Moz does Jakarta

I don't know why, but after all these while, I felt like doing a travel entry, so here I am ...

I'm currently in Jakarta, putting up at the very nice JW Marriot. Here are pictures of my most visited hotel for the year :P

The room at JW Marriot. Quite nice, and well appointed.

I had my check-in done in my room now, thanks to my new Marriot Silver status ;)

I had a visitor from India with me, so tonight, I decided to go out for some different food, rather than stay around the same area I always eat out at.

So, with Hunady, my local colleague, we went out venturing to Sate Khas Senayan. I'll let the photos do the talking ! Don't blame me if you get hungry looking at the photos, ok ?!

So, we went out to Sate Khas Senayan !! Yeah, it's a chain, but the food is still good. This one is at Menteng, a central Jakarta district, home to the famous and rich people.

My colleagues trying to figure out what to order ...

Someone looks very happy that the food has arrived !

The flying fish, gureme goreng, is a signature dish here ... looks like the ones they make at the Sundanese Restaurant at KLCC, but tastes much better =)

While this dish (I forgot the name), is made of egg tofu, omelette, and bean sprouts. Nice alternative to gado-gado !

But really, this is why we came ! The chicken sate, served over a bowl with charcoal under it ! Simply delicious. It's not the same as kajang sate in Malaysia, so it's not really possible to compare.

Jakarta

I'm in Jakarta now.

I'm travelling again. Again.

This morning, I met another frequent traveller in the airport. He's going to retire from traveling soon.

I wonder when will I ever get to do that, you know, stop traveling on my job.

The thing is, if I don't travel, I feel trapped. Bored. Lack of challenge. So I guess, I'll be traveling for at least a bit more. There's so much of the world I haven't seen.

Sometimes, when you travel, you feel a sense of homeliness when you return home. In some very unusual case, you get that feeling when you return to the same hotel. I felt the same homeliness today returning to JW Marriot here in Jakarta. Maybe it's because the rooms are all the same layout. And maybe it's because the power adaptors all sparkle when you plug them in.

Paradox

This trip's been all about contrasts.

Staying in upscale hotels, presenting in world class office facilities, dining in the finest restaurants, getting trapped in traffic on some of the widest boulevards in this region.

And then, you look out the window of the upscale hotel to see signs of poverty in the dirt covered ramshackle homes.

And taking a break from the presentation, you see from the pantry, kids not even old enough to attend pre-school begging for money on the roads below.

On my way out from one of my dinners, we took a shortcut which passed through some of the narrowest streets, lined with the same ramshackle homes I saw earlier.

This city, like many other I've been to, is all a big paradox. World class office towers stands towering over poverty stricken neighbourhoods, where houses look like they'll barely stand when the wind picks up.

Whenever we had to duck out of the wide boulevards, we inevitably end up in dirt roads where 2 cars are not supposed to be on it at the same time.

Oh, and yes. While I've been working my arse off the past couple of days, how can you explain I actually put on weight ?

Collecting more frequent flyer points ...

I'll be in the land of gado gado, where people address me as Pak or Bapak next week.

Interesting to see how it'll be like when it's Ramadhan. Would I be getting dates for dinner starters ?

Last time I was there, I lost my phone cover. Maybe it's still outside the departure hall? Or maybe it'll be in the taxi. Hopefully get the same taxi again.

I still think nasi padang is over-rated. But can't resist trying.

I'm hoping they'll let me drink some water as I talk next week. Because for 3 days, my job will be to talk and talk and talk and talk.

I'll promise to blog at least once there.

Jakarta not too bad now ...

While the news out there might be still pretty bad, just wanna sound out that Jakarta is pretty ok now - the floods have mostly subsided. It's no more in places we people would usually go to anyway ...

See? No floodwater to be seen .. actually, I saw some floodwater from the airport in, but it's now possible to travel from the airport to the city without passing any flood.

And JW Marriot in Jakarta rocks too ...

This is the complimentary tray of chocolate I get ...

Nice chocolates, and pretty nice bathroom.


See you folks back in KL ...