Last Saturday I packed my bag and went to Bandung with my sister and her boyfriend. I’ve always had a soft spot for this city, so while I still prefer a quiet little town over a busy city, Bandung is a compromise I’d happily accept.

As familiar as it could be, it’s constantly evolving. Every time I go to Bandung, there’s always new things in every corner of the city, and I find the places I usually went to in college are gone, replaced by something new and strange. Some of much-loved places are obsolete, and instead of the places I was familiar with, now there stand shiny, sleek cafe and restaurants that my college self wouldn’t even think to enter. But some things remain the same, though. Like how much cheaper everything is compared to Jakarta, and how I can still feel at home, even when I’m surrounded by strangers.

Somehow it saddens me that Bandung has changed a lot. The worst of it all is the traffic jam. To my dismay, it now feels very much like Jakarta, only with a bit more greenery and sometimes, a view of the mountains before your eyes.

We’d had a long list of places we’d like to visit over the weekend, but seeing the traffic, we knew it’d be a waste of time to attempt going to those places. So we decided to just take it slow and not rush.

On Sunday, I woke up to a slightly colder temperature that I’d no longer accustomed to, and spent a slow and quiet morning reading in bed.

After that, I did a shoot with my sister and her boyfriend (I’ll post the photos later on my photo website), then off we went to Roti Gempol. There’s a comforting feeling knowing it was still there with nothing changed after all these years. The place, small and unassuming, was full of people as usual. The smell of the toasts filled the space, making it all the more sentimental for me.

Despite being one of the most popular places to eat in Bandung, this place stayed humble and homey. The thick, delicious slices of homemade bread were just like how they were years ago, and the prices were still friendly even for a student’s budget.

Would you believe if I told you we spent the rest of our time in Bandung hunting for food? We did, and since it went along quite nicely with my plan to gain more weight, I was more than happy to go to these places (no less than 7 places in the span of 6 hours!).

More than 2 years ago, when I was still living in Southampton, I wrote a list of things I missed about Bandung. As I’m reading through the list again, I realize, the list hasn’t changed. I still miss those things about Bandung, and I don’t think that will ever change.