In Indonesia now

After flying 5 hours or so from PVG to SIN, then 1 hour 20 min from SIN to CGK, we are finally here! And we are not in the Jakarta proper; we are at a town called Cikarang. It is a town "owned" by Lippo! For those who had visited Jakarta briefly with me in 96, the airport has not changed. The only thing is that we need to queue up to pay a visa on arrival; US$10 for 7 days and US$25 for 30 days; being our stays is 7 days, I opted for the 30 days pass instead of 7 days; just in case the rainy season may flood roads. Last week, rain flooded the only highway to and from the International airport; the road was actually built lower then the sea level. Ummm.....

The flight down from PVG was uneventful which was what I liked. Going Business Class helped too. But the food was just terrible. Yuck! The vegetarian meal from PVG to SIN composed of fried noodle, beans and broccolis. The smell from the beans kinda turned me off; it was overcooked and "smelly". What I meant was the smell evoked the much buried pre-90's airplane food smell that caused me vomited from HKG to Heathrow in the 80's. Tried washing some down with coffee was not good; as the the coffee was worst then Tim Horton's by several miles. :-( The thought of having some red wine or Scotch with water occurred to me - need stronger liquid. Singapore airline; wonder what happened? So maybe Frank and Jean were right about the food. Once landed in SIN, we had about an hour; besides went to the washroom as soon as we landed, we went to the lounge; at least there was that place with semi-eatable food. We had the usual sandwiches - "ok la" as the Singaporeans would have said. I did, however, washed down my food w/ a glass of simulated Caesar, extra spicy. Brent would have a hay day in there ;-) Hee hee....

An hour later after arrived in SIN, we departed to our final destination; this time, I opted out the vegetarian meal; poor Audrey, this time the dish came with heavy gravy covering up the not too appetizing noodle and mushroom; always noodle with some sort of mushrooms or cabbage or broccolis. An hour and 20 minutes, we arrived! When the plane was descending, we could see lots of residential buildings on outer islands. No wonder there were always property damages with water.

Immigration was a breeze; friendly buggers too! Not like we went back in 96. When we left the airport, no one collected our custom cards even though we attempted handing them in to someone.

The ride to the hotel from the airport was also non-eventful; it was all well developed highways with crazy driving like Shanghai, except with must faster speed (over 110KM/hr) and a driver with much better manual shifting than Shanghai ones.

The hotel staff are friendly; except they cannot communicate well with English; guess just like me with Mandarin in Shanghai. And things are bit backwards here. There are not enough adapters available; am going to head to a mall in the morning.

Food at this restaurant is very bad; my vegetable curry was made with pre-mixed curry, canned mushrooms, canned carrots, canned everything vegetable; you would figure there are more local dishes; all I saw was Gado Gado; and not the type I accustomed to.

About the car ride, will be tomorrow's report..... Have to save battery.