Editor Eats

Strangers With Pillows

2012-01-29T23:46:00.000-08:00

I'm trying out CouchSurfing, a site that essentially links the world's freeloaders with each other, in the spirit of restoring faith in the goodness of humanity.

It involves opening your home to a stranger and offering him or her free use of your couch for whatever period you allow them.

The surfer gets free lodging while enjoying a new (or revisited) city and the host comes away with a hopefully glowing recommendation from former wards, which will boost your credibility enough to enjoy the similar privilege of slumming it out on couches around the world.

Since it's self-regulating, you can impose your own rules on said guest to minimize risks. All of this is arranged online. In more than a decade of operations, there's only been one reported, widely publicized case of a female tourist getting raped by her host.

Since joining just two days ago, I'm already going to host three people at my flat and its battered yet comfy, attractive yet riddled with suspicious stains, cotton-upholstered navy blue couch.

My first ever guest is a Spanish 21-year-old named Xavi (pronounced "Chavi" or "hobby" if you're in Spain), who is 6"2 and has to curl up into a fetal position to fit into the sofa. He is too nice to complain, though, and I chose him because he was one of the first to send me a request and his trustworthiness has been vouched for by dozens of people.

Within minutes of meeting him late on Sunday, he bowled me over with stories from Europe and Asia, regions he has been exploring with insatiable interest since he was 18.

He also told me about his life in Shanghai, where he teaches the English language to Chinese children and is billed as "Joe from New York" even if he's really from Barcelona. He's almost sheepish that he doesn't know how to play the Spanish guitar, doesn't play football or dance the salsa.

His most interesting feature, apart from his thick Catalan accent, is his left eye -- a transplanted organ after his eye was damaged by a parasite that wormed its way between his contact lens as he was swimming in Taiwan. He tried to show me the numerous scars around the socket, "like a clock," and mentioned he'd considered prior to the surgery if he should go for a glass eye or a red cyborg laser, like RoboCop.

We went out to Lan Kwai Fong for some fish and chips ("This city is too British," he says, while gleefully devouring the Tartar sauce) and cheap Stellas, in which I learned he's not at all a bad guy, is intelligent and easygoing. But to be sure he was honest, I stared into his eyes -- so closely matched, the transplanted one is imperceptible -- and asked if I could trust him. His answer won him unprecedented access to my flat.

I wasn't stabbed in my sleep, though he had to wake me up at an ungodly hour this morning, just so he could take his leave and head to the embassy for some paperwork. I thought that was a respectful gesture.

He's added to the many reasons I need to head to Shanghai, as I now have an open invitation to visit his stately apartment, which he shares with four other people, one of them an American chef-slash-DJ. I hear the parties are raging and there is a plan to grow "hydroponic shit" on their balconies. (I stress the plural.)

Credit goes to my former flatmate, Sandy from New York, for introducing me to the concept. She has surfed couches around the United States and in Southeast Asia, and her experiences have been nothing short of eye-opening (Xavi, no pun intended).

The entire concept has definitely opened my world to the types who backpack through Europe on a rail pass, types with humanitarian missions in remote third-world jungles, types who have double-fisted Bratwurst and beers at Munich's Oktoberfest, types who think life is too short to be sedentary, types who lose a part of their foot while wading along a coast in Vietnam.

And wandering into this thing, all I really wanted was to have a safety, a place to stay in Beijing for a night should my friend Riley not be able to let me crash at his apartment in Chaoyang.

It's turned into more of an initiation into a large, seemingly wholesome expatriate cult that perpetually gives me the feeling of standing naked at a bustling airport, getting gently fondled by people I don't know. It's the feeling of mild apprehension mixed with the need to trust and be trusted. No doubt, it's interesting, and I'm increasingly starting to think the world is my mattress.

Lunar New Year

2012-01-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

It was uncharacteristically quiet on both Hong Kong Island and Kowloon ahead of the beginning of the Year of the Water Dragon. Most of the shops and restaurants were closed, and the few that stayed open priced in a hefty surcharge for keeping their workers away from their families on such an important holiday.

Based on the Chinese Zodiac, I (a Fire Tiger) will have passably good luck this year, particularly in my career. I would have liked to thresh this out more by having my fortune told at Temple Street, but I couldn't trust the wispy old man enough to base his reading solely on my complexion (fair skin equals many boyfriends, according to the poster of Nicole Kidman outside his tent) or the shape of my nose. Plus, my host in Kowloon was adamantly skeptical of the exercise. The winter chill also discourages any extended jaunt outdoors.

Save for the faint sound of drums and bells characteristic of a dragon dance I heard this morning while I was toasting French bread at my friend's apartment, I will miss the main events today -- fireworks at Victoria Harbour, the Tsim Sha Tsui night parade and the crush of revelers with their eyes on red and gold. Though I did swing by Man Mo Temple along Hollywood Road, where I came out smelling of death and incense.

Perhaps another year, I'll get to experience more of its colorful traditions, beyond the obligatory meal at a spectacular Cantonese restaurant.

Phnom Penh Part 2: Keeping It Riel

2011-12-29T01:35:00.001-08:00

While my tour consisted entirely of soaking up Phom Penh's bar "culture," I say in my defense, as a coworker put it, that alcohol is key to the Khmer experience.

So on another sunny day, we find ourselves at yet another beer garden, this time filled with waitresses clad in slutty Santa's Little Helper costumes, to have a hopping birthday to me. By eating deep-fried frogs, that is.

I was cheered up not only by the Christmas crumpets, but by the rowdiness of a group of Cambodians who were having a party in the VIP room. They all stumbled out in 70s or 80s attire -- the people's general fashion sense, I found, was quite nostalgic, as if they're stuck in a bygone era. At least someone was having a good time.

Beer snacks

Frog sauce

Deep-fried frog, which tasted like chicken.

Sweet and Sour Squid

Here, I begin to notice that Cambodians like putting chunks of ice in their lager, which tastes weak enough already, but I suspect the habit is just their resourceful way of keeping the beer cold in the searing heat and subtly watering down the drinks so that customers will keep on buying. Waitresses will efficiently watch your drink and plunk a chip of ice in it exactly as the previous ice chip melts completely.

Olga had also insisted we swing by The Latin Quarter, a very pretty Latin American restaurant and bar, whose star feature is its sexy-as-hell, Javier Bardem-esque bartender, Diego. He did end up chatting me up as we left the bar -- in which I resisted the urge to take him right there on the mahogany counter -- and promised to come back, which I sadly never did.

While we only ever sampled the bartender and the beers, an Australian diner sitting at the next table went out of his way to say he wasn't entirely happy with the food. I would love to try their Chilean, Spanish and French fare for myself someday, especially if Diego allows.

Something to come back for, maybe.

The highlight of my entire trip, oddly enough, was sunbathing at Intercontinental Hotel's beautiful pool with Justin, who is a member of their fitness club. The hotel -- not much larger than your average university building -- also has a lovely pastry shop at the basement, which serves French and German pastries (what is a Stollen?), and we munched on delicious Sausage Rolls (US$3.50).

Indonesians would be heartbroken.

A telling remnant of Cambodia's colonial past is the ubiquity of baguettes. Their convenience stores (not 7-Eleven, but 7-Elephants) usually have baskets and baskets of the bread, while mobile food kiosks are also stacked with baguettes as if it were the nation's rice. (I suspect the failure of their agricultural utopia plan has something to do with this too). Still, the whole city seems to eschew Western establishments -- save for one KFC -- and any branded labels you would find such as Adidas and Mango sell fake merchandise, according to my friend.

That evening, we also visited some gay bars, Rainbow (which was dead) and Blue Chilli (which was raging). It's nice to see a space for the LGBT community in Cambodia, even if they are mostly preyed upon by old expats in too-tight muscle tees. Blue Chilli had a big production going, with lady boys dancing atop the bar counter while lip-syncing to songs by divas. There was a line of them that came out in progressively bad 80s prom dresses.

Flat crotch. AMAZING how they keep the junk in their trunk under control.

We also had to return to Pontoon and Heart of Darkness, with me fully conscious this time, at a party district along Street 51. I suppose it was mildly depressing to spend Christmas Eve and the early part of Christmas Day in a sea of Caucasians on the prowl for tiny Cambodian gays or hookers in booty shorts having to gyrate their lady parts to attract attention. There could be worse ways to spend the holiday, though, such as attending the city's many genocide-documentary screenings.

Alexis, a friend of Olga's and Justin's who is an English teacher and part-time singer.

In the sunshine, though, Phnom Penh is mostly flat, with just one fully constructed skyscraper (the Bank of Canadia tower) sticking out like a sore erection in concrete. Justin pointed out a few half-finished buildings to me, most of which were South Korean investments that never really took off.

Home of the nation's extremely reclusive monarchy. Apparently their pictures cannot be published in print, but gossip about them abounds. One of the more memorable ones are that one of the princes is light on his loafers and the other is that one of them married a French shopgirl who now owns her own boutique and commissary.

You'll see a lot of architecture like this.

But the city offers plenty of cheer, thanks to loose regulations on ganchaa and top-grade weed, which can be sprinkled on anything from your banana shake to your french fries. Just ask the waiter to make it "extra happy", followed by a saucy wink.

Happy green tea shake

Happy fried noodles

Happy pizzas!

On my final day before jetting off to much chillier Hong Kong on Christmas Day, Justin and I thought to visit the Killing Fields and Genocide Museum. You know, for some holiday cheer. But the tuktuk driver who offered to show us around charged more than we could afford and we instead walked down Riverside and chased pigeons at the park in front of the Royal Palace.

Mr B gave me a last-minute tour of the area before I set off for the airport, passing by Grandmother Penh's monument and other sights. Funny enough we passed by what Justin called the "Axis of Communism" -- Russian Boulevard intersected by Mao Zedong Street and Kim Jong-il Street. It was a lovely send-off, particularly when the sun turned golden and made Mekong sparkle. I hugged Justin goodbye and thanked Mr B, and took my leave of grandma with the intention of returning someday.

Previous: Paint the Town Rouge

Phnom Penh Part 1: Paint the Town Rouge

2011-12-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

Cambodia is like the teen starlet who has just been discovered by an adoring public: everyone wants something from her, but not everyone wants what is best for her. -- Lonely Planet Travel Guide

Evidently, this teen starlet has a laid-back, pot-smoking grandmother, and her name is Phnom Penh.

It was a spur of the moment thing, my going to Cambodia's capital -- which, by the way, is named after Grandmother Penh, a wealthy lady who built a Buddhist temple -- to visit Justin, now a reporter for an English-language newspaper there.

Happy Pizza, the main ganja-spiced delicacy. (Anthony Bourdain says it cures glaucoma.)

I went with just US$38 in my pocket, all in small denominations. I somehow survived those four days thanks to Justin, who lent me a room at his palatial third-floor apartment and spotted me for meals and many moto drives.

Cambodians accept the dollar and give riel in change. You can pay in both currencies. This seemed so strange to me throughout my trip and learned later that they use American currency because it had been more stable than the riel in the early days, as the country was just re-establishing itself after 20 years of genocide, and UN peacekeepers washed the capital with dollars as they monitored the nation's first general elections and the drafting of a new charter.

A counterfeit bill we found on the street. Someone had seemingly burned it to see if it was real. Benjamins burn orange.

I was shuttled from the airport by Mr. B, Justin's personal moto driver, who spoke impeccable English and joked that he had a Ph.D. in driving. Justin says he can also be counted on to act as a real-estate agent, sniffing out good deals on apartments, and as a personal grocery shopper.

Moto rides typically cost US$1 for short distances and US$3 for long ones. It helps to ask how much they will charge you before you get on the bike, because they might hike up the price after the fact. Many of them also come from villages and slum it out for a few days in unfamiliar territory to earn some money, and are thus prone to getting lost on the way. The house or lot numbers are a puzzle enough, not appearing in order on any given street.

Drivers are required by law to wear a helmet, but passengers are not.

I get welcomed to his joint.

Traffic rules here are only suggestions, with virtually no traffic lights, pedestrian crossings or road signs to guide the wayward driver. Jaywalking is common, and cars usually veer away from you anyway if you're standing in the middle of the street. Still, there are very few cars or motorcycles around the city, which probably lessens the chance of accidents. The only road mishap we encountered while there was when some guy in camouflage was distracted by my bare legs, as I straddled Mr. B's bike, and promptly crashed into an overpass wall.

That's me, smack in the middle of a four-way intersection, and no one gave a rat's ass.

For lunch, we first hit a beer garden near Justin's apartment for some soup and black pepper chicken. While I'd read that Cambodians aren't big on dining out -- indeed, save for a few party strips, you rarely see too many people out and about -- beer gardens seem to be the most happening spots among locals. I believe they come here to drink and have after-work or lunchtime office powwows.

Angkor, the watery national brew. You get used to it after a while.

Sweet and Sour soup

Chicken and mushrooms

Then we took a tuktuk (motorized rickshaw) to Riverside, a district comprising a strip of bars and shops right across the Mekong River, the spiritual heart of the city. This is where the Cambodian Foreign Correspondents' Club is located (seemingly devoid of journos and definitely less uptight than its Hong Kong counterpart) as well a row of Happy Pizza places.

As we lounged at one of the Riverside bars, watching papery old expats suspiciously cart around Cambodian children in frilly dresses, Justin drafted a plan of action for my birthday the next day, most of which we accomplished.

Mekong River promenade, where families spend Saturdays and beggars ask for spare change.

The tuktuk (US$2 for three people, they'll charge you extra if you're hefty). Tour guide tuktuks can bring you to the Killing Fields, S-21 torture chambers and Royal Palace for around US$10.

Egg Rolls

We hit the markets that evening, which are all like any old wet market you can find in the Philippines. If you're living on the cheap, this is probably your best bet for extremely cheap seafood, usually grilled or fried (US$2 or less).

We also met up with Justin's friend Olga (who was once in the US Navy!) from LanguageCorps, an English-teaching training program for expatriates. Every other person I met during my trip was either an English teacher or an engineer. Despite pre-gaming on tequilas and much, much later, downing successive shots at a popular dive called The Drunken Sponge, our English skills would remain perfect -- if a bit slurry.

I kept lunging over the counter to hug Martin, the British bartender at Sponge and the friendliest barman I have ever met so far. He even gave me free Jagerbombs for my birthday. After chugging this down, my next memory was waking up the next day in Justin's apartment.

That's me, harassing good-natured Martin.

Apparently I had blacked out in the wee hours of the morning and wasn't fully conscious when: I tore up the dance floor at a bar called Heart of Darkness (yes, the Joseph Conrad reference is intentional), smashed a glass of whiskey Coke as part of my repertoire, left my bag at the bar such that my friends had to come back for it and moseyed back to the Drunken Sponge for more alcohol. I also made out with the toilet. So I turned 25 pretty much the way I always wanted -- shielded from the harsh reality of aging alone in a foreign land but grateful to be exploring a new part of Asia.

Next: Keeping It Riel

Farewell Dim Sum

2011-12-20T08:22:00.000-08:00

Sandy, my ex-roommate from New York, decides to halt her austere but rather healthy diet for one evening so we can enjoy some dim sum as we bid her farewell.

Aside from pre-game white wine and a little extras, here is what went down... our gullets. Favorites are the baked bun (soooo goooooood!) and the steamed water chestnut dumplings. Food can taste just as good when you're choking back tears.

Tim Ho Wan, the Dim Sum Specialists
Shop 12A, Below IFC Mall
One Michelin Star

Each serving, which varies from three to four pieces, are a steal, given it's less than HK$15 each. You can stuff yourself silly.

Xiu Mai

Beef Spring Roll

Steamed pork patty with egg over rice -- a Cantonese comfort food, apparently. There's a version at 7/11 that turned me off the dish forever, so I'm sad I didn't enjoy this as much.

Inside is glutinous rice with chicken

BEST BAKED PORK BUN IN HONG KONG. Crunchy on the outside, soft and savory on the inside. Loved it.

We mistakenly drank this, thinking it was tea, but it turned out to be just hot water. Usually serves a dual purpose of clearing your throat and washing your chopsticks.

Steamed sponge cake. Fluffy! For dessert, there's also black fungus, in case you're into that.

I think of Sandy and all the times we've bonded over food -- from take-out dinners at our shared apartment to getting picked up by Russians en route to a Cantonese chain that serves greasy comfort food that is perfect to ease our drunkenness -- and I can't think of anyone better to share a nice Hong Kong meal with. When she leaves tomorrow, the city will be a little less spunky. She will be missed.

If Families Were Sheep

2011-12-04T09:40:00.000-08:00

Shepherding four people with varying temperaments through four action-packed days in Hong Kong sounds pretty stressful, but it was a pleasant chore given this is my family we're talking about. (I love and tolerate them by default.)

Before I narrate our travails, let me just say I am so grateful for this city's excellent public transport, for which our plans would have never been possible: from the Airport Express that allowed me to meet them with time to spare 20 minutes after I rolled out of bed, to the navigable MTR and public buses, down to the slightly queasy Star Ferry to Kowloon.

At The Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island (1,800 feet).

Immediately upon their arrival and settling in respective accommodations, I treated them to what would be the most authentically Cantonese experience they could get: loud, bitchy and slightly traumatic. Thank god there's an overworked, mean-spirited waitress at Dumpling Yuan on Wellington Street (which made it to the Lonely Planet condensed guide, by the way).

While the pork and leek dumplings and spicy dork (theoretically the bastard offspring of duck and pig) were passably good, my littlest brother had to hide under his Adidas sweater because the waitress yelled at us to sit in specific tables with strangers, threw our bowls on the table and also berated my mother when she was informed she had failed to take down one order. Haha.

The upshot is that we all felt more amenable to an expensive meal at Bubba Gump Shrimp at Victoria Peak later in the evening. We reached the chilly summit by taking the open-top, double-decker Bus No. 15C to the Peak Tram station along Garden Road, and the rickety, century-old tram up to the Victoria shopping complex.

My lady parts froze because I was wearing a dress.

You have to climb up several floors to get to the viewing deck, which promises a 360-degree view of the entire Hong Kong Island, passing by plenty of souvenir shops, restaurants and the odd candy store. We even swung by Miniche, a capitalist-appropriated socialist enterprise featuring a variety of hoodies and sweaters with cartoon Che Guevaras on the front, where I bought everyone merchandise as an early Christmas present. But for the moment, we were enjoying a hearty meal at Forrest Gump's dream come true. Though I doubt he imagined the Hong Kong skyline.

Bucket O' Shrimp

Shrimp Caesar Salad

Creamy Seafood Baked Rice

Pudding a la Mode

It was probably about 10 degrees up there, so we had to recuperate from mild frostbite. Fortunately, the next day promised to be sunnier and sweatier with a planned trip to a theme park. We opted for Ocean Park instead of Disneyland since it was closer to Central and had a lot more interesting attractions (pandas!). I'd also read and heard poor reviews of Disneyland, which is smaller than its American original and tends to be packed with annoyingly testy mainlanders, Chinese society's noveau riche.

Riding the cable car to the two-island Ocean Park complex.

We particularly enjoyed the lovely aquarium, which was quite more well-maintained than the ocean park in Manila. Bigger Brother made it a point to visit some sturgeon (the gangsters of the sea and billed as living fossils, since they have not changed for millenia) while we all marveled at the manta rays that were even larger than my shag carpet. The giant octopus also looked delicious -- if only they were battered and deep-fried!

Manta ray testicles?

The Panda enclosure was a little depressing, though, because the animals seemed so lonely and showed signs of mental illness (pacing back and forth in a particular pattern, over and over). To ease the sadness, we sampled some rides, which were surprisingly fun, and I must confess I even got queasy on the simple Flying Swing. It was good, then, that we'd eaten early at The Terrace Cafe, which offered scenic views of Repulse Bay and some Outlying Islands. Sufficiently digesting simple Western fare, saved some innocent Chinese children getting splattered with our vomit on one of the roller-coaster loops.

Osso Bucco, which means "bone with a hole" but really is just veal shank.

Terrace Burger

Iced Latte, as I was fast running out of energy.

Wiped out on the bus ride to Causeway Bay, where I abandoned them for the day so I could work.

I learned later that they had sneaked in some dinner at Causeway's Din Tai Fung, a famous cooking oil company turned dumpling specialty house that is one of a handful of Hong Kong's 10,000 plus restaurants that has a Michelin Star. The family of course had to stage a repeat of the meal for my benefit when we went to Kowloon the next day, where Din Tai Fung's original branch is located.

There are long lines to get a table at this Shanghainese restaurant, but it is worth the almost orgasmic pleasure of biting into their savory soupy dumplings (xiao long bao), particularly their most expensive dumpling dish, Black Truffle Xiao Long Bao, which explodes in your mouth with heavenly juices. It's HK$168 (US$22) for six pieces; I highly recommend it. (There was a Din Tai Fung in Jakarta, but I don't recall it being as good as this one.) The satisfaction of having a good meal gave them enough energy to shop for bargains at Granville Road, where a lot of fellow Filipinos congregate to buy pasalubong.

As orgasmic as dumplings can be.

With a little black vinegar (a Chinese specialty) and ginger.

My mother swooning.

Spring rolls

Fried rice with scallops

Garlic spinach

My xiao long bao supports Aids awareness.

Day Four, the final day, saw me and my brother oversleep after getting tipsy on Tsingtaos and exessively spicy noodles at my favorite dai pai dong along Queen's Road Central, effectively canceling any plans to go to Stanley Market. Unwashed, bleary-eyed me ended up just settling the hotel bill (and finding out after the fact that the hotel had a restaurant with two Michelin stars) and then hauling them instead to Stanley Street, home of ramen and vintage camera shops, where Dad and Brother had a brief argument about where to eat.

Gourmet Burger Union, which has several branches around Central, has zippy, perhaps mildly racist, names for their sandwiches (G.B.U. Kick Ass, Jimmy the Greek, Southern Swine) and allows diners to "build their own burger." It also claims its beef is ground from the remains of a cow that had lived a happy life, fed with grass, roaming the fields freely and reared naturally.

Double truffle burger with Gruyere cheese

Angry Mofo

Very spicy Chili

Onion rings

Chicken Caesar Salad

This isn't a tourist attraction, but I did let them catch Maids' Day Out, a very poignant day for domestic workers here. They all congregate on walkways, sidewalks or under bridges where they gossip, play cards, catch up or enjoy home-cooked Filipino/Indonesian meals on their one day of freedom for the week. It might annoy some of the posher crowds who like their pavements untainted by the masses, but I think it's a nice reminder that there are people toiling away for their families back home.

Anyone who's had family come visit knows the pressure of herding people around town and the effort it takes to show them a good time (it's a plus if they're cooperative, like my family). But after all the craziness, the sneaking naps in the bathrooms at work from sheer exhaustion, the foot blisters -- just five words from my dad and a pat on the back made it all worth it. "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

Smashing Pumpkins

2011-11-25T22:47:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I like to prove to myself that I am capable of things only bored suburban housewives can do -- such as carving out tiny pumpkins I chance upon in the Park 'n' Shop. Surprisingly, I have carving capabilities.

Staring at that gaping, yellow void, I decided to fill it with pasta from the pumpkin remains as well as a few turkey bits I had left in the fridge (in Thanksgiving spirit? Why am I celebrating it? I'm not American). The result was pretty delicious -- at least, the neighbor's tabby cat thought so.

This recipe is based on one by Rachel Ray.

Smashing Pumpkin Pasta
The innards of a small, murdered pumpkin
1 cup turkey bits or Italian sausage (or both, housewives like them meaty)
1/4 cup whipped cream cheese
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 cup white wine
1/4 cup garlic Jack cheese cubes (or Gouda)
1/4 pack of fettuccine
Chopped parsley
Salt, pepper

Instructions:

Heat olive oil in pan and toss in the turkey bits. Fry until brown. Remove from pan and place in bowl. Set aside.
In same oil and pan, saute garlic and onions until soft. Then stir in pumpkin and white wine. Reduce mixture until thick and wait for pumpkin to soften. Stir in cream cheese until fully melted and then toss in the meat. Season with salt and pepper.
Cut Jack cheese into smaller cubes and place in until melted. Set mixture aside.
Cook pasta to al dente, drain and combine noodles and sauce.
Try to stuff pasta into tiny pumpkin hole. Serve hot and with cold, cold beer.

Nest Like You Mean It

2011-11-13T10:26:00.001-08:00

This is the apartment I inherited (sub-letted?) from my good friend Justin, who just moved to Cambodia to work for an English daily. It's pleasant knowing the person who lived there before you, especially if the person is someone you adore. As he said, it's good "keeping it in the family."

***A note about HK's housing crunch. It's not really the lack of space per se that is the problem -- the city is only 25 percent developed compared with New York which is 75 percent developed. I know, it's ridiculous how much green space is unseen to the Hong Kong Island dweller, but it's there! The problem, as chief executive Donald Tsang said in his policy speech last month, is that so many homeowners are leaving their apartments and houses vacant, since they accrue value that way. This means at any given time, Hong Kong has around 25,000 living spaces sitting empty. That's even more than what the government has promised to build for its subsidized housing scheme by 2015.
There have been proposals to tax homeowners who keep their properties unused to give them incentive to sell or rent out. But I don't see political pressure hurting the city's notorious real estate monopolies, who obviously benefit from soaring prices and superficial lack of supply, and would keep it that way.

That's me, doing arabesques by the window -- just to freak out the neighbors.

Coming from a really cramped apartment, it's pretty nice to have some breathing room. I can create a wind tunnel by opening the window next to the bed and the glass door leading to the balcony (a rarity in Hong Kong!), which means I don't have to use the A/C that often.

I'm also digging the slightly tacky, 1970s furniture and appliances. The microwave and washing machine seem ancient, with a cheese grater-like contraption in its laundry receptacle, and the closet seems like it came straight out of a low-end casino hotel. The bathroom's pretty retro too, with yellow tiles that remind me of the shade mah-jong playing cubes come in.

I've burned myself a few times with the hot water.

My bathroom mirror gives triple the vanity.

The usual clothespile

I bought a plant at the Japan Home Center across the street to spruce up the balcony a bit, though I'm worried it's going to die on me soon because I don't really know how to take care of it. Its neighbor, a plastic orchid that I think came with the place even before Justin moved in, is more resilient and pops at me with aggressive fuschia whenever I come out to the balcony to gaze at the wall of skyscrapers.

For the first time in my adult life, I also got myself a bedside lamp from this place just down Caine Road called Allure Living Company that sells "contemporary" (read: slightly expensive and most of the time useless) decorations and furniture. Though I really like the lamp, it's metal and warms up after a while, providing a good heating source for my hands when it gets nippy. And other girly accents.

Belgian Waffle coasters. They even smell syrupy!

The day's paper? Nope! It's a place mat for the dinner table. They have a French version, which I contemplated getting, but didn't because I don't want to feel confused when I'm eating breakfast.

I have two neighbors, excluding the landlady who lives at the far end of the hall. Both of them are male and I have yet to make my presence known. I did meet Ryan, the former banker turned couch potato, who refused to give us some rolling paper and whom we caught watching "Jerry Maguire" with his condescending male "friend" once. As far as I know, the other guy is perennially absent and Ryan is perennially present, judging by how much he watches TV at full volume.

One major snag is that I have yet to meet said landlady, who only speaks Cantonese. While Justin says she prefers girls (by this we mean tenants), she might freak out if she suddenly finds tampons in the trash bin coming from a supposed boy's apartment. So I'm thinking of a good approach, apart from staging a puppet show, to explain the new living situation -- and without getting kicked out.

Because I truly am loving living here. It's a perfect place to nest.

Sequel to: How to Find Cheap Apartments in Hong Kong and South of Hollywood Road

Scorecard

2011-11-13T07:17:00.001-08:00

I like Hong Kong because:

Codeine can be bought off the counter.

Your drug dealer is Pakistani and periodically checks if you're okay.

You can set your watch to the public transport system, barring accidents or the end of the world.

They charge you 50 HK cents for every plastic bag you have to use when buying groceries. And then you're forced to realize carrying two pounds of shrimp and 24 cases of beer under your arm is humanly possible. Go green!

It's okay to run around with roller suitcases at any time of the day or night, since everyone will assume you're just moving in to a new flat or you're on a shopping spree (you need space for the turnips and designer clothing) -- and not because you're en route to a landfill to dump the remains of that dead hooker.

Coins can actually be used to pay for things here, down to 10 cents.

You can walk the streets drinking a beer and no one will arrest you.

It's perfectly alright for you to talk to yourself in public. Just pretend like you're one of the legions with cellphone headsets perpetually plugged to one ear.

There is merit in indifferent, self-sufficient workaholics. At least you get plenty of alone time, without anyone groping you or nosing into your secret meth operation. And if you miss the rowdiness, you can always ply them with a cheap bottle of Tsingtao.

Four-year-olds, groomed from birth to excel in everything, can probably do your taxes for you.

They trust you enough to sell giant bottles of Hennessy at any of 2,000 7-Elevens along your street.

I hate Hong Kong because:

They sell tissue paper in sets of 64 even if you only want one.

Rents are ridiculous!

The only time you can get bang for your buck is during Happy Hour. But sometimes they water it down anyway.

Sexual harassment is off the charts. Partly because the majority of men are spoiled for choice and tend to treat women like parking spaces.

Fake eyelashes.

It's considered impolite if you don't scream into your phone in rapid Cantonese while on public transport, in a cramped elevator or crapping in a bathroom stall. You just made the eavesdroppers' day, after all.

Chinese boys in tights.

Four-year-olds, groomed from birth to excel in everything, can probably do your taxes for you.

Most women are high-maintenance sticks who sneer at you when you're not wearing fur-lined boots at the height of summer -- as Karl Lagerfield demands.

Spicy Mama

2011-10-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

My first brush with Kowloon, the cheaper and seedier of Hong Kong's main islands, was fortunately a soft landing for tight-skirted me, since I had my friend Nathan Griffiths welcome and usher me past the leery grandfathers and middle-aged men.

I only got a passing view of Temple Street, which I plan to explore soon, and the road lined with curbside karaoke "bars" and fortune tellers. The junction of these streets is a popular meeting place for junkies.

We chose to dine at Spicy Mama, a traditional Sichuan restaurant, which means the dishes are spicy. It was just as well that we got the secluded area where the A/C was going full-blast, because we could at least sample both temperature extremes.

Sliced barbecued beef in chili

Cucumbers and mushrooms in chili

Minced pork and green beans in (surprise) chili. This was my choice and it was excellent.

The waiter informed us that each spicy dish had 7 levels of hotness, with one being the least spicy and seven being a trip to the hospital. We went for Spiciness Level 4, which was a smart choice because, at that rate, the food instantly cleared my sinus and compelled me to reach for successive tall glasses of ice-cold beer to wash it down.

There were a few ill-chosen dishes, such as the fish soup. My Belgian friend Joe, a big connoisseur who talks about food incessantly WHILE eating food, thought it would be something he'd tried in Sichuan province, sort of a Tom Yam-type thing with crispy fillets on top. But ours turned out to be this assortment of broiled whole fish parts, lemongrass, bean sprouts and a tiny nest of noodles buried under the sour stock. Did I mention it was sprinkled with fried chilis?

There was also the winner, a baked clam dish that wasn't as spicy as the others. It's been Spicy Mama's crowning glory for decades until, as the waiter told us, some other restaurant copied the recipe and usurped them. No idea what those counterfeit clams taste like, but ours was pretty good -- creamy (a rarity in lactose-intolerant China), slightly salty and herby.

As a testament to the spiciness of the food and the arctic blasts of the air-conditioning, an intertropical convergence zone fogged up Nathan's glasses.

Bar None

2011-10-10T04:32:00.000-07:00

The things I experience before blacking out.

Spilling my beer on the barmaid that first evening probably set the tone for other stops at The Derby, a pub right across our office and so named because it is next to the Happy Valley Racecourse. The barmaid, Joanna, is always caustic and obtrusive that it makes you wonder if she smokes crack in the keg-filled back room. She told me off for ruining her T-shirt, even if my colleagues insisted that she should smell like alcohol, given her profession.

Once, on a Wednesday (when they usually have a Filipino band over for open-mic night), she kept on rubbing the stubble on my Scottish co-worker Kenny, whom she started calling "Monkey Buddy." He told me later she also grabbed onto his elbow one night and asked, "Girlfriend?"

She is, among the staff, the most insistent about closing the place at 2a.m., although I'm proud to say we kept it open until 6 a.m. because Kenny, patron saint of metallurgy, rang the brass bell on the bar out of happiness, but was later informed that he had to buy everybody in the bar a shot of whiskey.

Thus began a series of bell-ringing, which fueled the night further into hazy territory, though I distinctly remember that the bartender himself got drunk and passed out on the floor in a heap of elderly Chinese bodies, and that his wife would grimace every time someone made it like Quasimodo.

If you've ever been an alcoholic in this region, then you've probably seen your fair share of rotund, red-faced Caucasians either groping or being groped by Asian girls in ridiculous prom dresses. This was the sort of crowd out and about the night I went to The Globe, a fairly nice bar/resto in Central. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed playing Spot-the-Hooker almost as much as I enjoyed the delicious pie, and the unsolicited compliments from the friendly female bar owner, who flitted about in her glittery shirt, scribbling new menu items on chalkboards.

Ale, onion and chicken pie (allegedly handmade by the cookie-cutting chef), Boston baked beans and chips. Malt vinegar on the side.

It was a twin celebration that evening: Happy Hour (and this city takes this golden hour as seriously as they do geomancy) and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. So we bought the cheapest red wine on the menu, proceeded to get slammed on a variety of discount cocktails and the porcine man occupying two bar stools, with a girl's hand down his ass crack, suddenly seemed funny.

Perhaps the most interesting bar character I have met so far -- apart from the Nepalese bartender at SoHo Corner who told me his entire life story in three minutes flat and the shady casino owner who went on a twisted sales pitch to try and bed me -- is Ivan, the Chinese bartender at Ivan the Kozak down Hollywood Road. It is for all intents and purposes a seedy, dark, authentic Russian restaurant that serves a wide selection of crappy vodka and cold set lunches, but is really, I speculate, just a place for Ivan to hide from his alleged Ukrainian wife. We know this because he gets shifty when asked about how he met her, seems clueless about the liquor he offers ("It's very smoot, yes?" to something that can best be described as gasoline) and plays Kenny G. in a loop.

You can buy bottles here for around HK$200.

Ox tongue, a Jewish delicacy. Eating it is how you would imagine making out with a dead cow would feel like, only better.

Still, he was very eager to serve -- probably because we were the only two people there -- and his attempt at a passable Russian accent was both sad and hilarious. The occasion was special to me because it's the only time I was close to passing out from drunkenness at 2 in the afternoon, after which I found myself at Chungking Mansions, talking to some Nigerians and a Pakistani, with only a vague idea of how I got there.

I once made a joke about bringing a child to a bar on the pretense that I was going to find him/her a daddy. It turns out this can happen, particularly at the Wagyu Lounge (sequel to Wagyu Restaurant) down Old Bailey Street. The night in question saw two very healthy British children eating their pasta as the suggestion of sex swirled all around them. What charmed me most, however, was a kid in a Spiderman costume almost collapsing in his chair from after-midnight exhaustion as his mother and her friend sipped cocktails. I almost wished the mother prodded him with a stick, saying, "Hey. Don't sleep. You have to fight the Green Goblin tonight."

Deep-fried Camembert cheese, which I eventually regurgitated.

The booths at Wagyu are a little cramped, so there was plenty of jostling to get to the bathroom. To be safe, I asked my immediate neighbor, a rather strapping middle-aged New York restaurant owner, how big his personal bubble was and if I could invade it. His dinner companion, who looked like a paunchier Michael McKean, would have made a good dish for my gay friend if not for his pairing bright red Crocs with plaid cargo shorts. The staff are friendly, and even gave us a free extra pint of watered-down Margarita when our pitcher ran out.

A drink called "Dark and Stormy," which I thought would match my mood that day, but I was disappointed to find it light and airy.

There are certain establishments here that try to be conceptual and memorable, rather than traumatic. There is an interesting hole-in-two-floors bar called Senses, which is hard to find because it doesn't advertise itself. If the surrealists and modernists started cohabiting, got into a fierce battle and trashed an apartment, this would be it.

I am holding a painting made with ketchup, and Colin is kissing a mannequin, one of three littering the area with their emo haircuts and bleeding blank eyes.

There are mismatched chairs and tables, a circle of armchairs in one corner where some Chinese dudes passed out while listening to jazz on the Hi-Fi, and upstairs are some instruments that anyone can pick up and play at any given time; necessitating the existence of a Hi-Fi because many come here in the mistaken belief that they have musical abilities. The anything-goes vibe does have its hazards, though, with my friend Kylie refusing to return because she almost got hit by a falling flower pot knocked from the second-floor balcony.

Another interesting spot is XXX in Sheung Wan, whose suggestive name belies the nonexistence of bare breasts and pole-dancing. It's really just somebody's basement, with sticky floors, a few couches and good reggae songs. Entrance is HK$100, you must bring your own beer (cheaper, when you think about it), and try not to get entranced by the 80s dance video projected onto one of the blank walls. The night we went for Nathan's going-away party, I spent some time on the leather couch with Justin, waiting for our friends to show and feeling like it was high school all over again, when you stumble into a cool party and find out you weren't really invited.

On the upside, I got the authoritarian DJ, who seemed to like seeing his crowd stumble as he transitioned between songs, to play "Mr. Bombastic." And I met the beautiful African-American operations manager, James, from San Francisco. We invented a dance called the "beer grind" -- difficulty level 6 -- wherein two dancers must grind while keeping their beer cans touching at all times. It was a hit among three people for about 2 minutes.

If you like, as I do, to drink with pigeons, Cochraine's (do not say "cock rings") along Hollywood Road is just your poison. The main draw is its selection of craft beers -- but Happy Hour comes a little watered down, if you know your gin -- and the endless baskets of roasted peanuts. Customers are encouraged to leave the shells on the floor, which keeps the pigeons happy. No idea if anyone's gotten bird shit on them yet.

Our bird-brained drinking buddies.

There are other happening spots, of course: the weird block parties at Lan Kwai Fong, where every square inch of street contains discarded bottles and beautiful people; the charming seediness of Old China Hand in Wan Chai; or the raging rugby matches at pubs lining Shelley Street. This has been my education in Asahi, Boddington's creamy head, champagne-like Blackthorn, Soderberg, and the love-hate relationship people have with the local brew, Tsingtao.

I think the most positive change so far from Jakarta's bar scene is that I am drinking now not to drown my sorrows or to take the edge off the city, but to actually savor the superficial liberation that liquor gives before one falls unconscious and tries again the next day.

Fortress of Solitude

2011-10-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

This is the man I've chosen to help me kill those inner demons I've been nursing quite deftly all these years.

I know I'm at a bad place because my first instinct when I walked into his office and saw the tin of cookies, the strategically placed box of Kleenex and the assorted yoga books propped up in such a way that they look like miniature Indian men in loincloths are meditating on every available surface -- I wanted to knock everything over.

But I settled on his comfy armchair and listened to him listen to me, as he probed my mind with a series of open-ended questions and scribbled my responses. He quotes me verbatim and I hope I'm making good reading material.

He says I've been grieving over the loss of a fantasy and that all the people who make me feel bad are just as good as figments of my imagination at this point. He says I set myself up for failure and damage while in Jakarta because I chose pointless, hurtful activities. He agrees all problems are existential.

He recommends yoga, exercise, meditation and doing fun things. He says I can learn to be mindful and to filter the things that hold my attention. He went on a lengthy exposition about the merits of a certain Dr. Kornfield who can slip into my subconscious with his baritone audio tapes. I am at least mildly disappointed that he didn't prescribe Lithium or Prozac. Perversely, it makes me want to work hard to deserve a plastic vial of antidepressants.

I like him, he's one of those affable New York Jewish-raised men with glasses, a full beard and an irrepressible positive attitude that makes you want to punch him. I'll be speaking to him twice a month, for an hour and a half each session, until I get better -- at which point I could be one with the friggin universe.

Cafe Batavia

2011-09-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

This post is long overdue.

The first time I went to Cafe Batavia in Kota Tua was with someone from work. It was a hot day, on Indonesia's Independence Day no less, so walking into the blessedly air-conditioned two-story building -- one of the few actually being renovated in the crumbling but pretty Dutch quarter -- was great. We had pretty good Bloody Marys and I stared at his mildly obscene egg and lamb sausage sandwich as red-and-white fluttered out the windows.

The second time was when my parents came to visit me in November, and my Dad -- fresh from a tour of South Africa -- downed two steaks and kept on teasing the waiters. It's just his way.

The third time was when me and my friends got drunk at Stadium then Exoltis for Adam's birthday and we stumbled into the street at 7am, tired and hungry. A tall Japanese-American named Sterling who partied with us (bringing whiskey in a mineral water bottle to pass it off as iced tea) had Cafe Batavia open early and I drank another Bloody Mary plus Pocari Sweat, which I promptly threw up when I got home.

The fourth and last time was with my brother, after we looked at a puppet museum across the street and before I lost my wallet at a Deftones concert that night. The food is OK, the decor is kind of crazy but the atmosphere is genteel. Plus, who can beat the men's restroom, where floor to ceiling mirrors serve as urinals and portals to testicular inspection.

Inside Cafe Batavia's men's room -- where you pee against this wall, hopefully when no one else is there.

Notary Services in Hong Kong

2011-09-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

This is just an FYI for anyone sort of used to going to those hole-in-the-wall notary publics wearing cheese-stained suits and who charge you just US$3 for a stamp and a signature. Hong Kong is the exact opposite.

You have to set an appointment with a solicitor, through their ultra-efficient secretaries, since lawyers here often double as notaries. The highest they can charge you per document, depending on the nature of it and whether it needs further review by a higher court, is HK$2,000 (US$250).

If this seems a tad too expensive for you, as it did for me, you can check the Hong Kong Society of Notaries for listings and fees. There's also this gentleman, Hon. Robin Bridge, a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong who later focused solely on notary public services. He takes the time to review the nature of your document and explains options on how best to go about it. All of them respond pretty quickly to e-mail inquiries.

Consuls also provide notarial services, including the Philippine consul in Admiralty, which charges upwards of HK$200, but you have to set an appointment and present other documents. It could be a hassle, knowing my country's red tape.

In the end, I went with Yip, Tse & Tang in Wanchai, which charged me around HK$800 (US$102) for a 10-minute session with their notary public. I appreciated the office's green velvet paneling and their laminated oath-taking cue cards. And then I bought a cheeseburger to celebrate.

South of Hollywood Road

2011-09-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

As cordial welcomes go, the first thing my former Chinese roommate said to me when I got home from the late shift was if I stole her shampoo. I did, but that's not the point. Nevertheless, she turned out to be quite pleasant in the total 20 minutes that I saw of her before she moved out, taking her electricity-wasting habits with her.

Evidently, she'd been rooming with her husband from Guangzhou and may have given birth in our midst because she suddenly appeared with an infant while I was en route to the communal bathroom. It took me about a day to figure out there was an actual baby in the house, which explained the cans of formula milk and the pacifiers.

Now, I am left with a Chinese-Italian engineering intern who hates beer but loves vodka and a Taiwanese-American law exchange student from New York whose heart broke when she heard the other girl hated beer. I get along fine with Italy, who spends about four hours at dawn washing truckloads of clothes in the washing machine we keep next to the sink in our kitchen.

Sandy speaks fluent Mandarin, loves dark beer and has broached the idea of rooming in a nicer 2-bed with me.

I get along more splendidly with New York, whose quirky observations (notice, for example, that Hong Kong University students hug sideways) and dry wit make for interesting conversations. The other day, she had lunch with me at a Japanese restaurant, manned by a jovial waiter with a mutated thumb. She also gave me a quick tour of the HKU campus and cafeteria, and we mistakenly walked into a museum attached to one of the school buildings while we were looking for a bathroom.

Wood carvings. We're contemplating furnishing our dump with needless ornaments such as this one. This one would look good next to the broken clock in the foyer.

Our apartment is deliberately horrendous -- tiny spaces, IKEA furniture and a strange kitchen where the hot plate doubles as shelf space for a toaster and rice cooker -- but it's cozy. I got jealous the other day when my NY roommate and I were walking out and we saw quite a bit of our neighbor's flat while he was hauling a LaZ-Boy inside. It had nice furniture, a gleaming kitchen and a murderous Doberman sitting on the carpet. I wanted to knock him dead with the trash bin and take up his space.

It's like living in a college dorm all over again, but it's a funny living situation. They could both be axe murderers for all I know, which is why I still make it a habit to keep my door locked. And it could be worse, really. I could be living in Causeway Bay in a flat full of aspiring actresses and models, being in a purely commercial neighborhood without interesting nooks and crannies I could explore.

Sometime, I'm going on a photo tour to do my neighborhood's beauty some justice.

Soho, Central, is probably one of the best areas you could hope for. It's a 3-minute walk to every cool pub, restaurant, vintage clothing shop, antiques store, wet market and dai pai dong. It's got steep inclines that offer picturesque upskirt views. And I'm loving the fact that when I'm stumbling home drunk at 4 in the morning, I basically have to rock-climb to the Mid-Levels, burning off all those calories, and vomit upward until I get to my doorstep.

Finding Cheap Apartments in Hong Kong

2011-09-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

Difficult but not impossible. Rents are pretty high at the moment (at least US$1,100 for something decent) and all you can really hope for if you want to live in the city and don't have enough cash for a penthouse suite is a tiny matchbox some call coffins or cages.

If you have a bit of cash tucked away in your sock, you might want to start with serviced apartments, which cost an average of HK$11,000. As my friend put it, "they're mad $$$ but comfortable." They usually offer maid service and facilities like health clubs and pools. Lease requirements vary, and it might be hard to get a spot. Good examples of comparatively affordable ones are the very modernist Urban Cube and 112 Apartments. Don't rely on pictures alone.

Part of the reason cage is such a good description are the gates on apartment complexes here. They're pretty much metal grills with a lock on them.

But if you want it on the cheap, (say less than HK$6,000 a month) it's going to be a bit more difficult. Good places to start looking are Craigslist (Hong Kong's is not as popular or sleazy); Hong Kong Geoexpat, a community forum for Hong Kongers and foreigners living here; and my favorite, EasyRoommate, which helps you search for apartments within your budget and random people to share flats or houses with. SquareFoot is also helpful as it allows you to screen based on price ranges, locations and -- you got it -- square feet.

You'll probably hear about Chungking Mansions. It's no longer crack den-type rooms after a recent overhaul, but do expect to come home to drug deals in your lobby as well as possibly having to share with a stranger. Expect something like US$100 a day, on average.

Savvy landowners usually list on websites. Others just rely on people off the street. But in general, property agencies are a booming trade. You'll find at least one in every neighborhood. They are usually glass offices plastered with posters advertising rooms or apartments for rent or for sale.Less reputable agents are known to charge "agency fees" even if you haven't signed a deal yet. Most will be happy to take you around for free.

Because space is a premium, landowners try to squeeze as much money as possible from every square foot. Hence the practice of subdividing flats, which can be a fire hazard. Just something to consider. These "subdivisions" were pretty much what I was shown when I was shopping around. Agents would respond to my e-mail inquiries, call me to schedule a viewing and then take me to the room in question.

A room I was shown in Causeway Bay. The size of the bed is an indication of how spacious the room was. I didn't take it, though, because it was only available a week after I was gonna get kicked out of the hotel.

Another Causeway Bay room, which was in a good building at a prime location and whose best features included a private curtained toilet and the fact my roommates would be fashion 'models'. However, this was shown to me by a Filipino agent, whose insistence that I make a decision within an hour put me off.

I was advised by a friend to ask what was included in the monthly rent in order to uncover hidden charges. They don't usually tell you, for instance, that there is a required deposit of around HK$3,000 or a room key deposit of around H$K300. It's always good to factor those into your budget. Basic amenities you can expect: bed (with linens), desk, closet, air-conditioner, WiFi, communal lounge, shared bathroom, dirty kitchen.

Melissa was pretty straightforward with me about costs, which is why I transacted with her. Plus the Mid-Levels cage I now I call home is conveniently located within Soho, Central, a hilly and rich neighborhood filled with cool bars and restaurants. It's my express desire to affiliate with the alcoholics.

Up the escalator...

Down this quiet street...

And you get to my door.

One downside is that you can't screen your flatmates. When I went to Melissa's office to sign the one-month lease agreement (not a common practice, I hear, but it's nice to have because the terms and penalties are clear), she told me a bit about my new roomies. It's sketchy at best, but I looked in the communal fridge today and saw a few vodka and gin bottles, so I know I can get along with at least one of them.

Our 'lounge'

Our kitchen -- where the laundry machine is.

The hardships don't end with the search. Moving in is a challenge for normal-sized people with huge suitcases. Mid-Levels is particularly hard to get to because it's forbidding to taxis (they simply can't bring you to your doorstep) and a lot of buildings, like mine, do not have elevators. This is why I ended up soaking my shirt by lugging my giant Samsonite up to my room. Also, getting home is an uphill climb. One of these days, I'm going to stumble backward and roll all the way to Hollywood Road.

But here I am, paying just HK$4,800 in monthly rent for an IKEA cave in one of the nicest parts of town, so I'm pretty happy. Better than sleeping on the streets.

My neighborhood.

Whoa-a I'm an Alien, I'm a Legal Alien

2011-09-09T02:49:00.000-07:00

I almost didn't get here. I was, for about 20 minutes, barred from leaving my country by a series of very courteous but firm airport officials who said I lacked a certain certificate. They were all telling me how I needed to rebook my flight and wait another week for said document as horrific scenes flashed through my head of yet more 17-hour naps at home and explaining to my employer that I would be delayed again.

For a moment, I considered trudging back home with my two suitcases and simmering in defeat. Then came a loophole: a lady officer told me I could try making my flight, but that there was a strong chance Immigrations might question me about going as a tourist when there was already a work visa stamped on my passport, and face stiff penalties. I focused on that steaming heap of dumplings waiting for me in HK and risked it. It also helps to notice which officers are friendly (or distracted) and which seem likely to cuff you.

With a nervous smile, I got through. And I made my flight. And I got into HK without a hitch. And I got to my hotel relatively unscathed. Even had time to walk up and down Causeway Road, eat at a 7/11, make futile phone calls to home, read some David Sedaris at a public park and a cool library, go to an art exhibit and go drinking with some friends near Soho. All on my first day.

I come here at a time when diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Hong Kong/China are shaky and I was warned that I might get a cool reception. But I find that's not the case -- in fact I'm quite popular with liver-spotted elderly Chinese men. I also moved at a time when the US dollar was devalued, effectively shrinking my savings. But my arrival was also opportune: shops are all having end-of-summer sales.

I'll admit, it's not a nice feeling to dribble snot and tears onto a butch-looking overseas employment official's desk as she feigns interest (maybe even pity). It sure as hell isn't good to start your move with a note of illegality. But from where I'm standing (the 16th floor of a Causeway Bay hotel), I'm thinking that whatever crap happens to me here, at least I fought to be where I am. Cue the fireworks.

My first meal was microwaveable. Also burned my tongue.

My first train ride. An old woman who thought I was Japanese helped me buy an Octopus card (essential for HK$150) and showed me how to reload it on machines.

This is a warning sign at Statue Park in Central. Notice the Tagalog translation.

This was my first drink. It's got a nice logo I am contemplating having tattooed on my person. The plan is to get beer logo tattoos in every city I live in, like an alcoholic travel trunk.

My first acquaintances. There's the girl whose Chinese name sounds like "testicle," the American who teaches digital media, the quiet one, and the girl with top-notch bestiality jokes.

An entry for world's largest lantern sculpture at Victoria Park.

My mug shot.

News Flash

2011-09-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

I just came up with an awesome superhero. Her name is Vaginosaur and she will run around the city, making all those stupid-ass dicks disappear.

Underemployment Book List

2011-08-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

Anthem by Ayn Rand
For the New Intellectual by Ayn Rand
I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
The Body Artist by Don Delillo
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Confession by John Grisham
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by Dr. John Gray (actually pretty helpful)
Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera
Dead Babies by Martin Amis
Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis
Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Embedded: Confessions of a TV Sex Journalist by Ross Dale
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (for closure)
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
A General Theory of Love by UCSF Researchers
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
Barrel Fever by David Sedaris
Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka

Seeking the following:

An Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Jack, Johnny and Jim

2011-08-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

A partial inventory of the things I ate while unemployed.

At Cajun Red Rock, you can have your food and drink it too. They've got Cajun bourbon ribs (Php 300 plus) and supreme espresso sauces, so I don't get why they don't serve alcohol at the mall outlet.

If you're interested, what is Cajun cuisine anyway? "In broad terms, Creole cooking is city cooking, based on French traditions, but with influences from Spain, Africa, Germany, Italy, the West Indies, etc. Cajun cooking is peasant food, the cooking the Acadians (later Cajuns) developed as they learned to live in the south Louisiana swamps. Creole food is more refined and subtler. Cajun food is pungent and more highly spiced." (Source: Ochef.com)

Tower of sesame rings - Php 195

Chicken Marsaaka With Creole-Style Mushroom Sauce - Php 260

Jack Daniels Chicken Steak - Php 310

Kids' Meal - Php 190

St. Patrick's Day Iced Tea

KKK restaurant in Manila, of the eponymous independence movement, promises to revolutionize food. I thought the decor was rather nice and I enjoyed eating here with the Butterball.

Spicy Squid

Kanin ng KKK

Presenting the Philippine jeepney

Random restaurant chains. I particularly enjoyed downing an entire pitcher of frozen margarita at the nearby Tia Maria.

With my cousin Mikey at the food depot.

Really crappy sausage sandwiches

Nachos

Said pitcher

Blue Cheese Burger at Brother's Burger

The quiche lorraine meal at Delifrance

Hotsilog (hotdog, sinangag or fried rice, itlog or egg) at Tides Bar, where the waiters are pretty spiffy and present random dances for entertainment.

From the Distillery, which has rapidly become the hotspot for poseurs. At real bars, you don't f-in stay prim and pretty.

My Aunt Tami and Uncle Nelson's favorite yakitori place, Nanbantei, has pretty interesting stuff. Love the bacon-wrapped skewered potatoes and the smoky rice cakes.

They don't look like much, but they're crispy and delicious!

Monsees Cafe, where my mom spent her birthday with her prayer group. It was a blessing that I just sat there and stuffed my mouth because I think I would've been pretty offensive. The cupcakes, though pretty, were as dry as the Old Testament.

Pasta Carbonara was really good.

Smoked beef quiches

Black on White

Ensaymada - a Spanish roll made better by my homeland. Of course.

Aaaand nothing beats anything served by the fam.

It takes two to make Vietnamese coffee. My cousin Basti and his wife, Nikki.

Lumpia!

Fried chicken

Bread pudding with chocolate sauce

Mussels with melted cheese

And for dessert, some gelato. Again, what is the difference between gelato and ice cream? This question had earlier been settled by the muscly man at Sol Gelato, but let's hear it from a foodie: "For a product to carry the label of “ice cream” in the US it has to have a minimum 10% fat content. Lower quality ice cream will be around 11 or 12%, while higher quality products will hit 16% and higher. Gelato is a different thing all together- since the milk-to-cream ratio is much higher, the fat content is significantly lower- anywhere between 3 and 8%." (Source: ItalyinSF.com)

I truly, truly like the fact that at Gelatissimo in Bonifacio High Street, they give you visual cues of what goes into the gelato, just in case you don't know what chocolate or a wedge of lemon pie looks like.

Mmmm... appetizing...

Blonde Ambition

2011-08-25T04:41:00.000-07:00

Typing in some super specific keywords, I found this gem of a site published by a media practitioner, looking back with wry humor on her experiences as a cub reporter in foreign lands, caught in the thick of Earth-shaking events as the Tiananmen massacre. It reads like something Hunter S. Thompson would write if he were female, pretty and if he didn't shoot himself. I hope the Hong Kong she knew in her mid-20s (about my age, too) is just as colorful today.

Her narratives also made me think about persisting in making it as a reporter at some point in the immediate future, despite all the wrong turns and brain-damaging excesses. Someday, I'd like to look back on my life and my collection of mostly drunken, priceless photos and think that I'd lived just as interesting a life.

Notes on Syria

2011-08-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

This is what fresh pistachios look like:

You have to peel off that rosy skin to reveal the inner shell, which is harder. Then you have to prise the shell open to reveal a cerise nut that tastes like nothing.

Four-Frame Stories

2011-08-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

Cult Burgers and Bacon-Rimmed Drinks

2011-08-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

Some new restaurant discoveries in Manila:

There's nothing like the smell of sizzling beef patties mingling with the scent of detergent from the car wash right next to it. Like Harold and Kumar, who finally gorged at White Castle, my brother and cousins profess to have had epiphanies while eating here, their mouths "raped" by the sandwiches (spoken of with reverence) and hallucinations of burger angels sliding down their throats in some ketchup-fueled trip.

Maybe it's the stand's reputed links to an illicit drug trade or the excellent Aioli sauce. I'm not down on my knees praying to the beef gods, but it was definitely high-quality stuff. I wouldn't mind taking lines of it for lunch.

Charlie's Angus Beef Burger With Grease-less Fries

Mikey claims N.Y. Buffalo Wings (a really tiny diner on the strip of bars and restaurants at the former Home Depot) is the best place for wings in the city. My brother, meanwhile, claims it's Bon Chon, which has more Asian barbecue-batter flavors like garlic soy sauce and spicy sesame. Not a fan of either, except Bon Chon has Hoegaardens for cheap ($3). Mikey also says he took home one of the diner waitresses, but didn't quite like the taste of her.

Soy garlic

Bon Chon Fish Tacos

Newly-opened 2NDS (Seconds) Restaurant at High Street, Fort Bonifacio, has a pretty ambitious menu (think tenderloin foie gras) and is the only swish place I can recall where I actually enjoyed dining for more than three hours (conversation gets in the way of chewing). I went with my cousin Basti and his wife, Nikki, who if you recall had a renegade wedding in San Diego. Not that this information will help you in life.

The restaurant itself is like walking into a rich dude's study where you can coincidentally feast on Filipino standards with a gourmet twist. The highlights were the Beef Rib Adobo, which made both Nikki and my brother swoon in porcine orgasms, the bourbon, served in a glass rimmed with crushed bacon, and Basti's cathartic realization that if he hadn't been a milkman/registered nurse (mutually exclusive), he would've wanted to be a lawyer.

Sweet-potato chips

The bacon-rimmed drink - P135 during happy hour (through 6:30 p.m.)

French onion soup - P255
Caramelized onion soup with port wine and crouton with melted Emmenthal cheese

Cornflake buffalo pops with blue-cheese dip - P 295

Triple Mushroom Risotto - P445
Enoki, shitake and button mushrooms drizzled with balsamic glaze and white truffle oil

Red Horse Fish and Chips - P395
Served with aioli and malt vinegar

Beef rib adobo - P495
Slow-braised beef with garlic

Packed Up

2011-08-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

And ready to go.

Theme Park in One Hour

2011-08-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

"You know, we can actually die on this ride. It can go off the rails and we have no seatbelts," I say.
Purple, white as a sheet, looks like she wants to punch me if she wasn't holding on to her seat for dear life.
Dufan, Ancol, Jakarta. 01.20.11

There are two things you need to know if you want to enjoy Jakarta's infamous theme park in Ancol, a massive entertainment complex near the coast: (1) you must come early and (2) some of the rides suck. On a rare break from copy-editing at the Globe, my friend and I traipsed off at 4 in the afternoon to Dufan, about a 40 minute cab ride from South Jakarta, to blow off some steam. We got lost mainly because we couldn't see any Ferris wheels or roller coasters in the distance. Turns out they're obscured by trees and aren't that tall to begin with.

The tickets cost Rp 150.000 and the attendant cheerfully informed us that we only had about an hour before closing time at 6 p.m. Purple was railing against this policy (What kind of theme park closes in the afternoon??!!) but we decided to sprint to the gate and manically try as many rides as possible. Here are some of them:

It's basically like Anchor's Away in Enchanted Kingdom (Philippines) though smaller. We sat near the edge, in front of the tranny-esque mermaid nailed to the mast and hence got a good view of the entire park during the upswings.

The look of speechless discomfort.

Desperate for a "decent water ride," Purple and I hop on this boat ride thinking it would be something like kayaking in the rapids. What we found instead was a creepy United Nations tour where you float along tiny canals flanked by dioramas of each country, starring costumed, moving Chuckie dolls and lusty-looking farm animals.

While all this is happening, there is a Bahasa version of "It's a Small World After All" blaring from the speakers. In a loop. Some of the installations were actually kind of racist. A word of warning: DO NOT look into the dolls' dead eyes.

This was actually fun even if Purple didn't want to go on the ride with me. She took some really good photos of me strapped to that metal stick, being tossed back and forth or whipped around like a hotdog in a washing machine. The girl next to me kept crying for her mommy and yelped when her shoes fell off. If you close your eyes, it feels far less frightening, like a gentle plane crash.

An upside-down upside-down photo of me on the Tornado.

We also tried another baby ride (caterpillar roller coaster) before we realized we were running out of time and Purple wanted to squeeze in a ride on Niagara, which to her was the REAL water ride. So we ran to the edge of the park, past a huge pyramid featuring a 3D show, across some snack stalls and over a bridge only to find that the ride was closed. So we contented ourselves by merely taking pictures with the park attraction.

Fuck you, ride.

When the park started closing down, we were shooed out by the security guards. The exits are conveniently located at the far end of a souvenir shop, where Purple bought us T-shirts which declared in silvery script what she thought of the entire experience: "The FUN is OVER." (She missed the word "not" in the middle.)

Bored and More

2011-08-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

Tool - The Gaping Lotus Experience

I had a friend once who took some acid
Now he thinks he's a fire engine
It's okay until he pisses on your lighter
Kinda smells, kinda cool, kinda funny anyway

Satan, Satan, Satan, Satan

I had a friend once who took some ecstasy
Tried to marry me and everyone in the room
He was sort of loving, kind of caring
Kind of tried to fuck my La-Z Boy
It got a bit messy all over the curtains
Armchair, throw pillows, curtains and carpet

Getting bored and more
Getting bored and more
Getting bored and more

Blue

2011-07-20T23:41:00.000-07:00

My friend Dave Watnick and his friends have come up with a really cool concept blog filled with short fiction about teenage love in America. It's a good read.

They recently put in sketches from their friend, and I tried my hand at one. Thinking of making more, since I'm bored and suddenly feeling nostalgic.

My Public Itinerary

2011-07-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

While in the Philippine capital, I would like to:

Visit the Hobbit Hole, this midget bar only I knew did not exist.
Watch Harry Potter and all other blockbusters I had missed during the film ban in Indonesia.
~~Visit Rosy's cantina~~.
Eat at Charlie's Burger, that place where my brother's mouth got raped.
~~Swing by Newsbreak~~
Explore other seedy bars.
Take a day trip to Baguio City
~~Go to a decent bookstore~~, where the titles are in English and the attendants know who Philip Roth actually is.
Get a part-time, menial job.
Learn basic ~~Mandarin~~ or Cantonese.

Anand and Kristine's Infinite Gullet

2011-07-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

I had the best roommate in the world in Jakarta, because one, I didn't speak to cats and two, he couldn't steal my boyfriend (I think). It was a pretty spectacular, calm, enjoyable six months at that flat in Taman Rasuna.

Apart from braiding each other's back hair and talking about the future of humanity over smokes, I was pretty lucky that Anand and I could bond over food. Having been the former managing editor of Time Out Jakarta, he had a knack for keeping up to date on new restaurants and bars and was essentially my food guide to all the best eating and drinking spots in town. For that -- and for him being a benevolent landlord and a great friend -- I am infinitely grateful.

Here are parts of our food journey, not necessarily in order. (Pictures not included, such as our wonderful lunch at Duck King, or that lovely bottled water we shared at Stadium, are probably best kept as memories.)

Anand, buried in the menu.

Gazpacho. Acidic.

Eggs Benedict

Steak and Eggs. Herb butter is the best.

Fruits and yogurt.

Always brimming with expats.

Reverse psychology for you.

A sweet ending to what I believe was another night gorging.

P.S. I wasn't wearing a bra!!!

Cheese fondue, with fresh roasted garlic that the waiter will happily squeeze out of the bulb onto your plate.

Calzone

Seafood risotto - creamy and yummy!

Garlic gelato. Surprisingly not that bad.

French onion soup with a crust of Gruyere cheese

Orange juice just like the milkman made it

Grilled red snapper, herb butter sauce with potato balls and steamed asparagus

The happy managing editor with his duck dish.

Ceviche

Chicken, asparagus and egg sandwich

Two for one!

His duck and risotto. May I mention that JackRabbit also serves bread with foie gras butter and mango butter, both delicious.

All the Dreams I've Ever Had While Sleeping in Jakarta

2011-07-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

The one where the JG copy edit crew were going to the beach. We meet someplace and I realize that I hadn't brought my swimsuit. I go back to my kost, and somehow, the cleaning lady is using my laptop.

The one where Patrick Swayze forces a blonde hostage out of a network of passageways in which I had just been moving with a girl with a bob haircut. In the dream, the blonde girl did something wrong. Viewed through a square of glass on the door, several goons clad in suits advance menacingly toward the blond girl. The dream ends when Patrick Swayze slowly walks down the stairs, hears a gunshot from outside and smiles.

The one where Parker Posey is a babysitter who goes around snapping the necks of wards while their parents are away. She babysits the son of the district attorney, who that night was ironically assigned to run after the serial killer. She moves to murder the lawyer's boy, but stops when she sees the district attorney on TV. Parker Posey turns herself in, and asked why she did, she says: "Because his daddy was on TV."

The one where I scream at a boy with a Chinese girl at a bar: "You better be sure she's worth it, because you'll never touch me again!"

The one where I try to buy some really good pastries at a cottage bakery, but as I point to a piece of pie, the male attendant starts vomiting mozzarella cheese all over the baked goods.

The one where I'm in a room and suddenly get the urge to call my friend Nita, so I go outside to the balcony and notice a lady in a purple prom dress in the courtyard who looks at me menacingly and says, "Stop." I run back to the room and try to desperately to call my friend's name but somehow I couldn't breathe and I could hear the woman's footsteps coming closer.

The one where I am swimming a rundown pool of an equally rundown mansion and realize there's cat poop in it.

The one where me, Dan and Anand are in bed together and there is this little Japanese girl whose head is stuck on a hook on the door. She is hanging from it, alive but woozy and bleeding into the floor. The rule is that we can't leave the room until we killed her, so we endure several nights of trying to huddle under the blankets and block her face and her cries. But she kept crying and crying until one day, Anand takes gardening clips and cuts off her tongue.

The one where I am forced to sing a pony song that seemed to be the horse version of the Internazionale. Horses with empty saddles would trot past me, standing in front of a sidewalk chalkboard containing the lyrics, and would bite, kick or pee on me if I wasn't singing. This compels me to jump off a bridge and into a river.

I'm Moving!

2011-06-17T03:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Newsbreak Family,

How are all of you? I hear things have been a little hairy, but exciting, especially on the reproductive health issue and the book projects. Congratulations to Ms. Gigi and Ms. Chay for completing the election book, I hope to get a copy soon and see pictures from the book launch of your interns in full gala wear.

It's less than a month before I leave JG, and it's quite an emotional moment for me. It's like breaking up with your abusive lover, but you know it has to be done so you just enjoy it while it lasts before your grand exit. I'm happy to announce that I've accepted a job at the S in Hong Kong (just today!) and will be moving there in late August. It will be double what I get here in Jakarta, but the rents and cost of living will be insanely high and the people vaguely racist, but I am excited to experience the city!

Before the big move, I will likely spend my last week in Jakarta in Bali, finding enlightenment, and then back to the Philippines for real where I intend to show you all my new and improved tolerance for alcohol. Let us share the proverbial burger.

The waiting game was quite tense for me, like itching to know if you'll get a presidential pardon while on death row, which is why I spent last night boozing at the JFCC's monthly free-flowing bar parties. I met, in the following order: a funny Australian man named Robert who talked to me at length about carbon emissions, a World Bank guy named Tom who invented the word volkspanger (oh, Riziel, how was Berlin? Kwento!), a drunken lesbian named Olivia who said she would "love me," two Indonesians who had worked for the Voice of America and said I looked like "the lady from Al Jazeera" (I didn't clarify if she was a reporter, anchor or an Iraqi he saw fleetingly in a news clip), the Singaporean editor of Forbes Indonesia magazine, a Sri Lankan (to whom I expressed condolences for the tragic tsunami of 2003. And I had already taken four margaritas at this point), and an Albanian working at the United Nations who later creepily texted at 2 a.m. asking if I was asleep. It was such a multicultural experience, I felt so one with humanity.

The past few weeks have been quite an improvement on the desk because we have new slaves -- three interns from the C as well as new permanent copy editor from the same city (who, by the way, can speak Swahili. Not that this skill will help her here.) -- and I've quite enjoyed playing their lord and master. I kid, but it's nice to have brilliant people helping us out.

MJ had initially offered me a position managing the F desk if I had renewed my contract, but the frustration that comes with the fact these writers actually ..., among other mind-numbing occupational hazards, might be too much to handle. When I told her I was going to Hong Kong, she pouted at me rather testily.

So in the next three or so weeks I will be packing or discarding all the useless junk I've accumulated while here, including D (joke). I think I'm at a point where I'm in love with Jakarta simply because I'm leaving it, and all the potholes, the sewage, the gargantuan rats and the scary transvestites lining the road are suddenly all the more charming. I'll probably reflect on what I've learned in my time here, but that's probably for another e-mail. Hopefully I'll see all your pretty and handsome faces in no time at all!

Miss you all!

Worrying about shipping logistics,
Love always, Kristine

Wine and Sophisticated Drunkenness

2011-05-28T10:10:00.001-07:00

My roommate Anand and I just got back from a free but exclusive wine-tasting event at Jackrabbit featuring the creations of Chris Milliken, chief executive of PengWines. He is an Ohio-born chef who decided to operate a vineyard in Chile and who named his entire line after penguins (fairy, king, etc.).

There, I ended up getting a crash course on Croatia and tannins from the Croatian Ambassador in Jakarta, as well as a 7-minute passionate speech about the perils of the city's busway from Carson Quinn, who was an impeccable host and the amazing owner of Jackrabbit.
(Note: It was my fault he went on about this because I brought up the fact he was crucified by our readers after he did a Q&A with our newspaper.)

Most of all, we actually spoke with Mr. Milliken, who told us how difficult it was to introduce wines to new markets. Observe (this is all paraphrased):

Me: We're sort of starting to get into wines right now.
C: That's perfect! What do you want to know?
Me: Well... what is a grape?

C: That's funny because when I went to [place in Indonesia], it had to start with that. Like, nobody knew where wine comes from.
Me: Oh you know, when a mommy and daddy grape love each other...
C: Exactly.

C: I was really nervous when I first came to JKT because the first wine-tasting we had, the staff brought out the wine glasses and started putting papayas and fruit in them, and I was like, 'No. Stop!' So I had them try it like this, just in a glass, but it didn't work. At the end of the night, people were pouring Sprite and fruit in the glass.

C: I was really glad Jackrabbit brought out a decanter.
Me: Yeah, I was curious about that.
C: Well, it's great for wines. I mean, what if you were stuck inside a bottle for a really, really long time, and then someone pops the cork and you get a chance to come out, what is the first thing you will do?
Me: [In my mind] Have sex....?
C: Breathe.

At the end of the evening, Anand and I were compelled to buy some wine, dropping way more cash than we should have. I was like, "Why are we buying wine??" And he says, "I know, we're so bourgeois." We bought two rose wines, the chocolatey King wine (and Anand was particularly proud of detecting that note) and a chardonnay. This meant we'd bought six bottles in just two weeks.

Last weekend, we had gone to a wine and cheese trade show in Kelapa Gading, where we went around tasting tiny cubes of cheese in little plastic cups and going around describing every wine we tasted as "oaky." Oh, yes, Antonio Banderas made a wine? Try not to imagine his toes or dusky hair going into the vat of grapes.

We'd actually found ourselves at odds over buying two bottles of inferior red for the price of one or investing slightly more for a smooth, fruity white wine to go with our spectacular herby feta and cumin Gouda. In the end, we decided this frivolous exercise was all about feeling sated, possibly rich, rather than getting drunk (there are beers for that), so we went for quality.

It was even broached that we host a wine and cheese party, but like the Romans did it -- with toasts to Dionysius, violated livestock and laurel leaves over our ears.

So we drink the wine, savor the cheese, enjoy the conversation and hope to god that as we drool into our pillows from the heady sleep that only corked alcohol can give or as we stumble into Jackrabbit's dining area and shovel gruyere truffle fries down our throats, we're juuust a little more sophisticated.

Shooting in Jakarta

2011-05-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to my military father to let him know that his sharpshooting gene had somehow been passed on to his daughter.

I went to Aries Shooting Club, the shooting range in Senayan, Jakarta (also known as Lapangan Tembak Senayan) one weekend for some catharsis. I walked in, got greeted by beefy policemen and was able to rent a caliber .22 handgun plus 150 bullets for Rp 1,500,000. Pricey, I know. They also carry rifles and sell extra sets of 50 bullets for Rp 500,000.

I was also introduced to a retired Army officer, Mr. Halim, who was supposed to babysit me for the entire duration. I had to stand 10 meters away from the target to start with and wear those huge muffs for the first few rounds. But after seeing my proficiency and responding to my girlish glee, he allowed me to ditch the muffs and stand farther back.

The place was clean, with a bed of grass between you and the target. The field -- uncovered but walled -- was filled with my empty, smoking shells, which I wasn't allowed to keep as souvenirs because it was "dangerous."

The place was empty, save for me and three "assistants," so it was no surprise that halfway through my target shooting, I looked behind me and saw a bleacher of security forces ogling the girl in the skimpy skirt.

It was all over in two hours and they walked me out in thanks. Mr. Halim demanded a tip, which I found quite rude, but I didn't argue at gunpoint. Kidding. Now, if they could somehow strap a boy against the wall ...

My best. Third attempt.

Contact: Adi (021) 949 10787
Landmarks: Near Hotel Mulia and right across Lapangan Tembak Senayan Bakso restaurant

Diabetic Breakfast and Chessee Spegethy

2011-04-27T02:54:00.000-07:00

When a man picks you up in a boat at 5 a.m., you go. And you make sure to wear a cardigan because, in the cold darkness of that morning, certain things can get really perky.

So it was under a crescent moon (how fitting) and the ghostly calls to prayer from the numerous mosques dotting the river that I took a chartered boat along the menacingly black waters of Sangai Tapekong to see one of Banjarmasin's famed floating markets, Pasar Lokbaintan.

The trip took around two hours and I watched the sky lighten from deep purple to steel blue, and I was glad that the houses were quiet, which made the ride quite dull, but peaceful.

After my butt grew sore from all the sitting, I grew excited when we neared the Lokbaintan bridge. Here, I began to see a few women on canoes and kayaks quietly paddling toward what I thought would be an actual roofed structure with platforms and tiny waterways.

So it came as a surprise when Amang, the boat driver, killed the engine and we went on an aimless float on what would have been a shanty's front yard. I thought the boat had malfunctioned, but Amang seemed to say, "We're already here."

Bewildered, I looked around me and noticed that all these women on canoes -- filled with mandarin oranges, eggplants, bananas, sweets and the occasional fly-encrusted dressed chicken -- had begun clustering and bartering, and I realized that THEY were the floating market.

It was very pretty in the diffused yellow glow of 7 a.m. and I think what made it quite striking were the ladies' glittering hijabs and batik blouses, as well as their canoes' washed pastel colors. I took this all in, and was content just watching them go about their business since they didn't seem so intent on selling to tourists so much as they were to trading their goods with each other.

But if you really, really need to, you can buy from them. I bought some sticky rice cakes and custardy cassava confections served in a banana leaf boat for cheap (Rp 2.000 to Rp 10.000). One lady, with the most interesting face I have ever seen so far, sold me a donut-type pastry with sweetened coconut shavings inside. Though I shared the food with Amang, I could still feel the excessive sugar coursing through my bloodstream.

On the way back to the city, Amang and I decided to rescue a group of yuppie-looking locals whose boat had stalled. I learned that they were from Banjarmasin and were on their way to lunch at a riverside eatery, and invited me to sample the town's specialty, Soto Banjar.

The dish consists of glass noodles, chopped ketupat (remember the triangular rice cakes painstakingly prepared by Indonesians on Idul Fitri?), chicken strips, slices of boiled egg, chopped liver, possibly some carrots and roasted garlic in broth. It sounds good, but I didn't really like it, though I politely praised the hefty servings and inwardly winced at how fast everyone else was eating theirs, when I struggled to even finish mine.

They paid for my meal in thanks, and I finally went back to my hotel and slept until the late afternoon. I later decided to go on a culinary tour because by then, I had run out of sights to see. Let me just say that Lonely Planet got the food guide for Banjarmasin so wrong, because I was up for loads of disappointment.

Kadanangan, a restaurant listed in the guide book as having good Indonesian food, is a cow hide-themed restaurant with giant photographs of its owner, Tommy Kadanangan, from the time he was a chubby child coddled by his parents to the time he became the brand model for the restaurant.

I was asked to point to the food I wanted brought to me, and I chose what looked the least offensive, which turned out to be: fried spinach leaves, nasty cold corn fritters, lifeless bony barbecued sole and skewered liver which I mistook for satay. Thankfully, you only pay for what you eat on the plate, even if you ordered it.

Yasuka, a shop serving homemade ice-cream, served pretty interesting flavors for dirt cheap, though it managed to fuck up a simple strawberry ice-cream soda, which tasted like durian-flavored cough syrup.

So I slouched back to the hotel and resolved to try again that night, this time ditching the guide, and found a pretty decent cafe called Campung near the UFO-looking Mesjid Raya Mosque which served what would be the most comparatively spectacular meal I would have in South Kalimantan.

Balinese salad - Siyomay, eggs, tofu in peanut sauce

Sweet and sour chicken - served hot as it should

Of course, all the sugar and calories had me knocked out the next day, so I simply hopped on the plane and left. Though the food was generally abysmal, I had some pretty good memories of the place, especially my hotel's mistake-riddled menu, which made me laugh all the way back to Jakarta.

Attack of the Macaques

2011-04-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

For another work weekend, I decided to rough it on an island across the Java Sea. A coworker recommended Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan, which bills itself as a "Venice of the Orient." (One of thousands of cities that does so.)

My trip went off to a bad start, since my Lion Air flight was delayed by two hours and I had to sit on that plastic chair and play "Angry Birds" for a while. The view of South Kalimantan's coastline from the plane also did not look promising, with brown strips of water intersecting strips of green like a thatched marsh. I was worried the place didn't have any roads.

The drive from the airport to the city center was also quite dull, with only garish candy-colored mosques to interest the eye. But once I was in the heart of Banjarmasin, a fairly developed though provincial city, I was in for some fun.

The first of which was my comfortable hotel, Hotel Victoria, which was right by Sangai Martapura, the main river. In later boat rides, the main transport of this water-loving people, the boatman could bring me right to the hotel's doorstep!

After a long nap, I immediately headed out to Hasanuddin Bridge, where I could charter a boat for the day for Rp 200,000 there and back. I decided to see the monkey island, Pulau Kembang, one of the town's two main attractions.

On the way, we had to pass through narrow canals (but not the kind you'd find in Venice) lined with houses on stilts. Often, I was in close proximity to the residents and children, who waved and yelled greetings at me enthusiastically as I passed by. They're also very camera-crazy, with kids known to somersault if you point a Nikon at them.

They blow you kisses, flip you the bird, and scream "Hawayah!" And this is an Asian woman they're seeing, imagine what the reaction would be to white dudes.

Notice the young man getting a facial on the far right.

It can be a little unnerving at first, to garner all this attention and to have a voyeuristic view of their private lives and the crushing poverty.

But, to visitors' defense, their lives are on full display out in the river. Women in batik wraparounds squat on their doorsteps, washing dishes, as their neighbors a few feet down bathe and lather each other's bodies with soap. I saw one guy brushing his teeth while fishing! Floating outhouses are common. So all their dirt, food scraps and soap suds intermingle in the muddy brown water that unites them all.

I learned through the half-hour boat ride along these liquid streets that the safest way to respond is to smile, because it will be repaid generously.

The poster boy for the people's extreme friendliness.

Once we got out of the slum area, the river opened up into the bluer, fresher waters of Sangai Martapura, which eventually led to the open sea. We docked at the monkey park, where I was immediately swarmed by tour guides and peanut sellers. (Peanuts: Rp 20.000 for a string of tiny packets)

I was also greeted by a group of macaques, who no doubt see humans as giant bags of dough-encrusted salty peanuts. The women guides took charge of the snack stash, throwing peanuts at me because they thought I would be delighted to be hounded by macaques.

We followed a wooden pathway that cut through the mangroves that constituted this "island" and the guides kept thrusting handfuls of peanuts at me, so aggressive macaques could grab them from my hands. I was alarmed when one of the women told me to EAT THE PEANUTS myself, which I noticed they were doing, using the hands that had just been spit on and molested by monkeys.

Like hamsters, these primates have cheek pouches where they can store food.

The tour ends when the women throw some peanuts in the water and everyone watches as they dive in and stuff their faces silly. I gave them a communal Rp 50.000 tip and ran to my boat, aching to wash my hands. I was praying I didn't catch the Ebola virus.

It took two hours to get back to the city center through a busy port area where ships come to die, and my boatman made arrangements to bring me to the markets very early the next day. After I showered all the gunk away, I set out to look for dinner.

My heart was set on eating at Depot Kalimantan, described favorably in my Lonely Planet guide, but it was closed and I had to eat at a similar establishment right across the street called Depot 59. I over-ordered in my enthusiasm, and got some pretty disappointing Indonesian fare, which I wrapped up and gave to the hotel's security guard later on.


Roti bakar keju (Fried bread with cheese)

Bakso sapi campur

Nasi goreng istimewa telor


Es 59, a very confusing dessert consisting of a variety of coconut derivatives, ice, chocolate wafers and croutons.

Beautiful sunsets and awful food. Not bad for the first day in random Indonesia.

Are You Not Entertained?

2011-03-22T23:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Newsbreak Family,

Sorry I haven't been e-mailing you guys of late, nor have I been accomplishing stories assigned to me by Ms. Glenda. :(

It's been crazy at G these past few months because a) we hemorrhaged a lot of people and sometimes had to work entire shifts without taking requisite pee breaks as a result and b) we are moving to a new building soon, because of a merger with two Indonesian news sites and everyone's been bogged down in the logistics of it all. Such a nightmare, on top of the mind-numbing trudging through copy every day.

Which was why I was glad when a film crew burst into our newsroom on Friday and held us hostage for a film called "DO," which is trying to beat the world record for fastest production time. The director, a kooky ponytail-sporting character, pulled me out of my desk and asked me to be an extra -- the shining moment of my short-lived entertainment career.

Basically, I had to sit and chat with my Aussie workmate while the camera pans to the left, following the lead actress as she flounces down the hall. I got a speaking part, too. I had to say "Hi" as she was passing by. I'm sure the film will be abysmal, not only because it will be shot and screened for the masses within 9 days, but because the film's premise is this: Girl gets inspired by Obama, Girl goes blind. I don't know if the two are related.

On the other hand, I have seen my party life cut sharply recently (a blessing, for sure) because someone slashed my bag and took my wallet at a Deftones concert last month. While waiting for payday and a replacement ATM card, I survived on eating tofu and tempe (a really tasty bean cake) once a day and saving transportation money by hiking to work.

From my apartment, which I share with my Indonesian-Indian [American] roommate A, it takes 40 minutes to get to work in ballet flats and an extra 5 minutes when I am in heels (not because I'm slower, but because I often get accosted by Middle Eastern men along this road called KP). Needless to say, I actually started saving money because I couldn't touch my funds, and it has done wonders for my figure. And of course, poverty teaches one a great many things about survival -- and scrimping.

During these austerity measures, I became sick with gastrointestinal problems as well as a series of migraines (from the weight of my thoughts!) though I am saving all my diseases for when I can come home to the Philippines and have a good checkup with a doctor I can trust not to prescribe me cat tranquilizer medicine. When I get access to my cash soon, I will be all the wiser and all the slimmer (joke!) and will no doubt use the money to buy a ticket back to the Philippines sometime during the summer, when I hope I can reconnect with you all once again.

Now, I'm sure you're all embroiled in the Merci issue and all the radioactive spinach from Japan, but I hope I can hear from you all when you get the chance.

With fond and fatigued thoughts,

Kristine

Yogyakarta Day 3: In Which Everything is Watery

2011-03-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

On my last day in Yogyakarta, I actually overslept, and missed an e-mail from Dale asking me if I wanted to hang out again that day. So I stuffed my things into my bag, checked out and left my stuff with the concierge so I could do some last-minute touring.

I decided to check out Taman Sari, the water castle, and was shown through the back door by a shifty guide who ran after the bencak I was riding like it would kill him if he didn't give me a guided tour.

Entrance to the main palace, which had two wings for entertainment-- one for dance, another for dining.

The entire structure is basically in ruins, and was once possibly a majestic salmon-colored retreat amid a large lake -- which years of evaporation and great drainage systems decimated and made way for what is today a slum area.

The whole complex served as the sultan's pleasure palace, and conveniently included an underground (once underwater) mosque, where he must have prayed for his soul's salvation after hedonistic days.

The mosque was musty, but very pretty, with stone toilets and cubby holes for imams, some of whom were female. At the center of the mosque was a small pond with five sets of staircases straddling it. This represented the five pillars of Islam.

I felt like I was walking through a hollowed-out pound cake.

Later, I was led to the sultan's pool party castle, where I realized the official entrance to Taman Sari was located. There were three pools, slightly smaller than your average tennis court, laid out in a walled courtyard with a royal cabana separating the girls' pool from the guys'.

I was told the sultan could climb up to the cabana's tower and spy on those bathing below. The water is now blue in chlorination and not open for public use. A section at the back of the cabana was more intimate and reserved for the sultan's wives. I asked my guide how many wives he had and he's like, "Uhhhh.... five?" I was later told the real figure was 40.

On the other side of the courtyard, there is an art gallery where artists routinely swindle Caucasians into buying handmade, hand-chiseled Ramayana puppets made from buffalo hide for more than they are actually worth.

Proof? The seller took me aside and told me that because I was not American, I could buy beautiful Rama and Sita puppets for half the price.

Doesn't he look like Pinocchio's dad?

My shifty guide lived up to his shiftiness by taking a detour and leading me to his family's art gallery, where I was asked to purchase a painting, but I refused and told him to take me back to the entrance. I gave him a Rp 50.000 for his effort and he disappeared in a flash.

Later, I went to the silverworks area, Kota Gede, to look for a kris for my friend Adam, but the crafts were really too expensive. Since I wasn't really raring for jewelry, I went back to Malioboro and chanced upon Dale while walking up the street.

We decided to eat at a warung, and had bakso (meatball soup), which he liked, and Tehbotol, a brand of bottled iced tea that tastes like chrysanthemum foot, which he claimed he liked.

At this point, it had started raining, so we decided to eat some durian es teler, a milky and soupy concoction that had the consistency of "rotting man." We named the bits and pieces we ate Bob.

I had barely two hours left to get to the airport and was slightly worried because it was raining so hard, so Dale and I hugged goodbye and wished each other well in future travels.

I made it to the airport in one piece and was told my flight back to Jakarta was delayed. I killed time by reviewing the places I'd been to in just three days and was pretty proud that I'd covered a lot of ground. Not a bad effort for my first time kicking it solo.

Things That Require People to Touch You

2011-03-06T01:42:00.000-08:00

STRIP JOINT

The other day, I went into an establishment that had the word "Waxing" in big, angry letters on the front. I can't describe to you every detail of what transpired, but it involved a hefty woman with a spatula and ninja floss. I hobbled out of there, laughing at the fact that I'd done this-- for the first time --in a Muslim country where bikinis are practically contraband and women are generally encouraged to wear latex frog suits.

VACILLATIONS

For one entire day, I tried to listen to myself talking, recording the percentages in which I would talk about the opposite sex. My conclusion was that I'd sunk into some form of male dependency, where I'd continually seek out companionship to validate my self-worth. Sometimes I think it's okay, it's part of one's wholesome enjoyment. Other times, I think it's like having the human version of a flammable crotch-- er, crutch!

POUNDING KEYS

I was ecstatic to find that an article I wrote (or was compelled to write) for a magazine on water issues HAD gotten published with minor edits. I don't think it's my best work, but I am glad to enlighten a specific group of people who read this Singaporean trade publication about water utilities in Indonesia. Personally, I would have liked to write about the people feeding fish Prozac. I am also excited to be offered a few freelance jobs here and there, if only to get me out my complacent rut.

WHALE TONGUE

A whole industry is built upon the idea that you can hire someone to get you naked, lay you on a bed and climb on top of you for an hour-long massage. This same industry is probably helping out the disposable-panties industry quite a lot, as well as baby-oil factories.

My old kost along Karet Pedurenan had an in-house spa, where a hairdresser who fancies herself a shaman/ expert palm-reader will regale you with tales of how your love life is going to be the epitome of crap, before she ushers you into a room where the masseuse is waiting to carve her strong thumbs into your body and -- here is the part that jarred me awake -- massage your breasts. I have never had a boob massage before. Neither have I tried those 24-hour take-home masseuses, described as buxomy and between 25-30 years old in the fliers.

Thankfully, our apartment complex has a pretty good, though pricey, massage place. They lend you lovely kimonos, give you ginger tea and stroke you in a very spiritually centered way that reminds you of being licked all over the body by a soothing whale tongue. I was quite pleased.

TOP RAMEN

Someone stole my wallet at a Deftones concert early last month and I was rendered slightly poor for all of 22 days. During that time, I survived on sprinting to work in heels (can't afford ballet flats) and eating ramen every single day, for breakfast and dinner. It was quite sobering, knowing I could have spent much, much, much less and saved so much, much, much more. But I need my ATM card soon.

FESTERING DISCONTENT

Back in August, my Dad so keenly advised me to "program my life" in some way so I'd always have something to work toward, such as getting into grad school or going to Macau and attempting to become billionaire Stanley Ho's fifth wife. It's my fault that I let myself get too complacent in the parties, the fun, the mind-numbing trudging through life in general. I've put some dreams on hold for a while, and the festering discontent will prove too aggravating. There is merit in goals, even if it's something insane like running after an octogenarian, truffle-buying gaming magnate.

Moving It Up

2011-01-26T00:49:00.000-08:00

Tasks:

Check out and move to a new kost with a flatscreen TV so I can use the Wii for catharsis.
Check out Anand's apartment and see if I can be his roommate, thereby making a Wii redundant because he has all the gaming consoles known to man.
Buy Deftones tickets.
Reserve brother a room for four nights.
Draft itinerary for brother's Jakarta trip featuring the following: strip club, drinking spots.
Submit generic pictures of Jakarta to Asian Water for a freelance article I did.
Research and start working on that Merah Putih feature I'm supposed to do.
Schedule a trip to Vietnam/ somewhere rough in Indonesia for Valentine's weekend.

Yogyakarta Day 2: In Which Travel Buddies Eat Game

2011-01-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

On my second day in Yogyakarta, I was awoken by a call from reception, saying I should hustle down to have breakfast. Options were a rice meal that came with some sort of liver paste or two croissants.

Jarred me awake, really.

Then I lazed about for a while, enjoying Hotel Whiz's intermittent Internet connection, before spotting Dale, my American travel buddy for the day, who was on some sort of circuitous tour of Asia and Europe before going back to his homeland. He struck me as a really easygoing, intelligent guy and we hit it off right away.

We hired a car to take us to Borobudur Temple, around a 45-minute drive from the city center. We were in a slightly dilapidated gray sedan and chatted spiritedly at 11 a.m. and tried not to think about how fast our Indonesian driver was going or how often he tailgated or swerved on the road.

After noon, we arrived at the site of Southeast Asia's "biggest Buddhist temple" (opposing views on what the temple is actually for. It could be Christian, you know.) We took the "international center" route, which came with a heftier ticket price but with free tea and coffee, skipping the long lines for locals. I just wish they'd served cooler drinks rather than hot ones to match the day.

I was none too impressed by the site itself, for a number of factors, including the sheer number of people climbing like destructive ants onto the structure, which I heard from Dale had lain undisturbed for years in a lush jungle but later acceded to wear and tear after it was discovered. I also read that it once had to be taken apart, stone by stone, and built again from the ground up, with more solid foundations.

We had also chosen not to hire a guide, who no doubt would have explained the meaning of the structure's many carvings in detail, so I missed out on that. Instead, Dale and I decided to look for the funniest carving we saw, some of which were quite carnal, and made up our own stories.

It also rained for part of the time we were there, and though it was quite fun to experience the temple under the shade of a rented umbrella, it made me feel like I just wanted to see the top-- essentially the temple's Nirvana, which was off-limits to people and filled with many giant bell-shaped stone structures-- then get out of there as soon as possible.

If you're of pale skin, like Dale, then you're bound to be accosted by locals who are just dying to have pictures with a bule (foreigner, specifically White people), have short English lessons or a foreigner's input on a school report. I hear this gets pretty annoying for some, especially when faced with a swarm of adoring Indonesians, but Dale was quite exuberant, dispensing his brand of democracy and gamely posing for photos with children.

What followed was an aimless tour of the entire complex, including a hike up some stone steps lined with giant heaps of dung, and I was expecting to find a unicorn at the summit, but was instead met with the breathtaking sight of a man exercising with jump rope. Thankfully, there was an equally impressive view of Borobudur to our left.

We went around in circles, trying to find the exit, and had to rebuff some very pushy souvenir sellers hawking items from faux gold Buddha ashtrays to kites. The exit was strategically placed next to rows of souvenir and food stalls. In one such kiosk, we found our reckless driver.

Tembi

Our next stop was Tembi, the restaurant which I'd read served squirrel and sparrow dishes. Thankfully, Dale was of similarly adventurous palate, and we set out to find it with the help of a taxi driver. It was about 20 minutes away from Malioboro, along Jalan Parangtritis, and was quite ethnic and impressive. It's basically a hotel, cultural center and restaurant.

Though the items we were looking for weren't on the menu, the waiter informed us he could slaughter some squirrels and sparrows for us, and cook it any way we wanted. I fought the urge to say medium rare.


Black Pepper Squirrel (tasted very tough, like eating rubber, as well as slightly herby and salty. Not bad.)

Curry Sparrow (If you like chewing soft bones and possibly some feathers, you'll enjoy this.)

Snake Head Soup (Do not be deceived. This actually turned out to be a catfish whose head looks like a snake's.)

Mie, in this case, really bland noodles with cheese and basil.

After dinner, it started raining, and the staff gladly called us a cab. We hung around the teak foyer for a bit, where some guys were practicing on angklungs (bamboo xylophones) and gamelans and stuff. Having played in an ethnic music orchestra in college, I was raring to try it with them, and fortunately, they agreed to have us sit with them and play about three rounds of the same song.

I felt really happy because jamming with some Indonesians was about as close to cultural immersion as one could get.

Later on in the evening, we decided to grab some drinks and flipped a coin to see whether fate wanted us to sample a bar or a club. Seeing the result, we headed to Bintang Cafe, supposedly one of the more happening bars for expats and tourists in town, but it was as dead as a vacant Mexican hacienda. We grabbed a few Ankers and sampled their weird guacamole (too much tomato, not enough avocado. It takes a lot to mess this thing up, but they managed to).

I don't know what we were thinking, but we also decided to sample the other side of the coin and headed over to Boshe, also billed as the newest, most happening club in town. Encouraged by the number of cars parked in the lot, we went in and found the three-story warehouse-looking, black-walled, decked-out club packed with six people, not including the 15 or so staff and band members.

It was quite a shame, too, because they had a big production going, with a massive stage and a DJ spinning out songs that got interpreted into swirling graphics on giant flat-screens. We sipped our outrageously expensive drinks and bolted, eschewing the temptation to try the karaoke rooms down at the basement. But not before Dale got some techno time.

We called it a slamming night, and that was that.

Yogyakarta Day 1: In Which There Is a Monkey Fight

2011-01-15T07:21:00.000-08:00

On New Year's morning, I was in an airplane going to Yogyakarta, sleepy as hell but psyched to be exploring a new part of Indonesia.

From the Adusicipto Airport, I got a cab to take me to Whiz Hotel, a newly opened boutique hotel just on the corner of Jalan Malioboro. I was pretty disappointed to find neither references to cheese nor urine. I was even more bummed to learn that the receptionist would not let me check in at 7 a.m., telling me to come back after lunch. This effectively gave me six hours to kill.

I doused my anger with some juice and chips from a nearby Circle K and began walking up and down Malioboro, which from what I can tell is the province's spiritual and commercial center.

Jl. Malioboro. Much like the entire province, there's nothing to do, but lots of things to see if you're into it.

I got accosted by numerous guys insistent on having me visit their "art galleries," which usually turn out to be just batik shops with jacked-up prices, but had to refuse because I didn't feel very supportive of the arts at 8 in the morning.

With my backpack starting to weigh heavy on my shoulders, and my camera bag strap digging into my neck, I sat down on one of many benches dotting the length of the road, opened my Lonely Planet guide and tried to figure out where I could go.

I settled on the Kraton, the sultan's palace, which I read had two entrances -- a fake one that charged only Rp 5.000 and the legit one that charged Rp 12.000. Going there, I had to walk through some sort of huge carnival complex, with dirty rides that looked like they've killed quite a few people in their day.

Once or twice, I entered the wrong building (I had to pay a mosque beggar to point me back in the right direction) and couldn't quite place where this legitimate entrance was. So I entered the fake one, brushing off the men in batik who offered to give me a guided tour, and leisurely took pictures of a rather pretty but run-down palace courtyard.

Lovely colors. I was so enthralled.

I noticed the place, including the dingy museums, weren't curated and offered little information as to the purpose of the elaborate wooden structures, the army of grey-skinned mannequins wearing opulent uniforms or why there were gilded chicken cages all over the place. There was a tiled staircase at the far end of the courtyard that ended in a locked green gate, and I wondered if I was missing out on the real palace experience on the other side.

This made me feel very deprived.

Under the shade of a rheumatic banyan tree, I contemplated my next move, and decided on finding the Affandi Museum, which a friend recommended from his last Yogya jaunt. I hailed a cab-- what would be my chariot for the remainder of the morning-- and got to the very eccentric Affandi.

The ticket came with a free drink, and unlimited access to the paintings and trinkets of the late artist and his two, now elderly, daughters. Maybe my aesthetic appreciation was off, but I was just inwardly laughing at all these crazy self-portraits and Van Gogh-esque psychedelic renditions of the Eiffel Tower. If a box of crayons vomited, I feel like this is what it would amount to.

Also, check out somebody's flattering tribute to Affandi, who is buried with his wife on a plot right next to the museum's cafe.

This sums up the experience.

For lunch, I tried my luck at Via Via (closed), Warung Opera (where the owner will gladly read your tea-leaf fortunes. Also closed.) and then Tembi (but the driver brought me to the wrong Tembi). I ended up at this posh, sprawling hotel called D'Omah, whose most interesting feature was the fattest duck I have ever seen, squatting like a sultan on the grass before the slaughter.

I took a seat at the backyard restaurant, which had a view of a very pretty rice paddy. The food was quite pricey, but I was too tired to walk out.


Steaming bowl of broccoli soup.

Javanese fish and moldy-tasting greens I had trouble eating.

I jetted out of there when this group of posh French people started distilling the air with snobbery. At this point, I felt like crap and was glad to be able to go back to Whiz, check into a clean, airconditioned room, and take the best shower of my life before taking a good, long nap.

When I gained consciousness in the evening, I decided to take a bencak (hermit-crab shaped bike carts) and catch the Ramayana Ballet (named after the performance troupe that regularly performs at Prambanan Temple) at Purawisata entertainment complex.

The place was filled with teak gazebos and a terraced restaurant with an aging gamelan orchestra playing the Javanese equivalent of lounge music. The show starts at 8 p.m. daily and for around Rp 100.000, you can avail of a buffet dinner before the performance.

I ate a good eclectic dinner before a raging pack of Greeks wiped it all out. There was spicy tofu, chicken and beef satay, mixed collard greens, potato wedges, some fried noodles, your typical nasi goreng, ayam goreng, some sort of brisket, sweet and sour shrimp, and mashed potatoes. For dessert there was rice pudding with brown sugar and an assortment of fruits.

While eating, the waiters gave us summaries of the Ramayana story so we could contextualize what we would see later on. On the dot, the staff led us to an open-air theater, which was really nice, except it rained in the first act. So we all filed into another theater across the courtyard, and continued watching the display. I didn't understand shit, but it was nice seeing the lovely costumes and the serpentine motions the dancers would constantly make. Why are the women in the play so demure?

This is the great monkey fight, with fire!

I turned in a little before midnight, taking another bencak through moderate downpour back to the hotel. I flopped on the bed, turned off the lights and congratulated myself for a pretty interesting start to the New Year.

Holiday Roundup

2011-01-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Newsbreakers,

Happy Happy New Year to you all! I hope your holidays were fun-filled and meaningful.

Though we missed spending time with friends and family this Christmas and New Year, Purple and I still had a blast in Jakarta. We were given a welcome break from work several days before Christmas and New Year's Day, a rare occurrence! Naturally, we spent it binge-drinking and partying it up with our friends here.

I distinctly remember starting my alcohol run on my birthday last Dec. 23, and then not stopping until midnight of the 25th. After that, I got sick with bad colds and intestinal flu, which probably saved me from more liver-busting activities. Our coworker C and her boyfriend C hosted a costume party on Christmas Eve, and we all had to don our best space suits and watch sci-fi thrillers in the rented house's cool rooms or just hang around the popcorn machines, trampoline and pool table. Purple went as a rather fetching alien, while I went as a sexy aluminum can (with shiny go-go boots!), but most everyone thought I was channeling Barbarella. I heard "platinum prostitute" said a couple of times during the evening.

Later in the evening, Purple literally made a splash by getting dragged and thrown into the pool in the spacious backyard by some drunken guys from our office. She took it well, though I thought it was quite rude of them to do that. N, our intern, fell into the pool with her as a karmic comeuppance, and soiled his iPhone in the water.

The next day, we were invited to have turkey dinner at our boss BN's house, but Purple couldn't come because she was in pain. I hung around with my boss JP and his brother at their apartment and helped them cook some mashed potatoes and mashed rutabaga (a root vegetable that is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip). Then we headed over to B's place, which smelled like newborn baby, and had a lovely dinner, six bottles of wine, some port, espresso and played board games like Risk and Scrabble all night. Spelling words is surprisingly entertaining when you're drunk.

After a brief work break (as in, we take a break from vacation and work), I spent New Year's Eve with D and AM, our coworker who will be going back to the States soon, in Chinatown buying fireworks for the evening. Then we headed over to JJ, the backpacker's district and favorite haunt of Nigerian drug dealers, for some more booze and reggae/punk music at a bar called Equal Park (which is next to Absolute Park. I find this dichotomy funny.)

I had to leave early because I was to take a three-day trip to Yogyakarta on New Year's morning, but stayed for a few fireworks. I heard it got crazy that night, but I'll leave Purple to tell you about the wild sequel I missed. Hint: it involved some skinny dipping in a pool, and some singed armpits.

I ushered in the New Year traveling to Indonesia's "heart and soul," a town that reminded me so much of Baguio. I had fun looking at the temples with an American travel buddy, and exploring the city mostly on my own. I also enjoyed eating curry sparrow and black pepper squirrel, along with some pungent durian desserts. It was a lovely way to start the New Year-- sober and exhilarated. It was certainly a great learning experience to travel solo. I'll definitely try this again.

Let me know how all your holidays went! And congratulations on the great reviews on the Robin Padilla issue. Thea has promised to send me a copy and I'm raring to read it.

Miss you all, especially over the holidays!

Yours,
Kristine

Packing Hell

2010-12-29T09:58:00.000-08:00

So I just bought myself a three-day weekend in Yogyakarta, Indonesia's cultural hub, which means I'll be spending the better part of New Year's Day in transit rather than throwing up last night's vodka and pretzels into a toilet.

Check out my accommodations. Thank god for e-tickets.

I was initially scared to travel alone, but I figured that if I don't try it once -- when I'm young and don't really hold my life or limbs in high regard -- I'd really beat myself up in the future.

To show that I was serious, I bought myself a backpack, though its only merits are a waterproof bottom sheath and a laptop case. Due to its spartan size, I realize now that I'll have to pick the skimpiest, lightest, smallest clothes I have because the rest of the space will be taken up by said laptop, camera and an extra pair of shoes.

It's every travel newbie's mistake, I believe, to over-pack but forget the essentials. Do I need sunblock? Do I need to get one of those sports shoes which are a cross between trainers and ballet flats? Do I need a windbreaker? How about a sequined party dress, on the off chance I might go clubbing (some baby seals)? How about prophylactics?

Rifling through my closet has also brought on some realizations. I am in extreme lack of comfortable cargo pants, sensible shirts and a good pair of sneakers to go with them. Though I suppose I could just as easily hike up a Hindu temple in high heels and a miniskirt -- I imagine I'd be good at that.

All in all, the preparation time has made me realize that maybe I'm not as travel-ready as I thought, surrounding myself in skirts and cardigans all my life, the attire of a purely urban pampered princess.

But I'm totally up for the challenge of making this trip as easy for me as possible, yes, even if it's a domestic destination just an hour away by flight.

Beautiful Bogor

2010-12-28T11:11:00.000-08:00

Jakarta can be a choking hellhole. Thank God there are places in its outskirts where one can escape to. One of them is Bogor, the city of rain, about 45 minutes away from Jakarta.

My friends Daniel Powell and Adam Martin wanted to play golf there, and I was to tag along in my inappropriate ballet flats and possibly carry their clubs. We took a Bluebird cab to the golf course (surprising how cabbies want to make trips like these), which turned out to be closed for renovation.

So we decided to head into Bogor, the city itself, which reminded me a lot of my hometown -- chilly air, laid-back people, lots of artsy cafes.

We ended up at Pia-- a small but seemingly popular cafe fixated on apples and pie-- which Dan picked out of my Lonely Planet book. (Taxi fare: around Rp 250,000)

The boys got chicken pot pies that were the size of their calves, while I got what I thought was the funkiest thing on the menu, Apple Fried Rice, which I wasn't so happy about.

With our bellies full and me wanting to vomit, we decided to walk around the city and explore for a bit, but ended up taking a hired car to the city center. We chose to visit the famed Kebun Raya, an 87-hectare botanical garden initially built by Stamford Raffles but expanded by the Dutch.

On the way, we got to see Istana Bogor, the summer palace, where herds of deer actually graze in perfect formation. I suspected they were animatronics, but I saw a kid petting a live stag near one of the gates surrounding the palace.

Behind are the deer.

With our overnight bags slung heavy on our shoulders, we started a nearly three-hour trek inside the botanical garden. We were trying to locate a flower that smelled like rotting flesh, but could not seem to find it even if it looked giant on the map.

The rest of the hike consisted of us randomly following paths in the hope it would lead us somewhere new, with great sights to see or touch or smell. We saw giant lily pads on the artificial lake that cut into a big lawn dotted with brass sculptures of Victorian children playing. On the way, Dan pointed to a 10-inch lizard walking into the water.

We saw a variety of odd-looking plants, some of which made my skin crawl, and elaborate flower arrangements and bushes on manicured lawns in some parts of the garden. We saw a palm tree that had dread-locked outgrowths swarming with brown insects.

We marveled at the huge trees forming a high canopy overhead, some of which had amazingly grotesque tree trunks that writhed and twisted like a rheumatic man's fingers. At one point, deep into the garden and late into the afternoon, we took pictures with a pig canary, a giant tree whose wood is apparently useful for keychains.

The high point for me was seeing this little venue sloping up a hill, where I intend to someday get married.I joke, but it looks very appealing, no? All the time, I felt like an Englishman on a horse would suddenly appear and tell us to get the hell out of his land.

It was definitely peaceful and slightly dangerous to be wandering around in a place that seemed both tame and wild at once. Near dusk, we made our way back to the main gate, which was a pretty far hike up and I started getting cramps from said inappropriate ballet flats.

With Adam's friend calling him back, we decided to head to the train station back to Jakarta, scrapping our plan to stay overnight. Stepping out into the street, it started to rain, and we picked up an angkot (green minibuses, not unlike the mikrolets in Jakarta).

We were led into a dingy lot with some stores around it and walked along a covered passageway lined with kiosks selling anything from hats to food. At the end of the long passageway were the ticket booths, and we bought ourselves Pakuan Express tickets for just Rp 11,000 with about half an hour to spare before we were to leave.

To get to your respective train, you have to climb into others and come out on the other side until you find your track. Some of the trains had rasta bands and vendors selling DVDs and combs.

Part of the excitement would have been sitting in our own train compartment, watching the scenes go by, but it was a subway-type train with tinted windows. Though it was a slight bummer, we managed to get back to the capital, tired but sated and grateful for the adventure.

Holidays Around the Corner!

2010-12-08T23:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Newsbreak family,

How are you all? Hope everyone's well. Congratulations on the Robin Padilla mag, I hope I could read it soon. :) I'm sure it's pretty busy right now at Newsbreak with all the projects and changes. Also, everyone's probably excited to usher in a new decade.

I was hoping Purple and I could make it to the Christmas party this year, or just Christmas in the Philippines in general, but apparently we don't get holiday breaks, unless it's something like Muslim New Year, which was today. So I've resigned myself to the fact I'll be spending Christmas in a foreign land for the first time, away from the family (huhuhu), and will also be editing copy on my birthday.

But my want for holiday cheer has at least partly been sated by the lovely boarding house management at my kost, who have erected a huge Christmas tree in our foyer and have taken to blasting Bahasa versions of Christmas classics every morning and evening. The staff have also taken to wearing red and green, and make like shrieking female elves.

It's been an interesting past few months here, full of little adventures, the kind that make you thankful for being able to travel. I recently made a weekend trip (my first out-of-Jakarta-but-still-in-Indonesia trip!) with my co-workers A and D to Bogor, the city of rain, where we explored the massive botanical garden

There have also been a few other firsts, such as drinking cobra blood in Glodok, or Chinatown, one weekend. It's supposed to be good for the skin and the sex drive. Also, I finally watched a football game at Bung Karno Stadium, where Indonesia slaughtered Laos 6-0 on a threadbare field. I was surprised by how badly the Indonesian audience behaved, booing Laos players loudly whenever they'd take possession of the ball and celebrating zealously over victory. (fireworks whenever Indonesia would score a goal!) I wished to console the Laos players, but it would be extremely forward of me to barge into their locker room.

Work-wise, it's been pretty busy at the desk, what with all the people wanting to quit before the New Year. I can honestly say J has a worse turnover rate than a street drug gang. The reasons for this, and the frustrations I've come to feel with Indonesia's press culture in general, is the stuff of a long rant I'd rather not bore you with. :)

Still, I'm pretty happy that my bosses are no longer giving me flak, and they've even started me doing business rewrites, which are complete train-wrecks. Most of the stories are like a series of notes that don't quite cohere. We have a lot of postmodern writers, see, and I keep on thinking they're doing something conceptual with the paper-- like performance art-- that's way above my head. But seriously, this is such a shame because I feel Indonesia's booming economy is what's really so exciting to cover at the moment, and we're not doing a great job.

Despite these hitches, I'm still having a blast in Indonesia and drinking in all I can (both in experience and alcohol). I've also resolved ahead of the New Year to make more time for my growth as a reporter, and to try to do more stories if there are opportunities to do so. To make the most of our weekends this December, Purple has suggested we go to Bali sometime, to partake of the Eat Pray Love experience. Maybe we'll find enlightenment amidst the throng of middle-aged Caucasian women trying to essay Julia Roberts.

Hope to hear from you all! We miss you so much, especially in emotionally-charged, family-centric seasons. Enjoy the holidays!

Love love,
Kristine

Drinking Cobra Blood

2010-12-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

You know how every big city has to have a seedy district where you go to get back-alley abortions or hard-to-find merchandise? For Manila, it's Quiapo. For Jakarta, it's Glodok (Chinatown).

And so it was on a partly cloudy weekend that my friends and I decided to drink some snake blood, get some contraband fireworks, eat some authentic Chinese food and possibly buy a crossbow. We did four out of those five things.

We explored the area on foot, armed with our friend's map of dining spots and another friend's fluent Bahasa to make our way through the crowded, muddy side-streets where vendors were selling anything from meth pipes to newborn turtles to warped pink snails.

The whole street was an assortment of electronics shops, pharmacies, "massage parlors," cagey strip clubs, with the sidewalk spilling with makeshift stalls selling dirty vegetables and underwear.

For late lunch, we ducked into a restaurant next to a trinkets shop that sold dragon heads. According to our map, the restaurant served the best sticky dumplings (exactly like gyoza) in the city.

I was pleasantly surprised to find they served NORMAL condiments such as chili garlic, liquid soy sauce and vinegar. We scarfed down a lot of these:

But the real highlight was drinking cobra blood, just to say we'd done it once in our lives. The quest for a stall that sold the delicacy was a bit trickier, though.

Early on our quest, we found a guy selling snake oil and meth pipes with a cage of writhing cobras next to him. This is the surest sign you're looking at a cobra blood vendor. But he'd managed to disappear late in the afternoon from his perch in front of the yellow Glodok mall, so we had to find another similar guy.

Somehow very well behaved.

Two hours later and 8 blocks down, we ended up on Mangga Besar, a wide street lined with restaurants and bars, plus some warungs (food kiosks).

Here, we found a guy who, for Rp 60.000 ($6), will happily grab a snake, impale it with a guillotine-like device, drain its blood into a cup, skin it, cut into its belly to reveal some vital organs, somehow identify the snake's heart --or liver?-- and then proceed to drain those organ juices into your drink.

Thankfully, it's spiked with honey, the brew from boiled ginger and a little rice wine. Plus they make sure you have water on hand to chase down the blood. Honestly, it wasn't so bad. It's the shock of ingesting something so raw is what got me.

I mean, really, imagine licking this:

We learned later on that Indonesians believe cobra blood will improve one's skin and potentially improve one's sex drive. Now, I'm still waiting on that perfect epidermis and mighty mojo, but for now I'm just glad for the adventure. But we have to come back for that crossbow.

A Sushi Restaurant with Barely Any Sushi

2010-11-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I'm starting my post with this, but in an increasingly globalized world, you'll always get a mixing (or clash) of cultures. The same goes for cuisine.

Y&Y, one of those huge restaurants in Grand Indonesia whose cutesy accents overshadows its food's appeal, is one such example.

Take for instance this mongrel dish of Italian and Japanese descent. It wasn't quite as successful a fusion as I had hoped.

Salmon Pesto Soba - Rp 89.000

Or this kiddie meal that came with some nasi goreng, parmesan-dusted french fries, chicken karaage (essentially chicken chunks) and chocolate covered fruit balls.

Yoyo meal - Rp 35.000

Or this Chinese-tasting Indonesian staple, nasi goreng:

Nasi Goreng Siram Seafood - Rp 50.000

But purist notions aside, there was much to be enjoyed in terms of the sheer aesthetics of their dishes.

Hot & Cold Seafood Platter - Rp 215.000

That's sushi, sashimi, boiled mussels, fish fillet, and really limp tempura, counterbalanced in weight and deliciousness by bread sticks and parmesan-coated french fries at opposite ends. Sauces include balsamic vinegar, chili sauce, garlic mayo and terikayi sauce.

And the somewhat creative names of drinks.

This was called "Urban Chocolate" (Rp. 40.000), which sounded either like a rap album or an African-American porn star. Other choices were "Edgy Strawberry" and "Voltus Vanilla," the latter of which I suspect has no real meaning.

And this was "ByeBye Cholesterol," or apricot and orange juice. They had a bunch of beverages that seemed to peddle anything from aphrodisiacs (Hot Stuff - mint, ginger, pineapple) to youth elixirs (Forever Young - apple, ginger, blueberry).

There's something comically populist about catering to a wide palate by mixing and matching different cuisines, while pandering to your appetite for tacky excesses. That's a lot to swallow.

Life as a Grammar Janitor

2010-11-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Before our hamsters ate each other up and my Mom left the remaining cannibals out in the garage to die, I was fascinated by the little animals' routines.

It went like clockwork. Wake up, pace on the wheel, drink from the water bottle, stuff cheeks with nutritious pellets, explore cage's fun plastic tubes, bite owner's hand when it reaches in, gather sawdust into comfy bed inside plastic house, curl up into ball and sleep. Repeat.

Years later, I would realize that I was just like the hamsters, only in a bigger cage without fun plastic tubes. It's mildly depressing to wake up after noon, wash up, dress up, go to work, plow through abysmally written copy for 9 hours or more, go home and do the whole thing all over again the next day. Notice how I don't run on a wheel.

Weber would be so proud of this self-conscious despair.

Just like any animal unhappy in its prison, I look for an escape. I read a stack of books on my dresser, as if the growing pile were an achievement. I watch an average of 30 films a month just to break the monotony. I make friends to feel relevant. All this because I have to combat the creeping feeling that I'm digging my way into an increasingly larger hole in which I've buried all my dreams -- fulfilling relationships, graduate school, a stellar reporting career -- for the moment.

What will I do with selective knowledge of currency agreements and cricket batting averages? What will I do with this increasingly formalistic view of texts? What will I do with the skill of writing around holes in a story? What will I do with this acute sense that I've failed to accomplish anything thus far?

Confronted with the same realization, I wonder if that's why the hamsters decided to eat each other and their jelly-bean shaped rose-tinted babies (other than a lack of protein). Just that urge to destroy everything or self-destruct because you've stopped making meaning. But I'm not quite there yet. Almost.

Brew from the Bowels

2010-10-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

I consider Kopi Luwak, civet poop coffee, one of the marvels of marketing. You're basically feeding people a shit by-product packaged in luxury, smothered in elitism and studded with gold nuggets.

At Kopi Luwak, a coffee shop at Plaza Indonesia, the product is unabashedly promoted as "The Most Expensive Coffee in the World." How could we resist?

Plus, drink up this rather compelling blurb from the promotional materials at the cafe (verbatim):

The Luwak (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) denizen of the coffee (kopi) plantations of Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, eats only the ripest coffee cherries.

Unable to digest the coffee beans, the Luwak graciously deposits them on the jungle floor where they are eagerly collected by locals.

The stomach acids and enzymatic action involved in this unique fermentation process produces the beans for the world's rarest coffee beverage.

To me it sounds like this: After a round of polo and a sip of champagne, the Luwak is carried by its servants over to the coffee cherry patch where the serfs proceed to feed it with the ripest fruits. After massaging its body with caviar and washing it off with wine, the civet then perches on a golden toilet and graciously takes a shit.

Kopi Luwak coffee shop serves Rp 82.000 ($9) cups of authentic java, as well as packets of coffee powder tied up in gold sachets and cans of powdered Kopi Luwak in exquisitely carved wooden boxes, each with a certificate in it that says it's the real deal. These poopy powders are pretty expensive.

I tried the stuff with my boyfriend a few months back and it was not a pleasant experience. I distinctly remember a fecal aftertaste.

Indonesian Kopi Luwak, however, had a deeper and richer flavor, a bitter and earthy aftertaste.You could hardly detect the feces.

The sediment left behind in the cup was quite attractive, too, like civet diarrhea. Say authenticity!

Toilet, coffee cup... who's keeping track?

Our waitress, a sweet girl, earlier tried to sell those coffee grounds like her life depended on it, even telling my friend that he couldn't get Kopi Luwak anywhere else (of course he can).

The funny thing was, though, that when we asked her if Kopi Luwak was good, she shook her head and said, "No. I don't like coffee."

Nothing Like the First Time

2010-10-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

1. Last month, I finally tried eating goat meat at one of those makeshift food stalls on the sidewalk. Surprisingly, it didn't taste like anything distinct. Just something smothered in peanut sauce.

2. I also finally tried that train-themed diner at Grand Indonesia called Warung Leko. Much like a real subway, it was dirty and crowded. People fit into these tiny booths with partially clean tables and get served really substandard Indonesian fare. Not a trip I want to take again.


Nasi Merah, or red rice. Like Indonesia's flag, rice eaters choose between red and white.

That's a malnourished chicken set on a stone plate spread with really toxic chili paste.

3. Due to monumental floods at my former kost on Jalan Tiong, I was occasionally forced to wake up earlier than usual whenever I'd hear heavy rains outside. One particularly bad flood day, when I had to literally swim through waist-deep sewage, I rewarded myself with some Japanese food after surviving the ordeal. (I moved to a new kost shortly after.)

They actually have some pretty decent food at this shabu-shabu place at Plaza Semanggi called Shabu Tei. A notable feature is that the restaurant shows really bad Indonesian soap operas on a TV near the entrance. Something to look at when you're bored.

Curry Chicken Katsu Rice - Rp 50.000

Crunchy Dragon Roll - Rp 75.000

4. There is this really great Thai place on Jalan Dr. Satrio, where the staff outnumber the customers at any given time. This has always puzzled me.

The last time my friend and I ate there was during Ramadan. Upon entering the restaurant, the servers and cooks -- who had previously just been sitting around, chatting -- suddenly got up and took their places, like startled actors in a play.

David said we should've directed their movements. Like, "You there, shine my shoes. You, massage my back. You, make me some pad Thai." But I just figured they'd spit in our food, which was delicious, no matter how weird-looking.

I call this the Avocado Thong

Some phallic fried rice for ya.

Crisis Management

2010-10-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

Hi Newsbreak family!

How are you all doing na? Happy happy birthday to Ms. Gemma and Ms.
Lala. Hope you guys have a great get-together and birthday
celebration. :)

Things are okay here in Jakarta. I'm still unhappy about the quality
of journalism on J (man, you should really read the
copy we have to edit, they're all so.... STUPID) and one of the bosses
I talked to actually acknowledged that the organization is weak and
that our reporters are incompetent (the good ones end up working for
B afterward) and our "learning experience" basically consists
of "writing around" obvious holes in the story. Like one of my
friends, D, who is quitting in a month, said, it's quite hard to
keep doing something when you don't believe in the product. I never
had this problem with Newsbreak.

On the upside, it's still a way to save some money for grad school at
some point next year, though I'm not even doing a good job of saving
money. Haha. I guess I am enjoying extra-curriculars too much.

I moved kosts (apartment-ish boarding houses) three days ago because
the street where I used to live on had monumental deluges every time
it rained hard. Twice last week, I had to swim in floodwaters that
were waist-deep. I kid you not. I also almost fell into a canal, if
not for some neighbors who were watching me cross the road and they
screamed for me to stop. :) I actually wore a swimsuit under my
clothes to wade in sewage. Might as well put the bikinis to use!

My new kost is great, it's like a three-star hotel and it's definitely
got more interesting (read: less seedy) people. It's very cozy and
quiet from morning until around 8 p.m., when the management starts
blaring Celine Dion songs on the PA system for about an hour and a
half. I'm not sure if they think "My Heart Will Go On" will make us
sleep better or something. On the whole, it's been very conducive to
meditation and painting, which I've taken up again recently. I figured
I need a positive outlet for my frustrations. :) I've also been
watching a lot of classic films and reading a stack of books I borrow
from my friend, to keep myself literate.

One of the more interesting things that happened earlier this month
was when some of us at the copy edit desk (me; one of our immediate
supervisors, J; his nice brother D; D; and our bassist
co-worker A) went to P restaurant in South Jakarta.

The experience was surreal, because you get the feeling that the
socialist government is just putting on a fake face for foreigners.
I enjoyed myself after scarfing down kimchi,
cream dumplings, some roast beef and pork, cold noodles (not so good
though) and shotglasses full of Soju. Then the waitresses performed a
few Korean songs and they sounded like dying cats. It was so funny. I
almost choked on a noodle when I heard one of them sing "My Heart Will
Go On" in stilted Ingarish. I'll post a video and pictures sometime
(though cameras are forbidden).

This weekend, we're all piling into a minibus and going to Bandung,
the capital of West Java province and home to lots of factory outlets.
It's a long drive from Jakarta, though. I think people go there to
shop, mostly. We're supposed to have a picnic near a volcano, which
sounds really exciting. But, we'll see what adventures or
misadventures await.

Hope to hear from you all again. Miss you guys.

Love love,

Kristine

What's eating Pyongyang?

2010-10-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

A week ago, we decided to head over to Pyongyang Restaurant in South Jakarta. I took a fast ride on Adam's "pretty Vespa," clinging to a metal handlebar under his seat as people looked at me and probably thought, "Oh look, Indonesian prostitute on the back of a White guy's bike."

Pyongyang is quite nondescript, and you might actually miss it if you pass by the street. Perhaps it's the North Korean way of just standing silently in grim isolation, watching as the world either seeks it out or ignores it.

The NK government actually set up a chain of these restaurants in Southeast Asian countries, all branches named after the country's capital, to draw in foreign currency. This is why the place is probably spruced up to look like a socialist wonderland.

The place was packed with Korean-looking people, probably drawn by the food, which was actually pretty good. The boys got a table a few feet from an empty stage right beside the entrance. Our view of it, however, was partially obscured by a glass panel bordered by fake green foliage dotted with fake orange blossoms.

Upstairs, there are private dining rooms equipped with karaoke machines that guests can rent. But these are quite creepy. If you loiter long enough, you can catch some of the servers disappearing behind a locked door into what I imagine are their dorm rooms.

Surprisingly beautiful North Korean waitresses would flit about, serving dishes and taking dirty ones away with their delicate white hands. I always imagined North Korean girls as toothless, hairless labor camp prisoners. But these ladies, wearing the traditional Choson-ot dress, were heartbreakingly pretty, having to evade flirtatious customers (and there are plenty) with their small smiles.

They are graduates of North Korean hospitality schools, where they presumably learn the fine art of opening beer bottles and folding canary yellow napkins into complicated cabbage shapes.

Our server, covertly photographed because cameras aren't allowed inside. But loads of people get away with it.

The things you learn in hospitality school.

The dishes were kind of pricey, but totally worth it when you're famished. An interesting item on the menu is dog meat soup, which we considered ordering, but we decided that we would feel bad if we did.

I must say, after eating copious amounts of Indonesian food and fast food fare, I was glad to eat fresh, straightforward Korean dishes like kimchi, cream dumplings, chicken pockets and roast beef wrapped in lettuce leaves and rolled in bean paste.

A hefty bowl of cold noodles in a tangy broth that I thought tasted a bit funky. I didn't like it so much.

At some point in the evening, the waitresses went on the said stage to perform a few Korean karaoke songs. Helpfully, there were flatscreen TVs on some of the walls, showing the lyrics. At one point, a hostess sang Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" in a voice that eerily echoed the groans of people dying on the Titanic.

One song involved shaking the hands of people in the audience, and the boys and I got the chance to actually touch a North Korean. Unfortunately for them, that was as far as they were going to get, and we wondered how indoctrinated these girls were to resist the pull of a cosmopolitan city like Jakarta.

There have been reports of Pyongyang restaurant waitresses defecting, but we figured the government had ways to keep them in check, and perhaps that they or their relatives would be punished if they so much as stepped out of the restaurant compound.

A blurry picture of the waitresses singing like dying cats.

A migraine-inducing video of the handshaking song. I was a bit nervous, sorry. To note, they shook the hands of Andy Janes, Dave Watnick ("They're all ones!" as opposed to zeroes on the binary scale of female hotness), Dan Powell, Adam Martin and myself.

I sincerely hope they are happy pacing about efficiently in their beige pumps all day, maybe knocking back a few shotglasses of Soju to ease the stress of waitressing for the socialist cause and fattening up Kim Jong-il's already bloated pockets.

Memo to me: Soju does not agree with me.

Save for a nifty nook beside the doors, where a woman sold North Korean ginseng and various herbal products, there were no overt references to North Korea or its ideology. In fact, the decor was quite bland, with motel-standard landscape paintings-- no pictures of the beloved leader or propaganda leaflets.

It's actually quite amusing how the country has come up with such an elaborate ruse, allowing its subjects to make nice with "the enemy" (read: Americans, of which there were many in our party).

As a diner, you also question whether you would feel okay with spending money that would support the North Korean regime. The irony that many poor North Koreans die from starvation and poverty every year, while state-owned establishments like this serve food in abundance was not lost on me. Maybe our Rp 1.8 million bill would foot Kim's hospital bills, how did we feel about that?

But hey, if anything, it was a delicious, interesting and thought-provoking experience. It actually encourages me to take a packaged tour to the real Pyongyang soon. Hopefully.

ADDRESS: Jl. Gandaria 58, Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta

Open daily 11 a.m. – 10 p.m.