Tag Archives: Mandarin Oriental Jakarta

Terima Kasih, Jakarta!

17 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by in Food, Thoughts, Travel, Work

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This post is quite late. But like they say, better late than never.

It has been almost a month since I went to Jakarta but I can still vividly remember how wonderful the Indonesian capital was. The people were friendly the capital itself was vibrant.

I arrived in Jakarta on the 20th of March, details of which are written in a previous journal entry of mine entitled Journey to Jakarta. I originally planned to go to some of the tourist spots in Jakarta on my first day but it rained really hard so I opted to stay in the hotel and rest. At around 6 PM, the rain stopped and I decided to go out and have dinner in Plaza Indonesia. By the way, there are two malls in front of Mandarin Oriental Jakarta: Grand Indonesia Shopping Town and Plaza Indonesia. Both malls are huge and upscale. I went to Plaza Indonesia since it’s the mall nearer the foot bridge.

Plaza Indonesia, the most luxurious shopping mall in Jakarta

The first thing I noticed when I saw the mall was the unbelievably large and expansive Louis Vuitton store at the entrance of Plaza Indonesia. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t invest in a store this big if there are no customers. Man, there must be a lot of wealthy Indonesians.

LOUIS VUITTON. In your face luxury.

I roamed around the mall a bit before looking for a restaurant to eat in. The layout of Plaza Indonesia was very confusing, I was going around and around finding myself in the same spot again and again. One thing I noticed while going around was that most of the shops there were for luxury brands. I never felt so poor in my entire life. Continue reading →

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Journey to Jakarta

26 Saturday Mar 2011

Posted by in Thoughts, Travel, Work

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This is the first post regarding my recently-concluded trip to the Indonesian capital — Jakarta.

A few months back, I was nominated for an enablement by my then manager in Software Lab Services. It was a training on IBM FileNet P8 4.5 Java API Programming. I thought it would be the usual training to be held in the Learning Services area of IBM Plaza.

I was wrong.

As I read the spreadsheet and looked for the training ID to check the schedule, the location column caught my attention. Jakarta. I thought I was being fooled my vision so I read the whole row again. Jakarta.

I’m going to Jakarta! I’m finally going out of the Philippines for the very first time!

The flag of Indonesia. Photo taken from Wisma Aldiron.

Getting to the point of me finally going to Jakarta was a roller coaster ride to say the least. I enrolled in on-line Indonesian lessons since there are only a few English speakers in Indonesia. I prepared my travel request forms and have them approved. The training was postponed numerous times before finally having a set date. Three days before my scheduled flight, I was informed that I won’t be going to the training anymore due to some problems with the travel form approvals. On Friday last week, I already sent an e-mail to IBM Education in Indonesia stating that I am canceling my slot for the training. Five minutes after that e-mail, I was informed that I’d be going after all. Continue reading →