City, Travel

Cheapest Room Rate Promo from InterContinental Hotel Group

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Great Asia Sale from InterContinental Hotel Group offers lowest rates on their 4 to 5 stars hotel chain. We can search cheap room on InterContinental Hotels, Holiday Inn Hotels, and also Crowne Hotels in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Bandung.

Just book a room during this 5 day period, from …

City, My Journey, Travel

A Quick Layover in citizenM Hotel Amsterdam

During my previous visit to Europe on July '09, one night was to sleep in Amsterdam. As some people may know that Amsterdam hotels tend to be expensive compared to other European cities like Paris, Rome, etc. Amsterdam hotel rates are as high as London, in short: most of them are expensive.

One hotel that I had wanted to try in Amsterdam was to stay at citizenM Hotel. If you google a bit about this hotel, the impressions would be chick and well designed. So I took my chance to try this hotel.

citizenM is a new chain hotel from Netherland, now available in 2 locations: citizenM Amsterdam Schipol Airport and citizenM Amsterdam City. If you have time for quick stopover during your flight, citizenM Schipol airport can be your option. It is located only 5 minutes walk from airport arrival hall. But if you prefer to stay in the city, citizenM Amsterdam City is the best option.

I chose citizenM Amsterdam City, located on Prinses Irenestraat, it is behind Amsterdam WTC or Zuid complex. We can take Amsterdam metro number 51 from Amsterdam Centraal Station to Zuid station then walk about 7 minutes to the hotel, or for more convenience we can take tram number 5, stop at Prinses Irenestraat, the hotel is 30 meter from tram stop. Tram journey from Centraal station is about 20 minutes.

Although it is not near Centraal Station (which many travelers prefered), but staying in this hotel was a new experience to me personally. With its minimalistic but technology concious design, affordable price (EUR 80 - 120 per night), I can summary in a short: a very nice sleep.

Hotel exterior is basic, all rectangle glasses in facade. Entering main door, I was greeted with lounge atmosphere. No receptionist because check-in process is self service. There are many computer stations in the lobby area, just find empty one then enter my reservation number in the screen. The menu is very user friendly, but you can ask for available friendly staff help if needed. Computer will ask us to take a hotel keycard from basket then tap it to the reader. This will activate the keycard and assign room number. In the end of this 3 minutes check-in process, a print-out paper will be issued. My room number and wifi password (it's free) are printed in the paper. Simple and no need to queue for this check-in!

citizenM lounge

Lobby area is design showcase for this hotel, we can find IKEA like furniture at every corner. There are iMac computers to use for free Internet access. 24-hour canteen is also available to serve food and beverages (a bit pricey!).

City, My Journey, Travel

How to Buy Paris Metro Mobilis Card

Paris offers a lot of sighseeings, from the bronze coloured (official color name is brownish gray) Eiffel Tower, to magnificent Notre Dame Catedral, to the only Disneyland in Europe.

For tourists, the best and convenient way to explore Paris is by underground train, called as Metro and complemented by RER suburban train. 16 Metro lines, together with 5 lines of RER cover almost all part of Paris.

Paris Metro Map

You can download Paris Metro and RER map in PDF format. But for latest and official map and fare, you should consult Paris RATP website.

There are some options in paying this Metro RER fare. The common for tourists is to buy carnette (also known as T+ ticket). It is a small card (domino card size) with magnetic strip on the back. Valid for one journey in inner Paris zone 1, costs EUR 1.60 if you buy it single or a pack of 10 carnette for EUR 11.60 (EUR 5.80 for children). For moderate sighseeing in a day, we may only need 4-5 carnettes so a pack of 10 carnettes should be enough if you only have 2 days in Paris.

Travel

ASEAN Pass, a cheap way to travel by flying

Have you ever heard about ASEAN Pass? Well, probably not. I myself have just heard it today, too. Not from Indonesia government, not from travel agencies, but the offer comes from Malaysia Airlines ads in newspaper today (29/July).

Visit ASEAN
Pass

Visit ASEAN Pass (VAP) have been introduced by joint government of …

Mobile, Travel & Technology

Apple iPhone 3G S in Indonesia on August 09

According to CNET website, iPhone 3G S will be available in US and other 7 countries on 19 June 2009.

While in Indonesia, the launch date should be 9 August 2009. A good news? for customer is for sure. But for Telkomsel, I think they have plenty of old iPhone …

Uncategorized

Javamilk site is running again

Hi All, just a quick press to let you know that you might be experienced my JavaMilk.com website had been down for 3-4 days during last weekend. It was because my hosting provider 3fn.net had been shut down by US government for some reasons.

Now JavaMilk.com has …

Travel

How to buy France SNCF TGV Train Online, in French!

When you want to arrange your travel itinerary in France or across Europe, you may stuck into France SNCF website to buy train tickets.

Before I continue about this, let's see what options do we have to buy Europe Train Ticket online:

  • www.raileurope.com - Use this if you live in USA
  • www.raileurope.co.uk - if you live in UK
  • www.raileurope.ca - for Canadian
  • www.raileurope.co.au - for Australia / NZ
  • www.raileurope.com.sg - for Singaporean
  • or contact your authorized local agent. For example is Pantravel in Indonesia, for more click here : To find out your local country travel agent

Those sites sell all train tickets inside Europe, e.g London to Paris Eurostar train, Paris-Amsterdam trains, etc. But querying these site (especially UK site) from time to time, I find that the ticket price quoted in the site is standard price, I seldom get promo fares. This means RailEurope may be offering you higher quote price.

Uncategorized

Buying Used Books

Buying used books? Why not. It's a cheap way to afford a book not by its cover but its content.

Living in Indonesia, usually we are accustomed to buying brand new books, glossy cover, and white color paper. Although paper is cheap here, but sometimes we need to think about saving money as well as saving the earth. We are not ready yet for buying second products, books in this case.

Local produced books are always cheaper than imported books, but you only get about half the knowledge because local writers don't have time and effort to write hundreds of pages book. If they write 200+ pages, editor will kick their ass and ask them to trim into less than less than 100 pages. Yeah, thick books don't sell well in Indonesia.

For online book shopping, we can use Gramedia Online, pay with credit card or transfer, and it will be shipped within 3-4 days to any Indonesia address. This online stores in not comprehensive, not all titles available as they are available in Gramedia stores in malls.

Now, if you are interested in imported books (a.k.a English written books), the most famous one is Amazon.com. Not only they sell books, they sell everything from electronics to house related things. And may be you don't know this, Amazon also sells used items.

Just like this example, a brand new book of DK Eyewitness London is sold at USD 16.50, while used books (if available) can be purchased only with USD 5.00. That's a great saving!

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