The day I became a celebrity...

A Celebrity Fitness member that is. It seems my never ending search for a good yoga class ended at the mall on Sunday when Mumu, a fine Celebrity Gym salesman, lured Howie and me into the gym with the promise of cheap membership rates and the best gym in town. The tour and "sell" lasted about an hour and included such highlights as pointing out every other white person in the gym and an analysis of my workout motivation and several questions about my goals. Mumu informed me that after 6 months I can look like J.Lo. Before I go any further, I must remind you that going to the gym is a new fad here in Indonesia. Most people who walk through the door have never been to a gym before and have no idea how to use the equipment or what it means to go to the gym, other than what they have seen in the movies. This place is what you see in the movie and while Mumu was not lying and they do have the most modern machines in all of Indonesia, you could not help but get that cheesey 1980s feeling. On the plus side, there are tons of machines and everything is new. The locker room is gorgeous and clean and there are nice showers, a steam room and a sauna. There are literally about 75 classes to choose from and that includes a plentiful amount of spinning and yoga. And they gave me a free gym bag.

On the negative side the gym is filled with the most intense pounding techno music. I am talking overpowering cannot listen to your iPod loud. And then there is the glass. In the vain of letting people know you are wealthy enough to be a gym member, the gym is encased in glass and wraps around the second floor of the mall so anyone heading from Starbucks to the Hard Rock Cafe on the escalator can watch you on the bike, treadmill or even in your downward dog. Call me prude, but I prefer a more private setting when I am trying wrap my legs around my neck in yoga.

And, for the record, the name is a lie. The only celebrity I have seen is Ali G who runs the hip hop dance aerobics class and uses moves that puts the Fly Girls to shame. I could stay on a machine for hours watching that class.

For a good chuckle, check out the website: www.celebrityfitness.com

More Movies and Eating

Another weekend, another movie and another evening spent searching for a new restaurant...

Not sure if it made the news anywhere else in the world but an Indonesian film maker just released a film called Long Road to Heaven, based on the Bali bombings, that's been reasonably big news here. As you can imagine it is a pretty controversial topic here. The Indonesian censors had a few things to say about the intertwining of religion and terrorism, but what was left was still pretty contentious. I wish I could say differently, but the movie really wasn't very good. It had a bad TV movie feel, complete with bad acting and a pretty thin script.

After that we attempted to try a Middle Eastern restaurant we had read about but found it to no longer exist. A nice woman in the place that replaced it sent us nearby to a whole street of Middle Eastern restaurants where we had delicious humus and baba ganoush at Al Jazeera restaurant. Just the change of pace we were looking for.

Hi Mom

My mom complained to me about the recent dearth of blog postings, so here goes...

Nothing much to report, really. Most of our excitement comes in the form of planning weekend getaways and finding new places to eat. We've also started doing some more cooking. Our local Carrefour grocery has a nice fish counter so we tried the salmon the other day and are planning to try the tuna next. Not cheap - about $8 a pound for the salmon - but quite tasty. They also sell a decent fresh pre-cooked pizza dough, so we've been making some homemade pizzas.

The other day we made a trip to the fancy grocery store that carries lots of imported stuff that we can't get at the Carrefour and came home with tortillas, enchilada sauce, Heinz ketchup, cheddar cheese and white wine among other goodies.

Went to see Babel over the weekend. I guess it was good, although spending two hours thinking horrible things are about to happen to anyone who is on screen isn't really all that enjoyable.

Yes, I did get to watch the Patriots game live at 6AM on Monday morning. Good game but not a good result. I'm sure I'll watch the Superbowl, too, but it'll be a different experience with a bowl of frosted flakes and a glass of orange juice rather than a bowl of chili and a beer.

PS The photo comes from our wanderings around Chinatown. We had high hopes for finding some good Chinese food there and we did, but it was at a big chain restaurant, The Duck King. It's a sad reality of eating in Jakarta - we end up eating a lot of meals at chain restaurants and in malls, but there's actually good food to be found there. It's not "mall food" as we think of it in the west, but good quality food that you'd find at a stand-alone restaurant elsewhere.

Introducing Burt and Ernie

Introducing Burt and Ernie – the newest additions to Casablanca Mansions! We had seen turtles being sold on the street when we first got here, but these little guys were rescued from a tank at the Carrefour a couple weeks ago. Treated like kings, they reside in our extra bedroom, in a large Tupperware bin. We think they were a bit traumatized in the store – they seem to burrow in the rocks when they hear us coming – but with the way Howie spoils them, they should soon learn we are friend not foe. They have a ton of space in their Tupperware toy box home, with large Jakarta rocks to sun on and plenty of room for swimming laps. There are even nooks to hide in. These guys live the life! We could not be prouder parents. Enjoy the show!

Yoga in Jakarta

Ever sweat so much that when you bend down to tie your shoe, sweat drips on to the ground? Yeah, I thought I would never experience that either, but this week I went to my first yoga class in Jakarta. Yoga has not quite taken Jakarta by storm, but in the south of the city in an area called Kemang, the foreigners have rallied and opened a couple small studios. Finding a class for me was hard as most of the westerners who are attracted to yoga here are the wives of men that work and have the maid cook dinner and the driver take them shopping, i.e. they have a lot of time on their hands and take classes at all hours of the day that us working people cannot make. Finally I found Studio 42 that, although they specializes in Bikram (hot) yoga, has a Power Yoga class at 6:45 PM. Somewhat reasonable for us working folks and I have done Power Yoga before so I felt like I knew what I was getting into. It took a while to get there and find the place, but once there it was a little yoga oasis. Soothing music and all. Classes are not cheap, being centered in Jakarta costs a pretty penny, but they give out plenty of towels and free mats, so I was in. After about 5 minutes on my mat waiting for class to start I realized what the 42 in Studio 42 stands for – 42 degrees and that is 42 degree Celsius (for those of you who are not experts at the conversion to Fahrenheit that is really freaking hot.) Since this was Power yoga, they cooled the room to a comfortable 35 (still freaking hot) but I had not done one downward dog and I was already sweating. 90 minutes later I looked like I had spent way too long in the shvitz. My tank top was drenched and my yoga pants looked like I put them on after getting out of the pool without drying off. Totally gross and and next time I will have my own mat (lord only knows how many people sweat like I did that day on that mat) but there will be a next time. I might have been sweaty, stinky and horribly dehydrated, but I was centered and that was the point…wasn’t it?

Weekend Recap

Nothing terribly exciting to report, but we did have a nice weekend. Saturday we explored one of the more upscale suburbs where we found a great English bookstore and some good restaurants. Sunday we went to one of the huge indoor/outdoor markets where Haviva bought herself a new bag for about two dollars and then we went to the plant market where we got ourselves a beautiful orchid plant and a nice houseplant for about $10, including pots. Our apartment is starting to look a little more lived in.

A Quick Trip to Singapore (aka Londasia or Epcot Asia)

Sorry for our absence - Haviva's been busy at work and I've been in Singapore getting my permanent visa. It was only supposed to be a day trip, but the second I landed and turned my phone on Haviva called to tell me that there was a 'misunderstanding' and I'd have to overnight. Would have been nicer if I had brought more than my camera with me, but at least I got to explore the city.

Singapore is an interesting place and a nice change of pace from Jakarta. Definitely made me remember that Jakarta is "developing". It's a great walking city, which is something we really miss in Jakarta. Nice wide, tree lined avenues with crosswalks and drivers that yield to pedestrians - all things you don't find in Jakarta. 75% of the city feels like you are in London. The other 25% is divided into an Arab area, Chinatown and Little India, which make you remember that you are in Asia, but in a weird Epcot kind of way.

Singapore is famous for its food and it didn't disappoint. I made good use of my 30 hours and had a great dinner in Little India, a good breakfast of noodles and dim sum at my hotel and a delicious bowl of noodle soup in Chinatown for lunch before taking the nicest subway ever to the nicest airport ever to fly home.

Paragliding Outside Jakarta

Last week I headed a couple of hours south into the hills around Jakarta to go paragliding with a guy I met playing frisbee. We each went tandem with the instructor, who runs a paragliding school on site. Because it is the rainy season there wasn't a whole lot of sun to produce the updrafts that can keep you in the air for hours, so it was only about a 10 minute glide over some tea plantations. Quite nice, but I'll have to go back in the spring (and take Haviva, who wasn't happy that she had to work when we went).

Learning How To Land

Haviva on the Local Bus

Here we are on the first leg of our journey to the beach - 3 hours on this bus got us from Jakarta to Sukabumi, where we caught another bus for a couple of hours to Pelabuhan Ratu.

Happy (soggy) New Year

Please don't be alarmed. Lots of bad news coming from our part of the world in the past week but we have thus far avoided crashing planes and sinking ferries and plan to continue avoiding them in the future.

For New Years we headed to the beach town of Pelabuhan Ratu, on the south coast of Java, where it apparently rains even more than here on the north coast. Our plan was to spend 3 nights, but after 3 straight days and nights of rain we woke up to sunshine on the morning we were supposed to leave so we extended our stay an extra night and enjoyed a full day of good weather (after making it all the way to the bus station before realizing staying was a much better plan).


The beach was nice but it is not someplace we're rushing to return to. For one thing the food was pretty horrid. We had high hopes for the seafood, but were routinely disappointed. We get much better seafood around the corner from our apartment in Jakarta. We did enjoy some time at the local hot springs during one of the rainy days and we celebrated New Years Eve like the locals... by sitting on the beach along with maybe 10,000 of your friends until it starts to pour at 11:15 and you all run for shelter or try to find a ride home. We ended up celebrating the stroke of midnight in the back of a shared minivan taxi. Good story, I guess, but not all that much fun.

The site isn't cooperating right now, so I can't add pictures, but they are up online at http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva.

Back to the Stone Ages

Not sure if you've heard, but that Taiwanese earthquake last week knocked out internet to much of Asia. It seems that the most affected areas at the time of the quake were northern Asia, especially Japan, Korea and Taiwan, but now it seems that those wealthy and important Asian countries have managed to reroute their internet traffic by cutting off their poorer neighbors down here in SE Asia. Anyway, they're telling us that we may have to put up with little or no internet for the next couple of weeks, so don't be alarmed if you don't hear from us. Right now the only thing working is Google for some reason, and luckily Blogspot is owned by Google.

We're heading to the beach for a few days of R&R over the long weekend. We hope everyone has a safe and fun New Years and we'll check in with you soon.

A Merry Christmas in Jakarta (but probably not for the animals)

For Christmas in Jakarta we mixed traditions from home (namely Chinese food and a movie) with some exploring of the city. We slept in, played some tennis, went for a swim and then set out to for a couple of markets we has heard about.

Our first destination was the exotic animal market. We knew it was going to be a grim place, but we had to see it for ourselves. The majority of the vendors were selling exotic birds, which wasn't all that traumatic - pretty birds in nice cages. The big cages stuffed with rabbits weren't so bad either. We steered clear of the chickens and ducks. The cages with bats were strange, but not so disturbing. Eventually the guys selling the rare animals found us and led us to their corner of the market where we found baby monkeys and loris' in tiny cages. Needless to say, Haviva fell in love and decided we should turn our spare bedroom into a wildlife sanctuary. If there was any chance the US would let us bring a loris home with us then I'm pretty sure she would have bought one on the spot.

Our next stop was the flea market. It was mostly wood carvings and other handicrafts from all over the country. We didn't buy anything, although we were very tempted by the hand-carved sculpture of a monkey talking on the telephone.

From there we headed to the mall for some Chinese noodles and Casino Royale. The noodles were so-so, but we quite enjoyed the movie. While walking to the mall we passed by a mosque with a herd of goats and a few cows out front. It took us a minute but we realized that they were selling them to slaughter on Eid ul-Adha, which by chance falls on Dec 31st this year. We knew that was the tradition, but we didn't realize quite how it works. Apparently the government is trying to get people to have their animals killed at slaughterhouses, but they're meeting quite a bit of resistance.

Howie leaves Jakarta

Merry Christmas! Here in Indonesia Christmas is more of a Western concept than a religious one and although you really could not tell tonight from any other night, there was something festive in the air. We returned from Bogor this evening and went to dinner at the seafood place down the street. It was packed and you could just tell people were celebrating, many of which were obviously not Christian.

Bogor. A great place. Took the express AC train down, which was a pleasure. Actually not overstuffed and the perfect temperature. We found a hotel easily and spent the afternoon on Saturday wandering around...oh who am I fooling....eating. Wandering really from place to place finding the perfect place for lunch. We found it. The Bogor Permai, which was recommend by all the guide books. It was delish, and attached to a bakery, which only made it that much better. The one non-food find of the day was the "puppet factory", which is in quotes because it is actually the puppet makers home, nestled in the valley of Bogor. It was a great little neighborhood with small winding streets only wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Everyone knows the puppet factory though and once we were there, we could tell why. The puppet maker is a pleasant man, missing his front teeth and with glasses that might be coke bottles. The puppets were very impressive, hand carved and painted, dressed in batiks. No two exactly alike. Of course, we came back the next day and bought two.

As soon as we left, it began to absolutely pour. Rain is one of the things Bogor is famous for, which is why it has the lush botanical garden it is also known for. Rain continued for the rest of the night. We hit the gardens early so we could pick up our puppets and make the last train and the timing worked out well since the rain started a bit on the earlier side today. The gardens are lush and tropical as you might expect and the few hours we spent were well worth it. A gorgeous orchid house, a crazy "Mexican Garden" full of the same cacti that Howie's parents have in their backyard and some bats that really impressed Howie with their crazy wing span. The garden's only flaw was the hoards of students screaming, "Hey mister! Can I ask you question??" It was cute at first, but there were so many of them and they all had a list of about 20 questions given to them by their teacher that they could barely read and that they did not even begin to understand the answers to. Had we actually answered all of them, we never would have seen the garden. We learned their uniforms quickly though and we able to duck behind trees and run the other direction when we saw them coming.

We put some more photos of Bogor online at http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva

An Ode to the Martabak

We've discovered that one of the best martabak (or murtabak) restaurants in Jakarta happens to be in our neighborhood, Martabak Kubang. For those of you not familiar with martabak, it is a type of pie that comes in two delicious varieties: savory and sweet. Martabak Kubang specializes in the savory variety but there are a few street vendors that sell the sweet kind on our street.

The savory variety is made by folding a very thin dough around any number of meat, tofu and veg fillings, then frying it on a griddle. It comes with either a curry for dipping or a fantastic sweet soy based sauce.

The sweet variety shares a name with its savory cousin, but that's about it. It is made by pouring a pancake-like batter into a hot skillet then coating the cooked pancake with chocolate, peanuts and sweetened condensed milk (and about a stick of butter) and folding it over. It is sickeningly sweet and ridiculously dense but really good. We can't eat a whole one so we bring the leftovers back to our building and give it to the security guys out front.

Our Apartment

A quick tour of our apartment.

Haviva's Day Out

Well, it took a while, but it finally happened - I had a day off!! After a lot of running from city to city, I was pooped and decided to take the day off on Monday to sleep in and actually see Jakarta. It was fabulous not to set the alarm and after a yummy frozen lasagna lunch we hit the city. With Howie as my tour guide, we headed as north as we could go to Jakarta harbor. Like most harbor areas, it was a bit stinky and was a far cry from the shopping malls and endless traffic of the city that we know. The boats were not what we expected in that they did not look hefty or sturdy enough to be carrying what they were. I think we were expecting more fishing boats and the like, but these boats were hauling lumber and concrete, weighing them low into the water. I suppose we should have been happy not to see fishing boats - the water was filthy.

After a walk down the main docking area we headed into the local village, winding through the nooks and crannies filled with local food stalls and vendors selling everything from underwear to prayer mats. With every step we got the typical "Hello Mister!" (for the record, someone taught the nation of Indonesia "hello mister" and forgot to mention that it only applies to men. not a "hello miss" to be heard) and the occasional "How are you? I am fine!" We made a quick stop for a fried delish snack - I have become addicted to these little fried bites of cabbage...sort of like deep fried sourkraut, which may sound gross, but it really is good.

The strange part about this area of Jakarta is that it still has the Dutch colonial architecture. For some reason, to me it felt more like South American than SE Asia. You can tell at one time the area was beautiful, but now it looks a bit forgotten. We hung out in the square and had a TeBotol (iced tea in a glass bottle that can be found anywhere) hoping to reduce the sweat level, but as is life in Indonesia, that just did not happen. Maybe that is why the Dutch eventually left....

More Frisbee

Saturday afternoon I went out to a couple of private girls schools in far East Jakarta with a few other Westerners from the Ultimate Frisbee club to teach Frisbee and do some general mingling. (In truth, one of them was co-ed, having 457 girls and 4 boys enrolled.) We had a lot of fun and I think the girls were sufficiently entertained. The schools were quite nice and the students and staffs quite friendly.

You might notice from the photos that the majority of the girls at one of the schools were wearing head scarves (called a jilbab here) and very few were at the other school. Surprisingly (to me, at least) wearing a jilbab seems to have little or no bearing on a girl's general behavior. The girls in the jilbabs were just as outgoing and just as likely to strike up a conversation with the western men as the girls without them.

If you are interested in the photos they are at http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva

Happy one month in Jakarta to us!

Exactly one month ago today I got up at 6 AM and hopped on a flight to Medan, having no idea where I was or what I was doing. Ironically enough, found myself in Medan today, this time with slightly more a clue where I was and what I was doing. Slightly...

It has been a wonderful, exciting, exhausting and interesting month to say the least. Certainly the adventure we signed up for. I can only imagine what the next 11 have to offer.

In addition, Happy Hanukkah to all you out there to whom it might apply. Not much going on here for the holiday officially, but we feel we celebrate the miracle of oil each and every day with Indonesian cuisine. Never a shortage of fried goodies. As a treat for ourselves, we bought two show passes to the Jakarta International Film Festival and we are headed to see an Australian movie tonight and then a Chilean movie (I think Chilean, could be wrong) tomorrow night. Not the traditional gift giving, but much more our style and budget. Hopefully next weekend we can hit the beach and have a little vacation since I have Monday off.

Hope you all have a great holiday. Have a latke (or two or three) for us!

Comments Were Always Welcome...

... but now they should be much easier to make.

Sorry the blog settings made it a pain to comment before, but I think we've corrected the problem, so comment away...