I'm leaving this morning to head back to the states. I'm bittersweet about this. On one hand, I'm so excited to get back to family. On the other hand, though, there's something about Jakarta that gets under my skin, and…
Last night I had a disappointing meal. My first meal on this trip which really failed to live up to expectations. It was at Bakmi Gajah Mada (GM for short), a noodle restaurant which I had tried before a couple…
Alert! Facebook is a Menace, Clerics Say! Muslim Clerics Declare Ban on Facebook! These are recent headlines from the Jakarta Globe, the newspaper that I get delivered to my hotel room every morning free of charge. I asked for the…
People often talk about Singapore as a place where people are obsessed with food. Before yesterday I hadn’t been to Singapore in a couple years, so part of me forgot about this. Or at least thought it was a little…
I’m going to Singapore this evening for a quick 24 hours. The reasons are totally personal: to see two sets of old friends and to take a break from noisy/boisterous/crazy Jakarta and enjoy a day of good old law-and-order Singapore….
Today is another holiday, one that I had not only no reasonable ability to foresee but also which I had never even heard of before. It’s Ascension Day, or as they say here, Kenaikan Isa Almasih. Ascension Day. I had…
A Recent Sample of Thoughts *Ahem.* What did I tell you about the problems of lax copyright enforcement? They make it hard for people to know which are the authentic restaurants. The Jakarta Globe has a story that not only…
The craft brewing craze has arrived in Indonesia. Seriously. I was strolling around one of Jakarta's swanky malls this weekend, pricing bespoke suits (everything's out of my price range), and happened across a fancy grocery store. I always have fun…
There is a phrase that's often used to describe Islamic activists in Indonesia, that they are a "majority with a minority mentality." (I think the term comes from FW Wertheim, but I'm not sure if he actually coined the phrase.)…
Yesterday I took a stroll around Menteng, the prosperous leafy “inurb” of Jakarta which is where I like to stay. It’s a nice part of town because it has sidewalks that you can walk a long and tree-lined streets that…
