Beautiful Yogyakarta...

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Hmmm, in the middle of relaxing May, suddenly there's a chance to enjoy Beautiful city Yogyakarta...

Yogyakarta is capital city of Central Java, Indonesia... this city famous of its kingdom cultures called Keraton...

So here we go, my adventures:
1st Day:

My flight at 3PM jakarta time and it delayed almost half hour! errgghh... but then it paid, when my plane landing and i was welcomed by good weather...warm weather.... I arrived @5PM
I stayed in Duta Guesthouse, its a nice and clean place...the staff is nice also...


After taking rest, i'll go to Purawisata for dinner and watching ballet of a legendary epic love story Ramayana.

The restaurant names is Jimbaran, the local food is delicious, but they serve western food as well. Only spend around 25 USD you can enjoy "all you can eat" buffet and watching the ramayana ballet.

The Ramayana Ballet story is about the most beautiful princess tht attract a devil, then using a golden deer as a bait the devil successfully kidnap the princess and when the prince saved her, she has to prove that the devil never touch her by passing a holy fire, end up with the fire cant burn the princess and they live happily ever after.

I think the story is quite unique, because usually in every stories the prince always love the princess as the way she is...but here the prince has a doubt of the princess...it means he didn't trust the princess...what kind of prince he is...??

But overall, the dance is cool.... they performed well... My favorite character is the golden deer, she's pretty....

I come back to hotel @ 11PM and got a chance for midnight swimming, the weather is warm, and no one in the pool, so its kinda comfy wildness...hahahaha....


2nd Day :

My activities start @ 7AM... first destiny is Borobudur Temple, one of world 7 wonder...
The temple is amazingly beautiful!!! because its veesak day, a lot of foreign monks there to celebrate and there's a golden Buddha statue as well as the holy water...
I meet some of Japanese tourist and train my messy language ^^, but its fun...

@ 12PM, next destination is "Ullen Sentallu"... its a private museum of Keraton's family history... in that museum it shows that Yogyakarta's Kingdom has a good relationship with Kingdom of Great Britain since long time ago. And there's a lot of pictures and paintings of the princesses...

There's one of princess's room that attract me. I forget her name (I'm really bad at remembering ppl names @,@).
So, this princess has to do her arranged marriage to an old king. To entertain her sadness, her families write her letters, the letters sound like poems, it has beautiful and meaningful words. You can feel the hurts when read it. The most touchy letter comes from her dad, it sounds:

"The greatest failure is when you never failed once in your life. And the greatest accomplishment is when you accomplished something that you thought you'll fail. My dearest daughter, your marriage is nothing about the rain pour in your life, but its shining sun for Stunning Queen like you. You can see all my prays and my blesses in all of your rules."

what a cool letter.... and then there's a quite spooky painting in another room.
The title is 12 magical dancers. It shows 12 dancers that do a magical dancing for blessing King, if the king was blessing then there will be a 13th dancer comes up, she's a mystical queen of south ocean, her appearance is transparent in tht painting... ah, it will give you a goosebumps...

Then, my next dinner is in "shaking noodles" its a famous place with live performance of folk songs. The noodles is spicy and delicious... ( I think all foods are delicious in my tongue)
I arrived hotels @1AM and again... do midnight swimming until 2AM, after that getting a hot water bath and i sleep like sleeping beauty, lost all of my conscious...


3rd Day:

It started with Prambanan Temple, the history of this temple is about Queen Roro Jonggrang. She asked the prince to build a thousands temple if he wants to marry her, i don't get a complete history but the temples are beautiful as Borobudur....
Im still tired of my midnight swimming, so I dont get into all of the temples...

After that, we are visiting Kotagede, it is area of silver craft souvenir.
There's a workshop of silver crafts also. I bought a silver ring for my Mom, it has nice design and thanks god, my mom likes it ^^

I got lunch in another traditional restaurant with live puppet show until 3PM.

Then it continues to Taman Sari, its a bathing pool place for king and his concubines...it should be an interesting places for men (^^).

It has 2 big pools with beautiful design and there's a balcony for the king upper the pools so that he can watch his concubines taking bath (what a lucky king!) and inside the balcony there's a private pool for King and his selected concubines to take a bath together (ah, pervert king...>,<').

Beside the pools there are 2 small places for Gamelan show and folk singer (Gamelan is traditional music instruments like orchestra form).

Unfortunately, the place is already old, much renovation is needed.

Lastly, we go for shopping activity @Beringharjo for cheap Batik. Yogyakarta is well known for its batik and for your information, Batik is originally comes from Indonesia.

In each region, we have different batik pattern, it might looks the same but if you look closer, it's different and in one region it has lot of pattern with different meaning (like for war, wedding, wealthiness, kingdom's family etc.). It can be more than thousands pattern.

Until 1AM, I enjoy nightlife in center of city, its very crowded like in a mid day! And I go back to hotel using Andong (its a horse cart). relaxing night.... really....(but no midnight swimming anymore, too tired...)

4th Day:

I prepared to go back to Jakarta @ 10 AM with mind full of memories....
a Lot of places especially beaches that i haven't visited yet, they said its even more beautiful than Bali's beaches...may be in another chance...

still... I love this journey...^^

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Comments

[Shakuntaladevi]

Too bad you don't have more of the Taman Sari picture. The place is still beautiful even the last earthquake had wrecked some of the ruin. Great post, I enjoy reading it.