Jakarta Highlights

Just got back from my three-day vacay in Jakarta, with my best bud, Irene! I have a full narrative of my vacay, but I saved it on Irene's laptop and she'll send it to me in the next few days. So anyway, I wanted to post my pics and share my trip highlights. Full narrative to follow!

(*) Bonding and Laughing Time with Irene

The main reason why I visited Jakarta in the first place was to spend some quality time with Irene, who's been in Indonesia for almost four years now. Two out of the three nights I slept over, we were up till 4AM! Her flatmates thought we were arguing/fighting. Deng. I particularly enjoyed our 10-years-from-now conversations where she asked me in her most serious tone if she could be 5'7 then, and a super model. Haha. Love this girl. She and I are alike and different at the same time. We exchanged our insights about each other's lives/mini-dilemmas. It's pretty refreshing to hear a different perspective about things.



We've known each other for more than half our lives. A lot of the things we talked about didn't require further explanation because we understand and know each other's personal histories. It's interesting how we've changed over the years, but stay essentially the same. Great friends are like that I guess.



(*) Mall Tours, Shopping, and Spending

In Indonesia, everyone's a millionaire! The local currency, the rupiah, is pretty interesting! The average batik duster costs about 20,000 rupiah. That's a 100 bucks though in pesos. The bills are pretty colorful. Conversion took a little getting used to.



Course, being the Zara devotee that I am, I had to pay homage. Arief was nice enough to take this picture of me. He even asked if I wanted one by the entrance... Hehe.



I promised myself not to shop. And well... promises are meant to be broken. Especially when one has lots of luggage space. Haha. Now see here... Most of the stuff below are not for moi! Two bags of local snacks and the rest are batik finds and a few office clothes (fine fine fine... for me).



(*) Chocolate Martini at The Dharmawangsa Hotel

One of the best cocktails I've had... ever. The inside and outside rim of the martini glass had chocolate. The martini had the right amount of alcohol to give me a buzz! At the bottom of the glass was a chocolate kiss. Yum!! I guess here's where I discover that chocolate goes very well with alcoholic beverages.

What's in a martini anyway? According to the very reliable Wikipedia... "The martini is a cocktail traditionally made with gin and dry white vermouth, though in recent years substituting vodka for gin has become more popular than the original recipe".

Okie... so chocolate and chilled vodka... I like the sound of that!



(*) Bakerzin!

Because of the diversity of the peeps in Jakarta, it seems but natural that there is a great variety of cuisine, a good selection of restaurants. I'm happy that I had Jakarta locals taking me around! They knew the best places. My favorite meal of the trip was our late lunch at Bakerzin. It's very similar to Bizu! They even have French macaroons! Anyway, I enjoyed my pasta dish very much. Our conversation with Robert, Irene's Fil-Am friend, that our lunch stretched to dessert. I was quite happy with my Illy Americano and black forrest macaroons. Good food and engaging conversations. Ahh...



(*) Meeting Irene's Friends

Irene has made several friends over her four-year stay in Jakarta. I was fortunate enough to meet them! All of them were part Filipinos, so we spoke freely in Tagalog! They were all fluent in Bahasa!

Here's Arief, Irene's very special friend (as I would like to call 'em special friends, "jowa"). I'm glad i got to meet him. He's a civil engineer who likes Frou Frou! Anyone who likes Frou Frou is ok to me! Haha! He was nice to bring my plastic bags while walking around. He and Irene were very sweet. Always like a guy who could make Irene smile and happy.



This is Robert, Irene's Fil-Am friend who works at the US Embassy. He's well-read and had a lot of interesting insights about everything. He was funny too! Bentang benta ang mga hirit nya sa amin ni Irene.




(*) Videoke Night!

My second night in Jakarta, I treated Irene, Robert, and Arief, to an evening of singing. The three were members of the church choir and had vocal chops. They were also Videoke veterans (obviously) because they had a couple of standard songs they usually sang. Haha. So the 80s junkie in me just had to indulge in my usual song choices: "Total Eclispe of the Heart", "Faith", and "Always" (Irene and Arief's theme song for the evening). Fun Fun Fun!



(*) Indo Architechture, Craftsmanship, and Furniture

I like pretty things, and people who know me can attest to that. And I saw a lot of pretty houses, furniture, wooden carvings, and decorative pieces in Jakarta. If I could bring home a sala set, a tv stand, book cases, and woven placemats, I would have.