You can't hide the knives

We have two very nice Japanese knives, one big one for doing stuff with, and one paring knife for doing stuff with, when the stuff is small enough that the big knife becomes unwieldy.

Unfortunately, over time the edges of the knives dull. I purchased a whetstone when we bought the larger of the knives, and tried to teach myself to use it via Youtube videos. These may well be a good teaching resource, but it's hard to test, because if you start off with two blunt knives and sharpen one, you may get some comparative improvement without ever sharpening the knife properly. Or you could sharpen both knives (badly) and still not know.

First impressions, Indonesia

Last night we flew into Jakarta for the start of our holiday. Arriving in Indonesian airports I always have a feeling that the processes are vaguely farcical. I might complain about getting into the US, but I don't have to join a queue, pay twenty five dollars for a piece of paper, take that piece of paper with my passport to a separate queue in order to get it stamped, and then go and wave my stamped passport at a third person. (Or, like the guy in front of me, fan out five different passports - a strange thing for a man travelling on his own - and then walk straight on).

Still, we got through, and then went to hire a taxi to the hotel. We haggled the fare down 33%, but since it started off 400% over the odds, we didn't do that well. Oh well. The hotel was great when we got there: lots of terrible reviews on Tripadvisor but we didn't encounter any of the things people were annoyed about. Your mileage may vary, etc.