Black Friday... It happened again :(

Friday morning started as regular morning in the calendar of 2009, but it wasn’t ordinary Friday morning anymore after what happened at 07.45 AM.

As usual, I arrived in my working place at around 08 AM and changed my clothes in female locker, one of my colleagues asked if Ritz Carlton Hotel was bombed because on the way to our Hotel (it’s just 5 minutes away from Ritz Carlton), she saw many people gathered in front of this Hotel and the smoke was everywhere. We all thought and hoped that it was not a bomb explosion. We all hoped and thought it was just a gas leaking or small fire accident in the kitchen of its luxurious 5 star Hotel.

But we were wrong….. Finally, few hours after the explosions, the police stated that it was a bomb explosion and it blasted in 2 places, JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton. Two bombs exploded in 2 luxurious hotels. The first bomb exploded in JW Marriott at 07.45 AM and the second bomb exploded at 07.47 AM. 9 people killed and more than 50 people wounded on these explosions, some of them were foreigners but most of them were locals.

My heart hurts and I couldn’t stop the tears in my eyes when I saw the news on TV. I didn’t expect that another bomb would explode again in my beloved country. Last night I had a conversation with my friend in Australia and he told me that Indonesia’s image is getting better in his country and the media give positive coverage about Indonesia. I was so glad to hear that. Since several bombing in the past (Bali, some churches in Jakarta and JW Marriott, etc), our country’s image was bad. Some travel warnings issued by most of foreign countries and it made us so sad.

I have some friends who work in both of these Hotels and I thank God because they are all save though some of them still shocked. I called some of them this morning and they survived. Many guests in my Hotel checked out immediately and some events were cancelled. Manchester United also have cancelled the Jakarta leg of their Asia tour after the hotel where they were due to stay (Ritz Carlton) was bombed. What’s next?

Again, my heart hurts...

-Ita

All images are from www.news.yahoo.com