Jakarta Trip
28th January 2006
Took Garuda Airline at 7:30 am to Jakarta with hubby and Syuaib. I booked the flight from Zuji online. It's S$239 for me and Shafik each and $S202 for Syuaib, including airport tax. We stayed at Hyatt the first day. The room which has a room rate of S$280 is not worth the money. The room decor is quite cold, not welcoming. However, Syuaib's cot is really nice. The bumpers and baby blanket is thick is really comfortable. After checking in, we rest for a while in the hotel room as it is still quite early. Jakarta is an hour early than Singapore. Anyway, Shafik has to meet his distributor for lunch. Lunch was ok at an Indonesian restaurant. It's speciality is Gurame, a kind of fish and serve
After lunch, we went to Mangga Dua. There I borong Shahid's stuff. Baby's clothes are a bargain. I bought 6 sets of tops and bottoms for home wear and they cost only 120 000 rupiah which is approximately $20. I bought 2 bags $10 each and also invest in a top and bottom undergarments for body shaping. Sigh.... only two kids and my body is out of proportion. Anyway...this time round my plan on getting back to my old shape and weight is to run at least twice a week, to reduce my calorie intake and to firm up using girdles for upper and lower body. Mangga Dua is the place to get cheap replicas of branded bags and shoes. It consists of many many small shops selling undergarments, casual clothes, pyjamas, towels, shoes. The clothes are quite old fashioned though.
After Mangga Dua, we had dinner at Plaza Senayan. The salad at Bakerzinn was yummy. The strawberry smoothie was refreshing...a tad too sweet though. Syuaib as per normal, his diet for the whole trip was french fries and his milk. Plaza Senayan is the Takashimaya of Jakarta. Even their department store's cloths are expensive. seriously...nothing for me here except for Boots. I bought a Botanic body scrub from myself costs 95000, S$ 17.
29th January 2006
Shafik swam with Syuaib while I scanned the breakfast menu in the morning. After settling for Nasi Goreng, I waited by the poolside for them to finish. We checked in at Hotel Mulia very late. Hotel Mulia although is much cheaper than Hyatt is excellent. It's lobby, coffee lounge, reception and even the room is very nicely decorated. They all have somekind of majestic feel to them and extremely cozy. Our room is on the 37th floor. The view from the room is fantastic. We ordered room service and ate while overlooking the city. By the time we left the hotel, it was already late evening. We decided to check out Kemang. Kemang is basically like Holland Village in Singapore 10 years back where they have all the boutique shops which sell books, furniture, baby stuff and the prices are quite steep. We chanced upon a restaurant serving organic food. We ordered dory fish, fried mushroom and laksa. They were all extremely delicious. I'll definitely come back if I visit Jakarta again.
30th January
Went to Bandung. It was a bad choice to go to Bandung. We didn't know that there will be a bad jam. The hotel staff at Mulia told us it would take approx 2 hrs to reach Bandung by using the new expressway. Unfortunately for us, the new expressway was closed and the taxi driver had to use the small road. We reached Bandung only after 4 hours. The Bandung trip was quite ridiculous. We set off at 11 am, reached Bandung at 3.30 pm, stopped at a shopping mall for two hours, the drive back took another 4 hours. Worst of all, the cost for the car and driver is $240.
All in all, the trip was great and i'll definitely visit jakarta again and that time round, I'll make sure I visit Bandung again.
