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| Outskirts of Puri Indah Mall (Image courtesy of www.direktorijakarta.com) |
This is the farthest mall I've ever been, due to the fact that it is located in West Jakarta. Hell, even going there takes approximately 40 minutes from my college (which is UIN Syarif Hidayatullah State University), that is if you're not stuck in the traffic as you make your way there... And apparently, taking the Bintaro route would be the fastest route you could take, whether if you're living in the Ciputat area or not.
Located in Puri Agung Street, Puri Indah, Kembangan, it was initially a mall with a modern "Puri" concept, but such concept nowadays no longer reflects the current state of the mall. Its construction and opening years are still a mystery to be solved, but Puri is quite a hangout place. You can find myriads of fashion stores and eateries, and there's a cool Big Ben clock on the mall's roof...
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| Feel like British? No worries, the sky doesn't lie; Puri Indah Mall's Big Ben clock visible from the ground floor. |
With the presence of a certain arcade game being a drive to visit the mall, I decided to check the condition of the game albeit it was yet activated. On my way there, I had to tackle so many turns, ride along the narrow roads, pass through the sleeping policemen, and endure it for almost an hour. In the end, as I saw the shape of Puri Indah, my mind went boggle and couldn't wait to reach the parking lot for motorcycles. If you make your trip to this mall using a car, you might face no problems as you could just take the toll roads, with motorcycles however... well.
WHAT'S IN STORE?
The underground floor is comprised of 80% parking lot and 20% stores. In fact, these stores are all electronic / gadget stores where you can buy stuffs related to gadgets / computers, such as USB and wireless mice, keyboards, laptops, laptop fans, speakers, and much more. Going up, the ground floor comprises of mostly, if not all, fashion stores (we're talking clothes store here), a coffee lounge whose brand you should know if you've gone there once or more, and several eateries outside the mall, where the eateries on the ground floor, exactly outside the mall, are given a "cafe" feel thanks to the bushes across. The first floor is pretty much the same except there are less clothes stores but in return there are a good sum of accessories store, a bookstore, and such.
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| To your right is the entrance to the underground floor |
Finally on the top (third) floor, you can find a food court with lots of brand-name eateries, local or international, to tickle your tastebuds, and the food court is adjacent with the mall's Fun World game center. It can be considered as one of the biggest Fun World centers due to its rollercoaster and fun fair-like playgrounds. But our focus isn't that; While its Fun World center is all glitz and glamour in terms of arcade centers, having a rollercoaster and all that fun fair element you can stumble onto, all its glitters aren't gold. Its XXI cinema, however, puts one thing that crazed Indonesian arcade enthusiasts...
THE FIRST PLACE WHERE MAXIMUM TUNE 4 CABS LANDED
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| ALL HAIL MAXIMUM TUNE 4 BITCHESSS!!! (Image courtesy of Matthew N) |
If you have read one of my previous blog posts before, Puri Indah Mall's XXI is the first location to have a set of Maximum Tune 4 cabs complete with Wangan Terminal (wait, isn't it a standard that each set of 4 cabs comes with Wangan Terminal?) and have it activated the next couple of days. Lots of MaxTune enthusiasts who are able to reach this mall would die to play games for their progression to quench their MT thirsts.
Prior to this posting, there are now eight cabs in the Puri XXI, and this is to anticipate the long queue. As for 3DX+ cabs, there were 12 cabs in XXI and four in Fun World, but that isn't enough to beat Pondok Indah Mall's record of 18 cabs (4 in Fun World, 4 in Timezone, 6 in XXI PIM1, and 4 in XXI PIM2). Unsurprisingly, both Pondok Indah and Puri Indah have same initials, so we know which one should change its callname: PurIndah. Well, the first five letters sounded like a cat's name, but it's for the sake of unique names. As MT4 cabinet sets are added until there are three sets of them (meaning that they now have 12 cabs there), there's a good reason why PurIndah's XXI played an elimination game with some of its 3DX+ cabs and a less-played arcade game too to pave a way for these MT4 cabs.
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| (Image courtesy of Matthew N) |
SOME RANDOM PICS
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| The Map of all the three floors |
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| I thought there would be another fashion store opening here judging by the banner used. It turned out that the mall put one of Emma Watson's pictures as a banner just for fun. The second time when I went there, the Emma Watson banner was gone and replaced by a new one. |
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| My first visit had the mall having Mini exhibition |
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| A French brand-name supermarket can be found across the mall, unlike most malls. Though a local brand supermarket can still be found inside. |
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| A small Starbucks outlet can be found there on the ground floor. If you want to take some sips of coffee, they welcome you. |
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| More eateries... |
TURNING IT INTO A RACE TRACK?
Usually when I posted an "Inside The Mall" article and it involves a mall potential enough to be it, I port it to a certain game called GeneRally to signify that I visited the mall and am willing to commemorate it in a form of a race track. Here, PurIndah's circuit form is characterized as a fast, semi-technical course with 45-degree and 90-degree corners around the ground floor, and two outside sections. If you split the course section from the coffee stall (don't split the S/F section though), you will notice that this part looks like Sentul International Circuit run counter-clockwise, only with a chicane. Three long straights inside the mall (with the last one being the true high speed section due to high speed corners) are perfect places to maximize your slipstreaming technique and / or even overtaking your rivals here.
This track's construction was started in a very long time, exactly after my first visit, but, screenshot-wise, ditched due to myriads of WIPs in my mind. At the moment, it looks anything but pretty, but when I have time, I would love to remake this course and refine its object placings, like where should the tall buildings be placed WITHOUT having them to block the cars. At the same time I also thought about making more configurations where the course would also have upper (where you drive straight and go right past the coffee stall instead of crossing the third long straight, which could cross as a counter-clockwise Sentul) and lower (still counter-clockwise, but this time the S / F placing would be different than the upper and GP configs), but having such thought, I realized that I should care about how narrow the course would look if those configurations are made, and how horrible the pitstop access would be (the pitstop access is already horrible and needs a proper makeover), so I might stick to the original configuration for that matter.
USEFUL LINKS
Puri Indah Mall's Wikipedia article (in Indonesian)
PurIn's Official Site
~[R]
