Le Meridien Hotel, Jakarta

Le Meridien was the hotel I stayed in during my 2 days stay in Jakarta. This was also the place I spent most of my Indonesia time in. Hardly had the chance or time to visit anywhere else.

On my 2nd and last day in Indonesia, right after lunch I strolled around the hotel, which isn't really big, but was nicely decorated.

The hotel lobbies


La Brasserie was the place I had my buffet breakfast.



I was really surprised that they served pork openly in hotels. I had always thought that Indonesia is stricter than Malaysia on non-halal food since they have one of the biggest Muslim populations in the world.

But for them to serve pork in hotels, maybe they're more open than our own Malaysian government on these issues. So, can this be considered a respect to the other races?

I reckoned that Le Meridien is built on the concept of dragons and phoenixes. Almost to every corner I turned to has a sculpture of a dragon look-a-like,





and paintings / carpets of phoenix


My room


Basically, I only took photos at the hotel. I stupid left my batteries in my luggage bag when arriving, so I could not snap any photos of the airport, or anywhere around Jakarta.

And I was so occupied with work in FID that I couldn't get the chance to take even a few quick pictures. Well, if better luck next time I will.

And oh, this was also the first hotel I see provides candles in the roooms.


My only first thought is that, are they that bad that there's a possibility of a frequent blackout in the hotel? Haha... I hoped not at all, since my stay in the hotel was a pretty pleasant one.

Flew again

Was off to another short trip last week.

This time, it was down south to Jakarta for 2 days. Touched-down in KLIA on Friday, near midnight.

Sent there to conduct a training in Fujitsu Indonesia (FID) on the latest release and enhancements of our system.

To me, there was nothing special in Jakarta. Being a city, it's almost the same as what you could see in KL, except maybe you'll see more beggers on the roads. Jakarta is still very busy in its developments.

Soekarno-Hatta Airport reminds me a lot of our old Subang airport, not as modern as what we could see in KLIA.

Drivers are a little more 'violent' as compared to Malaysian drivers. I don't think I'll ever dare to drive in Indonesia. But I may not need to as drivers here are cheap here. Anyone who is in a managerial level in Jakarta seems to be able to afford a driver of their own.

We was provided a driver to anywhere I go when I was in Jakarta.

The only unfortunate thing is that I haven't been able to experience their food much as my trip was too short. Only tasted one proper Indonesian food during lunch on Friday at a nearby shopping mall foodcourt. I forgot the name.

On Thursday night, we were taken to dinner by FID boss to a Chinese restaurant called 3-6-9 and had chinese dumplings such as Siew Long Pau, Wor Tie, Shui Gou etc. To be honest, it was pretty good.

Apart of this, the rest of my meals were in a hotel. Lame... but basically, I did not spend anything when I was in Jakarta except Rp. 100,000.00 for the airport tax I had to pay for my flight back to KLIA.

Edelweiss

Finally found out the title of this song and I immediately went looking for it.
This was the song sang by the Captain in the Sound of Music.

.
.
.

Edelweiss, edelweiss,
every morning you greet me
small and white,
clean and bright,
you look happy to meet me

blossom of snow
may you bloom and grow,
bloom and grow forever
edelweiss, edelweiss,
bless my home-land forever.

My 'girlfriend'

Is it a virtual... a dream or... is it for real?

Ever since I returned from China more than a year ago, I've always kept in touch with some of the people I met there. We usually correspond via emails.

In the most recent email, my friend excited wrote that she dreamt of me. Seems like I was back in China... with someone... my girlfriend. She was waiting for us at the airport... hahaha

It felt nice indeed that someone actually dreams of you. To be, it was also an honour because, thinking of someone is easy, but to dream of someone makes it all really special.

So I got her to describe how my 'girlfriend' was like...

She said:

"She has long hair, not big eyes but bright, when I met you all, she always smile, very sweet and lovely girl. She has black hair and brown eyes, I can only judge that she is an Asian, maybe she is a Chinese girl, or your own local girl. In a word, she is beautiful".

Chinese girl - she might mean the nationality
Own local girl - it could be one of my current friends, or someone I'm about to meet.

Felt so flattered... hehehe :D

Driving

This actually happened last Monday.

Had to go to a customer's place in Kepong and we had to use the company car. My colleague didn't want to drive, so he passed me the key.

First time driving a Perdana, so naturally I was a little nervous as it's been 5 years since I last drove a long car. My Myvi is a short one, so it was a little different in the navigations.

Nevertheless, I soon overcame that but then came another fear. The car's really old. I felt as if the 4 suspensions' going to break at any moment and the 4 wheels will suddenly roll out of its rims. So I had that feeling througout the journey.

Gosh, I was never this worried before while driving. Fortunately as well, all things turn out well.

Post Holiday

Yeah... it was a timely holiday that I could relax from work.

But damn, this morning I was dragged into a meeting the moment my boss stepped into the office. It was at 9.05 am. I just arrived into office not too long ago and PC wasn't even turned on yet.

Shit... was attending the meeting with my sleepy face. And was yawning away throughout.

Happy Labour's Day

Happy Labour's Day everyone.

Hope that you all had an enjoyable day today :P