Graduation Trip!
Apart from birthday, new year, religion-related festive days, three other occasions are widely regarded as the most happiest day in one’s life, namely Graduation Day, Wedding Day and The Birth day of Child. Well, well, I happen to have experienced one of them (the first one of course!). If one is not enough, then it’s easy. Simply share the joy from other people’s graduation day as if you’re the graduates. He2.. not that exaggerating, but you ought to try coming to other’s graduation just like what I did last week.
June 30, 2007 was the convocation day of Parahyangan University @ Bandung and my cousin was one of the graduates. Aunt, uncles, and cousins had come two days earlier for the big day. While my dad and another aunt came the next day after. Since it was weekend and seems like I could leave a while, I took the chance to make a trip to Bandung as well. The chance to meet with relatives is too pity to miss.
As both Dad and aunt are not familiar with Jakarta n Bandung, I made the trip to the airport to fetch them first. Departed from office at 17.00, I only managed to get a cab 15 minutes later. Couldn’t risk to take other means of cheaper transportation anymore since the flight was scheduled to arrive at 17.30 =p Thanks to Jakarta "really awesome" transportation system and congestion, I arrived at airport at 18.30, leaving the honorary guests stranded for almost an hour! Sorry…
Considering the traffic on the way to airport, I decided to switch the original plan having seen that there’s direct transportation from airport to Bandung. Leaving a pack of sweet potato and snake-skin fruit behind, I proceeded to the counter and booked 3 seats to Bandung at Cipaganti Travel for 19.30 departure, charging 115,000 bucks per pax. Merely 10 m leaving that counter, a signboard caught my eyes.. 80,000 per pax to Bandung, offered by X-Trans! What ??? 35,000 adrift. What a huge difference even though the first one is door to door service while the other is point to point. Economic Principle played the rule! Very simple. Booked the seat @ X-Trans, walked back to Cipaganti, cancelled the booking graciously with "white lie"! Done!
There’s proverb stating we’ll reap good deed by helping others. This really applied to me when the vehicle arrived and set to depart for Bandung. Due to miscommunication, the company had allegedly admitted more passengers than the maximum capacity. I was sitting next to the driver with quite a space for one more person to sit in. Looking at this, the driver pleaded to me to allow one more passenger to get on board. Although not that comfortable, I gave in my space. Good Karma got reap soon. The on-board person was owner of Gembira photo-studio, well-known one in Bandung. He gave me his name card and offered additional free photo shoot in his studio. Another good thing, the driver offered to drive us to the hotel for the tolerance! Haha.. nice.. It took almost five hours to arrive. Chit-chat with long time no see cousins, a quick shower and simple meal ended the day.
Next day morning after a great breakfast, we went to the school to join my cousin and his parents who went earlier for the ceremony. It was very crowded, typically convocation day. Following lunch and several photo shoot in the campus, we headed to the latest mall in town, Parisj Van Java, for studio photograph (Too bad we couldn’t manage to contact the Gembira’s owner). I’ve never been to that Mall before and must admit that I was hugely impressed with the concept of the mall. Got not much time to explore more there. What came next was dinner at Sederhana restaurant and heading back to hotel by hijacking an angkot. Hillarious conversation ended the day.
It was pity that I couldn’t stay longer in Bandung as I had to be in the office for work at 9.00. After a series of postponement and intense discussion with Group office, we finally got the approval to implement the new application scorecards. What a relief.. The implementation itself must be done out of office hours and was recommended on beginning of the month for the ease of tracking. That’s why July 1st was picked.
In order to be in the office on time, I took the same transportation provider - X-Trans. Leaving at 5.30, I was astonished looking at my watch when the car arrived in the pool. 7.15. Wow.. It took only 1 hour and 45 minutes for the 180 km trip, based on my general knowledge. The actual distance might be shorter, but the time taken was really short.. Didn’t realize it during the trip due to the nap taken, so didn’t know whether the driver was driving recklessly or not. Well, hopefully not..
Planning for another Bandung trip soon.. It’s been quite a time since last trip and this graduation trip is simply too short!
Congratz to my cousin Erwindy for his graduation!
