("Carissa, you haven't finished February US Trip stories yet!!!!" I know, the thing is, I've kept my trip pictures in my laptop. Soon, after I've moved them all here to my PC, I'm going to upload them and post them all right here)
The end of 2009 was a blast for me. Not that I finally wrapped the entire year activity with a trip to Bandung, but the fact that I did that with my cousins, uncle, and aunt- which is something I've never done before. It all began when my cousins were planning a trip to Bandung for a short three days of holiday and also to get a chance to peek on Universitas Parahyangan, the university my older cousin, Angel or Jie-jie (I often refer her to "sister" in Chinese) is intending to continue her education too. I don't see why not, since my parents weren't going to take days off for holiday.
The trip took places from December 27-December 29, 2009. Three days, but much to explore. Apparently my cousins' family hasn't been to Bandung yet. Well, actually they've been there once but only for a seminar, so not much for a vacation purpose. As I've been to Bandung for many, many times and have got used to the places of interest, restaurants, factory outlets, and other interesting places - basically, I've become familiar with its surrounding - my cousins' family appointed me to become their unofficial tour leader (eh?), as in my job to point out good restaurants to go to, where the factory outlets are, entertainment spots in Bandung, etc.
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Day 1: December 27, 2009
Early in the morning, I woke up at 6.30 am and prepared myself as I was rechecking my bag. I descended, had breakfast, and took off to my cousins' house where a rented car, Kijang - to be exact - has been prepared as a transportation during our trip there, along with the driver. Finally, we took off from there at 8.15 am. The journey took about two years before we arrived in Bandung at 10.00 am. Actually, the trip could have been enjoyable remembering that as we passed Cipularang Highway, fantastic green landscape of rice fields and hills spread before our sights, but I was too tired since I slept late last night, so I decided to miss all the beautiful sights and traded them with my beautiful dream.
As we were now in Bandung, approximately at 11.00 (the journey from the highway exit to the downtown took quite an hour, due to the traffic jam. It's high season, peeps), we needed to have a lunch now. We were worn and exhausted (read=jetlagged) after our approximately two hours of journey from Jakarta to Bandung. My aunt recommended that there was this nice restaurant on the highland of Lembang called Sapu Lidi, very famous especially to domestic or international tourists stepping their feet on Bandung. Actually, I haven't been to Bandung for ages. The last time I got there was like a year ago, and I barely remembered where exactly Sapu Lidi was located. I've been there though, once or twice as I remembered with my family and two of my friends' families and indeed that Sapu Lidi was quite an unusual restaurant. What made it even more special was that we sat not in an ordinary dining table in an enclosed room, but in farmer-shack-like open-air architecture with a simple dining table on it, overlooking the fields.
Finally, we arrived there at 11.15 after I managed to direct the way and chose our own shack, settled there. The air was surprisingly nippy, even though it wasn't even in Lembang just yet. Even though it wasn't even a lunch time just yet, but we were hungry like crazy. Even my cousins told the waiters to "get the orders done as soon as possible".
Probably we had tried Sundanese cuisine for like thousandth time in Jakarta, but somehow, it tasted better in the land of Parahyangan itself, especially the atmosphere was very supportive. We were having a fine dine in the middle of the fields, filled with nothing but the sound of nature and soft whistling of Sundanese flute heard from the speakers. As we were eating, suddenly, we overheard a group of family having a dine in the shack next to ours, talking in Chinese pretty loud. Annoyed, my cousins and I were like muttering "shut up" in Korean and Japanese. When we were about to depart from that place, my uncle, curious enough, managed to approach them and talk to them in Chinese (as my cousins' family members are all fluent in Chinese, so maybe my uncle tried to prove that that family wasn't the only one that could speak Chinese there).
At last, we took off from there. My aunt was curious about a place nearby called Kampung Gajah and we decided to give it a look, but it was only a normal restaurant then we took off. My younger cousin, Monica, suggested that we go to Paris Van Java. Among all malls in Bandung, this was the mall I've never been to before, so I thought, it must be really interesting! As we entered Paris Van Java, we were surprised by a group of girls squealing very loud next to us. "OH MY GOD, DON'T YOU SEE THAT GIRL'S HAIRDO??!! SO TOTALLY NOT COOL!!!" Then I was reminded that Monica just had her hairdo done before we left Jakarta. Her hair was tied into many tails, resembling a fountain. I stared at the girls in disgust, having the feeling that they insulted Monica. If they wanted to comment someone's style whose they thought was not cool enough, they shouldn't say that out loud. So...annoying. But whatever, we decided to ignore them eventually.
As we entered Paris Van Java, we were surprised that it was indeed a very cool and unusual mall. It was an outdoor city walk, with rows of branded shops stretching along the way. The place suddenly reminded me of Bugis Junction in Singapore and Santa Monica Mall in Los Angeles! Well, I came to think that we shouldn't come all the way to Singapore or Santa Monica to get the whole citywalk atmosphere, because Bandung got one too here! We entered one shop after another. There was Phoebe and Chloe, an accessories shop with pricey yet pretty items, but apparently Monica was aiming for something else (FYI, Monica had an obsession on accessories). She was eyeing on Purezento, a famous accessory stall selling from keychains to bookmarks featuring sweet Japanese characters. Eventually it was revealed that Monica intended to do a Purezento hunt in some places in Bandung, since Bandung is the center of Purezento manufacturing.
After that, we went to Gramedia, read some comics just to kill time and before we left Paris Van Java, we dropped by at Auntie Annie's Pretzels to buy some cheese pretzels. Then we took off to the hotel, Savoy Homann. It had been ages for me not to stay there. Well, a bit about myself when I was a kid: when I was little and went to Bandung very often, this hotel would always be chosen for us to stay, but lately, my family preferred to stay in a villa in Lembang instead. I remembered how I got along with the waitress quite well and thought if she still worked there (which was surely impossible).
Once there, we checked in and went to our rooms. My cousins and I stayed in one room while my aunt and uncle stayed in a room right next to us, connected through a connecting door. We settled ourselves in, dragging the twin single beds so that it would form a king-sized bed, and checked the bathroom to make sure it was clean.
"THIS TV HAS KBS AND ARIRANG!!!!" Monica suddenly yelled, to which Jie-jie and I responded with a squeal, since we were very much into Korean pop culture and were excited to find out we could access Korean TVs at the hotel.
However, there weren't any good shows on those channels so we decided to switch to HBO, only to find Twilight and watched it until the end, continued with Narnia: Prince Caspian, with Skandar Keynes who we adored so much among the other Narnia guys. We also watched "The Biggest Loser", but well, the show was average to me. Approximately at 5.45 pm, we left the hotel heading to Bakmi Naripan, which had the best noodle in Bandung, and after the dinner, we headed to Riau.
FO TIME!!!!
First destination: The Summit. Jie-jie bought some shirts for herself. Then we began to explore other FOs. My aunt apparently hadn't got used to the whole FO exploring stuff, so she didn't know where else to go. I recommended The Secret, located a few blocks away from Riau (still in FO district). It had the best and the most beautiful decorations I've ever seen from an FO. From the outdoor garden with a fountain, where we took our picture in, to the whole Christmas decorations and the minimalistic entrance. While Monica preferred to find some time window shopping in the accessories part.
At last, after shopping, we went back to the hotel to rest our feet before continuing our journey tomorrow.
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