SURABAYA FAMILY GATHERING

(Shopping & Relaxing)

We were just 5 people, and we are kindly family. On 12 April 2011, me, my parent, my sister and my close friend just landed in Juanda, Surabaya in the mid of the day. Surabaya’s high temperature greeted us once we were out of building. Soon we went to somewhere to refresh our mind and body; that was a Masjid Agung Surabaya (Surabaya Great Mosque, known as the second biggest mosque in Indonesia after Istiqlal Mosque, Jakarta).

After Zuhur praying and took a break for a moment, we had lunch and went directly to the complex of Sunan Ampel’s cemetery (Sunan Ampel is the one of wali songo/nine saints and as the spiritual force behind the founding of Java's first Islamic kingdom in Demak). Sunan Ampel’s complex is not only consisting of burial ground, there are some places to find something related to muslim’s stuff (telekung, mat/sajadah, kopiah, jilbab, etc), date/raisin and any souvenir similar come from Mecca. After small shopping, we went to having dinner and check in hotel nearby Sunan Ampel’s complex.

At the day 2, we started by shopping some remarkable craft in Tanggulangin, the village known as leather industry (bag, wallet, jacket, shoe, etc) for local and international market. Tanggulangin area is close to PT. Lapindo’s plant, the company that caused environmental disaster (mud eruption) since 2006 up to now.

In the evening we reached Mount Bromo, and check in hotel. It was 180^o contrary of Surabaya’s tone, when we walked in Bromo Mountaint’s prefecture, chill and fresh wrapped our body and we slept soundly that night. After Subuh praying, we went out for seeing beautiful sunrise & 10 km barren desert-like sea of sand in the chilly temperature (range about 5 to 18 degrees Celsius). After breakfast at the hotel, we continued our program for visiting Private’s Apple Garden, Batu, where we allowed eating any kind of apple as much as we can at the spot. After lunch, we moved to Malang and check in Hotel.   

In the morning, before leaving for Surabaya, we stopped over for shopping at home industry, in the corner of Malang city, where they produce amazing and sophisticated embroidery. Back to Surabaya, we continued our enthusiastic for shopping at Pasar Turi, centre of retail with cheaper price. And on Saturday (the 5^th day), we just took Surabaya city tour for wasting our time before transferring to Juanda Airport, headed to Kuala Lumpur.