About 2 weeks back in end September, I went to Jakarta for 公公's one year passing anniversary. Instead of the usual Pullman Central Park, this time I decided to stay in PIK nearer to my grandparents' house as we will be going to the columbarium in Mangga Besar. It was a 4 days and 3 nights stay, I went with just my wife. Traveled light too carrying only my RX100 Mk3.
This time I had the chance to experience the new Terminal 3 in Jakarta. The new terminal looks fancy although it could do with better traffic flow idea. I don't like how we were made to walk long distances just to reach the immigration counters.
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| Going to baggage carousel in Terminal 3 - Galaxy A8+ |
After we cleared the immigration counter, we left for Mercure PIK Avenue. My mother-in-law picked us up as she was supposed to go to Puncak at the end of the month, so she decided to come earlier by a few days to spend some time with us.
The journey to Mercure PIK Avenue was very fast as compared to going to Pullman Central Park, we reached our hotel in less than 30 minutes with relatively smooth traffic. I simply couldn't imagine how long the journey would take had we stayed in Pullman Central Park as we arrived at slightly after 1700 hours which is the peak period for traffic jams.
My room was quite high at the 20th floor, so I could get quite a nice view of the streets down there.
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| Nice view from 20th floor - RX100 Mk3 |
After some quick freshening up, we went down to PIK Avenue Mall for dinner. PIK Avenue seems pretty quiet. The anchor tenants (in my opinion) are Uniqlo, The Food Hall, a cinema and a gym. There are many eateries around, but only a few should be taken seriously. My wife recommended that we had dinner in Union. The cakes & pastries were overpoweringly sweet. I had the Boston cream cronut. While I enjoyed the cronut's texture and flaky pastry, the custard cream was too sweet to my liking, I had to take a break after each bite to just have a sip of water and get over that mind numbing sweet sensation in my mouth. It really felt like the sugar just invaded my taste buds and occupied my mouth... Same goes for their red velvet cake. I don't think I'll return to Union for sure.
After dinner we just walked around and dropped by Uniqlo and The Food Hall before calling it a day.
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| Inside PIK Avenue - RX100 Mk3 |
The following morning, I just snapped this photo from my room. I was very amazed at how much smog there was on the horizon so early in the morning. Clearly Jakarta is a city suffocating from all these toxic fumes.
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| Good morning (hazy) PIK - RX100 Mk3 |
Shortly after, we left for the columbarium. The prayers lasted just slightly over an hour. After which we went for lunch at Kam Seng restaurant at my brother's recommendation which in my opinion is just plain mediocre. A lot of items were not available and service really took quite a while. After that unpleasant lunch, my father suggested that we should just go to Pluit Village and get a better lunch there. So off we went and settled for Mie Alok. Pity I didn't take any photos. Some of my father's staffs were there too so I couldn't indulge myself with my photography as much as I'd like. Soon after we finished the noodles, we returned to the hotel for a quick rest before meeting again for dinner, also at PIK area.
While waiting in Mercure PIK's lobby I just went around taking photos. Mercure PIK's lobby has quite a number of photogenic spots and you don't have to look very hard to find one.
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| Reception area - RX100 Mk3 |
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| That's a colourful gorilla there - RX100 Mk3 |
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| And you simply must take some photos here - RX100 Mk3 |
Dinner at Hong He restaurant was actually very good. The dishes were tasty. The restaurant serves Hakka dishes. Again, I didn't take any photos. After dinner we just returned to the hotel and I searched around for windows from where I could take more photos of PIK. This was my best effort with my RX100 Mk3 (no tripod unfortunately...).
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| Another side of PIK - RX100 Mk3 |
See that grand Chinese building on top right? That's the Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation building which houses a school, a TV station, the office for the charity organization and perhaps more... That is one impressive complex.
On the following day, it was pretty much free & easy for everyone. My father returned to Bintan while my brother returned to Surabaya. My mom went to see her friend all the way in Kelapa Gading while my sister decided to tag along with me and my wife. So we went to Grand Indonesia. Grand Indonesia is indeed very grand (pun very much intended). The mall is a sprawling complex separated to the East and West Malls. But to me malls everywhere are pretty much similiar. So I didn't really enjoy that visit.
My sister and I arrived first at Grand Indonesia while my wife and in-laws arrived much later due to the traffic jam. My sister and I waited for my wife and in-laws at a restaurant called Publik Markette. While the restaurant interior screams verdant chichi, I was not fully impressed with the food, though both I and my sister agreed that their coffee was admirably respectable.
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| Inside Publik Markette - RX100 Mk3 |
On that visit I ordered eggs Benny while my sister ordered chicken nachos. Her nachos turned out very well. But my eggs Benny was quite weird.
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| Baked poached eggs Benny? - RX100 Mk3 |
That was the first time I had eggs Benny where after the Hollandaise Sauce has been spread on the poached eggs, the whole dish was then baked in an oven before serving it. That resulted in poached eggs that were dry with no runny yolks and hardened Hollandaise sauce. It was quite disappointing.
Once we were done at Publik Markette we just roamed around the mall till it was time to go back to the hotel. It really was rather boring......
In the evening, nothing much happened either. My wife went out for dinner with her mom, her brother and sister-in-law in nearby PIK market while I stayed in to nurse a headache. After she returned from dinner we went to PIK Avenue mall again as my headache had gotten better. I only got this ice cream since I wasn't very much interested in other stuffs.
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| A nice cold treat - Galaxy A8+ |
After we returned to the hotel, we just called it a day.
On the following morning, my wife and I took a walk at the hotel's pool area before checking-out.
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| Mercure PIK's pool area - A8+ |
I'm sure the kids would enjoy the pool should we have the chance to stay here next time. Shortly after, my wife's cousin picked us up for brunch before finally leaving for the airport.
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| T3 boarding gate area - RX100 Mk3 |
I was really quite happy to go back as I missed the kids quite a lot. It was a rather long trip, but actually I needed it. The change of atmosphere was necessary to refresh my tired mind.
Here's a closing shot for this entry:
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| Colourful PIK at night - RX100 Mk3 |
~ Photos taken with Sony RX100 Mk3 & Samsung Galaxy A8+ ~
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