Venus reached the inferior conjunction at 13 local time (11 UT) on 16th January, 1998 . So at about 12:45 on that day I started preparing my 6-inch Meade Starfinder telescope. I was observing from our roof.
At first I pointed my telescope almost toward the North, then after using the Sun filter I moved it toward the Sun, after which I adjusted the setting circles ( R.A. and Dec.) as they were for the Sun (R.A. = 19:52, Dec. = -20:56), then I moved the telescope while I was looking at the setting circles till it matched the coordinates of Venus (R.A. = 19:48, Dec. = -15:13) and I removed the filter. Venus was about 5 degrees 49 arcmin. north of the Sun. At first I didn't see Venus, since the telescope was not exactly adjusted to the North pole, so after moving it slightly in different directions I was able to see the great thin crescent of Venus, it was much obvious than what I had thought ! At that time I looked at my watch, it was 13:03 (11:03 UT). The eyepieces that I used were Meade Series 3000 Plossl 40 mm (31X), 25 mm (49X), and 16 mm (76X).

I think I was lucky that I had seen it, since I was supposed to leave Jordan the day before (15 Jan.), but fortunately my trip was postponed for two days, permitting me to witness this event.

Finally, I should say that who encouraged me to observe this event was the International Meteor Organization (IMO) ! Since a delegation from IMO, visited us in May 1997, and while we were talking, I told them proudly that I saw Venus one day before the conjunction, thus at that time, they told me " Huh, we saw it DURING the conjunction" :-) So this encouraged me to observe it, and luckily I succeeded.