Saku's AFK Corner » Indonesia

First day in Jakarta……. MOAARRRRRR FOOOOOODDD!!!!!

Saku — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:29:26 +0000

Jet lag + Soccer Euro 2008 = no sleep for me. I only slept for 2 – 3 hours and yeah, I know it’s not good but I didn’t want to miss the euro 2008 matches between Netherland and Rusia. Oh and guess what ? none of the local tv stations show the match. Awesome I said to myself and I was stucked with streaming sites; better than nothing I guess.

We (me and my family) went to Church in the morning and on our way back to our car, we bought ‘Es Lilin’ (direct translation would be Candle Ice and it’s also well known as pop sickles

). It’s similar to pop sickles but not really in term of textures. There are couple different flavours: strawberry,chocolate, mocha, vanilla etc and It’s only 25 cents each . Gotta love how cheap the food is here lol.

After our little snack session (pop sickles), we went to a nearby noodle store for breakfast. It’s a well known noodle place in Jakarta and it’s tasty because it uses pork oil (majority people in Indonesia is Muslims so most noodle restaurants do not use any kind of pork related food products).

I ordered a bowl of Spicy Pork Noodle and it came with a soup. Total is $2 per person lol. Cheap eh ?

After breakfast, we went to Pondok Indah Mall for window shopping….. or not >.>. I got an interesting loot here ^^. Wondering around in the Mall made us tired so it’s time for lunch so we went to the food court. Btw, don’t thinkthat food court food is like in Canada where they have mostly junk food or fast food like McDonalds , pizza and those stuff and quality is low >.>. What you guys have in a food court in your country ? Junk food or good food?

This time, I got my self some real Indonesian food so I ordered Lontong Cap Go Meh and Chicken Satay, meanwhile, my mom got Nasi Uduk which is also called Nasi Lemak if you go to your local Malaysian/Singaporean Restaurant.

Lontong Cap Go Meh ($2.50) and Chicken Satay ($3)

Nasi Lemak ($3)

Typical long line up at the cinema. It’s always like this on weekends which is different from what I have experienced while living in Canada. We had to buy our tickets for The Hulk early ^^:;.

I rarely see this kind of line up when I go to a movie theater in Canada but considering the price there, it makes sense. In Toronto, it ranges from $8 to $12 per movie while in Jakarta, it ranges $3-$8 per movie. If you pay with certain credit card, you can get one ticket for free so it will be like $3 for 2 tickets >.> . Is this a typical sight at a movie theater where you live ?

GM Special chicken noodles for dinner. It has chicken, mushroom, veggies and some kind of fried wonton. Bakmi GM is a well known noodle restaurant in Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia. There are a lot Bakmi GM chains across the cities.

A Hobby Store at Pondok Indah Mall. They don’t have a lot of selection and the weird thing is when I asked if they can show me the box for Rider figure, they said they didn’t have the box anymore O_O. I was like wtf. They just gonna sell me the figure without the box ?

My favorite bookstor, Kinokuniya. I wish they have Kinokinuya in Canada

Japanese mangas and artbooks section @ Kinokuniya

Unexpected loot from Kinokuniya: G’s Festival vol 2 ($35) and Air Artbook ($30) so I am uber happy because I got the dakimakura and it’s my first ever dakimura dakimakura.

First Trip to Home in 4 Years (Food is good btw)

Saku — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:06:58 +0000

Sorry for the lack of post lately as I’ve been busy with packing and just arrived at Jakarta 2 days ago. Instead of the usual anime/figure posts, I thought I would post about my trip to back home.

It’s been more less 4 years since the last time I went back home to Jakarta, Indonesia. In all honesty, I don’t miss living in Jakarta after spending 8 years in Canada ^^. The only thing that I miss is my family and the food basically.

Anyone had a long flight before ? I was definitely not looking forward to to 24 hours flight including 3 hours transit time in Hongkong. It’s bad and jet lag pwned me basically afterward.

Waiting for boarding time at Toronto Pearson Airport

Watching people passing by and taking pictures to kill my boredom.

Can’t start my day without Tim Hortons. I got my self 2 plain doughnuts and a large tea with 2 milk ^^

I am not sure what this is for or what it is O_O. It’s located at Terminal 1 by the departure gates. It’s a weird looking structure.

More random stuff at Terminal 1 and this time are 2 tiger statues. I may not like but the kids surely love them ^^

Finally, after waiting for 2 hours, it’s time for boarding. Above picture is the aisle on my way to the airplane.

This was my first time flying with Air Canada to Jakarta because I usually use Cathay Pacific. It was a nice airplan because every seats has a touch screen LCD and there were quite a few movies that you can watch. What even better was the power outlet and what this meant to me ? I can charge my iPod and iPhone ^^. 15 hours flight to Hongkong felt so short because of things that I could do. I managed to catch up to episode 20 of Shakugan no Shana II which I hadn’t had a chance to watch so it was great ^^

15 hours later, I arrived in Hongkong Airport. My next flight was within 3 hours so it was still quite a while until the boarding time and the boarding gate was not even announced yet. It’s lunch time in Hongkong so I went to the food court for food.

After checking around the food court, I went for Ajisen Ramen because I was curious whether they taste the same as the one in Toronto.

Ajisen Ramen commercial was running on the tv and they show some samples from their menu. On the left side, it’s the girl from their mascot holding a bowl of ramen ^^

Waiting for my number to be called ^^

I ordered a beef rib ramen with oolong tea. It costed me HK$75 which is around CAD$10. The Oolong tea was HK$25 alone -.- so the ramen price is cheaper if I compare it to the one in Toronto. Taste wise is more less the same

After lunch, I wandered around at the airport since I had around 2 hours before my flight. A lot of duty free shops and some well known brand stores. I was hoping that there’s an anime/figure store but I thought it would be quite unlikely .

My flight from Hongkong to Jakarta was with Cathay Pacific. They still use the same LCD screen since the last time I flew with them. During this flight, my jetlag really pwned me because I was so sleepy but I tried not to fall asleep >.>

A little trick to avoid a long line up at the immigration is to run your @ss off right after you get off the plane. This way, you will arrive the immigration office before anyone else and can pass through it asap.

2nd last step before I can finally get the hell out of the airport is baggage claim. It’s nice and fast doing online check-in but since my luggage got in first, it will come out last. It took 30 mins before my luggage finally came out.

The moment of truth is finally here…. the custom. I didn’t declare anything so I didn’t have any problem. You will be asked to put your carry-on luggage through the scanning system and they rarely check your check-in luggage unless they mark your luggage with white chalk which means they will ask you to open your luggage and do a thorough search. Here is a tip; you can wipe out the mark before you pass through the custom ;D and no, you don’t hear about this from me >.>

My mom, sister and her boyfriend picked me at the airport then we all went out for dinner at a chinese restaurant called Cosy…. delicious…mmmm ^^

One awesome thing about Jakarta or Indonesia in general is street food. If I compare to Canada, I can only find hotdogs or hamburgers stands which is nothing compare to what I find back home. You can find any food that you want especially Jakarta specialities.

On the left side of the stand, it is a small river which has a very nice smell ;p so imagine this, the food stand is located right beside the river so while we were waiting for the food, our nose received a pleasant treatment from the river . If this is Canada, public health and safety is probably going to close down this place in an instant due to hygineous reason ^^;

Keep one thing in mind if you happen to visit Indonesia, the dirtier the location is, the more delicious the food is ^^. Oh and don’t forget to get your hepatitis shots before you visit Indonesia.

Image source: Here

The street food that we bought is called “Martabak Manis” and I don’t think there is an official english name for this ^^;. It comes with couple different flavour like cheese or chocolate and peanuts