Shopping Malls. What can we do about them? The big, expansive, multi-floor air conditioned buildings where shops, stores, dining spots, food courts, cinemas, and other places where you can shop and spend your money to your heart’s content congregated together in one concentrated place for the convenience of people with a penchant for shopping. Be happy or not with them; whether you think their existence beneficial or harmful to the masses; it is undeniable that they have a tremendous effect on many people everywhere they are built, and that their presence often construed as a sign of a ‘proper’ city—a sign of a city’s increasing economic capacity and welfare.

Before I am continuing with my nonsense drabble however (one of which I am partially confused myself, hahaha), I would like to introduce to you some of the more famous Shopping Malls in Bandung. This post is the first part of a series of posts about Bandung Shopping Malls in this blog.

The first one is Bandung Indah Plaza, or for short: BIP (some people pronounced it B (bay) I (Iy) P (Pay), while others just went straight for bip.) Located on Merdeka Street Number 56, just straight ahead a little from the end of Bandung’s most famous main road Djuanda Street, this particular shopping mall has long since become one of the most recognized and well-known places in Bandung, with typically hundreds upon hundreds of people vacationing there to spend some free time. The place itself is relatively compact, most especially when it is compared with shopping smalls like these, but it is well-fitted enough with a good number of shops with decent variety.

There’s a movie cinema on the top floor (the ticket is very cheap, only Rp. 15.000 (approximately US$ 15) on weekdays and Rp. 20.000 (approximately US$ 20) on weekends, although be cautioned that they sometimes play movies as old as 2007 like “Rescue Dawn”), as well as a food court that houses a number of eating joints ranging from the Kentucky Fried Kitchen to Meatball Noodles (there’s also a number of eating places on the ground floor, with the most prominent ones are McDonalds, Starbucks, and Pizza Hut.) The shopping mall is also located adjacent to Hyatt Hotel Bandung. But perhaps the most striking feature of Bandung Indah Plaza is its location: it is located very close to the most prominent book shop in the city: Gramedia Book Store, while the Gramedia Book Store itself is literally situated across the street from perhaps the most famous and the most comprehensive Electronic Shopping Malls in Bandung, Bandung Electronic Center (or BEC). Its location in Merdeka Street is also very approachable from all sides of Bandung, with abundant supply of public transportations readily available on and near the place. Its close proximity with various other hotspots on the city such as Riau Street, Braga Street, and Asia Afrika Street also helps boosting the amount of people visiting the place.

All in all, though not very big in size, Bandung Indah Plaza is a place that you should definitely check out if you have some free time on your hands while in Bandung.

Tags: Bandung Indah Plaza, Bandung Shopping, Bandung Shopping Mall, BIP, Shopping, Shopping Mall
Categories: Bandung Shopping

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 4:26 AM and is filed under Bandung Shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.