Food Galore Over SYD, with GA as the Highlight...

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It's already 7:22pm, and the door still not been closed yet...
And the FAs were still preparing the cabin...










Boeing sky interior signature ceiling...





Finally the plane was ready to pushback...
While the safety demo was played, the blue mood lighting was turned on nicely...




It's 7:35 when the safety demo was finished, and the cabin light was darkened... 30 minutes late from scheduled...





Nothing much to say about this flight, except it's a nice flight...
The FAs quite attentive...

For this 1 hour 5 minute hop, GA only provided snack box, with a bread and a bottled water inside....






Beside of this snack box, FAs still provided non alcoholic bar service...
And this "kampung guy" asked for apple juice...




The plane finally landed smoothly at SUB...
The FAs said good bye to each pax when they left the aircraft, and said thank you for flying GA...

When they reached the luggage claim area, the hall was empty...






But they waited there just for minutes, then the business class pax's luggage came on the luggage belt...

With their luggage in hand, their journey ended here....

Hope all of you enjoy this "kampung guy" story....

See you on another "kampung guy" story....

FIN

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Now it's time to go to the gate...
He text-ed his nephews to leave the GA lounge...
And they went together to the gate...
It's almost boarding time...

The cabin crews also already ready at the gate, waiting for the plane...
Hmmm.... it looked like the flight would be late again...













Finally, it's boarding time...




He gave his seat for his nephew, and went to seat 5C...






Finally he settled down at 5C, with ala Grand Dame SQFlyergirl pose...




Now the time was almost 7pm when he has settled down at his seat... and the boarding still just begun...





The nephews settled down at row 1...

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Ahhh... Those PK-GPL which departed earlier from SYD has just arrived from DPS...













One rare sight of GA old livery...





SQ has just arrived from SIN when EK was ready to depart...

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Some nice apron and runway views from the lounge...

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The check in process was fast... they only need to drop off their luggage and re-tagged them to SUB, because they already had the CGK-SUB boarding pass from Sydney.
All the luggage was tagged with business class label, even though one of them on Y class...

This blue BP was came from SYD. Ex CGK issued BP only a plain white BP...





After that, they went airside...
This time this "kampung guy" let his two nephews enjoyed all the business class facilities, and he himself went to the one of national bank's lounge, next to the GA lounge, using one of his credit card perk...

Here are the lounge views...

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Yaaakkkk..... Touched down.....







That's CGK T3 in the distance...





Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Soekarno Hatta International Airport of Jakarta...




This time the plane was parked at main terminal with an aerobridge...

The FAs said good bye to all pax at the door and thanked them for flying with Garuda...

Welcome to the chaotic CGK...

The line on the immigration was horrible... so loooooongggg....
Luckily they have cleared the immigration onboard...

They went through an empty side line, and gave the clearance card to the officer there.... and there they go... direct to the luggage claim area...

And then another chaos...
Luggage claim area chaos...
Actually GA provided a special service for their premium pax...
Luggage concierge...



The concept was good...
But the implementation was not that good... It's undermanned.
Quite a chaos there...

Economy pax's luggage came first than the J pax..
And J pax must wait at the counter, even though they saw their luggage have been on the belt, because the luggage's tag already at the staffs' hands... And there's not enough staff to cater all the J pax...
They couldn't just take the luggage, because there were an inspection on the exit gate to match between the luggage and the luggage tag...

The regular J pax that often flew to CGK knew it... they didn't give the tag to the officer there. They just waited at the belt...
It's quicker for them to retrieve their luggage...









After waited more than 30 minutes, finally this "kampung guy" got his luggage...

Through special line, with its own security and custom check for transfer pax, they went upstairs to check in to their last destination, SUB...

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Their position now above Java Island, near the city of Bandung...









The plane continued to fly to the north, to the Gulf of Jakarta...
And turned around for final approach...







Outside views....









Approaching CGK.....

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The seat controller was nicely glowing in the dark...





About 1h30m before landing, FAs server the ice cream...
It's Maggie Beer...
I'm not familiar with this brand...
Is this a premium brand ice cream?
Or just a regular ice cream like Movenpick?

It's taste quite good... with the tinny vanilla bean's seeds...






And then the immigration officer came along with their trolley, stamped pax's passport, and give them clearance card to be used at CGK later...





This immigration onboard was a very useful service that GA has provided.
With this service, pax could avoid the nightmare of the immigration line at CGK...



Some nice views from his window...

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Now the cabin light got dimmed....
And the baby at the row 1JK began to cry...
Luckily not for long... the grandma was so expert to calm down the crying baby...







And this what the IFE on row 1 looked like...





Now it's snack time...
This time when the FA came with snack basket, this "kampung guy" asked for the cup noodles...

Yes, maybe it looks like cheap, just like Y class cup noodles...
But a cup noodles is always a cup noodles... it always taste great at 30,000 feet...
Accompanied by Martebe, it's taste greater...

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Now the plane flew over deep down the middle of Australian Continent... around Alice Spring I guess...




With some beautiful outback scenery...

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Now back to the seat... (the neighbor has came back from the toilet... )
It's time to relax and enjoying the "kopi tubruk"...




Look at the thick coarse coffee powder residue at the bottom of the cup...
That the thing that made this coffee so special....
Strong, sweet and bitter... A truly nice coffee experience...




Another cabin views with mood lighting ON...
And with cabin crew that constantly patrolled the cabin, caring for the pax's needs …









GA's using Nestlé’s product for the bottled water...





One nice feature of this seat is this extra seat controller button...
Very useful when you're in sleeping position...
No needs to wake up just to reach the controller at the arm chair...

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And here are some shoots of the cabin...
29/36 on business class... not bad...
All front cabin's seats were occupied...






And the 7 empty seats were on the second cabin...



When he came back to his seat, the "Kopi Tubruk" has albeady on his table along with a Ferrero Rocher Chocolate...

OK... lets we talk about this "Kopi Tubruk"..

Kopi Tubruk is an Indonesian-style coffee where coarse coffee grounds are boiled along with solid sugar (a lot of it), resulting in a thick, mud like (light thin mud) concoction...
To drink it, the coffee need to be left for a while, until thick coffee coarse powder settled to the bottom, and left the dark, sweet light concoction in the upper part.
Kopi tubruk literally means “collision coffee”. The concoction can be found in many parts of Indonesia, particularly in Java and Bali. Kopi tubruk is the simplest recipe for preparing coffee. To make a cup, one needs to add two teaspoons of ground coffee and sugar according to one’s taste.
Next, pour in boiling water, and let it “cook” the coffee for a while until most of the grounds have settled to the bottom.
The key to proper kopi tubruk is in the water. Hot water from water dispensers is often not hot enough to cook the coffee grounds. Uncooked grounds will remain floating on the surface.
And the GA's FA made a damn good one...






Knowing that this kind of coffee cannot be drank immediately, must waited for the coffee powder to swift descent to the bottom, he took the pictures of the seat... (it's a opportunity while his neighbor went to the toilet... )









Even though the bed only angle lay flat, but somehow this bed felt more comfortable than the flat bed on the inbound flight...

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And for the last course: dessert....
This raspberry cake was so superb....
The cake... the sauce... So delicious....
Never imagined before that GA would have this kind of dessert...
An outstanding dessert...






Burrbbbb.....Pardon him...
He was so satisfy with the lunch....

While cleaned up the table, the FA's offering him for coffee or tea...
She was so proud with GA's signature coffee, the "Kopi Tubruk", so she suggested this coffee to this "kampung guy"....
Came from "kampung", off course he knew about this very delicate delicious coffee, so he was happily accepted the offer....

Knew it's need some time to prepare this special coffee, he went to the toilet first...

Ladies and gentlemen, here are the toilet.... please enjoy..

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The butter was in regular round shape one, not the beautiful flower shape just like the ex CGK's one...




The FAs were in no rush... they gave the pax a perfect time before they clean up the appetizer plate and the salad bowl...

And then they came again with the main courses trolleys...






For this flight, GA offered 3 choices of main courses

Indonesian style spicy Balinese Chicken.
Western style beef fillet with gravy sauce.
Chinese style fish with oyster sauce...

This "kampung guy" opted the first one...
And it's turn out to be very delicious one...
And the portion was very adequate... much-much better than the portion he had had on the same flight two years ago...

And another FA came with wines basket, offering the pax the wines they had on board...
This "kampung guy" asked for the chardonnay to accompany his meal...








The service was never in rush...
The FAs gave perfect time for pax to enjoy each course of the meal....

Some beautiful scenery of the out back land out side the window while this "kampung guy" enjoying his meal...




Done with the main course, now it's time for the cheese...
Well, it's not artisan cheeses, but it's still OK...
GA has room for improvement in this cheese section...

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While watching this "Johnny English" movie,



the FA approached him, and with a gentle voice and a big smile, she's offering him canape and choice of after take off drink...

This "kampung guy" asked for another Martebe Juice...

Here are the canape and the after take off drink... and also a bowl of another GA's signature, the delicious mixed peanuts...
Btw, the table came from the side of the arm chair, just like the TG's one..













With those nice snacks, he continued enjoying the movie....





Time flew... in no time, it's time for lunch now...

The FAs came on both aisles, served the both aisles simultaneous with their trolleys...

They helped each pax with the table, and put a table cloth on it...
And then put the array of appetizer, salad and bread's plate (without a tray)...
The bread came from the bread basket with array of choices...
The salad sauce was poured later, with a portion and option just as the pax wanted...