What you want to do or to see when you traveling to Surabaya? Shopping? Culinary?
Hummm ... how about exploring the old town in Surabaya? See the old buildings? Knowing a little bit of the building's history??

Now there is new attraction in Surabaya. Not really new, but I knew about this attraction in early 2010. Its name is Surabaya Heritage Tour or we can call it SHT. From the name we can guess that this attraction is a tour to the old city of Surabaya.

Do you want to know more about Surabaya Heritage Tour? Okey .. just read the article below!

SHT is a tour, organized by House of Sampoerna and it's free!!! So..all you have to do is just come to House of Sampoerna and register to TIC office (in front of Cafe Sampoerna). You can booked the tour by phone..!!!

There are two kinds of the tour...short trip tour and long trip tour. The short trip tour is held from Tuesday till Thursday at 10 am, 1 pm and 3 pm with the tour duration is about 1,5 hours.
The long trip tour is held only in Friday till Sunday at 9 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm with the tour duration is about 2 hours.
The route for the short trip tour: House of Sampoerna - Tugu Pahlawan - PTPN XI building - House of Sampoerna
The route for the long trip tour: House of Sampoerna - Balai Pemuda - Balai Kota - Cak Durasim - House of Sampoerna
Besides these 2 regular tours, there is another tour which called theme tour.



There is a guide who will explain about the places that we would visited during the tour. Unfortunatelly, the explanation is less detailed. But this sightseeing tour is really fun. We can see the other side of Surabaya that..I'm sure ..really amazing....

Do you want to know about the cigarettes ? Or maybe do you want to know how to manufacture cigarettes?
If you are visiting Surabaya, just come to the House of Sampoerna.

What is a House of Sampoerna

House of Sampoerna is a museum about the history of the Sampoerna family tobacco business (which is known as one of the largest tobacco companies in Indonesia). Here, we can know all about cigarettes...from the ingredients until the cigarettes are manufactured and ready to sale. Also, we can know about the history of the Sampoerna's from the first time they run the business until now.

This museum is located in 'old Surabaya' Jl. Taman Sampoerna 6 Surabaya, near Kalisosok prison.

What's inside??

All about The Sampoerna's and their tobacco's business. From the ingredients of Sampoerna's cigarette till the stalls, including the machines that has been used to produce the cigarettes. At 2nd floor, you can see the workers who are making the cigarettes manually (not by machine).

Hmm... I guees I was too much writing about backpacker traveler. Okay....!!! Now..I will write about traveling in a tour group.
Travel in a tour group usually arranged by a travel agent. A travel agent has many choices of travel packages and for each packages requires certain amount of participant. Traveling in a tour group is perfect for those who want to travel abroad practically, don't have to think about the transportation, accommodation, even they don't have to make a plan which destinations they should be visited.
Here, I try to explain what is the advantages and disadvantages traveling in a tour group.

This is the advantages traveling in a tour group:

• You don't have to think about accommodation and transportation. Everything is set up by travel agent.
• Traveling in a tour group really helpful for those who never been abroad before.
• You don't have to make a plan about which destinations you should be visited, including preparing an alternative plan just in case something undesirable happened (rain).
• More efficient use of time
  

The disadvantages are....

• More expensive, because you have more facilities rather than when you travel ala backpacker, for example....you have a tour guide.
• You couldn't be flexible in time. Everything is set up from breakfast time till the time you spend in each destination.
  
• You must follow the entire schedule, you must visit to destinations that have been planned although you may don't like the destination.
• You can't feel the 'soul' of the countries or places that you've visited. You don't have any chance to really mingle with the locals, using public transport, shopping at traditional market, etc. It's like you just go to a place and looking at that place through a window...not entering that place.
  
• Yo may loose a chance to visit a beautiful destination which is not as famous as other destinations just because your tour group doesn't put that destination in the schedule.
  

So...the choice is yours. If you want traveling abroad easily and practically..you can choose traveling in a tour group.

Using budget airlines (a.ka low-cost airlines) can save your travelling cost. But..for some people they doubted about the safety of budget airlines. So....is budget airlines really safe for us??
One thing you should know is...why they can give us the cheaper price. They can give us the cheaper price because of they cross-cutting in areas other than safety.



Which mean:

Although they cheap..but they still concern about the safety. If they have a bad record, then they will be given penalty buy the government...even grounding. And...no one will ever fly with them.

So..budget airlines is safe. Of course you cannot expecting them as comfort as non budget airlines but...they all still in standard.

It was a sunny day when we walked in Serangoon Road try to find our hostel. According on the google map, it wasn't far from Boon Keng MRT station. But, we made a mistake. We didn;t exit at Boon Keng Station. We exit at Farrer Park. And for it, we must walked for about 10 mins to Hive Hostel. Located in 624 Serangoon Rd Singapore, actually this hotel is easily reach. This hostel near with  two MRT station: Boon Keng and Farrer Park.

The first thing I did when I arrived in this hostel is buying a mineral water while my friend checked in. Too bad, we came earlier from check-in time so the rooms for us were not ready yet. Then, we decided to left our luggage and put it into luggage room.

Like other hostels, this place has standard facilities. There are some groups of tables in the lobby and can be use for dining table, some PCs that free to use, and pool table. The facilities in the rooms are similar with other hostel I've ever stayed before.

It was really a good time when I  stayed there. Just visit The Hive's website for further information..!!!