Muslim World Biz @Jakarta - Travelog Day 1

Preparation

What! Tomorrow is fly day? Hmmm... Yes, 11 September is my fly day and the best part is I should be at the airport around 5:45 am for international flight. To add to the worst scenario, I have yet to prepare anything and it was 6pm (after coming back from lots of meeting and last minute shopping for phones and router). And to increase the pressure is that our business presentation video is yet to be ready by our supplier.

Oh yes.. I will still go to Jakarta with or without the video.

Arrive home at 6.30pm and hand-it over the new phone HTC Desire C to my wife and to my kids, a tablet @ pad  for each of them with Android 4.0.4 :) .. Seeing them smile and then straight away to my computer room to setup my new router. And it fails for the first, second until I stop around 7.30pm for dinner+birthday party for my lovely daughter, syasya :). We have it at McD puncak alam after my wife signed-out.

Back to home around 10.30pm. All my family went back to bed and I'm still done nothing for the trip. After fed-up of setting up the router and it failed to works, I stop around 12 and start packing up my things.

Fly day

Wake up at 3am in the morning and call publiccab. Very lucky, they sent driver whom just starting-up his engine and just near by. He reach my house at 3.45am and then drive at 140km/h. We reach KL Sentral at 4.40am and the check-in counter and klia express is just open up the counter. After check-in, I went down and the train is there waiting. Step in, take a seat, and sleep... huuuuuuuu.

Reach at airport around 5.30am and I went for straight to Surau to perform Solah Subuh. Thought of having a coffee but the stores has yet to open, so I went straight to the gate and try to get some sleep although the time is around 6.30am at that time.

It went smooth to the check-up before boarding the flight. At 7.40am, the flight took-off to Jakarta.

 Jakarta - Here I come

I reach there (Soekarno-Hatta International Airport) with my colleague around 10:50am (local time around 9:50). Took a budget taxi for Rp180000 (which we came to know today that the price we pay is not for budget taxi at all).

May be the lady at the counter do some trick (mandrem) at me :). But the taxi driver is very friendly. And we have some chats and he shares with me the locations that I should go while I'm at Jakarta such as Monas (muzium), Tanah Abang, Tamrin City, Jogging trek (for beautiful cewek), and locations for food (or they call here Kulinari). The best part is that I seem older when the taxi driver keep on calling me 'Bapak'.... hahahaha

At JCC

We arrive at JCC (Jakarta Convention Center @ Balai Sidang Jakarta) at 12pm (Malaysian time). And to our surprise, the convention center looks like was hit with typhoon or something. There is no booth setup, the floor is damn dirty, and the organizer was not around. We were thinking we are at the wrong place. Luckily, there was a security officer whom brought us to the organizer center (which shows nothing to indicate that it is the organizer center) and we meet wati (the lady in-charge on indonesia side). And we were shock to known that there was change of schedules and we can only enter tomorrow. What? Shouldn't the conferences starts tomorrow? Guess what? There was few other Malaysian arrive earlier than us waiting to put up their things too. This is ridiculous. No problem, we can at least go to hotel and rest and I need some sleep too. Alhamdulillah, there is good things out of this problem :).

We met the Iskandar Malaysia people (also co-sponsor and co-event organizer) and Emelia (Malaysian too) and looking from their eyes and condition of the conference hall, I bet everything will not be ready by tomorrow.

Hotel Sari Pan Pacific

Jakarta - view from our room

We request the organizer to get us taxi and they did, but the taxi arrive quite late (after 30 minutes although they said he shall be there in 10 minutes). But we didn't took the taxi as we can't wait longer. After 10 minutes, we took another taxi (and the ordered taxi arrived after few minutes we took-off). It cost us Rp30k.

At Sari Pan Pacific, the security is tight with K-9 team and dogs sniffing our begs. The check-up when quite smooth although the first few minutes, they don't really understand what I said :). Get they key and off to our room. Earlier, I was wondering of why my boss choose to stay here which travelling it-self can be almost 1 hour (although the range from JCC to hotel is about 5km) and there are hotel (The Sultan and Mulia) nearby. It does not took me long to figure out. There was easy access to foods, shopping mall, and places to buy ole-ole. 

After check-up, solah, and we went for lunch (it was 2pm Malaysia time). The first day lunch here, I've ate-empet plus ulam and coconut drink and cost me Rp15k and my colleague have leleh + coconut too and cost him Rp17k. We went down the alley (they call Jalan Saba @ Kulinari shops) and see some goods and I bought a jeans (Rp150k which equivallent to RM48). Then, we went back to our room and took a nap.

Garuda - The minang/padang food restaurant

Around 4pm, our boss arrive and he shares with us the things he learn during his visit to Shanghai last week. And I shares the knowledge I gain in latest conference I attended at Hilton KL. Around 7pm, after solah, we went for dinner. He bring us to at good restaurant behind the hotel known as The Garuda. We told him that we ate at nearby food court but he insist to Garuda as he is concern on food hygiene.

At restaurant, they put all menu (lauk-pauk) on the table. It is up to us and we will only pay of what we eat. So I ate the cows brain (masak lemak kuning), fried-chicken (ayam kampung), and ulam and sambal petai udang. My boss only took the chicken, ulam, and sambal petai. My colleague took lesser than me :).

All of it cost us Rp300k (around RM100).

Reflection - Jakarta at night

After eating, we went around for a while and then off to room. After took a damn good shower, I went to sleep (at 9.30pm of Malaysia time) and this end up my first day in Jakarta.

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