nothing much really.. lol .. this is gonna be the uninterestin part of my trip.. gonna be stuck here in Sydney for at least 3 months as i save up for New Zealand.. looking for some IT jobs now.. i've been applyin through this site and followin up on some leads from friends at church.. so it's been goin arrite
my friend from church, bond (yes his name is bond) introduced me to this show called one litre of tears. it's this sappy jap show thats based on a true story that i've been watchin on youtube.. it's arrite if ur bored and got nothin to do.. lol
i've also been tryin to play my roommates mgs 3.. its hard dude.. much more harder than mgs on psone which is the last mg i played.. u gotta kill and eat stuff to survive and keep ur stamina up.. i got killed by a croc.. lol
yesterday, we went to this place for dinner. It was freakin expensive, but it was for this guy's goin away party (he finished his masters and is goin back to indo) The food was arrite (im not picky when it comes to food..) I had the full rack of ribs.. couldnt finish it. they were saucy and fall off the bone.. i think they were a bit better than montana's (which reminds me of that time we were at montana's with syd.. lol)
today, i emailed my old company's Sydney office cuz i wanna go visit and take some pics to send back to my old colleagues.. so get this.. the managin partner of the office emails me back sayin this.. im not lyin i jus copied and pasted it from his email..
Good timing. Our system has just gone down. Where are you? I have a client lunch but you can come in any time. Can you call 92327199 and talk to Grace or call me on 0413993600. We may need your help!
how crazy is that?? lol.. so tomorrow im gonna go down there and see if i can help.. lol.. maybe he can give me a job too.. lol
Today was our first day in Jakarta. The first thing we did today was wake up & watch the Suns-Mavs game on one of the Indo channels that was simulcasting with TNT. It was awesome! I miss watching NBA games. It was a close game & Dirk made the game winning shot. After the game, Fiona, Charine & JeWawo came over to pick us up. We were being driven around by Fiona's driver. Apparently, it is pretty normal to have a driver in Jakarta. After 15-20 mins in the car, I could see why. Indo drivers are absolutely insane! They try to squeeze thru anywhere there is space, esp. the dudes on scooters/motorcycles. I was pretty shocked but I guess it was just the culture there. The first place we went was to have lunch at an Indo restaurant. It was pretty good. Indonesians really love their spicy food. While there, I remembered to order an orange juice w/o ice. They say the water here is unsafe to drink. After that we went to one of Jakarta's biggest malls. This mall kina reminded me of Yorkdale. It's very posh & upper class. It had stores like Gucci, LV & Coach was going to be opening soon. We walked around for a bit & then went to shoot some pool. The pool lounge was a bit smoky but we had a good time. After that we went to buy some power adapters, picked up some dinner & headed home.
Random thoughts: - The big thing about Jakarta is the traffic. It's absolutely horrendously bad. Everywhere you go takes a bit of time. - When we get out of the car to go into a restaurant or mall, it's normal for the driver to stay and wait in the parking lot. I found that to be a bit weird.. maybe cuz I'm not used to the idea of having servants.. - We live at Charine's mom's friend's apartment. It's located in an upper class neighbourhood by the water. From my observations, most Chinese living in Indonesia are pretty well off. The person who owns the place where we are staying don't actually live here & they only visit it occasionally. It's a nice 2 bedroom/2 washroom apartment w/a balcony. This was the nicest bed I have stayed in since I left home.
Mon, Jan 1, 2007
First day of the new year. Happy New Year to all! Yesterday, we spent New Years Eve day at the a mall. We saw Happy Feet. It was a good movie with a good moral. After the movie, we went to the salon & had a cream bath & head/shoulder massage. First of all, I just want it to be clear that it wasn't my idea.. lol.. It was pretty weird having a guy molest massage my head. He really dug his fingers in! I was a bit uncomfortable & I think I came out more tense. His shoulder massages were pretty tough too since I don't have too much meat in my shoulders.. lol. But it only cost 10,000 rupiah (around $1.30 CAD) so it wasn't a giant rip off. However, I don't think I'll ever be doing that again.. lol. After that we went home for a bit & then Erik & Jessica came to pick us up to go to his friend's house for New Year's Eve. The house he brought us to was massive! It had like 10ft. walls surrounding the house with a giant iron gate, benz amg, stained glass skylight, 20ft ceilings and a massive winding staircase. We had a bbq & they set off fireworks. It was pretty cool cuz they weren't dinky small ones that fizzle out in 2 seconds but huge symphony of fire type fireworks. After the fireworks, we hung around for a bit & then a bunch of us went out to McD's for some seuw yeh. We then chatted for a couple hrs & we ended up getting home around 5-6am. Fast fact: Not one drop of alcohol was consumed during the party.. maybe its a different culture here.. not that I would have taken part but it seemed a bit strange
Today, I woke up at around 12:30pm. We watched a couple movies on HBO (that's rite! they have HBO in Indo and we don't have it in Canada.. so sad!) & a couple ppl came over (Charine, Fiona & Albert). We played Hold'em & me and Albert battled it out on EBA. (Elite Beat Agents on DS.. IMO the best DS game!) We then had dinner (home cooked meal.. mm!) chatted for a bit & they went home. We then watched the news & saw that an ADAMAIR flight went missing. I was pretty shocked at first because I would be flying back to Singapore on an ADAMAIR flight in 2 days. I just hope now that they don't ban ADAMAIR flights or whatever cuz of this.. We'll see what happens. I'll def. be praying for this.. I'm not that worried though, I know if God is calling me home then I will go willingly. But on the other hand, there's so much I still want to do on Earth but I'm living in God's time and I trust Him fully.
Tues. Jan 2, 2007
Today was my last day in Jakarta. Didn't do too much today.. just chilled at home & watched a couple movies on TV. We went out for dinner & watched Night at the Museum again (We watched it once in Singapore) since Charine didn't see it yet. It's a typical Ben Stiller movie. Nothing too spectacular but was entertaining.
Some final thoughts about Jakarta: - Having a driver/car is essential. The bus system is shady (u could get ur pocket picked, etc.. jus not safe to use) - I never once saw blue sky. It's always cloudy.. kinda sad cuz of all the pollution - The city is very segregated. There are only 2 classes: the rich & the poor. No one in between. The live side by side though.. the rich ppl have giant walls and gates surrounding their house while you would see shacks w/tin roofs on the next street. Though the city has Starbucks, McD's & KFC you can tell right away that it is still a developing nation. The streets are really dirty w/goats runnin around sometimes and the ppl seem very poor. But on the other hand, u have huge luxury malls that are like Yorkdale.. It's a stark contrast. I can see why a lot of the Indo overseas students end up stayin in AUS or moving to Singapore. - Something I forgot to mention.. We visited the monas and the Indonesian National Museum. Click over to my flickr site to see some of the pics
just got back to Singapore from Jakarta safely.. Just wanted to let u know in case u were wondering about this and you knew that I was on an Adam Air flight. I'll expand more later when I get back to Sydney
.. this is gonna be the uninterestin part of my trip.. 
gonna be stuck here in Sydney for at least 3 months as i save up for New Zealand.. looking for some IT jobs now.. i've been applyin through 