Yet another mall...

Jakarta has an obsession with shopping malls, as we have mentioned before. The newest mall to open, FX, not to be confused with EX which is about 15 minutes down the road and owned by the same people, claims not to be just another mall, so Howie and I went to check it out.

There are two attractions that make this a mall worth flocking to: a toboggan that slides you from the 7th floor to the ground floor in 12 seconds and has a long line of Indonesian families eagerly waiting their turn and the Bali Deli which has long lines of white people waiting to ring up their very overpriced Western goods.

The toboggan is a giant twisting clear pipe the curls and dips and makes its way thru the center of the mall. They make you get all suited up (helmet included) and ride in this little cloth toboggan for the ride. Howie was lame and not in the mood to fight the long line so we just watched, but it looked like fun.

The Bali Deli is like a little slice of heaven. It is sort of like a Whole Foods where the produce is beautifully displayed, the meats and fish all look of the highest quality and the price tags add extra shock value. It is hard to appreciate how nice this is if you have not been here, but I still had to share my happiness with you.

FX also tricked us into thinking it has a Cosi, but sadly this is just a name knock off. It turned out to be Hong Kong style restaurant. What is worth looking at near the Cosi are these little meeting pods, each designed by a different interior designer. Meant for "a new kind of meeting experience." We were not clear on how much business gets done with the huge flatscreen showing VH1 and the karaoke that was blasting from the floor below. Oh well, we have been to a lot of meetings and not much gets done anyway...

More Batik for the Collection

This weekend we headed to Central Java for the wedding of one of our colleagues. A dozen of us from the office left on the night train on Thursday after work. (We would have gone on Friday but it's school vacation week and tickets were sold out.) After a nine hour train ride we got in to Solo around 2AM and went to our hotel.

On Friday, Haviva and I wandered the city, which is famous for its batik, looking for an outfit for the Saturday night wedding. Surprisingly, Haviva had more luck than I did, finding a modern-style batik top. My big problem is finding a shirt that has sleeves that are long enough but which wasn't made for someone 300 pounds heavier than me. Eventually I gave in and bought a rather tent-like shirt with plenty long sleeves.

Friday night we had dinner at the same fish restaurant that we went to in January - the one with the owner who took us to the market the next day. We had a great dinner and a nice time catching up with the owner. Saturday we had big plans to visit some nearby ruins but found it difficult to get up in time for an early bus due to the lack of windows in our hotel room. Instead we slept in and did some more wandering.

The wedding was scheduled for 7PM but we were clued in that there would be a family-only ceremony beforehand that we could watch. The actual wedding had taken place in a private church ceremony (it was a Christian couple) on Friday morning, so the rest was just for show. And quite a show it was.

The families were each decked out in their respective batik motifs and the bride and groom were dressed in traditional Javanese garb. We weren't quite sure what was going on, but it was all very cool.

The wedding as a whole was quite different from anything we'd been too before. For one, the bride and groom never left the stage area, well away from the reception. Guests would arrive, sign the guest book, drop an envelope in the lockbox and walk down a long reception line of family members until they reached the bride and groom to pay their respects. After that you proceeded out to the reception area, where you stuck around for anything between ten minutes and a couple of hours.

Our coworkers were there for litearally 15 minutes. They didn't even bother to eat, which was just silly. The food was excellent - especially the desserts. There were about a dozen food stations set up under a giant tent and there must have been well over 500 guests. The entertainment was traditional dancing, which was done by two women who arrived on the backs of men dressed as chickens.

Another fantastic tradition - at least we assume its a tradition - was that guests left with virtually anything that wasn't tied down. We're not talking flowers and centerpieces. People left with all the decorations, including melons, beans, eggplants, gourds, potatoes and our favorite, a bird cage with two birds in it.

Sunday we took the train back to Jakarta - a really impressive ride through rice fields and volcanoes.

Happy Canada Day!

Being members of the press AND having friends in high places at the Canadian embassy meant we got to work and play at the Canada Day gala at the Four Seasons. First Haviva and I wandered around looking for important-looking people to have our staff photographer take pictures of, then we sent him home and feasted on poutin and salmon. It was a lot of fun and a good excuse to wear our batik.

We're both in the market for another batik outfit as this weekend we're off to Central Java for the traditional wedding of one of our co-workers. We're taking the overnight there with a bunch of people from the office. Should be a good time.

Shaking and shimmying with the ladies

For almost a year now once a month (at least) I have been getting together with a small group of ladies for a some wine and good conversation. It is hard to meet people in this city and "ladies' night" has turned out to be great. It is all word of mouth and while there is a small core group, each time we seem to end up with at least one new person at the table, which is really nice. It is definitely I a night I look forward to each month.

Friday night we had a Turkish inspired ladies night at our friend Joya's place. She just got back from a trip to Turkey and it was Maiko's last night in town; she needed a proper ladies send off! To keep with the theme, we hired a belly dancing teacher for a little lesson (after we had a couple glasses of wine of course!) We all shook and shimmied for about an hour with Christine, our fearless leader who was patient with our various struggles. You would NEVER know I was gymnast at any point in my life since Christine had to keep reminding me to turn on my "other left". Belly dancing for the record is not as easy as it looks.

And, maybe just to take the attention away from our bad moves, somehow Joya's wig collection came out. It was a blast and definitely a ladies' night to remember!

Everyone is on the go

It is a transitional lifestyle we have signed up for here and this past weekend we headed back to Pelabuhan Ratu, yet again, for a farewell weekend for Maiko and Chad.

Maiko is headed to DC to meet up with her husband Adam and they are being posted in Zambia with USAID. Chad is leaving us for a new posting in Ho Chi Minh City with the Canadian Embassy. We are already hatching a plan to visit both of them at some point. We were never ones for direct routes anyway, what is a little stop in Africa?

We had to send them off properly, so back to the beach house we went. There was the usual playing in the waves, lazing in the hammock and a huge fresh fish dinner from the fish market Saturday night. The highlight was the Sunday morning breakfast mango tasting - Chad brought 6 kinds of mangos, put them each in a bowl for sampling and we all picked our favorites. I love mango season and as it turns out, my expensive taste extends to mangoes since I chose by taste the priciest of the bunch. Howie is sticking by his "this is ripe and the cheapest" policy.

We lingered as long as we could on Sunday, not wanting to head back to Jakarta and while others toyed with "calling in sick" Monday, Howie and I sadly could not even consider an extra day. This is print week at HighEnd. Even with Howie bringing the laptop and defiling hammock time by mixing it with work, we have still been pulling nothing shorter than 12 hours days.

It has been a long week, but a good one that included one more native English speaker/managing editor on our staff. He has already lasted more than the last guy (3 days was not a hard record to break) so we are thrilled!

June Issue Hits the Stands!

Oops, the End in HighEnd Teen turned out to be the same color as the gray detail in the background, but is readable in some lights... maybe thinking we are "High Teen" will make us more desirable in some circles. This I am happy to report, however, was pretty much the only negative comment I have heard so far.As for HighEnd, you tell us - do you think Miss Indonesia is wearing too much make-up? Is the sash distracting? Again, in the grand scheme most people are pretty happy, so if too much make-up is the worst of it, we are thrilled.

Sailing Away

We just spent another weekend on the Cecelia Ann, the same boat we took to see the amazing Krakatoa back in November. This time we headed for Ujun Kulon - a marine national park off the west coast of Java.

Half the boat was surfers, so the plan was to spend half the daylight hours surfing and half snorkeling. There was also some snorkeling near the surf spots so after the wonder of watching the surfers wore off, there were cool fish to look at. In case you do not know anything about surfing, I learned there is a lot of waiting involved. The perfect wave does not come as often as one might think.

Howie chose to spend most of the surf time as the official surf photographer - flopping around in his mask and flippers and snapping the surfers (with someone else's waterproof camera) as they tried to avoid him. I snorkeled and although I really wanted to surf, there was a bit more reef than I was comfortable with so I will wait again until Bali where the only thing you need to avoid is other people...

We ended up sailing to Krakatoa again on the second day since from the surf spot you could hear the booms - it was just too tempting to those who had not seen it before. I have to admit, the first time was much more amazing for me, but sailing in after dark and eating dinner beside the bubbling and glowing volcano was pretty freaking cool.Overall it was a great weekend. We saw some amazing fish and beautiful reef and the luxury of the boat with good friends and good food was quite a pleasure.

Here She Comes...

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Miss Indonesia pagent. The same group that owns our magazine runs it, so most of our office was there. It was a quite an Indonesian experience, with everyone, including us, dressed up in their finest batik. We sat right behind the family of the eventual winner, Miss East Java, so that was kind of cool, but by the third hour I was ready for it to end.

A few days after the pagent Miss Indonesia herself came to our office for a photo shoot and interview - she's our cover girl for the June issue. I should have done the interview but I chickened out. She goes to school in Australia, so she speaks perfect English, but I let one of our ocal reporters interview her. I did manage

to get a photo with her though. It was quite a scene as all the men in the office lined up for snapshots. Haviva got quite a chuckle out of it.

Now Even the US Agrees

Over the weekend the US State Department removed its travel warning for Indonesia!

The weekend between deadlines

It seems deadlines are constantly upon us, but we are trying to make the very most of the weekends when we can get away. This past weekend was a great escape. It was a combination weekend celebrating our friend Manoah's birthday and saying goodbye to our other friend Liz and a bunch of us headed down to the fabulous beach villa in Pelabuhan Ratu. It was a great weekend of absolutely nothing but playing in the water, reading (and napping) in the hammock and eating. LOTS of eating. It was great. Now it is back to work...

Party with Papuans

A couple weeks ago we went to a house party at our friends and, just because they thought it would be fun, they had some dancers from Papua for entertainment. Sadly, I had not made it to the party yet when they did their real dancing, but Howie caught some of the action. By the time I arrived they were back in typical clothing, but still dancing up a storm and teaching people some moves. It was pretty cool to see. What shocked Howie and I was how normal the whole thing was to everyone. "Oh yeah, there were some Papuan dancers. Whatever." I don't know about you, but these guys do not look "whatever" to me.

Keeps getting better!

The second issue of HighEnd and HighEnd Teen has hit the stands and is getting, much to our surprise, a great response. Howie and I went to the polo club to interview some teens about playing polo and they when we showed them the new issue of HET they responded with things like, “Wow! This is so cool!” and “I totally love this magazine!” This of course totally made my day and has shed some happy light on all the long hours spent making the magazine look as “awesome” as it does.

The sad news at HighEnd is that Trish is leaving us so she can stop writing about rich people and go back to her real love, actual journalism. This coming issue will be her last and our very own Howard Parnes will be taking over as managing editor of HighEnd. Let’s hope he can keep his end high enough for the promotion. His first test will be Miss Indonesia on Tuesday night – our first socialite event! We are VERY excited and will be sure to report back to you who wins Miss Favorite (the fan vote), Miss Friendship (the word congeniality is just too much here) and Miss Most Beautiful Skin (i.e. the whitest).

A Day at the Ponies

I decided to do a story about the new polo club that opened recently outside Jakarta. They imported a few dozen $40,000 Argentinian polo ponies, so it sounded high-end enough. I contacted them and suggested that I take a lesson and write about it in High End. They bit, and I had my lesson the other day.

It was my first time on a horse and a little less of an adventure than I was expecting. Once they let me loose with the mallet it became more fun, but they weren't too eager to have a reporter break his neck on their watch. I will say that it was exhausting.

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.