common to do for the "extremely poor" is to go to the "garbage holes" here and dig through the garbage to find anything that they can recycle to make a little money.

I think of this every time I put a bottle, can, or cardboard in the trash can. I wish there was something I could do to help these people.

So, next time you take your trash out to your trash can, think about how lucky America is to have such a functioning trash service . . .
These are the things going through my mind . . . I am sure there is more that I could write about this, but I haven't really been able to formulate my words yet.  There is such a drastic difference here that the little things like your outdoor garbage can make you think of these people here in Indonesia (and all over the world) that crawl through, dig through, and live on these garbage dumps just so they can make a few dollars a month.

All the things running through my head

So there are so many different things here in Indonesia. I keep thinking about all the different things that I can blog about , but I never spit it out of my head and onto the computer. I think one of the things I am going to do is try and do a post a day about all the "different" things here in Jakarta. I will try and take a picture of each thing and add that to the post so you can really see what I am talking about.
It really is amazing here. It is still extremely overwhelming, but is getting more and more exciting by the day.

Right now, I am sitting at the American Club, drinking a cup of coffee and watching all of the women at the tables have different meetings about all kinds of stuff going on here. The weather is pretty nice. It is humid, but not quite as much as it has been. There is a great wind blowing through the pavilion and Celine Dion playing overhead. It's pretty funny actually! :) You almost feel like you are back in the states, then you look up to see these HUGE plants growing around you, with leaves bigger than you are, and the most beautiful flowers and you think, "I am not in Kansas anymore!"

I know this is just a bunch of jumbled thoughts, but I really just wanted to get this out of my head while I was sitting here.
I am sure the rest of my posts I will take more time on and actually make it look like I know how to write, even just a little bit!

Well, the girls are telling me they are hungry so I should take them home and feed them. I hope to write a post later today about one of the new things I have found here.
Blessings!!! :)

Our day out . . .

So, it is 6:15 am, I have been wide awake since 5:30 which most of you know is not normal for me! ha! Anyways, we had a wonderful day yesterday and I would like to write it all down before I forget some of it.

I have been feeling very overwhelmed in the city so far. It is very loud, very busy, and has  a TON of traffic. I have felt anxious about going outside our compound and been very content to just stay within these walls. Yesterday was different.

Sundays here are different. They are calm, relaxed and peaceful (if you don't think about the traffic) :). We walked out of our front gate to a peaceful street and a wonderful breeze. The weather was awesome! As we walked down the street to catch a cab, I saw these two men sitting by their cart playing chess. I WISH I would have been able to get a picture of that. I will next time.  It was just so nice. Abby wanted to go play against them and said it would be super funny if she won! That kid!  The guards that we have around the compound are super nice and helpful. The got us a cab, and we were off to explore the city.

On our way to the first stop (one of the largest malls in asia) while at a stoplight, we saw this girl playing the guitar. She was playing beautifully and we wanted to give her a tip. We called her over, and she started playing this beautiful music and singing. She had a wonderful , wonderful voice, and it was just so nice to hear.

I really think that was the highlight of my day.

From there, we went to one of the biggest shopping malls in Asia. SUCH a complete contrast from what you see outside. It really throws your head for a loop. This mall was FULL of all the fancy pants stores that we never shop in. It really was sensory overload. They had music blaring on each of the 8 floors.  The girls were excited to see that they had a Wendy's in the mall food court! I proceeded to tell them, if we don't eat fast food in the states, we are not going to eat it here. They were not to happy about that.

We went to two other malls that were very similar to the first. One of them was actually a dept. store called Metro. It is pretty much just like a JC Penny or Macy's . We were looking for bathing suits for Emma and Aubrianna, which both had somehow vanished in between Virginia and Indonesia.  Once we found those, we were all pretty wiped out, so we started to head home.

  Once we got home, we told the girls it was rest time and everyone needed to go relax in their beds. Joshua went back out into Kemang Village (which is where a lot of the ex-pats hang out and close to our house) to look for adapters for the outlets, and just have a little down time of his own. I got to skype with friends and that was awesome.

We then went swimming at the club ( We live in a compound that surrounds The American Club Jakarta) The club is awesome! It has a pool, workout area, tennis, playgrounds for the kids, yoga, zumba, and learning to speak indonesian classes. It also has a restaurant  and little market.  We ate dinner there, then came home. We were all so wiped that at 8:35pm . . . we were ALL in bed! Including Joshua and I!

Well, there is our Sunday adventure day! Hope you enjoyed! :)

First week in Indonesia

It has been a crazy week here. I am still dealing with jet lag. Joshua seems to be doing fine with it, and the girls seem to be as well.  Our house is beautiful. The yard is beautiful. The american club is awesome!

Life here is much different than back in the states. You can look at a big beautiful house, then right next to it is a "shack" made out of tin and plywood. It really messes with your senses. I am still getting used to everything here. I think it will take me a while. I am very excited to be here, but am feeling very overwhelmed also. The girls havent started school yet. I think once that happens, we will be able to get into a little more of a routine. Tiger and Lily will be on their way in a few days! I can't wait!!!! I miss them so much! We all do!
Well, I will type up some more later. I think we are about to head out to explore a little bit more.

HONG KONG!

So we made it the 15 1/2 hr flight to Hong Kong, and we are in the airport waiting for our flight to Jakarta!

The girls were amazing on the flight! I was really really impressed! Now, I think we are all pretty wiped out, and just ready to be done with this extremely long day that started at about 3:30 yesterday. Well, wait a minute, it's not yesterday, it's 2 days ago, cause it is Monday here. It is going to take me a while to get all of this right.  

The girls just keep talking about seeing our new house, and Emma is more than excited to finally be having her own room! 

Our sponsor, Chris is going to be picking us up from the airport. We were told it will take about an hour to get back to our house from the airport. I am just ready to be there. Ready to start figuring out this jet lag, and ready to start this awesome new adventure!!!

I CAN'T BELIEVE WE ARE IN CHINA!!!!! And then on our way to JAKARTA, INDONESIA! woot woot!

And we're off!!!

Today is the day!! We are heading on a plane and starting our journey to indonesia! Our flight leaves at 10:55 L.A. time and will land in HK at 5:55am (local time) from there we will have a 3 hr layover then it is off to Jakarta !!
Wish us luck!!!