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