Tralalaaa...part 2!!!
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Day 2: December 28, 2009
Second day!!! We woke up at 7.00 am, pretty early for a vacation trip. Then we took a shower, dressed up, and watched TV for a moment before descended to have a breakfast at 8.30 am. We still had no idea where to go that day. Some places were then picked out to be our destinations: Kawah Putih and Situ Patenggang. At first, we were thinking to go to Lembang, but maybe it would be best visited at night, since it was well known with its culinary tour, with all the roasted ketan stalls along the road of Lembang. But well, for today, we thought of visiting Kawah Putih (the White Crater) and Situ Patenggang. I thought it would be a good idea though, although I've never been there. But I've heard a lot of good stories about that place, though I don't know much about Situ Patenggang just yet.
After waiting for the driver to bring the car to the lobby, we finally got on and departed to Kawah Putih. Heck I didn't know where that was located. If I were to travel with my dad, he would probably point out where the location was, and how far it was from Bandung. My dad was quite a navigator, since he always got a map with him. But for this trip, since no one had got maps, we could only settle in our cars, sleeping, waking up, sleeping, waking up again, and waiting for the time when we would arrive. And that was exactly what we did. We practically just sat in the car, watching the crowded traffic of the downtown before the car moved away towards the rural areas. Besides sleeping, we woke up and Jie-jie would play some Super Junior videos from her iPod (what a useful gadget).
Finally, after approximately two hours of journey, we made it to Kawah Putih and the car slowly climbed up towards the peak, where a clearing formed into a parking lot was seen. Some visitors would also prefer to ride on a special local vehicle - a truck but designed like a bemo, especially for people who had come all the way by bus (surely buses couldn't climb up to this highest point). Near the parking lot were rows of stall selling Strawberry Chocolate (satay of strawberries smeared with chocolate), roasted corns, and some more stalls selling every type of souvenirs about strawberries (from the simple keychains to strawberry-shaped dolls/pillows/bolsters). But we chose to visit the main attraction of the spot first: the White Crater (in English, maybe). The crater eventually revealed to be a lake, with turquoise water (or other form of liquid, not sure if it's pure water, possibly a mix of chemical substances and mud. Whatever it was, it was hot, and I could tell that from the smoke coming up on the surface of the lake).
It didn't take long from the entrance to the spot. It only needed a minute of walk. Anyway, before the lake was a wide clearing with white sand, a bit crowded with a strong smell of sulphur filling the space. We snapped some pictures, and even took a picture of us before a huge rock (actually we intended to climb up on it, but we failed in doing so and decided to take a picture before it). Hehe. Unfortunately we didn't spend too much time there as the whole chemical substance produced by the water could harm our health. In just fifteen minutes of snapping pictures, we took off to the parking lot, preparing to leave to Situ Patenggang. Before that, since it was 1.00 pm, we decided to settle for a moment in one of the stalls, munching on roasted corns for lunch. Before getting some corns, Monica, Jie-jie, and I stopped by at a smaller stall (which got some chocolate fountains, so cute) to buy some Strawberry Chocolate. It was freaking YUMMY!!!! It had the sweet yet sour taste of the strawberry, but outside it, we could also taste the chocolate! After lunch with the corns, we took off to another tourism object: Situ Patenggang.
The journey didn't take quite long, except the fact that our car started to enter a whole different territory with rolling hills of tea gardens stretching before our sight and some pine trees too, that reminded us of Forks in Twilight. Not long, we arrived there, nothing special but a normal lake surrounded by hills and pine trees. Actually it WAS a good view, but we'd seen too many lakes that probably we'd got tired with it. Some people there offered for a boat ride surrounding the lake. "Wondering to know the legend of Love Stone? Be sure to join us in our cruise." persuaded one of the boat men. Monica spontaneously whispered to me. "What's Love stone?" And I said that I didn't know, the guy told us that if we wanted to know about it, we should get on the cruise.
Eventually we left before even figuring out the so-called legend of the Love Stone. Honestly, I was quite disappointed that I didn't get to know about it (since I'm kind of a legend-freak, but s'okay). Later on, we took off from there, and it was already 3.00 pm!!! Wow, so late. When asked where our next destination was, Monica eagerly said. "Ciwalk!! Because it has another stall of Purezento." Fine accessories hunter. :)
Once again, I directed the way to Ciwalk (Cihampelas Walk), since I was quite familiar with its surrounding, but before that, once arriving in Bandung city from the rural area, we decided to stop by the same hotel yesterday, Majesty Hotel, where once again we took our time to go to the restroom and stretch our aching backs. Look what else we did in the restroom. Oh and besides, we also took a look around the hotel lobby, and took a picture of its Christmas tree.
Hehe, finally we got to Ciwalk at 4.30 pm (since it took a long time for us to get from the rural area back to the downtown of Bandung again). We hopped off the car and went straightly to the Purezento stall, located in the outdoor area of Ciwalk. Apparently our favorite icons were out that moment, so we walked off there with bare hands. Still, we hoped that before we left Bandung, at least we could get some Purezento goodies. Finally, we moved on to visit some more accessories shops in the mall. We even visited non-accessories shops like an anime shop (aww...Japanese pop culture, how we've missed you sooo much after leaving you to Kpop) and a DVD store where we spotted *gasp* SUPER JUNIOR: EXPLORERS OF THE HUMAN BODY!!!! Too bad we didn't get to buy it. Won't tell the reason why (cause there's no reason to buy it at all *gajelasdeh*).
Anyway, we got off once it was 6.00 pm. Time for dinner! Even though it was still a bit too early for that. My uncle stated that he would like to have a steak dinner for tonight, and I knew exactly the best place for that. I quickly recommended to eat in Suis Steak, in Setiabudhi. In just matter of minutes, we got there and were ready to make our orders. Yumyummunchmunch. The dinner was quite chilly, since Setiabudhi was on the higher ground of the city, right before Lembang.
It was 8.00 pm already, an hour after we'd started our dinner. At first, we were thinking of returning straight to the hotel, but apparently, since it was our last night there, Monica hesitated and suggested that we go to another yet the last destination of the day. Bandung Indah Plaza. Actually she had been eager to go there since we first arrived in Bandung, since (no wonder) the mall got another Purezento stall. We assumed that the stall in that mall would be the last Purezento stall we would ever visit since we were taking off from Bandung tomorrow, and the possibility for us to look for some more Purezento stalls was small. However, the stall finally got what icons we wanted and even I bought three items, all keychains featuring my favorite occupations: chef and reporter!
Well, the clock struck 8.30 pm but Monica, Jie-jie, and I chose to go to Timezone, the very last destination of the day. Lucky enough that Jie-jie got the Powercard, which could be used in any Timezone branches and thus, we started our "night sport". Why night sport? Because apparently the games that we did produced a lot of sweat yet entertaining too. Monica and I did Dance, Dance Revolution together, in a battle mode, but we were too distracted to play basketballs for about five rounds, before we were really sweating (for the first time in the day, we were sweating, exactly at 9.00 pm).
After having SOME good time, we ended our activity today and went straight to the hotel. We crashed, but that was not the end of the day, not until Monica found that on KBS, Minho and Key of SHINee were being interviewed on Round Table Plus variety show, along with some members from SNSD like Tiffany and Yoona. Minho's innocent act really reminded me of Kyuhyun's!!! Which made us go LOL.
We finally slept at 11.00 pm. Wow, pretty late, and we were VERY exhausted that day. 5 destinations. Non stop. Nice....Have a nice dream! >_____<
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