A stroll through the mall...

Last night, as usual, I picked up Dewi on my way home. But since she's having a farewell party for a colleague, I met her not at her office, but in a shopping mall nearby.

It's one of the recently built exclusive malls in Jakarta, and Dewi told me just to wait there because she couldn't be precise as when her party will finish. I hesitated. Those exclusive malls were never felt welcoming, especially to motorbiker like me. But since I had no better choice, I went there anyway.

Fortunately, this mall provided a decent motorcycle park area. Even if I have to circle the huge building twice to find the entrance (motorbike was not allowed to pass the lobby of a exclusive mall; it's a sin). From the lowest basement, I went straight to the lobby. And then there I was, standing there not knowing where to go.

I looked around and all I found was an array of stores which name I can't even pronounced. I decided to go to a place I recognize the most; a book store. It was one or two floors up, I wasn't sure. So I followed the direction signs.

Then one thing I never thought would happen, happened. I got lost. In a freaking mall! It turns out that there's no "go on" sign. The arrows only indicated "left", "right", and "go up" without even bothered to tell me the floors it was on. So I walked around like headless chicken, occasionally turn around in confusion, and since the mall was quite empty, I must be looked like a complete idiot.

And the place was HUGE! I walked and walked and the bookstore was nowhere to be found. If I was a game designer, I could make a first person shooter game a la Doom here, complete with cosmetic salesgirls who turns to zombies, and make it last around 60 or 70 hours of gameplay, located inside the malls alone.  That was practically eternity in real life time. I walked just to find more exclusive stores where I never dare to enter. It all looked the same. So clean, even from customers. I walked so far I wasn't surprised if I ended up in France. And still I couldn't find the damn bookstore.

After days of walking :D, I finally arrived at the store I was looking for. It was quite empty like any other store in the building. And big too. The nice thing about it is that they didn't ask me to deposit my bag. I guess all customers here are rich enough they can't be shoplifters. Or maybe I accidentally passed the bags depository somewhere between Spain and France back there. I don't care.

It took me only a few minutes in the store just to make me rush out in panic. There's so many things I wanna buy! I can't possibly afford them all. Dewi called, she said she'll be coming. So I waited at the outside of the bookstore.

I sat down and thinking. Why I was never felt comfortable in big exclusive malls like this. I felt intimidated, and bored at the same time. The stuff they're selling is so expensive I can smell their expensiveness hundreds of meters away. Why would I go inside? I can't believe I'm this kampungan.

Then Dewi found me. As we walked to the basement again, I held her hand. Not that I was in the romantic mood, but I feared that I may get lost again. And that night, I admired her ability to navigate through that maze. And I looked around. I saw coffee shop sharing the same entrance with a furniture store. A bookstore inside a food court. Maybe I'm just not rich enough to comprehend it all.