From Legian with Love
A story about Shopping Space in Legian-Kuta

It was October 12, 2002. The Telephone rang at almost the exact moment I was falling asleep. I tried to ignore it, but it kept up its stubborn ringing. Finally I opened my eyes and realized that it was only the sound of an incoming s(hort) m(essage) s(ervice). It was a message from a good friend living in Bali, “ A bomb blasted in Sari Club, Legian, many were injured. Lucky we canceled our plan to go to Hard Rock Club tonight”

Of course a very nature reaction of receiving the news were shocked. Then later, reading all about the Bali Bomb Blast in the newspaper pulled out a set mechanism in my memory of a trip to Legian, just a week before October 12, 2002.

Kuta as kecamatan consists of three desa adat: Kuta, Legian, and Seminyak. It is once a rural area that has been imposed and interconnected by this linier urban element called jl.Raya Kuta-Raya Legian-Raya Seminyak.

The street itself formed a single loaded side-by-side tourist commercial shops façade of Kuta. A stroll down the Legian-Kuta was a toddling walk between shops, cafes, and hotels. One would automatically recall the famous cynical phrase that Bali was becoming ‘an island of a thousand shop houses’ instead of what it used to be ‘an island of a thousand temples’.

But trying to close your eyes of that fact were useless attempt. It seems avoidable that shopping concept in Bali derives as one of the central factor that could boost local and national economic growth. And Legian, Kuta, was an interesting case of Indonesian shopping concept.