We walked pass a long line for visa on arrival thankful that we got our visas processed at the Chicago Consulate. Immigration wasn’t a problem, and aside for waiting for the last of the baggage to parade around on the carousels to confirm our box was indeed missing, baggage claim was fine as well. They even provided carts for free—I don’t know of many airports that do that these days.
Minus the hajib that some of the women wore and the semi-automatic machine guns that guards in the Philippines carry, Indonesians look very much like Filipinos. They can even match the rowdiness and loud volumes. The two gentlemen who picked us up from the airport could have very well been Filipinos had they spoken Tagalog. I suppose they can say the same for me—everyone assumes I’m Indonesian until they discover I can’t speak Bahasa.
We expected our apartment to be small by Western standards, and we were absolutely correct. At less than 500 square feet, I’d consider the apartment to be a 1½ bedroom rather than 2. The main room just fits a double bed and a small wardrobe that can’t even accommodate all of my clothes while the 2nd bedroom is more like an office. It can only fit a twin bed—a dresser would probably make it too cramped if there was one provided.
The living room only has room for a small futon. At least the TV is a decent flat screen—doesn’t come close to Dennis’ Sony 3-D compatible TV, but at least it’s not a 19” old school TV. The dining area consists of the counter that juts out no more than 2 feet between the living room and kitchen. Our refrigerator is a bit bigger than a large dorm-sized fridge, and we have a two‑burner propane cooker. It’s hard to imagine downsizing from our 2 bedroom/2 bath condo in Kenosha, but that’s exactly what this apartment is. It’s efficient, but it would be nice to have a closet or even just cabinets or shelves in the bathroom. At least the décor is contemporary.
An email from the school with an inventory of items in the apartment listed “pan, melamine plate, glass, bowl, spoons & forks.” I didn’t think it was literally one pan, one melamine plate or one glass, and that there would be no knives, cups, etc. It wouldn’t be an issue if the box with the Corelle dishes or Cutco knives didn’t go missing. We bought a few more items but continue to look forward to when our box arrives.
Our balcony looks out to the 2 Olympic-sized pools—we haven’t taken advantage of them yet, but it looks like they’re not more than 5 feet deep, if not shallower. We thought there was a fitness facility, but apparently we were wrong. But there is a convenience store and other shops on the ground level of each building. We’re also across the street from Central Park Mall, and next to it is Taman Anggrek Mall.
We thought we we’d be able to rest once we got to our apartment, but people from the school wanted to take us out to dinner. We had steam boat—very much like shabu shabu only the broth is shared by the entire table. We also bought a cell phone and went shopping for essentials like soap, toilet paper and towels with borrowed money since we had not exchanged money yet. By the time we got back, my feet were swollen to a size I didn’t think was possible and looked like giant elephant feet—it took two days before all the swelling went down.
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