Jakarta, 15-26 March 2010

What is it with Jakarta & me? I’ve been going there like it’s the best tourism spot every other month or so.

My initial plan was to be in Jakarta on 21st onwards, cause we have finally identified a candidate to be on board to help up with the work there (so that I don’t have to go there so often…thank god). So I had planned to make a trip there before month end to train him up. But some mishap happened a week before that and I had to change my flight very last minute and took the earliest available flight there on 15th March itself.

Definitely not something I look forward to as I need to spend 2 weeks there now instead of 1 week. Moreover, it’s a public holiday on 16th March in Indonesia!! Nope, I didn’t get my holiday, but I was working thru my nose on that day to tidy up and merge 4 reports into 1!! I worked from 9am up till 12am midnite and finally manage to send the summary out to everyone on the latest status there.

A week passed, then 2nd week, I fell sick on Tuesday, caught a cold. Since there isn’t any local doctor around which I could find, I was lucky enough to find a pharmacy in the shopping mall & went to stock up some panadols, the-likes-of strepsils & Redoxon. Good thing I was feeling better by Thursday after a few dosage of panadol & Redoxon.

The only bonus was I found out there’s a shopping mall next to my hotel and there’s a factory outlet in the mall, so I went shopping spree there during the weekend to take a break from my work.  Clothes were as cheap as RM20/piece (on average). I bought a lot of disney clothing for my kids. I also managed to visit the National Musuem, which it’s 10 times better than ours!!

After my Jakarta trip, I did a personal trip to Yogjakarta, to visit Borobodur. This place is absolutely stunning!! I’ll blog bout it in a separate post with photos.

Meanwhile, here’s a photo of the view from my hotel room. Every night when I work in hotel, this is what behind me. The tallest building in the photo (the one 2nd from the left with a few blue lines), that’s my office. Unfortunately, I don’t go there everyday. On those days that I go there, I actually walk to office. Yes!! It’s walking distance, though not near, it’s definitely very fast especially when you are in a jam city.

And here’s a photo during day time. Jakarta is a city that is never shy of tall buildings. And obviously, their architects are pretty creative too. The building where my office is located, looks like a fountain shape pen eh :). On the left next to it is Shangri-la, where I’m supposed to stay but it’s fully booked :(.

I’m really glad that I’m finally home after 2 long weeks.

Work aside, I really need to sit down and settle all my AMEX bills, my income tax & get term life insurance quotes again. Time of the year again as usual.