Indonesian Excursion

On Tuesday 28th March, the Year 9 Indonesian elective students participated in a very tiring but extremely exciting excursion to Melbourne to attend the Educational screening session at the 2023 Indonesian Film Festival. The students were accompanied by Jane Shearwood and Megan Layley.

The students had to be up and ready to leave at 5am in order to catch a train from Ballarat to Melbourne for a 10am start to the film! They met this challenge very well and everyone was on-time and cheerful.

The students enjoyed the entertaining comedy feel-good film (Susah Synal), which was in Indonesian with subtitles. 

After the film, the students were treated to a very delicious lunch at an Indonesian restaurant (Kenangan) near Victoria Market, which served traditional Indonesian food. Everyone loved their food and drinks, this started a new appreciation for Indonesian cuisine among the students.

We then had an hour of shopping time together, where we visited JB Hi-Fi and the AFL store, among others. We also had time to visit Starbucks for yummy frappes and iced coffee as the weather was pleasantly warm in the city!

Tired but very happy, we arrived back at Monivae at 7.30pm.

Here are some testimonies from some of the participants:

The excursion was amazing. We had such a good time and I felt that we all got along better than just sitting in a classroom doing schoolwork at tables. It was also a good opportunity to try different Indonesian foods.

It was a good experience because it was fun and a good opportunity to listen to people speaking multiple sentences in Indonesian but with subtitles so that we can still understand what is being said. 

The film was held in the ACMI Cinema in Federation Square. We entered and were greeted by some nice people before we got directed into a large room where the film was being shown.

The film was Susah Sinyal, which means Bad Signal in English. The film was about a mother and a daughter that were having issues understanding each other. I overall rate the film very highly and give it a 10/10.

The excursion to Melbourne was a bit boring at the beginning due to us spending two hours on a bus and then three on a train. But when we eventually got to Melbourne, it was quite good as the movie was pretty interesting and the lunch at the restaurant was delicious.

Two of us had sate ayam, which was spicy chicken skewers. After this, we went to the station, waited and got back on the train and eventually the bus home.

Jane Shearwood 

Indonesian Teacher