Well-known as the center of business and government, Jakarta recorded as the most populous city in Indonesia with more than 10millions people live there according to Jakarta Central Bureau of Statistic in 2017. Jakarta provides very complete facilities for all people who coming there. It is no wonder if the number of urbanization continuously increases time by time. People are attracted to come to Jakarta and enjoy all the convenience there. Every day, everybody wakes up to explore Jakarta because Jakarta will never sleep and always ready to be explored.
It is kind of confusing when people come to Jakarta only with one purpose which is travelling. Different with other tourism places in Indonesia like Bali or Yogyakarta, Jakarta is always too narrow. However, travelling is not about how wide the city that you are going to explore, but how joyous feeling that you are going to get even in the narrowest angle of place. So, this is my favorite thing whenever I come to Jakarta, the city where I was born, a night city tour.
My starting point was the Gate 10 Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium, on Gerbang Pemuda Street, Central Jakarta. I entered the GBK areas, and it was not that crowded because I was not coming in Saturday night when everybody agreed to enjoy the weekend at the same time. It was quite enough for people who wanted to exercise at night. Besides, in these days lots of photo spots in the GBK areas, one of them this Kaldron Api that was built before 2018 Asian Games Jakarta – Palembang.
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It's always interesting to visit GBK. I felt like I saw shooting stars on the earth when millions skyscrapers decorated the urban skylines with their lightings. It was pretty amazing to see giant buildings just like being planted there; Mandiri Bank Tower, Senayan City, The Ritz Carlton Hotel, Mulia Hotel, and many others.People know this is an elite area in Jakarta, but who cares? Everybody has right to feel joy in their way. All layers of society enjoyed this kind of night city tour like what I did. Although this area are surrounded by dozens of skyline and luxurious hotels, but many street food merchants also peddled their foods and drinks to GBK's visitors. By using bicycle, they offered ice drinks to hot coffee were available, with very affordable price. Besides drinks, there were kinds of food like siomay, ketoprak, bakso arema¸ etc. The fact, even though those are not categorized as good quality of food like those in restaurants, but the buyers also came from people in the office circle. The proof was before I entered GBK area, I saw three uniformed TVRI staff ordered for hot tea and ketoprak like other GBK's visitors.
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I continued my night city tour after feeling enough to see those artificial shooting stars around GBK area. It was quite a long journey to move from one place to another, it was not because a long distance, but busy road condition. I arrived at one of the most iconic places in Jakarta, Kota Tua.
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I found different situation there; more people, more small merchants, and less high buildings. Actually, I have ever come to this place in the daylight, however, the sunlight was not as friendly as people who offered me to rent bicycle. If I compared this place to the previous one, which was GBK, this place was indeed more suitable for families who want to spend their time casually. I saw many children ran here and there playing with their soap bubble and other toys. Here, it was like you have many choices to go for a stroll in one place. You can rent bicycle that cost for about Rp70000 rupiah for each hour. Further, if you are interested, you could join to the walking tour with one of community named Komunitas Historia by only pay for about Rp225000, you would go through several places Groote Kanaal, Kota Intan Bridge, Kota Tua Bus Station and Cipta Niaga Building with Alun-Alun Fatahillah as the starting point.
Meanwhile, I myself intended to spend time not money as people rent bicycle and joined the walking tour, therefore I preferred to sit in a circle shape with my five other friends and enjoyed our favorite meal, kerak telor.
