I was standing on one of the corner of Stasiun Jakarta Kota. The very last platform -line 12- was behind me. On my left, I could see people come and go to a well known convenience store tried to grab whatever they forgot on the last minute before their train depart. There were long fence stretched in front of me, divided this big station hall into two areas: Free access area where people could walk across this hall, from one main entrance to another entrance on the other end; and restricted area or platforms area, which only passenger holding their ticket could go in and wait their train on green painted wooden bench, or people like us who bought what so called 'Peron ticket' that allow us to join those passenger.
I could see another chain convenience store on free access area, and people walked their walk.
I feel like travel back in time.
It was few years ago - I was standing on similar spot. Not in Stasiun Jakarta Kota, Sydney Central Station instead. I clearly remember there was 1st platform behind me-for intercity train-; a ticket office for intercity train next to a small convenience store on my left, and I could see the grand entrance of Sydney Central Station on the same designated spot Stasiun Jakarta Kota had.
Apart from my melancholy feeling, our last Sunday day tripper was fun. We wanted to go visit this train station since last holiday. Not for specific reason though. We heard people talked about this beautiful vintage building, we feel like proving it.
It's true, so beautiful and quite well looked after building. I amazed with the cleanliness of this public place-by Indonesia standard of course-. The platforms were also well looked after.
While we -my husband and I- adored the architecture, our children enjoyed the view of those trains, come and go in every ....mmmm...10 minutes I guess. Rama was so thrilled to get chance peeking inside one of the carriage -an old, on aircon carriage- ; while we agreed he could aboard inside this parking carriage -to get the idea how's look like inside- ; he was over the moon. And Ramya get scared to let her brother swallowed by this big toast-shape metal; she was super worried the train will start moving when Rama still inside; so they would not see each other again -OMG! - .
Another half an hour and hundreds of pictures later, we decided to end our day tripper with quick tour de convenience store to get cure of our thirsty throat, and peek inside a Japanese train serving express route to Bogor -an opposite of the carriage Rama went in beforehand- stationed on platform 12.It's air-conditioned, clean floor with cushioned seat, and extra staff plus very polite security guy guarding its door.
By then, we knew what will be on our next day tripper agenda: Catch an express train to Bogor!
