Pasar Raya is the name of a shopping mall in Jakarta, Indonesia. They have an amazing selection of handicrafts and souvenirs from every part of the country. And as you can see, they even have beautifully carved hippos. Despite that, I never learned to like this place. Being impatient doesn't help.
Imagine, while dealing with handicraft overloads and souvenir oceans, you find a lovely wooden hippo. You are ready to pay. Only problem: where? You start circling around. Just when you want to give up, you spot a large group of smiling sales people around a small table. You smile back, and gladly place your item in front of them. One of the persons picks it up and hands it over to a colleague. That person puts it in a small cabinet in the back. A third person writes a slip, has it checked by one or two colleagues before handing it to you. And NO (but keep smiling), you are not supposed to pay here. You have to go to the other side of the store, to the cashier (another smile). Silly you, of course. So you take your slip and navigate to the other side of the store, trying to find anything that could possibly be a cashier. Needless to say, this takes a while. Note to self: when you see a huge line of people in the middle of the store, it is most likely that the cashier is at the other end. Finally, it is your turn. You are now the proud owner of a slip that has a nice stamp: PAID. Yeah! But then you realize you will have to go back wherever you came from, to pick up your purchase. Where was that again?
On your way back, you see the same lady wearing a striped shirt and a gentleman in shorts about five times. Each time passing them, while going in a different direction. Fellow tourists also walking the gauntlet. Miraculously, you see that small table and because you are so happy, you start to wave that beautifully stamped slip, not knowing this will cause quite a stir: While you have been going on the payment-expedition, they have (for efficiency reasons, obviously) packed your purchase already, in a nice Pasar Raya gift bag. Tiny detail, they have done that for all customers' items that have found their way there over the last few hours whilst you were on expedition. So now, it requires at least three people to go through a mountain of look-alike-gift-bags, to search for your item. You are lucky, they do find it. Of course, it needs to be double, no, triple checked, whether the item in the bag matches with whatever is written on the slip. Only then you can take your purchase home.... if you are able to find the exit, that is.
A fifteen minute hippo hunt, turned into a three hour challenge. I have been dangerously close, to inflicting serious bodily harm to every person working there. I decided then and there, it was in everybody's best interests, not to shop there anymore. Cute hippos or not!
