Another crazy Jakarta New Year's

So the thing about New Year's Eve in Jakarta is, it's expensive. We didn't bestir ourselves to organize a party, and we didn't know anyone who was having a party, and we didn't want to go down to the total mob scene to watch the fireworks at Monas, the National Monument. This left us to the tender mercies of Jakarta's nightclubs and hotels, which were charging from $35 to somewhere upwards of $100 per person for the evening.

The perfect emptiness of their bar

Chad and I and Drew and Melanie, who live downstairs, figured we would be clever and get around the whole thing by going to a row of Japanese and Korean places behind Blok M where you can sing karaoke, drink sake, have a bit of sushi and even ride a mechanical bull. But the joke was on us, because practically the whole block was closed. Bars! Closed on New Year's Eve! So we took refuge in an Authentic English Pub (on tap: Indonesian beer and Heineken ... hmmm). The moment we violated the perfect emptiness of their bar, the staff informed us sternly that the place was closing at midnight. Closing at midnight! On New Year's Eve! So we ordered some beers and toasted the New Year and, as our first official act of 2008, got tossed out promptly at 12:01.


Luckily there wasn't much traffic so we zipped right home and saw the tail end of everybody's fireworks from the roof. We snapped a picture, and that was that -- another crazy Jakarta New Year's Eve.