Do you have a place where you regularly spend your holiday to? I do.
It was started when my brother was an infant and I was around 6 years old. My parents took us to a place farther west from our house, to an area that I always know as Karawaci. The place was called Imperial Century at that time, but then it changed its name to Imperial Aryaduta. Since our initial visit 20 years ago, we have came to this place once a year at a very least. Located in an urban area, people might wonder what do we look for in such hotel without natural scenery (i.e. mountains or beaches) to be enjoyed. But a closer look into the hotel will easily give an explanation on why we always end up to this place.
Imperial Aryaduta is not just a hotel, it’s also a sports club. The hotel visitors are free to use the sports club facilities, other than the sports club member. I admit I am not a sports fan, but with my family, I learned to enjoy sports as a leisure activity – something that we always do every time we visit Imperial Aryaduta. When we were having our time in the hotel, the next morning after our arrival, we used to walk around the walking path inside the hotel area, then having some kick-and-catch moment in a soccer field. We went to the badminton field afterward, playing as a duo – I and mom versus my brother and dad. Sometimes, we then played basketball. Finished burning some calories on the ground, our next target is the swimming pool. Imperial Aryaduta has a large beautiful swimming pool: the kind that perfect for relaxation, yet also available to have fun. Anyone who sees the picture of Imperial Aryaduta’s swimming pool often mistaken the place as a hotel in Bali. Nope, this is in the sub-urban of Jakarta, in the middle of a modern city of Karawaci. Turns out, no mountains and no beaches is not a big problem, isn’t it?
This Lebaran, I really feel like I need to go away from Jakarta. However, my family doesn’t have ‘kampung’ to where everyone goes back to in this Lebaran season. I actually expect to go to natural surroundings, yet given the fact of the lebaran traffic, I finally agreed with my mom to pay a visit to our regular place: Imperial Aryaduta. After all, it’s been almost 3 years.
In Aryaduta, I barely see any changes. I met some familiar faces who greeted us happily like a long-lost family. The hotel and the facilities – my family have experienced all the changes that they did during the past 20 years – nothing different in particular from the last time I went here three years ago. Instead, we are the one who changed.
Now, we didn’t spend much time burning calories on the ground. We still walked around the walking path, but then our path was separated. I went to the gym having my treadmill session, my brother and my mom went to the table tennis court, and my dad went straight to the swimming pool. We are not that fit anymore to have a series of sports, but we still enjoying some sports during our leisure time.
Thank you for a nice stay, as always. Hopefully you will still feels like home in my next visit.
See you next time.
Love,
