a day in jakarta

This won't be a long post.

I am now bloated since I've had six meals the whole day.

Why? Because I caught up with three different friends in three different malls. But if I only caught up with three friends in three different places shouldn't that make three meals only?

OK, here goes.

I woke up in the morning and had a bowl of chicken noodle for breakfast (yes, you can have chicken noodle for breakfast in Indonesia, same goes for nasi goreng or whatever food you think you can only have for lunch or dinner).

Then when I went to the first catch up, we went and ordered two kaya toasts, two soft boiled eggs and a cup of coffee, aah yes, coffee.

After the semi brunch, we actually went to another restaurant inside the same mall and I ordered pasta. This particular restaurant actually stated that customers could buy their menus (yes, you read that right) if you want. Apparently this is to deter people from actually stealing menus from the restaurant. Weird? I thought so too. Do people actually eat menus? I don't know.

3.30PM, I arrived at the next mall for the second catch up and ordered a dark waffle with ice cream. This was shared with a friend (so I could also share the sin of my gluttony).

Then by 6PM, I already sat down at a ramen restaurant in yet another mall and slurped dry a bowl of ramen. Had an overpriced bottle of Erdinger afterwards (double the price I used to pay dammit! Rip off!) but as my friend told me, twice the price thrice the fun right? Then I went home.

So finally at home, I also had a little bit of rice with rawon soup.

And as I said above, I am now bloated and my tummy is also somehow filled with lots of wind.

Note to self: This can never happen again, ever. And also, taxis are, at the moment, my best means of transportation in Jakarta. They're cheap, well air-conditioned and I can avoid looking for parking which can waste a lot of time, seriously. When it's not raining though, motorbikes are you best friends.

Alright, bedtime.

my strike continues

Well, well, well, apparently my-things-always-go-wrong-when-trying-to-fly-off-of-Melbourne stories reveals a new chapter tonight and this is how the story goes.

The night was breezy. I could still see the clouds floating beneath the starless night sky. I was in a taxi on my way to the airport. The driver was South Asian and the car smelled. It wasn't too bad that it was unbearable but it was enough to keep my snifflers alert all the time. I tried to occupy my mind with something, anything, and it worked, for a while, but then the frequent sound of the wiper wiping away all the water droplets falling on the windscreen brought me back to reality.

I hung on.

Just before we got on the freeway to the airport the driver told me that he's out of gas and needed to fuel up. I didn't mind since I've already checked in my flight online and just needed to grab my boarding pass and drop my luggage.

So he kept on driving and I minded my own business when I realised we were moving slower than we could have. The driver had turned on the hazard lights and we were moving slower and slower until he pulled over and stopped.

The taxi was out of gas, but the driver told me the petrol station wasn't far away. I was OK with that.

Then he started the engine again and accelerated slowly. We were gonna make it for sure. The petrol station was just two red lights away.

Then comes the uphill. It wasn't that steep that I never really paid attention to it myself when I'm driving but for a two ton steel box with a few drips of gas to burn, it was an uphill we could not climb. The engine died a second time.

He tried starting the car a few times and surprisingly managed to overcome the seemingly high obstacle until we reached the first red light. The engine died again.

I thought the driver turned the engine off on purpose to conserve gas but that wasn't the case. He tried starting the car again and again to no avail. I suggested turning off the aircon in hopes to be able to shed some of the gas necessity of working the car again. He did. It didn't help. And this makes me hate cars with gas (instead of petrol) more than before since I was pretty sure that there was no way you could tell if the tank is close to empty, or could this be just the driver's discretion?

Anyway he tried time after time after time. It just didn't want to start. The gas tank was empty. He apologised and I said it was alright. Nothing dramatic right? So we sat there in the middle of the road with the hazard lights on.

Luckily we were close to Crown Casino and the taxi driver managed to call another taxi passing by. I paid him what I owed and transferred to the other taxi. Poor guy.

After that it was smooth sailing, taxi didn't smell either.

The airport was packed, and I mean jam packed like if you put Disneyland ride queues side to side in a small space. Immigration was the same, like the ride queues without a fastpass. And somebody farted in the queue! @#$%#$%^$%^&*&^%!! Everbody seemed to be going to Bangkok. The Hangover part 2?

Funny, the queue for my flight dispersed straight away the moment they announced they were boarding by row numbers. All the while I was watching from the sidelines. Huge hand carries anyone?

And so I'm signing off now, my flight's ready to depart and the next place I want to head off to is dreamland. Not the beach in Bali, but you know, sleep.