Arrival

This week was mostly travel and the good news is that we made it to Indonesia safely. Even all of our luggage made it! It is strange to actually be living in a place so far away from where I am from with my family. It feels like I am still in America with my family while at the same time being someplace very different. I am at home and not at home at the same time.
I enjoyed spending a couple of days in Hawaii where I was able to meet with some people from the Department of Homeland Security to find out more about their job and how my work outside the United States affects what they do or not. I was also able to do some fun things with my family while I was there like the beach.

On Wednesday we set off on our travels. It was quite an adventure. We took an 8 hour plane ride to Tokyo, which was definitely long. We missed a day as we passed the International Date Line. We left Hawaii on Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Tokyo on Thursday evening. I had to experience a little of Japan so I tried out the toilet in the airport with the bum washer and also exchanged some dollars for yen so I could by a Japanese drink from a vending machine. We had fun for the couple of hours we were there. We then took another flight almost as long as the previous one to Singapore where we arrived at 1:00 am Friday morning. There is a hotel in the airport in Singapore that can be booked for times shorter than a full day, as well as just about anything else you can think of. We checked into the hotel, took showers, slept a little in beds instead of airplane seats, and generally took a good break. We then got up early to catch our 7:00 am flight to Jakarta. This was a pretty short flight, but just like the other two flights, they served us a small meal. It was a sausage with an egg and hash brown and orange juice. In Jakarta we were met by someone from the embassy to help us go through emigration and customs and get to the right place in the airport. It was nice to have someone help us with that. It ended up going pretty quickly, so we had plenty of time to wander around. We even bought ourselves some Krispy Kream donuts! Our flight to Surabaya was even shorter than the flight to Jakarta. I'm actually glad we made it since our ticket and the direction we were given at the airport was to go to one gate but as we waited there I heard someone at that gate give an announcement in Indonesian that our flight had changed gates! So I told everyone that we needed to go and they were a bit confused at first but glad that I heard the announcement when we were able to get to the right place in time. While we were waiting there an airline worker came up and asked me if we were going to another place in Indonesia, where tourists usually go. I guess they don't have too many tourists flying to Surabaya. I think we were the only non-Indonesians on the airplane. A few people from the consulate met us at the airport and helped us get our luggage and take us to our place. The driving is quite an adventure. In America many drivers see the speed limit as a suggestion or guideline of sorts but not a hard rule. In Indonesia they seem to regard most traffic laws in that way. They don't really worry too much about lanes of traffic or that sort of thing. We made it to our place, which is nice. We were able to arrange the furniture so that each one of our children can have their own room, which they are so happy about. We were also able to get some food to eat and the kids set up in school; (they were actually expecting them and already had their names on the rolls and everything). We have done a lot of furniture rearranging, unpacking, exploring. We even all walked down the street together to a little market and bought some things to eat.