Jakarta holiday - Wrap up!

Alright since I'm going to start school tomorrow so Imma speed up this Jakarta + Bandung trip. This is gonna be last update and it's gonna be a bit caca merba and not according to the chronology.


An interesting activity we did in Jakarta was visiting and experiencing our very first spa treatment. It was done at Martha Tilaar at Jakarta area. The price is 359,000Rp inclusive of massage, steam, mandi lulur (?) We chose single rooms since we aren't too sure whether we could handle to be topless (and bottomless) in front of each other. LOL

the package we chose

settling the payment

It was so awkward to strip down in front of a stranger (the masseuse that is) Nevertheless the massage was awesome. Release all those stresses. The masseuse was petite but she sure had a lot of energy! At first I pitied her coz tsk, how could a very tiny girl be massaging such very untiny girl like me. But boy I was wrong.. She was strong! At a second thought I even think she used black magic or something like that. Can't help but to imagine one of the Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam scene where the girl was massaging that guy. Eeee mintak simpang.

post treatment

the bathtub, the massaging bed, the steam all in a single room. very convenient

The steam treatment was okay. I experienced something a lot warmer than that. And the mandi lulur (?) was so relaxing. We get to chose the type of herbs we want and I went for "Sensual Rejuvenate" uuuuu~~


Other than that we went to Inul's Karaoke Place at Mangga Dua ke apa tah I couldn't remember. Macam tak betul je. lol. Unfortunately we were quite tired that night so we just went in for an hour only. The place is quite nice, completed with disco ball lagi. The atmosphere bikin gwe mau goyang tapi tak larat sebab baru makan and dah penat sangat. The songs are okay they even have Malay songs there!


Okay now onto the shopping places. We went to those two famous places - Mangga Dua and Tanah Abang. Sorry no pictures coz we were too engrossed with our shopping.


Mangga Dua is like your normal shopping mall. What's interesting there? I'd say shoes! Those girls went crazy buying flats coz it costed around RM10 like that. The DVDs (of course la pirate babe) are mad cheap also. Around 6000Rp per DVD and they are quite updated. Korean series, English series you just name it, everything also got one! Lai lai buy buy so cheap!


As for Tanah Abang, the place is humongous! Ada baru ada lama ada pasar pagi ada blok A lah segala. The type of things sold are divided into floors. Like.. this floor all tudungs and telekungs, another floor all bags, another floor all material, another floor all clothes they even have a floor for underwears T__T The key to shopping at Tanah Abang is to just negotiate. Don't just blindly accept the price tagged/told. Tapi I was told if you were to buy lace and material in Tanah Abang it had to be in bulk. So kalau nak beli setakat buat sepasang baju je go to Mayestik! haha..i'm such a big fan of Mayestik.

This was a nice trip considering I hadn't met the girls for quite long time. BUT BUT BUT be prepared for crazy mad long hours on road as the traffic in Jakarta is super duper crazy. Macet sana sini to the point that I had headache already in the massive traffic. Nak nangis jalan kaki pun ada. Balik-balik Malaysia I am extremely thankful to be born in this country. Haha..Malaysia oh tanah airku, you will always be in my heart!

homemade cook by Chemi

in front of Chemi's place.
us


hasil tangkapan kami berempat

Bandung oh Bandung (Day 3)

The rest of our Bandung trip was of course,spent at none other than the factory outlets. HOWEVER we didn't get to go to popular spots like Paris Van Java due to time constraint. To be honest I didn't buy anything at all from the factory outlets. Why so? Hmmm...I didn't find the price quite like what I imagined. Thought it would be cheap CHEAP but turned out the price is only so-so.Atau mungkin sebab saya dah shopping kat sini sebelum balik? I don't know. Shopaholics may beg to differ with my opinion but for me they are just..hmm ordinary. Plus, if you come with lots of money that's a different story lah kan.



Initially, I wanted to shop for clothes to be worn at Malaysia here so I didn't bring back lots of clothes from Cork. Since I was kinda disappointed as it didn't met my expectations, I ended up buying nothing and had to wear the same set of clothes throughout my 1.5months of summer holiday. LOL. Come to think of it, apaaaarrraaa I should buy at least something there. Oh lupe plak one of the reason why my mood to shop was robbed was because I checked my results the night before we left for Bandung.


When we were there, food is one of our greatest concern as we tend to be paranoid to everything! Haha..there's this one time we settled for a little restaurant for lunch and ordered set of ayam penyet. We were hungry, the food came and we were ready to gobble down them chicken until one of us decided to bring up the story about Indonesian use mice instead of chicken!! Some of us surrendered our plate and chose to be hungry and later that night we settled for McD. We were supposed to go to this quite nice restaurant but Pak Kuncoro told us the food was not worth the price. Cetttt ntah-ntah dia malas nak hantar. Hmmphh!


Later that night we went around Chihampelas. I think that place is suitable for the guys. No pictures though coz I was seriously out of mood at Bandung. The things there are quite affordable. We went there again the next day to find some stuff.


The next day we walked from out hotel towards the city just to kill time, take pictures and stopby at any factory outlet aimlessly since we don't have transport that morning. Went to Kartika Sari and had some of the traditional kuih and bought some brownies.

A less exclusive Hard Rock Cafe - Kat Rock Cafe

Ahli Gigi- seen a lot by the streets. They aren't qualified dentist but they do have some knowledge in dentistry. Senang je kan? Takyah susah-susah nak spend 5 years to study

lepaking at the cafe at Kartika Sari

the traditional kuih we tried but unfortunately I can't remember any of their names :(

We also tried riding on "angkut" sorta like a van, a cheaper transport option. But the thing with angkut is it goes on one straight street so if you were to divert to another road or something you had to transit to another angkut at the junction. It costed 1000Rp per pax and if you are unlucky, you might end up in a super packed angkut.

the angkut. when we were walking along the street there were tonnes of angkut stopped to pick us up. you just have to practice shaking your head and say no

the "police traffic" again, you don't have to spend years to train to be a policeman. just wear that jacket, sit in the middle of the street and off you go. you are in control!

Oh we stayed at Puri Tomat Hotel, costed 225,000Rp per night (around RM90 or so?). It was supposed to be room for 3 person but it can of course fit all 4 of us coz they had 1 double and 1 single bed. Cam biasa lah we combined the bed. They had pretty decent tv channels too. Malam tu siap layan ong bak lagi.


From Bandung to Jakarta we took a rented car which costed 70,000Rp per pax. Initially we planned to take Cipaganti, something like van camtu. Costed 10-20000 Rp cheaper but we thought, ahh, the driver could send us right at the door step where else Cipaganti we had to stop at their station.



Up next is our first spa experience and karaoke. Phuh malas sungguh mau update ni but I wanna get it all done asap. Rugi je nanti kalau dah lupa tua-tua takleh review :P

Senandung Bandung (Day 2)

The second day of our trip, we went to Bandung. From Jakarta to Bandung, it took about 3h++ combination of highway and creepy roads. Why do I say creepy? Coz there are times where we would be on very rocky roads, very narrow one, entered some sort of village area which have their very own toll system (YES they charge the transport that trespasses their place). Pak Kuncoro charged us about 570k Rp for 12 hours (hwarghhh tak ingattt) - minyak semua included.


One thing you have to know about being tourist in Indonesia (as far as my experience lah) - there are pengamen everywhere. Particularly in touristy area, of course. Pengamens are ermm..those who do/sell anything in exchange for money lah of course. They would sing, pray/baca selawat for you, and sell cigarettes, tissue, toys in the middle of the road. There are also lil kids who are just plain beggars that sells their sad faces/stories to buy our sympathy in terms of $$. At one point you just have to be rock-hearted (hati batu? LOL) and just shoo them away. I know, keji right? But if you were to entertain all of them pengamens, at the end of the day you would be one of them, really!


We went straight away to the non-shopping places first. The first place was Kolam Air Panas Wisata Alam. They charge us, but I'm sorry I forgot how much..wuwuwu...There is place for you to dip (?) your legs in the hotsprings that is believed to have some healing effects and place for you to swim. I didn't know that!

we paid 2000Rp for this picture. lol

rendam kaki disini

When we were there, there was this ice-cream seller who appeared to be very kind-hearted to show us around and help us to take pictures. Little did we know that they are also some kind of pengamen in a uniform and at the end we were kinda forced to buy their mat-cool-like icecream for 15k Rp (that's almost RM6 y'all!!) hahaha..what a joke. We didn't spend much time there since our time in Bandung is very limited.

the (con)icecream men!!

The next stop was the famous Volcano site - Tangkuban Perahu, about another 30mins of rocky and narrow roads from the hot springs. They charge us I think 15k Rp per pax - after Pak Kuncoro lied to them that we are Indonesians coz they would charge double/triple for non-Indonesians. Confident je Pak Kuncoro cakap kitorang dari Bintaro eventhough it was quite obvious we wore Malaysian style tudung. Nasib muka ada iras-iras Jowo sikit tu buleh pass kot. LOL.


The view is quite nice and the temperature is a bit colder than the town. Since we were bunch of lazy tourists we didn't tour around much. You can also hire a guide to bring you down the kawah - like going jungle trekking like that. Be prepared to endure lots and lots and lotsssss of people who will be bugging you to buy souvenirs. They are as many as the tourists there and if you decide to buy stuff from them make sure you negotiate for the lowest price - the kind of price when they agreed to sell but their face is like crying already. haha...ketuk sampai orang tu nak nangis sapa suruh paksa kita beli barang. lol.

took picture we 10001 negative thought of being pushed down into the volcano. lol

souvenir shops

Next post - the famous factory outlets and our paranoia.

Antara Anyir dan Jakarta, kita jatuh cinta (Day 1)

Found some mood to update on Jakarta so here we go :)


The plan to go to Jakarta was initiated a while ago. Since we have Chemi and Syikin who are studying there we thought, aahhh..why not? Life could be a lot easier because we have them to help out with transport arrangement and places to go etc. So bookings are made and on Jun 28th, we flew to Jakarta.


The air ticket costed about RM280 per pax. We flew with the great Malaysian Airlines, bought it using the Get-the-Deal sale like 2-3 months before. Money exchange rate back then was RM100 equivalent to 364K-368K Rp. It was sooooo hard to buy things and kept on converting so we made it easier formula - RM10 = 40,000Rp


We were greeted by quite a few handsome immigration men in Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Yes, they were the sinetron type guys not the typical Indonesian men we see in our country. After an hour or so Chemi came with Pak Kuncoro, the driver to pick us up. His real name wasn't Pak Kuncoro but we'd like to call him as that (of course only among us lah) until I forgot his real name already. Ngehngeh..

our ride that day :P

From airport, we went straight away to Mayestik, a heaven of fabrics. This place was inserted quite last minute into our itinerary as per requested by Wani but it turned out to be one of our biggest shopping spree. If you are true (Malaysian) woman, you are gonna love this place. Bila masuk tempat ni kau rasa macam ohhh inikah syorgaa (kain) donia and despite the hot weather, we still managed to make sure we stopped by at 60-70% of the shops there.


The prices? I'd say quite cheap and the choices are quite good. Japanese Cotton are priced at about RM7-10 per metre. Chiffon at about RM12-15 per metre (kot?) Laces dalam RM7-8 gitu. Ahhhhh dah tak ingat sangat dah I'm sorry inilah padahnya update after a month ++



Artsy people who loves crafting will also love Mayestik as they offer things like Felt at a very cheaper price - says my friend Ida (go check out her handmade cards - here!)

hasil tangkapan (bukan Wani ye T__T)

Since we have a very limited time, we had to kiss goodbye to Mayestik and headed to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. This is a very large place that combines museums, garden, recreational park and monuments. The entrance fee was Rp25,000 per pax if I'm not mistaken. The place is sooo big. Like big BIG. However we got there pretty late as the museum closes at 5 (the park itself closes at errr 8 ke 10 like that) so we didn't get to enter the traditional houses and stuff. Just took pictures from the outside.

the castle

We went back home to change and pray and went out again that night for dinner at D'Cost Seafood. The food was delicious and my favourite was the crispy ikan gurame so yumsss. The Padang dishes was quite good too! We had to go back home earlier that night since we had to prepare for our Bandung trip the next day...

ikan Gurameeeeee

we just got out batch tshirt a few days before and decided to mencapub and wear it together-gether that nite :P