I wake up in the morning and take a shower. I quickly packed my luggage and headed for the airport.

I was going to take the MRT subway to the KL Center station, but it seems that the MRT terminates at the KL Center station, and I have to take a bus from there. So I decided to take a cab. The cab was only 8 ringgit. After arriving at the KL Center station, I wanted to have my last nasi lemak, so I ordered it at McDonald’s and ate it. It was very tasty.

I wasn’t sure whether to take the bus or the Express train. But I wanted to arrive at the airport two hours before the flight, and if I missed the train, it would be the end of my trip, so I decided to take the Express train this time. It was more expensive than the bus (1,200 yen), but it was worth it. Since I was going to the trouble, I decided to make the experience more than worth the price.

While enjoying the scenery outside, I headed for the airport. After arriving at the airport, I was able to check in without incident, they gave me a window seat, and I received my ticket without incident.

Immigration was also completed without incident, and I was stamped with the Malaysia stamp! Very interesting since the Malaysian stamp is triangular. Then I wondered where the baggage check would take place, but it was at each departure gate. So it was just like in Singapore.

After passing through the departure gate safely, I went to Jakarta!

The plane was on the window side, so I enjoyed the view as I flew to Jakarta! The flight was supposed to be an hour, but it took longer than expected and I arrived quite late.

However, because of the time difference of -1 hour, I ended up arriving at the same time I left. I arrived safely in Indonesia!

Immigration is strict!

I paid 500 rupiah upon arrival and got a VOA, VOA is Visa on arrival. It is just show your passport, pay 500 rupiah and done. So it was more like “pay 500 rupiah” than “VISA”.

There were no people in line at all for that either. It was just a Singaporean, a French couple, and myself, so it was very smooth.

At the immigration, it was really bad. Many people were refused entry and had to buy their return tickets on the spot because they had not bought them. Luckily, I had already bought a return ticket, so I was able to smoothly enter the country. I thought that Indonesian immigration was really very strict. Probably because of the illegal entry of Russians, the immigration control must have become very strict.

Buy a SIM card, but it is too expensive.

I arrived at the place to buy a SIM card and apparently there was only one place to buy a SIM card. I went outside and found that it was a food area, so I decided to buy a SIM card there. Since I was planning to stay for a month, I bought a 50 GB SIM card for 3,000 yen. I felt it was a bit expensive.

The lady was playing around with my iPhone and operating it thoroughly. She was sending some information to me, and if it was verified, LTE would work. For some reason, I felt that countries in Southeast Asia are under surveillance, and that they take photos of my passport, and that the SIM card process is very cumbersome. But I am glad that I was able to buy it safely.

Take the Skytrain to the city center

Outside the airport, I look for the Skytrain and wonder where it is. I encounter many cab callers. Since I was so curious, I asked them where the skytrain is, and apparently there was some kind of train station right in front of me, so I thought I could just go there.

But they tried to call me by using their translations to lie to me and tell me that the skytrain does not go to the center of the city and that I should take a cab, so I said sorry, I am not fooled and headed for the skytrain.

I had a very lucky encounter at that station

There was no ticket office at that station, and I was lost as to where to buy tickets. I asked many people, but I could not understand what they said because they could only understand tiny English. “One stop and you can buy there,” they would say.

But I had no idea what they meant. So I asked again and found out that this monorail is not a “skytrain” but a “train to move around the terminal” and therefore it is free of charge. Knowing this, I finally decided to take the train. I asked the guy sitting next to me, who also only spoke broken English, and he led me to the ticket booth and even bought me a ticket. 30 rupiah, so 300 yen. He bought me a ticket.

I got goosebumps, it was incredible and I was really happy. I went to the ticket booth with him, then he bought my ticket and we waited for the train together. We got on the train together and sat in the same seat.

He apparently works for a Japanese company, a Japanese mining company. He is Indonesian, 31 years old, and had a daughter born last year. He showed me a picture of her and she is very cute. We were able to exchange Facebook messages without any problems, and he said he was going to take a train back home from the last station we were going to. I was so lucky that he was able to help me. At the same time, I fell in love with Indonesia.

He supported me even after I arrived at the last station

After holding up the barcode on the receipt and exiting, I asked him to take me to an ATM because I wanted to withdraw money and also buy a train ticket for a transfer.

He didn’t seem to know much about this station, so he asked the station attendant in Indonesian and guided me to the ATM. I successfully withdrew 15,00,000 rupiah from the ATM, and then told the station attendant that I wanted to buy a ticket, which I successfully charged to my card. He then followed me to the platform and told me that I should take this train and get off at two stops.

I really feel so blessed that I can only say that I am lucky. That makes me really happy. I gave him my business card, shook his hand, and said goodbye.

I hope to be able to repay him in some way in the future.

Arrive at the hostel safely!

I arrived safely at the nearest station and walked to the hostel from there. I was surprised to see many Indonesians sitting on the station platform, near the station ticket gates, and anywhere else they could find a place to sit and eat. These were not homeless people, but ordinary people. This was unbelievable. For me, it was an unbelievable sight. I have never seen this in Thailand or Vietnam. It was truly an unbelievable sight to see people sitting on the floor of a station platform and eating their meals. The world was also expanding.

I was able to safely check in to the hostel and completed payment with my credit card.

The guy at the front desk was very polite and explained everything to me, and I thought he was really kind. There were not that many people, only about 3 people in my room. I was under a bunk bed, so it was great. Then one person came in and apparently he was Japanese! He is on a 4-month trip, apparently going to Europe and then coming back to Southeast Asia. He seemed to be having a great time and told me an interesting story about luggage restrictions. He said he hid his computer under his pants and his luggage was 7kg (lol) that’s too funny.

Finally meet Angel!

Finally, today I met Angel for the first time, after meeting her online two years ago and keeping in regular contact! She was in the center of the city, as she had a university, and she quickly decided to come to my nearest station! She said on Instagram that she was very nervous before we met lol. But I understand her feelings very much. When I was 20 years old in 2020, I was so nervous that when I met Russian friends who had come to study abroad, I would go out of my way to reset my mindset. I couldn’t smile sincerely when I met them. I was so nervous that my face was stiff. I had experienced that, so I understood how she felt. But I assured her that it would be all right, and we met at the nearest station. Her house is very far away and it takes two hours by bus. It was unbelievably far. I was so grateful to her for coming all the way.

Angel and I met at the station! I recognized her immediately, so I went right in front of her and gave her a hug. Then we started walking and decided to have dinner at a nearby food stall.

Eating nasi goreng in authentic Indonesia!

Eating nasi goreng in authentic Indonesia! We decided to go to a nearby food stall and ordered nasi goreng. She ordered some noodles, and we ordered orange juice. There were so many mosquitoes flying around us that it was disgusting. I was sucked by many of them, as if my blood tasted good.

So instead of talking to her, I was more into killing mosquitoes. The nasi goreng was so delicious, it was like “The taste of a food stall”. Indonesia is crazy cheap! I was surprised at the price, which was 550 yen even though we both ordered orange juice and rice. This was nothing but a surprise. I felt that Indonesia might be cheaper than Malaysia.

Angel and I talked about her job in Berlin, where she will be going in October, how it feels to meet me, and her home town. She is from a city called Bals, where there are many seas, and she spent her high school in a nearby city. But when she became a university student, she started to live in Jakarta, and now she lives with her brother. Surprisingly, she is the eighth of nine siblings. This was a surprise to me. I wondered if there was such a big family. I couldn’t believe it.

Angel bought me mosquito repellent oil at a convenience store

Thankfully, after we ate dinner, we went to a convenience store and bought some mosquito repellent oil. She then applied it to my skin. For some reason, Angel seemed very easy to talk to and psychologically close to me. Once again, that’s not surprising. Because we have known each other for two years. Of course we would feel close lol.

Afterwards, we walked together to the hostel, took pictures, played with the cats, and took pictures together in the angelic way of taking pictures. It was a lot of fun. We were so psychologically close that it was hard to believe we were meeting for the first time, and I wasn’t really paying attention. But that was only because we had two years already know each other. So I felt that a period of nurturing by “time” or something like that is very important to deepen friendship.

Angel called a cab and went home, and I went back to the hostel.

Tomorrow, we will meet up at 10:30 to start our trip around Jakarta! I am very much looking forward to it!