I promised myself that in every trip I take I would be happy, even it is only for a day. And this bookstore hopping day is one of my way to make myself happy when in KL. Actually I've been putting bookstore-hopping in my agenda on my first visit Kuala Lumpur. I've told my friends too that I will spend a day on my own visiting bookstores. So, the last day in KL when they decided to go to Genting Highlands, I wandered around visiting bookstores.

Sun@mag KL Sentral

I felt like I found a hidden paradise the moment I stepped my two feet in the store. I came to know this bookstore from a bookstagrammer that post about this store when he visited KL. I decided to ask him where exactly this book located and he kindly explained it to me, So this book store has been on my place-to-go-list when in KL. This bookstore located in L2 KL Sentral Station. This place was surprisingly quiet even when it was located in the busiest station in KL. I guess not too many people realize that this place was also a bookstore because the front part of the store was a convenience store, so we have to go in further to know that there was a hidden gem inside it.

I spent about an hour strolling around, going back and forth from one shelf to another, found something interesting yet not interesting enough to convince me to take them home. The books there were mostly old books. You need to be really patient in scanning every book in every of the shelf because they don't do cataloging for the books so it's kind of chaotic haha. However, when you finally found something that really interesting and unexpected, it is going to feels like that you found a treasure.

Bookalicious, Subang Jaya

After lunch, I set off to Subang Jaya using LRT to find an indie bookstore called Bookalicious. I stumbled upon this bookstore when I was doing my research before the trip. Have been following their instagram account for awhile, and highly recommended by many bookstagrammers, I obviously wouldn't miss a chance to pay it a visit. When I said I want to go here my friends-slash-KL tour guides Lidya and Jien said that the location was very far, even passing the border of KL. But I decided to go anyway since the train route wasn't that complex I only need to hop on one train.

And here's when the drama started. When I was in front of a vending machine to buy LRT ticket, I mistakenly pressed the wrong destination station. I should be gotten off at USJ7 Station yet I pressed Subang Jaya Station which was two station away from USJ7. In the end I got off at Subang Jaya and buy another ticket to get to USJ 7 which was the right station.

After all the drama, I finally managed to find and set my feet in the bookstore. It was located inside a mall called The Summit Subang USJ which only 5 minutes walking distance from USJ 7 station. The moment I stepped inside the bookstore, I felt like all the drama was totally worth it since I fell in love right away. This bookstore gave me a soothing and calming feeling. Their collection was quite vary, from Literature to Fantasy and they also have almost all popular books. Their Harry Potter collection made me want to cry because I wanted to bring them home with me (which I totally can't) and their collectible classics collection was beyond awesome. The lady behind the counter was also super nice. Too bad I forgot to ask her name. This place is really worth to visit and I can't help but fall in love with this place.

Kinokuniya, Suria KLCC


This one is on the top of my list of places I want to go when in KL. I've been told by some of my bookworm friends that this is truly a heaven on earth. The moment I entered the store, I felt like I don't want to go out... like forever :)) I've been to Kinokuniya Plaza Senayan in Jakarta, but this one's even bigger. What makes it far better is that there are some bench provided in the store to read, with a view facing KLCC Park & Fountain. How could you resist this combination? I swear if I could I would set up a tent and camp here for days. I came here twice yet I feel like I can come back here thousand times more because I can just sit there, read, and ignore the world.

The view of people reading books in every corner is a common view we can see in Kinokuniya KLCC. We can sit on the exact same place for hours, even we can finish the whole book, yet we won't get scolded by the storekeeper. There will be no pakcik-pakcik sekuriti who will stare at us with paapaan-ni-orang-baca-doang-tapi-ga-beli look. To be honest, I got to read some chapter of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child here too hahaha. Too bad I can't finish the whole book since it's getting late and I have to go back to the apartment. People can read books so easily here because most, or maybe all of the books here are not sealed. They don't have plastic covers for the books like bookstores in Indonesia so we can freely read them or check the pages before we buy it. Already missed the place a little too much and hope to be back asap with loads of money so I can buy all the books I want :))

Times Bookstore, Pavilion Mall Bukit Bintang

This one was actually unexpected. From KLCC I hopped on a GoKL free shuttle bus to Bukit Bintang because I want to go to Daiso that was located in Pavilion Mall Bukit Bintang. I was busy looking for signage and pakcik-pakcik sekuriti to help me find Daiso because the mall was ridiculously super duper extra big when my eyes caught this beautiful place. Their collection is similar to Bookalicious with slightly higher price. I couldn't spend much time here because I still need to look for Daiso and it was also getting darker. So I only briefly scanned the shelves, took some pictures, and continued to look for Daiso which was my main reason for being there. I will definitely going back there when I come back to KL.

So that was how I spent my last day in KL, which was the happiest day among all the five-days trip. I am only lucky because the public transportation in KL is well-organized I'm not even lost my way too much when I am totally bad at reading maps and following directions. Wandering around in a totally new place, with only a guide from friend's Line chat, depending on Pakcik security, Cleaning Service guy and even strangers so much to find the right way, endless walking that end up making me putting koyo all over my legs, were such a great experience I want to do it again someday.

Adios!

So, sometime ago, precisely around June 2016, I tried to buy books in Betterworldbooks.com for the first time. agak deg-degan juga sebenernya karena belanja online dari website luar negeri kalo tinggal di Indonesia itu kayaknya banyakan minusnya daripada plusnya. Jadi, berbekal hati yang diyakin-yakinkan dan kartu kredit pinjeman, akhirnya order juga via websitenya.

what I ordered back then

Di email konfirmasinya, ditulis kalo estimated arrival date of the books is 10-20 working days. Tapi bisa lebih juga since I live in Indonesia so yeah you know what will happen if you ordered something from outside the country. dan bener aja kan, udah satu bulan lebih, bukunya nggak nyampe-nyampe. tiap hari pulang kantor, begitu masuk rumah langsung ngecek ada paketan apa engga. aku berpikir apa mungkin gara-gara kepotong libur lebaran jadi shippingnya molor. dan lagi, international shippingnya betterworldbooks nggak menyediakan tracking number so we really can't know what happen with our package.

After almost two months the books still haven't arrived and i decided to give up waiting for the book. I sent an email to Betterworldbooks saying that my books haven't arrived and they said that we have to assumed that my books were lost in the middle of shipping process /sobs/. Betterworldbooks decided to issue a full refund for my order since it's not delivered. fyi if you issue a complain after two months, your money will be lost and it cannot be refunded. so better fill a complain before it's reached two months.

One evening after I completely forgot about this, when I got back from work, I found a package on the table saying it's from betterworldbooks! the one I thought it lost on somewhere in this world finally found its way to me after exactly three months since I placed my order :') 

I like to open a bookstore website on a daily basis. Even though I don't buy anything, it's always fun to scroll over the pages, see if there's any buyable book, while actually many of them are end up in my wish-list tabs in Goodreads. Through the forums in Goodreads, I get many information about where to get imported books as the imported bookstore here is very limited. If you live in Jakarta there are still quite many options to adopt your favorite imported books such as Periplus, Kinokuniya, Books and Beyond, Aksara, etc. But if you live in Surabaya like me, you will not have any other options for physical bookstore besides Periplus and Books and Beyond.

Setelah bulan April-Mei lalu diadakan untuk pertama kalinya di Jakarta, Big Bad Wolf melebarkan daerah kekuasaannya ke Surabaya! Aku yang sebelumnya cuma bisa mupeng melihat review orang-orang yang datang ke Big Bad Wolf Book Sale Jakarta, akhirnya bisa ikut bahagia juga karena acara yang wajib dikunjungi pecinta buku ini akhirnya mampir ke Surabaya juga.

Buat yang belum tau Big Bad Wolf Book Sale ini event apaan sih dan kenapa rame banget (ya walaupun gak serame kalo ada boyben Koriya yang konser disini sih), ini adalah event diskonan buku gede-gedean. Event ini berasal dari Malaysia, dan juga awalnya diadakan di KL, Malaysia. Diskon bukunya sekitar 60-80% dan bukunya buku baru ya bukan buku bekas. Dengan diskon semacam itu, siapa sih yang nggak kalap? As for me, beli buku dengan diskon normal sekitar 10-20%, atau bahkan tanpa diskon aja, uang ratusan ribu bisa ludes, lah gimana mau kuat iman dengan diskonan yang lebih dari separuh harga begini :))

Suasana jam 5.30 pagi di BBW Surabaya

Big Bad Wolf Book Surabaya didakan di JX International Expo, di Jl. Ahmad Yani Surabaya. Venue ini ternyata sekitar 1.5-2x lebih luas jika dibandingkan dengan venue Jakarta yaitu ICE BSD. Event dimulai dengan Preview Sale tanggal 19 Oktober 2016 yang berlangsung dari pukul 09.00-23.00. Setelah itu, esok harinya tanggal 20 Oktober 2016 dimulai pukul 09.00 dan dibuka 24 jam non-stop setiap hari sampai tanggal 31 Oktober pukul 23.00. Karena itu, banyak yang menyarankan untuk berkunjung pada dini hari hingga menjelang matahari terbit karena akan lebih nyaman menyisir tiap-tiap baris buku tanpa takut berdesakan dengan pengunjung lain seperti jika pada jam-jam ramai.

Untuk koleksi buku yang ada di BBW Surabaya sepertinya masih kalah menarik jika dibandingkan dengan koleksi BBW Jakarta. Sebelumnya, aku sempat meminta review kepada Hestia yang datang ke BBW Jakarta mengenai buku apa saja yang sekiranya akan ada di event ini. Namun ternyata perkiraanku dan Hestia meleset lumayan jauh. Jika di BBW Jakarta buku-buku yang terhitung baru dan masih nangkring di toko buku impor seperti buku karangan John Green dan Morgan Matson masih bisa ditemukan dalam jumlah terbatas, di BBW Surabaya aku malah tidak bisa menemukan satupun buku karangan mereka. Hanya ada buku karangan Rainbow Rowell dan itupun hanya satu judul buku saja.

boxset ini dibanderol dengan harga 150-200 ribu rupiah saja

Yang banyak ditemukan di BBW Surabaya adalah boxset Trilogi The Hunger Games edisi UK, boxset The Maze Runner, dan juga buku-buku klasik semacam buku karya Shakespeare dan Edgar Allan Poe dan sepertinya buku anak-anak lah yang paling mendominasi. Untuk harga buku bervariasi mulai dari 30 ribu hingga ratusan ribu untuk buku-buku hardcover dengan kertas glossy dan bergambar macam buku fotografi. Tapi untuk buku-buku fiksi kebanyakan dibanderol dengan harga 60-70 ribu saja setiap buku.

Bahkan untuk buku-buku fiksi hardcover, banyak sekali yang dijual dengan harga 70-95 ribu saja. Kalau di toko buku biasa sih harganya bisa mencapai ratusan ribu untuk satu buku. Beruntung sekali kalian yang datang di hari pertama, karena banyak buku yang bagus dan susunannya masih rapi. Aku berkesempatan datang di hari pertama dan banyak mendapatkan judul-judul yang lumayan bagus. Tetapi ketika kembali kesana empat hari kemudian, sudah banyak judul yang habis seperti buku-buku Jojo Moyes dan Rainbow Rowell, juga JRR Tolkien.

unsorted books. Edgar Allan Poe hardcover hanya 95 ribu!

Sehari menjelang ditutupnya event ini, aku berkesempatan datang kesana lagi karena ada yang minta ditemenin kesana. Wah, ya jelas nggak nolak dong! :D Kali ini banyak judul-judul terkenal yang stoknya sudah mulai menipis bahkan habis. Buku-buku Mitch Albom yang sebelumnya ada beberapa judul hanya tersisa satu judul saja. Sherlock Holmes yang termasuk di genre Classic Literature juga tinggal dua judul. Buku-buku Jojo Moyes bahkan sudah tidak ada jejaknya. Menjelang penutupan, ada promo Buy 20 Get 5 books dari panitia. Mungkin ini strategi biar bukunya cepet abis ya haha. Kesempatan emas ini tentu saja nggak boleh dilewatkan sama sekali. Aku dan teman-temanku langsung kalap mengumpulkan buku-buku sampai total belanjaan kami berjumlah 25 buku bahkan lebih dan harus disortir.