June 2, 2013 – Bandung to Surabaya
After a delayed flight and a brief scare that we were at the
wrong gate and had missed it, we arrived in Surabaya at around 10pm. We were greeted by the familiar and uniquely-Surabaya
experience of having literally hundreds of Indonesians crowded immediately
outside the arrivals hall. It is really
overwhelming and is as if every arriving passenger’s entire extended family
comes to greet them at the airport.
We hopped a cab to the Hotel Novotel Surabaya, which took
about 25 minutes. The Novotel is my favorite place in the entire
world (I’ll tell you why).
When we arrived at the room and saw how wonderfully they had renovated
in the three years since we’d been there. We settled in for a wonderful night’s sleep
with dreams of poolside lounging dancing in our heads.
June 3, 2013 - Surabaya
I mentioned that Novotel is my favorite place, and here’s
why. It was my first hotel ever in
Indonesia. We stayed there after
arriving from Malaysia when I first came to visit Taylor here in 2008. I mentioned the welcome at the airport being
overwhelming, and the Novotel was the perfect respite from the insanity of
Indonesia. It is a calm, tranquil place
right off of a busy street. From the
minute you walk into the lobby, you forget that you are in a huge, busy, smoggy
city and feel like you’re transported to a tropical island. Not to mention they have reliable internet, a
friendly staff and a beautiful pool at the center of the hotel. The pool has a waterslide, waterfalls and
fountains, beautiful plants and flowers, and comfortable chairs. I could literally spend an entire vacation at
the hotel!
We slept long and well in the comfortable bed at the Novotel. Out first stop was the included breakfast
buffet complete with Indonesian noodles, an Asian-breakfast must-have!
We alternated laying by the pool, swimming, and playing
games for a while until the sun went away and it threatened rain. No matter, I was getting burnt anyway. Since we didn’t really have plans or need to
leave the hotel until dinner, we decided to check out the spa situation. When we saw that they had 60-minute massages
for $19 and 90-minute facial/massages for $25, it was a done deal, we made
appointments for 4:30.
Our first stop was Taylor’s favorite road-side warung (small restaurant
outside) in Surabaya for some rice and chicken satay.
I opted to wear a dress and heels because we
were going to go to a live music place after dinner, and boy was I out of place
in the warung, where there are low picnic tables with vinyl coverings and
plastic stools to sit on. But the food
was delicious and just like Taylor remembered it. Another point for Surabaya!
The warung was on a really busy road just across the street
from a large mall. We wanted to go to
the mall, but crossing the street seemed impossible, so we hired a becak (a man
with a bike with a seat attached to the front).
He had to take us for a 10-minute ride around the block because it was a
one-way street, and it was really fun to see the city from street level on a
bike (and the reactions from people on the street to a white woman in platform
heels and a dress were priceless!).
We stopped by the mall for dessert at J. Co and I also found
a beautiful dress at Zara. We also stopped in a toy store to buy a gift for our friends that we were seeing the next day. While we were there, we were SHOCKED to find an Indonesian version of one of our favorite card games, Monopoly Deal! The game is impossible to get in a store in the US, so even though it sells for $8 retail, we paid $25 on Amazon for it. And here it was in Indonesian for $7. We obviously bought it!
After the mall, we went to a local live music place called
Colors.
In 2008 when I visited, we had a
wonderful experience there where the live music color band sang amazing music
and even let Taylor come up and perform with them! This time was a little different. The scene was fine, but the place was super
smoky and the bands were more hard rock than they were singalong cover bands,
so we didn’t stay too long before heading back to the peace and calm of the
Novotel!
June 4, 2013 - Surabaya
Instead of starting our day with the buffet breakfast, we
opted for breakfast in bed. We ordered
one American breakfast of eggs, beef sausage, potatoes, bread, juice and coffee
for $6 and it was plenty for two people!
After breakfast, we went to the pool to sneak in a quick dip
before we had to head out to meet our friends for lunch, and here's the part where I become a model!
While we were in the pool, two men in suits
came up to the side and asked if they could speak with Taylor. This being a Muslim country and given the
fact that I was wearing a bikini, we both initially thought that maybe they
were taking issue with my attire and would ask me to put on something more
modest. However, from the way Taylor
reacted to what they were saying, it didn’t seem that that was the case. Imagine my surprise when he came back over to
tell me that that was the hotels general manager and he was asking if I would
like to be a model for some photos they were taking of the hotels spa foor
marketing materials! Just when I thought
I couldn’t love the Novotel any more, they tell me I’m a model (albeit very
part time)! Of course, the reason they
asked me was because I am white, and they most likely want to appeal to
Westerners who come to town, who tend to spend more on hotels and such. We obviously agreed to this proposition and
arranged my shoot for 4pm, after lunch.
Taylor keeps in touch with some of his friends from
Indonesia, and a few of them have even come to America on Fulbrights of their own. One of them was Dewa, who spent a year teaching
Indonesian at the University of Georgia.
He is now married and living in Surabaya and has a 2-month old daughter
named Aira. We met Dewa, his wife Laily
and his little girl Aira at the mall for pizza for lunch. We didn’t know ahead of time, but this was
Aira’s first real trip out of the house!
It was such a joy to meet her and have lunch with them.
We made it back from the mall just in time for my photo
shoot. Since it was a spa shoot, I had
assumed that it would take place in the spa.
But when we got there, they had a rollaway bed wheeled out into the
middle of the pool area and all set up with linens and flowers around it. Everyone was standing around waiting for me to arrive for the shoot! It was so weird!
One of the spa workers took me to
the bathroom, gave me a wrap, and put my hair up in a bun before leading me out
to the bed. The photographer was very
friendly and they basically just had me lay down first for a head massage and
then sit up for a back massage. He took
photos of both and showed me the best ones.
The focus was obviously more on the background than on me, so the photos
turned out just fine because the pool is so beautiful! While I was having the shoot, Taylor got to
chat with the hotels manager, and we told him how much we love the hotel. He offered to treat me to another massage for
my time and both of us to dinner that night.
We had never had dinner at the Novotel, so we took them up
on their offer. They had a delicious
buffet and we each had a Bintang. After
dinner, we got dressed to go check out another bar that the hotel staff had
mentioned and that was just down the street from the hotel. However, on our way to go out, we passed
through the hotel lobby and there was a quartet of Indonesian singers doing
covers of pop songs. This is just the
type of music we had been looking for, so we couldn’t resist the urge to sit
down for a quick drink before heading out.
And here's a video:
Well, one drink turned into almost 2 hours listening to these singers
(they were amazing and their Indo-accents were priceless). They even played Heaven by Bryan Adams and
some of Taylor’s favorite Indonesian songs!
Since this was all we really wanted to find, we decided not to even leave
the hotel and called it a night when the band was done.
June 5,2013 – Surabaya to Yogykarta
Sad to leave the Novotel, all we did in the morning was
spend time at the pool. I even skipped
the free massage in favor of lounging and swimming for the last minutes before
leaving the hotel around 1pm for our flight to Yogykarta. We hope to go back to the Novotel for a night
later in the trip. We shall see!
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| Saying goodbye to the Novotel |
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