Monday, January 5, 2009 ~ 00.30am jakarta time, emirates airlines take off towards dubai. Arrived in dubai arround 4.30 am local time.
Soon after we arrived, unfortunately we found some problems. 1st problem was that our indonesian mobile phone was not working. Seems it have problem with internasional rooming. For the time being, we use voip call using our laptop (see picture above) to communicate with our office in jakarta and also with our family.
2nd problem was that we haven’t get our hotel voucher from our travel agent in Jakarta. When we call them, they said that our voucher hotel is “currently on-the-way” to our office in Pondok Indah Jakarta. Unbelievable!! We depart from jakarta 00.30 in the morning but then our voucher hotel delivered 9 hours after our departure! Then, how can we bring it to our hotel? Argggghh…
3rd problem was that the airport staff seems not give a good respect to passengers, answering question with a very bad attitude and was really un-helpful. They also gave a wrong information and some of them didn’t have enough information about places in their own airport.
Shortly, we arrived at Millenium Airport hotel in dubai arround 9.30 am. Have a nice breakfast, then take a bath and take a rest.. 4pm we leave our hotel to go back to airport. 6.30pm take off and 50 minutes later the plane was safely landed at King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh. Take our luggage, pass the imigration processes and went out from the terminal. One guy, driver from our office here have ready to drive us to our accomodation compound named Al-Hamra Oasis Village, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). We will stay here for arround 2 months, hope it will be a nice stay.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 ~ 8am picked-up by our driver to go to our office in Dana Compound. We enjoy our first working day in KSA as we also enjoy our first lunch. Met Warren Fletcher, the Head of Quality and ASP Management and also met Iftikhar Khan the administrator in this departement. This is he first time to meet them. Previously, we just contact through email and phone. Nice to meet you, Gentlements!
About the lunch, It was cost 28 SAR/person (+ IDR 84.000) for a buffet lunch. The taste was just so-so but i do enjoy this lunch. And about the weather, it was a bit cold. May be below 10 celcius degree and it was very dry. Compare with the weather in Stockholm or Amsterdam which is more humid, I can say that riyadh is very-very dry.
Today, we still try to adjust ourself with the food, situation and also the weather.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009 ~ Just like the previous day, 8am we went to the office. Arround 2am we went to training center on Takhassusi Street, we have an effective and fast meeting there with Dr. Adel, Jawed Qureshi, Qaiser Latif. Try to check the training room, big enough. Looks nice. Nice people, nice training facilities, I hope I will have a beautiful days in this training center for the next two months!
Thursday, January 8, 2009 ~ First weekend in Riyadh, KSA. What? weekend? Yes! Today we have our first weekend. But, today is thursday! Yes, thursday and friday is holiday in KSA. The working days are saturday to wednesday. It was the first weekend but actually not a holiday for us. Why? because we have to go to training center to prepare the equipment, at least for the first month training that we have to deliver.
Friday, January 9, 2009 ~ This is the real first weekend in Riyadh for me. 
~just a travel notes~
