The day I became my mother

In passing at the Bangkok frisbee tournament, I mentioned to Howie's teammate Jon that I was thinking about having a seder. I am not sure how it came up, especially since at the time I did not even know Jon was Jewish, but at the mere mention the excitement on his face said it all. A week or so later I emailed him to make sure it was not just the adreniline talking and sure enough, he was already planning a menu. He even sent a hagadah and a Jewish cookbook over to our apartment.

So, Saturday night we had an "Indonesian Passover". The Jew to non jew ratio was a bit off, but in keeping with the traditions of the Cohen family, the guest list kept expanding and we ended up being about 20. Everyone seemed to have a great time - there was a group singing of the 4 questions in Hebrew and you would be amazed at how eagerly a group of 20 and 30 somethings searched for the afikomen.

There was way too much food, as I believe there always should be (I made matzo ball soup for the first time and finally understand why my mother agonizes over the consistancy of those little treats) and there was even a flourless almond cake a la Jon for dessert. The little hagadah I made worked out perfectly and everyone was a good sport about reading, singing, and making animal sounds during Chad Gadya.

Some lessons were learned - little chili peppers are a great substitute for horseradish, even if they are hard to get in that Hillel sandwich and when you see walnuts in Indonesia, just buy them because they will not be easy to find when you finally do want to make charoset. but that is part of what made this a very Indonesian seder and not quite like home.

More photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/Passover08

On Newstands Now...

We happened to have the camera with us when we walked by a street vendor selling our magazine. That's High End Teen right there in the middle!

HighEnd Debut

After many late nights and lots of hard work, High End and High End Teen finally hit the stands. To be honest, the event did not play out as I had imagined - perhaps I have seen too many movies, but I had a vision of the ripping open of stacks of mags and lots of oohing and ahhing. It was more like, "Good morning everyone. Have you seen the magazine? We missed a photo credit on page 31."

We are already well into the next issue and I can already see it looking better. If only one of my two writers did not have dengue fever I would be all set. I can assure you though that there will be no photo credits missed in this issue!

Enjoy this sneak peak - the cover story is our owner's 15 year old daughter and the other page is just one of my faves. Looks like a real magazine! Despite the fizzle of a release, I am pretty damn proud. We have yet to see a copy on a news stand, but I carry the camera around in hope.

The Return of Everyone's Favorite Mollusk

The stars have aligned and, much to our joy, Norman has returned to us. I went to the Learning Farm to do an interview the other week for an organic food article I am writing and Jiway, the director of the farm asked if, since we were back, we would like Norman. Turns out the woman who was taking the best care of Norm left the farm and Jiway was concerned that the little guy was not getting the attention he needed. How could I say no to that?? So, much to the shock of the office, I came home from my interview with a snail.

Norman is happily housed on the porch, enjoying the natural surroundings he once knew. Despite Howie thinking Norman is now an indoor snail, I am happy to report he has been out of his shell and happily nibbling away at sweet potato and carrot since his return. Sadly he will not be rejoined with Ernie and Bert – Drew, who took them begrudgingly when we left, has built them a veritable turtle Taj Mahal and has no intention of sending them back our way. We do happily have visitation rights though.

Making Dim Sum High Above Jakarta

I spent most of my weekend shopping for the usual new-apartment essentials like shower curtains, trash cans and condiments, while Haviva spent hers editing the final copy of her magazine. We took a break in order to attend a dim sum cooking class, which was Haviva's birthday present from me. The class was held at Cilantro, an Asian fusion restaurant at the top of the tallest building in Jakarta – sort of Jakarta's equivalent of Boston's Top of the Hub restaurant. The restaurant gets generally mixed reviews and it's pretty pricey, but this is a city pretty bereft of cooking classes so it was worth a shot.

It was far from the best cooking class we've attended, but it was a lot of fun – a very Indonesian experience. We were the only foreigners in a crowd of about 20 or 25 people, which meant we were always asked to be the volunteers. We learned to make three different kinds of dumplings, each with a different wrapping and shape.

In a strange cross-promotion, people from the local Crocs shop were there to reward prizes for the best dumplings. I'm very proud to say that I won the first competition (which was easily the most difficult with the ornate crimping and creasing needed). And they didn't pick me just because I was the white guy - it was a pretty dumpling! The prize was a 350,000 rupiah gift certificate for Crocs - shoes I have previously sworn I would never wear. Maybe I'll find a pair of Crocs flip-flops or something less objectionable than their standard design.

Life is returning to normal here. After 3 ½ months of being homeless we have moved into our new apartment. The struggle isn't quite over yet – no hot water in the new place at the moment – but it's nice to have a place to call home again. We'll put together an apartment touring video once the boxes are cleared from the living room and the oodles of tchotchkes that the owner left around are removed.

Last weekend was our big annual Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Bali. A good time was had by all. There were 7 teams – Jakarta (2 teams), Singapore (2), Vietnam, Hong Kong and Saipan. I co-captained the Jakarta B team, which was a lot of fun. We went 0-6 but played great and had a lot of fun. We also won the party by having 6 players in attendance for the sunrise beach ultimate game after a long night of partying Saturday night. Sadly, Haviva and I were in bed around 5AM. Maybe next year.

The theme for the party was "tropical" but that was somehow missed by the fashion designer/teammate who traditionally costumes the team. He dressed Haviva in a lovely sequined latex number with American flag stars, while I was given a watermelon shirt (not watermelon color, but actual watermelons, mind you) and a cool pair of jeans with green pockets and trim. At some point in the evening I also acquired a ridiculous pair of sunglasses and a fantastic wig. Clearly, a good time was had by all.

Photos of all the fun are at http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/BaliTournament2008

It has mostly been work work work for us these days - after all we have a magazine to get out! - but we were blessed with a long weekend the other week in honor of Nyepi. Don't worry if you have not heard of the holiday, it is a Balinese Hindu holiday, and despite it's niche market we got Friday off.

We headed up to Puncak, the same place you saw my feet dangling from the skies on my paragliding trip, back to the same fabulous Canadian Embassy villas with our friends Chad and Joya. It was a pretty miserable weather weekend, but the rest and relaxation was fabulous, as was the company of several other Canadian diplomats. We did not do much more than eat, drink and play many rounds of Settlers, although there was a brief (and sad ending) adoption of a street cat and an attempt at paragliding thwarted by weather.

We did manage to stop at the great antique furniture shops that line the road to and from Puncak and Howie and I purchased our first, very cool piece of Indonesian furniture. We were shopping for these cool lamps they sell, but this perfect piece caught our eye and we just could not resist. Our new place (which we have still not moved into) does not have a coffee table and the driver was coming back to pick up some things Chad and Joya were buying so, really how could we say no?

Now we just need a home to move the thing into. Should be happening this week, along with a visa run to Singapore, a final deadline for High End Teen and a trip to Bali for the Ultimate Tourney.

Fake it till we make it

As our last post hinted, we have decided to spend some more time in Indonesia. Just as we were about to ship the last couple boxes back to America, we were both offered editor positions with a new magazine that should be coming out in the next month or so. Haviva will be the managing editor of High End Teen and Howie the Sr. editor of High End Special Editions. It is pretty exciting on the whole - the impossible task of starting these magazines from basicly scratch has the whole place buzzing. We are working with a great staff and every minute has been very go go go.

To really build a buzz, we had a pre-launch party this past week mostly to schmooze with potential advertisers and the stars came out: There were two Indonesian Idol stars (one actual winner and one runner up), a few Miss Indonesias, the Ryan Seacrest of Indonesia (host of a big show here called Mama Mia and one of the top emcees in the country) and several people described as "socialites". To help us fit in, I was given quite the make-over and a special black jacket to wear and Howie was given a black dress shirt and gold tie. Very High End, but we still stuck out like sore thumbs which we think might have been part of the point.

The event was held at an upscale Indonesian restaurant with not enough alcohol to make me forget my aching feet in my high heels. We were paraded in front of the crowd, handed many a business card (we could hand none over ourselves as ours are not ready yet) and really enjoyed the buffet (even though our Indonesian colleagues all had Hoka Hoka Bento - a fast food Japanese place that is very popular amongst locals and equally despised by expats - before the event and then ate nothing.) It was a bit surreal, but at the same time, kind of fun.

So, now that we have been paraded, it looks like we are staying - we move into a new place this week, we have gotten one pay check, and signing a contract seems imminent. Who would have thought? Certainly not us...

Full Circle

We're back in Jakarta after a fun couple of weeks on the road in Cambodia and Thailand with a friend from Jakarta. We flew into Bangkok and then made a big clockwise loop by land through Cambodia and back up to Bangkok.

Tourism in Cambodia has really taken off. It was quite a contrast to when I was there 10 years ago and had the place to myself. It was Chinese New Year, so it was even busier than usual, making hotel rooms hard to come by and tourist attracting overrun. We watched the sun set from one of the temples at Angkor with probably 1000 other tourists all clamoring for the best spot.

We spent a couple of days around Angkor seeing the temples and taking a full-day Khmer cooking class, which was great. Then we headed to Phnom Penh, where we wandered around the markets, rode bikes to the Killing Fields and visited the museum that is housed in a former Khmer Rouge prison.

From there we checked out the southern beaches of Sihanoukville, which were surprisingly nice. We spent a few mindless days on the beach and also took a day-trip to a nearby island. It was a nice relaxing few days before heading back to Bangkok for the big frisbee tournament that was the reason for the trip in the first place.

The tournament was a lot of fun. It was a 'hat' tournament, meaning teams were picked by pulling names from a hat (or a virtual hat, in this case). There were 250 players from all over Asia. My team was made up of Malaysian, Chinese and Singaporean nationals, plus expat Dutch, Brits, Canadians and Americans living all over the place. It was a great bunch and we had a lot of fun, going 4-2 and losing in the quarter-finals.

So.... you might be wondering what's next for us. Us too. We've got some job possibilities that we're looking into here in Jakarta and may well end up staying for another year. We're staying with friends for a week or two while we contemplate our future. Will keep you up to date...

Lots of photos on our photo page at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/ThailandCambodia

Strange Returns

From Solo it was back to Jakarta via Puncak and a weekend with friends and an ease back to Expat life with clean bed, good cheese, wine and paragliding (for Haviva). it was a great weekend and a pretty insane week in Jakarta. There was lots of visiting friends, running errands and visiting old haunts.

We are now off to Cambodia and Thailand for what should be an eating and temple visiting extravaganza.

So that is how they make that!

Next stop heading west was Solo, a smaller version of Yogyakarta that for some reason Howie had in his head he had to make it to. It was a good thing too as it turned out to be a great "last stop" before heading back to Jakarta.

Our first day we decided to take a recommended bike tour of the city. Despite the really really really run down bikes (no brakes is part of the adventure, right?) and the blazing heat (thank goodness Solo is pretty flat) it turned out to be amazing. We stopped at several workshops, all looking like nothing more than a small house from the outside, but containing some pretty big business on the inside. Each village seemed to have a specialty. On the non-edible end we saw sarong weaving (not for the beach, but for prayer time) gong making, and a batik workshop and on the edible end we saw several kinds of crackers that are traditionally eaten with every meal here, tofu, tempe and arak (Indonesian moonshine). Almost all the businesses were family run and seemed to sustain the community with not only the workshops but also sellers and suppliers. Did we need to see the sweaty man kneading the cracker dough with his feet and sweating profusely? Most likely not, but it was pretty cool. (And if you were curious, that is me helping to make tofu. Don't worry this stuff only made it as far as our lunch, not all the way to your local Whole Foods.)

After a long day on the bike and a dunk in the pool, we headed to Warung 310, a seafood restaurant recommended by the othertwo guys on our bike tour. Turned out to be an incredible meal, impeccably cooked with the added bonus of a wonderful owner/chef who invited us to go with him to breakfast the next day. He said the best place was a kambing (goat) warung that was only open from 9-10 AM...not our typical morning start, but how could we really say no? He was not joking about it being a kambing place...we had all parts of the goat on the table from basic sate (meat chunks on a stick) to spinal cord and eyeball. I admit, not my thing, but you could tell this was the real deal. Howie, as honored guest, was graced with the eyeball. He then took us with him to the market so we could tag along while he paid for some prawns he was having shipped in. Like walking around with the governor, this guy was shaking hands, squeezing fruits and chatting it up with everyone. Right up our alley.

Apple picking Indonesia style

Our plan to check out an island off the coast of Java didn't work out today so instead we headed up to the hills surrounding Malang. We missed our annual autumn apple picking adventure with Michal and Chad back in Boston so we decided to take the "orchard tour" at the local Agrowisata (farm hotel). It wasn't quite as successful as our last farm tour, but it was good for a laugh.

We arrived to find we had a choice of 6 different package tours. We chose the 30,000 rupiah ($3 US) tour that included a welcome apple juice, the chance to pick two apples, a visit to the mini zoo (small zoo, not small animals as we were hoping) and a lunch of more apple juice and, the real attraction, nasi goreng apel (apple fried rice).

The only English speaking guide was "in meeting" so we did the tour mostly in Bahasa, not that there was much to tell. After telling us that there were four types of apples (two local varieties, one American and, strangely, an Israeli variety) he led us into the picking area and watched closely as we picked our two apples each. From there we toured the mini-zoo filled with some pretty standard creatures (Canadian chicken? Does that belong in the zoo?) and some bizarre animals (something that looked like a giant turkey-ostrich from Papua), all in depressingly small cages.


Next came the much anticipated nasi goreng apel, which wasn't bad. Not a ton of apel, but pretty tasty. I'm sorry to say we were too cheap to pay extra for the apple satay. That was about it for the tour, except for one last stop at the gift shop, where Haviva picked herself up a snazzy new t-shirt.



Off to Central Java tomorrow morning.

One small step...

We're just back from the moonscape that is the area around Gunung Bromo. Did another crack of dawn hike, this time with an Irish couple. Started hiking at just past 4 and got to an amazing lookout in time for sunrise. Went back to the hotel for breakfast and then hiked down into the crater and up Gunung Bromo, which is the short smoking one on the left.

Today we hopped a couple of busses and are staying in Malang, a nice little medium-sized city with lots of good food to be had. Then its off to to Central Java before heading back to Jakarta.

More photos from East Java at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/EastJava

Heading West

After leaving Shelley we made our way to Bali for a little beach time and a ferry to take us back to Java. East Java is the last stop on our "must see" list, the Ijen Plateau and Gunung Ijen being stop number one. It was a 3 hour ride to the ferry, a 20 min ferry ride and then a slightly complicated journey to the plateau so we decided to break the trip up and hop off the bus in Kalibaru at a coffee plantation. It turned out to be a great stop. There is not much in Kalibaru besides robusta coffee trees as far as the eye can see, but the plantation villa was really lovely and came with a free plantation tour in the morning. Turns out they do a lot more than coffee and we saw nutmeg trees (and we were served delish nutmeg jam with breakfast), vanilla, cocoa, peppercorn and watched men climb palm trees and tap the blosoms for what will eventually become palm sugar. Had I (Haviva) not gotten eaten alive by mosquitoes it would have been perfect.

From there we got the first of a few buses to Sempol, where we stayed on an arabica coffee plantation with a stunning view of Gunung Ijen, which we were to climb at sunrise. Even smaller than Kalibaru, there really is nothing here but arabica coffee. (They claim to also have macadamia nuts, but we only saw those in chocolate covered form.) At about 5 AM we got on ojeks (motorbike taxis) and rode thru the plateau to the base of Ijen. It was a stunning ride, albeit a little chilly. The hike up was about an hour and a half straight up, but at no point can you feel sorry for yourself since as you climb men carrying 85 kilos of sulfur in baskets slung over their shoulders are coming down past you. They go up and down two times a day all before 1 PM when the clouds set in, plus go into the crater and actually mine the sulfur. Budi, a very nice sulfur miner we met at the top showed us the welts and open wounds he has from carrying the baskets of sulfur, but I guess for 400 rupiah per kilo, it is a good paying job.

The crater rim is gorgeous with stunning views of the plateau, the crater lake and the sulfur vent. Because we figured we could not miss the opportunity, we decided to do the 20 min hike into the crater to the sulfer vent, even though the plumes of sulfur warned us otherwise. It was one of those horrible, totally amazing experiences that I am sure our bodies hate us for. The sulfur smoke as you get close to the vent is intense and there are moments where you absolutely cannot breathe. Even with our mouths and noses covered it was painful to inhale and ours eyes were burning. Of course we were hacking and coughing the whole day (and these guys mining were smoking cigarettes during their breaks) but it was an incredible experience.

Next stop Gunung Bromo - Indonesia's Natural Borabudor.

But how do they know?

Moving on

Sadly it is time for us to leave Dili and East Timor. We've had a great time exploring with Shelley but enough is enough. Wednesday morning we're taking a minibus all the way to Kupang, the capital of West Timor, the Indonesian half of the island of Timor. Should be a lovely 12 hour journey. From there we'll figure out exactly what our next move is, but we've mapped out a rough idea that would bring us back to Jakarta in about 10 days, after some time in Bali and East Java.

Here are some photos from our week in East Timor... http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/TimorLeste

Dili Ain't Cheap

East Timor has one of the lowest per-capita GDP's around, so there's not much being produced here. That includes food. Unfortunately, the soil isn't very fertile and there aren't really any factories to speak of, so virtually everything short of coffee is imported (and most of the good coffee is exported). That, and the fact that there's an over-abundance of well-paid expats with nothing to spend their money on but food, means that grocery and restaurant prices are extortionate.

The US dollar is the official currency, which makes it feel that much worse for those of us who have been earning rupiah for the past year. In Jakarta we can justify spending 55,000 rupiah ($6 US) on a pint of Ben & Jerry's occasionally. I'm not sure how anyone can justify spending $16.15 US on one though, even if the UN is paying for it.

Animal Transport

You might think that we're riding the local buses with sheep, pigs and goats aboard, but you'd be wrong. Chickens are the only ones lucky enough to ride in the bus, but only when there's room to stuff them under a seat (the well kept fighting cocks might get a seat). The rest get strapped to the front or back or just thrown on top of the bus.

Timor Leste

New years day was a bit quiet, but we spent the day exploring the city. We headed to see Jesus, or at least the giant statue of him at the top of a peak at the end of a nice peninsula, only yo find that this is where all the people in Dili were. Typically an expat area and despite the rain, the beaches were filled with local playing volleyball and generally hanging out. Lots of naked kids running around on the beach. While it looked nice, there were no foreigners around and we decided the smartest thing to do was let the locals have their fun and head to see Jesus another day. Shelly has been there a bunch we headed out a couple days later without here to catch the nice view. A little windy, but you really can see for quite way and the beaches on the other side were gorgeous.

Since Shelly had off January 2nd as well, we headed into central Timor Leste to a "mountain town" that is known for some classic Portuguese architecture and the famed East Timor shade grown coffee. The drive was beautiful and although there is little left of the famed architecture and coffee season is in July, we had a nice day. The little villages are quaintly tucked in the hills and the people and there was no where with a bad view.

Mostly here we are doing a lot of scenic driving and cooking this week. There are great literally deserted white sand beaches to be explored, but the weather has not been cooperating so we seem to end up coming home with groceries and spending hours on dinner (which is fine with us since it has been some time since we have been not bee dependent on a menu.) We also have had lots of internet time so you can now enjoy some photos from Malaysia thru now.

http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/PenangMalaysia
http://picasaweb.google.com/howieandhaviva/LombokFloresWestTimor

Starting the new year in a new country

We arrived in Dili, East Timor on New Year's Eve day after a great couple of weeks on Flores, the land of beautiful scenery, wonderful people, insanely windy roads, local buses filled with chickens, pigs, goats and vomiting locals and roosters that can't tell time and start crowing at 3AM. It was a crazy end to 2007 but we made it to Dili in time to celebrate with our friend Shelley, who is housing us for the time we are here.

Our last week in Flores was great. It started with some really interesting traditional villages around Bajawa. We expected Bajawa and the villages to be very touristy and not really authentic, but were very surprised by the reality. Although there were a few ikat (the traditional woven clothing of both men and women, sort of like a sarong but a bit thicker) hanging around and for sale, the people clearly really lived there, the ikat were obviously made there and the feel was quite genuine. Despite a little rain we had a good village experience and even got a nice hot "shower" in the hot springs about one hour outside of town. (Flores is known for not having any hot showers and hot springs or buckets of boiled water at your hotel are your best bet.)

From there we headed to Moni in an attempt to see the multicolored crater lakes of Kelimutu volcano. I say "attempted" because the rainy season is not the ideal time to be hanging out on the tops of Indonesian volcanoes. In the end we got lucky and were able to see them - onle a great turquise, one chocolate and one slightly rusty colored - only to have our motorbike break down on the way down the volcano, forcing us to hike a few km to the next village and hitch a ride to the bottom. Thank goodness there was a nice guy with a motorbike since we were about 15 K from Moni.

The next morning we woke up and look a local bus 4 hours to Maumere, where we had hoped to get a boat to West Timor. Unfortunately all boats were canceled for a few days because of high seas, so we headed to the airport to try to find a flight. We sat there on standby for 5 hours before they announced that the flight was being rerouted and skipping Maumere due to bad weather. Luckily the airline put on an extra flight the next morning, so we made it to Kupang, West Timor on the 30th, thinking we'd relax and take an 11-hour bus ride to Dili on the 31st.

When we got to our hotel they told us that there would be no such bus because New Year's Eve day is a holiday, so we quickly checked out and found a public bus headed 8 hours up the road on the way to East Timor. We woke up early on the 31st and finished the journey in plenty of time to scrub the filth off ourselves and spend New Year's Eve with Shelley and friends.

Happy New Year to all!!