So, yea, we played Stepmania. If you don't know what it is, and you've watched Transformers (the first one), you know the part when the SWAT team enters the house of the computer hacker kid, one of the characters was doing Stepmania. It's really cool and the one I have connects to the laptop, and I have 2 dancemats so that both the kids can play at the same time and challenge each other. Hana likes to join in too and it's the one game I allow my kids to play any time of the week 'coz they can only jump so much and they get tired out sooner or later, and they sleep early which leaves me to do work I bring home. Haha, yea, that's my little secret out in the open. It keeps the kids healthy, burns off their excess energy and gets them to bed early. It's also good incentive for them to get their homework done first. Though nowadays Mika's more into Hotwheels car games. And thanks to Lexi who bloghopped recently, we also discovered another cool game site called http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/. We particularly liked game called Boomshine among other games.
And now, days later, I'd like to continue where I left off...so I was saying we passed by the zoo which was one crazy busy place and there were really many people there and you can see horses and their handlers, horses and carriages, people on horse rides on the main road. I thought of getting the kids to ride the horsesor the carriages but my mom didn't think it'd be a novel experience for them coz they've been on horse rides before. Plus coz we shared the road, she felt it was a little dangerous. Anyway, half an hour later, we finally arrived at the nearby FO that would have taken us 5 to 10 minutes to walk to. I think we went to Episode first. Then Jetset. I think Jetset had better stuff the first time I was there. My mom who has also been to Bandung before, stayed at Grand Serela Hotel, somewhere near Jl Riau, have not really explored the FOs in the area we were now staying at. Anyway, we realised after going into several shops that stuff in the shops were 'seasonal'. Hmm how do I say this? For example, bags, this time we went there, there were a lot of Samsonite bags on sale, whereas during our previous visit, we didn't come across Samsonite bags. I bought Burberry stuff at Jetset and this time round, no more Burberry T-shirts. But this trip, it wasn't really for us. We've been saving up so we can get stuff for the kids especially Inez, and Mika whose clothes were getting smaller. Zul bought them all Sports shoes like Nike, and Adidas for RM60 each. That's half the price of what it costs here. Anyway, that jumping the story a bit. So after some looking and seeing, and since these shops were near the hotel, we didn't do any serious purchasing. We figured we could always go back the next day.
So we got back to the hotel and Zul checked us in already. Two rooms, two different buildings. We (and Baby Hana included) took the one that required some climbing while Mom and the bigger kids took the room at the back.
Then we went to Pasar Baru after that. Zul got bored and took Mika with him to get him out of our hair and we went cloth shopping. Hehe cloth was the only thing I wanted to get for myself this time and they all had to be the non wrinkle type coz God only knows how much I hate ironing. Which is why I don't like wearing batik sometimes, but the satin silk type is not that wrinkly. As usual I digress.
After spending like 3 hours there, Zul started reminding us that we haven't done shopping for the kids yet. Okay, okay! So we left for Sogo Paris Van Java for early dinner and hopefully some mindless shopping. Hehe (Read here for more info on PVJ and see the cool pictures of PVJ; I didn't really take many pictures this time coz we were busy chasing after the kids.)
I've been wanting to go there but didn't get to the first time. We did go to Paris Van Java FO though. Hehe. My mom also hasn't been there before; so we got the driver to take us there and it's really a huge mall. Sorta remind me of when I went shopping in Maidstone and when you walk out of the main mall, there are smaller boutiques on the outside that lined the street, both left and right. And the brand Charles and Keith was there. That's like a present fave. They do have some interesting designs and they are affordable and they were having a sale! I already bought my bag (no sale though) in KL. Other brands include Billabong, Roxy. Really, the blog I linked above got everything there is to know on PVJ.
The first half of the evening was cool but around 8pm local time, and 7 pm,their time, as my mom was searching her handbag to take out her wallet to purchase something, she realised her wallet was not in her handbag. She started to panic as she realised that she has been a victim of some pickpocket. Thankfully her handphone was still in her bag and her passport was in my safekeeping. If not we would have to go to the embassy. So as it turned out, we spent our first night out at the PVJ Security Guard Post. Thankfully, all the guards muda2 and tegap2. Hahaha. Seriously, it was like nearly 12 when we got back to our hotel. Again, I digressed.
Back to when my mom discovered her missing purse, we went separate ways searching for the wallet just in case Mom dropped it somewhere, or left it at the payment counter at some shop. Thankfully, Zul was sooo nice and understanding about it and kept the kids busy while we sat down somewhere to cancel Mom's cards; and blocked her ATM card too just in case. You never know. Poor Mom, dahlah sakit belakang, the reason why she was somewhat careless in the first place. The backache was so painful she thought of cancelling at first, but we persuaded her to come anyway.
And then this happened, Mom was sooo not in the mood but Bandung anymore. We told her maybe she'd helped some really poor people. Yea, she was okay till we came back and my dad's credit card statement came and those poor pickpockets went shopping like crazy in TWO boutiques to buy stuff amounting to about 2 million rups. That's like nearly 1k our money and that got my mom soooo upset. She already lost like also 2 million rups in her wallet coz we've just arrived, we've not spent and whenever my mom wanted to spend her money to buy lunch or dinner, we told her to keep for shopping. Moral of the story, if people want to treat you, let them. Hahaha then if something like this happens, they'd lose less.
So after that, we reported it to the guard of PVJ and that was when we had to hang out in the security post. First we waited for one of the guards to go get a form because they seemed to have run out of them. That took some time. Imagine if the guards were gendut2 macam some guards in Malaysia, that'd take even longer. After some time, the guard came back, and the one who sent him out discovered that the guard took the wrong form. So he himself went off the get the right one. Tunggu lagi. So we waited and finally he came back, and he took down our details and account of what happened. Which was not easy, coz seriously, BM and Indonesian language aren't exactly the same , you know.
Some time during the report, Mika already fell asleep in the pram, followed by Inez and then Hana. Then we were advised to go the the police station to report the theft. And so we did and that really took less time than the guards and the police didn't really refer to the guard's report which made us feel that if something similar happens to anyone, just go to the police station immediately. Anyway, they were helpful.
So there ends Day 1. Later I will write about the subsequent days.
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