Medan Kota

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..!!!!

Popularity: 6% [?]

The current craze in Medan right now just got to be the BlackBerry (BB)… literally.. everywhere go and turn.. both young and old….  and looking out of your car window, the big Billboards all over Medan, … you see this Black coloured Berry….

I am not a user… coz I’m not a geek person and my phone bill is less than Rp 50.000 with local usage….  from what I understand, for all blackberry subscribers, you have to pay a fixed rate of Rp 180.000 for Satelindo and Rp 150.000 for proXL per month…  the main benefits are that.. you get to sort of like get free SMS between the berries users and internet access 24 hrs… which I agree that for users who have limited internet connection, is reasonable…. other than that, its additional cost…

the craze is so bad that all current berries users are psychoing the non users to turn into one of the gang… which I got to say…. a fine marketing strategies (self promo)…  then u see a lot of Ibu Ibu holding one each… and this is becoz of the madness going on but not coz of the phone functions…. remembered the Nokia Communicator era… its kind of the same…  it has since turned into a must have Status thing….

but now it got worst….. it seems that the kids are asking for one from the parents too.. and this is coming from P4 students (primary 4 – age 9/10 yrs old) !!!!… frankly, I did overheard the kids asking from his dad…. and the dad replied… ” why don’t I get you the strawberry…”  hahahhah……  then my brother-in-law was telling me how his friends are buying these expensive stuff for this young kids coz he wants the child to learn the technology….  (lost for words.. cant argue to that myself… )

before I had kids, I never really quite understand the term peer pressure… but now… i totally do…. the other day, Jadon came home from school to asked me why I didn’t take him to Cambridge and JW Marriott hotel…  and continued to informed me that all his friends went there… (he went to both and didn’t realised that apparently..)    it’s really funny how kids these days grown so fast and asking for things that I wouldn’t have thought of… when I was 10, I remembered staying at home and played Barbie doll….!!!

to all Ibu Ibu… you will also want to know that there is this BabyBerry… It’s made especially by leapfrog, a company that makes products for the eductaion of all children…

BabyBerry have the LCD screen and the ability to send a text message with a puppy katakter funny creations Leapfrog results, although not able to connect to the Internet, so BabyBerry can not be used to send email or surf the web.  In addition, the calendar function there is to learn the date, the keypad and function call to study and play games.

really… why can’t the kids just be kids and pick BlackBerry from the Garden instead????

Popularity: 30% [?]

I just got back from Singapore

well, nothing fancy to talk about…, except that the service level (in my personal view) is simply unacceptable….. so, it’s not a surprise to me why the Singapore government announced a $100 million budget to boost the country’s service level.

apart from that, everything seem so expensive to buy…. with the current exchange rate of Rp 7600 to a dollar..

I bought some chocolate back to find out that Medan is selling at some 20% cheaper…

Singapore $2.10 = Rp 16.000

Medan = Rp 11.000

Singapore $5.60 = Rp 42.500

Medan = Rp 35.000

Others include Giordano clothing (certain items), Kids ‘Converse’ shoes – S’pore priced at $48 = Rp 365.000 while I can get an exact same pair at Sports Station for Rp 280.000

all of which I had blindly bought back……, blame myself for not doing some price checking…

Popularity: 24% [?]

I am not a regular shopper at Carrefour but I am there today simply because I have received some free vouchers…  just as  I was at the cashier to pay, and since seeing that she is alone and has no one to help her, I decided to place all my groceries into the bag myself to speed up the check out time….  rather than waiting for her to do it all at the end of the scanning… and believe it or not, she gave me a look (like I am trying to ask for free plastic bag to bring home!!) when I asked for some of those  Carrefour Labelled Bag!!.. and smart of her enough, she gave me ONE !!! for the Rp 750.000 worth of goods that I was buying!!! … and as I asked for the second one, and explained my intention of helping her, she gave me just an extra of ONE again!! (my maid was loading all stuff onto the belt and it was very obvious that my purchase was gonna be lots)….  at that point, I dropped everything and decided to just stopped what I was trying to help her to do and let her do it all by herself!!!….  I guess towards the end, she had then just really realised what I wanted to do…. and by then queue started to form….

just imagine how much I can help to make this whole shopping experience more efficient and not as time consuming…. ai.ai.ai…. I have no word to describe what a cashier Carrefour has for its consumers…..

p.s. I always have this problem whenever I shop there… why?.. why?.. why?

Popularity: 39% [?]

Do you find yourself stocking up tons of books during your overseas trip and often ended up paying for the overweight luggage?  I am so one of the people.  I am a keen reader and we all know that it is so hard to get copies of good books here so I often hauled tons of it back.  But on my recent search on the net, obuku seems to do online book order in Indonesia.  Haven’t really try them out though.

Popularity: 9% [?]