Medan

Flying from Jakarta to Medan, again flights were packed. When trying to book it, the choices and fare class / prices available would change every couple minutes when I hit refresh, it was silly. I guess there were probably only 1 or 2 tickets left on each and they kept getting held then released.

In Medan... I don't know what to do really. Somehow I just don't feel like going out and trying to do anything here. Though partly that's cause there isn't much to do. Normally I would still try to do something, but here and now, just kindof blah.

There are hardly any places to eat near the hotel, which is unfortunate. It's really treacherous to walk anywhere, as there are not really "sidewalks" per se, sometimes there are some broken up flat areas at the side of the road but frequently it's rubble with random ditches and other pitfalls, you have to keep looking down.

Visited a modern mall, well it's about the same as anywhere else. Wandered around some outdoor places a bit but didn't find anything too interesting. Tried going to a couple clubs, but it was still only 10:00 or 10:30, so they were still fairly dead, and expensive, and i didn't stay long.

Jakarta's gym had aerobic classes, which I find I actually quite like, but unfortunately the gym here doesn't. The pool area here doesn't feel as nice either. But the exercise area "looks" more fancy and I think the machines are newer.

The elevators in this hotel are a total gong show... There are only 3 to service quite a few floors at a fairly high level, so you often have to wait quite a long time. Sometimes the elevator call cancels itself after a couple minutes, not sure why, maybe even it gets tired of waiting and you have to press the button again. Once in the elevator, you have to scan your keycard before selecting a floor. Sometimes you have to scan it multiple times before it flashes green. If there are multiple people going to multiple floors, you all have to scan your card. And you have to do it fast, cause if not, the elevator might start responding to another call and you'll go 20 floors in the wrong direction before you can try again. It's just ridiculous. And instinctively (or deliberately) people tend to stand blocking the scanner. I try to laugh about it, especially when you find other people in the elevator who have clearly gone up and down 20 floors a couple times and still haven't managed to make it to their floor. If I'm only going a couple floors, I take the stairs. Though the staff don't really like me doing that. Maybe because it spoils the illusion that the elevator keycard system offers any kind of security benefit whatsoever.

The hotel rooms are large, and the staff are super friendly. It's fairly heartwarming when you glance at someone way off at a desk and her face lights up in a smile that at least seems genuine. Plenty of selection for food at breakfast, but not much nearby for other meals. Besides the elevators, a few downsides... there are occasional power outages, there was water leaking from the roof (related to the air con), and this room seems to have a smell. So although it's "5 star" I think it's more just 5 star appearance, 4 or 3 star under the surface.

The biggest taxi chain in Indonesia is BlueBird. I think I should create a taxi chain called BuleBird. That's a funnier joke if you're here. (bule = westerner/foreigner)

I'm lonely, anyone want to come visit? Almost everyone has or will have family visit/stay with them at some point, it's a little surprising.

Jakarta

Finally figure maybe I should write something, though, not really that much to say. Headed to indonesia. Flights were alright, nothing too remarkable from what i remember, though, there were 2 coworkers for the first leg (only 1 for the second) which is quite unusual, normally I travel alone. We still weren't sitting together though, so it was close to the usual traveling alone.

From looking at Air Canada's website, I saw that not all seats are equal, it seems on this aircraft the rows nearer the front actually have an inch or two more than some rows further back, so I used that knowledge in my seat selection. Everyone wants an extra inch or two.

A boarding announcement was calling for "passengers Ha and Ho," I thought it sounded funny.

In singapore, handed over passports in the morning, tried to go out for a while, just wandered around some areas, then back to the hotel to get the passport back. Flights to jakarta were packed, so I was on a fairly late flight.

In the taxi, we hit 140 km/h. That is simply incredible for Jakarta, where typically you barely go above about 30 km/hr, and on occasion people have spent 4 hrs going from the airport to the hotel, and that was without a rainstorm or other problem.

In Jakarta, I was able to spend time with my friend from last time, which was really nice. I wasn't really planning on seeing my ex-, since of course that would be a bit uncomfortable and would not know what to say to her. But even though she didn't work there full time anymore, she was still there once a week freelance, so she heard i was around and when she was there one morning she called and we met. As expected, how do you talk to someone in that situation. Also silly, within 10 minutes i was feeling sad to say goodbye again.

Didn't really get up to much else, went to the airport a few times for work. Tried to shop for a 'jacket' for my LG Optimus One but couldn't find any, despite visiting the malls with a floor dedicated to literally hundreds of mobile phone and accessory stalls (you have to see it to believe it!)... seems LG is not too popular here, I forget if I mentioned before, but Blackberry totally dominates Indonesia. Nokia is also quite popular. Third I'd guess is Samsung.

So overall Jakarta seems about the same but of course my experience/feeling is very different from before.