When in Indonesia

Halo! Apa kabar? Heehee~ Hello Blogmates! It’s been 2 weeks since I got back from my Indonesia trip and here I am to blog everything I did in my 5 days stay. Please bear with me coz I’ll be making 2 separate posts (This Jakarta trip and AFAID) and it’s gonna be picture heavy XD Though I will try my best to squeeze everything and hope it won’t get you bored when reading 😀 Okay? 😀

So before we start on our trip, our flight ticket is a seat sale from Cebu Pacific amounting only for 2,000php roundtrip 😀 We booked this around February 2018. Not bad right? Aren’t we meant to be for this trip? Also, there’s a funny story behind this. Originally we booked this flight for August 2-6 because AFAID’s date was Aug 3-5 but suddenly they announce a schedule change and there they changed to August 31 – Sept 2. We were so heartbroken and we thought we will not be able to go to AFAID (Because this is initially our main purpose, not the tour) and then after months of feeling lost a miracle suddenly happened. Maybe our prayers were answered and we were really meant to be to attend AFAID, WE GOT A REBOOKED!!! HAHAHAHAHA! So happy we rebooked it to AFAID’s new dates and then we’re so ready to go! HAHAHA! That’s a little funny story we had XD

We departed 8:30pm here in PH on August 29th and arrived around 12am in Indonesia. The first thing we do when we arrived was to buy a sim card so we can have our data around us. We decided to avail Indosat Ooredoo which is pretty cheap and convenient than Telkomasel. We bought 2 sims and just hotspot it for the others.

LODGING: We got our lodging from Airbnb. It was the cheapest lodging we found that is near the Convention. It’s a condo unit that can cater 5 people. Honestly, this is a very good lodging we got and we are very satisfied. I will recommend it to everyone who will have an event near ICE. Here’s the link for our lodging: Casa De Parco

It’s a very nice unit! It’s very clean and well-maintained. I just love everything here 😀 It sucks that we didn’t really have the time to stay for a little staycation coz we always go out. It would be awesome to stay a day here doing nothing and also the pool! HAHAHA! We got a very squeezed and limited time XD

DAY ONE TOUR

So we have 2 days free before the event and we decided to explore a little in Jakarta 🙂 Btw— if you’re wondering, we aren’t in Jakarta, we stayed in Tangerang which is an hour travel from Jakarta. That is because AFAID is held here so we decided somewhere near AFAID 🙂

• MUSEUM MACAN– Our first tour destination is the Museum Macan where in the Yayoi Kusama Exhibit is held. I’ve seen this before online and recommended it to my friends to go. Since this is limited, it’ll be a waste of chance not to visit 😀 I personally love her circle arts as well as her infinity room 🙂

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• KOTA TUA – We didn’t explore much around here coz we’re tired but we at least check it out since it was on the go to list when you visit Jakarta. I think this was their historical place and it’s pretty much the same with our Fort Santiago I think? Hehehe~ We didn’t rode the bike like any visitors does coz we’re just tired XD

Here’s the colorful bike you can rent for 1 hour. It cost 10,000IDR 🙂

• MONAS TOWER – We ended our day 1 Jakarta trip in Monas Tower. It’s a go to place too in Jakarta so we went here. Also there’s a Laser Show for Asian Games 2018 so we watched it as well. It feels Rizal Park on the other hand here but cleaner and wider and organized XD HAHAHA!

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• FOOD TRIP – Of course, sharing you the stuff we ate on this day tour. We definitely tried some of their local foods. Although I’m not really fond of spicy foods, I tried my best because I don’t want to waste this trip eating nothing XD HAHAHAHA!

These are the snacks I bought from Alfamart (Btw— they don’t have 711 or any other convenience store here. It’s majority just Alfamart and Indomaret XD) First is an Anmpanman bread, Potabee coz the name is so funny XD and Pop Mie noodles which I thought not spicy but it still is! XD

We had lunch after our Museum Macan in Grand Plaza Indonesia Mall at Golden Lumian. Their food is sooooo good! I want to eat here again! 😀

KERAK TELOR – Then we tried a local street food from Kota Tua. I just saw this from a vlog and was curious enough to recommend this to my friends to try. So it’s like an omelete with sticky rice and coconut. It’s delicious but spicy! I should have told sir not to put spicy but I love it so much! XD

RAGUSA ES ITALIA – So our last was to try this Ice cream parlor. I also found this on a vlog XD (I really did my research) and what’s amazing here is that this Ice cream cafe is 86 years old! It was establish 1932 and they’re still on going with their original handmade recipe! And everything was so delicious as well 😀

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DAY TWO TOUR

Our day two tour was only in Taman Mini Indah Indonesia. Since this place is so huge and will definitely take a whole day to explore, we only decide to visit this one and we have to squeeze our schedule here since it’s Day 1 of AFAID (a friend will attend the first day so we have to go back in the afternoon). We decided to chose which place we should stop and take a photo because initially TMII is the summary of whole Indonesia. It showcases tourist attraction of different places of Indonesia as a whole so it’s like if you can’t visit other places in Indonesia, you can atleast visit TMII and see what it looks like to be in Bali, Borubodur, Yogyakarta etc 😀

But apparently, we only visited Museum Indonesia (15K IDR Entrance) and Istana Anak-Anak Indonesia (10K IDR Entrance) coz I tell you it’s huge and we only walk XD Since we’re on a tight budget~ There’s a motorride you can rent for 40K but nah, we decided to walk XD Here’s some of our pics from TMII 😀

MUSEUM INDONESIA

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ISTANA ANAK-ANAK INDONESIA – This place is notable for this Disney-like castle 😀

And that’s all! It was freakin’ hot by the way but we still manage XD It was lunch time when we decided to go back to Tangerang so our friend could attend AFAID Day1 and the others, we went to AEON Mall to eat lunch/dinner 😀

I like AEON Mall 😀 It’s a huge mall that is full of Japanese stuff, well it’s a Japanese mall by the way 😀 And what’s amazing here is the food court! It’s so huge like it’s the whole floor and lots of restaurants to choose from!

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And so we ate another popular local food from Kwentiau 28 AHO. My friends ordered Nasi Goreng and Mie Goreng while me, I ordered Bakso Kuah (coz it looks like not spicy XD) I tried Nasi Goreng a little and it was delicious :(((( as well as Mie Goreng :((( Why can’t I stand spicy foods tho??? XDDD

As for desserts? We tried this Durian Flavored Mcflurry and Cotton candy Ice cream XD (I honestly don’t like Durian at all XD)

And that’s how our Jakarta trip ended. Thank you for reading XD Next post is AFAID 2018 😀

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Personal Notes:

• First of all, you may checkout our customize hashtag on Instagram #BCXSAlostinIDN for our consolidated updates on our trip 😀
• It made me happy to change my 5k PHP to 1M IDR. My one-day millionaire moment XD HAHAHA!
• I honestly love Indonesian food. Everything is so delicious! I should hunt Indonesian food here!
• Jakarta is like Manila but CLEANER!
• Traffic as they say worst but I say it’s not even yet at par in Manila. So don’t worry XD HAHAHA
• I AM SHOOKETH THERE IS NO PEDESTRIAN LANE! Everyone can walk back and forth on a highway! IM SHOOKTH!
• We didn’t try any local transportation because GRAB is so convenient. They’re fast and reliable unlike here in PH. They also have GRAB BIKE! So if you’re only alone, just hire grab bike 😀
• A tip of advice which we just learned on the 3rd day. Any establishment here may it be mall or condominium, they always have a TOLL FEE! And it’s worth 3k-4k so I suggest you change your dropped off somewhere near your place or never let your dropped off inside the lobby coz you’ll be charge everytime! HAHAHAHA!
• SMOKING EVERYWHERE IS LEGAL Y’ALL.
• Sambal sauce is their unli-gravy I CRIIII XDDD
• Their Mcdonalds is delicious than in PH WHY???? LOL!
• Indonesian girls are so pretty 😀
• We had a hard time communicating, thank you google translate for being our morale support XD
• READ OUR AFAID EXPERIENCE HERE: https://hinagarasu.com/2018/09/18/afaid-2018/

PS: I would like to commend the hospitality of the bankers in Taman Mini Indah Indonesia. When my friend tried to withdraw in one of the ATMs there, her card was eaten and not only once but TWICE! And the bank’s manager was so kind she secured us we will get back the card back within the day! We can’t thank her enough because the first try was already a signal but we tried it again~ We know it was a major hassle but we were accommodated accordingly and we are so thankful for that <3 If this is in PH, you have to wait for 15days to retrieve your card back. Sucks right? So thank you very much!!! <3