Hello Bandung! Part 1: I Feel It, Man!

Hello people! Thanks for waiting anyway. Okay I’d like to share some stories abut my first and also last trip to Bandung :). It gonna be the longest posting I've ever made *surprise* that's why I decided to divide the whole posting into some parts. What are you reading now, of course, is the first chapter :)

I remember Tanadi Santoso ever said that we should be a childlike, not childish, to be successful entrepreneur. What he tried to say is as being a childlike, we see everything with same curiosity, same enthusiasm like it is the first time we see it. Well, I’m not going to post more about how to be successful entrepreneur or what... The point is, I saw Bandung as it is. I got the feeling, man… Yes, it was the first time for me stepping my feet in Bandung land! I felt so passionate, happy; just like I would boom in thousand parts, and everything about Bandung attracted me most. Geez, that was the best feeling in the world, I bet you. I just felt I couldn’t wait to see everything, I mean! :)

I took the business train Mutiara Selatan on Thursday afternoon from Surabaya. That was a rainy day and I almost late. I met my travel mate Dila in Gubeng Train Station and soon found another group of my colleagues. Along our way to Bandung I can’t stop myself babbling how wonderful Bandung will be and how I was so thrilled about my first trip. Dila seems like a lil bored after few hours but she tried her best after all hahaha…  I can be so annoyed sometimes, sorry :3

We almost arrived. It’s already morning, around 6 AM. I could feel the fresh air since the sun rose. I and Dila fight over about is it mount or hill that we saw over the window.

Me: “What is that?”

Dila: “Mount, of course”

Me: “What mount?”

Dila: “I don’t know. But I’m sure that is a mount”

Me: ”What mount? Pangrango? (Readers, I’m sorry for my lack of geographical knowledge :0 )

Dila: “I’m not sure about it” (Geez, we were both moron twins)

Me: (hate it when I don’t know about something and nobody can tell me about it) “So it isn’t a mount. Look, there are some of them. So those were hills”

Dila: “No it was a mount”

Later my uncle said that was a mountain. Yeah, Bandung was surrounded by mountain. Dila, it was plural; mountain. And for me, those were too big to be any hill; gosh, you should’ve guessed that..

After being late around 30 minutes, the train stopped eventually. Finally I saw Bandung for the first time!!! Hahaha.. I called myself katrok which in English means act like perfect stranger :p. I mean, oh God, the first thing attracted my eye was the Hoka Hoka Bento* stall in Bandung Train Station. How cool we have Hokben in our train station! That what I was thinking.  Haha.. we didn’t get something like that in Gubeng train station, Surabaya :p 

haha.. the signature style..peace.. :p 

We went by our own 'cause the other group will stay in Widi’s aunt home and we will stay in a hotel. Out from the station we lost of direction and have no idea how should we did to be in Dago**, where the hotel we wanna stay located. We ask people and soon we found that we took the wrong exit door which made us in wrong direction to take any angkot**** to Dago hehe...So we back to inside of the station to find the right exit door, which located in south side.

Out from the right exit door, an amusing view welcoming us.

I love how they placed this monument right outside the exit door :)

Dila is camera-girls which means she love taking photos and, more of it, become the subject of the photo hihi... She said “Tiz,becaknya lucuu...****” and quickly took her camera out.

And this cool mural. Oh my, uber kewl. I wouldn’t miss it.

Along our way to Dago, my camera wasn’t stop capturing. Everything was just too awesome! But... there weren't many good picture. We took an angkot, so everything was moving fast :)

 

         Even the sidewalk looked so nice.. How come simply things like painting this into blue made such a sense? How couldn’t we have such a thing in Surabaya? I mean yellow will looked cute, I’m sure about that!:)

Dila insisted that we should memorize this bluey sidewalk with the 45 degree angle shoot..ahaha, alay*****.. :p

Ok now the annoying part. I’ve told you that we took angkot to Dago. Yeah, at first we planned to stay at Royal Dago hotel. A friend of us said the price was reasonable and the room was okay. But when the angkot driver said that he knew other hotel which have a better price, we took that idea of stayed at that hotel. Patra Jasa Hotel was cool outside but poor for us, the room was fully booked till next week.

I and Dila then took a walk till we catch the Royal Dago, which located just some meters from Patra Jasa. Dila and I had just realized what was we faced when the receptionist said the room was full. The one who will check out will stay at the hotel till 12 PM. It was 8 AM in the morning! We were sleepy, tired after long journey, already dreaming about take a warm bath and changing clothes but this receptionist said that we should wait 4 hours more to take off our dirty clothes and jump to lazy bed. She should be joking. I and Dila desperately made a call to every hotel around Dago and ITB just to found that every hotel we called was full or fully booked. Geez.

Ok you must be questioning why we didn't make any hotel reservation before. I told you, we planned to stay at Royal Dago, and they didn't receive such a reservation or what. You should come, take your room, pay ahead. Actually that didn’t mean they have no room right for us, but I prefer sleep at the near mosque than pay Rp 400.000,00 a night. I mean, come on, we were student, for the God sake. We even can’t pay our own food! How come we supposed to spend that much only to sleep?

Well, at the end we took that standard room that would available at 12 PM. The receptionist quite nice after all. She said we can wait at the lobby and use the toilet. Hell yeah, that won’t works for Dila which immediately called her friend to ask him whether he can help her or not. But I use the toilet, no bath just washed my face, brushing teeth and changing clothes to a clean one. I won’t spent my precious time here only fight over about hygienic issue. 

Dila finally decided would take a bath in her friend’s friend bathroom, and I would go somewhere. We planned to meet up in the hotel around hours later. I’m breathing deeply, ready to face everything ahead that I’m sure, will be more than just wonderful :)

To be continued..

*a famous Japanese fast food franchise. Simply called Hokben. For us, student, Hokben was popular among its reasonable price haha..

** Dago is one of the coolest road in Bandung. Along this road we can found many factory outlet, boutique and cafe with cool interior. It is also located near ITB. 
***public transportation used in most of cities in Indonesia.The one we have in Bandung was Suzuki Carry-look alike

****translated to English: "Tiz, how cute is the pedicab!"

*****alay, stands for 'anak layangan' is a slang language. It was commonly used to make a fun of people who act 'lebay' or overacting 

So where will I go? Will I lose direction again? And how will a hungry-traveler eat in her first time visit in Bandung? Whatever it was, one thing she would never forget was her visit to ITB. How cool is that? I’ll write again, so stay tuned, peeps!

xoxo