Climbing Mount Ijen and Bromo (part 3) - The Road to Bromo

After long waiting for updates (6 month of postponement again, Yolanda) I'll go through my 3rd and final day of trip, which is the main trip, which is to Bromo.

Yes, Bromo is the star of the trip however sad to say it was not as enjoyable and satisfying as Mount Ijen, the one that I went to the previous day. Maybe mainly because we feel that the path to Bromo were made easy because of the amount of tourist that went there; thus that "sense of achievement" of climbing is lost. Not to mention the sickening crowd of the whole area.

Just to make it short, as usual we start the trip around 4 at dawn, and we rode the Jeep to the first area to see the sunrise. We were brought to a hill called Love Hill, which were quite recommended to see the sunrise on. There's a little climb here, not a climb actually, more of passing about 50-70 stairs and that's it. After that anticlimax moment, we just took space for waiting and we wait around 1 hour until the sun came.

It's not the best photo, I told you, where most of them were taken with a mind to avoid people in the picture as best as we can.

The twilight were pretty awesome even though it's quite foggy that day. After a while the Bromo can be seen clearly once the fog cleared a bit and the day is getting brighter.

The down-climbing were a lot of homework, passing through the crowd like this..

However we managed to snap picture together on the other side of the hill before we climb down.

Satisfied and done with the Sunrise and Love Hill, we went straight to the next main attraction which is visiting the active volcano of Bromo. Its around 30 minutes by the same jeep, which brought us to nearest spot of Bromo's bottom parking area. 

From there it's another 30 minutes until 1 hour of walk to the infamous "Stairway to Hell".

Even though its was not that hilly, what makes the walk difficult is that the ground were mostly sand; thus make it harder to walk, not to mention the sand dust always catch our eyes, and the more we go near the feet of the volcano, the more rocky it is.

Soo, locals gave us solution!! Why not use horse to go to the bottom of the stairs??

It was quite expensive actually; unfortunately I kinda forgot how much that was but I think it's around IDR 50k-150k round trip depends on wheres your checkpoint when picking the horse). We're quite hesitant at first however since there's quite a lot of horse-user making crazy sand dust with their horse, rather be a victim of the sand-dust itself; we decide why bother walking and inhale all of the dust and just use horse instead, for health reasons..

So here my and my friends, taking horse..

Moreover, save time! 15 minutes only for maybe an hour trip.

And once we reached the stairway, we just patiently queue..

Managed to took several good photos too while queuing.

Once we reached the top, we saw the hole immediately. The volcanic hole were amazing and both quite scary. Not only emits sulphuric smoke yet the sound of whatever inside is very loud. 

After we're satisfied taking photos and awe-ing the volcano, we went down asap since there's still a lot of people queuing for the view. We use the horse again to go down the rocky hill and straight to the jeep parking area, which took us to the other two additional spots, which is Teletubbies Hill and Whispering Sand area.

Teletubbies Hill were actually quite ordinary. It was named that way as it consists of several sized hill that formed in a way that resembles the hill on Teletubbies movie. It was not that obvious but recognizable. We took several group photo as well since there's space to it.

As the day is getting brighter, hotter, and sandier, we just take off to the final location which is Whispering Sand area.

We didn't find any extraordinary thing on this area that day, where we think it was just a big flat plain sand area. However this area were famous since the release of Indonesian movie called "Pasir Berbisik" "Whispering Sands" (literally) which tells story about refugees making their ways across sand dunes, and there's this moment where the protagonist have a habit to "hear the sound of sands" in this ares.  And its is true since the locals say that during calmer days, you can hear the sound of the sand's friction that resembles 'whispers', which explain its name. Unlucky for us that it was quite windy that day we can't hear a thing.. 

Since this is our final spot and maybe marked as the end of our trip in Bromo, me and my other 2 friends took one last photo before we went back to our hotel and get cleaned.

All in all, it was such a mind blowing trip!!

Outside of how pain-in-the-ass hard cleaning all the sands from our clothes and shoes, this is just a perfect trip to stay away from the busy days of Jakarta even though it was only for several days. It is our reminder to keep exploring nature in some ways, as there are a lot more to be seen outside, aside from what we're doing on daily basis in Jakarta.

That's all guys for the consecutive posts about Bromo (which took me half of a year to finish it off, ffs) and see you on my next post!

Kawagoe Strolling

Last time I had my company training in around Saitama area and right after completing our training, me and several of my friends decided to take a stroll around an area called Kawagoe, which is famous for its Edo style preserved buildings environment. During that Edo period, this town was an important commercial resource to Tokyo that it grew so wealthy more than the other town.

We stopped on a station called “Kawagoe” (川越) and then we walked around 15-20 minutes to the center of the old town of Kawagoe called the “Warehouse District” which apparently has the strongest Edo-style buildings environment.

My bad was, at that time, my friends lead us all the way so I kinda didn’t remember how we got there, but all I knew was that he took a map from the station and directly followed the instruction there based on my research on web, apparently it was much more closer to a station called “Kawagoeshi” (川越市) and its just a walk straight to the Warehouse District. However, since there are so many shops along the road to the warehouse district, we enjoyed the 20 minute walk a lot.

Even they have some branded shops there such as Zara, Starbucks etc. Wtf. Talking about building-style generation gap. Hahahah.

Walking the roads, we can see the building style changed from modern to Edo-style buildings slowly. Kinda have that feeling of creepiness (I know I played horror games too much).

Some shops were so old style we don’t even know whether it is operating or just standing there doing nothing...

Reaching the main spot, we slowly felt that the crowd were increasing, and we know we’re on the right track.

I think the Warehouse District starts from the famous bean shops here.

They sell all kind of Japanese style beans with several flavour such as Kinako which appears to be the most famous one, matcha, chocolate, and several more that I even can’t remember. We can bring around our toothpick gave by the shop assistant, walk around the store and try all the samples that were put on the trays. It’s like, bean buffet. Eat all the beaaaaansss.

Not just eating of course, I brought some beans back home and it cost around 500-700 yen per box. They sell other items too such as chips etc however their beans seems like the famous one, so I didn’t bother to look at the other stuff beside beans.

Continue.

We keep strolling around the area, found one cute Hello Kitty store. 

Since I went with 3 guys, my visit here was less than 10 minutes. I keep walking inside the store and they be like, already standing in front of the store waiting for me with their “C'mon we have to continue” face without mercy. Bah.

But it was quit reasonable. It was around 4 at that time and most of the stores there start closing around 5, so we kinda have to walk faster to explore all of the best spots.

From there, we just walk strolling around the road and visited several stores with less than 5 minutes each inside.

And we reached the candy alley (at least that’s what they called in the website) ! They sell all the very old style Japanese sweets, and, weird toys.

They have the weighed candy spot where I can put all the flavoured candy that I want in one bag. It cost around 200 yen for 100 gr. Quite exciting. But sorry I didn’t take any photos of it.

This is the continuance of the candy alley, marked with several stores selling the same style candies and Japanese traditional foods. And we found several coffee shops, bread store, and hotels.

My friends were fascinated by all the koi fishes inside the pond outside a random restaurant. They look at these boring things and won’t let me look at the Hello Kitty longer. Booo.

And here we are, reached the main spot, the landmark of Kawagoe, the Bell Tower! The tower was rebuilt in 1984 after a fire destroyed it on 1983.

And just beside the Bell Tower, there was a shop that sells best-ever taro flavour Ice cream that I ever taste in my life. At first I hesitated to buy but after I ate it, I swear it was the best thing ever.

And sadly to say, my taro-flavored ice cream marked the end of our journey. Since it was already 6 plus and most of the store were closing down, we decided to walk back to Kawagoe Station and take a train back home to Tokyo.

It was an exciting short trip after all! Escaping all the city lights and crowds from Tokyo. Enjoying a different environment once in a while is definitely my one way, or, our way to release the city stress a little bit. Maybe I won’t be back here again for a near time, or, maybe never again, since there were still so much of the cities in Tokyo that worth to be explored. However, this city didn’t fail to leave great memories I cannot forget and I will keep looking forward to be back here again someday.

The Twig (Pantai Indah Kapuk) : Review

Hari Sabtu lalu, tepatnya pada tanggal 17 Agustus, yang lalu, saya dan teman2 saya berkesempatan untuk mencoba  tempat makan yang cukup memang sudah kami incar di Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta Utara.

The Twig

Telepon: (021)29424808

Lokasi : Ruko Crown Golf Blok B no. 5, Pantai Indah Kapuk

Dengan konsep dekor western vintage dan harga makanan minuman berkisar antara 20rb – 70rb an, The Twig sangat cocok dikunjungi oleh pasangan-pasangan maupun teman-teman untuk nongkrong! (Bahkan waktu kami2 dateng ke sini juga ada yang foto prewed segala hahaha)

Karena berhubung saya datang dengan banyak teman, bisa deh review cukup banyak makanan (yang kami pesan). Beberapa di antaranya (beserta foto dan kisaran harga; lupa harga pastinya karena lupa nyimpen bon hahaha) adalah:

Jambalaya Rice (+- 35k) / 7 out of 10

Ibaratnya, nasi daging asam manis. Asam dan manisnya pas, nasinya juga pulen. But I think semenjak specialty The Twig ini adalah European and Western food, this is delicious indeed but not their specialty, I guess?

Twig Burger (+- 58k) / 8 out of 10

Porsinya besar, cocok buat cowok-cowok yang butuh asupan energi besar hahaha. Onion ring dan french fries-nya garing, not to mention patty-nya juga tebal.

Fish and Chips (+- 40k) / 8 out of 10

Seperti fish and chips biasa sih, fried dory fish + tartar sauce, porsinya lumayan besar, enak buat bagi-bagi!

Mac and Cheese (+- 39k) / 9 out of 10

Pasta yang dibaked dengan cream cheese yang light, tidak terlalu pekat kayak cream fettucini jadi tidak enek, porsinya juga pas (untuk ukuran cewek sih) dan ada potongan smoked beef-nya. Sayangnya garlic breadnya kurang garing yah imo. Tapi, tetep recommended banget untuk pesan ini!

Aglio Olio (+- 35k) / 9 out of 10

1 hal pas makan ini, bumbunya berasa! Semuanya balance, pedes2nya berasa, gurihnya berasa tapi tidak terlalu asin, dan kita bisa milih toppingnya mau udang, jamur atau ayam. Recommended!

Apple Crumble (+- 35k) / 9 out of 10

This is the ultimate dessert!  Vanilla atau chocolate ice cream (boleh pilih) disajiin dengan crumble (seperti biskuit soft gitu tapi garing. Bingung juga deskripsiinnya) dan dibawahnya ada baked apple yang hangat! Kalau semuanya dimakan bersamaan, enak banget! Garing, manis dingin hangat semuanya bercampur jadi satu! Porsinya juga pas. Dessert seperti ini pernah saya temui juga di Outback Steakhouse, dengan harga yang lebih mahal (55k) tapi porsinya besar (dan cenderung bikin enek jadinya, lagipula crumblenya ga se-crunchy ini.)

Peach Tea / Lychee Tea (+- 20k)

Yang ini ga ada foto atau reviewnya yah.. kayaknya semua resto hampir semua nyajiin ini, rasanya juga sama aja -___- Cuma remarkablenya adalah kalau pesen Peach Tea, di dalemnya dapet potongan peach yang gede banget! Hahaha bonus banget deh.

Well, for overall, tempat ini recommended banget untuk dicobain, ga bakal nyesel sih. Overall view:

Service 8/10

Food 8/10

Price 7/10

Environment 8/10

Average spending per person (food+drink+dessert) +- 100k

Selain The Twig ini, Sebenernya masih banyak banget tempat yang kami2 pengen cobain, kayak Dessert Company (tuh yang di sebelahnya The Twig persis), Carnivor, Beatrice Quarter dkk. Tapiiii berhubung perut dah kenyang banget jadinya langsung cabut dari PIK ke CP buat jalan2 nurunin makanan hahaha. Ujung2nya makan di food court CP bleh.

Anyway, this is my first food review. Still not too good at it but try to be as informative as I can! Will do another post of food review (cause this is so unbelievably fun)!