Day 27.
We are in room 632 on the 6th floor of the Danau Toba International Hotel. Our huge window opens wide. It has no fly screen or security screen. The wall ends at thigh height & that is where the window begins. With the window open, anyone, child or adult, could easily fall out (or be pushed out). It is soooooooo dangerous! However, we have a fabulous view of the swimming pool & the palm trees. We just don’t stand too close to the window…
The buffet breakfast spread was incredible. Croissants, coconut bread rolls, vegetable spring rolls, a green triangle with red sugar inside, tiny glasses of sweet blueberry yoghurt, watermelon, pineapple, noodles, fried rice & hot chips! A lot of Indonesian breakfast foods are actually meals that most westerners would only consider as dinner meals. It was in a lovely dining area with huge windows overlooking the pool. The only problem was, most of the Indonesians were smoking in there. It made us feel quite ill while we were eating.
We spent 3 hours in Gramedia Bookshop with a break in the middle at the adjoining Dunkin Donuts. The lemon tea in there was 100 times sweeter than my jam donut. As a generalization, the Indonesians do love their sweet food. Back in the bookshop, a small group of teenage school boys stalked us relentlessly. It was ridiculous. Are westerners really that fascinating? They watched us constantly. They stood beside us & picked up the book on the shelf next to us, even though they had absolutely no interest in it. It would have been much less painful if they just spoke to us and asked us questions, instead of just staring & peeping their heads over the top of shelves, and from around the corner. Anyway, we bought a lot of books. A lot! So then we had to go bag shopping so we could carry them home in the plane.
In Palladium Mall, we ate a late lunch at the Hypermart café. It was possibly the yummiest meal I ate this trip (apart from every rendang I’ve ever eaten). I had broad, flat spicy noodles & something similar to a vegetarian spring roll but in soft, soft pastry. It was delectable. Poor Dave nearly died on a whole green chili. His face turned tomato red. After he survived that, we were in the Hypermart for a whole hour. Again we were superstars, being the only westerners there with people looking, pointing and taking photos of us.
Sun Plaza seems to be a high end shopping centre. Everything is very expensive. More expensive than I would pay for clothing etc back home in Australia. However, we tried the Hypermart there which still had decent prices & bought a small rectangle cabin bag on wheels (Polo brand) for 300,000Rp = $AUS30. At the DVD store next door we bought the entire season of Breaking Bad. And Dave found a hardware store that had an entire Hello Kitty aisle! There was also a very popular Hello Kitty restaurant. There were no other westerners in this gigantic shopping mall so again, we were the subject of many photos. When we go home we won’t be celebrities anymore & not one person on the street will be taking photos of us. We will be ordinary plain Jane nobodies. How will we cope?
