May 06

Last night I had dinner with James and Elaine. They asked me to meet up at a place called CHIJMES - apparently it's just across my hotel. And the place is very nice. It used to be a monastery, but now the rooms have become restaurants, cafes and shops. The garden inside is a very nice place to sit and have dinner while enjoying the outdoors.

We met up at 7:30pm at Hogs Breathe Cafe, having some snack while chatting. Then we walked along to find a place for dinner. We ate at a Brazilian restaurant called CARNIVORE. It's interesting - how they serve the food. Two chefs come in turns with different kinds of meat sticked with a metal bar(?) like kebab and ask if we'd like that. If so they would slice it to our plates.

After stuffing ourselves and walking to leave the place, James reminded me that it used to be praying halls - it made me imagine what it was like back then. The main hall of CHIJMES is now used for events such as weddings etc. We took a look at it. It's beautiful but spooky (in my opinion). I asked them if it was haunted. Maybe.

Left Jakarta last Sunday. At the airport got a new acquaintance, a guy working for Pfizer who was also flying solo to Singapore. We spent waiting time chatting. He got news from his colleagues who arrived earlier that 2 of the 3 of them were taken to the Immigration office - the 3rd one who was 'safe' happens to be of Chinese ethnic - what was going on? We arranged to meet at Changi after landing and got in the immigration line together. He was almost certain that he was going to be questioned as his colleagues was. But he was not - what a relief. Then we exchanged money, reconfirm our flight back, and said good bye - went our separate ways.