Heading back with a 20+ hour transit back to Auckland! Kuala Namu to Jakarta, Jarkarta to Sydney then Sydney to Auckland. Good thing I don’t mind flying and enjoying time on a plane.
Hotel Checkout
Woke up to the city and mountains in the background shrouded in layers of mist. Some great views as I went downstairs for a bit of breakfast and then checked out, waiting to get to the airport via the shuttle. Headed over at 10am for the 12:50pm flight.
Kuala Namu Airport
Found a Starbucks in the airport and found that there’s a local series that they did with a local artist for a bunch of the cities in Indonesia. Really cool and as I looked, some other guy came up and started grabbing ALL the mugs (not a huge deal, since I didn’t really want to carry 7 mugs with me). He left the one Medan mug though, so I took it and as I was checking out, I heard him asking the barista if they had a Medan mug (hilarious).
Was a little worried that they’d weigh my bag and tell me it was too heavy (like they did in Melbourne) and make me check my laptop or something, but they didn’t even blink an eye and checkin, security and immigration were all really smooth.
Food – A&W
I walked around a bit, looking for food, and everything looked fairly decent, but I didn’I walked around a bit, looking for food, and everything looked fairly decent, but I didn’t really want anything huge, so I settled for the A&W right outside my gate so I could keep an eye on it.They had some local treats as well, so I went with some new stuff, mango soft serve with strawberry, and a spicy chicken sandwich with an egg — always get an egg.
Flight to Jakarta
Got on the plane, and they ended up making the back of the plane go down outside on the tarmac to board the plane. Kinda interesting, and some of the passengers (like the guy in front of me) were just wandering around trying to take a phone call. Internally, I was like, my dude, the engines are on, no one can hear you…just put it down and text em.
Entertainment and Food
Was amused to find some Pokemon shows on the entertainment, and watched that for a bit, since the flight was so short, I didn’t want to start anything new. Pretty cute show and I learned how to count from 1 to 6 with pikachu.
Jakarta Airport
Landed and had to walk out and around the Jakarta airport. The signs were super confusing (like right didn’t mean right, but turn around — like a u-turn) at a couple points. Turned out that since we were going from domestic to international, I had to go out past baggage claim, and re-check in and get a new ticket and go through security, etc all over again. Good thing there was a 3 ish hour layover, or I’d have been rushed and stressed etc.
Went to go check-in online, and it got through the final screen, then said “online checkin not available for this flight”. So I ended up having to get in line and wait with everyone simply to get my boarding pass (my bags were already sent through to Auckland).
Took about an hour, but finally got my boarding pass and then had to wait to get through security, immigration and finally made it to the gate area.
Heading to the Gate
Stopped by a bathroom to find a genius addition to the urinals. A splash guard is in each of them, which is actually pretty amazing.
As I went searching for my gate, I found that my plane was literally on the other side of the airport and it was like a 25 minute walk. Carrying everything (all the camera stuff in my backpack and the starbucks mugs from the various places), I vaguely looked around for stuff, but mostly was just trying to find the gate.
Passed an Airport Game Station which was fascinating — some DDR and some Xbox’s with Fifa that you could just play for free I guess. I guess when you have nothing to do, entertain your kids that way instead of having bored children running through the terminal??
Equally fascinating, each of the moving walkways would tell you how far it was and how many calories you’d work off if you chose to walk instead of taking the moving walkway. I got internally shamed into walking instead of taking the walkways…
Ended up finding the gate, then walking back to search for some diet coke and snacks for the next hour. Found some Pokemon cards in Indonesian as well and bought them for Nate.
Flight to Sydney
Squatted for about an hour just editing photos and charging my phone a bit for the flight, and then finally got onboard. My planning worked out again as I chose a seat in the back, but had no other people nearby, so for the long flight to Sydney, I had the whole row and space to myself.
Got on the plane to find each seat had an ipad thtat you could then place into the headrest which was pretty fun. I mostly slept on the flight as I knew it was going to be a more traveling and I’d be exhausted when landing, but also interspersed it a couple times with some photo editing during the flight.
Watched Next Goal Wins though on the plane and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Vibe Check
5 parts joy – most of the day on a plane and / or airport
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
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