I found a good butcher and a vegetable shop I can communicate with. They pick their veggies the same day so it's a bit dusty but freshness makes yummy food.

I spend 90 LE for a kilogram of young beef and a kilogram of sheep. The veggies costs 7 pounds. The veggie vendors do not differentiate prices between tomatoes or potatoes or carrot. They put everything on one basket and weight them. That's it. 7 pounds of miscellaneous freshly picked organic veggies. Take that Whole Food !!!

1. Set up expectation.

2. Support.

3. Get out of the way.

A good source to track any local development in Indonesia is through to the group blog http://laksamana.net.

Laksamana means admiral in Indonesian.

Islam is a religion without any hierarchy and its believers have the right to approach the religion in the way that he and she understands best. It acknowledges the direct relation between God and Man (and Woman) without the use of intermediary.

However right now we are seeing in practice that the one with the money and guns seems to hold the 'rights' to define Islam.

You see this pattern throughout the Middle East from the prosecution of the Shias in Saudi Arabia or the blowing out of Shias Mosques in Iraq. Where one Muslim faction denounces the other as 'not a true Islam'.

It is ironic that a religion that has a deep support for 'liberation theology' and concept of justice is being dominated by blind ambition and greed of some of its believers.

And the fact that silence majority (read: silenced) letting this happens is maddening. Your silence is not golden. To a lot of non-Muslims Islam is equal fear. The assertion that Islam is a "religion of peace" rings hollow when what people see is the image of heads being cut off or even Mosques being blown up while the word "Allahuakbar" is being shouted in the background.

Heck, even Islam right now is a danger to some Muslims. Being a Sunni or Shias, in some place can get you killed.

How fucked up is that.

Imagine that. Being a 'wrong' stripe of Muslim can get you killed by your fellow Muslims of different stripe.

It is questionable that Islam needs reform. But for sure, Muslims need reform, for Islam's sake and the rest of the world.

Nothing on this post is new. Many intellectuals in the Muslim worlds have espoused this view; and there are tons of intellectuals in the Muslim world. The idea is there, the realization is there. It's just not happening.

Update: It happened in London (they are reclaiming their religion)

Today is a great day in learning Egyptian culture and a cheap one as that. My "guide" and new friend, Jimmy, was graceful enough to meet me in Cinema Tahrir near my place (about 10 minutes walk) and showed me his neighbourhood. He is a fellow blogger that I meet for the first time today, yet he insisted on paying for everything.

His neighbourhood, Shoubara is a neighbourhood in northern part of Cairo. We took off at the Road El-Faraq metro stop, a ten minute subway ride from Dokki.

A street in Shoubara. Cairo's air is filled with fine dust from the desert today due to the windstorm last night. They look like a yellow fog.

This neighbourhood is distinct from other places I have seen in Cairo due to its relatively lack of traffic and parked cars  in narrow street and filled with buzzing and vibrant small independent shops. A walkable place in Cairo, that's something to cheer about.

I didn't understand what he was saying but isn't this such a great welcoming gesture?

A traditional market in Shoubara; You can find meat and fishes and vegetables but no Chicken. The country is cracking down on fresh chicken trade.

Donkey Cart. They remind me of Wisconsin :)

We explored the streets by foot and ate some street food which name escape me now. Yummy. People are noticably friendly here even in the friendly city like Cairo.

We hung out a bit in his buddy, George, that loves blaring loud hip hop music out of his computer. Imagine listening to Jay-Z's "Big Pimping" out of an apartment in Cairo; that's surreal. I love it. They went to Luxor and Answan last week on a school trips for a week and paid only 200 pounds for the whole thing and stayed in four star hotels. Lucky bastards. Their pictures make me crave going to the Upper Egypt even more. Both of them study English literature that apparently attended by 600 or more female and only 30 guys. Now that's Estrogen poisioning.

Vibrant fabrics in Shoubara.

Jimmy was kind enough to invite me to his house and introduced me to his mother. She cooked a killer dinner. I was stuffed and happy at the end of our fabulous dinner. Apparently he read about my string of bad luck here in Cairo and gave me a sure remedy, a stone scarab, a symbol of luck in ancient Egypt. Hey my water and Internet cable worked when I returned home. It works.

Notice the yummy Sheep grill and Tahina.

Egyptian has lunch at 3-4 and dinner at 9-10. That's crazy but it's a pattern that fits the night stalker nature of this society. People go out, late and stay even later.

I had my first Shisha in Egypt sitting down on the first class view of one busy narrow street and down it with the famous Egyptian mango juice that quickly become my favourite beverage here.

So today is a very very good day. Thanks a lot Jimmy for showing me a part of your city. I'm looking forward to the football match next week.

First things first, I met Jimmy on time at Cinema Tahrir earlier today. And no, no one get kidnapped; I am not a foreign spy either :) more on this later.

Water is back into the building and my Internet cable from is fixed.

My WiFi sputtered to life last night then died again. There is no water in the building today.

This reliability of infrastructure is one thing this country needs to work on.

I haven't seen a Cairo sunrise. I have been claiming the night since I arrived here and ignore the morning.

Hopefully soon.

For now Cairo is a lonely place. The language barrier simply prevents me to communicate with the natives on the street. The mounting workload made it worse.

No, I haven't seen the pyramid yet. I'll take a time off tomorrow afternoon to explore old cairo and some places not usually visited by foreigners. I will post pictures.

I miss my friends back in Chicago and the lake. Nothing surpass the ability to run for miles and miles with a stunning sunrise view of Lake Michigan and Bob Marley blaring through your ears. I haven't run here since I arrived. I will miss playing volleyball every Sunday on the beach. Egyptians are not sporty type. There are not enough parks in this city to stimulate outdoors activities.

Cairo: Too much cars, too little sports.

I have to find the other side of Cairo that is not obvious.

An old man sat down on the side of the street near Tahrir trying to open the cap of a bottled Fanta with his teeth. He struggled a couple of times to no avail.

I noticed him while walking home from a grocery run and crossed the street with my Swiss knife army ready and offered a hand to open his drink. He smiled gratefully accentuating the age line of his face and bursted out a hearty "thank you" when I gave his bottle back, opened. That made my day.

I am probably cursed. Aside from my well documented quest in finding any workable wifi connection in Cairo's cafe, I have encountered so many little irritating problems that pops up now and then in my three weeks here in Cairo.

For example, my Internet connection at home. I took me two days and two WiFi access point to get it working. It worked beautifully yesterday night and tada, this morning the fuckin' cable that connect my apartment to the office network below bailed out on me.

Crap.

Now I am resorted to working out of the cyber cafe nearby. At least this one has a good computer because they use it to play games. On the downside, I have no immediate access to my kitchen to make yummy Turkish coffee.

Living Area

Concrete Jungle of Dokki area, Cairo.

That door goes to my room. As you can see it is a very colorful multi hued apartment walls. The kitchen ceiling is blue and out of frame.

If you think America is a country of great couch potatoes, you should visit an average Egyptian household. My TV has 967 channels (mostly Western European channels); say that slowly. I have 700 of those channels at any time before I have to rotate the satellite dish.

You can find channels from crappy Euro trash channels to al-jazeera and a few  porn channels (yup kids, there are porn channels on free sattelite broadcast accessible from Egypt). The upside is that I get to switch to many Italian based music channels that actually play music (unlike MTV for example) and keep the TV on as my jukebox.

Satellite dish marks every single rooftop of any building here in Cairo. You can have a crappy building, but you can't have a crappy TV channels. That's how it goes folks.

Now that I have my home base, I am finally near peace with Cairo. Living out of suitcase kill your soul. That's why the travelling salesman dies unhappily.

The living area is a combination of dining room, living room and kitchen (studio style). This is the dining area.

This is the small kitchen.

This is one view of the balcony.

You go to the balcony through here

This is the living room part, with a 22 inch TV (with satellite dish)

That is the door to the kiddy room.

I will take more pictures of the place during the day. The camera I'm using right now is low on battery so the flash didn't work properly. Every single picture is at under-shot.

Hasish is available and priced like Chocolate cookies here in Cairo. A lot of people smoke this shit and virtually every single person from Alex does it.

Sorry, my Monkey Brain is not compatible with Hash.

I just signed a contract for a rooftop apartment in Dokki.

Jot down this address. 36 Iran St, 10th Floor, No 12, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt.

It's a beautiful two bedroom apartment with colorful walls and great fully furnished furniture. The landlord owns the building and live accross my apartment on the highest floor. He didn't care much about the price of the apartment; he cares about his potential neighbour.

There's a spacious private rooftop to hold barbecue and late night drinks.You can view the 'rugged' landscape of Cairo directly from my living room.

DSL is available immediately tomorrow. Yay. Problem solved (cross your finger)

He's an ex F-16 pilot with a Turkish wife.

Yes, it is lady-safe :)

He doesn't care what I do as long as I keep the peace.

I will post pictures tomorrow. You are all invited.

Right now I'm connecting out of a house hold 256 kbs DSL. OK for browsing, still crappy for Remote Desktop Connection.

I'm connecting from Gold Cyber Cafe in Zamalek for 5 pounds an hour.

The connection is better but it's still crap and I couldn't use my own connection.

Avoid Cafe Complet in Sheraton Cairo. Its coffee is crap.

Cafe Du Paris is a nice place with a mediocre food (Zamalek)

Cilantro in Zamalek is a non smoking only place. They are 24 hours but they will kick you out at 6 am in the morning because that's cleaning time.

Cilantro in AUC is nice but packed to the wazoo. Wifi is crap there.

For cheap and nice beer, go to 7oreya in downtown Cairo. It's a run down place with high ceiling, just like the one you see in "spy games" movie. It has great atmosphere but  the toilet is shit.

Cafe Tabasco in Zamalek has a nice ambience but its wifi is a no-fi. It never works with me.

Cafe Costa is a wanna be Starbucks without the good coffee (comparatively);

If you are desperate to get laid, to go Hilton Ramses at night and book a room there (don't do it walk in  because they will charge your ass 1000 LE); The prostitutes unning rate is 500-600 LE a night. If you are unlucky, they come with gifts that keeps on giving.

The price for 5 pieces of juicy Tangerine is 4 LE.

A pack of Malboro Red is 7.5 LE for local Egyptian version (it has arabic "you will die if you smoke this shit" warning attached to its front). If it's cheaper than that price, it's a smuggled cigarretes and usually crap.

and I can't still get a decent and reliable Internet connection here in Cairo. There will be another week or 10 days before our office in Dokki equipped with 2 MBPs connection.

It's the most frustating part of my experience here in Cairo. My work requires solid and stable Internet connection and it's  not accessible. The 40 bucks Wifi access in Ramses is also shit.

Tomorrow I will know more if there's some cyber cafe in Maadi with a big pipe in which I can camp.

I work from 11 am until 9 pm then 11 pm-midnight to 3 am here in Cairo. It's a fucked up schedule but this way I can have a sync time with Chicago and New York City and it actually fits nicely with the timing in India. It is also a  very tiring schedule. I lost 2 pounds in the  past week (call it Cairo diet) for fucked up sleep schedule and irregular eating pattern.

I haven't touched alcohol nor women in a week. What I am missing right now is a safron robes and I'll be set living a Buddhist monk lifestyle (I even got the hair right).

Cairo is best experienced really late at night when the crazy traffics are all gone.  I can put on my music and walk the street with my trench coat; with a 1 inch hair cut I look like a hoodlums in the dim light of Cairo street. Now where can I find a baseball bat?

I will still be staying in hostels for another 10 days.

I haven't seen any of Cairo. I know I hate downtown and love Zamalek. Dokki looks fine. I haven't done any of the touristy stuff.

The food in Egypt is good, but bland and lack of varieties. The great thing about this place is the fresh vegetables and fruits. They are mostly one or two days old directly from the farms (excep the imported apples); the meat is high quality and butchers are everywhere, which is great. No more plastic looking souless meat in the supermarket.

Feetah is awesome.

I can't wait to get my own apartment so I can start cooking and do my running routine. It is possible to get a running practice here in Cairo, especially at 4.30 am in the morning when the traffic has yet begun. Hopefully I can get at least 2 miles a day here. More on this once I am settled down in Dokki.

SilverKey office is located in Dokki. It's a 220 sqm spacious office in the Bank of Greece building (6 rooms, 2 balconies, 2 bathrooms, one full kitchen)

My grandma passed away on February 13th at 12.45 PM Central Indonesia Time at the age of 98. Good for her.

No one in the family is mourning her passing. She had been a great grandma and lived a long and fulfilling life (and boy 98 is a long lifetime); I will miss her.

My Ramses Hilton adventure cost me 630 LE (divide by 5 US dollars) for one night just for Internet and room and now I'm back to my old hostel, Mayfair hotel, for a bigger room for a mere 130 LE. I spend 100 LE hanging out in cafes drinking, eating and working.

630 vs 230.

Sometimes cheaper is much better. The hostel is quieter, has more attentive staffs and located in much better neighbourhood (in the trendy Zamalek). Ramses Hilton is located downtown where half of the view is the Nile and the rest are buzzing and noisy main roads polluting the city.

Anyone living in downtown Cairo is beyond me.

Yay, the Cilantro nearby is 24 hours. Wohoo.

I've landed in Cairo. It's actually quite cold at night, hovering around 40F.

Yes RT, it smells, car exhaust mainly. The air here is thick with gasoline fume.

I stayed in a hostel that doesn't have a heater, so I get first hand experience of the early morning temperature.

Internet connection will be a problem so I need to change my venue of stay. Right now I'm at Cilantro, a quasi european style cafe where expats hang out to enjoy cafe. I need to sharpen my car dodging skills otherwise I'll be a dead meat.

The place I am in is Zamalek, an island in the middle of the Nile,  which is where all the embassies are located. Lybian embassy is a block from my hostel.

All I have to do now is wait. Less than 24 hours to go :) I'm too tired to be excited but hell, welcome to stage 3.

Ah oh, did I tell you guys I shaved my head?

Last night everybody brought wine and only 2 bottles ended up getting consumed, leaving a disconcerting spectacle of rows of unopened wine in the morning.

I threw a small party last night and 35 people showed up out of 40 invited. I was expecting half at best and as a result I had to run out three times to resupply on ice and pops. Never underestimate the power of "I'm throwing my last party"; this time, the venue doesn't belong to me as my place is empty and only suitable for storage.

The first guest showed up at seven and the last one left at five and I know somewhere that I will take penalty for having this much fun.

I am dead tired and I can't go to sleep. Millions to do before I leave and not enough time to do it all. It's time to prioritize and reprioritize and breath.

I'll be staying in a 13 dollars a night hostel in Zamalek for about a week. Hilton hotel, the Nile view, can be gotten for 50 dollars a night but I never like big huge hotels. My jungle monkey brain is wired that way. Give me a clean shelter and I'll be fine.