Bandung, the city of superheros and mass printed t-shirts but very few metered taxis

Bandung... the Paris of Java.. not too sure why lol! Its reputation preceeding us, Erinn, Jess and I headed to Bandung, in West Java for a big weekend of shopping, armed with many many rupiah and dreams of shop after shop of beautiful clothes...We got the night train up on Thursday, and had to kick people out of our seats so we could sit down... the train was packed and wasnt very nice, there were people sleeping on the floor and all over the place. I sat with a family with little twin girls, they were really funny! We got into the station at about 630am and went on the hunt for a hotel, only to find the few we tried were already full. Lots of tour buses and groups around. We decided to have breakfast and go back later, and found this sweet little bakery with great (real!) coffee :) After that was the Museum of the Asia-Akfrika Conference, which was really interesting (and air conditioned!). In 1955, Bandung was host to the conference, which brought together leaders from 29 countries for talks of peace and improvement, and theyre very proud of it: you can take a walk down Asia-Akrika Street, or Freedom Road, to visit the Freedom Building. It was really interesting tho, they had heaps of displays and information and still had the hall set up as it was then. Our guide was a uni student wanting to practice her english, which was nice and easy. Bandung has a famous "Jeans Street" north of the city so we checked that out later in the morning. The taxi drivers there are notorious for not using the meter, so after trying to cross several streets of four-lane one-way traffic (?!) we also had to battle with a driver to use the meter and not rip us off. Jeans St was worth seeing, if not incredibly successful in the shopping way. The whole street is factory outlets, not just for jeans, and every store is based on a superhero. There were shops with giant rambo statues out the front, Wolverine, Superman, Cat Woman... little strange. Shame, it just takes so long to sift thru the rubbish to find the good stuff in places like that. We moved onto another mall, just a small one, not much success (but more successful than the mall we were planning to visit that had been knocked down!) and headed back to the hotel strip. The hotel we were planning on had only one room left- the Presidential suite! It was about twice what we were plannig to pay but we decided to take it anyway- a little treat and our feet were sore! It wasnt that flashy- i guess for an indonesian mid-range hotel it was, but it was just a normal room, air con, giant bed, hot water, quite spacey. Had some great thai for dinner, and a wonderful chocolate brownie for dessert, played cards and had a nice restful sleep. Saturday we'd devoted to Bandung Supermal so headed there after breakfast, after some tough haggling with several taxi drivers. Really, is it that hard to be honest!! After a coffee for energy, we spent most of the day at the mall... it was massive! It even had a ferris wheel and rollercoaster up the top level and a kiddie rides bit to keep them entertained. Not to mention a bowling alley and a movie cinema. It was massive and there were lots of shops to look in... just not a lot of success on the shopping front. Sigh. Yummy dinner at the Coffee Bean and we headed off back to Jogja. A lot more comfortable trip home, dreams of more successful boutique shopping in Jogja...