We had the opportunity to visit the newly built Church of Our Lady of Akita at PIK, designed to resemble the original church in Akita, Japan.
This church is well known for the supernatural phenomenon where a statue of Mother Mary shed tears 101 times—scientifically confirmed to be human tears.
The atmosphere was solemn and serene. We took a moment for a short prayer, giving thanks for the past year and asking for blessings of good health, joy, peace, hope, love, and prosperity in the new year.
We had our Chinese New Year reunion dinner at Sentral Restaurant and were glad we chose the first session from 5:00–7:00 PM. Shortly after, heavy rain poured down, causing traffic jams and flooding everywhere.
Thankfully, we made it back to our hotel by 8:30 PM and had a good night’s rest.
The next day, we visited our grandparents' house to reunite with family and relatives. We also caught up with friends, as well as my brother and his kids—since we only get to meet once a year.
Grateful that everyone is healthy and well.
As usual, we traveled back to Jakarta for our Chinese New Year reunion. The day started with unexpected drama. Since our flight was at 7:35 AM on CNY Eve—a busy time when people are either traveling or preparing for reunion dinners—we decided to book a maxi cab in advance, paying a premium for the convenience.
Unfortunately, the driver forgot about our booking. We waited for 15 minutes, but with no sign of the cab and no option for online check-in, we had to reach the airport by 6:30 AM. By 6:00 AM, we had no choice but to book the first available Grab or taxi. Thankfully, both options arrived at the same time around 6:05 AM.
Checking Google Maps, we saw an estimated arrival time of 6:40 AM—technically too late for check-in. Panic? Of course!
I tried to stay calm and prayed the rosary during the ride, reflecting on what lesson I could take from this stressful situation. And then, a miracle happened. Papa, Trom and Ted arrived at the check-in counter a minute or two before mama and kook Richie. When I checked the time, it was 6:34 AM.
By God’s grace, the counter was still open, and we were the last passengers to check in.
This experience taught me two important lessons:
In the end, we arrived safely—earlier than expected—and met our parents, who picked us up at the airport. After that, we had lunch at CP, followed by haircuts for mama and the kids at TA before our reunion dinner.
As usual, we went back to Jakarta for our Chinese New Year. We took evening flight and arrived around 10pm and checked in to Fairmont Hotel.
The room was very spacious and facing GBK Stadium.
We didn't know that there's a big campaign on Saturday so we planned to left hotel just before the campaign started.
In the morning, papa and mama exercised at the Fitness center and it's spacious.
After that we had CNY lunch with our family and visiting our relatives.
We had plan to go to Bandung on the second day of CNY, unfortunately Richie was sick so we decided to cancel our plan and extended our stay at Fairmont hotel.
Thanks to papa to pick Fairmont as it's near to shopping malls, we didn't have to worry for lunch and dinner. We could walk there otherwise we felt like quarantine hehe.
We need to return back to Singapore on Tuesday and it's traffic jam everywhere as there's a president election on Wednesday and they blocked the road for the election post.
Eventhough the trip didn't turn out as we want to be and need to cancel plans, we are still grateful as long as we are together as a family.
We arrived after midnight and reached home around 2am.
It's been a fruitful quality time with family and friends after 3 years. We had a reunion dinner, meet and greet with our relatives and fun with our friends.
Looking forward to the next happy gathering again
On the 2nd day of Chinese New Year, we invited our family and relative to eat at Remboelan, my favorite Indonesian restaurant.
After 2 years spending Chinese New Year in Singapore finally we were able to go back to Indonesia for reunion dinner.
Papa and the kids went back on Friday evening.
Then we had reunion dinner at The Leaf restaurant on New Year eve with oma and opa and uncle Evan's family.
On the New Year, papa and mama went to church to give thanks and asked for God's grace and strength for this New Year so that we were able to journey together with God.
