Jakarta 24/07-26/07/2007

I went to Jakarta last week for Managing Performance training. I was told that I am going to the training about 2 weeks ago and I was not really looking forward for it as it is only 1 day training and I am so sure that it will be a tiring experienced and with only 1 day for sure you can make the most of the trip by sight seeing and of course the main agenda for going to any new place shopping.

However, I tried to make the most of it so I googled places to go in Jakarta( well, actullay places to shop in Jakarta) if you only have 1 day, and few names came up.

24/07/07
We departured from KL on 24/07, and our flight was at 9am which meant that I had to check in at 7am, which also meant that I had to leave house at 6.30am, which meant that I had to wake up at 5.30am!!! So, off we went to KL Sentral and checked in at 7am. I took the ERL about 7.10am and reached KLIA exactly 28 minutes after that. I went to had my breakfast at McDonalds, then at about 8am my boss called me and informed me that she is already inside the airport and our gate has been changed, we had to take the shuttle train to our gate and that only leaved me a few minutes to catch the train. Our flight was MH 711, and it was delayed 30 minutes, we departured from KLIA at 9.30am, and arrived in Soerkarno-Hatta airport at 10am(Jakarta time- an hour behind KL). The journey from the airport to our Sultan Hotel took us nearly 1 1/2 hours as traffic was bad(according to the driver).

We reached our hotel at about 12 noon, my room was great, I particullay liked the king size bed, and really looking forward of sleeping on it. We decided to have a rest first before exploring the shopping malls in Jakarta. At about 2pm, we left the hotel and decided to stop at BC Jakarta to see how was the office. The person that we corresponded with was at training, and the other person that we know of was in the meeting, so with nobody to guide us we just make BC Jakarta like our own office!! My Boss checked her email while I could not be bother with office works at the moment. After about an hour, we decided to go our and venture Jakarta. My boss asked the receptionist where is the best place to shop and she told us "Blok M", we thought what the jesk, let's try that. We took a cab and then asked the cab driver, if we want to go to "mangga 2" will it take us a long time. He said about 30 minutes, we were looking at each other and decided to go to Mangga 2 instead. Little did we know that the 30 minutes drive will turned out to be more than an hour with the ride that you will never forget. There were few times that we thought that we will end up in the hospital.

We arrived at Mangga 2 about 4pm, our first impression of the place was " this is like Sungai Wang" but with lots more people and more hectic. First we got lost as in we don't know where to start or what to look at. But I know that Mangga 2 is famous for cheap handbags, and other cheaps stuff. When we went around the first around, and what we found was expensives stuff. We could not find the cheap handbags that we were looking for. Oh, by the way Mangga 2 is 5 storey high, since we had time we wentto each floor but we found out that the happening floor is still the ground floor. This is where all the cheap stuffs. On our way down then we found it, stall selling cheap handbags, it was Rp 50,000 which is about RM19++. It was not bad, and the way they sell it was they just put all the bags on the floor and you just pick one that you fancy and ask the man in charge if they have any other colour available. That was fun, I bought 2 handbags, and Robina(my boss) also bought 2!! We wanted to do more shopping but as we wnet around we saw traders are packing up their stuffs, apparently they are closing. We were dissapointed as now we know what we wanted but we can't, how sad. Geram tau.

Jakarta tarffic on that day was so bad, it took us another hour to reached our hotel, and we had another dinner arrangement with our counterpart from Vietnam, we decided to go out and be a bit advebtures by going to the nearest mall form our hotel which is Plaza Semayan. Since we were in Jakarta so we wanted to have dinner tha is traditional food so we trying very hard to avoid Mcdonalds(altho my boss kept insisted that she wanted to see either the taste of Cheesburger in Jakarta is the same as the one in KL. So, we had nasi padang at it was delicious..sedap!!! especially the ayam bakar, it was so different from ayam bakar in KL.

Plaza Semayan is something like Starhill where you can find all expensives shops there, and the people you met there are so much different form the indonesian that we met here in KL(obviouslly). Their dressing was amazing, form top to toe all designer materials, Gucci, Dior, Prada, etc. Amazing.

25/07/07

The day of the trainning. The trainer was Andy Gunnet from BC Singapore, the participants were all over SEA, we had participants from Vietnam, Manila, Jakarta, and Malaysia. It was a good day as I learned how to deal with people in term of their performance. I learned how to be a good line manager by giving encouragement to my line managees, how to deal with poor performance, etc. The trainning was the whole day which meant that we were stuck in the hotel room but my host promised us that she will take us to a place where we can still shop, which was Pasaraya. This is more like KLCC to us, where middle income earners can still buy something here. We went to the place where we can buy things that we can bring home as a souveniours to our family.

After shopping(managed to spend Rp 900,000)off we went to a place called Pisa Cafe for our dinner. This place is THE place to be in Jakarta after office to chill out. It was packed with people and the place was full. It's like HRC, Planet Hollywood kinnda place. The food was ok, but since we were starving form our shoppingtrip we managed to finis off 6 large pizzas, 2 baskets of nanchos, 2 baskets of calamari, and by the way us means 6 of us..all ladies!!!

I had a very disturbing conversation with the taxi driver about fact of live on the way to the restaurant. Upon knowing that I was Malaysian hence can speak malay, the taxi driver said that Malaysia economy is much better than theirs, told him that we are also not so great as prices has increased and layman like us finding it a bit hard also. He then told me that his son has to dropped out form Uni because he cannot pay the lastest installment of the fee which is only Rp500,000, which is about RM193. He has another 6 months before graduating and he has to stop because they are poor. How unfair is that?? It was hreatbreaking for me to hear that as I can sense the saddnest in his voice. I asked him either has he asked any help from the govertment(hoping that the govt will do something to the people), he then sighed and I had my answer. When we left I gaev him extra rp10,000 hoping that it will make a different to him. This made me realized that everywhere people are suffering and these are the voices of the people, will the people in power hear us?? Does they understand the hardship that we are going thru??? I really hope one day that taxi driver will managed to find rp500,000 so that his son can bring them to a better place than what he is today.

26/07/07
I'm coming home!!! Our flight was at 11am, but we left early as we think it is better be safe than sorry. So, we reached the airprt 3 hours before the departure time. It was ok, went inside and finally managed to find Jakarta t-shirts. I bought 2, 1 for my dad and 1 for me/amli. Also managed to finished off all my rupiah!! Arrived in KL at about 2pm, and reached home at 5.30pm.

Overall it was a good trip, wishit could be more so that I can really discover Jakarta like I did with Yangon. Hope I can go there again. In the meantime, enjoy my photos:


MH 711 KL-Jakarta


View from my seat


Soekarno-Hatta Airport


Giant at Jakarta


In front of Sultan Hotel


In front of Sultan Hotel 2


My room 1069


View from my room


BC Jakarta


Ayam Bakar


Es Buweh(?) I think

Kudos to Immigration Department, Wangsa Maju

I was impressed beyond words when I went to IDWM(Immigration Department, Wangsa Maju) to renew my international passport today. I knew that I can get my new chip passport in 2 hours from the website.

A colleague of mine went there about 2 months ago, and she told me that it took her 1/2 a day to get her new passport. So I assume that it will be the same to me.

I went arrived at their office at about 7.15am(they only open at 8am)but there are already people waiting in front of their door. I came fully prepared(so i thought), I had my 2 passport size photo, which I dare say that I look rather dashing, and photocopy of my IC( I even had photocopy of my passport)and downloaded form.

At about 10 to 8am, their security guard went to approach us and asked us to form a queue in front of the door, this is to be fair to everybody who was there like me at 7.15am. I was third in the queue. Then at 8am sharp, the door was opened and we were ushered in by the security guard. I was thinking this is a good system where this is really a first come first serve basis( not like our office where they can be at the door first but when the door open other people can beat the queue and get the number before them-maybe I should suggest this in the next CS meeting)

I went to the number counter, when I showed my form to the officer there, he told me that downloaded form must be printed front and back-damn it, this is not mentioned anywhere in their website!! I had to buy the form and had to fill it up before I get my number, so instead of I was the 3rd in queue now my number is 1008.

I was given the number at 8.09am, and less than a minute my numner was called. I was quite happy. Then it's time for me to wait for payment, I was warned by my colleague that this can take a long time as the number that that they call is not in sequel.

But at 8.11am, my number was called for the payment. The officer then told me that my passport will be rady in an hour time. I was ok. I was not sure either should I go out first and buy something or should I wait here just in case they called me before an hour. And tomy surprised they started calling then number at 8.20am, and since they told us i.e the customers that the passport will be rady in an hour, most of the customers left and I assume they though in an hour time they will come back and they don't have to wait for a long time. My number was called at about 8.30am. I was impressed, my whole process took less than 30 mins!!!

This make me thinking about OUR level of service and how during busy time our customers have to wait for more than 1 hour to be served. There were times when the number of the staff in the immigration department outnumbered the customers!! Something that never going to happen here at BC.

I salute the immigration department, they has exceed customer expectation and this is what we call an excellent customer service. Really wish that we can do that here.

Breakfast at Tiffany

Last Friday I was on leave and while channel surfing I accidentally 'bumped' into this movie. I first saw this movie long time ago and it's always bring good feeling to me.

At the time in my life when all things are not doing very well, this movie actually bring hope. It's like 'HIM' is giving me a hint everything will be alright no matter how bad things are now.

I always love this movie, Audrey Hepburn brings the new meaning of being classy and my God George Peppard was damn good looking in that movie(so much different from the A-team era). Breakfast At TIffany(BAT) also reminds me that money is not everything, Holly Golightly tried to choose money over love but she failed. She realized that money does not guarantee that she will be happy, althought she admitted that nothing bad can happen to her in Tiffany, and how hard it is to find something in Tiffany for USD10.00. She chose love over money and at that moment of time, I also agreed with her-that money cannot buy hapiness but I was soon brought back to reality. Money cannot buy happiness but money can buy things that make you happy, will you be happy when you can have the latest handbag from Gucci or the latest N Series?? Of course you will be happy. That is what Holly Golight looking for but of course in the movie love will always wins. But in reality, it's totally a different stories.

I really wish that life will be easy like in the movie, you will find your true love, your hardship will be rewarded, etc,etc,etc. But like Monica says in "Friends" "real life is sucks but you will love it". I guess I just have to love the real world, but then again there is always second life :)

Not My Day

Today is not my day with customers. It'smy share of getting all the irritating customers and it started with my very first customers, and I know today is not my day.

My first customer was a father who wanted to registered his son for O-levels exam. He irritated me with all his questions about how the forms that have an obvious explanation on it, then he really get on my nreve when he asked me to photocopy his son's form. Told him that he can do it himself, he then asked me to copy it for him. Imagine my fury, told him that if he wants me to do that for him, he has to wait as i have 8 people in the queue that i have to serve. He agreed to that, after waited for 20 minutes, he then went to receptionists counter and asked them to copy the form for him. Luckily, they came and asked me first. Told them to ask him to WAIT, and I made him WAIT for 40 minutes!!! Padna muka, si kedekut to pay for RM0.40 to do his own photocopy. IDIOT!!!!

My second irritating customer was a lady who did her placement test but cannot make up her mind and i have to serve her for 30 minutes!!!! still she cannot make up her mind.

And i thought that is the end of lembab cutomers that i recieved. How wrong can I be, after that another lembeb customer....aiyoo..i cannot tahan anymore, another 30 minutes but at least this customer paid for his class.

Dah lah have to deal with these irritating people, have to deal with manager pulak.....

What a way to celebrate my birthday!!!!

Mind Your Language

Tasya was chosen by her Maths's teacher as a standard monitor for the Maths's month. As a monitor, she have to do a presentation for the whole school, and the presentation was in English(as Maths & Science now are taught in English) The presentation was about our body parts.

So,last Sunday she was practising her presentation, and I noticed that the grammar was not right, I corrected her thinking that she was the one that make the mistakes. But last night, she showed me this piece of paper that have her speech and it was written by her teacher, and this how it goes:

"Good morning teachers and friend(apparently, there is only 1 friend on the whole school-but maybe this is a spelling mistake rather than grammar mistake). I won't mind about this that much, but the second paragraph caught my attention and I was shocked at first then I could not help it but laugh my head off.

This is how the rest of her presentation goes:

How many your ears?
How many your eyes?
How many your mouth?
How many your nose?
etc,etc,etc.

I was like, what the heck is going on here?? Showed it to my sister and we laughed and laughed and laughed until tears started coming out from our eyes.

Ok, I understand that Maths and Science teachers are not an English Teacher and they have been teaching those subjects in Malay for maybe 10- 15 years and suddenly Govertment imposed this new thing where Maths & Science are now taught in English but at least have a bit of inciative and checked the grammar part with a proper English teacher. I asked Tasya does she realized that there were mistakes in her presentation? She said Yes, then I asked her why don't you corrected it? Then she said she got the paper 10 minutes before her presentation, and apparently in class when her Maths teacher have any problems with English words, she went and ask Tasya.

Make me wonder about the standard of our education, don't you? Maybe I should write to the ministry and ask them what are they going to do about this?

When Mama falls ill

When Mama falls ill
She still have to wake up at 6.30am to prepare the kids for school
When Ayah falls ill
He just stays in bed

When Mama falls ill
She still have to wake up in the middle of the night to pacifier the kids
When Ayah falls ill
He just stays in bed

When Mama falls ill
She still have to make sure that the kids have thei dinner
When Ayah falls ill
He just stays in bed

When Mama falls ill
She still have to answer for every "mama" called
When Ayah falls ill
Nobody are allowed to say a word

When Mama falls ill
Nobody looked after her
When Ayah falls ill
Everybody have to stay in the hospital

When Mama falls ill
Ayah also falls ill
When Ayah falls ill
Mama have to be the superwoman

When Mama falls ill
Kids are not happy
When Ayah falls ill
Kids eat McD for lunch & Pizza for dinner

When Mama falls ill
World does not stop
When Ayah falls ill
Everything STOP.