Family Summer Vacation 2013 : Bandung

Hi everybody!

Today i am going to finally blog about the last leg of our summer 2013 JB/SG/Jakarta/Bandung trip!

 

Before i started travel blogging, i've always been curious on how lots of bloggers can procrastinate blogging about their travels for MONTHS. Until i started doing it myself. I can't believe i'm just about to finish blogging about a trip that happened almost four months ago. LOL.

So, here it is finally. Our visit to Bandung for three short days. We were stuck in a traffic for hours, what should've been a three to four hours car ride ended up being about six. ZZZ. Stories of our lives. First thing we did when we finally reached Bandung (at around 4 in the afternoon) was to check in our hotel first. KC and CL picked the hotel, and since it's not my choice (i prefer budget-but clean and comfy-kind of hotels, something three starred?)-we ended up staying in Hilton.

It was, like most four-five starred hotel, very spacious and comfortable. Not that my mum was satisfied anyway. I told ya already there's no satisfying her, it doesn't matter if it's 1 starred of 7 starred, she'd find something to complain about *LOL*. I guess KC never believed me when i said that (because he doesn't go on a vacay with her nearly enough to make that deduction before), but now he witnessed it for himself. And now he's siding with me LOLOLOL! Let's take a look of our hotel room (we took a family room, as usual).

Hunny immediately took his station at the office desk :p

Changing room leading to the bathroom and toilet

See through glass separating the bathroom area with the bedroom. I can never understand this concept, i guess it's for "sexy time" purposes? Hehehehe.. But it's a FAMILY room leh, with two huge beds. Definitely not for one couple. Maybe for swingers it'll work HAHAHAHAHA

I don't stay in five starred hotels much, but i stayed in my share of Shangri-Las and Sheratons-so... I dunno why but it's still delighted me to find branded toiletries!

Peter Thomas Roth toilettries! I don't think they're available (for sale) in Indonesia, but it's very well known in Australia (according to my sis and niece)! I was really impressed but of course that was before we went to Taiwan and got L'Occitane toilettries at the last hotel we stayed in!

CL has some relatives staying in Bandung, unfortunately her cousin's out of town but her friendly husband went and brought us around. We went for dinner in a old school restaurant serving traditional Sundanese food called Nasi Bancakan. Everything about this place was old fashioned and "vintage". It was pretty nice, i myself enjoy trying out this kind of places. The only person not so happy? My mum, of course. She's forever worrying about the hygene of the place, etc...

You can choose to seat in a long table or traditional lesehan (sit on the floor with short tables)

This is a self-service kind of restaurant. See the far back side? That's where they display a very vast array of food for you to choose from. You just choose what you want to eat, pay only for what you eat :)

Everybody's busy nom-nomming while CL's busy cam-whoring LOL

There were also a few small stalls selling traditional cakes and drinks, this one's Kue Balok (the direct translation would be block cakes :p)

Free teas were provided, get it yourself from this section. The teapot's super heavy!

The ice station :D

What i had for dinner

If i'm not mistaken this is called Es Goboyod

I've actually finished writing about this first day and was sure i saved it, but somehow half of the latter part never got saved. Imagine my anger upon realizing this GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! PMS-ing big time and having issues with several local banks over stupid credit card problems (somehow we keep on being charged for "late fees" even though we always paid on time! And they always said sorry sorry but you have to pay first. I am yearning to box someone in the FACE)

Anyway, like typical Indonesian-we went to the mall afterward. I like this Paris Van Java mall very much and i do envy some of the high street brands that they have but aren't available in Surabaya! (especially Miss Selfridge, which is absolutely my firm favorite other than Forever 21! They simply have the dreamiest collections ever! Even though i don't shop there very much due to the fact that Miss Selfridge stuffs are super duper expensive in Asia, i still would love to be able to ogle them at the store haha) And for some that were available like Stradivarius, i envy the size of their store!!! Literally three times Surabaya's store. And we're supposedly the second biggest city in Indonesia after Jakarta. PFFFFFTTTT.

I didn't snap a lot of pictures of the mall because i was too busy ogling at clothes! It was a sale season too FML. I was really strict with myself though because i shopped too much at JB/SG/Jakarta already PFFFFFTTTTT. Kinda regret doing that though :P. The mall itself was quite unique actually. Well, maybe not that unique-but pretty unique for Indonesian. It has an outdoor and open space concept, which is quite rare for Indonesian malls. Usually our malls are completely indoor with full air conditioner units at full blast, giving us the illusion of not living in a tropical country haha. I did snap some with animals in it though!

Pretty... errr, that's pigeon right???

And then the unique looking ladies room, complete with huge koi pond and tropical plants.

I know this picture's blurry, but i want to show you the uniqueness of this place hahaha

Getting koi pellets haha

Then we called it a night and went back to our super nice hotel to chill hehehe. Actually we went to Bandung mainly because my nephew MT wanted to play at Trans Studio (an indoor theme park. We went there once when they just opened-my little family+my bro KD and his son D, but not KC's family. It was actually a pretty nice theme park, but sadly it was NOT a pleasant experience. There were still a LOT of glitches and the staffs were not experienced at all and we had to queue for HOURS-but not really because there were too many people *even though there were a lot* but because lots of their rides were having problems, or worse-being used to shoot for advertisement *this place's owned by a local TV station* with annoying local celebrities. Yeah, you can tell that we're not very fond of local celebrities :p, i kinda prompted people to boo them the eff off hahaha) but then MT got really sick the next day! He transformed into a vomit machine that day FHL. 

So we just wandered around pretty aimlessly instead. To save the day from being a total failure, i suggested us to visit Kampung Daun instead. 

First, some pictures at the lobby

Our first destination : Kampung Daun!

It's actually a valley in Northern Bandung that they turned into a restaurant. Well, i'm explaining it poorly, it's actually a lot more than a restaurant, they attempt to preserve the tradition and nature of old style Bandung. It's pretty huge and very interesting to visit, i'd say it's a must visit at least once-if you're visiting Bandung!

Greeted by a traditional andong

Lots of traditional looking stalls selling traditional snacks and tidbits

You should come to the "receptionist" first to get your table

They also have traditional dances performances to illustrate old school Sundanese village lives

Lots of talented kids performing-guests are welcome to join in!

Yep, have to walk further in to find our joglo A.K.A our table

The cool weather and the green surrounding the place was super comforting

Okay, that's ours!

Cam-whoring mode : ON!

Having some traditional snacks haha

Yum!

While waiting for our order, we went to explore the place.

Traditional candies sellers

Flowers and pacifier-shaped hard candies-something my mum would never let any of us to buy because it's being blown (by mouth) by the seller. Not that i'd want any, the process for me is quite disgusting hehehe

Kerak Telor

Yeah, i cannot ignore a cam-whoring spot

CL feeding Au a super sticky and stringy traditional candy hahaha

Decided to visit the store

Lots of cute and interesting thingy here

Hullo?

Super cute rubber bear pouch

LOL

Baby Boy quickly followed suit

And me :p

Baby Boy is a shopaholic like me, appeased him with this silly "light sabre", okay lah it's just a lighted up stick hahaha

SUper cute rubber bag! It was not cheap though so i didn't bother

Guess what we found at the cashier?

Purol Ointment! LOL! Those Aunties shouldn't try so hard to find them in Europe, it's super nearby their place (they are from Sukabumi)

Then we headed back to our joglo...

My cappucino...

Tahu Gejrot

I think this is a bandrek or was it bajigur?

Bandung's pretty famous for their tea, complete with the traditional claypot tea set 

My satays

And the company, lontong

Nasi Bakar

Weirdly enough even though this place's very traditional looking, the local cuisine were NOT nice at all! They also served Western food like cream soup, pastas, pizza etc-and even more ironically, those Western food were very nice! LOL. So i'd recommend to order the Western food instead, and enjoy the surroundings to the max!

You can also enjoy horse riding (for IDR 25.000/person i think), in Indonesia usually only little kids ride horses like this *you know, just riding around the stable or circling some perimeter with the horse keeper walking them* so it was met with quite a lot of protests when my 15-year old niece insisted to ride one *LOL*. Oh well, if you call me a late bloomer, Au's definitely twice as bad :p.

Of course, Baby Boy also want!

I'm... terrified of most animals, but the little white horsey was wearing pink...

Can you tell how scared i was? LOL

The view from the horse riding area

Then we went to Rumah Stroberi (or Strawberry House, another nature concept restaurant with kids area too) but sadly it was closed for public because they were rented by some company's outing. PFFFFTTTTT.

Saw a cat having a drink on a small pond haha

So we continued our journey to The Peak, yet another restaurant *LOL* with breath taking views since it is located-like the name suggested-at the peak :p.

Hehehe looked a lot like little hats, yes? Just about Baby Boy's size

Seriously Au, it's going to snap!

Hahahahah please excuse my pose

Didn't stay long (or order anything) because the cafe was being used to shoot some B-grade music video! LOLOLOL. It was really silly and we couldn't stop laughing at them #sorrynotsorry. And the manager or producer or director kept on approaching us and telling us about the singer (whom i've never heard before nor after) and how "you might make a cameo in the video". WTF. Were we supposed be to star-struck or something? LOL. I'd die of shame if i ever make an appearance in that stupid video zzzz...

Wahahahaha defo would annoy #Undecided

Distorted heart. It looked black and white-unintentionally!

Family picture, sans poor MT (who stayed behind at the hotel being taken care by Baby Boy's nanny)

Then we went to hunt for some local oleh-oleh (snacks for friends and family back home), had dinner and went back to the hotel! We went back to Jakarta the next day (KC's and my little fam all took a train. They rented a car to go to Bandung and KC hated the traffic so much, they preferred to take a train to go back and asked us to come along. Ironically there were no traffic jams that day and my parents who drove (well, our driver did) back arrived less than half an hour after we did. LOL)!

Even though the little trip became a little pointless and we didn't really do anything, it was a nice, chill kind of time. Would love to come again for more actions though! Snapped a few last pictures from the hotel's room before we left, and that's it!

I just need to continue the rest of our Taiwan trip to finally wrapped up my travel posts -but that'd take a while because #Undecided's super busy lately, her workload doubled since A's on a maternity leave for two months and she has to do A's job as well as her own! Oh, i do still have the collective SG/JB haul and we're going for another mini vacay to Bali next week *LOL*.. So i guess you can expect more travel posts still for the remaining of the year!

Toodles for now!

#Pink