Travelogue - Surabaya
They say you're a freak when you're having fun, say you must be high when you're spreading love.In all honesty, we didn't get to explore Surabaya much after being done with Mount Bromo and Kawah Ijen. We only had the evening left before we were out of Indonesia.
After the long ride to Surabaya we were so relieved and glad to check into our accomodation at Garden Palace Hotel Surabaya. We specifically choose this hotel because it was near this ice cream place that Wanpei wanted to try Zangrandi.
Our hotel was grand after what we had for the past two nights.
We didn't even bother with an extra bed since they had such a comfy ledge big enough for one of us to sleep.
I was starving by the time we checked in. Our last proper meal was lunch the previous day. But had to take a little dump and reorganised our things a little bit before going down to buy food.
We had to pay airport tax when we flew out of Indonesia and it was about 200,000rupiahs per person. As we were low on cash we thought we could change some money at the hotel lobby.
At the hotel lobby Wanpei met Paul. Paul is a Singaporean man who had business in the country. He seemed super nice and helpful, offering to change currency with us and giving us better rates. Wanpei also enquired about shopping malls around the area and Paul offered to drive us to the mall because it was not safe for girls to walk around the area at night.
He kept talking and talking and I was so hungry. It was mainly Wanpei and him chatting with Casslynn joining in a bit. Because we don't know how to say no, we followed him to his car. Wanpei wanted to buy Keropok so he offered to bring us to the some supermarket to get cheap and good keropok. So off we went.
We got this delicious purple chips, I thinn they were fried sweet potato. Our first taxi driver had offered us some to eat on our first night and it was so yummy we got them as souveniers to bring back to Singapore. I also got this delicious crackers. I have no idea what they are called but they are flat and crispy and have peanuts in them. I eat them during Chinese New Year so it was glorious seeing them sold in the supermarket. We also got instant noodles because I just like their instant noodles heh.
So after our little shopping spree I thought we could finally have some food! But no, he brought us to another place to buy pre fried Keropok! I got some prawns one for my grandma on pretext that it was a present for her but so she could fry some for me! I love prawn crackers! I think Wanpei and Casslyn got some brinjal ones while Paul got some cheese ones. The shop had a cute little daschund with the silkiest black fur ever. It didn't seem to like me very much, I shall blame it on the strong smell of sulphur on me.
After that Paul dropped us off at a mall. It had like 4 plaza or something. We had dinner at some Chinese restaurant, XO or something? Their food was really quite delicious. We ordered some XO chicken, deep fried silver fish in salted egg yoke, a dumpling noodle and fried rice. I love love the noodles, they made it the way I like it. It is more smooth than the usually springy wanton mee kind. Texture like U-Mian but a lot thinner. I am just salivating thinking about it. The dumplings were meh but everything else was yumz! Salted egg yoke really complements a lot of things.
No photo to show cause I was mad hungry. It was chopsticks up and in before thoughts of taking photos could register.
The meal I think was over our budget by a bit. I over ordered because... Hungry. I thought I had my credit card with me but apparently, not. So we had to change more money.
The information woman directed us to the basement. When we got to the basement money changer it was closed! But she kindly told us there was another money changer upstairs. When we walked dejectedly out of the closed money changer a cleaner saw us, and offered to lead the way to the other money changer. He brought us 2 levels up to a jewellry shop where they changed money with us. Who knew jewellry shops can change money also!
I love kind and nice and helpful people. Thank you just existing!
We walked past a toy store and we could't resist walking in to play. There was this magic section and the guy there was demonstating to us this magic trick. And fml, even after he revealed the secret I still couldn't attempt a successful one. Bet he was secretly laughing at me. It was a good laugh though.
Took a cab back to our hotel and went for Zangrandi, which was just beside our hotel.
This is the banana spilt. It had chocolate, strawberry and coconut. We also ordered a single scoop durian. The durian one had the best taste in my opinion but I have tasted better.
Why is this place so famous? The ice cream wasn't that fantastic or maybe just different taste?
It was a bit too diluted for my liking. It tastes similar to the kind of ice cream you get from the ice cream truck uncle, the ones you get 3 tiny scoops for $1.50 or something? Except that is nicer.
I had very high expectations reading the reviews online. That was severely dashed.
The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful. Back to Singapore early the next day, our flight was at 7plus am.
This was the first time I an flying by Garuda. And I was seriously impressed. The flight was only 2.5 hours and they will serve food! Spoke to Dacia and for her 1 hour plus flight to Jakarta they also had food. Good service!
We had nasi briyani on our way there and some yummy breakgast stuff on our way back. The pastries, food and salad all exceeded expectations too!
For such a short flight they also had the inflight entertainment system?! But the bad thing was that I was halfway through Argo when the plane landed. Good movie though, kept me in suspense all the way.
This trip was short but awesome. It was tiring, and challenging. We had little sleep, little food. But we made it, with the support of each other and the help we got from kind strangers. The people were great, the views out of this world and loys of new things tried.
Labels: indonesia, surabaya, Travel
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