Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Indonesia welcomes globalization

A normal citizen : "Dear sir, I want to report a typo in one of our bus stop name plate"
A superior authority: "A typo, which one? you have the picture of it? hmmm I never realized that. It's kinda embarrassing, you know very well that our country now is chasing our neighbors in tourism rite??? we want so many foreign tourists to come here ritee??? we need to make every name plates, public signs, in english...so tourists can enjoy their visit to our lovely country"




C: " yes sir you are rite....the mistake is..."
A:" no no..you don't need to tell me where the mistake is, its obvious enough from the picture. I'll ask one of my men to fix this tomorrow. Next time you present around this corner, pay attention to it... "

C:"All rite sir, i'm glad to hear that"
A:"No problem, it's been my duty to handle such. Thanks for reporting, and thanks for paying tax annually for our lovely country"

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And a week later in that same spot, somebody must have been doing his job with proud



my engrish is suck.. i know that...

Sunday, July 10, 2011

de Ranch Lembang

This is one of Bandung's playground in the north part of the city. It takes a concept of a wild west ranch, plus horses, gold mine, cowboys, cowgirls, cow milk, and off course... the cows themselves.

The venue is actually intended for the children, but you will find more adults presence. One thing to be noted, for Indonesian middle class society, one kid is normally accompanied by one 'bibi', plus the two parents. So if you see one kid playing in this place, most likely he/she is accompanied by 3 other adults. This is not only in this place, but most other places that are intended for kids, you will find the same typical configuration. 1 kid + minimum 3 adults.
Enough with the Indonesian middle class lets get back to de ranch.

To enter this site, you'll have to pay Rp.5000/ person. Free of charge for childrens younger than 2 years.


Rp. 5000 is actually cheap enough, and you can trade the entrance ticket with one cup of milk inside the bar. If you want a yoghurt, then you can trade 2 entrance tickets. If you want more milk, you can simply purchase them without tickets.
If you want the milk more fresh and free... you can literally come to the barn and suck the milk direct from the cows breast, there may be an easier way but I never tried it anyway.

Beside the milk, they provide a full variety of 'Jajanan', like Mie Baso, Batagor, Tempe Mendoan, Bratwurst, and many others. Very typical of Bandung, with cold weather surrounding the place, anything will taste good in your tongue, so despite of the cheap entrance ticket, expect to lose more money with all these Jajanan.


Now back to the core business, the playground itself. Children may experience riding horses, or together with the parents on the cart, rowing, wall climbing, fishing, mining golds (not a real one off course), making chocolate cakes, and ... shopping in factory outlet. The cost for trying the games ranging from Rp 10.000 to Rp. 50.000, i.e. riding horse back for one lap (+/- 5minutes) will cost you around Rp. 20.000 . Umm, well I consider that one moderate...not cheap, but affordable for some.




In Conclusion;
Location : 8 - it helped by the fresh breezy air of Lembang
Price : 7 (the market is for the middle class - not really affordable for some family)
Facility : 7
Cleanness : 8
Overall : this is not the best place in Bandung for taking kids, but really worth visit, kids love riding horses... they are tired of air conditioned car in the middle of traffic Jam.