Pusing2 Bikin Pening Part 2

Day 2 (Sunday)

Decided to call the Silverbird contact person at the airport to confirm tomorrow's trip to Bandung with the family rate and negotiated a car+driver for today for a drive around Jakarta. Was quoted 500k rupiah all in except parking fees. Agreed and pick up was at 12noon.

First stop was Tanah Abang Mall. Wow!! That is all i can say. Bought some baju, bags for parents and siblings. Reminder to self, must not bring mum here or will be stuck forever in this place. 15 storeys of cheap and beautiful goods...luckily we made a list of what to get, managed to eat only around 3pm. Foodcourt was very nice and clean. They have a card system to pay for the food. U deposit money in the card (available at cashier) then go order food from stalls which will swipe your card and deduct the cost from it. Once u finish eating you can retrieve your balance from the cashier. Yummy Lontong here and the Bakso was okay.

(shoppinggggggggggggg....)

(very impressed with the foodcourt card system...)

Pusing2 Bikin Pening Part 1

This post is past due. The trip was actually in 2008 but wanted to blog about it to share experience on my virgin trip to Indonesia.

(p/s: AirAsia no longer flies from KCH to JAKARTA....why??????)

Day 1 (Saturday)

Flight was retimed from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. However, AirAsia didnt sms me as they would usually. Luckily my friend who works at the airport called before i left for the airport. I personally welcomed the delay as didnt get much sleep the nite before so was able to sneak in 2 hours sleep.

(filling out forms at KCH Airport...)

Took off and had a very COLD flight. Am not kidding you, even the flight attendants was shivering. Reason given was there were less than 30 people on board, if there was more people you wouldn't feel so cold. (proven by return flight when there were ard 80 passengers). Overall was a pleasant flight. Was pleasantly surprised upon landing we were greeted by a shuttle bus instead of having to walk to the terminal. immigration was quick and headed straight to Silverbird Taxi Counter.

(shuttle bus ride to terminal)

Booked a taxi for the 5 of us...was given an Innova. It cost around 175000 rupiah. Destination was Hotel Alpine Jakarta. We asked for a quotation for a car+driver to Bandung for Monday, quote given was 1 mil rupiah not incl. gas, toll etc. Then when we didnt seem interested they told us they can give us a 'family rate' of 700k rupiah all in using Avanza. SO we said we'll decide tomorrow and give them a call.

Off to Hotel, check in. Overall was it was clean, staff was friendly and helpful. With the price we paid, i have no complaints at all except maybe the room's air-cond needed servicing which they did immediately. Besides the fact that it is not in the city centre, we hardly encountered any traffic jams or 'macet' as they call it.

(the pink ball is for cockroaches... *gulp*)
(one of five choice of bfast menu..)
(please explain what Open To Be With You means...)

Since we arrived nearly 11pm at the hotel, we decided to go into town and walk around. Took a cab to Jalan Jaksa. Was not what i expected from what other forumers has written :D I would described it as seedy but we walked along Jalan Jaksa anyway, enjoying the 'activities' around..walked till we reached Jln Agus Salim and had Nasi Goreng Gila there. Then walked some more to Djarkata Theatre. Found a 24 hours cafe called OhLaLa and hang out for a bit. After that walked some more past Sarinah Mall till then end up to where Plaza Indonesia was. Actually looking for Hard Rock Cafe but apparently by 2am it's already closed.

(Cafe Oh La La)
(Plaza Indonesia)