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mysterytrain
Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 366
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 Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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| ryanlogic wrote: |
| Tazz wrote: |
| Just to add that while Medan is pretty run down city, it is the gateway to some of Sumatra's most beautiful locations-including Lake Toba and Bukit Lawang...+ of course, your EF salary would stretch a lot further in Medan! |
I can deal with run down in exchange for access to beautiful locations, and cheaper cost of living.
however if "run down" means I can't find a sanitary and comfortable place to live than that's different.
What kind of apartments/houses are available in Medan?
I think I mentioned earlier that I would like to keep the budget around $2500-3000USD for two years of residence.
I'd really like to see examples of similarly equipped apartments/houses. Doesn't anyone have any pictures of places they have lived in at around the same price?
I know there would be electricity, gas for the stove, water, and I would have to pay to have A/C installed if it didn't already have it.
I'm wondering about laundry. Are washing machines typical or do people usually hand wash everything.
Also curious about tailored clothing.
I'm a big guy, and I know that I would have to bring properly fitting clothes and shoes with me. But I'm wondering about having good quality shirts and slacks made. A buddy of mine (with similar build) went to Hong Kong to have suits made because the money he saved having them made there nearly paid for the trip for the trip.
I have really broad thick shoulders, a big back, and a 21" neck. I can't buy shirts off the rack because I'm not extremely Tall and I'm not morbidly obese but anything made to fit my neck tends to be made for people resembling a beach ball with legs. Although I could definitely stand to lose weight, I'm basically built like a gorilla and I carry my weight well.
I need to have my dress shirts tailored, and if I was teaching I would want to have a decent professional/casual wardrobe. Do people typically get clothing tailored in Indo? It would even be nice if I could get regular button down shirts made just for wearing around. |
I lived in a dorm (similar to kost in style) for teachers and staff of my school for the first three months after I came to Medan. I moved out two months prior to getting married (to an Indonesian) and since then my wife and I have lived in four different houses in the last two + years.
The first, I rented by myself before I got married, top level of a two story house, 2 BR 1 BA, living room, laundry room, etc, paid 1.2 million IDR (monthly), would have been 12 juta for a year contract.
Moved out two weeks after my wife came back to Medan with me because although the house was fine, it was too far from my workplace and the transportation cost / time too high. Also because I had just converted to Islam, and there was an issue for my wife and I because our landlord's daughter (Christian) lived in the first floor, there was an issue about the cooking of "babi" and ventilation etc. (By the way ryan, this is Mister Bule as you may know me from another site.) Of course, having my wife being fluent in Bahasa Indonesia suddenly made househunting considerably easier than it was for me on my own.
Second house, 2 BR duplex again, yearly contract, 8.5 million. That's about 700,000 a month which at that time was about 70 USD.
Third house, 1 BR 2 BA with garage, 500, 000 IDR per month (yes, about 50 USD a month). Nothing great to look at, but the roof didn't leak, no real complaints about the house.
(You mentioned sanitation - it kind of depends on what your exact definitions and standards of "sanitary" are - in general, if you are anything like a "clean freak", Indonesia generally will be a challenging country for you, but you just have to exert what control you have on your immediate environment - in terms of your home of course this is pretty much all in your hands)
Fourth and current house, 1 BR, sitting room, kitchen, bath, 600,000 IDR month. (All of the above are not including utilities: electric, gas, water, but they are not expensive.)
Of course it has helped a lot having an Indonesian spouse. For a bule just trying to find accommodation on his or her own, with no particular help or language skills, they would be lucky to find anything under 1 million, except maybe a kost, then again that still isn't exactly expensive by Western standards is it!
I do have photos of all the places we have lived here, but they are not currently hosted so I don't know if I can upload them here without hosting them first, which is a bit more than I have time for. I'll try to see if I can put up a few just to give you a look-see.
In regard to some of your other questions:
One can very easily buy a (clothes) washing machine here, probably starting from around 2 - 2,5 million, although the majority of local people, that is, poor people, just wash by hand, there are plenty of middle class and rich Indonesians in Medan who have all kinds modern amenities. We have a washing machine which I got from a friend who was leaving the country, in repayment for a debt, along with some dishes, a fan, kompor (gas stove) and a few odds and ends
Some housing, especially at a rent range higher than what I've described above, may come with one or more A/C unit(s) already in place, otherwise you can certainly buy your own. For myself, none of the houses we have lived in have had A/C and I have never bought one. I'd have a hard time surviving without electric fan, but basically with one or two of those and some ventilation, I get by okay without it. A/C units are expensive to run (can easily double or even triple your PLN bills), but it's up to each person and his needs of course. There are also air coolers which run using water / ice and not freon. which are more environmentally friendly and should be less expensive to run.
There is a whole street here in Medan, forget the name but if it isn't "Jalan Tailor", it should. One end to the other with tailor shops. I personally haven't had any clothes tailor made here other than my school uniforms (black pants, white shirt, vest) but I think you would find Medan or most any city in Indonesia quite "user-friendly" to your needs in that regard, and at very reasonable prices compared with the States, for sure. My wife is currently taking her second tailoring course since we bought her a Singer, and has made some of her own clothes as well as for friends and their kids, etc. |
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mysterytrain
Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 366
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| Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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| bradleycooper wrote: |
Medan is ugly if you ask me, |
A city with a face only its mother could love.  |
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ryanlogic
Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 102
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:14 am Post subject: |
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I apologize for not responding, particularly to mysterytrain.
I got so caught up with finishing my degrees that everything else got neglected.
I actually got a local teaching job, and plan to teach here in the states for a while while pursuing a MAT (masters in teaching) but I'll be doing a concentration in social studies because the school is going to help me pay for it. I'll be looking at obtaining a graduate certificate in TESOL, along with considering programs like CELTA as well.
hopefully after gaining a MA and some years teaching, there won't be so many what-ifs when trying to find jobs overseas.
I really appreciate all of the help everyone in this forum has given me!
God bless all of you!
Ryan |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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Ryanlogic:
Congrats on getting a teaching job. It's good that you'll pursue an MAT; it will provide you with a good foundation in teaching and education. (I'm a MAT holder myself.) What is the actual major (mine is in Multidisciplinary Studies) and is social sciences the only concentration area available to you? By the way, you don't need to do both a grad cert in TESOL and a CELTA; it's overkill, so just choose one. |
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ryanlogic
Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 102
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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| nomad soul wrote: |
Ryanlogic:
Congrats on getting a teaching job. It's good that you'll pursue an MAT; it will provide you with a good foundation in teaching and education. (I'm a MAT holder myself.) What is the actual major (mine is in Multidisciplinary Studies) and is social sciences the only concentration area available to you? By the way, you don't need to do both a grad cert in TESOL and a CELTA; it's overkill, so just choose one. |
Thanks for all your support.
I'm able to concentrate on several different areas but social sciences will require the least amount of credit hours due to my undergraduate major.
Plus the school I'm working for will pay for half of it because they need social studies teachers for highschool.
As for either CELTA or grad cert.... I meant to imply I would pursue one or the other. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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Frankly, with a MAT/Social Sciences focus + state teaching license + a couple of years' experience teaching high school SS in the US, you'll have way more doors open to you teaching SS in international and public schools overseas, including the US DoDEA. (BTW, I was educated outside the States in both international and DoDEA schools as a US military dependent.) If, however, you later decide you want to teach EFL instead of SS, be aware you may find yourself at the entry-level for TEFL jobs. My advice: focus on building your experience as a social sciences teacher and make that your career.
I'm also back in school completing a Master of Educational Technology (MET) as a sequential degree to complement my MAT. A sequential degree program allows alumni who have completed their master’s or doctoral degree within a particular field to earn a second/sequential master's or doctoral degree in the same field by completing the required core courses only. In my case, I need to complete just 21 credit hours for my MET instead of the standard 33 credits. Anyway, it equates to a quicker and less expensive path to a second degree. I plan to transition from TEFL and into ed tech/instructional design within the next couple of years and will appeal to employers worldwide in the education, corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors---essentially any environment where training, teaching, and learning exists.
TEFL isn't the only option that allows one to work abroad.  |
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