ICT Indonesia 2008

Jakarta - Yudi and I arranged to meet for breakfast, so I set my alarm at 7am. Enough time for bathe and change for breakfast meeting at 7.30am. The breakfast spread was wide - eggs cooked to your requirements, porridge, sauggages (chicken and beef) and etc.. There are no pork served as Indonesia is a Muslim country. After a hearty breakfast we have to catch the free shuttle bus to the ICT exhibition area. Yudi advised me to have a heavy breakfast because there weren't any good food in and around the exhibition area. The shuttle bus pick-up was at the next hotel - Orchardz Hotel - it was just a 5 minutes walk. At few minutes past 9.30am, the shuttle bus left the Orchardz Hotel. Coming out at the entrance of the Hotel, the bus needed to make a U-turn - it was so strange to see the bus driver assistant getting off the bus and stopping the traffic. This action stopped both sides of the road for a good 10 minutes. The cars were backed up for as far as the eye can see as it was the morning peak traffic. The exhibition called ICT Expo 2008, was located at the old Jakarta airport. This technology exhibition occupied just one hall and I managed to visit all the booths in under 30 minutes. This is the 3rd day of exhibition and the crowds poured in only in the afternoon. There were many enquiries and overall it was a good exhibition. We were afraid that there might be another protest demonstrations around Jakarta on petrol price hikes but luckily it did not happen. In the evening, Yudi took me and another new friend - Lee, to Restaurant Seafood 21 located across the road of Mangga Dua Square (huge departmental store). We had one dish of crabs cooked with pepper and another cooked Padang sauce. The crabs tasted not fresh thus spoiled the dishes. The prawns (Udang) were giant and we had that BBQ - it was tasty. Squid (Cumi) was fried with flour (Tepung). Kangung (a popular vegetable in SE Asia) fried with Balachan but it came with Bean paste sauce. Overall, it's not one that I would recommend to friends. Total damage = S$48.