FINALLY! Our first weekend: a chance to finally go out from our cages and explore the life in Medan, figuring out the culture of Indonesians. We made sure we had a complete sleep but still got up early in the morning because we have no time to waste. Our heroes, Miel and Triin, searched and planned our itinerary for the day.
First destination: Maimoon Palace! Just the outside structure of this place is so nice; we had a lot of pictures and videos before we even went in. It’s a small place with nothing much to do, not until we see those beautiful costumes we can rent. Triin and I immediately checked it and tried one. We encouraged the others to do so, too; duh, we’re not in Medan everyday! THESE ARE TOO PRETTY!!! We picked the colors of our costumes and let the salesladies put the accessories on our costumes. And of course we went on to taking pictures of ourselves, then a man approached us and suggested to take the picture for us. He just kept directing us what to do; the results are really good! We gave him a tip, totaling 50,000 rupiah I think, because we are so glad that he volunteered on taking us a picture. Afterwards, we took some more pictures ourselves then another man approached us suggesting taking the picture of us. We realized that we may have given the first one a big tip to know that they really do it on purpose. We gave the second man a smaller amount after he took photos of us. Ally and Miel returned the rented costumes first because they’re not feeling well. Angel followed, then Arvin. Triin and I made the most out of these 60,000 rupiah-worth costumes and took more photos. I had an album of our pictures alone! We returned the costumes afterwards and stopped by the souvenir shop to see if there’s something worth buying before we went to get our shoes. Triin and I being the vainest people in the group had more pictures on the stairs before heading to our Grab ride. We didn’t know that Miel and Ally have been waiting there for long.
It’s lunch time so we went to our second destination: Tiptop Restaurant! There are a few people who suggested this restaurant to us because it’s famous and they say the food is good. We ordered our meals and ate. Ally, however, didn’t finish hers because she said it wasn’t good. So we pass around her meal and we all tasted it, haha! I can say that it’s not worthy of its title “best seller”. After we ate, Ally decided to just come home because of the heat, I guess.
We waited for her Grab to come before we went to our third destination: Tjong a Fie Mansion! Again, we took photos before we went inside but before we do, Gita came! What a surprise! Now, we won’t have any trouble talking to these people. We, then, went in and started with the tour. This is a HUGE house. There are a lot of rooms with different purposes. The tour guide also tells what the family usually does in a certain room, like “this is usually for business meetings” or “this is where the family eats during occasions”, stuff like that. I took a video of the whole tour with Triin trying to pretend like it’s her house we’re touring in. The tour ended so we took more photos around the place but still making sure that we don’t include the temple because it’s sacred. It’s still 3PM and we lost one place to go to since we didn’t bring our hijabs. So we decided to head on to Rahmat Gallery, only to figure out that the entrance fee is too expensive for non-locals. So we took pictures outside the museum as proof that we’ve been, at least, outside. This last destination isn’t scheduled until the evening because they say it looks best at night.
We have no choice so . . . off to our last destination: Merdeka Walk! Triin and I immediately noticed the Coffee Festival going on there. Gita asked the guard if we could go in but unfortunately, he said that we had to be invited to join. Sadly, Triin and I just invited the group to stroll around first to see where we want to eat. They decided to go for a pizza and find one restaurant with one. Gita asked another guard where we can eat pizza around there, he said there’s no restaurant that sells pizza, but Triin and I saw one named Ayam Penyet Ria, that has a picture of pizza by their door. We decided to eat there instead, and figured out that they don’t sell pizza. We we’re fooled by the pictures outside; we should’ve believed abang! Still, we ordered our foods and Arvin treated us with some desserts! We planned on visiting the one across the Merdeka Walk that looks like the White House to take some pictures but we’re not even sure if we could go there. Plus, we took time on finishing our foods because they really have big servings. We talked over our desserts and after everyone’s done, we decided to call it a day.