Mall culture

Sarinah Department Store has nothing special on the first two floors, but the upper floors are devoted to batik, crafts and souvenirs. The prices are higher than regular vendors, of course, but the brands are reputable.

Plaza Semanggi is a new mall in the city center. We had dinner at Celsius, a nice fusion place and I bought a shirt on sale at a store called Hardware. One thing I noticed was that there was a huge tarp of the model search and their sponsors were Tempra and Counterpain. I thought that was funny.

Plaza Indonesia is a cross between Rockwell and Greenbelt 4, with the supermarket at the basement and luxury brands on the ground floor.

Toilet cubicle floors in Indonesia are perenially wet, except in the better malls where they have the Toto Ecowasher. Here's a video showing how it works.

Grand Indonesia Shopping Town is Greenbelt 5 on a much larger scale. Think carpeted floors. It has the prettiest food court I have seen, very zen with wood panels (good luck on keeping the termites away). They have amazing concepts for certain areas. Their Moroccan wing beats that of Sunway Pyramid. That's also where my header image is from.

I just had to take a photo of Rafe New York's special shirt for Harvey Nichols. I like it, but it's IDR450,000. And one size-fits-all doesn't really work for me.

There are still some spaces that are vacant. What's the classy way to cover them? Black curtains, of course!

left: an optical shop with an interesting name
right: the local National