Ai, Ai, Ai! The Making of the Little Black Book for Expat Mamas- Old and New

hooray for AI executing little projects in record time!

Ei! This Little Black Book started as an idea I had years back- I decided to make a list of places I kept recommending to friends. The grocery store where you can taste the cheese before committing, the flower stall you’d never notice, the tailor who fixes your hems without quietly ruining them.

Then I decided to write it on my website- one which never saw the light of day- because the list just kept growing and the page was just way too messy. Which is how I found myself at 49, mother of three, slightly sleep-deprived, asking AI to help me build something interactive at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night.

I should say- I’m not a tech person. I’m a design lover who uses Canva and calls it a day. Mind you, as a former buyer and Brand Manager, I knew my way around spreadsheets and web design and building. However, the when I was freelancing last year, I was almost always in conversation with our web developer via slack- he was in India, I was in Indonesia, our client was in Singapore. Design tweaks would usually take us 2 days minimum with the time difference. That wasn’t something I could do for my personal projects- because “budget, hello!” Then the other day I saw a youtube video of web developers giving prompts to Claude on building a page and lo and behold, it was a full page fully built on html code. Sooo, somewhere between the perimenopause fog and my fourth coffee, I thought: how hard can it be?

Turns out… not that hard. And strangely fun. I was talking to Claude like he was my actual web developer, but he was faster yo. Took me 3 days to build this- with spacing and margin tweaks, UX changes- the works. All I can say is- WOW.

So this is it- seven years of life between Jakarta Selatan and BSD, turned into one honest, evolving list. No sponsorships, no gifted anything. Just places we actually go, services we actually use, and a few gems that took far too long to find. There are also some recommendations from friends in groupchats across BSD and Jaksel too.

If you’re a new expat mum, this is for you. And if you’ve been here a while, I’d love for you to add to it- because the best recommendations are always shared. If you’re searching for something more, drop me a comment and let’s get digging.

Consider this a living guide… built on coffee, chaos, and a slightly unexpected friendship with AI. No, AI didn’t take my job- I didn’t have any to begin with (well, as of this year, that is). So maybe AI will help me get my freelancing gig up and running soon.

Here’s The Little Black book for all you mums out there.