CBN Hotspots In Jakarta

For months, I've been wanting to try out the wi-fi service offered by CBN on Saturday. There's a somewhat long process before you can actually use the service:

1. You have to buy their prepaid card for either Rp. 30,000, Rp. 50,000 or Rp. 100,000.
The cards are available at one of their many 'agents' throughout Jakarta. I found their list here. I went to Plaza Senayan to find the cards and tried at both the Fuji Film stores there but they were sold out. So finally, I had to go to Coffee Club to buy one and they only had the Rp. 100,000 one available (around US$11.00) so I bought it ... I was too lazy to try at the rest of the F & B places the list indicated their cards were available at (Actually I think its a bit odd that they have the prepaid cards available at places like Cafe Oh La La and Coffee Club ... for people like me that just want to buy the cards you have to ask at the front w/o buying any food and it feels a little weird!)

2. After the card is bought, pretty much all that you need to do is scratch the back of the card to reveal the user name and password

3. Next, I found a location where their service was available at (Cafe Oh La La at Senayan City) and flipped my laptop lid up, connection to 'CBN HOTSPOT2' (or something like that). Everything from here on is pretty straightforward; you've just go to open your browser (Safari in my case) and you are automatically redirected to the CBN login site where you type in the user name and password provided on the prepaid card

The internet was surprisingly fast. I was expecting less than average speed but got better than average speed I did some online shopping and ate my favorite snack at Cafe Oh La La, Croissant Fromage. And I brought an Iced Cappucino from J.CO Donuts to the Cafe as well. I love that in Jakarta no one ever cares if you eat food from a few different places in one cafe / restaurant

A funny thing happened while I was at Plaza Senayan I had to pee before I went hunting for the prepaid card. There was a really short queue in the toilet, so I decided to wait instead of going to the other toilet (which is usually unoccupied). But then ... there were these two drama queens in the queue ahead of me who were taking forever and ever. So, while I glared impatiently ahead a couple more people came in the toilet ... including a GUY ... he just waltzed in behind this woman (I actually thought he was her boyfriend and came in with her). He was busy typing an SMS and then suddenly he looked up and didn't even seem to realize at first that he'd walked into the LADIES ROOM. I shouldn't laugh ... ! I've walked into the Men's Room more than once but it was so funny. When he finally realized, he was like, 'Oh' and he pretty much ran out the toilet. The rest of us stared after him for a few seconds then everyone started laughing. LOL! Thats got to be embarrassing! When I went into the men's room last time there was no one there

Plugs: Eknam

P.S. I'm too lazy to edit this entry ... sorry for the typos (if any)

[Karma: 30 (+/-)] Prab on 04.23.07 @ 12:14 AM CST [link] [7176 Comments]