Kangen pada Jakarta

Longing for Jakarta...

Barrack Obama's recent visit to his childhood playground spurred me to write this. It was really sweet when he told his Indonesian audience that he was back: "Pulang kampung nih"

I've never blogged about my other 'kampung' – Jakarta. So here I'll try to collect the memories the best I can

My dad was based there between 1994-1998 so we visited him twice a year during the school hols.

We had fond memories there. House was Mampang Arkadia Apartment, Jl. Loka Indah , Warung Buncit, South Jakarta. It's still there! :D It's so spacious, with 3 bedrooms, we loved it there! Back then, we didn't have Astro yet in M'sia, so going back to kampung gave me a chance to watch satellite TV :-D

Mampang Arkadia (taken from web)

Love our helper – Ibu Sumami, she's so strong, she can lift a 20 litre mineral water bottle dispenser (over there mineral water is called aqua i.e. the most popular mineral water brand name, like we call Milo for chocolate milk here). Water supply from the tap is contaminated with E. Coli or fecal coliforms and other pathogens. Hence, the buying of bottled mineral water.

A 20l Aqua bottle

Missed her so much, such a sweet lady, how can I find her? She's probably in her 70s now. She earned extra money by cooking mee segera for the Satpam (security guards) at our apartment. She lived with us (there was an indoor extension to a tiny bedroom and a tiny bathroom through the wet kitchen)

Will scan and post her pix later

My father did his weekly grocery shopping at Golden Truly. The building was burnt during the 1998 riots, which mainly targetted ethnic Chinese Indonesians and their premises (possibly the mall was owned by an ethnic Chinese) as a consequence of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

But the mall still exists – based on the website, but it's probably at a different location.

Mom learnt to cook the Rawon dish from Ibu Sumami, at first she bought the bumbu, but later on, she prepared the ingredients all by herself. Me? I just eat lah hehe..

Rawon Sapi (beef) dish

Bumbu Rawon

Ibu Sumami also loved to bake us cookies every time we came and she would fry the delicious krupuk udang :-D She would store them in a Khong Guan red biscuit tin (tin = kaleng) I did help with cooking too, but just vegetable dishes. I would bang the sudip thrice against the frying pan to signal when I was done, and Ibu Sumami would burst out laughing. I loved doing it ;-p I remember cooking/eating with kecap Cap Bango or Cap ABC. I loved those thick sweet soysauce!

Kaleng merah biskut Khong Guan

Kecap Cap Bango

I brought 2 school friends to spend the holidays there – Elyana and Nazli (but at different times though). Brought them to the Taman Bunga Nusantara in Bogor and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (like Mini M'sia in Melaka). Nazli even followed us to Bandung.

Oh, we also went to Taman Safari in Bogor, during our very first trip to Jakarta. The next day, a visitor was attacked by a white tiger after taking a picture with it.

I'll probably write more as I remember more things. Will have to dig up the old albums.

Heart heart heart Jakarta ;-)