Braga Street, The Journey of a City (Task 1, edited on March 02, 2008)

Braga street is a street in the center of Bandung, which was famous in 1920 as promenade street and luxurious modern trade center. This street has been existed since the Indies-Dutch government. The arrangement of the stores in Braga street similar with European style according to Bandung development that well known as Paris Van Java.

Initially, Braga street has an official name of Karreweg because the street was a narrow street that could pass through only by carriages. The street was built only to connect the major Great Post Road with a coffee warehouse, which today known as Balaikota. When Bandung was the capital of Priangan Regency , some colonial houses were built along Braga street with reeds or other straw materials. In 1882, a musical drama group established itself as Toneel braga (the name of the group) and became famous. Residents came into the street to watch the group’s performance every night. Therefore, the road was improved by stones, and oil lamps were installed for the lights, and then the streets popularly known as Braga street. The street became more famous after a grocery store called De vries which sold daily needs. Afterwards, Hotels, banks, cafes, and restaurant were opened and the street transformed into a shopping street.

Nowadays, only 50 percents of the buildings have its original design. Rest of it have changed into a modern and damage buildings.Actually, the sense from trade of the Braga street still haven’t lost over all. A number of stores and offices still loyal to stand on Braga Street. And in an order to get back the glorious trade of Braga street, a private developer try to run a Braga City Walk project.

Ciamis, The Best Tourism Places to Visit in West Java

Located in south coast of Java Island (Indonesia), Ciamis is one of the best special tourism places in West Java. It’s a beautiful city that serves you the best tourism places ever. It’s also a clean city which has some cool sites with amazing sceneries to enjoy. There are some special well-known tourism spots to visit, such as Pangandaran, Batu Hiu, Karang Nini, Citumang, Green Canyon, Astana Gede, Pananjung Preservation Forest, etc. Besides of that famous tourism spots, Ciamis also has its traditional food that you just can find only in Ciamis. All of those things tenacious Ciamis as the best tourism places to visit in West Java.

The most famous and well known tourism place in Ciamis is Pangandaran. Approximately 80 km from the central of Ciamis (Ciamis Kota), Pangandaran is provided with some special spots such as swimming area, diving area and some cozy places that made Pangandaran as the best coast in West Java. Make a tour to Pangandaran can give you full of pleasure. Walking along the beautiful seashore, enjoying sunset with your lovely friend or enjoying the wonderful night sky are some activities that you can do in Pantai Barat Pangandaran. When you go to Pantai Timur Pangandaran, you can find Pasar Ikan, the best traditional fresh seafood market in Pangandaran. You can choose your fresh seafood by yourself, from crab, salmon, shrimp, oyster, till other fresh fish are available for you. After you choose your fresh seafood, you can enjoy it immediately by order the fishermen around there to cook it (a stall like small restaurant). You can order any menu that you want, from ‘Udang Goreng Mentega’, Kepiting Bakar’, till ‘Tiram Rebus’, every menu is on hand. Those reasons make Pangandaran as the most famous and well-known tourism place in Ciamis.

Ciamis has a traditional food, it’s named Galendo. It’s created from coconut oil and some other additional secret ingredients. Mix one with some special spices with traditional processing (handmade). Galendo can be eaten directly or can be used as a special ingredient in other recipes. In the previous, we can easily found Galendo in sauk, the traditional container that’s made from bamboo, but nowadays it’s quite hard to find Galendo in bamboo container. Galendo is much modern now; it’s packed in different modern packets just like as biscuits and other modern snacks. The packets are various with various prices too, from 1 kilogram @ Rp20,000/ packet, 450 gram @ Rp12,500/ packet, until 125 gram @ Rp3,000/ packet. And the special thing of this food is you just can find Galendo only in Ciamis. That fact restates Galendo as a traditional food from Ciamis.