Alterity | Jakarta and Bali

  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 p...

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 o...

All style, no substance. How many places in Jakarta can you say that about? Well, at least we have an alternative to the ubiquitous Starbucks … Where to find it In the little (undercover) arcade leading from the car park to the mall. The food All day breakfasts are served here, acknowledging the conventional wisdom that as people are free to get up whenever they like they should also be allowed to eat breakfast whenever they want. As for the quality of th grub served, rather average IMHO. The coffee Pretty good actually. Nice and strong, decent taste. Value for money Pricey. Rp30k for tea? Madness – you could get a beer for that… Monolog Plaza Senayan Jl. Asia Afrika No. 8 Jakarta Telp: (021) 572 5144

Come on Stay on the scene Like a sex machine ~ James Brown And so here you are, Jakarta. You step off the plane, go uneventfully through immigration and customs before your heart starts to race a little faster with the buildup of adrenaline that comes from being in a faraway land. It’s like being a kid once again. But then, BANG! It hits you: the humidity! Like being in a sauna. You wipe away the small beads of sweat that are forming on your forehead as willowy-looking men assail you from all directions shouting: “taxi mister, TAXI…” Which way should you turn? Watch your bags: you wouldn’t want to lose any of them! Sweet smelling cigarette smoke clings to the air. A hijab, a miniskirt and most incongruously a man in a green colored uniform which looks way too tigh t. Hahaha! Just what the fuck is going on?!!!!!!! The taxi inches its way forward through heavy traffic. You’re not sure where you are but a heavy air hangs over the city. It’s bright but not sunny. There ar...

What’s your favourite man made seven wonder? The Taj Mahal? The Colosseum? Or the Great Wall of China, perhaps? Yes, these are all impressive feats of human endeavour 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 wonde...

For me, this is the best restaurant in Jakarta. It’s also possibly the most expensive. But like all things in life, you get what you pay for. And grade 9+ wagyu, the most tender and magnificent steak on planet Earth, does not come cheap I can tell you. The setting is equally impressive. Modern, clean and sleek, but not clinical or cold. This is a place where successful people come. Where things get done and you don’t sweat the small stuff. No sharp edges. Quality design and superior materials. The gastronomic equivalent of a Mercedes or Porsche. The wagyu is imported from the good folk Down Under and the cows are raised on a diet of hearty foods and – I kid you not - good quality red wines! Besides the wagyu, the other culinary offerings include king crab claw, fresh oyster, and, as you might expect, yakiniku, shabu-shabu and tepanyaki. The desserts, which are also prepared to equally exacting standards of perfection, include the must-try ‘molecular’ berries of fruit liquid....

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 ...

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 sp...