Bandung (Part 3)

So basically we ate and shopped and ate and shopped! But we did a spot of sight-seeing when we went to check out the volcano, Tangkuban Perahu (Upturned Boat). It started to get colder and colder as we drove there and smellier and smellier! Hee!

It was nice and foggy and a great change from factory outlets!

There were horses for hire but we declined!

Lots of small stores too.

Throughout our trip, we stayed at Novotel and it was an enjoyable stay! We really liked the buffet breakfast every morning and best of all, they somewhat change the food items so you dun have to eat the same stuff everyday!

Our really comfy bed!

View of Bandung city from our hotel window, we were staying at the highest floor!

Following are some street snaps I took…

The green mini buses you see below are called angkot and you see loads of them on the street. If you are walking on the street, dun be surprised to have many of them honk at you and ask if you want to board. There are no bus numbers but instead various areas and locations are printed on the bus itself.

Many of the locals drive motorcycles as the traffic can get so jammed! So they have two vehicles, normally a MPV and a motorcyle. When they are rushing to get to somewhere, they drive a motorcycle. When the whole family is going out, an MPV!

Pastor Kong was gonna preach during the weekend and many asked if we would be staying till then =)

Saw this cool overhead bridge!

Graffiti on a school wall

Saw lots of these flags being displayed – think cos Indonesia’s National Day was just over.

Very fascinated by this regal looking boutique hotel at Dago

We had a fun getaway! =)))

Bandung (Part 2)

Fandy shared with us that when he came to Singapore, he lost 10kgs cos he din like the food at all – no flavour! Hee! The only thing he liked was Songfa Ba Ku Teh near Riverwalk!

Indo food has very strong flavours and something that must accompany every meal is sambal!

I am not very into spicy food so I would take a small little bit but I saw Fandy literally coating his food with the sambal!

He brought us to Bumbu Desa for authentic Sundanese food and it was really flavourful!

I just love how they really deck out their restaurant so beautifully.

The food would be displayed out and you just pick and choose what you would like. It’s not a buffet though! There was something like a peanut salad, ayam, tau foo, duck’s egg, a spicy sweet corn soup, rice with ikan bilis. My mouth is watering as I think about it!

Another restaurant we went to, Bali Cafe, was really pretty. We had lunch under a pavilion at the garden!

The food was yums too! We also had a lot of sweet drinks when we were at Bandung. See that green drink on the top right? It’s Avocado with Chocolate! Super rich!

Other sweet stuff too… On the top right, we have rojak but it’s fruit with spicy sauce, not the rojak we are familiar with.

More sweet stuff, tiramisu and other Indo food!

Here we have a drink called Soda Susu – very very sweet! They give you a bottle of soda water and a cup of condensed milk and you mix everything up!

Strawberry juice! Very fresh, a bit sourish-sweet with lots of seeds! A must-try!

Tehbotol – bottled sweet tea! Another must-try, it’s really refreshing! Very nice when taking a break when shopping!

Then J.Co~ we bought a drink and got a free donut!

See the photo on the bottom right? That’s kampung chicken! Very skinny but tasty!

We bought lots of stuff back home too, brownies from Amanda, cheese roll and banana cake from Kartika Sari, lots of keropak and Indo Mie!

I miss Indo food!! Thank God we bought lots of Indo Mie back!

Bandung (Part 1)

Oops … sorry for the slow update, many people have been asking me when I was going to upload my Bandung trip pics! Here goes…..

When you think of having a holiday in Indonesia, normally Bali would come to mind. Well, apparently for Indonesians themselves, Bandung is also a popular destination for a short getaway. One major reason is the many factory outlets located in that city and from what we have gathered from those who have gone there before like Jared and Jerb, it’s a great place for males to shop!

And so we embarked on our trip to Bandung, with everything initiated by my dear hubby, for reasons that should be quite clear by now!

When we reached Bandung, we walked straight onto the airplane runway!

We were met at the airport by a recent SOT graduate, Fandy, whom Joe din know personally prior to this trip. We were linked up to him through Amber and Michael but he was so frenly and hospitable! Just like an old fren!

Most Indonesians there do not speak English well and we had to rely heavily on him to help us out with ordering and all. He was also our “driver” everyday and even paid for some of the meals when we couldn’t stop him in time! Really so touched by his hospitality and care!

On our 2nd day, he suddenly told us that he would be bringing us to his bro-in-law’s shop for a suit fitting! They were going to bless Joe with a tailor-made suit! Will put up pics when the suit is ready!

Shopping
Bandung’s factory outlets are located at 3 main areas – Riau, Dago and the area around Rumah Mode. Normally there would be sitting benches and well landscaped areas with built-in fountain within the factory outlets. Guess it’s to create a relaxing environment for you to do your shopping! You are also required to check in your bags at the entrance so you can easily select more stuff to buy without being impeded. Smart tactic right?

For the clothing there, there are hits and misses. As there are garment factories there producing clothes for brands, there are some overruns that get sold at the factory outlets. But more often than not, the items are imitation goods. You may see the branded label tag but from the printed design you know they aren’t the real deal! The jeans also had labels like Miss Sixty and Bebe... but eh... far from it! Ed Hardy T-shirts were everywhere!! (We din buy any in case you were wondering!!!)

But we came across some small shops selling made-in-Bandung original designs and they were pretty funky though mainly guys’ T-shirts. Some brands are VARC, Magic Happens, Satcas and Sash. You can click on the links to check out the designs, very cool! Why be a copy when you can be an original? =p

Out of the 3 areas, we find Dago the best for our shopping! We went there twice. Got lots of stuff from there. Of course, dun expect to get nice dresses and blouses, I bought mainly shorts, denim skirts and some T-shirts. Joe bought lots of T-shirts and jeans!

You can find out more about Bandung’s factory outlets from this blog.

Something interesting you can find in Bandung is a “Superhero Street” located at Cihampelas Main Street. The stores here sell mainly jeans and on the front facade, you will see different superhero characters!

Terminator!

Wolverine, Iron Man, Tarzan and the last guy at the bottom right is??

Other than factory outlets, Bandung also has shopping malls and one of the popular ones is called Paris Van Java. Fandy recommends it as a nice place to have a meal and chill with friends. One of the nights, we went for dinner with his parents, aunt and uncle, cousin, 2 other siblings, bro-in-law and niece! It was such a warm family feeling! =)

More updates to come!

Bandung – here we come!

Joe and me are off to the land dubbed “Paris of Java”, where the Sundanese people dwell. The land of cool and pleasant climate, cheap factory outlets (major reason why we are going there!) and delicious kuih lapis and brownie kukus. Update again when we get back on Thursday!