Singapore Limbo

On Saturday, March 14th, we had a wonderful day at home playing basketball in the pool and Dominion at the table.  We were still planning to take our spring break trip to the Mentawai islands.  By Sunday, Matt and I both agreed that we had to cancel the trip and he was getting enough information to know that travel was about to become complicated and potentially very difficult.  It felt like Covid-19 was exploding around the globe, but Singapore had a great handle on their early cases, so we decided the best thing would be for the kids and I to head there for a few weeks and wait out the rising infections in Jakarta.

On Monday morning, the kids and I were headed to the airport with no idea of what to expect.  We had a week's worth of clothes, Ben's guitar, and two ripsticks.

We found the airport eerily quiet.  Masks on for safety!

Ben logged into to his class from our favorite cafe and then caught up on the rest after we arrived.

We arrived and got settled into our rental condo.  The kids went straight into home learning again.  We were thankful to have an office where Ben set up his computer and was able to close the door during live classes.

  

Alex made his little office in the living area and I just steered clear when he had Zoom classes.  I spent a lot of my time in the bedroom on calls and FaceTime with friends, as we were all trying to assess the situation and decide how to handle things.

 

We were fortunate to arrive on the last day before 14-day quarantine went into effect for all travelers.  I still didn't go out needlessly but had to get groceries several times.  I could only buy what I could carry and eating 3 meals at home every day means a lot of food!  Online delivery slots were completely full.  But going into the store meant I discovered a few priceless products!

We also went on walks (or ripsticks) daily while maintaining our social distance.  Life outside was quieter than usual but there were still kids playing together and soccer classes in the afternoon, so it definitely had a sense of normalcy.  The fresh air and exercise were so good for each of us and the scenery wasn't too shabby either.

The views from Gardens by the Bay East were impressive!

 A lot of our time was spent like this.  It's hard to find things for kids to do indoors in a rental that aren't on screens.  We did discover that we can play Dominion online with Matt and had many lively games together while he was on speaker phone.

We booked for two weeks for starters and figured at that point we could reevaluate and make a longer term decision.  Things around the world intensified so quickly that it was a terribly stressful first week for me full of uncertainty.  Travel advisories were changing daily and countries were closing borders.  Matt needed to stay in Jakarta for work and when the kids and I were given the opportunity to temporarily repatriate to the US, we knew we had to take it.  The State Department issued the warning that US Citizens should plan to return home or stay abroad indefinitely and we didn't want to miss our window.

On Monday morning, just one week into our stay, I was enjoying my first really peaceful morning on the porch with my quiet time and coffee, planning to leave in a few days.  Little did I know that our tickets out were in a few hours!

Times are Changing...

We had a really terrific night out with several wonderful couples.  Two Australian, one Swedish, and one American/Mexican.  We started out at Plan B for tapas and sangria.  Things were a little different because Jakarta had a handful of confirmed coronavirus cases but nothing was out of the ordinary.

Cheers!!

It was really helpful that Norma could speak Spanish to the owner because she just told him a general idea of what we wanted and he chose all of our dishes.  Then the chef started bringing us experimental dishes he was trying out and we got to sample some pretty delicious offerings.  Always a good time here!

We decided we weren't ready to wrap up the night and went down the street to Happy Puppy.  I knew this was a winning group of folks when everyone agreed to some impromptu karaoke!

 A few hours of singing and laughing together and we went home exhausted and happy.  We had no idea this was going to be our last night together for quite some time.

The next week was gorgeous outside and during a walk on Monday morning, I got the alert that school was closing for two weeks due to Covid-19.  The kids finished the day, had two days off while the teachers planned, and then online classes would begin on Thursday.  There would be a full week of online classes followed by Spring Break.

We took advantage of an unexpected day off school to play 9 holes at Pangakalan Jati.  It was my first time to take the kids out myself and we had a really great afternoon.

The kids had just finished up a round of lessons and were doing so well!

By the last few holes, they were outdriving me! (not that it's hard)

Alex wanted a picture of his last drive, which went about 150 yards.  Wow!

On Thursday, they started home learning and they were pretty excited.  Several classes were live over Zoom, and some were independent.  Alex was finished by 10am.  After lunch, he logged into his Friday classes and finished those as well so he could have a 3-day weekend!

Ben's classes were mostly live so he had a full day on schedule.  Being the talker that he is, the live classes were just what he wanted.

Alex decided to spend some time making brownies as well as a sort of "health" project, although I don't think that's part of the nutrition curriculum.

On Friday afternoon, several of us met for a drink at Satu Lagi and it grew into quite a gathering.  Just as large gatherings were beginning to feel weird.  Several of the JIS admins were there as well and we got the sense that school was going to be online for quite some time.  A lot of our discussion was What Next?  Covid cases in Jakarta were beginning to grow, a few companies were sending expat dependents home, and the uncertainty ahead in a developing country was quite worrisome.  I'm so thankful we had this afternoon for some laughs and camaraderie before everything changed.

Baking Class

Pam and I attended a New York bread baking class from an American chef living in Jakarta.  I had zero experience making my own bread dough so I learned a lot.

In the morning we made pretzels and bagels...two delicious treats that are hard or impossible to find here!

 My shaping could use some work but these turned out pretty delicious...

In the afternoon, we did challah bread, which can be turned into a variety of things.  I chose a loaf and rolls and can't wait to make them again.

I wish we had a decent oven because it's actually really fun baking from scratch here since we can't just run out and find everything we want.  Still, can't wait to make some more pretzels at home and enjoy them hot.

Bali Weekend

Bali is the closest getaway for us so we head there pretty much every chance we get.  This time, Matt had Friday off work and the kids had Monday off school, so we left late on Thursday and actually had complaints from the middle schoolers that they were missing school on Friday.  Once we arrived, everyone was happy and all complaints were forgotten.

We stayed at a Holiday Inn Resort on Kuta and were pleasantly surprised at the food and facilities.  The two must haves at breakfast - pork bacon for Ben and pancakes/waffles/pastries for Alex - were spotted first thing so we were set up for a good weekend!

First thing, we headed up to Kuta for some surfing and the kids both caught great waves.

Lunch at the Boardwalk is always a winner.

Back at our resort, it was almost eerily quiet.  The coronavirus meant all trips from China were cancelled and it was low season for visitors from Australia, so we had most of the place to ourselves.

This is how we travel...you somehow make the adapter fit and improvise a device to keep it in the plug.  It's always an adventure.

Baby gecko out by the pool!

The kids learned how to make kites the local way.  No tape or glue, just incense sticks to melt the plastic together...ingenious!

We hit up the Waterbom water park and had a lot of fun, again with very little crowd and almost no lines.  We left for lunch and found the best place in Kuta - Don Juan's Mexican food!

We were some happy people with our nachos, tacos, and salsa.

That evening, the kids tested out their kites and had a great time with them.  Sadly, we realized they wouldn't fit on the airplane so we had to leave them there.

Nothing like a Balinese sunset to make my heart happy.  It was the middle of rainy season but we were really lucky that it just rained overnight a few times and we had gorgeous skies.  I was anticipating some rainy afternoons.

Envy restaurant was delicious and we ate their every night because it was so convenient.

Sunday morning we woke up to the clearest skies I'd ever seen in Bali!  We could see all the volcanoes.

Matt did a little more surfing while the kids enjoyed the beach and I enjoyed a radler.

One more time back to Don Juan's because there is no telling when we'll get food like this again!

perfection.

Matt had to leave on Sunday afternoon to get back to work but the kids and I got to stay one more night and we soaked up as much pool time as possible.

We spent our last morning in the pool until the exact minute we had to leave.  It was only 10 minutes to the airport so I didn't even have to shower until 2 hours before our flight...Bali is the best!

Ben kicked one of Alex's baby teeth out in the pool - that was a new way to lose a tooth!

And back in Jakarta, where they don't do plastic straws but you can get as many plastic cups for ketchup as you want!