Le Livre Festin: Are You Coming to Big Bad Wolf Book Sale Jakarta?

For me, yes! I did come yesterday, It was preview day where everyone with tickets can enter.

YES, I'm lucky!

But don't worry, it opens for public without any entrance fee starting today, 30th April 2016 in ICE, BSD. It might be a little more crowded than yesterday...

I joined with a group of cool bookish people from Jakarta Book Club and got a rare chance to see the whole-full storage while Andrew Yap, the founder of Big Bad Wolf Book Sale says, there are another five containers of books will be coming shortly. These books will be placed in display island every two days. Awesome! A reason to go back.

They bring 1,5 millions of titles. I'm sure you'll find you're looking for. BBW is a famous book event in Malaysia, now they're trying to make us also happy here. 1,5 millions is almost half of titles they had in Malaysia. Well, this is their first time in Indo. Hopefully they could come with more titles next year!

Ignore my sleepy eyes! I'm surrounded by 1.5 titles. So happy!

I didn't find that many of the preview day, so yeah... definitely, revisit is a must. What are the interesting part?

• The staffs are super friendly and book lovers.

Yes! They understand what you're looking for and they are super happy to help you out looking for what you search. They even gave me tips, the books are piled based on surname alphabetically. My experience, I asked someone to help me to find another Moyes' book. She helped me to search and even asked another friend of hers to find it. 

I saw another visitor even asked for recommendation. These staffs went along with him, giving suggestions.

• Trust me, they have trolley...

So, if you're being doubtful whether you want to buy the book  you just found. Just put it first. No worries. I was thinking whether to buy Poached. I didn't put inside my trolley. When I finally decided to buy it, it was gone!

If you came with heavy bag, the trolley might help you, too!

• And they have storage, too!

One trolley might not be enough. Bringing two trolleys with you might be trouble. Ok, they have storage for you to keep it for awhile. They will put your picks back in display islands within 24 hours if you don't go back to get them back. Happy?

• Bringing wheeled suitcases.

Just in case you came where all the book you're looking for are there to be found by you... you're lucky. But buying more than 20 books in a plastic bag? D'oh. Don't worry, don't be shy bringing suitcases. I have friends there who did that. Easier! All you need it to push those books with you.

Make sure you put the books in horizontal when the suitcase is standing. Won't hurt the books at the bottom. Here's the detail from bookriot.com How to Pack a Suitcase Full of Books.

• They have many genres!

I'm serious. Including these...

From this...

to....yeah... cookbooks!

So, you'll find classics, comics, graphic novels, harlequins, politics, auto/biography, etc. Just be happy there! I'm guaranteeing you... a heavenly visit!

• They are in partnership with Mandiri bank.

Which means... you can only do debit payment with Mandiri cards. Or, you can pay with any of Visa-Mastercard Credit Cards.

And yes, you can pay by cash.

What did I get on preview day?

Didn't get a chance to find what's in my wishlist. It was their preview day, anyway. So, I'm soooo going back again for more classics, business books, cookbooks, and award winning ones!

Ok, now it's time to talk about HOW I get there...

For those who live in BSD, you might be lucky this time. For me, it's an adventure! 

I got a half a day off from my work...but it was also one of my lovely bosses' last day. *sad* I shouldn't miss our last lunchie as colleagues. So, I left at around 1.30pm. My colleagues told me it would take hours to get there by car. They suggested me...by train!

Trust me, it was my first time to go by train in Jakarta. From every train in the world, I only tried MRT in Spore. I didn't know why I agreed just to leave by train, while we all knew the public transports in Jakarta aren't really reliable. It cost me IDR 12k only as I'm a first timer and I have to buy the refundable access card. The tix itself is only IDR 2.500. 

Adventure it is.... I left alone. My office building is in Thamrin, so I was told to go to Tanah Abang train station. Believe me, it looked awful but I was lucky it wasn't rush hour. Some officers were helpful, some weren't. I got to ask many people there because the signage isn't helping. I even asked an officer...well, I got to wait for an officer to finish fighting with a guy before I could ask.

Officer to a stranger: @#$%^&*@#$%

Stranger: $%^&@$%^

Officer: Go away!!!

Me: Hmm, sorry Sir.. I need to ask. Which way I shud go to? I am going to Serpong.

Yes, that awkward.

I knew that I still had my journo instinct somewhere inside. When I was about to jump in the train, I wasn't sure. Then I saw a guy with journo ID tag. "Hey, from K*****TV? Is this train heading to BSD?"

He said yes. So, I jumped in. There wasn't any officer to ask. 

Long story short. I jumped out into a weird train station called Jurang Mangu. Then, you could summon an Uber car. It costs me around IDR 40k. But...

The driver asked, "Did you jump out to the wrong station?"

I said, "No, I was told to jump out to that station."

He said again, "You shouldn't. You should jump out to another two stations after Jurang Mangu."

There! Lesson learned.

Jurang Mangu station was... weird. They got many paths that made me confused, which way to take. Someone helped me out. I was lucky, the Uber driver miraculously could find me before it was raining, as I got to wait by the street, 100 meters from the station.