We’ve now moved into our new apartment at Taman Rasuna, a fancy apartment complex in Jakarta. Well, we think its fancy. Apparently it’s the least fancy of the really high end apartment buildings, but it does feature a pool, exercise room, balcony, free furniture, washing machine, and super security. We’ve not had too many adventures since our last post, just been shopping for household goods like a giant Japanese cleaver (since every household needs one) and towels.

Politics continues as usual around here. The pundits have gotten over Susilo’s victory and have now begun to warn him of the importance of his job bringing Indonesia out of the economic doldrums, into an era of stable democratic turnover, and away from terrorism. A simple job, really. A funny image is the jostling among the twenty-four recognized political parties for seats in the Susilo’s cabinet. And don’t forget, Susilo, as a former general, had better appoint some army cronie…. we mean friends as well.

One of the biggest foreign policy issues here right now is the fact that the rightist Liberal-National coalition in Australia has announced that it will take preemptive strikes in Indonesia and elsewhere in the region if it has actionable intelligence regarding terrorism. You can imagine how that makes people here feel.