Medan Kota

I know.. you know.. we know.. and everyone know that any start to a New Year should be something nice, good, as well as pleasant.. so it should goes the same for my first blog post for this year 2010.. but nope.. I am not… and I am not gonna think that what I experienced on the first minute of year 2010 is a bad start for my coming year..

A week before the start of this new year… I twitted, told myself and everyone that.. I am NOT gonna stay in my bedroom and fall asleep before the midnight.. rather I want to be somewhere nice to do the countdown.. and for some reasons (should have known that it’s a sign to warn me).. well, at 8pm, my boys were telling us how they want to be cuddled up in bed with mum and dad  i.e spending their night with us… and yes.. I told them a straight ‘NO’ and clearly announced that this year mama wants to have some fun..

My plan for the night was really simple… had dinner with family and then head down to Prime Bar at JW Marriott Hotel to meet up with my dear girlfriend.. and yes, for once I even made an effort to not wear something usual…

We left home at 10:15pm heading from Polonia towards Marriott Hotel.. 3 mins into the journey, small traffic began to build up but cars were moving okay… 10 mins later at Jl. Permuda, police began closing all the major roads leading up to the L.Mederka.. and so the nearest road we were allowed to turn was at Jl Sutomo.. let’s just said that I was in the car for about 2 1/2 HOURS and get to nowhere!!.. hubby ended driving on the foot pavement to get to the nearest turning just to get home…

As for my countdown?.. do I need to say more?… well, hubby and me weren’t in any mood to even talk to each other!!!… we were so so soooooo frustrated… my brain was cursing every possible single things I could thought of and with that!! … tell me, am I supposed to just console myself that…. ‘this is Medan’?.. for just once.. jusssttt onceee and for the first time in Medan… I want to celebrate my New Year in the right and proper way.. and oh yesssss… my beloved Medan town decided to close their roads this year…

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It’s obvious that I have not been writing much… well.. not much was going on around me… and I prefer to write when my instinct said so… else I can sit in front of my comp screen all day… waffled through the post and ended deleting the work… though I have no major story to tell… I do have some of the shorter version to share…

I was at Mango (the boutique at Sun Plaza Medan) yesterday… while I was being served by the salesgirls… 2 relatively tall LOCAL ladies with their boobs practically spilled out from the new TIGHT nicely tried out tops were well served by the male persons whom were obviously blushing with glee… I was standing beside them seeing the male reactions and was thinking ….. how did Indonesia be known as one of the world most populated Muslims country… and what’s with all the fuss about Syriah…?

At Marriott male’s locker room…hubby often overheard… ‘there are more cah bor (pretty woman) at Cambridge than here’…. in fact I can write a post of the gossip going around this male room… but naahhh… ‘respect’… is the word…

is it the Indonesian culture or what… but I find it real rude to have people opening a sentence with ..‘ooii’… ‘yo’… ‘woii’…  and I get that a lot with the Medanku Blackberry users… and mind you.. the screenshot clearly stated… ‘Vic@MedanKu.com’ …

am considering an online degree in Journalism… then it became.. many of the known writers or the top bloggers definitely has no such title behind their great name… but well.. I think I am persueing it anyhow anyway…

Spent Rp 600.000 on a Lunch for 4 at ‘Gelato’ resto one afternoon … the more I think of it… it’s like.. ‘what did we eat???’.. it’s an absolute ripped off…!! .. well.. what saddened me was the fact the food were nothing to be thrilled at….

I have been married for almost a decade… apart from our honeymoon… hubby and me have not been to anywhere without work or the kids… i.e .. pure traveling just the 2 of us exploring new city with no work and no kid attached… and he finally agreed to a week at Shanghai after all these years…

I was going through my Aug/Sep credit card bills and am absolutely astonished to see ‘Trattoria’ and ‘JW Marriott’… dominate my payment list for this month… and I can see more to come with the Marriott discount card…

From year one that I have moved to Medan… I have the vision to open a restaurant… (who doesn’t huh..) … I’ve gone through like 5 major readings purely on guides to opening a restaurant… simulating countless amount of calculations like budgeting, P&L account… miles spent on road scouting for the best location… hours spent calling up property agents enquiring about the Ruko… one idea lead to the next… and NO… nothing works… and NO.. I have no regret… as it is undeniably that my tastebud will definitely not work with the local Chinese… but in contrast… I am finding a gap that will suit the local Indonesian… Chinese consumers in Medan? … I have raised my white flag up long long time ago…

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The Health Club at JW Marriott Hotel Medan… I know this is not the right time to do with the recent twin hotels bombing in Jakarta… but things happened and with all the necessary precautions… fingers cross that it will not happen again…

I know it all along that hubby needs to lose weight, else he will definitely develop a heart disease…. we all gone through some diet cycles in life… saying ‘I’m going on a diet’ was real easy.. postponing the action is the reality.. so having paid several jutas to have a cardiologist to tell you that ‘you have to do it’…,  it kinds of put an end to the ‘I will start tomorrow’..

everyone we know seem to complain of the membership price…  well.. I have managed to seal a good deal for all my readers to have an exclusive rate at

Rp 8.000.000 NETT per person per annum

before Rp 9.500.000 per person per annum

Benefits include:
24 hrs Gym access
1 Free Spa voucher
2 x 50% off Spa Treatment vouchers
20% off regular Spa Treatment
access to the Best Swimming Pool in Town
Free Parking

one thing that I enjoyed most at the Club is that it’s not crowded.. you don’t have to be worry of the unavailability of the machines… men in there are cool guys who are there for the same purpose.. women in there have looks that will motivate you to work harder… and the instructors in there tell you whats right and whats wrong…

unlike other high end gym.. this one at JW Marriott Hotel Medan does not close on PUBLIC HOLIDAYS!!!  To join and become a member, all arrangements must be made via MedanKu.com.  Anyone interested, please email me for more information…  contact@medanku.com … offer ends on 14 September 2009…

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remembering my previous post about me doing something crazy to my credit card?.. well, here’s the story…

it began during June holidays…. 3/4 of hubby’s brain was in Medan working… 1/4 was in BKK vacationing… 2 weeks into the fun, he blurted out how he needs another Blackberry… I was speechless… and go on explaining that he needs it for marketing purposes…  I am someone who’s not into spending some Rp 5JT for something that depreciate in price overnight… in fact the moment the phone box is opened… at least 10% is gone…

so understanding his needs, we agreed… and after we got back to Medan, we were too busy to get one and 1 week on, hubby received a call from Citibank Medan saying we won a LG phone... we went to collect it and was told that there is this program going on for Citi card holders… with the CC holders who swipe the most transactions in a day won..

the Citibank Promotion Terms & Conditions are:

1. for everyday till 31 July 2009, Citi is giving away 1 BlackBerry  + 3  LG phone

2. Mon to Sat is BB Curve and Sunday is BB Javeline

3. max. of only 1 BB can be won for each card holder, but no limit for LG

4. min. per swipe is Rp 150.000

5. this is valid for competition within the Sumut area… including Aceh, Padang etc… excluding JKT

so.. it’s real simple… it’s not lucky draw, it’s something that you can win guaranteed if you work on it…  well… since hubby needs one, we plot out a way to win it… so we went interrogating the citi girl to make full clear understanding of the T&C..

I then went back to look at the transactions that I made that won us the LG… so it was on Sunday with 7 swipes…easy, simple and straightforward … my mind was working on the vengeance..  initially, we were aiming for only the BB Curve… since its on weekdays and will definitely be easier to win… but having thought through… it became.. why settle for the second best if you can have the BEST…

and oh… saying it all was real easy…. but on the execution day… it was a nightmare for me….  I dis-heart shopping!!!! yes… I am not a shopping person… so it was not pleasant for me… I only shop when I need something… knowing my needs and wants…

I was ALL OVER Medan… I have a list of things that I need to buy… so my shopping lists include stuff that I planned on purchasing anyway… it wasn’t like… swipe aimlessly…  I went about from 10 am till 9 pm…  let’s just say.. I went to 5 supermarkets, making 8 transactions… Sun Plaza making some 10 transactions… Cambridge Adidas with 4 transactions..  the trick I did was to make transactions averaging more than Rp 150.000 per swipe as required …. plus several other online purchases, I made a total of 28 transactions on that day… (you have to turn on your kia-su ness mode to full speed for this)

Win BlackBerry Javeline

Yes.. we won….. for the swipes that we made on Sunday 12 July… the winner announcement is only for purchase made till 17 July…. well, after the D day, we went about planning our shopping & swiping again…..   so I have another 2 dates awaiting for the confirmation for the LG..

by the way… it’s not greed ooookayyyyy…..  it will be silly knowing that I can try getting more and didn’t take the chance isn’t it…. hhaha…

so… you guys have like 3 more days… I did not post this up at MedanKu.com… I want to keep it quiet so that it will be easier for everyone to win … hahahah… and if you choose to do it like us… two words from me… GOOD LUCK..!!!!

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Alcohol… I just can’t take it… the maximum I can drink is like 3 gulps of BEER, and that’s about it… anymore of that, I will not get drunk, in fact, my body won’t even pass through the drunk stage, but instead, I will simply fall flat on the ground… a lot of people asked me why… honestly, I don’t even know myself..

With that, to ask me to write anything about bar, honestly, I am in no position to do so at all…  since I don’t step into pub or bar that much, I can’t tell what’s good and what’s bad or how it should be one.. the proper ideal one.. but, of course I am able to tell which is the one that I will have fun going to..… that’s also why, you never see me write about night life both for this blog as well as in MedanKu.com..

The Prime Bar at JW Marriott Hotel Medan, is probably the first bar that I walked into in Medan, I have not even been to Retro at Capital Building… (I can imagine many of you thinking I am living a ‘nun’ life… well, sort of but not exactly so too)… I was told that the live band would start at 10 pm… and that I’ve got to experience that… well well well… just hearing the time @ 10pm, my little voice was already telling me that I am going to miss putting my boys to bed, I have to miss the opening hours of the Dows, I have too much stuff to upload to the website … so, I told Ms PR that, 7pm is fine for me…

and oh! I was even supposed to do wine tasting… but I just can’t.. can’t as in… how on earth am I gonna come out with words to describe how the wine taste like… so, I sort of decline her offer… hahahaa… now, I can hear many of you thinking “what a stupid silly girl she is”

ok, the bar is situated right below the Prime Steakhouse, the aim is that guests will come in for dinner and followed with the Bar thereafter… well thought out I would say… not sure if that is exactly what guests choose to do…

The Beverage manager was a little surprised that I don’t drink,…. apart from selected carbonated drink, I live on plain mineral water… after having just finished off meal at the M. Gourmet, I was rather in need of Aqua… so when I asked for one, he was literally laughing off me… “you are in one of the most prestigious and most happening bar in Medan, and you want an Aqua!!!” and mr hubby, laughed so too at me.. and they both decided on Mocktail on my behalf… which is nice… there are good meanings behind those house mocktail…and named by the manager himself..

My hubby, not a nightlife person but god knows where he learnt how to drink, I have no clue… was really in for the fun……the Manager gave him a shot at ‘Flaming Lamborghini’..  it was definitely a good experience one to play with for free… hehhehehe…., but knowing that I will not be able to describe much, as I have no absolute clue to terms used in the Bar, I took a short vdo clip… at Rp 120.000++ a shot, it’s probably one of the fastest money sucking you can just drown into your stomach… well, for us anyway… watch the vdo clip and you will see why… with food, you still need to chew, but with drinks, esp this one… you’re being ordered to suck fast to have the maximum effect…

thinking back… I am so ashamed of myself… can you imagine, I was asking the manger if the bar is smoke free or have any non smoking area… at times, I do feel like I am so disconnected with the real world…

The place is nice IMO, it’s brightly lit up… not the dimly lighted ones, so I can see everything clearly most of the times… it’s a good reasonable size place… I felt safe, at least I don’t feel like I am in some crippy place… a nice place to just hang out with friends over drinks, I would say…

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