Jakarta Weekends

Jakarta Weekends

My usual routine on a Saturday morning is to head walk out from the hotel, into the sunny street of Jalan Wahid Hasyim and head for the cybercafe at Sarinah. I write all my weekend blog entries from there.

My main reason though for going to the cybercafe is to check out the daily online papers--especially news from Malaysia (The Star, Bernama, New Straits Times, Utusan Malaysia) and also from Singapore (Straits Times) which I read mainly to get an alternate view of news about Malaysia.

Having had my "breakfast" of news, I would then spend a bit of time blogging. I try not to write anything too ponderous or heavy during the weekends. No "memory or data mining", just plain simple OLTP-- to handle the present, as the information systems textbooks like to put it.

I am quite busy during the weekends because of my personal projects. I don't normally like to go out on Saturday nights, preferring to socialize with my friends on weekdays. Weekends are rather quiet affairs, usually spent working in my hotel room at night.

I get a lot of "pity" from people who think that I lead such a boring life, being cooped up in a hotel. Well, I'm not sure if pushing shopping carts laden with toilet paper and junk food at Carrefour makes a more interesting weekend or spending hours having your eardrums pounded by mindless music at the latest fancy club in town makes a more meaningful Saturday night. Perhaps. Certainly reminds me of the life I used to lead in KL.

The other day, I was at the antique shops along Jalan Surabaya at Cikini hunting for my Indonesian "ringgit" coin. I found one and bought it. Later I wandered around the Cikini train station checking out the street vendors selling local tabloids (Lampu Merah) and magazines (Popular); one makeshift stall was selling pirated CDs and Dewa's Mistikus Cinta was playing on his mini-combo; the train to Bogor rumbled on its tracks above me.

I wish all my weekends are like that.