Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
~Baudelaire

Vodka may be the tipple of the proletariat but the plush Red Square vodka bar at Plaza Senayan will certainly be beyond the reach of the masses - one drink here costs around 10 bucks, or considerably more than Jakarta’s daily minimum wage!

Rather, admission is reserved for card-carrying party members only, that is Jakarta’s so-called “elite”.

But no system is completely infallible and a number of imposters do manage to trick their way in – most disguising themselves (although that’s probably not the right term) in extremely sexy and revealing outfits.

As a pressure release from the stresses of Jakarta daily life, I’ve always maintained that it is vital to “let go” at least once in a while and enjoy some of the city’s more hedonistic offerings.

In pursuit of such lofty goals, some get taken on a long and winding road – which is most probably jammed and potholed as well - and end up in places like Alexis or Club 36 in the north of the city, or perhaps one of the down-to-earth girly bars in the south at Blok M.

But the appeal of such places soon wears thin and a “better class” of establishment becomes an enticing prospect.

Like Red Square.

This dark retreat attracts decadent denizens by the bucketful and despite being moderately spacious can be as packed as a Jakarta bus during rush hour(s) if you go there on the weekend (Friday/Saturday). This is no bad thing, however, and helps give the place an “edgy closeness”, which when aided by the social lubricant called alcohol can make for a very interesting evening indeed.

The bartenders like to show off a bit and juggle vodka bottles with special fire effects but I reckon if you pulled the latest party trick of drinking neat vodka through the eyes (I shit you not!) you’d definitely outdo them.

Come here with a thick wallet and the world’s your oyster. Well for one night at least!



Go to Red Square and you could well be on your knees by the end of the evening.

Red Square Jakarta
Plaza Senayan Arcadia
Unit X210-211 Jl. New Delhi No 9
Pintu I Senayan
Jakarta 12710

Tel: (021) 5790 1281

Japanese food is great. But it’s also very expensive. So are there any affordable alternatives to the very pricey Japanese restaurants that are usually located in the city’s five star hotels or fancy office buildings?

Well, yes there are. And one of them is Zenbu, a bright and cheerful little restaurant located in the new extension to the venerable Plaza Indonesia shopping mall.





The restaurant is open-planned making it ideal for claustrophobes like me, in addition to being a great place to participate in Jakarta’s most popular shopping mall activity – people watching. :)

Without further ado, let’s get onto the food.

Well, first the sushi.

Plenty of choices here starting from about Rp25,000 (4 pieces) up to around Rp80,000 (6 pieces). The sushi is fresh, tastes pretty good and is a comfortable 7/10. The accompanying wasabi is fine – even though it isn’t real wasabi of course (see below).

If that doesn’t fill you up, then there are plenty of other dishes that will.

Like the salmon muzaro which comes with lashings of mozzarella cheese on top to send the calorie count through the roof. You can choose from chicken, beef, prawn or salmon topings and either a tomato, butter or spicy sauce.

Drinks are fairly pricey so if you are a cheapskate like me just ask for the Japanese tea (ocha) which they will give you for free.

Zenbu,
Plaza Indonesia Extension Fifth floor,
Jl. MH. Thamrin Kav. 28-30
Jakarta

Interesting facts on Japanese food (compiled from various sources):

- That spicy wasabi that you love is almost certainly not real wasabi. This stuff is difficult to cultivate and sells for up to US$100/pound! Hence, most restaurants outside of Japan use a common substitute comprising horseradish, mustard, and green food coloring!!!

- The 2011 Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to some Japanese researchers who determined the ideal density of airborne wasabi needed to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi fire alarm!

- Japanese food can be bloody expensive because its ingredients are bloody expensive. In 2001, a sushi grade 444 pound Bluefin Tuna was sold for US$173,600 in Tokyo, or more expensive than your typical house in Jakarta!

- According to US regulations, all fish to be eaten raw in the US (with the exception of tuna) must be frozen first to kill any parasites (nice to know!)

- We all know that the Japanese have some wacky sexual predilections. One of them is 'Nyotaimori' - the Japanese tradition of eating sushi off a perfectly still, naked woman's body. Sounds great to me. When will they bring this to Jakarta?

What’s your favorite man made seven wonder? The Taj Mahal? The Colosseum? Or the Great Wall of China, perhaps?

Yes, these are all impressive feats of human endeavor but the tourism authorities in Jakarta are not happy and believe that there should be a new addition to the list.

The Semanggi Interchange at rush hour!!!



Source: Enjoy Jakarta

The Semanggi interchange - perhaps the most congested in Jakarta - is a haphazard confluence of traffic lanes where decrepit buses hurtle forward like deranged dogs, narrowly missing waiting passengers.

Remarkably, no-one has yet been killed.

As regular metro mini user Ani Setiawati recently commented to her friend whilst waiting for a bus at the chaotic scene:

"It’s bloody dangerous! Absolute madness. It's a Wonder someone isn't killed there every day!"

At the scene overhearing Ani was an official, and so impressed by her insightful views decided it would be a great idea to propose the Interchange as a new seven wonder.

“It’s a Wonder permission was ever granted for the Semanggi shopping mall to be built in such a busy place,” added the official. “but where there’s a will there’s a way.”

Tours for tourists are being planned and the idea is to have them experience the Wonder of excruciatingly bad traffic jams, dysfunction traffic management and high pollution levels firsthand.

“Give it time and more tourists will visit Jakarta than Bali,” said the upbeat official. “Wonderful!!!”

>>>end

Heading back from the “Big Mangga” along Jalan Gunung Sehari and I see this:



WTF! You must be thinking what I’m thinking, right?



Certainly enough to make ole Steve Jobs turn around in his grave a few times before he’s on the blower to one of his writ-loving lawyers.

And you can be sure that his lawyers would be onto this in a jiffy.

In fact, why aren’t they? Is it cos Apple Indonesia don’t care? I doubt it. Perhaps they simply don’t know.

Some particularly objectionable advertising at the current time are the TV ads by so-called Intersport, the main sponsor of the English football Premier League.




Why am I drawing attention to a sports company ad you ask? Well, that’s the whole point – it’s not a real sports company - but a pretend one set up by one of the large Indonesian kretek cigarette producers to sneakily circumvent anti-tobacco advertising laws.

Not good. Not good at all.

As for really ridiculous ads, this one I spotted near Tanah Abang in central Jakarta really takes the biscuit.



I mean it’s not as if we drink coffee to stop our butts from freezing off is it? This is the tropics for God’s sake!

A lot better was a rather creative ad on Miss V, although it sadly never made it past the drawing board stage.

As for sexist ads, there is – would you believe – an ad being shown on Indonesian TV at the moment in which a guy’s pair of false teeth go flying out of his mouth only to land in the cleavage of an attractive looking girl sitting nearby.

Whatever will they think of next?

Anyone for a biscuit?

May you - Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, dance like no-one is watching, screw like it's being filmed, and drink like a true Irishman.
~aNON

On the shores of North Jakarta, you can find South East Asia’s largest integrated tourist “resort”. It’s called Ancol Dreamland and draws kids in their thousands, especially at the weekends. Rollercoaster rides, water park, the circus, that sort of thing.

But it’s not only the kids who have dreams, and not very far away from the candy-floss munching crowds at Ancol there is an altogether quite different “dreamland” at Jakarta’s one and only Alexis Hotel (Alexis, however, can only be considered a hotel in the very “loosest” sense of the word; no one ever comes here for a good night’s sleep!)

For those who enter Alexis a new world of possibilities opens up. Time stops still and you are transported into a sort of Barbarella science fiction fantasy but with an Asian twist – bikinis instead of silver spacesuits and jet-black hair rather than blonde.



Barbarella would be very much at home in today's Jakarta

Yet we are also faced with an enigma. Because Alexis doesn’t only present us with a vision of a glitzy utopian future – but it also looks back in time, paying homage to the Bacchanalian excesses of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations:

It is interesting to note that in the Julius Caesar era (100-44 B.C.) conservative values initially prevailed and the sexes were only allowed to bathe together provided two rules were obeyed: 1) “don’t stare” and 2) “behave as if one were fully dressed”.

It was only as Rome declined that the baths degenerated into salacious frivolity.

At Alexa the road to decadence has been well and truly started yet there is still some distance to go. But who knows? The way Jakarta’s political elite are going we could easily be in Caligula territory in another 10 to 15 years!

Away from the bathhouse and back down on the first floor is the intriguingly named bar, 4Play.

This place opens at 9.00pm but doesn’t really get buzzing until much later.

Being in Indonesia, the pretense is put on that certain things should not be directly seen and whilst this is quite ironic given what goes on here, the notorious “James Bond Silhouette Dancer Screen” is still a treat for sore eyes.

Other facilities at the Alexis are a spectacular karaoke complex and a top notch resto which serves gourmet Indonesian, Chinese, and Japanese food.

Regrettably, admission to such a tempestuous fantasy world is not cheap and it’s easy to spend two or three million rupiah in just one evening. So are you being taken for a ride? Most probably - but in which sense? Ultimately, there are worse ways to blow your money.

And just one final thing.

The hotel even has rooms to sleep if you want!


Alexis Hotel Jakarta
Jl R.E. Martadinata No 1
Jakarta Utara 14430
Phone: +62 21 6983 3333
Fax: +62 21 6983 1111
Email: admin@alexisjakarta.com