Don't tell my mom- finally~~

So many things to write, yet I am bitten by the year end bug. Howeverrr.... I need to get this one out of the way.

5th Dec 2011
Its my final day in Bandung. I woke up at 4am~ yes, Fajr prayers are early, sun risen at 5~ish but the actual business hours in most places are still at 9am. To me its a 3 hours waste already. It was raining heavily so I went back to sleep, somehow I was woken up by the sounds of kids, many of them!! I mentioned earlier that this guesthouse was located in the middle of pesantren. What a pesantren without a school right? So yes, its Monday and kids do go to school... (duh!!)

taken from my room's balcony

Looks like they had their assembly going on. I get ready for breakfast and waited for the kids to be dismissed before going down. I have to pass through the crowd in order to get to the cafe. Today the plan is just to walk around and maybe try to find some last minute ole-ole to be brought back.

After breakfast, I took a walk around the pesantren, its a complete complex on its own.

nursery, clinic, various guesthouses and parking area big enough for any event to take place

I took angkut with no particular destination in mind, trying to kill time before checkout. I was trying my luck to find the famous Kartika Sari. I thought I saw a big one on the route from Island Plaza to Lembang, asked the angkot driver, but he brought me to one of Amanda's Brownies chain instead. Since it was still early in the morning, they don't really have much baked good yet, so I just moved on. I board on the same angkot that sends me there as I know it will bring me back to where I started. This time I get to see more of Bandung. The area that it covers was Kalapa. And on this route I located the famous Jalan Dago, that is where most factory outlet was situated. I did not stopped though, first because I have no money :P and second, I am not the type that can buy there and then. I will need quite a significant amount of window shopping time before deciding, so I wouldn't want to risk missing my flight back ;)

Went back to the guesthouse, settled the bill and checked out. The driver drops me at the airport around 1pm. My flight was at 3.45 pm but I just liked to be there earlier.The flight was delayed (again!!) and I finally touched down in LCCT at 7pm. I recorded one safety violation on Air Asia (I just could not leave my work behind :P )

Do not do this at home. You should switch off the engine before refueling. Major fire hazard!!

My ex-housemate picked me up and after dinner, I reached home around 10pm. I came back exhausted but satisfied :D I learnt many new things.

Previously I know nuts about Islam in Indonesia, but through random conversation I found out they have few groups, biggest is NU followed by Muhammadiah. I even bought a DVD about the founder of Muhammadiah. That answers my curiosity why sometimes we heard Indonesia celebrate Eid one day earlier, because they have this different groups and school of thought. For now its a new knowledge to me. Its not my position to discuss which one was right and and which one is not. Its a long debate between them and I don't plan to dwell on that much more.

The people, despite most of them looks like 'preman', they are helpful actually, and people on the street does not look like people in the sinetron. I was always amazed by how beautiful those sinetron cast are, every single character be it the good ones or the bad one are all pretty and somehow looked pan-asian mix. In actual fact, most people are really close resemblance to us Malay (well, that is a broad statement) . Even among Malays we differ from one another. But the point is looks doesn't matter, its the inside that counts. I was scared to pull out my camera most of the time. I don't know what I was so afraid about, but I was just being cautious. But when I do took it out, I get few request ;)

I did managed to fulfill my objective, see the place as it is, experience a little bit of their culture annndddd....... came back with this :

I did not even busted the luggage limit...hahaha...

So there it is, my short trip in writing. Coming back I have more places to add to my list. Will blog about that later. Till then, daaa...... :)