Hmmm.... Jakarta, the city which I have a love & hate feeling towards it.
Love coz it's the city where I grew since I was 9, most of my friends are here, a city trying to be a metropolitan (???), the comfort of being the capital city of the nation, the diversity of the people, being in between sea & mountain enables for a mountain or sea holiday anytime you want depending on your mood, and many other things...
Hate? most hated is the traffic (my most terrible was my ride to my old office in Sudirman-business area from home, usually it took me 1 until 1 1/2 hour, that day which has no meaningful event such as flood or anything like that, it took me 5 1/2 hours to reach my office), flood (at rainy season) and having to be extra cautious with people surrounding you at public places for safety reasons.
But for all of it I still love Jakarta, I don't think I want to move to another city if I'm still living in this country.
Lots of things you can do in this city if you plan to visit, depending on what kind of vacation you want :)
You want to see the traditional side of Indonesia? You can learn to do batik (traditional hand print cloth) at the textile museum and other places, visit museums (textile museum, national museum, etc), visit the Chinatown & old city (Glodok & Kota area) where the old town of Batavia with it's old buildings including the Fatahillah museum, have lunch at the fish market (Muara Karang).
Shopping? Most of my relatives who lives abroad would come here to shop for bargain stuff especially at Mangga Dua, where it is known for its cheap clothing, bags, etc. It's not a Jakarta visit if they haven't went to Mangga Dua yet :D
If Mangga Dua is not fulfilling yet, for a cheap clothing shopping can be done at Bandung which is nationally well known for it's Factory Outlets and can be reached in a 3 hour car ride from Jakarta :)
If high end shopping is what you are looking for, Jakarta has lots and lots of mall too for this such as Grand Indonesia with it's cool Alun-Alun Indonesia, Plaza Senayan, Senayan City, Plaza Indonesia, EX, etc...
In the mood for a sea holiday, but you can't go to Bali or Manado or other places well known for it's sea holiday? I guess a boat ride to one of the island in Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands) from Ancol could be a consolation trip.
For a mountain holiday you can just go to Puncak, but try to avoid going there on the weekend, coz you'd be trap in an awful traffic jam. You can join a morning teawalk at the tea plantation, but up until now I've never tried it yet.
Family holiday?
For a little education family trip you can go to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) a park of mini Indonesia where it has samples of traditional houses based on the province and each house will have samples of traditional clothes, music instruments, sometimes on the weekend they will have a cultural show. Besides the traditional houses they also have bird park, fresh water aquarium, and other museums.
Jakarta also have family amusement park at Ancol, located at the north of Jakarta you can enjoy a walk on the beach (I don't think I can recommend for the swimming though.
There's the "Disneylike" amusement park called Dunia Fantasi / Dufan (Fantasy World), 4D cinema, Seaworld, etc in Ancol.
There's also the Kid's world of Kidzania at Pacific Place (SCBD area), where children can have a taste of the adult world of working, driving car, getting driver's license, shopping their earnings, trying different kind of jobs.
Got nothing to do? you can opt for a monument or statue sight seeing : Monas (national monument), Patung selamat datang (Greeting statue) at the famous Bundaran HI, Patung pak Sudirman (a well known national hero general), Patung Pancoran and a lot more.
Well there's always the night life too here in Jakarta, but too bad I really really have no idea about it :P
As I have mentioned before, there's a lot of things you can do here in Jakarta, it's a quite an interesting city.
One tips I can give is if you want to travel around, you can use the Trans Jakarta bus (also known as Busway) and taxi (I only use Blue Bird, but please do check the condition of the taxi too, as I've heard there are some criminal activities too with this taxi, but I guess you can opt for Silver Bird as this is from the same company but for a higher class level and of course for its price too, but I never heard anything bad about this taxi yet).
For Trans Jakarta's (Busway's) route you can check it here.
Jakarta also have family amusement park at Ancol, located at the north of Jakarta you can enjoy a walk on the beach (I don't think I can recommend for the swimming though.
There's the "Disneylike" amusement park called Dunia Fantasi / Dufan (Fantasy World), 4D cinema, Seaworld, etc in Ancol.
There's also the Kid's world of Kidzania at Pacific Place (SCBD area), where children can have a taste of the adult world of working, driving car, getting driver's license, shopping their earnings, trying different kind of jobs.
Got nothing to do? you can opt for a monument or statue sight seeing : Monas (national monument), Patung selamat datang (Greeting statue) at the famous Bundaran HI, Patung pak Sudirman (a well known national hero general), Patung Pancoran and a lot more.
Well there's always the night life too here in Jakarta, but too bad I really really have no idea about it :P
As I have mentioned before, there's a lot of things you can do here in Jakarta, it's a quite an interesting city.
One tips I can give is if you want to travel around, you can use the Trans Jakarta bus (also known as Busway) and taxi (I only use Blue Bird, but please do check the condition of the taxi too, as I've heard there are some criminal activities too with this taxi, but I guess you can opt for Silver Bird as this is from the same company but for a higher class level and of course for its price too, but I never heard anything bad about this taxi yet).
For Trans Jakarta's (Busway's) route you can check it here.
