Pacific Place Opening Date (rumour: 22 Nov 07)

Saturday, November 10, 2007 in My Journey

After several months delay, Pacific Place Jakarta is counting days for soft opening. Rumor said that it will have opening date as early as 22 November 2007. The name was purchased from Hong Kong Pacific Place. Opening Delay is okay when they can commit to open all stores simultaneously on the day, a good lesson from Senayan City opening. You can see that Grand Indonesia is lacking of this simultaneously opening concept.

The complex will consists of Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Office Towers, Condominium, and Pacific Place Shopping Mall. Located at Jakarta SCBD, very near to Semanggi, next to JSX/BEJ Towers.

Read more at JavaMilk.com

Jakarta to Build More Inner-City Highways

Saturday, November 10, 2007 in My Journey

As planned and agreed by minister, get ready for more traffic starting next year 2008. Jakarta planned to build 6 more inner city highways (Jalan Tol Dalam Kota) as complement to existing circle highway.

As we will be happy to use it when it is completed, but construction will take 3-4 years to complete. Should be easy to imagine where the traffic jam will be since it will be build in the middle of city. Even – I guess – it will be more hectic than current development of busway.

Read More at JavaMilk.com

New Ride: Tornado at Dufan Theme Park

Sunday, September 23, 2007 in My Journey, My Thoughts

Yesterday I went to Dunia Fantasi Ancol Theme Park. Using free ticket got from Giant, with Yulia we entered the largest theme park in Southeast Asia. Yep, this time in Bulan Ramadhan we got few queue in most of the rides. It has been almost one year since my last visit, so many improvement have been worked.

The main attaction promoted heavily on newspaper is Tornado. It is basically sit-and-twisted ride, similar to Kicir-Kicir, but in bigger vehicle.

A Trip to Papua New Guinea

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 in My Journey

I had implementation project in PNG on early July, then I started to pack things for this. Visa Request has been approved (Rp 1,500,000 for this stamp), and Jakarta to PNG tickets have been issued. Do you know the ticket price? USD 1600 for CGK-SIN-POM-LAE and trip back again.

Flight from Singapore to Port Moresby took 6 hours and 30 minutes. It was a night flight and I thought I could sleep well in the plane but apparently I couldn’t. Sitting in economy class was exhausting, legs couldn’t move freely and sadly I sat on the middle. So my advise is you should ask for aisle for long flight. Just slept intermittently every 1 hour because the flight attendances offered meals and drink and blanket. The interesting thing was we were shown flight animation including speed and altitude. Finally I knew that my plane flew at 860 km/h at 10000 m altitude and outside temperature is -40 celcius degrees. That’s way the cabin pressure and humidity must be maintained.
Arriving in Port Moresby International Airport, I thought it was near the harbour city, but by reading the map I knew that I had landed 7 miles outside city. Still have to wait for 6 hours before next flight.. really boring waiting in departure lounge.

Inside the plane, packed with most of local people (and interestingly wore sandals), 45 minutes flight was not to long compared to my previous flight. Finally arrived at airport without automatic running rubber for baggage. All stuffs just threw from truck to arrival area. Lae/Nadzab International Airport is 30 minutes away from city center.