minamimusings

Here's a delayed hotel post about the place we stayed at in Jakarta. Because the trip to Jakarta was more of a business trip than anything, the choice of hotel was already predetermined by my husband's company. The Rasuna Icon is a quaint little boutique hotel (only 6 floors!) located in the middle of Jakarta. I would say it's near the business district, except there doesn't seem to be exact boundaries on where certain districts are, and so everything looked like the business district to me. It was also partly residential, when I think about it. I can say for sure that it's not near any of the major tourist spots. Also, going there is a bit of a pain because the taxis don't seem to know where it is even if you give them the complete address and a mini-map. And even though the place is at the end of a very long, narrow, two-car, two-way street, I noticed that the drivers like to take the long route and enter it from the opposite end, but I chalk this up to the...

When my husband goes on out-of-town trips, I tend to tag along. (I pay for my own expenses, of course.) So in February, when he said, "Hey, I have another conference and I'm thinking of extending my stay. Wanna join?" I said, "Sure. Where to?" He replied, "Jakarta." I exclaimed, "You want to extend your stay THERE?! WHY???" In all honesty and with no disrespect, I've never heard good things about Jakarta. When people think of Indonesia, they think of Bali beaches. Or Yogyakarta's ancient structures. But when the capital is mentioned in the news, it's accompanied by reports of unrest, rallying, fighting, things getting bombed, and traffic. LOTS AND LOTS OF TRAFFIC. I really didn't want to go to Jakarta.  But that month, I found myself inside the Soekarno-Hatta airport musing for the thousandth time about how pathetic any of the NAIA terminals compare to those of other countries. Ok. So it's not so bad...