Took a really slow morning and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was a decent breakfast, with both international stuff (bread, waffles, cornflakes) and some local dishes I didn’t dare to try today. I will probably eat there every morning this week.
I decided to go to Grand Indonesia, a big mall, and spend my day there. Ordered a cab and even with “priority booking”, GrabPlus (larger vehicle), and about 20% tips, it cost about 22 SEK. Since it’s almost as hot here as in Seoul and Singapore, and it seems a bit “rougher”, I believe I will travel mostly by taxi while I’m here.
When the car arrived at the mall, a security guard checked the trunk before letting us up to the entrance. And when I entered the mall, I had to pass by a security checkpoint that just seemed to scan bags. They didn’t care about the beeping metal detector when I walked through 🙂
The mall was spread over eight floors and two buildings (east and west). Lots of stores, and many brands that I recognize from Europe. Lots of head counting since the prices are in Rupiah and one SEK is about 1400 Rupiah. Prices over 1 million are not uncommon.
Found a couple of polo shirts, a small bag, some lunch, and a fika. I got a suggestion that I could apply for a tax refund by visiting their customer service. I did so and it seems like if I show this piece of paper in combination with the receipt at the airport I’ll get about 87 000 RP back, in cash. Which is about 60 SEK. Not sure if I even can exchange that in Sweden.
Took a cab back to the hotel and after three trips by car in this town I’m certain of a couple of things. Not a chance that I would go by bike instead of a car as a form of taxi. And I have no plans whatsoever of getting behind the wheel in this traffic. For some reason, it seems to work and I haven’t seen any accidents so far but they must happen, probably with fatalities as well.
When I got back to the hotel I changed into swimming trunks and headed down to the pool and brought my phone to watch the Fifa World Cup final between Spain and England. Unfortunately, the water was colder than I would have liked so after half an hour I got out of the pool and sat on one of the sunbeds to dry up a bit. It was cloudy so no help from the sun. At halftime, I returned to my room to watch the second half. To bad for the Lioness that Spain was too good. I was rooting for the English ladies.
Went down to the hotel restaurant again for dinner, which seemed like the easiest option, I’ll have to look into other restaurants for the coming days. After dinner, I asked the reception if I could borrow a HDMI cable, and a few minutes later a staffer knocked on the door and handed over one. I watched the game between BK Häcken and IK Sirius on the TV and the game between Örgryte IS and Östersunds FK on the phone. Sirius lost with an own goal in the last minute and ÖIS let in an equalizer just a few minutes left. To bad, both teams needed more points tonight.
Stayed up a while researching what to do tomorrw and then went to bed. Damn sports!
