What a luxury!

Today I went to several places, almost the same distance (about 14.07 km in total) as to going from Cinere, in South Jakarta to Blok-M and back again which may take at least 4 hours if not 2 days (because you might have to do the errands in batches), but here it only took me less than 2 hours by public transport (one taxi ride from Pasir Panjang to Tanjong Pagar, the rest are by MRT and bus).  And it’s raining!! (anybody who ever lived or lives in Jakarta would know how bad the traffic in Jakarta would be when it’s raining).

In two hours I managed to deliver a cable that my beloved husband forgot to bring to his work, have a chat with a good friend whom I haven’t seen for some time eventhough we’re neigbhours, shop for some stationeries, get a receipt from a clinic, return the books to the library, and do a bit of grocery shopping! And I got home safely without ‘bau matahari’ (smell of the sun, from the pollution) or ‘bau keringet’ (smell of sweat) like if I got home from public transport in Jakarta, and more importantly my purse and myself still intact, and I was not stressed out worrying that I would get hypnotized or robbed, or being sardined in the packed metro mini (mini bus) with no aircon trapped in a traffic jam.

It may seem trivial, and easy to take it for granted, but this is the kind of luxury that I love in Singapore: being able to do several errands in less than two hours, without so much logistic preparations of thinking, analysing and deciding what day to do it (because usually the traffic in Jakarta on Monday would be macet minta ampun (terribly jammed) since it’s the first day of work after the week end; Wednesday would also be bad because according to some Javanese it’s ‘hari pasaran nya Jakarta’; or Friday since it’s the day before the week-end so many office workers would take their lunch time longer; and don’t even think of Saturday because everybody would go out to the malls to spend their week end), what time (not too early in the morning because everybody will be on the road going to the office and school; not near or during lunch time because it’s lunch time!; not 4 pm or after because everybody’s going home from work), which route, and so on.

All I need to do here is to check my map, check where the places are in relation with the MRT or bus stop, decide the route and then go.