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Heading for Jakarta, Indonesia to spend the weekend…

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Jetstar was having this deal of one for one tickets and the place we ended up choosing for our trip was to Jakarta, Indonesia. Most of the others were already booked or still quite expensive… Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia so we thought it’d be a tourist destination but friends told us that it is not that tourist friendly and it has been dangerous in the past. We got lots of tips from them before leaving like don’t carry a purse, don’t flash your camera around, keep money in many pockets, only take Blue Bird Group taxis, etc etc. So I think we were pretty prepared to come here.

Our flight was around 8pm so I had to leave work a bit earlier than usual to get to the airport. We got stuck in a bit of jam but managed to check in on time.

We were starving so had a snack after checking in. We tried something healthy at a place selling smoothies and wraps.


Green tea smoothie


Tandoori chicken wrap

It would at least tide us over until we reached Jakarta. Our flight was pretty short, less than 2 hours I think. We had our hotel arrange airport pick up so there was a guy waiting for us after immigration. He was holding a sign with my name on it, first time for everything 🙂

We picked up our luggage and he lead us outside, it was still really warm and very humid even thought it was late evening. A mini van drove up to pick us up and bring us to the Hotel Alila.

Check-in was a bit awkward because they thought I had booked two rooms. For some reason I did receive 2 email confirmations but my booking only said 1 room, no idea how that mix-up occurred.

We went to our room and were greeted with a nice fresh fruit platter.

We had booked their Intimate Moments package, which includes the following for $97.50USD per night:

Intimate Moments is a 3-day/2-night package, especially designed for those who are looking for a truly fresh and inspiring setting to mark their love, renewal of vows or commitment. Enjoy a warm hospitality and an escapade destination that is surprisingly different…

Intimate Moments benefits inclusions:
-2-night stay at Alila Jakarta
-Choice of romantic set menu breakfast for 2 persons served in the room or buffet breakfast at buzz Restaurant
-A 3-course candlelight dinner for 2 persons at buzz Restaurant accompanied with 2 glasses of sparkling wine
-A 1-hour aromatherapy massage for 2 persons in a couple room at mybodyspa
-Romantic room set up, tropical fruits platters and welcome drink in the room
-Alila Memento to bring home contain Spa Alila products for him & her
-Guaranteed king size bed and late check out till 4pm
-2-pieces laundry per day (non accumulative, exclude dry clean & extra pressing)
-1 portion of dimsum accompanied with any paid lunch or dinner at Shanghai Storm Restaurant
-24-hour high-speed broadband internet access in the room
-Usage of outdoor swimming pool and mybodygym
-Access to Alila Jakarta Executive Lounge

Not too bad for the price we thought.

Because of our late arrival, we didn’t have a proper dinner so thought we’d try room service. We’ve never ordered room service before so we thought it’d be fun 😛

Ron ordered some pineapple cocktail plus a tenderloin steak:

The steak may look small but it was actually quite thick and cooked rather well. The mustard seed mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy were pretty nice as well.

Although we shouldn’t sleep right after eating, I’m pooped and want to go try out the huge pillow on the bed (it’s about double the size of a king sized pillow).

Coffee Club Take 2

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This week I’ve started evening Mandarin classes and I feel quite lost. I signed up for Level 2 because when I took the evaluation test, I scored enough to be in Level 2… but the students in the class seem to be much more advanced than me… it’s going to be tough but all I can say is that I’ll do my best. I have class Monday and Wednesday evenings for 2 1/2 hours so we’ll see how long I can last with working and taking classes.

Today I got to meet up with Joyce and we had dinner together at Holland V at Thai Express. It’s the first time we’d been there and the food was either really good or we were really hungry. We ordered pad thai and green curry. I liked the green curry because it was spicy but still a bit sweet. But I think my favorite part of the meal was my avocado shake, I love the creamy texture of the shake and the flavor of the avocado. It’s pretty hard to find avocados here and if you do find them, they’re quite expensive.

Since Joyce has been having a tough few weeks, we thought we’d better go have some decadent dessert. So I suggested Coffee Club for their mud pie.

She and I were very happy girls. She got her chocolate (she ate the whole piece by herself!) and I got my fruit tiramisu. My camera ran out of batteries so again I used my camera phone…

Attempting to update

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I’ve been a really bad blogger lately… it’s been more than 3 weeks since my last post.

We have returned safely back to Singapore and Ron has already started school and I am back to work. I have not been able to update. The thought of updating about the remainder of our vacation has been quite overwhelming… but I’ve finally got the photos uploaded and ready to write… so I hope to get to it soon. I keep this blog going for our friends and family to keep track of us… but also it has the added benefit to help me so I don’t forget. I’m realizing that my memory is getting worse and worse as I get older, I used to be the one to remember everything (ie, events, birthdays, etc) for Ron and I but now it’s easier for me to get things mixed up. Sigh… sign of old age.

Anyhow, I’ll start with one post first, go back to December 24th, Christmas Eve.

Happy viewing!

NYDC and the Coffee Club

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I had to work yesterday which was okay but I still didn’t really feel like doing anything once I got home. I ended up watching Jewel in the Palace until 2am…

Then today I completed the the series. I watched almost 20 hours worth of TV. But if you’ve seen the show, you know how addicting it is…

But I still managed to get out of the house. Ron and I had dinner with a few friends in Holland V at NYDC, a pizza and cheescake place. The pizza was pretty good but the pasta was not. The cheesecake looked really good but was quite expensive so instead we headed to The Coffee Club to have dessert. I didn’t bring my camera so unfortunately had to use my camera phone to take pictures of the dessert.

They had this fabulous mud pie with an oreo cookie crust and oreo cookie crumbles plus two layers of ice cream.

I tried their almond latte which was only okay.

I’d definitely recommend the mud pie and look forward to going back to try their fruit tiramisu (which Ron wouldn’t let me order).