Dec 16

Warung Murah in Bali, Jalan Doublesix, Food Selection and Price TagsAs mentioned earlier – people around the world love and crave Asian food. I’m not talking about your standard Chinese Restaurant. There is more to experience and taste out there. Let’s start to introduce some of the many delicious dishes you can find around this vast region.

Where to begin?

As I’m currently residing in Bali, Indonesia – naturally I have to start with food from Indonesia. Indonesia has a wide variety of tribes, religions, cultures and cuisines. The most dominant food you can find at almost every corner, street or restaurant is Javanese food – originally from Java – and for good reasons:

written by Chris

Dec 04

Anthony Bourdain - Rogue ChefOur friend Anthony Bourdain is surely a unique character. He is an honest and down-to earth guy – fully respectful of other cultures or traditions – yet he speaks out his mind if something is horrible or brackish.

They don’t call him “Rogue Chef” for nothing.

And he is practically a living Nomad. He enjoys to travel around the world, trying out new foods and shooting a travel show, compared to standing in a kitchen 14 hours a day, 110 degrees, making 300 meals.

Simpatico!

written by Chris

Nov 26

National Stereotypes Cartoon - British, French, Italian, GermanInspired by an idea of Mon earlier on this post, I searched the net far and wide to find the most common stereotypes about Nationalities.

Generalizations about cultures or nationalities can be a source of pride, anger or simply bad jokes. Some people say that in all stereotype there is some basis in reality, as they don’t develop in vacuum.

To give a more serious definition: “National Stereotype is a system of culture-specific beliefs connected with the nationality of a person. This system includes beliefs concerning those properties of human beings that may vary across nations, such as appearance, language, food, habits, psychological traits, attitudes, values etc.”

written by Chris

Nov 19

Mixed Couple in AsiaAsia is a melting pot of different cultures, religions and values. Ever since Marco Polo made his way to this part of the world, people had their own ideas, misconceptions or prejudices without even knowing some basic facts first hand.

Some of those prevail even today, especially about mixed relationships.

With this I mean relationships between Asian and Caucasian women or men.

Everyone heard those kind of stories of bald, old, fat foreign men flocking to Asia and soon be seen hand-in-hand with an exotic beauty. Sooner than later they will buy a house and a pickup truck for their ‘new-found family’. A bit later they are back were they were before – just stripped of their money and other belongings. Need an example?

written by Chris

Nov 12

20 Tips for 100.000 Visitors in 11 Months.jpgBeing in the same lucky position just recently, I was asked by many readers, if there are any tips and tricks to share.

Okay, here we go. I started out as a true-blue beginner to blogging, just learning things along the way. It’s truly amazing, what one can learn in a very short time about webpages, blogging and improving traffic and visitor numbers.

So you definitely have the potential to beat those numbers easily. Just try to follow some of the tips below and avoid my initial mistakes. Most things are about Google Optimization and Self Promotion of your Site:

written by Chris

Nov 05

The Jakarta Post interviews Bali BloggersThe Jakarta PostThe Jakarta Post published today an article on how Blogs and the Internet can help to promote Bali as a travel destination. It shed some light as well on the positive and negative effects of Online Media as Journalists, Blog Experts and Amateur Bloggers, who happen to live in Bali, were interviewed.

Surprisingly I was asked as well by Prodita Sabarini of The Jakarta Post a few days ago, if she could interview me about my view and experiences on the subject. Of course I felt honored and agreed:

written by Chris

Nov 05

Nomad's SnippetsI wanted to take the chance to hand out a bit of link love and introduce the sites of 2 Bloggers in Bali, who I know personally:

Hileud is a young and talented Sundanese woman, who writes in both English and Bahasa Indonesia. She is very good at using WordPress and besides her great content is constantly updating and fine-tuning her site.

Too bad that my Indonesian isn’t that good yet; because there are persistent rumors that plenty of young Indonesian males were falling in love with Hileud just by reading her own poems and thoughts on her site. Isn’t that truly magic? ;-)

written by Chris

Oct 31

Swimming with Dolphins in Lovina, North BaliSome people dream of flying to the Moon. Others dream to retire early. Other humans would give an arm and a leg, if they could fulfill their dream of Swimming with wild Dolphins.

While at least the first dream is quite unlikely, if you are not happen to be Charles Simonyi, or any other Billionaire Employee or Entrepreneur – or live and breathe rocket fuel and work for NASA, ESA or the Russian Space Agency – the other mentioned Dreams are easier to fulfill:

If you happen to be in Indonesia, there are interesting locations to spot Dolphins in their natural habitat or even swim with them in a salt-water pool.

written by Chris