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It was near midnight when I started writing this blog. It was raining cats and dogs, and normally the best time to hit the snooze button. Unfortunately, I drank a bucketful of coffee in the meeting today, so now I am wide awake. That's really ironic, isn't it?

For the past few weeks, it's been raining nearly everyday and tonight it's no exception. While I was grappling for things to write, suddenly this rain reminds me of my Jakarta's visit early this year. It was spur of the moment decision to go to Jakarta. Let me tell you how it started.

A few of my friends decided to have a small reunion. All of us at one time or another had worked with the company that organised Formula One. All of us, except my best friend, had moved on and working with another companies. Due to several reasons, we were seldom able to meet and hang out with each other. So after so many cancellation and re-scheduling, we managed to confirm the date. It was Friday night, so it became a Friday night out for ladies. All of us are single ladies except for one lady who is married and she always dragged her poor husband along for all kind of occasions that we had accepted him as part of the lady group. LOL.

As many of you had experienced with ladies group, there will be never ending stories. We jumped from one topic to another with ease. How anyone can understand and participate in the discussion was still a mystery to me. Suddenly, the restaurant manager came over to our table and informed us that they were closing the restaurant in about half an hour, and asked us whether we want to make our last order. Realising that we had so much more to talk about, we decided to leave the restaurant and moved to another restaurant which was opened for 24-hour.

Over a few glasses of juices drinks, we decided to go on holidays. So for a few minutes, everyone was silent and browsing through their phones to find some cheap holiday packages. After going on and forth with a few suggestions, we decided to go to Jakarta. There was a promotional ticket prices somewhere in February and too good to miss out. We made a solemn promise that we won't go shopping too much, just go the spa and eat. LOL.

On the day of our flight to Jakarta, our friend's husband wasn't allowed to check in because his passport had less than six months before its expiration. For your information, Malaysians are not allowed to travel if their passport will expire within six months. After much discussion, it was decided that our friend will fly with us whereas her husband needed to renew his passport and fly to Jakarta the next day. The start of our holidays did not seem too smooth, but we still felt excited, though it's not our first time to visit Jakarta.

When we reached Jakarta, it was raining. Our driver told us that it had been raining for sometimes, but the rain did not dampen our mood. The first thing we told our driver was to find a good Padang food restaurant. LOL. Thank God we had the same interest, food. The driver took us to a popular Padang food restaurant - Sederhana, and we ate to our heart content. After gorging on the food, he drove us to our hotel, somewhere in the South of Jakarta. For anyone who never been to Jakarta, it's well known that you had to have a good time allowance and patient when driving in Jakarta because of its infamous traffic jam. Due to the rain, we were caught in a massive traffic jam on our way to the hotel. Though it was annoying, we were more or less prepared with the situation. Furthermore, we just had a good dinner, so nothing can spoil our mood.

After the longest hour, finally we reached our hotel apartments. We only rented two apartments, one for my friend with her husband, and the other for us the single ladies. After telling our driver to pick our friend's husband from the airport in the morning, and then send us to a well known spa, we went to the bed with good mood still.

The next morning, after we had our breakfast at the hotel, we were waiting patiently for the arrival of my friend's husband. He told us that he will arrive at the airport at around 10.00 am. After the expected time when he still did not reach our hotel we became anxious. Phone calls were flying back and forth between our friend, her husband, our driver and our tour leader (she was the only one who can speak Indonesian quite fluently). It seems that our driver and my friend's husband cannot find each other.

Finally it was sorted out and my friend's husband reached our hotel, but half a day was gone just by loitering around the hotel. Not a good start to our holiday. When we reached the spa, it was noon. Thank God the session was heavenly. After the session, once again we were caught in heavy downpour and stuck in the traffic jam. My stomach was singing tuneless opera by that time. We tried to be cheerful, but it was getting hard.

One the second day, we decided to go to Tanah Abang, a famous bargain market in Jakarta. I know we said before coming to Jakarta that we were not going to go shopping, but then again, it was Jakarta. LOL. However, again, it was raining, and again we were stuck in the traffic jam. Tanah Abang offered wide variety of local products and clothes. After spending about couple of hours in Tanah Abang, we moved on to Mangga Dua. Mangga Dua is another famous bargain market, though unfortunately infamous for its fake branded products. We only spent a short period of time in Mangga Dua before moving on to one of it's shopping complex, and more importantly, another restaurant.

In between all these downpours, traffic jams, eating out and such, we were being informed by our drivers that the situation in Jakarta was getting serious. Certain parts of Jakarta had been flooded.

On last day of our holiday in Jakarta, we thought we just wanted to go to the area near to our hotel. Out flight was in the late evening, and we thought we have ample time to go somewhere nearby, while two of our friends decided to go to their friends' office with our driver. However, after about half an hour later, both of our friends were back in the hotel. They told us that flood had reached the roads nearby our hotel. Apparently the flood situation in Jakarta was getting worst. Since it seemed we cannot go anywhere anymore, it was decided that it was better for all us to head out to the airport before more roads being cut off by the flood. When we were checking out from the hotel, the concierge of the hotel informed us that certain parts of Jakarta had been declared 'the state of emergency'.

We were very anxious when we were driven to Jakarta Airport. Though certain roads had been flooded, but they were still passable and we managed to reach the airport with no untoward incidents. When we were at the airport, we realised how bad the situation was in Jakarta after watching the news. So even though we were forced to leave our hotel earlier than we thought, we were thankful that we were able to leave the city.

Looking back at my last visit to Jakarta, it was no wonder that airline sold their tickets at cheap prices. It was not a good time to visit. LOL. Though the holiday was not what I expected, but I was glad to be able to visit Jakarta again, and ate its delicious food especially the Padang food.