Jakarta Diary--Hotel Kempinski

By now you already know i have a fondness for nice hotels. Like what I said to my colleague earlier today--there are two things that I require when I travel: nice digs and food that represents the place, and I'm all set. We were booked at Hotel Indonesia Kempinski, formerly Hotel Indonesia, the first five star hotel in Indonesia. It is linked to the Grand Indonesia Shopping Town, one of the largest luxury malls in South East Asia.

I have no idea what the hotel was, much less its provenance, and so when when we checked in and I saw the lobby, I was impressed. This is how my room looks like.

This is where I prepared my PowerPoint presentation.

I like it because when the lights are on everything's bright and cheery, helping me stay awake. Unfortunately, on the day of my presentation, Jakarta plunged into darkness. Goodbye PowerPoint. The show must go on, so I talked without the help of a mike and air-conditioning. More of this in a later post.

I particularly like this design element behind the work table.

My room has an unusual tub. Unusual in the sense that it doesn't look like most hotel tubs. Sayang, I wasn't able to use it.

I love the toilet--it's Japanese. It senses your presence, lifts its lid pronto, warms itself automatically, the works. I wanted to bring this home.

This is where I took my breakfast. Beautiful!

Part of the lobby.

One of the design elements along the hall.

I love a hotel that uses real plants.

On my last day, I asked a hotel staff to take my picture at the lobby. This is the best picture he took, tee-hee!

More next time.