Bandung

So last week I gathered up Inny and Jani and conned em into hitting up Bandung with me. Living in the U.S has made me realize that going out and getting comfortable with the immediate environment around you is more than just about being outdoors and doing activity. It's pretty unreal what there is around us. I did a lot of it in Boston and New York and surrounding areas and it was pretty good to see all the different stuff around those places. Not only are sites and sounds different, but even attitudes, fashions and other cultural aspects follow suit. All this in neighbouring area codes.

Bandung is no different here. Bandung is a city about 200 kms away from Jakarta but these two cities are completely different. The drive up is usually pretty easy with the new highway and all. The view's not bad either. You can either take the train up there or drive up yourself. We chose to drive down so we could run a muck on the way there.

Recently I've pretty much taken my camera wherever we've ended up so as to work on my photography skills. I have none so far but at least I'm trying. Give a brotha a break.

Fortunately because I was on camera duty, I was relieved of the burden of driving. Driving responsibility was left to Wardi, sleeping to Inny, picture-taking to me and Jani. We did okay for the drive up.

We cruised around for a bit and had absolutely no idea where we were going. Good thing Wardi was handy with the map. 15 minutes later we ended up at the newly built Ciwalk, which is short for Cihampelas Walk. It is an outdoor sort of mall which I thought was a nice change since I'm from Jakarta. It also had some local designer stores with their own unique designs. The stuff was interesting. They also had the usual J Co. (Indonesia's home-grown answer to Krispy Kreme) and the ever-present Starbucks. I don't do donuts but I couldn't help but notice the "Tirr-I-miss-u" donut at J Co. How the fuck do they come up with cheesy shit like that? How?

We hung out for a bit and then made our way around town. Hit up a few more stores and an exotic pet store and then pretty much hunger set in.

We then headed up to a restaurant called the Sierra. It was set on top of some hills. It had a pretty good view which is supposed to be real nice at night. Apparently thats a good spot to take it easy at in the evenings with the piano band and all. The only thing that had me wincing was their menu. Like most people I'm not a big fan of restaurants with 10 different cuisines. If I wanted 10 different cuisines I would visit a food court. But then again, looking out at the view made me realize that food is probably not the main reason that people come there.

Anyway, here are the results of the day. All of us enjoyed experimenting with the camera.


Out.