Company Outing: Bukittinggi Outing

A vacation is what you take when you can't no longer take what you've been taking - Earl Wilson

Yes, we all need vacation once in awhile. Last Àpril, our company had a company outing to Bukittinggi. For those who might never been out from java island (like me), Bukittinggi seems pretty exciting. Yeaaah, I know it's a lame, but I've never been out of java island for about 23 years, not even to Lampung.
Anyway, how was the vacation? It was awesome! We got a chance to visit some landmarks, shopping and my favorite part was the costume party. 
We gathered on 5 am in the morning to catch up the first plane to Padang. There were some drama, the day before we departed our managing director brought some saddening news that we might not receive annual bonus. But an our before boarding, she clarified that even though we won't get any annual bonus, we'll have some appreciation bonus, but of course it wont be as much as the annual bonus. So, we still felt unhappy, thus we took some pictures to cheer ourselves ehehe...

After we arrived in Padang, the tour guide and his team has already waiting for us. So we headed to Danau Diateh to have lunch and break.

Best Mates (Mba Fira - Mba Miranti - Gue - Anggun)

Nah kan ya udah kenyang, kita lanjut lagi trip ke destinasi berikutnya yaitu istana Pagaruyung. It's some sort of traditional kingdom palace, ya kayak Buckingham Palace gitu lah ya kalo di UK hehehe... Anyway, we got there in the afternoon, the palace was not too crowded. I will tell you some history I heard from the tour guide about this place. This place was used to be a palace for the king of minangkabau and his family. The palace was once attacked by some crocodiles, thus they made wooden fence around the palace. Thus the named it pagaruyung which means wooden fence. The most exciting part from the palace was I got a chace to wore Suntiang yang sumpah yaaaaa berat banget. As a matter of fact we all wore the traditional costume and took a picture together to reminiscence the glory of this palace hehehe...

Next, we had dinner, again at the traditional Padang Restaurant before we headed to our hotel in Bukittinggi. Emang dasar ya lidah jawa, dicekokin masakan Padang asli malah kurang sukak. Lebih suka nasi Padang ala Jakarta hehehe... We stayed at Rocky Hotel, and since we already in Bukittinggi, the view was awesome. The morning I woke up, I got a chance to see such a beautiful view right from my window.
Nah untuk tujuan hari kedua ini gue agak agak lupa nama tempatnya apa. Kalo ngga salah sih Puncak Lawang. Ini literally puncak bukit yang dibawahnya itu adalah Danau Singkarak. Kegiatannya standar sih kaya team building gitu sama main paintball, karaoke dan makan siang bareng. Yang bikin luar biasa itu karna ini tempat literally puncak and I felt like we might literally feel off from the cliff like anytime and I could reach the cloud.. Ngerriii tapi viewnya itu subhanallah keren banget.

See... itu kek jurang banget, bawahnya langsung danau singkarak

 Nah abis dari sini nih gue agak-agak lupa kita kemana lagi, kayanya sih ya ke Goa Jepang sama ke Ngarai Sianok. Viewnya sih biasa aja, cuman kata tour guidenya dulu itu goa Jepang tempat tentara Jepang ngumpet selama perang dunia. Yang bangun goa itu justru bukan orang padang lokal, tapi orang -orang dari sulawesi dan kalimanta yang nota bene ngga ngerti bahasa setempat. Jadi tuh katanya karna mereka bahasanya beda, jadi mereka akan sulit buat kabur dari romusha bikin goa jepang. Ngeri banget ya itu si Jepun jaman dulu, jahat banget deh.
Malam puncak acara outing ini pun tiba. The dress code was Rock Dangdut. Yeah I know, itu kok norak banget ken. Beneran? Emang iya. Karna kita sebagai panitia ingin mengeluarkan sisi gila-gilaan pada pekerja kantor dan sesepuh Deka. Jadilah kostum kita ajaib-ajaib malam itu. Kita gila-gilaan banget, mulai dari joget dan yel kelompok. Sampe perform lagu dangdut berkelompok. And guess what, kelompok gue nyanyi lagu Manis Manja yang Bete. Kapan lagi coba gue bisa dandanin bapak director Pak Mamiek pake bulu mata palsu, eye shadow sama blush on. Pokoknya kelompok gue malam itu temanya dangdut norak dan centil, semuanya didandanin jadi penyanyi dangdut cewe hahaha. Ah, we had a lot of fun that night. Come to think about it, I miss them so bad :(

Our last day in Bukittinggi was started by walking around Jam Gadang, dilanjutkan dengan belanja belinji di pasar atas. Dan sumpah yaaaa, disana itu harga kain cakep-cakep itu murah banget dibanding di tanah abang, asal kita bisa nawar. Trik gue adalah bawa temen gue yang emang asli orang padang buat nawar abis-abisan.
Terakhir sebelum ke bandara, kita makan siang di sate Mak Syukur yang terkenal banget itu dan melipir ke air terjun yang gue lupa namanya, pokoknya air terjun itu pas banget di pinggir jalan. Iya di pinggir jalan banget, kayak abang-abang jual gorengan yang nangkring di pinggir jalan.

Jam Gadang

Sate Mak Syukur

Air Terjun Di Pinggir Jalan Raya

Yah segitu dulu deh pengalaman trip ke Bukittinggi. Overall gue rate 7 our of 10. Lumayan kan seneng-seneng tapi gratis :)

Salam,
Nikensashi