Bandung Ice Skating Ring

Back in 2008, I posted a story about ice skating in Bandung. The ice-skating ring that was located in Istana Plaza featured in the story was unfortunately closed in 2009 and so for a while Bandung did not have an ice-skating ring.

However, that did not last long. In September 2010, a new and bigger ice-skating ring was opened. Located at the roof top of Paris van Java or PVJ on Jalan Sukajadi, this new ice-skating ring occupies a floor space of 40 x 20 meters. This facility is bigger than the previous one. It is also better equipped. Called "Garden Ice", the premise is home of Bandung Skating Academy - a training facility for those who are interested in doing ice sports. Two kinds of ice sport are are taught here: Figure skating and ice hockey.

Ice Skating in Bandung

My appology for not being able to keep the promise I made yesterday about posting pictures and stories about how we celebrate Iedul Fitr. I had a memory card crash with one of my cameras and lost all the photos that I intended to post today. A valuable lesson learned: Don't put all your photos in one memory card. Always have a spare card, just in case.

That being mentioned, I am forced to post a photograph that I took earlier in the week of this ice-skating ring.

As a city in the tropic, Bandung does not naturally have ice or snow. (It does have hails sometimes as it is located on a high altitude.) But this does not mean that we can't enjoy ice sports (sports on ice?). Thanks to technology, those of us who are curious about ice sports can now try and enjoy them without having to travel far to the Northern or Southern hemispheres where snow and ice are naturally availble.

This ice-skating ring is located on the top floor of Istana Plaza Shopping Mall on Jalan (street) Pasirkaliki, Bandung.

According to Wikipedia, ice skating is "traveling on ice with skates, narrow (and sometimes parabolic) blade-like devices moulded into special boots." The earliest ice skating, according to the same source, took place in Southern Findland about 4000 years ago.

Note:
Just in case you wonder why this photo has an odd frame-size proportion: I cropped the bottom part of the photo because it contained too much empty space. Other things remained as shot.