If I have to mention one thing that I miss about Bandung right now, I’d say it out loud. It is toko DVD Bajakan (pirate DVD shops, ugh). Bandung has been a place to many great boutiques, fashion outlets, and cafes, but you won’t find any satisfaction better than visiting pirate DVD shops (what a lame translation -__-‘). Here at Bandung, we got tons of pirated copy from your favorite movies of all time. The best thing about this shops is they make shopping DVD a fun thing to do. Shop like Chelsea DVD and Movie Room is so cozy, it makes you don’t want to leave. If you are after a rare treasure-like-DVD, just take angkot (public transportation) Cisitu – Tegalega or Sadang Serang – Caringin and visit Kota Kembang and you’ll be shock to the death to find what DVD collections they have there. I know it is pirated, and the tickets price to watch cinema in Bandung is cheaper than the ones in Jakarta. But I don’t care. I’m not here to judge, I’m one of their loyal customer.
People will suggest me to just download it on Rileks. At ITB, we got tons of more of the same movie collections in a form of data (with one of the best forum and servers). But I don’t own any extra hard disk, so owning a piece of disc with a nice cover and my handpick movie would be suited me better. I remember clearly that I would shop DVD like crazy, every month. With a 2 weeks interval and 30-45 minutes duration per visit, resulted an average 5 DVDs per visit, I consider myself a good investor. Here at Jakarta, you won’t find one stop entertainment (like Movie Room) that let you try the quality or the subtitle of their DVDs on a real TV set before actually buying it. Or the place you can return your corrupt DVD and ask for a new copy. It is rare also to find a seller who sets their price at Rp 5000 to Rp 6000 per disc. They usually sell their DVD ranging to Rp 10.000 – Rp 15.000 (wooooot…).
Oh, I do miss watching great movies. The last time I checked, I just entered a cinema empty headed watching Little Fockers (for as I remember that I don’t watch all the damned previous movies), and later disappointed enough about what I just watched.