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A day in Jakarta

Jakarta 26th October 2011

04.45 am my alarm goes off…time to get showered and ready for my day trip to Jakarta. It’s just a daytrip so no packing required, only my carry on with my laptop and project files. I did book a taxi last night, as I am never sure to find one at this early hour. 05.20 am: the taxi company calls me to let me know my taxi has arrived. 05.45 I get my boarding pass from the check-in counter and make my way to the lounge for my first coffee. 06.30 I board the plane and find my seat 34C, nicely in front, courtesy of my frequent flyer status. The flight leaves with a slight delay shortly before 7am.

Smooth flight, breakfast served on board, we land on time at around 7.30am local time (Jakarta is 1 hr behind Singapore). I flew in together with the project’s interior designer and we take the ride down town for the project coordination meeting together with Galih my local business partner. There is heavy traffic (as usual in the morning) but we manage to reach the site well before 10am. The rest of the project team drips in by bits and pieces due to the unpredictable traffic. 10.30am We are finally on our way with our meeting in the site office, project status review, updates, consultant’s inputs, etc. 11.30 Someone has managed to organise coffee from Starbucks…finally! The meeting progresses, we have a conference call with the operator on operational requirements for the project. 1pm Big Mac meals are brought in…I guess that is our working lunch! A bit later we meet with the big boss who needs to be briefed on the progress. He gives some valuable feedback and comments, everyone is happy. The meeting comes to an end 3.15pm…I still have time to meet another client on my way to the airport.

What is normally a 15 min ride for some reason takes 1 ½ hour today , we reach destination finally at 4.50pm! Wow, I really don’t know how people organise their lives here. The client is expecting us and knows I have only half an hour max to spare, if I don’t want to miss the last flight out. The good news is that we are now officially confirmed as LD on this new project, kick off meeting next week…I will be away in India but my partner Galih will be in attendance for us. As I write the blog I am painfully slow moving towards the airport. Prediction another 2 hrs, should just make my 8.30pm flight back to Singapore…. By the time I will be back in Singapore I will have spent about 11 hours in taxi’s, cars, airline lounges and airplanes for meetings that totalled little more then 6
hours!…A day in Jakarta….

In Light Watch some amazing sights I witnessed on my way back from Madrid…sunrise from the plane….


Light Watch 190: Madrid – Amsterdam 7am (last pic the famous Dutch Greenhouses)

27. October 2011 by Martin Klaasen
Categories: Light and inspiration, light watch | Leave a comment

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