In this post I would like to share some knowledge about rail transport industry in the Netherlands which even quite many Dutch people (at least based on those I know) are not really aware of 🙂 . As this is just a blog post, obviously I will not get to too much details as there are a lot of parties that are involved, and some politics as well 🙂 .
Anyway, let us just start…
When we think about “rail transport”, I bet most of us immediately think about “trains”, which is understandable of course because we have to board a train to travel with a rail transport. But of course rail transport does not only involve the trains. We also need the hard infrastructure such as the train stations, the railroad, and the overhead (electric) line; and also the soft infrastructure such as the timetable and traffic control.
Rotterdam Centraal Station
In the Netherlands, when people think about rail transport, they immediately associate it with “NS” (Nederlandse Spoorwegen/Netherlands Railways) to represent the whole industry. Here, I can say that this is, actually, definitely WRONG. As a matter of fact, NS is only one part of the industry; despite, indeed, being a big part of it.
So who is NS?
Actually, NS is just ONEtrain operator in the Dutch railway network; meaning that it only operates the trains[1] that run on the railroad. Yes, just the trains. Moreover, NS is NOT the only train operator in the Netherlands; even though indeed it is the largest one. There are more than 20 other train operators in the country, for instance Arriva, NS International, Connexxion, Veolia, and DB Schenker (freight train). And just like NS, they just operate the trains too.
An NS Intercity train entering platform 1 of the old Delft station.
So who are responsible for the train stations? For the railroad? For the overhead line? For the timetable? For the traffic control? Well, it is a separate organization called ProRail. In principal, ProRail is responsible for the non-train aspect of train operation.
NS and the other operators are clients of ProRail. And as clients, they have to pay ProRail for using the infrastructure. In return, ProRail provides the infrastructure and processes the schedules for the operators; and manages the train traffic too, of course.
Though, confusingly, the railway stations in the Netherlands are marked with NS logo. This is actually an artefact of the history and politic that are out of this post’s scope.
“Okay, I get it. So we can basically group the stakeholders of the railway industry into two groups: ProRail as the infrastructure owner and the train operators?” Well, the answer is, unfortunately, NO. This is where it gets more complicated. Being such a complex and advanced railway network, there are more parties that are involved in the Dutch railway industry. For instance, ProRail does not actually maintain the infrastructure themselves and nor does NS with their trains. Third parties are employed to do these jobs. Yes, third parties, plural. And as they are companies, obviously in some sense they are “competing” against each other; which makes the matter even more complicated.
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Maybe someone needs to watch these bags at Maliebaan Station too? 😛
Okay, I have to stop this post here before it gets too complicated and confusing to follow, haha. But at least, hopefully, it has provided the very general idea about the railway industry in the Netherlands.
To sum up, NS does not cover the entire railway industry in the Netherlands because NS is just one (of many) train operator. The infrastructure and traffic are the responsibility of a separate company, ProRail. However, they outsource some of their jobs to several third companies. 🙂
BAHASA INDONESIA
Melalui posting ini aku ingin sedikit berbagi pengetahuanku akan dunia industri transportasi kereta-api di Belanda yang bahkan cukup banyak orang Belanda (setidaknya berdasarkan yang aku kenal sih) pun juga nggak tahu 🙂 . Karena ini hanya lah sebuah posting blog saja, jelas aku tidak akan menuliskan banyak detail di sini karena ada banyak pihak yang terlibat, dan juga politik, haha 🙂 .
Anyway, mari kita langsung mulai…
Ketika kita mendengar “transportasi rel”, aku tebak kebanyakan pasti berpikir “kereta api”, yang mana tidak mengherankan karena kita harus menaiki kereta kan kalau mau bepergian melalui rel. Tetapi tentu saja mode transportasi ini tidak hanya melibatkan kereta apinya saja. Kita juga membutuhkan infrastruktur kerasnya seperti stasiun kereta, rel kereta apinya sendiri, dan juga kabel listrik di atas; dan juga infrastuktur lunaknya seperti jadwal kereta api dan kontrol lalu-lintas.
Rotterdam Centraal Station
Di Belanda, ketika kebanyakan orang berpikir tentang transportasi kereta, mereka langsung mengasosiasikannya dengan “NS” (Nederlandse Spoorwegen/Kereta Api Belanda) untuk merepresentasikan keseluruhan industrinya. Di sini, aku bisa bilang bahwa ini, sebenarnya, amat sangat SALAH. Bahkan, NS hanya lah satu bagian saja dari industri ini; walaupun memang adalah bagian yang besar sih.
Loh, lalu siapa dong NS itu?
Sebenarnya, NS hanyalah SATU operator kereta saja di jaringan per-kereta-apian Belanda; yang mana artinya mereka hanya mengoperasikan kereta-kereta yang berjalan di atas rel itu. Iya, hanya kereta-keretanya saja. Terlebih lahi, NS bukanlah satu-satunya operator kereta di Belanda; walaupun memang mereka lah yang terbesar. Ada lebih dari 20 operator kereta lainnya di negeri ini, misalnya Arriva, NS International, Connexxion, Veolia, dan DB Schenker (kereta kargo). Dan sama seperti NS, mereka hanya mengoperasikan keretanya saja.
Sebuah kereta Intercity-nya NS memasuki jalur 1 stasiun kereta api Delft lama.
Nah, terus siapa dong yang bertanggung-jawab atas stasiunnya? Atas relnya? Atas kabel listriknya? Atas jadwalnya? Atas kontrol lalu-lintasnya? Yah, jawabannya adalah sebuah organisasi lain yang bernama ProRail. Secara singkat, bisa dibilang ProRail bertanggung-jawab akan semua sisi non-kereta di operasi kereta api, haha.
NS dan operator-operator lain adalah kliennya ProRail. Dan sebagai klien, mereka harus membayar ProRail untuk menggunakan infrastruktur keretanya. Sebaliknya, ProRail bertugas menyediakan infrastruktur dan memproses jadwal kereta bagi operator-operator ini; dan tentu juga harus mengatur lalu-lintasnya juga.
Walaupun, yang membuat semakin rancu nih, stasiun-stasiun kereta api di Belanda ditandai dengan logonya NS. Ini adalah pengaruh sejarah dan politik yang berada di luar cakupan posting ini.
“Okay, mengerti deh. Jadi pada dasarnya kita bisa membagi stakeholders dari industri kereta api ke dua grup: ProRail sebagai pemilik infrastruktur dan operator-operator kereta?” Hmm, sayangnya jawabannya adalah TIDAK. Di sini lah dimana situasi menjadi semakin rumit. Saking ruwet dan majunya jaringan kereta api di Belanda, ada banyak pihak yang ikut terlibat di industri kereta api Belanda. Misalnya, ProRail sebenarnya tidak langsung turun tangan dalam merawat infrastrukturnya, begitu pula NS tidak langsung merawat kereta-keretanya sendiri. Beberapa pihak ketiga dipekerjakan untuk melakukan pekerjaan-pekerjaan ini. Iya, beberapa pihak ketiga, plural. Dan karena mereka adalah perusahaan, mereka juga “berkompetisi” satu sama lain; yang mana membuat situasi semakin ruwet.
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Mungkin mesti ada yang dipekerjakan untuk mengawasi tas-tas di Stasiun Maliebaan ini juga ya? 😛
Oke, nampaknya aku harus berhenti di sini deh sebelum cerita menjadi semakin rumit dan membingungkan, haha. Tetapi setidaknya, mudah-mudahan secara umum ide akan industri perkereta-apian di Belanda sudah tersampaikan lah ya.
Untuk merangkum posting ini, NS tidak lah mewakili keseluruhan industri kereta api di Belanda karena NS hanyalah satu (dari banyak) operator kereta. Infrastruktur dan lalu-lintasnya adalah tanggung-jawab dari perusahaan lain yang terpisah, ProRail. Namun, beberapa pekerjaan mereka limpahkan ke beberapa perusahaan pihak ketiga. 🙂
Yes, that was the Spoorwegmuseum (Railway Museum in English) in Utrecht.
In the symposium which I had to attend last year, an idea came up to gather all the PhDs funded through our research programme together in an informal setting to exchange ideas and to get to know each other’s project better which might potentially lead to a collaboration hence fasten up the research process.
You might have known (even though I almost never mention anything about my work in details 🙂 ) that my research project is also very related to the railway industry in the Netherlands (aside from the mathematical side as well because I am in the mathematics department in TU Delft). So that is why the informal gathering which took place this Wednesday was held in the Spoorwegmuseum, haha 😆 .
Okay I will not get to the details on the activities of the whole day which included presenting our research and discussion here and there, which involved a debate as well between me and another PhD student, lol 😆 .
Okay I will talk a little bit about the debate because this is my blog so I can write whatever I want. In short he did not believe what I was (am) doing hence my research is, in a way, wrong and useless (he mentioned this in front of everyone). Of course I stood my ground and counteracted his statement. Long story short, in the end I was able to make him, at least, see the matter from my point of view and while he did not necessarily agree with me (yet), at least he started to see my point 🙂 .
Yes, that is how I put our debate nicely because, to be honest, it hurt when he made that comment. Indeed, maybe he was just “being Dutch” with all the directness and stuff. But that did not mean I did not have the right to counterargument him and actually made him bite his own words (I made him think and because of that he contradicted himself), in front of everyone too. You know, I can “be Dutch” too 😉 .
Okay, enough for the rant now. I will get back to the Spoorwegmuseum now 😛 .
Here is a photo of an old locomotive
One of the agenda was a tour around the museum, and it was a very nice tour! Haha 😆 . We got some access to the restricted area of the museum (yes we were VIPs 😆 ) and the guide explained a lot of the very interesting history of the railway industry in the Netherlands.
There was a simulator which they said it would be like riding a roller-coaster or something. Because we had the time, we went on it (yes, we got paid our salary for this activity, lol 😆 ). At first it looked cool though but the ride itself, while was actually really cool, was quite underwhelming for me because I expected it to be like a real roller-coaster. But since it was not a real one, of course it was not like the real one and did not raise my adrenaline level at all, lol 😆 .
The day ended with a nice dinner at the museum as well. Btw, the museum building used to be an actual old train station built in the 19th century. For us, we spent our day in the room which used to be the 1st and 2nd class passengers’ waiting room, including our dinner. The dinner was really nice. It involved risotto and it was the best risotto I have ever had in my life!
The dinner dish
Okay, I don’t eat risotto a lot but that is mainly because I already have an expectation on how rice should be cooked. And risotto is a way of rice cooking that is very different with how rice is cooked in Asia. So in all of my experiences with risotto up to that point, I had always been “disappointed”. However, not this time though! I actually really liked it! Haha 😆
Het Spoorwegmuseum
The main hall of Maliebaan Station
Old style toilet
Restauratie
A decoration
Maliebaan Station
Old train
Another old locomotive
Old electric train
A railway turntable
A tank train model
A super old locomotive
BAHASA INDONESIA
Jadi ceritanya hari Rabu lalu aku bekerja disini:
Het Spoorwegmuseum
Huahaha 😆 .
Iya, itu adalah Spoorwegmuseum (Museum Kereta Api) di Utrecht.
Jadi di simposium yang aku hadiri tahun lalu, sebuah ide muncul untuk mengumpulkan semua mahasiswa PhD (S3) yang didanai melalui program riset kami di dalam sebuah acara informal untuk berbagi ide dan mengenal riset masing-masing lebih jauh karena dengan begini mungkin bisa tercipta kolaborasi yang mempercepat proses risetnya.
Mungkin sudah pada tahu (memang sih aku jarang sekali menyebutkan detail pekerjaanku disini 🙂 ) bahwa topik risetku juga berkaitan erat dengan industri perkereta-apian di Belanda (di samping riset matematika juga karena kan aku dipekerjakan di departemen matematika di TU Delft). Jadilah acara kumpul-kumpul tak resmi ini diadakannya di Spoorwegmuseum, haha 😆 .
Oke, aku tidak akan menceritakan dengan detail aktivitas kami disana sepanjang hari yang mana termasuk mempresentasikan masing-masing riset dan diskusi disana-sini; dan ini termasuk debat antara diriku dan seorang mahasiswa S3 lainnya, haha 😆 .
Oke, aku akan sedikit membicarakan mengenai debat ini sih karena ini kan blogku ya jadi bebas dong aku mau menulis apa. Secara singkat, ia tidak setuju dengan arah dan approach dari risetku sehingga risetku menurutnya, di satu sisi, salah dan tidak berguna (ia ngomong gini di depan semua orang loh). Eh, jelas dong ya aku tidak diam saja dan membalas argumennya. Singkat cerita, pada akhirnya aku bisa membuatnya, setidaknya, melihat permasalahan yang diampu risetku melalui sudut pandangku dan walaupun toh belum tentu ia setuju denganku, setidaknya ia mulai melihat dan mengerti argumenku 🙂 .
Ya, begitu sih kalau aku mau menuliskan debatnya dengan sopan dan baik karena, sejujurnya, sakiiiit banget rasanya ketika komentar itu dilontarkan. Oke, mungkin memang sih dia cuma “bersikap seperti orang Belanda” dengan keterus-terangan (directness)-nya. Tetapi itu bukan berarti aku tidak berhak untuk melawan balik argumennya dan membuatnya menjilat ludah sendiri dong ya (ia aku buat berpikir dan kemudian ia mengeluarkan argumen yang mengkontra dirinya sendiri 😆 ), tentu di depan semua orang juga doong. Iya kan, tentu aku berhak untuk “bersikap seperti orang Belanda” juga 😉 .
Oke, cukup deh cerita tentang ini. Sekarang aku akan kembali ke Spoorwegmuseum-nya itu sendiri 😛 .
Berikut ini sebuah foto lokomotif tua
Satu dari agenda hari itu adalah tur mengelilingi museumnya dan turnya asyik bener! Haha 😆 . Kami diberikan akses ke area-area terlarang di museumnya juga loh (iya dong kan kami VIP 😆 ) dan pemandu wisatanya menjelaskan banyak sekali sejarah menarik dari industri perkereta-apian di Belanda.
Juga ada sebuah simulator yang katanya sensasinya seperti naik roller coaster gitu. Dan karena kami ada waktu, jelas kami naik dong yaa (iyes, kami digaji loh untuk aktivitas semacam ini, muahaha 😆 ). Awalnya nampak keren sih tetapi walaupun simulator-nya memang keren, bagiku sedikit mengecewakan karena aku sudah berekspektasi rasanya seperti naik roller coaster beneran gitu. Tapi jelas karena bukan roller coaster beneran, jelas rasanya nggak kayak naik yang beneran dah sehingga aku sama sekali tidak merasakan naiknya adrenalin deh, haha 😆 .
Hari ini berakhir dengan makan malam asyik di museumnya juga. Btw, museum ini dulunya adalah stasiun kereta api beneran yang dibangun di abad ke-19. Untuku kami, seharian kami habiskan di ruangan yang dulunya adalah ruang tunggu untuk penumpang kelas 1 dan kelas 2, termasuk makan malam juga. Makan malamnya enak lhoo. Menunya melibatkan risotto dan ini adalah risotto terenak yang pernah kumakan seumur hidup!
Menu makan malamnya
Oke, memang sih aku nggak makan risotto sering-sering amat karena aku sudah memiliki ekspektasi tersendiri dengan bagaimana nasi harus dimasak. Dan risotto adalah cara memasak nasi yang amat berbeda dari bagaimana nasi dimasak di Asia. Jadilah semua pengalamanku dengan risotto sampai waktu itu tuh “mengecewakan” gitu deh. Namun, kali ini enggak loh dan aku benar-benar suka!Haha 😆
Previously on 2015 Fall Trip to India: Zilko and his friends went to India to attend a wedding. After arriving in Chennai and spending two full days there, they were ready to go to their friend’s village for the wedding.
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Prologue
One experience which I missed from my previous trip to India was the train experience (Delhi’s metro doesn’t count of course). So for this reason we chose Chennai as a destination since it was possible to take a train (with reasonable amount of trip time) from Chennai to our Indian friend’s village in the heart of Tamil Nadu.
Took the train in India so obviously a selfie (and got laughed at by the woman behind me)
Since weeks before the trip, we had tried to book the tickets online but we could not as apparently we needed a local Indian number for that. We contacted our hotel in Chennai to book them for us but they asked us to transfer some money manually to a local Indian bank which had no IBAN code hence (1) it was unsecure, (2) the transfer process would take too long anyway, and on top of those (3) the processing fee would be so high that it doubled the train tickets’ price 😆 . So we decided to wing it and see how it would go once we were in India. Long story short, finally we were able to secure the tickets through our hotel, even with lower price than what we agreed in our email exchange weeks before, lol 😆 .
While we wanted to experience an Indian train ride, at the same time we were also looking for some comfort, lol 😆 . For this reason we booked the Shatabdi Express, which was the top-tier tain service in India (they branded it the superfast train even though it did not travel nearly as fast as the high-speed train in Europe or Japan, lol 😆 ). The train consisted of 1 first class AC coach and 8 second class AC coaches. We were looking for tickets for the first class AC coach but everything was sold out already. So we went with the second class which should still be okay as it was equipped with AC, haha.
The Trip
The Shatabdi Express
The Shatabdi Express was scheduled to leave Chennai Central Station at 07:15. So we got up early, checked out from our hotel at 06:30, and took our pre-arranged taxi to the station. Luckily it was not difficult to find our train where, funnily (at least it was quite funny to me), they printed the name of all the passengers and put it by every coach’s door. We found our seat in the 3-2 configured second class AC coach. The AC turned out to be really chilly, btw, and it was like this for the entire 5 hours trip to Erode Junction.
The train departed a little bit late (10 minutes); but the service on board was beyond my expectation! Yes, there WAS service even in second class! First, they started by handing out a 1.5 liter bottled water to everyone. Then, a light snack service which consisted of hot tea and Marie biscuits was served. Not long after, the breakfast service was provided. Technically there was supposed to be two options: vegetarian or non-vegetarian. Our hotel guy got us the vegetarian dish but he said we could switch to non-vegetarian while being served. However, it did not seem like the opportunity came during service as the only server looked extremely busy distributing all the meals to the 70+ passengers in the coach. Nevertheless, the breakfast was okay which consisted of some Indian breakfast dishes and a pair of white bread.
Breakfast service
A Tamil view
Many said a train trip in India would offer beautiful scenery. While I agreed that the scenery was great and was definitely nothing like Europe, to me it also did not strike as special as it was basically similar to what ones would see while taking a train during the day in Java! Haha 😆 . There were rice fields, some palm/coconut trees, some hills came and went once in awhile, and some local villages. Beautiful though? Yes. Wow to me? No. But of course this is not to say that this is the same everywhere in India.
Erode Junction
Our friend’s village was located close to Erode and Erode was the closest town where the Shatabdi Express stopped; so we got off here. Surprisingly (?) though, the train arrived on time in Erode Junction Station!! Kudos to Indian Railways!
We got off the train station, looked for a taxi, and went to the hotel which our friend had arranged for us.
Sebelumnya dalam 2015 Fall Trip to India: Zilko dan teman-temannya pergi ke India untuk menghadiri acara pernikahan teman mereka. Setelah tiba di Chennai dan menhabiskan dua hari penuh disana, kini mereka siap untuk pergi ke desa temannya dimana pernikahannya akan berlangsung.
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Prolog
Satu pengalaman yang terlewatkan di perjalananku sebelumnya ke India adalah pengalaman naik kereta (jelas metronya Delhi nggak dihitung lah ya). Oleh karena alasan lah kami memilih Chennai sebagai destinasi kami karena dari kota ini kami bisa naik kereta (dengan waktu tempuh yang masuk akal) untuk mencapai desa teman kami di tengah Tamil Nadu.
Naik kereta di India jadi jelas harus selfie dong ya (trus diketawain ibu-ibu di belakangku)
Semenjak beberapa minggu sebelum perjalanan dimulai, kami sudah mencoba memesan tiket keretanya melalui internet tetapi kami gagal karena ternyata dibutuhkan sebuah nomor telepon lokal India untuk itu. Jadilah kami mengontak hotel kami di Chennai untuk memesankannya untuk kami. Tetapi kemudian mereka meminta kami untuk mentransfer pembayarannya secara manual ke sebuah bank lokal India yang tidak memiliki kode IBAN sehingga (1) transaksinya nggak aman dong ya, (2) toh proses transfernya bakal memakan waktu terlalu lama juga, dan di samping kedua poin itu (3) biaya transfernya besar banget sehingga yang harus kami bayarkan adalah dua kali lipat harga tiket keretanya, haha 😆 . Jadilah kami memutuskan untuk “lihat ntar aja” dan mengurusnya begitu kami tiba di India. Singkat cerita, kami berhasil mendapatkan tiket keretanya melalui hotel kami, dan bahkan dengan harga tiket yang lebih murah daripada yang sebelumnya kami setujui melalui email, haha 😆 .
Walaupun kami ingin merasakan yang namanya naik kereta di India, di waktu yang sama kami juga maunya naik kereta yang enakan, haha 😆 . Oleh karena itu, kami memilih kereta Shatabdi Express, yang mana merupakan layanan kereta kelas atas di India, mungkin semacam kereta api kelas Argo gitu kalau di Indonesia (dan kereta ini mereka pasarkan sebagai kereta super cepat, walaupun keretanya sama sekali tidak bergerak secepat kereta super cepat di Eropa atau Jepang sih, haha 😆 ). Keretanya terdiri dari satu gerbong kelas 1 AC dan delapan gerbong kelas 2 AC. Awalnya kami mencari tiket gerbong kelas 1 tetapi ternyata tiketnya sudah habis. Ya sudah deh kami naik yang kelas 2 saja yang mana sebenarnya masih enak-enak aja sih karena toh ada ACnya, haha.
Naik Kereta Api…
Shatabdi Express
Shatabdi Express dijadwalkan berangkat dari Stasiun Chennai Central jam 7:15 pagi. Jadilah kami bangun pagi, check-out dari hotel jam 06:30 pagi, dan kemudian menaiki taksi yang sudah kami pesan sebelumnya untuk ke stasiun. Untungnya, tidak sulit untuk mencari kereta kami dimana, lucunya (setidaknya lucu untukku sih), nama semua penumpang keretanya dicetak di kertas dan kertasnya ditempelkan di sebelah pintu masuk keretanya lho. Kami menemukan kursi kami di gerbong kelas 2 AC yang dikonfigurasi 3-2. ACnya sendiri ternyata dingin banget btw, dan sepanjang perjalanan selama 5 jam ke Erode Junction ya begini terus dinginnya.
Kereta berangkat sedikit terlambat (10 menit); tetapi servis di dalam keretanya melebihi perkiraanku! Iya loh, ADA servis gitu di kelas 2! Pertama-tama, setiap penumpang dibagikan 1 botol air mineral sebesar 1,5 liter, haha. Lalu, layanan snack ringan dibagikan yang terdiri dari teh hangat dan biskuit Marie. Tidak lama setelahnya, layanan makan pagi diberikan. Secara teknis ada pilihannya sih: menu vegetarian atau non-vegetarian. Orang hotel kami memesankan menu vegetarian untuk kami tetapi ia berkata bahwa jika kami ingin menu non-vegetarian, kami bisa meminta untuk mengganti menunya ketika layanan makanan dibagikan. Namun, kami tidak melihat kemungkinan untuk itu karena satu-satunya petugas servis di gerbong kami nampak riweuh nan sibuk banget membagikan menunya satu per satu ke 70+ penumpang di gerbon kami. Toh, sarapannya sendiri masih oke-oke saja sih yang terdiri dari beberapa menu sarapan ala India dan setangkup roti tawar putih.
Layanan Sarapan
Pemandangan Tamil
Banyak yang bilang bahwa naik kereta di India itu menawarkan pemandangan yang indah. Walaupun aku setuju bahwa pemandangannya memang oke dan sama sekali berbeda dari pemandangan di Eropa, untukku pemandangannya tidak spektakuler sekali karena mirip dengan pemandangan ketika naik kereta di siang hari di pulau Jawa! Haha 😆 . Ada banyak sawah, beberapa pepohonan dan pohon kelapa, kadang-kadang ada bukit-bukit, dan beberapa pedesaan. Indah? Iya sih. Wow banget untukku? Tidak. Eh, ini aku tidak bilang bahwa semua pemandangan naik kereta di India seperti ini ya.
Erode Junction
Desa teman kami berada dekat dengan Erode dan Erode adalah kota terdekat dimana Shatabdi Express berhenti; jadilah kami turun disana. Yang mengejutkanku (?), keretanya tiba di Stasiun Erode Junction tepat waktu loh!! Kudos untuk Indian Railways!
Kami turun di stasiunnya, mencari taksi, dan pergi ke hotel yang telah disiapkan teman kami.
So, without further a do, let us start the story of my 2015 SEA Trip with the first destination: Bandung 🙂 .
Getting to Bandung
Flight: Wings Air IW 1811
Equipment: ATR 72-600 reg PK-WGY
ATD: 12:50 WIB (Runway 09 of JOG)
ATA: 14:10 WIB (Runway 29 of BDO)
Wings Air’s ATR 72-600 reg PK-WGY
My parents and I arrived at Adisucipto Airport at around 11:30. We were dropped at the Blue Sky lounge and asked their staff to take care of our check-in procedure 😀 . Long story short, we boarded our flight on time at 12:30 PM. Today, IW 1811 was operated with a 5 months young ATR 72-600 reg PK-WGY. It would be my first flight this year with a propeller plane 😀 .
We departed on time at around 12:50 PM. We took off from runway 09 and made a westward u-turn to Bandung. It was a pretty much typical propeller flight operated by a low-cost airline: rather uneventful with no service, except that the plane was vibrating a little bit upon take-off. Anyway, after making a few turns above Bandung, we landed at runway 29 of Husein Sastranegara Airport in Bandung at 14:10. Here is the landing video:
We took our luggage (in the cramped arrival area of BDO) and got a taxi to go to our hotel for check-in.
Bandung
Nostalgia and Reunion
Such a nostalgic view in Bandung
For 46 months of my life, I lived in Bandung. So travelling to Bandung brought up some of those old memories 🙂 . Since months before, I already contacted my friends from my Bachelor time in Bandung for a short reunion. The timing was not the best though because I could only spare a Thursday evening while obviously my friends were all working people. So we could only meet for dinner. But it was still much better than nothing, haha 😆 . After some discussions, we would have dinner at Miss Bee; an unknown location to me because this restaurant started to exist after I left Bandung, haha.
So we decided to meet just in front of Parahyangan University (Unpar). At around 7 PM, I met some of my friends and we immediately went to the restaurant. At the restaurant, a few other joined in. It was such a fun evening!! Too bad because it was Thursday evening, we could only meet for about 2.5 hours. At 9:30 PM, we all had to leave because all of my friends would have to work the next day 😦 . Well, I should arrange a better schedule for the next time then!
Graduation
One main reason I was visiting Bandung this time was because my brother would have his Bachelor graduation that weekend. So this graduation was pretty much the theme of my Saturday in Bandung.
Unpar’s Graduation day at ITB
Since the invitation was only for our parents, my brother’s girlfriend and I went to the site at noon while my brother and our parents had attended the ceremony since, like, 7 AM (while I was still in the land of dream, muahaha 😆 ). Anyway, it was quite funny this year that the ceremony did not take place in Unpar (where my brother did his Bachelor) but in Sabuga in ITB (due to the main hall in Unpar being renovated or something). Some of my brother’s friends also came to ITB to congratulate him. Long story short, at around 1 PM, the ceremony (finally) finished. Then, we all (including my brother’s closest friends) went to Ma’ Uneh to have some lunch celebration.
After lunch, we went to a photo studio for the important graduation family photo session, haha 😆 (this is a big deal in Indonesia 😀 ). Unsurprisingly, it was a busy day at the studio. But we already made a reservation so it was okay. Our turn was at 5 PM and we took like 30 minutes or so, haha. Afterwards, we chose our photos and then left for dinner.
Lembang and Bandung
On Friday, we decided to go to Lembang to visit two sites: Lembang Floating Market and Dusun Bambu (Bamboo Village).
With angklungs at the Floating Market
The first one that we visited was the Floating Market, which was quite cool! We did not buy any of the tokens though (there, we should use the tokens to buy something) which turned out to be a good idea since we ended buying nothing anyway, haha. To me, the best part of the Floating Market was the miniature train park!! So, before becoming obsessed with (commercial) airplanes, mini Zilko was also very obsessed with trains (I still do like trains now too, btw). So this miniature train park was like a dream to me! And it was a real miniature train park with actually moving trains! Like this one:
Coooool!!!!
From the Floating Market, we went to Dusun Bambu. This place, though, was a little bit underwhelming for me. Not that it was not beautiful. No. It was still pretty. The problem was, their pictures that were around in the internet were super beautiful that, somehow, put my expectation to apparently be too high, haha. Plus, their restaurants were overwhelmingly overpriced so I could not really enjoy the site. Too bad.
Dusun Bambu
In Bandung, aside from the culinary tour (haha), we did not visit too many places. Well, we did visit my favorite mall in Bandung though, Paris Van Java, where I shopped a little bit. But that was pretty much it.
Hotels Hopping
Padma Hotel, Bandung
We were for four nights in Bandung but we stayed in three different hotels, haha 😆 . Yeah, indeed we did a “hotels hopping” in Bandung. Quite fun though. For the first night, we stayed at Hilton Hotel near the railway station. Then, we moved to H Clarity in Cihampelas. And lastly, we moved to Padma Hotel in Ciumbuleuit. Fare-wise, Padma had the highest fare, followed by Hilton, then H Clarity. Indeed, Padma offered a lot of super cool activities around the hotel (too bad I did not have too much time to enjoy them) while, IMO, Hilton had the best room. On the other hand, H Clarity offered the best and most complete breakfast out of the three. So, yeah, each hotel turned out to have their own offers 🙂 .
The Food
Sundanese lunch at Ma’ Uneh
Unsurprisingly, I ate a lot in Bandung, haha 😆 . It could have been an entire post if I want to write the details of the food I ate there. So I will just sum everything up and list three of the most memorable dishes to me: tahu sumedang, the Sundanese lunch at Ma’ Uneh, and fine dining at my favorite restaurant in Dago Pakar: The Sierra, haha 🙂 .
Speaking of The Sierra, I couldn’t believe myself that the first time I dined there was ten years prior, back in July 2005! It has been literally a decade!
Next on 2015 SEA Trip:
– KLM’s fifth freedom flight from Indonesia to Malaysia
– Kuala Lumpur
– Langkawi
– Singapore
– Johor Bahru
Wings Air’s ATR 72-600 reg PK-WGY
On board Wings Air’s ATR 72-600 PK-WGY
Mount Slamet in Java
Busy Husein Sastranegara Airport
Hilton Hotel, Bandung
Mie Naripan
Some dinner at Miss Bee
A nasi campur in Bandung
Lembang Floating Market
Lembang Floating Market
Lembang Floating Market
Miniature railway at Lembang Floating Market
Miniature railway at Lembang Floating Market
Dusun Bambu
Dusun Bambu
Sabuga in ITB
Ma’ Uneh in Bandung
Australian chop at The Sierra
Paris Van Java
Tahu gejrot
Padma Hotel, Bandung
BAHASA INDONESIA
Jadi, langsung saja kita mulai cerita dari 2015 SEA Trip-ku dengan destinasi pertama: Bandung 🙂 .
Pergi ke Bandung
Penerbangan: Wings Air IW 1811
Pesawat: ATR 72-600 reg PK-WGY
ATD: 12:50 WIB (Runway 09 of JOG)
ATA: 14:10 WIB (Runway 29 of BDO)
Wings Air’s ATR 72-600 reg PK-WGY
Orangtuaku dan aku tiba di Bandara Adisucipto sekitar jam 11:30 pagi. Kami turun di lounge Blue Sky dan meminta staf mereka untuk melakukan check-in untuk kami 😀 . Singkat cerita, kami menaiki penerbangan kami tepat waktu, jam 12:30. Hari ini, IW 1811 akan dioperasikan dengan sebuah ATR 72-600 berusia 5 bulan dengan registrasi PK-WGY. Ini akan menjadi penerbangan pertamaku tahun ini yang dioperasikan dengan pesawat baling-baling 😀 .
Penerbangan berangkat tepat waktu sekitar jam 12:50 siang. Kami lepas landas dari landasan pacu 09 dan kemudian berputar ke arah barat menuju Bandung. Ini adalah sebuah penerbangan biasa dengan sebuah pesawat baling-baling dengan maskapai low-cost: uneventful gitu deh dengan tanpa diberikan servis apa pun, kecuali bahwa pesawatnya agak bergetar gitu deh ketika lepas landas. Anyway, setelah berbelok-belok di atas langit Bandung, kami mendarat di landasan pacu 29 Bandara Husein Sastranegara di Bandung jam 2:10 siang. Berikut ini video pendaratannya:
Kami mengambil bagasi kami (di area kedatangannya BDO yang super kecil itu) dan kemudian memesan taksi untuk menuju hotel untuk check-in.
Bandung
Nostalgia dan Reunian
Sungguh pemandangan yang membuat nostalgia di Bandung
Selama 46 bulan dalam hidupku, aku tinggal di Bandung. Jadi jalan-jalan ke Bandung jelas membawa memori-memori dari masa itu dong ya 🙂 . Nah, semenjak beberapa bulan sebelumnya, aku sudah mengontak beberapa temanku dari masa kuliah S1-ku dulu di Bandung untuk reunian kecil. Waktunya memang bukan yang terbaik karena aku hanya bisa menyisihkan hari Kamis malam padahal jelas teman-temanku kan pada bekerja semua ya. Jadilah kami hanya bisa bertemu untuk makan malam saja. Ah, tetapi masih mendingan lah daripada tidak sama sekali kan, haha 😆 . Setelah berdiskusi sana-sini, kami akan makan malam di Miss Bee; sebuah restoran yang lokasinya aku kurang familiar karena restorannya baru buka setelah aku pindah dari Bandung, haha.
Jadilah kami memutuskan untuk bertemu di depannya Universitas Parahyangan (Unpar). Sekitar jam 7 malam, aku bertemu dengan beberapa temanku dan kami langsung pergi ke restorannya. Disana, beberapa teman yang lain juga ikut bergabung. Seru deh malam itu!! Sayang banget ya waktu itu Kamis malam sehingga kami hanya bisa bertemu selama 2,5 jam-an. Jam 9:30 malam, kami harus berpisah karena keesokan harinya teman-temanku pada harus bekerja semua 😦 . Ya sudah deh, lain kali artinya aku harus mengalokasikan waktu yang lebih enakan ya!
Wisuda
Alasan utama aku mengunjungi Bandung adalah karena adikku akan mengikuti upacara wisuda S1-nya akhir pekan itu. Jadilah wisuda ini adalah tema utama hari Sabtuku itu di Bandung.
Wisuda Unpar di ITB
Karena undangannya cuma untuk orangtua aja, pacarnya adikku dan aku baru berangkat ke lokasinya tengah hari dimana adikku dan orangtua kami sudah berangkat dari jam 7 pagi (dimana aku masih enak-enak tidur dong ya, muahahaha 😆 ). Ngomong-ngomong, lucu juga lho kali ini dimana upacaranya tidak dilangsungkan di Unpar (universitasnya adikku) tetapi malah di Sabuga di ITB (kayanya sih karena gedung serbagunanya Unpar sedang direnovasi atau gimana gitu). Beberapa temannya adikku juga datang ke ITB untuk menyelamatinya. Singkat cerita, jam 1 siang (akhirnya) upacaranya beres juga. Dari sana, kami semua (termasuk teman-temannya adikku) pergi ke Ma’ Uneh untuk makan-makan bersama.
Setelah makan siang, kami pergi ke studio foto untuk acara sesi foto keluarga edisi wisuda (ini penting nih di Indonesia 😀 ). Tidak mengherankan, studio fotonya rame banget. Jelas kami sudah membuat reservasi sih jadi nggak masalah juga. Giliran kami adalah jam 5 sore dan kami foto-foto selama sekitar setengah jam deh, haha. Setelahnya, kami memilih-milih fotonya dan kemudian makan malam.
Lembang dan Bandung
Di hari Jumat, kami pergi ke Lembang untuk mengunjungi dua tempat: Floating Market dan Dusun Bambu.
Angklung di Floating Market
Yang kami kunjungi pertama adalah Floating Market, yang mana keren juga! Kami tidak membeli koinnya sih (disana, kami harus menggunakan koin untuk membeli sesuatu) yang mana ternyata keputusan yang tepat juga karena toh kami nggak membeli apa-apa, haha. Untukku, bagian terkeren dari Floating Market-nya adalah taman kereta api mininya!! Jadi, ceritanya sebelum terobsesi dengan pesawat (komersial), mini Zilko juga terobsesi dengan kereta gitu deh (sekarang juga masih suka kereta loh). Jadi taman miniatur ini jelas adalah seperti mimpi bagiku ya! Dan ini adalah taman miniatur yang beneran loh dimana keretanya juga bergerak! Kayak ini:
Kereeeeen!!!!
Dari Floating Market, kami pergi ke Dusun Bambu. Tempat ini, sayangnya, agak mengecewakan untukku. Bukannya tidak indah sih. Bukan. Tempatnya bagus kok. Masalahnya, foto-fotonya yang bertebaran di internet itu super indah banget sehingga ekspektasiku akan tempat ini ternyata menjadi terlalu tinggi gitu deh, haha. Ditambah lagi, restorannya kok overpriced banget sehingga membuatku jadi kurang bisa menikmati tempatnya. Sayang deh.
Dusun Bambu
Di Bandung, di samping tur kuliner (haha), kami tidak banyak mengunjungi tempat-tempat gitu deh. Ya, kami juga berkunjung ke mall favoritku di Bandung sih, Paris Van Java, dimana aku belanja sedikit. Tetapi ya udah cuma itu aja sih.
Hotels Hopping
Padma Hotel, Bandung
Kami menghabiskan empat malam di Bandung tetapi kami menginap di tiga hotel yang berbeda, haha 😆 . Ya, kami memang melakukan hotel hopping gitu deh di Bandung. Cukup seru juga. Malam pertama, kami di Hotel Hilton di dekat stasiun kereta. Lalu, kami pindah ke H Clarity di Cihampelas. Dan terakhir, kami menginap di Hotel Padma di Ciumbuleuit. Dari segi tarif, Padma memiliki tarif yang tertinggi, diikuti oleh Hilton, lalu H Clarity. Tetapi Padma memang menawarkan banyak sekali aktivitas menarik di sekitar hotelnya sih (sayangnya aku justru tidak memiliki banyak waktu untuk menikmatinya) sementara, menurutku, Hilton memiliki kamar yang terenak. Sementara itu, sarapan terbaik diberikan oleh H Clarity dengan pilihan yang sungguh lengkap dan beragam. Jadi, ya, memang masing-masing hotel menawarkan keunggulannya masing-masing 🙂 .
Makanannya
Makan siang ala Sunda di Ma’ Uneh
Tidak mengherankan, aku makan banyak deh di Bandung, haha 😆 . Bakalan menjadi satu posting sendiri kalau setiap makanannya mau aku sebutkan disini. Jadi aku akan ringkas saja ya dan menyebutkan tiga makanan yang paling berkesan untukku: tahu sumedang, makan siang ala Sunda di Ma’ Uneh, dan fine dining di restoran favoritku di Dago Pakar: The Sierra, haha 🙂 .
Ngomongin The Sierra, aku sendiri nggak percaya lho bahwa pertama kali aku makan disana adalah sepuluh tahun sebelumnya, yaitu di bulan Juli 2005! Sudah satu dekade dalam artian sebenarnya!!
Previously on 2015 Spring Trip: Zilko went to Japan for a conference where he would later extend his stay in Japan for a trip after the conference where he met his parents and brother. After staying in Tokyo for twelve days, in Hokkaido for four days, and in Kansai for another four days, it was now time for him to fly back to the Netherlands.
***
What was convenient was that my flight and my parents and brother’s flight would depart at a pretty similar time. My KLM flight back to Amsterdam was scheduled to depart at 10:30 while my parents and brother’s AirAsia X flight to Kuala Lumpur was scheduled at 11:30. So we could go altogether to the airport in the morning.
Because we knew the airport was so far away, we decided to leave our hotel at 06:00 today. Long story short, after a mini drama including hassle-full transit to change trains to the airport and decided to upgrade our ticket to the super cool Nankai Railway Airport limited expess, which looked extremely cool like this btw:
we finally arrived at Kansai International Airport at around 07:30.
The check-in counter for the KLM flight was already full of people. But thanks to my Silver Flying Blue card, I could check-in at the priority line so I only needed to wait for one person only in the queue, haha 😆 . In total I just spent like 5 minutes for check-in, including the queuing time. After that we went to AirAsia X’s check-in counters. After about a good 40 minutes, we finally finished the check-in for my parents and brother’s flight.
Then it was the security check, which was ridiculous in my opinion because there was this one super long line for the security check. The line started at the security gate and snaked its way circling around the peripheral of the security gate. It took us another good 30 minutes just to finally get to the security check. No wonder the AirAsia X’s check-in lady warned us to immediately go to the security check. After the security check, it was the custom and immigration desk. Btw, the custom work in Japan was so efficient btw, where at the airport they just needed to tear out the tax-free receipt from our passport. And that was all. So it was really quick! Good job, Japan!
Making a special cameo appearance in this post is this Garuda Indonesia’s Airbus A330-300 reg PK-GPD which would later fly to Denpasar/Bali from Osaka-Kansai
Anyway, after the security check, we had to go our own ways because our flight would depart from different gates that were apart from each other. I went to Gate 35, where a KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER reg PH-BVG named “Nationaal Park Wolong” was already waiting for me to fly as flight KL 868 to Amsterdam today.
The boarding started at 10:00 AM, and the departure had to be delayed a little bit because there were some 15 people who were still stuck at the security and immigration line. At 11:00 AM, we could finally depart. My flight took off from runway 06R of Osaka-Kansai International Airport, and here is the taking-off video:
So, see you, Japan!!!
The Trip Report
General Impression and Service
So, here is the flight route map of today:
The flight route map today from Osaka-Kansai (KIX) to Amsterdam (AMS). Map created with gcmap.com
PH-BVG was about three years old today so it was one of KLM’s youngest fleet indeed. And the plane and the interior looked like in a good condition indeed. However, as much as I love KLM’s color (blue is my favorite color), I felt the blue dominated cabin somehow felt “cold” to me. I did not notice it that much when flying short-haul with KLM; but this time that I was, for the first time, flying long-haul with KLM, I started to notice. It was not necessarily a bad thing though, but all other long-haul flights which I have taken with other airlines designed their cabin to be “warmer” (for instance, Garuda Indonesia with the brown seatings in economy) so this was why I noticed the difference.
On board KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER reg PH-BVG with 3-4-3 seat configuration in a blue-dominated cabin
Btw, PH-BVG, a Boeing 777-300ER, was configured with the standard 3-4-3 seating in economy, just like Air France’s. It was still comfortable but of course it felt cramped if I compared it with Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 777-300ER which was in the 3-3-3 seat configuration in economy. But as I said, it was still alright.
The cabin crews themselves were typical European crews: very professional and friendly enough to the passengers, just enough though but I definitely would not file any complaint.
The Meal and Snack Service
About one and a half hour after take-off, the lunch service began. The options were Japanese or Western menu. Well, having eaten (mostly) Japanese food for the past three weeks of my life, this time I felt like having some Western meal, haha 😆 . So I got a very delicious chicken menu with some salad and cheese. For drink I opted for a bottle of white wine.
The Western lunch service
The second meal service
About two hours before landing, the second meal service was served. For this one, however, there was no option so we just had to pretty much go with whatever they served. It turned out to be a chicken fried rice with some salad and cuts of fresh fruit; which was very nice as well.
Throughout the entire flight, snacks and drinks were readily available at any time. There were a couple of time where the cabin crews went around distributing some of those snacks, the first one was a bag of peanuts and the second one was a nice waffle like snack with ice cream in the inside, but you can just go to the galley at any time and there some snacks and drinks were already prepared for you to take. And many times the cabin crews went around the cabin offering some drinks as well. At one point a cabin crew asked me if I wanted tomate juice; and I wanted tomato juice so I said yes. But then it turned out to be a Virgin Mary, lol 😆 .
A glass of Virgin Mary
The IFE
The size of the IFE screen was okay, the same as in Air France’s and Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 777-300ER. However, I was not that amused with the contents to be honest, especially in the music department which mostly contained a lot of dance and party music (and not the others). I know, this type of music is indeed very popular in the Netherlands for partying obviously, and I actually also like it. But sometimes in a flight like this obviously I didn’t feel like dancing, did I? Haha 😆 .
The IFE Screen
Begin Again
The movies library was also okay. I decided to watch Begin Again (partly because of this Joey’s post also 😀 ), which was a good movie which, indeed, revolved around the theme of “moving on”, haha 😆 .
The games collection, on the other hand, was impressive. I occupied myself with playing a lot of different games, from pacman to sudoku, from tic tac toe to the cave man 🙂 .
Landing
At 15:20, 11 hours and 20 minutes after taking off from Osaka-Kansai, we landed safely and smoothly at runway 36R of Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport. Here is the landing video:
The captain apologized for not being able to recover from the initial delay from Osaka. Apparently quite a number of the passengers today were connecting passengers with different connecting flights out of Schiphol. So this delay might affect their transfer.
A KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER reg PH-BVG which brought me back to Amsterdam from Osaka
In conclusion, my first long haul flight with KLM was comfortable enough. The 11 hour and 20 minute flight felt much shorter than 11 hour and 20 minute, a good indication that I enjoyed the flight. Even though there might be a couple of things here and there where I felt that KLM was still behind some other airlines I had tried on long-haul flights, overall I still found KLM’s product to be good enough.
Anyway, after that it was the usual business. I passed the immigration desk without problem (the officer just asked me a few questions in Dutch like where did I fly from and how long I stayed in Japan) and my luggage was the first to come out at Schiphol as well. Then I took the train to go back to Delft.
And here, my amazing three weeks spring trip to Japan, officially, ended.
THE END.
Onboard the Nankai Airport Express
Onboard the Nankai Airport Express
Boarding my flight
The seat pitch was good
KIX was in the middle of the sea
Economy Class
The safety demo
Final turn before take off at runway 06R
My window view
A KLM headset
Warm tissue
We passed Mount Fuji as well!!
On board KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER PH-BVG
On board KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER PH-BVG
The rear galley of PH-BVG
The beautiful right wing of PH-BVG
A tasty snack
It was super cold in the Arctic, this was probably the most north I had ever been
Feel free to take some
The blue cabin of KLM
Some snacks to accompany myself with my movie
Let’s play some pacman
Second meal with an episode of Friends
The actual flight path of today’s flight
A KLM Boeing 737-800 flying by next to us
Entering the Dutch airspace as indicated by the visible West Frisian Islands
Sebelumnya dalam 2015 Spring Trip: Zilko pergi ke Jepang dalam rangka sebuah konferensi dimana ia akan memperpanjang masa tinggalnya disana untuk jalan-jalan setelah konferensi bersama orangtua dan adiknya. Setelah menginap di Tokyo selama dua belas hari, di Hokkaido selama empat hari, dan di Kansai juga selama empat hari, sekarang adalah saatnya untuk kembali ke Belanda.
***
Kebetulan yang enak adalah penerbanganku dan penerbangan orangtua dan adikku memiliki jadwal yang hampir sama. Penerbangan KLMku kembali ke Amsterdam dijadwalkan berangkat jam 10:30 pagi sementara penerbangan AirAsia X-nya orangtua dan adikku ke Kuala Lumpur dijadwalkan berangkat jam 11:30 pagi. Jadilah kami berangkat bersama-sama ke bandara di pagi harinya.
Karena kami tahu bandaranya jauh sekali, kami memutuskan untuk berangkat jam 6 pagi hari ini. Singkat cerita, setelah drama mini yang melibatkan transit yang ribet banget untuk pindah kereta ke arah bandara dan memutuskan untuk meng-upgrade tiket kereta kami ke Nankai Railway Airport limited express yang keren banget yang penampakannya seperti ini btw:
kami akhirnya tiba di Bandar Udara Internasional Kansai sekitar jam 07:30.
Antrian konter check-in untuk penerbangannya KLM sudah panjang banget waktu itu. Tetapi untuk karena aku punya kartu Flying Blue Silver, aku bisa antri di antrian prioritas dimana aku hanya perlu mengantri di belakang satu orang saja, haha 😆 . Jadi totalnya aku hanya perlu menghabiskan sekitar 5 menit deh, termasuk mengantri, untuk check-in. Setelahnya kami pergi ke konter check-in-nya AirAsia X. Empat puluh menit kemudian, akhirnya kami selesai check-in untuk orangtua dan adikku.
Setelahnya adalah pemeriksaan sekuriti, yang nggak main-main banget menurutku karena antriannya mengular panjang banget. Antriannya dimulai dari gerbang sekuritinya dan mengular berbelok-belik mengelilingi pagar sekuriti. Kami harus mengantri selama 30an menit lho untuk akhirnya bisa diperiksa sekuriti. Nggak heran deh petugas check-in-nya AirAsia X mewanti-wanti kami untuk langsung masuk ke pemeriksaan sekuriti. Setelah sekuriti, kami melewati meja bea cukai dan imigrasi. Btw, bea cukai di Jepang efisien banget lho, dimana di bandara mereka hanya perlu menyobek nota tax-free dari paspor kita. Dan udah gitu aja. Jadi semuanya sangat cepat! Good job, Jepang!
Bintang tamu spesial di posting ini adalah pesawat Airbus A330-300-nya Garuda Indonesia beregistrasi PK-GPD ini yang nantinya akan terbang ke Denpasar/Bali dari Osaka-Kansai.
Anyway, setelah itu kami harus berpisah karena gate keberangkatan kami berbeda. Kemudian aku pergi ke Gate 35, dimana sebuah Boeing 777-300ER-nya KLM beregistrasi PH-BVG yang bernama “Nationaal Park Wolong” sudah menungguku untuk terbang sebagai penerbangan KL 868 ke Amsterdam.
Boarding dimulai jam 10 pagi, dan keberangkatannya sedikit terlambat akibat ada sekitar 15 orang yang masih terjebak di antrian pemeriksaan sekuriti dan imigrasi. Jam 11 pagi, akhirnya kami bisa berangkat juga. Penerbanganku lepas landas dari landasan pacu 06R Bandar Udara Internasional Osaka-Kansai, dan berikut ini video lepas landasnya:
Sampai jumpa, Jepang!!!
Trip Report
Kesan Umum dan Layanan
Berikut ini kurang lebih rute penerbangan hari ini:
Rute penerbangan hari ini dari Osaka-Kansai (KIX) ke Amsterdam (AMS). Peta dibuat dengan gcmap.com
PH-BVG berumur sekitar tiga tahun hari ini sehingga termasuk sebagai salah satu armada termudanya KLM. Dan pesawat dan interiornya sendiri memang nampak dalam kondisi yang bagus. Namun, walaupun aku suka banget warnanya KLM (biru adalah warna favoritku), entah mengapa kabinnya yang didominasi warna biru terasa “dingin” bagiku. Aku tidak pernah merasakannya ketika terbang jarak dekat dengan KLM; tetapi kali ini ketika aku terbang jarak jauh, ini untuk pertama kalinya lho aku terbang jarak jauh dengan KLM, kesan ini jadi terasa. Bukan berarti ini adalah hal negatif sih, hanya saja penerbangan jarak jauh lain yang pernah aku naiki adalah dengan maskapai yang mendisain kabinnya dengan nuansa “hangat” (misalnya, Garuda Indonesia dengan nuansa coklat di kelas ekonominya) sehingga karena inilah aku merasakan perbedaannya.
Di dalam pesawat Boeing 777-300ER milik KLM dengan registrasi PH-BVG dengan konfigurasi 3-4-3 dan kabin yang didominasi warna biru
Btw, PH-BVG, sebuah Boeing 777-300ER, dikonfigurasi dengan susunan kursi 3-4-3 di kelas ekonomi, sama seperti miliknya Air France. Masih nyaman kok tetapi tentu saja terasa lebih sempit apabila dibandingkan dengan Boeing 777-300ER-nya Garuda Indonesia yang dikonfigurasi dengan susunan kursi 3-3-3 di ekonomi. Tetapi seperti yang kubilang, 3-4-3 ini masih nyaman-nyaman saja.
Kru kabinnya secara umum sama seperti kru-kru kabin maskapai Eropa: sangat profesional dan cukup ramah kepada penumpang, “cukup” saja ya tetapi aku tidak akan komplain karenanya.
Layanan Makanan dan Snack
Sekitar satu setengah jam setelah lepas landas, layanan makan siang dimulai. Pilihan menunya adalah menu Jepang atau menu Barat. Yaa, karena sudah makan (kebanyakan sih) makanan Jepang selama tiga minggu belakangan, kali ini aku ingin makan makanan Barat deh, haha 😆 . Jadilah aku mendapat menu ayam yang enak banget dengan salad dan keju. Untuk minumannya aku memilih satu botol anggur putih.
Layanan makan siang Barat
Layanan makan yang kedua
Sekitar dua jam sebelum mendarat, layanan makanan yang kedua diberikan. Untuk yang ini, tapinya, tidak ada pilihannya sehingga mau tidak mau kami harus menerima saja apa yang mereka sajikan. Ternyata yang disajikan adalah nasi goreng ayam dengan salad dan potongan buah segar; yang mana rasanya enak juga.
Di sepanjang penerbangan, snack dan minuman juga tersedia sepanjang waktu. Ada beberapa kali dimana awak kabinnya berkeliling membagikan snack, yang pertama adalah satu pak kacang-kacangan dan yang kedua adalah snack berbentuk waffle yang di dalamnya berisi es krim yang enak banget. Di galley-nya sendiri telah dipersiapkan snack dan minuman yang mana kapan pun boleh diambil. Dan banyak kali pula awak kabinnya berkeliling membawa nampan berisi minuman. Di satu waktu seorang pramugari menawarkan apakah aku mau jus tomat atau tidak; dan karena memang lagi pengen jus tomat, jadilah aku jawab iya. Dan ternyata minumannya itu Virgin Mary dong, haha 😆 .
Segelas Virgin Mary
IFE
Ukuran layar IFE-nya oke lah, sama seperti di Boeing 777-300ER-nya Air France dan Garuda Indonesia. Namun, aku kurang puas dengan isinya sejujurnya, terutama di bidang musiknya yang kebanyakan berisi musik dance dan party (sementara genre lainnya relatif sedikit). Oke, aku tahu sih jenis musik begini memang populer di Belanda (untuk party jelas lah ya), dan aku juga sebenarnya suka kok. Tetapi kalau lagi terbang gini tentu aku lagi nggak pengen buat berjoget kan ya? Haha 😆 .
Layar IFE-nya
Begin Again
Koleksi filmnya juga oke lah. Aku memutuskan untuk menonton Begin Again (setengahnya karena teringat posting-nya Joey yang ini 😀 ), yang mana merupakan film yang bagus dan, memang, tema utamanya adalah tentang “move on” ya, haha 😆 .
Koleksi game-nya, di sisi lain, lengkap banget. Aku menghabiskan banyak waktuku dengan bermain berbagai macam game deh, mulai dari pacman sampai sudoku, dari tic tac toe sampai cave man 🙂 .
Mendarat dan Penutup
Jam 15:20 waktu setempat, 11 jam 20 menit setelah lepas landas dari Osaka-Kansai, kami mendarat dengan selamat dan mulus di landasan pacu 36R Bandara Amsterdam-Schiphol. Berikut ini video pendaratannya:
Kaptennya meminta maaf karena tidak bisa menutup keterlambatan dari keberangkatan di Osaka. Ternyata banyak penumpang penerbangan ini yang memiliki penerbangan lanjutan dari Schiphol. Keterlambatan ini mungkin akan berpengaruh ke transitnya mereka.
Sebuah Boeing 777-300ER-nya KLM dengan registrasi PH-BVG yang membawaku kembali ke Amsterdam dari Osaka
Kesimpulannya, penerbangan jarak jauh pertamaku dengan KLM ini berlangsung cukup nyaman. Waktu tempuh 11 jam 20 menit terasa jauh lebih singkat daripada 11 jam 20 menit, yang mana merupakan indikasi baik bahwa aku menikmati penerbangan ini. Walaupun ada satu, dua hal yang menurutku KLM masih kalah dari beberapa maskapai lain yang pernah aku naiki di penerbangan jarak jauh, toh secara keseluruhan produknya KLM masih oke kok.
Setelahnya seperti biasa deh. Aku melewati meja imigrasi tanpa masalah (petugasnya cuma iseng aja sedikit bertanya kepadaku dalam bahasa Belanda aku baru terbang dari mana dan berapa lama aku di Jepang) dan bagasiku adalah bagasi yang pertama keluar di Schiphol juga. Setelahnya, aku naik kereta untuk kembali ke Delft.
Dan disini, perjalananku yang seru selama tiga minggu ke Jepang, secara resmi, berakhir.
Previously on 2015 Spring Trip: Zilko went to Japan for a conference where he would later extend his stay in Japan for a trip after the conference where he met his parents and brother. After staying in Tokyo for twelve days and staying in Hokkaido for four days, he was now already in the last stop of this trip: the Kansai region. During his stay there, we went on two day trips to the former imperial capital of Japan: Kyoto.
***
Getting to Kyoto
The reason we went on two day trips to Kyoto (as opposed to, like, actually staying in Kyoto) was because we could not find any available hotel in Kyoto. Yes, everything was literally full! When I browsed for hotels in booking.com, I immediately got the warning that 97% of all hotels they had there had been fully booked! And those 3% were the super expensive ones with rate of, say, €500 per night for a normal room, lol 😆 . So the moral of the story here is that if you plan to go to Kyoto during peak-season, book your accommodation(s) way way in advance! The solution for us was to just stay in Osaka and went to Kyoto whenever we felt like going there; as the two cities were close anyway.
Anyway, to go to Kyoto, we decided to take the train on the Hankyu Line, which btw was run by a privately-owned railway company[1]. And the ticket fare between Osaka and Kyoto with the Hankyu Line was surprisingly cheap for just ¥400 (around €3.05) one way! 😯 Seriously, it was such a nice surprise for us because we expected something like around ¥1,000 (around €7.62) one way, haha 😆 .
Umeda Station, the main station of the Hankyu Line in Osaka
The trip with the Hankyu Line train from Osaka to Kyoto took one hour. Being a privately owned company, the line obviously did not use JR’s lines and hence did not stop in the “main” stations like Osaka Station or Kyoto Station. In Kyoto, we got off at Kawaramachi Station. This was actually perfect because Kawaramachi was basically just accross (the river of) an important district of Kyoto which I really wanted to visit: Gion.
Gion
Nine years ago, I read the novel Memoirs of a Geisha and also watched, a few days later, its movie adaptation and I actually really liked it (especially the novel). The setting for a good part of this novel was the district of Gion in Kyoto, which indeed was (is) famous for being the most exclusive geisha district in Japan.
Gion
A busy street in Gion
To me, Gion delivered. The atmosphere there still felt like it was a few hundreds years ago: with the buildings, the streets, and the temples; well, except probably the electricity poles and all the cars, haha 😆 . Unfortunately we did not see (let alone meet) any geisha though during our short visit there. But it was still very nice to just stroll around in Gion and visualized how Nitta Sayuri, Mameha, and Hatsumomo lived there in the novel 🙂 .
The Temples in Kyoto
Fushimi Inari-taisha
This temple was on the top of our priority list of site to visit in our trip to Kyoto. So actually before going to Gion, we decided to go to this temple first, haha 😆 . Why? Well, because I wanted to take picture like this:
The famous Fushimi Inari-taisha temple in Kyoto
which was so Facebook cover photo material, wasn’t it? Lol 😆
Yes, Fushimi Inari-taisha was the temple with the famous thousands of orange[2]torii gates. And indeed it was very famous because a lot of people were flocking the temple; making it practically impossible to take a picture without being accidentally photobombed by others, haha 😆 .
We spent about two hours in the temple (which entrance was free of charge btw, yay! 😀 ) before going back to Gion.
Kiyomizu-dera
Another temple which we visited on the other day of our day trip to Kyoto was the Kiyomizu-dera temple. This temple was located on top of a hill so from the nearest bus stop, we had to walk up the hill to reach it. For this temple, however, the entrance was not free of charge. But the entrance fee was just as small as ¥300 (around €2.29) person so it was actually not a big deal anyway.
What was unique about this temple was its wooden balcony which was “hanging” 13 meters above the hillside. Okay it was not actually hanging because there were wooden supports underneath it, but I hope you get my point 😆 .
Kiyomizu-dera Selfie with its wooden balcony
The other parts of the temple was also beautiful. And again, being one of the most celebrated temples in Kyoto in combination with the low entrance fee, this temple was also flocked with tourists! Hahaha 😆
More Spots in Kyoto
The season of sakura in Kyoto!
I also found strolling around in Kyoto very enjoyable. The atmosphere of the city was very nice: crowded in one part (read: the touristy areas) and serene in the other parts (read: the housing neighbourhood). Plus, in combination with it being a hanami season even made the atmosphere more magical! The sakura petal was falling down everywhere. It was extremely beautiful!
Fallen sakura petals in Kyoto
We also went to some other gardens accross Kyoto, and all of them were very beautiful! 🙂
Arashiyama
Another spot in Kyoto which was in the top of our list was Arashiyama, especially its bamboo grove! So on our second day trip to Kyoto, we changed our Hankyu line train at Katsura station to a shorter line from there to Arashiyama. At first it was difficult to spot where the bamboo grove was because our map did not pinpoint exactly where it was. It actually showed the presence of some bamboo forests somewhere else so at first I mistakened these forests for the grove. Luckily we asked a local there who showed us the right direction to the grove!
The Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto
The bamboo grove was a little bit below our expectation. We expected it to be much bigger than it actually was. But nevertheless it was still a nice place to visit. Again, being a popular spot in Kyoto, it was also impossible to take pictures of the bamboo grove without being photobombed by people, haha 😆 .
Next to the bamboo grove was the Tenryuji temple which was a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While we were already there, we decided to pay a visit as well (literally, as the entrance was not free). It was a nice temple with a very beautiful garden.
The Food
Sushi at Chojiro Sushi
Once we had lunch at the Chojiro sushi in Kyoto which, obviously, served sushi and its kind, haha 😆 . We felt like this restaurant should be a good one because we had to wait in line first for about 30 minutes – in which during we grumbled but were already too lazy to switch restaurant – before we finally got a table.
A very fresh and delicious sashimi at Chojiro
A very fresh and delicious sushi set at Chojiro
After this trip to Japan, I can say that sushi is definitely not my favorite Japanese dish. I mean, the sushi I had in Japan was very good though. However, now if I am given the choices, I will definitely go for the other dishes than sushi. The sushi we had in Chojiro was indeed the best sushi (and sashimi) we had on this Spring Trip to Japan.
p.s: And I did enjoy it
Kichi-Kichi
Another notable restaurant which we visited in Kyoto was Kichi-Kichi. Again, I know the existence of this restaurant from Jendluvu‘s blog from this post of her. I have to say that we were lucky to be able to dine there. On our first day to Kyoto we went there but the restaurant was fully booked so Kichi, the owner slash the chef, could not let us in.
We tried to make a reservation there for our second day but we got no luck. So on the second day at 5:30 PM we just went there hoping to get some luck. And luckily we did. Someone made a reservation at 5 PM but did not show up so we could get it. Btw, at 5:40 PM, the group which made the reservation at 5 PM actually came and Kichi refused to let them in because they were late by 40 minutes. He literally said (in English, because they were not Japanese) “You are late by 40 minutes. Five minutes is okay, but not 40 minutes. Sorry but I can’t let you in“. Lol 😆 . Seriously. Was I in a class with a strict lecturer or something?
The famous chef, and yes he had two glasses
The famous Omurice at Kichi-Kichi
Anyway so obviously I ordered the famous omurice, with the attraction of course, haha 😆 . Do I like it? Well, I have to say I found the fried rice to be too bitter for my liking. It was still good though, but I could not say it was the best fried rice I have ever had in my life.
But I have to say the main attraction of the restaurant was Kichi himself, who was very funny to watch in his own way 🙂 .
Sebelumnya dalam 2015 Spring Trip: Zilko pergi ke Jepang untuk sebuah konferensi dimana nantinya ia akan memperpanjang masa tinggalnya di Jepang untuk sebuah acara jalan-jalan bersama orangtua dan adiknya. Setelah tinggal di Tokyo selama dua belas hari dan di Hokkaido selama empat hari, ia kini akhirnya sudah berada di perhentian terakhir dari perjalanan ini: daerah Kansai. Disana, ia menyempatkan untuk pergi dua kalu ke bekas ibukota imperialnya Jepang: Kyoto.
***
Ke Kyoto
Alasan kami pergi dua kali perjalanan harian ke Kyoto (dan bukannya, misalnya, sekalian menginap di Kyoto aja) adalah karena kami tidak bisa menemukan hotel yang masih memiliki kamar kosong. Iya dong, semua penginapan disana penuh waktu itu! Ketika aku browsing-browsing hotel di booking.com, aku langsung mendapatkan peringatan bahwa 97% hotel disana sudah habis dipesan di tanggal kunjunganku kesana! Dan yang sisanya 3% itu adalah hotel-hotel yang tarif per malamnya, sekitar, €500 (sekitar Rp 7,28 JUTA) per malam untuk kamar yang biasa, haha 😆 . Jadi pesan dari ceritanya adalah: kalau mau bepergian ke Kyoto di masa peak season kayak gini, pesanlah hotel dari jauh-jauh hari banget sebelumnya! Solusinya bagi kami adalah dengan menginap di Osaka dan pergi ke Kyoto ketika kami ingin kesana; karena kedua kota ini toh lokasinya dekat satu sama lain.
Ngomong-ngomong, untuk pergi ke Kyoto, kami memutuskan untuk naik kereta di Jalur Hankyu, yang mana dioperasikan oleh sebuah perusahaan kereta api swasta[1]. Dan harga tiketnya dari Osaka ke Kyoto (dan sebaliknya), mengejutkan nih, murah banget loh karena cuma ¥400 (sekitar Rp 43.000,-) saja satu arah! 😯 Beneran deh, ini adalah kejutan yang menyenangkan bagi kami karena kami kira harganya akan sekitar ¥1,000 (sekitar Rp 108.000,-) gitu deh satu arah, haha 😆 .
Stasiun Umeda, stasiun utamanya Jalur Hankyu di Osaka
Perjalanan kereta Jalur Hankyu dari Osaka ke Kyoto memakan waktu sekitar satu jam. Karena dimiliki oleh perusahaan swasta, jalur ini jelas tidak menggunakan jalur kereta apinya JR sehingga mereka juga tidak berhenti di stasiun “utama” seperti Stasiun Osaka atau Stasiun Kyoto. Di Kyoto, kami turun di Stasiun Kawaramachi. Ini malah enak banget karena Kawaramachi pada dasarnya berada di seberang (sungai) sebuah distrik penting di Kyoto yang ingin banget aku kunjungi: Gion.
Gion
Sembilan tahun yang lalu, aku membaca novel Memoirs of a Geisha dan juga menonton, beberapa hari kemudian, versi filmnya dan aku amat menyukainya (terutama novelnya sih). Nah, setting dari sebagian besar cerita di novel ini adalah distrik Gion di Kyoto ini, yang memang terkenal sebagai distrik geisha paling eksklusif di Jepang.
Gion
Jalan yang ramai di Gion
Untukku, Gion keren banget dah. Atmosfernya memang terasa seperti ratusan tahun yang lalu: dengan bangunan-bangunannya, jalanannya, dan kuil-kuilnya; ya, kecuali tiang-tiang listriknya dan kendaraan-kendaraan yang lewat sih ya, haha 😆 . Sayangnya kami tidak melihat (apalagi bertemu) dengan geisha seorang pun disana. Tetapi masih seru banget rasanya bisa berjalan-jalan santai mengelilingi Gion dan membayangkan bagaimana Nitta Sayuri, Mameha, dan Hatsumomo hidup disana di ceritanya 🙂 .
Kuil-Kuil di Kyoto
Fushimi Inari-taisha
Kuil ini berada di prioritas teratas untuk dikunjungi di Kyoto bagi kami. Nah, jadi sebenarnya sebelum pergi ke Gion itu kami pergi ke kuil ini terlebih dulu, haha 😆 . Mengapa? Yaa, untuk foto-foto semacam ini gitu deh:
Kuil Fushimi Inari-taisha yang terkenal banget di Kyoto
yang mana cocok banget buat dijadiin cover photo di Facebook kan ya? Huahahaha 😆
Iya, Fushimi Inari-taisha adalah kuil yang terkenal dengan ribuan gerbang torii yang berwarna oranye[2]. Dan memang kuil ini terkenal banget karena dipenuhi orang-orang; sehingga praktis mustahil deh untuk bisa foto tanpa di-photobomb oleh orang lain, haha 😆 .
Kami menghabiskan sekitar dua jam di kuilnya (yang mana masuknya gratis loh btw, hore! 😀 ) sebelum pergi ke Gion.
Kiyomizu-dera
Kuil lain yang kami kunjungi adalah kuil Kiyomizu-dera. Kuil ini berlokasi di atas sebuah bukit jadi dari pemberhentian bus terdekat, kami harus berjalan naik ke atas bukit untuk kesana. Untuk kuil ini, biaya masuknya tidak gratis. Tetapi harga tiketnya toh masih murah sih menurutku, yaitu seharga ¥300 (sekitar Rp 32.500,-) per orang sehingga nggak masalah deh.
Yang unik dari kuil ini adalah balkon kayunya yang “menggantung” 13 meter di samping bukitnya. Oke, memang nggak menggantung sih karena ada rangka kayunya di bawahnya, tetapi masih keren lah ya 😆 .
Kiyomizu-dera Selfie dengan balkon kayunya
Bagian lain dari kuilnya juga indah banget. Dan lagi, karena ini adalah kuil terkenal di Kyoto ditambah lagi dengan harga tiket masuknya yang murah, kuil ini ramai banget dikunjungi turis! Hahaha 😆 .
Tempat-Tempat lain di Kyoto
Musim sakura di Kyoto!
Aku juga merasa berjalan-jalan di Kyoto itu asyik banget. Atmosfer kotanya nyaman sekali: ramai di satu tempat (baca: tempat-tempat turis) dan amat tenang dan damai di tempat lainnya (baca: area tempat tinggal penduduknya). Apalagi, dikombinasikan dengan saat itu yang sedang musim hanami, atmosfernya menjadi terasa semakin menakjubkan! Kelopak-kelopak bunga sakura sedang berguguran sewaktu itu. Indah sekali!
Kelopak bunga sakura yang berguguran di Kyoto
Kami juga pergi ke beberapa taman lain di Kyoto, dan semuanya indah! 🙂
Arashiyama
Tempat lain di Kyoto yang merupakan prioritas utama kami adalah Arashiyama, terutama hutan bambu kecilnya! Jadi di hari kedua kami ke Kyoto, kami berganti kereta Jalur Hankyu kami di Stasiun Katsura dan dari sana naik jalur lain yang lebih pendek ke Arashiyama. Awalnya agak sulit untuk mengetahui dimana lokasi hutan bambunya karena peta kami tidak menunjukkan lokasi persisnya dimana. Bahkan di petanya ada gambar hutan bambu di tempat lain sehingga awalnya aku kira di tempat lain itulah hutan bambunya. Untungnya kami bertemu penduduk setempat yang menunjukkan lokasi hutan bambunya yang benar!
Hutan Bambu Arashiyama di Kyoto
Sejujurnya hutam bambunya agak sedikit di bawah ekspektasi kami. Ekspektasi kami hutannya kan besar gitu. Ah, walaupun begitu masih indah kok tempatnya, hehe. Lagi, karena ini tempat terkenal di Kyoto, mustahil deh bisa foto-foto disini tanpa di-photobomb oleh orang lain, haha 😆 .
Di sebelahnya hutan bambu adalah Kuil Tenryuji yang termasuk dalam UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mumpung sudah disana, ya sudah sekalian kami membeli tiketnya dan masuk. Kuilnya bagus juga dengan taman yang amat indah.
Makanannya
Sushi di Chojiro Sushi
Sekali waktu kami makan siang di Sushi Chojiro di Kyoto yang, jelas, menyediakan sushi dan semacamnya, haha 😆 . Kami menduga restoran ini seharusnya bagus karena kami harus mengantri dulu selama sekitar 30 menit – sambil ngomel-ngomel tentunya tetapi kami terlalu malas untuk berpindah restoran, haha – sebelum mendapatkan meja kosong.
Sashimi yang amat segar dan enak di Chojiro
Sushi set yang amat segar dan enak di Chojiro
Nah, setelah perjalanan ke Jepang ini, aku bisa bilang bahwa sushi bukanlah makanan Jepang favoritku deh. Maksudku, memang sih sushi yang aku makan di Jepang itu enak-enak. Tetapi, jika bisa memilih, aku masih jelas akan memilih makanan lain selain sushi deh. Sushi di Chojiro ini memang adalah sushi (dan sashimi) terenak yang aku makan di perjalanan musim semi ke Jepang ini.
p.s: Dan toh aku menikmatinya kok
Kichi-Kichi
Satu restoran lain yang kami kunjungi di Kyoto adalah Kichi-Kichi. Lagi, aku tahu keberadaan restoran ini dari blognya Jendluvu‘s melalui posting yang ini. Aku harus bilang bahwa kami beruntung lho bisa makan disana. Di hari pertama kami ke Kyoto, restorannya sudah penuh sehingga Kichi, pemilik sekaligus kokinya, tidak bisa menerima kami.
Kami mencoba membuat reservasi untuk hari kedua kami ke Kyoto tetapi kami tidak beruntung. Jadilah di hari kedua jam 5:30 sore kami langsung aja datang kesana, untung-untungan aja. Dan untungnya kami datang lho. Ada yang ceritanya membuat reservasi jam 5 sore tetapi orangnya tidak datang sehingga kami bisa mengambil tempat mereka. Btw, jam 5:40 sore, orang yang membuat reservasi jam 5 sore itu baru datang dan oleh Kichi orangnya dilarang masuk loh karena mereka telat 40 menit. Ia berkata ke mereka seperti ini (dalam bahasa Inggris soalnya orangnya bukan orang Jepang) “Kamu terlambat 40 menit. Lima menit sih nggak papa, tetapi tidak bisa kalau 40 menit. Maaf ya tetapi kamu tidak bisa masuk“. Huahahaha 😆 . Beneran loh. Ini ceritanya aku sedang berada di restoran atau di sebuah kuliah yang dosennya tegas dan galak sih?
Kokinya yang terkenal dan ya, itu dua kacamata
Omurice yang terkenal itu di Kichi-Kichi
Ngomong-ngomong, jelas aku memesan omurice-nya yang terkenal itu, dengan show-nya tentunya, haha 😆 . Apakah aku menyukainya? Hmm, mungkin gini aja deh. Menurutku bumbu cokelat nasi gorengnya itu agak terlalu pahit untuk seleraku. Masih enak-enak aja sih, tetapi harus aku bilang bahwa ini bukanlah nasi goreng terenak yang pernah aku makan.
Tetapi harus aku akui bahwa menurutku atraksi utama restorannya adalah si Kichi-nya itu, yang mana lucu dan antik juga dengan caranya sendiri 🙂 .
Previously on 2015 Spring Trip: Zilko went to Japan for a conference where he would later extend his stay in Japan for a trip after the conference where he met his parents and brother. After staying in Tokyo for twelve days, he flew north to the city of Hakodate in Hokkaido. After one night there, he was ready to go to the largest city in Hokkaido, Sapporo.
***
Getting to Sapporo
The train route map from Hakodate to Sapporo
From Hakodate, we took the train to go to Sapporo, the largest city in Hokkaido. Btw, the rail transport in Hokkaido was ancient in comparison to the ultra modern rail transport in Honshu Island. For instance, there was no Shinkansen (bullet train) service in Hokkaido, even though as of 2015 they were constructing an extension of the Tohoku Shinkansen to Hakodate so later on Tokyo and Hakodate would be connected by this bullet train.
Anyway, to go to Sapporo, we decided to take the Super Hokuto Express which departed at 12:29 PM. The train looked like this btw:
The Super Hokuto Express
Quite cool, wasn’t it? 😀 As I said, the 315 km distance between Hakodate and Sapporo was covered in just 3.5 hours with this Super Hokuto Express. Well, actually not that ancient if I think about it, but it just fell short if I compared it with what I could find in Honshu Island, haha 😛 .
Anyway, the train arrived in Sapporo late according to my watch. By how long? Well, 20 seconds, haha 😛 . #firstworldproblem #Japaneseproblem
Otaru
Otaru
During our stay in Sapporo, we actually also went on a one-day trip to the town of Otaru just to the north west of Sapporo. On our way to Otaru, we planned to take the train. But there was a disruption on the track between Sapporo and Otaru so they could not run the train all the way to Otaru.
Oh, we knew this only because there was an extremely nice Japanese lady who was, in her own initiative, approached us and helped us! Seriously! We did not ask for any help (yet) but she just came to us and explained the situation! HOW NICE OF HER!! 😯 Apparently she was also going to Otaru. Upon knowing that we were going to Otaru as well, she offered us if we wanted to go with her and her family together by bus. Of course we agreed. And btw, she also helped us adjust our Suica Card balance because of this train fiasco.
So long story short, we arrived at Otaru and had to say goodbye to the nice Japanese lady and her family. We wandered around the town of Otaru. To me, Otaru was a nice little town with a lot more tourists than Hakodate, haha 😆 . Oh, and while in Otaru, despite the 6°C temperature, I felt like having a cone of ice cream. So I went to one, and bought a cone. Yes, just a cone, like this:
Technically a cone of ice cream 😉
Huahaha 😆 .
The ice cream was delicious btw, with eight different flavors at once, haha 😆 .
Sapporo
Being the largest city in Hokkaido, Sapporo was not like Tokyo. Despite all the skyscrapers and towers, it was still nothing like Tokyo. It felt more subdued and calm, not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. But if you expect a big and crowded city with “life” practically everywhere, Sapporo is not your city.
The TV Tower of Sapporo
Anyway, what we really liked from Sapporo was its brilliant 500 meter underground walkway which stretched from Sapporo Station to Odori. The weather was not the best when we were in Sapporo (read: it was very windy and was raining a lot). It happened that just outside of our hotel, there was an entrance to this underground walkway. So it helped a lot that we did not have to physically fight the wind and rain for some distance, haha 😆 .
The Historic Village of Hokkaido
In Sapporo, we went to the Historic Village of Hokkaido (Kaitaku no mura) in the suburb of Sapporo because why not, haha 😆 . To get there we took the subway to Shin-Sapporo station and from there the bus number 22 to Kaitaku no mura. It turned out that we had a bit of too much expectation on this site, haha. We felt a little bit underwhelmed there. It was not bad though, but we just somehow expected more.
Enjoying tea at a traditional Japanese house
It was actually quite a nice place with a lot of different old buildings from all regions in Hokkaido. Even some had some history and story which they told. And we could enter some of them and, of course, took some pictures, haha 😆 .
Shiroi Koibito
The beautiful Shiroi Koibito in Sapporo
If we were feeling underwhelmed in Kaitaku no mura, we actually were nicely surprised in Shiroi Koibito where it was actually much nicer than what we expected! 😆 . Shiroi Koibito was a chocolate factory in the west part of Sapporo.
And you know what, upon entering the place, I felt like I was in Willy Wonka‘s chocolate factory! So there was this Tudor-styled garden which people could enter for FREE, and it was very beautiful! On top of that, every hour, there was a show in the garden every hour where the things in the garden, like the statues, dolls, trash cans, etc, actually “performed”. Seriously, it was magical!
The show
There, we also decided to go into the museum, where this one was not free. But inside it was actually really cool where we got to see some parts of the factory through a few of large windows. And the factory was super cool with all these machines and workers. The museum itself was very nice where, at first, they explained about chocolate and stuffs. But later on, they showcased the hobbies and collections of the owner’ (I think) family in several different rooms based on the types. For instance, there was the gramophone room, then the sport room, then the (Japanese) modern toys room, etc. Really cool!
Mount Moiwa
In Sapporo, just like Hakodate, we could also go to the top of a small mountain and see the skyline of the city from there. We could do this in Mount Moiwa. To get there, we took the streetcar and got off at Ropeway Iriguchi. From there, we could either walk to the station or took the FREE shuttle bus service. Obviously we took the shuttle bus, haha 😆
Sapporo as seen from Mount Moiwa
To get to the top, we had to take two cable cars. The second one was quite unique because the cable car was not actually hanging, haha 😆 . Anyway, the view from the top of Mount Moiwa was indeed really good, especially because we did it in the evening where the light had been on. And indeed Sapporo was a much bigger city than Hakodate. However, actually I still found the view in Mount Hakodate to be more breathaking though just because of Hakodate’s unique geography.
The Food
The food that I had been wanting to try badly in Sapporo was the genghis khan. Indeed I already had one in Hakodate but of course I was still curious with the one in Sapporo.
The Genghis Khan in Sapporo Bier Garten
Once I read a review of a good genghis khan meal in Sapporo Bier Garten. So after our day trip to Otaru, we decided to go there. It turned out there were three genghis khan restaurant in there. We went to the one which they recommended, which was inside the brewery building.
Apparently there was a good offer for the all you can eat genghis khan menu, so we decided to go for it, haha. Luckily they let my mom, who did not eat that much, to not buy the all you can eat menu and just ordered a normal-sized meal on her own.
Cooking genghis khan
Genghis khan was basically a Hokkaido-style barbeque and in Sapporo Bier Garten, we grilled the meat ourselves. And it was SO delicious! Haha 😆 . And oh, I ate a lot today and I blamed this on the all you can eat menu because with this I tend to want to eat more, haha 😛 .
A nice restaurant in Sapporo
There was a low-key small restaurant in Sapporo which was really good. It was really good that we actually dined there twice. Yeah, twice! 🙂 They offered quite some varieties of Japanese food, like crab, fried chicken, fried shrimp, beef steak, etc. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the restaurant even though they did tell me once and actually gave me their name card (but I lost it and the name card was only written in Japanese anyway). But this restaurant was just accross the Sapporo Clock Tower.
A nice dinner at a low-key restaurant in Sapporo
Sukiya
For our breakfast, Sukiya gyudon was our hero because they opened 24 hour, haha 😆 . And the gyudon was definitely really good and very affordable. They actually had a few varieties of gyudon and I tried some of them. The basic one was good, but my favorite was the rich cheese gyudon 🙂 .
Sebelumnya dalam 2015 Spring Trip: Zilko pergi ke Jepang dalam rangka sebuah konferensi dimana ia memperpanjang masa tinggalnya disana dimana ia bertemu dengan orangtua dan adiknya. Setelah tinggal di Tokyo selama dua belas hari, ia terbang ke utara ke kota Hakodate di Hokkaido. Setelah menginaps satu malam, kini ia siap untuk pergi ke kota terbesar di Hokkaido, Sapporo.
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Pergi ke Sapporo
Peta rute kereta dari Hakodate ke Sapporo
Dari Hakodate, kami naik kereta untuk pergi ke Sapporo, kota terbesar di Hokkaido. Btw, sistem transportasi kereta api di Hokkaido itu kuno banget loh dibandingkan dengan sistem transportasi kereta api yang ultra modern di pulau Honshu. Contohnya, tidak ada Shinkansen (kereta peluru) di Hokkaido, walaupun per tahun 2015 ini mereka sedang membangun perpanjangan infrastruktur untuk Shinkansen Tohoku sih sehingga nantinya Tokyo dan Hakodate akan terhubungkan oleh kereta peluru ini.
Anyway, untuk pergi ke Sapporo, kami memutuskan untuk naik kereta ekspress Super Hokuto yang berangkat jam 12:29 siang. Keretanya nampak kayak gini btw:
Kereta ekspres Super Hokuto
Keren ya? 😀 Seperti yang aku bilang, jarak 315 km antara Hakodate dan Sapporo ditempuh dalam waktu 3,5 jam dengan Super Hokuto. Sebenarnya nggak kuno-kuno banget sih ya kalau dipikir-pikir lagi, tetapi memang kontras banget kalau dibandingkan dengan apa yang bisa aku temukan di pulau Honshu, haha 😛 .
Btw, kereta kami terlambat dong sampainya di Sapporo menurutku jamku. Terlambat berapa lama memangnya? Umm, 20 detik, hahahaha 😆 😛 . #firstworldproblem #masalahorangJepang
Otaru
Otaru
Di waktu kami di Sapporo, kami juga pergi satu hari ke kota Otaru di barat lautnya Sapporo. Untuk ke Otaru, kami memutuskan untuk naik kereta. Tetapi ternyata sedang ada gangguan di rel di antara Sapporo dan Otaru sehingga keretanya tidak bisa dioperasikan hingga Otaru.
Oh, kami tahu informasi ini karena ada seorang ibu-ibu orang Jepang yang, berdasarkan inisiatifnya sendiri, mendatangi dan membantu kami! Serius! Kami tidak bertanya apa-apa lho tetapi ia langsung datang ke kami dan menjelaskan situasinya! BAIK BANGET YA!! 😯 Ternyata ia juga akan pergi ke Otaru. Dan setelah mengetahui bahwa kami akan ke Otaru juga, ia menawarkan apakah kami ingin ikut ia dan keluarganya untuk bersama-sama ke Otaru naik bus. Tentu saja kami setuju. Dan btw, ia juga membantu kami untuk menyesuaikan balance di Kartu Suica kami lho akibat permasalahan dengan kereta ini.
Singkat cerita, kami tiba di Otaru dan harus berpisah dengan ibu-ibu orang Jepang dan keluarganya yang baik hati itu. Kami berjalan-jalan di Otaru. Untukku, Otaru adalah kota kecil yang indah dan ada lebih banyak turis disana daripada di Hakodate, haha 😆 . Oh, dan ketika di Otaru, walaupun waktu itu suhu udaranya 6°C, aku memutuskan untuk makan satu cone es krim. Ya, cuma satu cone aja kok, kayak gini:
Secara teknis ini satu cone es krim kan ya 😉
Huahaha 😆 .
Es krimnya enak lho btw, dengan delapan rasa yang berbeda sekaligus, haha 😆 .
Sapporo
Sebagai kota terbesar di Hokkaido, Sapporo berbeda sekali dari Tokyo. Walaupun ada banyak menara yang tinggi disana, suasananya sama sekali berbeda dari Tokyo. Rasanya lebih sepi dan kalem gitu. Jadi kalau kita mencari kota yang ramai dengan banyak “kehidupan” dimana-mana, Sapporo bukanlah kota yang kita cari.
Menara TV di Sapporo
Dan yang aku suka dari Sapporo adalah koridor bawah tanah sepanjang 500 meter yang merupakan ide yang super brilian dari Stasiun Sapporo ke Odori. Cuaca ketika kami disana waktu itu tidak bersahabat (baca: amat berangin dan hujan deras). Kebetulan banget di luar hotel kami ada pintu masuk ke koridor bawah tanah ini. Jadi ini sangat membantu banget dong ya sehingga kami tidak harus melawan angin dan hujannya, haha 😆 .
The Historic Village of Hokkaido
Di Sapporo, kami mampir di Historic Village of Hokkaido (Kaitaku no mura) di pinggiran kota Sapporo, haha 😆 . Untuk kesana, kami menaiki subway ke stasiun Shin-Sapporo dan dari sana naik bus nomor 22 ke Kaitaku no mura. Ternyata kami memiliki ekspektasi yang terlalu berlebihan dengan tempat ini, haha. Kami merasa agak kecewa deh jadinya. Nggak jelek sih tempatnya sebenarnya, tetapi kami memiliki ekspektasi yang agak berlebihan saja.
Menikmati teh di sebuah rumah tradisional Jepang
Sebenarnya tempatnya lumayan bagus juga kok dengan beberapa bangunan tua dari berbagai daerah di Hokkaido. Bahkan beberapa di antaranya memiliki sejarah dan cerita yang bisa diceritakan. Dan kita bisa masuk juga loh dan, tentu, foto-foto, haha 😆 .
Shiroi Koibito
Shiroi Koibito yang indah di Sapporo
Jika kami merasa agak kecewa di Kaitaku no mura, kami mengalami yang sebaliknya di Shiroi Koibito dimana tempatnya lebih bagus daripada sangkaan kami! 😆 . Btw, Shiroi Koibito adalah sebuah pabrik coklat di barat Sapporo.
Dan ketika memasuki tempatnya, aku merasa seperti di pabrik coklatnya Willy Wonka loh! Jadi disana ada taman bertemakan Tudor yang bisa dimasuki dengan GRATIS dan tamannya indah loh! Di samping itu, setiap jam juga ada show gitu di tamannya, dimana patung-patung, boneka-boneka, tempat sampah, dll-nya, “tampil”. Serius, keren banget!
Salah satu show-nya
Disana, kami memutuskan untuk memasuki museumnya, yang mana kalau ini nggak gratis ya,. Tetapi di dalamnya sungguh keren loh dimana kami juga bisa melihat beberapa bagian pabriknya melalui beberapa jendela besar. Dan pabriknya keren loh dimana ada banyak mesin-mesin yang keren gitu. Museumnya sendiri lumayan bagus dimana di awalnya berupa penjelasan mengenai coklat. Selanjutnya, dipamerkan koleksi-koleksi keluarga pemilik pabriknya (aku duga) dalam beberapa ruangan dan sesuai tema. Misalnya aja, ada ruangan khusus untuk gramofon, ruangan olahraga, dan ruangan mainan modern (Jepang), dll. Keren!
Mount Moiwa
Di Sapporo, seperti di Hakodate, kita juga bisa naik ke puncah gunung kecil dan melihat pemandangan kota Sapporo dari atas. Untuk ini, kita bisa melakukannya di Mount Moiwa. Untuk kesana, kami naik streetcar dan turun di Ropeway Iriguchi. Dari sana, kita bisa berjalan kaki ke stasiunnya atau naik shuttle busGRATIS. Jelas kami naik shuttle bus-nya dong ya, haha 😆 .
Sapporo terlihat dari Mount Moiwa
Untuk naik kesana, kami harus naik dua kereta gantung. Kereta gantung yang kedua unik sih karena keretanya tidak menggantung, haha 😆 . Pemandangan dari Mount Moiwa memang bagus banget, terutama karena kami naiknya di malam hari dimana lampu-lampu sudah dinyalakan. Dan memang Sapporo lebih besar daripada Hakodate. Namun, menurutku pemandangan dari Mount Hakodate masih lebih bagus akibat geografi uniknya Hakodate.
Makanannya
Makanan yang sudah ingin banget aku coba di Sapporo adalah genghis khan. Memang aku sudah mencicipinya di Hakodate, tetapi aku masih penasaran dengan yang di Sapporo.
Genghis Khan di Sapporo Bier Garten
Suatu waktu aku membaca review rumah makan yang menyediakan genghis khan yang enak di Sapporo Bier Garten. Jadilah setelah perjalanan kami ke Otaru, kami pergi kesana. Ternyata disana ada tiga rumah makan yang semuanya menyediakan genghis khan, haha. Kami pergi ke rumah makan yang mereka rekomendasikan, yaitu di dalamnya gedung brewery (tempat pembuatan bir).
Ternyata waktu itu ada penawaran menarik untuk menu genghis khan all you can eat. Jadilah kami memilihnya. Untungnya juga mereka membolehkan mamaku, yang tidak bisa makan banyak, untuk tidak membeli menu all you can eat dan ia bisa memesan menu ukuran biasa.
Memasak genghis khan
Genghis khan pada dasarnya adalah sebuah barbeque ala Hokkaido dan di Sapporo Bier Garten, kita bisa memanggang dagingnya sendiri loh. Dan rasanya memang enak BANGET! Haha 😆 . Oh, dan aku makan banyak banget hari ini dan ini gara-gara menu all you can eat karena dengan menu ini aku jadi ingin makan banyak kan biar nggak rugi, haha 😛 .
Restoran yang enak di Sapporo
Ada sebuah restoran kecil di Sapporo yang enak banget. Enak banget sampai-sampai kami makan disana dua kali loh. Iya, dua kali! 🙂 Mereka menawarkan berbagai macam masakan Jepang, seperti kepiting, ayam goreng, udang goreng, steak sapi, dll. Sayangnya, aku tidak ingat nama restorannya walaupun mereka memberi-tahuku dan bahkan memberiku kartu nama (tetapi kartu namanya hilang dan dalam bahasa Jepang sih). Tetapi lokasi restoran ini adalah di dekatnya Menara Jam Sapporo.
Makan malam enak di sebuah restoran kecil di Sapporo
Sukiya
Untuk sarapan, Sukiya gyudon adalah pahlawan kami karena rumah makannya buka 24 jam, haha 😆 . Dan gyudonnya memang enak banget dan harganya murah. Mereka menjual berbagai macam gyudon dan aku mencoba beberapa di antaranya. Gyudon biasanya juga enak sih, tetapi favoritku adalah rich cheese gyudon 🙂 .
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BAHASA INDONESIA
And it was a real miniature train park with actually moving trains! Like this one:
