When I first arrived in Jakarta, I wondered why I'd bothered to fly halfway around the world to live in this over-crowded, polluted, concrete jungle. First impressions weren't good; long queues and intimidating staff at immigration, airport taxi drivers who can pick out the new bules at 50 paces and and a 90-minute crawl along a clogged highway. Welcome to Jakarta!

That was a year ago and slowly but surely the place has grown on me to the point where I can't really imagine living anywhere else right now. Okay, Jakarta isn't the most beautiful city in the world but it does have its charms. What do I like about it? First, the people are almost universally friendly and nice – the students at my school and the people you meet when you're out and about, many of whom haven't had much contact with westerners and appreciate it if you make the time to talk to them. Secondly, there's plenty to do here – glitzy shopping malls (better than anything we've got in my hometown of London), bars, restaurants, clubs – in a nutshell, pretty much whatever you're looking for here you're bound to find it. Having said that,there's a bit of a dearth of museums and galleries but really, who needs a dusty old museum to wile away the hours in when there's Mall Taman Anggrek !(a very large, high-end shopping centre)

Of course, there are certain challenges involved in living in a place like Jakarta – floods (never have I felt so glad to live on the 33rd floor!) traffic jams, that ridiculous Fiskal (1 million rupiah to leave the country GRRRRRRR) but overall, it's a great place to live and work.

What about the work here? As an English language teacher looking for work over here, you have to be a little careful. There are, like anywhere in the world, good and bad schools. Make sure you contact the teachers at a school before you decide to commit to a contract.

I have been working at a school called 'Aim for English' in Manggarai (see www.aimjakarta.com) . The work has been really interesting and rewarding. The salary, although quite small by UK standards, is more than enough to live comfortably here and the classes, (usually academic english, general English, conversation classes, IELTS and business English) are varied and challenging.

There are many job opportunities for expat English teachers here ranging from disreputable 'backpacker' teacher schools to high paying professional establishments, so don't be put off by negative stories in the media about Indonesia – it's a great place to live and work. You only have to look at the number of teachers who stay for more than one year. Come and see for yourself!