Traveling pictures

(I originally wrote this at 1am, but the internet was shoddy, so it's going up now. Jakarta is 12 hours ahead of Central time)

Here's a picture at the airport in Hong Kong:


Stormy skies over Singapore:

The beginning of the flight to Jakarta was pretty bumpy, since we were flying straight through rainclouds.

But we made it to Jakarta!


These pictures are from the balcony of my hotel room.



After settling in to our rooms, we had lunch in the lobby and then went out to a shopping area. It was kind of like a mall, only much, much bigger (at least 7 floors and three towers). Coming back, I was so tired that I fell asleep right away. It's the middle of the night right now, so I'm going to go back to sleep. Orientation starts tomorrow. We'll be in Jakarta for the next week or so, then we're moving to Bandung for the rest of orientation. Good night!

I'm here, all is well, and after some lunch I'll post some pictures!

Some info about where I'm going

Well, I'm leaving the country on Friday. I'll be flying to Chicago, then Hong Kong for a brief stop, then a layover in Singapore for the night before finally flying to Jakarta in the morning.

Here's what the country looks like (click to enlarge and see the whole thing):


Indonesia is made up of about 6000 inhabited islands. Jakarta is on the island of Java, in the Southwest corner of the country. After the month or so of orientation, I will move on to Manado, where I'll be living and teaching at a public high school. Manado is on the northern tip of the island of Sulawesi, which is the funny shaped island right in the middle.

Here's a close-up (see Manado in the top right corner?):



Sulawesi is home to some unique animals:

the babirusa (there's a baby babirusa at the St. Louis zoo right now--it is very cute)


the Celebes macaque


the tarsier, which is the smallest monkey there is, I believe


(to mention a few)

The city of Manado is right on the ocean, and the area is famous for snorkeling and scuba diving...



Anyway, I'm going now to work on packing, so check back here later, and I'll keep you updated on my trip!