Indo trip

hey,
Got back 3rd January, was suppose to fly back on the 6th but my gastric problem got the better of me, booked the next airasia ticket home. Anyway, flew MAS there on the 29th, lunch time, it was very different travelling alone and since it was a public holiday(Awal Muharram I think) the airport was relatively empty. Was at the waiting room 45 minutes early, KLIA, compared to LCCT was so quiet that you could hear a chap sneezing from the other end of the terminal! It felt really different travelling alone, going through customs and immigration, new experience, one I would not soon forget I think.. hehe, finally boarded the plane, row 22A, window seat, was wondering who was going to sit next to me cause usually when I fly, a family member would be beside.. the plane doors closed and I found...

No one sitting next to me! haha, at that point, the thought of hiding someone in the hand carry luggage and pulling him/her out now came to my head.. hehe, the flightwas 2 hours to Jakarta after 45 minutes an Indo person came and sat next to me.. He talked to me after a while, said that Malaysia's sale wasn't really good, baffled as I was because just the other day I got a shirt for 70% off from RM109 and here comes this man saying the sale wasn't worth it.. I asked him where he shopped, he said "Pavillion" hahaha

A view from the plane

Met up with my Indo friend, the following day he brought me to a new mall in Jakarta called "Mall of Indonesia" Everytime you enter a mall there, there's police at every entrance checking cars for bombs and stuff, they'd open your doors and your boot and check every car.. Mall of Indonesia was pleasant, brand new, had the feel of Jaya 33 or Cineleisure to it.. walked around, my friend had a craving for Coffee so we sat here.. J.CO Coffee Bar
Quite comfy, since I'm not a fan of coffee, I "tembak-ed" when it came to ordering a drink.. Ordered some Mocha drink.. hehe, but it was really nice..
Since it was a coffee bar, was looking for ahem* non dairy creamer... but only found white sugar and brown sugar.. These are the seats, very comfortable
Here's a Catholic Church/school, apparently you can study from elementary level till high school in this place.. It's not finished yet, but the size of the building was just spectacular.. never have I seen a Church so big..
To the right of this white building you'll see this tall blue building still part of the Catholic church.. I asked my friend if I could go in.. but he said he highly doubted it as it was still under construction..
This was a sign I saw in one of the shopping malls.. My friend upon my arrival decided to bring me to every shopping mall imaginable in Jakarta cause the things there were cheap.. and it was, managed to get a pair of jeans for RM50.. and a few branded shirts for about RM30.. While walking in one of the malls, this mall was named FX I believe.. not sure what it stands for, but it's a new place.. saw this size.. I couldnt' resist..
Even if they spelt apologize correctly, the sentence itself was wrong..hehe,
I didn't take many pictures, was more enthused by how cheap things were and my forgetfulness to take pictures.. The next picture's of "Padang" food, not sure why it's called Padang, but the interesting part was how they served the food.. You sit at a round banquet sized table and waiters would come each carrying 5-6 small dishes and they prop it on the table just like that.. to eat, you just pick from the ones you want and leave the rest on the table, sort of like dim sum without the people walking away with the food.. The food was nice, no doubt but I didn't eat much as my gastric was getting worse..any food that went in only caused pain and come out painfully the next morning(too much info? haha sorry)
One thing about Indo food, it's all spicy! my gosh.. hehe

Another shocking thing about Indo is that they have a mall where they sell lots of pirated stuff! from watches to DVDs! and they don't sell it like you see in Malaysia, they sell it by the hundreds! Imagine each small coloured plastic you see is a DVD worth I think less than a ringgit.. Bought easily 25 DVDs for RM20! haha
And they have rows and rows of it, from "Serial Jepang"(Japanese serials) to "Serial Barat"


The best part was, my Indo friend said that this was the guy with the best quality ones.. the guy said that if it wasn't clear enough, we could change it! haha

Indonesia was a real eye opener as the culture there's really different. Like if you think driving in KL was bad, you should see drivers in Indo, lines on the roads mean nothing to them and most of the roads don't even have lines! a normal 3 laned road can turn into 5 lanes! And the people there hon and flash like it's a way of life! At almost every traffic light you can see people coming up to cars asking for money, there was once I saw at the side of the road a man skinny to the bone,seriously you can see the bone structure on his leg, duck walking around asking for money. Don't mean to be mean, but the first thing that came to my mind was Hobbit and now that I think about it more, reminds me of Achmed the Dead Terrorist! haha
Overall Jakarta was a different experience all together, you can really feel how densely populated the city really is, there's not many trees and you don't see any hills, just rows and rows of squatter like houses.. Another new experience was going to their bookshop, this bookshop was in one of the big malls, where you can see all the branded goods like Marks and Spencer, Giordano goods being sold.. I looked around at the books to find that all the books were in Indo language! you name it they have it, cook books - Indo, Harry Potter - Indo, every book in that bookshop was in Indo language!
That's all for now, all the other stories are nicer told verbally.. hehe

take care
Shamus