Jakarta

I was away in Jakarta for 6-days last week due to work commitment. We stayed at Hotel Atlet Century Park, which was opposite the badminton stadium where Lee Chong Wei won the Indonesia Open final the night before, beating Taufik Hidayat in straight sets. Since Indonesians are a patriotic lot (unlike Malaysians), we kept our mouth shut and did not mention that we were from Malaysia, in case they decided to pick a fight. On a side note, I mistakenly told a guard stationed at my hotel room floor that I was from M'sia and he said, 'O Kelantan...Manohara....' Oops! I wonder what's the impression of Malaysians to Indonesians...scary...and I quickly double locked my room door after they left. The guard was accompanying a technician who came to my room to fix the shower.

The room is actually quite nice


Jakarta is a city with a population of over 8 million people, being the twelfth-largest city in the world, as compared to Kuala Lumpur, which has only less than 2 million people. So, everywhere you go in Jakarta....you see a sea of people. It's no joke - you can see people by the roadside, doing nothing but just observing passing cars; jobs created by the unemployed and youngsters by directing traffic to earn some loose change (if given). And the most chaotic - is traffic jam! You think KL jam is bad - Jakarta is so many times worse!

Crazy mad rush on a Friday afternoon, that we decided to abandon our car and walk to the shopping mall

Shopping in Jakarta is generally a haven for shopaholics, if you have something in mind that you would like to buy as things are cheap. I bought a swimming costume for Ryan and he had been wearing it day and night for 4 days now (no, it's clean 'cos the maid will wash it at night and let it to dry overnight) :p

Ryan posing in his swimsuit