Traffic, more traffic, Jakarta!

It has been two weeks in the capital now and I'm slowly getting used to living here. I already found my favourite chicken noodle (mie ayam) and mango juice place, went to the movies and spent more than enough time in taxis while trying to get from one part of the city to another. Due to this I prefer staying in my neighbourhood and thanks to the new corporate gym membership of my company I don't really mind :) I never excercized as much as during the last two weeks. We have a great swimming pool and lot's of different sports classes which keep me busy after work.

And even during the weekend I keep moving. A friend introduced me to hash runs. They describe themselves as a drinking club with a running problem and after 2 Saturdays with them I definitely agree. We basically follow a paper trail while running through fields, forests and rivers to end up at the same place where we started. People are being called by funny names and in the end everyone stands in a circle and gets drunk (as I don't like to drink alcohol I stick to water, which is also provided). It might sound strange but it's definitely heaps of fun. And the best thing about it is that you get to leave the city and enjoy some fresh air and beautiful nature.
So far I really enjoy staying in Jakarta!

1 Internship, 2 Countries

The last three months passed so quickly and out of a sudden my internship in Singapore is already over. It has been an amazing time and I could only write about a couple of things that have happened on this blog. During my last week I was busy with arranging my departure. On Thursday I had a farewell dinner with some colleagues at a Chinese dumpling restaurant. The place was so crowded that we had to wait for about 1 hour until we got a table, but it was definitely worth it. If you ever get the chance to try a fried banana-prawn dumpling, do it!

On Friday morning I had to say goodbye to the rest of the team. During my time at Bosch I met lot's of great people so it was really sad to leave. As my internship in Singapore was supposed to be for 6 months, but I only got a visa for 3 months my awesome boss suggested that I spend the second 3 months at the Jakarta office. Of course, I gladly accepted. So I left clean and organized Singapore for crazy and chaotic Jakarta on Saturday evening.

When I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta airport at about 11pm I hadn't planned anything and so I decided against going into town to find a hostel. As I was already quite tired the benches in front of Terminal 3 just looked to appealing, so I spent a short night the airport and took one of the first buses (Damri, 25,000rupiah/2 Euros) downtown. From there I got a taxi to my office where I wanted to view a room. However, after a small chat my taxi driver convinced me that the place I wanted to see was too far away from my workplace to walk there, so I asked him to just drop me at the office. There I asked some locals if they knew about any available rooms in the neighbourhood. After visiting 3 different kos with them I finally found a place to stay. The room has aircon, free wifi, bathroom, small kitchen, tv, free laundry service and cost me 2million rupiah (~170 Euros) per month. But the best thing about it is that I only walk 5 minutes to work in the morning :)