Last Dec 2016 one of my elementary school friend was so generous to bring our teachers and friends to Batu for leisure. Some of us departed from Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang and the most members from Kediri with one bus and mini van. As it's a long weekend because Monday was holiday, we decided to leave early to avoid traffic jam on the Saturday. Surabaya left around 08:00 while Kediri around 09:00, delayed an hour as planned because waiting for some friends. The meeting point would be at Selecta, Jl. Raya Selecta 1, Tulung Rejo, Batu.
We had brought lunch box for easier arrangement as we didn't want to waste time stop at restaurant to order and eat. Surabaya team had plenty snacks, as the participant was lower than registered, also one of our friends provided snack (lumpur, cucur) while we'd ordered 3 different snack (spikoe, risoles, chiffon cake) for the member from Surabaya, I'm the member from Surabaya team. Our mini van was quite comfortable, it's for 17 seat while there were only 9 of us with the driver. There was karaoke, we could sing on the way to kill the time.
After around 4 hours we reached Selecta, the popular tourism place since 1930 built by Ruyter de Wildt, everyday opens at 06:00-18:00. It's quite crowded there as it's a long weekend. After paying Rp. 30.000,-/person and Rp. 10.000,- for car parking, our driver tried to find the parking lot near to the entrance. While waiting for our friends from Kediri, we decided to have lunch in the car because we're starving and lazy to bring the box to the park. It's a complete shrimp rice, all of us loved the taste, it's delicious, I ordered it from our neighbor, my mom's friend. When eating we heard that the bus had arrived unfortunately they could not go in as our friend who brought the money was in the mini van that's not arrived at that time. One of my friend from Surabaya decided to go to the bus, actually it was a long walk and hilly to reach the entrance gate.
The rest of us waiting for a few minutes, as there's no news, we decided to go directly to the park. It's been a long time not visiting the place, more than 10 years ago, the place was maintaining well. Although there are many new entertainment parks in Batu, this place is still survived. It had restaurant, hotel, fish pond, swimming pool and beautiful flower garden. It's quite hilly, so for senior people such as our teacher who's already around 70 years old must walk carefully. One of my friend brought her sons, her youngest son was kind enough to take photo for us, so we could take many pictures together.
From entrance we reached the big swimming pool, going up through the stairs we found water boom area. The pool is shallow, it's proper for children playground. It's decorating well with colorful cute animal statue such as pink elephant, green turtle wearing shoes. Across water boom there's another pool with small slides, and a bucket on the top that pours water after it's full. So many children playing, running and swimming on the area, we're afraid of getting wet, so we're taking picture not too close to the pool.
The beautiful flower garden was our next destination, we could take pictures in the middle of the garden which is full of colorful flowers. The arch gate created from various plant and flower, we had to queue and waiting people to pass by to get a good picture. After that we went to the flower garden, various type of flower, we started with the purple Hydrangea (panca warna) and white flower, I don't know the name, it's good because it's hilly, the foreground white flowers while the background were orange flowers and bungalow. Red flower garden were attempting, but we had to wait for people moving out from the garden.
Meanwhile we saw a beautiful heart made of still with red leaves, it's very big and beautiful, we were queueing to take our turn for photo session there. There was a sky bike surrounding the garden which enabled you to enjoy the beautiful scenery from above. As the time was limited, we didn't ride on the sky bike. We found nice spot which looked like colorful photo frame with flowers under the frame. We took our own frame and made a pose to be shot by my friend's son from below the frame.
Finally we saw the red garden already quiet, so we rushed to go there taking group picture with "Selecta" word as the background. Then taking one by one, as it's very beautiful and it could become one of our profile picture in social media :-) Satisfying taking many pictures it's time for us to look for our team from Kediri. Accidentally we met our elementary friend who went there with his family, he didn't join our trip. We took picture with his family, and invited him to the villa at night for dinner and reunion.
We heard that our teacher was having lunch with their grandchildren near the giant peacock made from plant too. On the way there we met our male teachers, they would like to go back to the bus already because they were tired, but we persuaded them to visit the garden as it's very beautiful. The female teachers were still sit down on the stairs finishing their lunch and waiting for their grandchildren who went around the park to play and explore. After taking picture together with them, we asked permission to go earlier to prepare for their rooms allocation in the villa and also dinner for that night.
Although just for a short time, I like Selecta with the scenery and its mild weather. It's worthy to be visited with family and children. I plan to bring my niece and nephew there later on weekend or holiday.
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