Spicy Dish

I had my part-time helper make black pepper beef tonight.  We love spicy food, but tonight's dish was super spicy!  The other day I saw jalapenos at Lotte Mart and bought a pack thinking that I might make bacon-wrapped jalapeno and cream cheese stuffed shrimp.  Apparently my helper thought they were mini bell peppers and chopped them up and threw them into the black pepper beef along with some red chilli peppers.  The dish ended up having black pepper, red chilli peppers, and jalapenos.  It was hot even by my standards.  The kids were running back and forth to the water dispenser. It was funny.  There were no problems with portion control tonight...ha ha! 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  I can't believe it is now 2013!  The last year flew by so quickly.  I wasn't going to, but I ended up staying up til midnight.  There were fireworks going off everywhere. From our apartment we could see fireworks on the other side of the Bung Karno Stadium and around the Hotel Mulia.  On the other side, we could see that the lights in Plaza Semanggi were turned off and there were fireworks all around the buildings. 

Jalan Sudirman was also shut down from 8pm until 2 am so that people could walk and bike and enjoy the fireworks.  It was interesting to see fireworks all around the city.  In the U.S., fireworks are often restricted within city limits.  Here in Jakarta they were going on in every direction that I looked. 



Fireworks right next to our balcony...a little close!

 

 

 

Fireworks on the other side of the Bung Karno Stadium

 

 

 

View of people walking and biking along Jalan Sudirman

 

 

 

2012 was a great year for our family.  Hopefully this next year will be a good one too.  We are not sure how much longer we will be staying in Jakarta as we are waiting for news of a possible transfer, but we are enjoying the time that we have here.

Fishing at Pasir Mukti

Today we went fishing at Pasir Mukti with another family from our church.  We ended up catching 5 or 6 fish after a couple of hours.  We caught several carp and a bawal hitam.  Then we had them cooked up at the onsite restaurant.  A great way to spend a saturday morning!

 

 

 

 

p.s.  As you can see, Julia is not in the pictures as she was taking them.  I need to be better about grabbing the camera from her and taking shots with her in it.  :)

 

 

SIS Family Day at Taman Mini

My employeer had a family day at Taman Mini this last weekend.  We had a fun and full day.  Here are some of the highlights:



As we arrived at Taman Mini, there was a gathering of Bob Marley loving, dread-lock wearing, Indonesians that raced stretched and lowered Vespas.  Gotta love their ability to make a functioning (sorta) moped out of scrap metal.  :)

Once inside, we made our way to the Oil and Gas Museum where the activities included, a tour, batik making, games, and food.  We even won some movie tickets as door prizes. 

 

One the back side of the museum, there was a 1940's wireline truck that my company donated after retiring the truck in 1992.  I thought it was pretty neat.

 

 

We finished the trip by a walk around one of the bird parks.  The kids took pictures with the birds and we saw lots of cool Indonesian birds like this hornbill.  We have been to Taman Mini twice now, and we have only scratched the surface.  There is nothing "mini" about this place!

 

Blok M Plaza

We went to Blok M Plaza for the first time. It wasn't a super nice mall like many of the malls around Jakarta, but it felt comfortable. It felt like one of the normal malls in the U.S.

We picked up a few things at Matahari. The store seemed well stocked and organized and the prices were very reasonable. I have found Sogo and Metro to be rather pricey.

While we were walking around the mall, we even came across a super cute vintage Honda. I don't know that I have ever seen a convertible Honda in the U.S. My kids all thought it was the cutest thing.

Blok M Plaza also has a Pizza Hut and Burger King, 2 of my kids' favorite places to eat. My son also said he noticed that Hotel Transylvania was playing at the theater. He has been wanting to see that movie. So...I think we will be back to Blok M Plaza sometime.

Rainy Thanksgiving

This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving with a group of friends from church.  However, our friends live in Kemang (a naturally low-lying area), and during our drive over, it was raining, alot.  The rain kept coming and pretty soon, our Kijang was more of a boat than an SUV.  Luckily, we were able to avoid the truly deep water as we saw people in waste-deep water wading across the road.  It took 2.5 hours to arrive, but at least we made it!  Luckily, the water quickly drained away and we had an uneventful ride home after a great evening with good friends and stuffing ourselves with turkey, yams, and pie.  Mmmm, pie....

2014 Ford Transit Connect

Ford just announced a new fuel efficient family hauler: the 2014 Ford Transit Connect.  This is exciting as it will be available as a 7 passenger van that should get 30+ mpg with the EcoBoost motor.  I must admit that I've always liked the quirky styling of the current Transit Connect and am pleased that the new version will have a similar feel. 

I think my wife will like driving it as it would be similar in size to our 2008 Mazda 5, which is much smaller than "mini"vans and SUVs.  I grew up driving full size trucks, but I certainly don't like trying to park them.  Also the sticker price and fuel cost for the larger vehicles is a pretty strong deterent for our family.

Too bad the new Ford won't be sold with a manual transmission, but I shouldn't be surprised as most Americans can't (or don't like to) drive stick shift.  All of our current vehicles have 5 speeds, but that will likely change in the future as our car needs to be larger, and I am not aware of a 7+ seater that offers a manual tranny.

We really are pleased with our Mazda5, but always wished it had an extra seat so we could fit all three kids in the second row.  With all three rows of seat up, there is very little cargo space behind, so we had to invest in a roof rack and bag setup to carry luggage.  This works pretty well, but isn't completely water proof and does take some effort to setup.  Plus the car is already 4+ years old, and we'll likely buy something new for reliability for long trips when we return to the US.

Pricing isn't out yet, but if it starts in the low 20's it should sell well.  It won't be out yet for another year, but that's ok.