ONE NOSTALGIA DAY IN SURABAYA (HOW TO PLAN IT AND WHICH DESTINATIONS I VISITED)

I ever lived in Mojokerto once, in 2000-2003 and as I remember Mojokerto didn't have a mall or even a huge supermarket lol. But that's true, so we used to buy our monthly needed in Surabaya, which means at least I'd go to Surabaya once in a month. Everytime we went to Surabaya, we'd visit the same place, same routines, like an Alfa (now it's turned to be Giant) and Tunjungan Plaza (TP), at least we always went to those both. The last time I went to Surabaya after I moved from Mojokerto and before that last time is when I was in Bandung, around 2008-2009. So last year, I felt like I miss Surabaya a lot. I wanted to flash back and do my old routines:( So I decided to go to Surabaya with my friend who's based in Surabaya and another friend who'd like to hang out with us 🤣✌️

A nostalgia day for me is a day when I will go to some places I used to go there, or if you wanna do your old routines is totally okay! I didn't do that because I was with my friends so it's hard if they'd follow me doing my old routines lol. I went to Surabaya in the middle of UTS so I didn't have much time, who'll do short escape in the middle of UTS anyway? 😂. So I just have one full day to visit many places whether I ever went there or I haven't. Well I was really happy and okay with that, but if you think it won't be enough, then have a day off and take your time to have a nostalgia day!

Firstly, I went to House of Sampoerna, a cigarette factory and museum, but it had a FREE tour bus 3 times in a day, and I took the first schedule, because I wanted to go to some places after that. But the thing is, I just knew that we had to reserve it long before that day if we wanted to have a city tour with that bus. But luckily, there were left chairs (those passengers didn't come), so we could do a city tour. The different schedule had a different destinations so you could choose based on destinations you wanna visit, each schedule has 3 destinations. In my schedule, I went to Surabaya Tourism Centre, Mayor Office, and De Javasche Bank.

Us in De Javasche Bank

Us in front of Mayor Office

After the city tour thing, we entered to House of Sampoerna. It's clearly a house but there are many Sampoerna things inside, from the owners picture until the evolution of its cigarettes. We also saw many labors did their thing, stacking tobacco, wrapping it, cutting it until packing it into a box of Sampoerna. Sadly, we couldn't take a picture or video of it but I was truly amazed with those labors, they seemed like a robots for doing that fastly.

Inside House of Sampoerna

We immediately went to Hero Monument (Tugu Pahlawan) to learn some Surabaya's history. Actually, I'm not that kinda person who wanna know history well but this place is one of the famous place and I used to see it so I had to see it again lol. The ticket to enter its museum was free by showing our student cards. Yes, inside the museum you can see or even watch a lot of mockup about the war until its videos, you name it!

Posed with Hero Monument 😂

After had enough with those history things, we ate an ice cream in fenomenal ice cream store called Zangrandi (the price's also fenomenal 😂). The ice cream was good, the taste was good, the place was also good, it's good for you if you just wanna take a break and have a conversation, but remember, the price is fenomenal (read: too high/expensive)!! Then we went to Cheng Ho Masjid for praying and to Submarine Museum. That's the first time I did a real nostalgia because I ever went there when I was a kid and I used to go to Delta (a mall beside it) many times for playing in McD's playground but the playground wasn't there anymore:( So saaad because I really loved that huge playground 😭😭😭

The heat was high (Surabaya is one of the hottest place I ever visited), so we decided to go to Tunjungan Plaza. Well the current TP has already had 6 buildings after there's only 2 until 4 buildings when I was a kid. But the oldest building still had the same floor and I was happy to realize that because I still remembered the little me walked on that floor 😅. The food court hadn't changed also, that food court I used to eat McD's chicken while watching a Complicated music video by Avril Lavigne (Oh how I miss that 😭).

We also visited Kenjeran Park but it was too noon so we just went to Klenteng Agung (a Buddhist temple) and didn't go to Pagoda Tian Ti. But it's okay because we had a beautiful sunset in Klenteng Agung ❤️. The ticket to enter Kenjeran Park wasn't free but I forgot how much so you can check on Google or its website. There's also a huge giant Buddhist statue in front of the temple, but we're too late to take a picture because it's dark already. Before going back to downtown (because Kenjeran is in uptown), we went through the Suramadu Bridge till arrived in Madura island, just for trying lol. I used to use a ferry to go to Madura when I was a kid, well I went to Madura only one time actually 😂. So that's it, in the end of the day, I just met my old friends and had a long nice conversation ✌️

Sunset in Klenteng Agung ❤️

That's how I spent my nostalgia day and those destinations I visited the last time I went to Surabaya. One day was never enough but that's it. At least I could do a nostalgia:) If you have a playlist of songs you used to listen, you can listen it again when you do a nostalgia. It'll be more perfect ❤️. In my case, I used to listen to these songs; Complicated by Avril Lavigne, This Love and She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5, Unwell, Push, If You're Gone and others Matchbox 20's old songs, The Game of Love by Santana, Yellow and The Scientist by Coldplay, Say My Name, Emotions, Brown Eyes, Lost My Breath, and others Destiny Child's old songs, also Padi's old songs too like Kasih Tak Sampai and Semua Tak Sama, well it's 2000 right? In the end, I just wanna say don't forget to plan and have a good perfect nostalgia day!