Summer trip

We are all up at 1 am right now, except for my husband, he has to go to work right after the day we came back from our trip to Indonesia.

The kids always enjoy the jet lag, my daughter always thinks stay up late is just so cool.  Usually it will take them about at least 5 days before they are completely in sync again with the time here.

Looking at the pics I have so many I want to write, but I guess I will have to break them into couple of posting later. The 3 weeks trip was short and sweet, I have to say 3 weeks is perfect. My nieces and nephews are back to school too by that week we left and everybody else can go back to their normal routine again.  We arrived on Wednesday and by Thursday we did a little trip to a city called Jogyakarta, the driving is unbelievable, in a bad way though, it took us 15 hours and it actually only about 300 miles. Jam here and there, big trucks, plus maybe we just thru an 18 hours flight 2 days before.

The Sheraton Jogyakarta

Got there around 11pm, settle down and snoozed until 5am, the kids kind of woke me up with their giggles and chats, went out to the balcony, the view was beautiful, this city just got hit by earthquake a couple of time last year, a volcano called Merapi been active and coz a lot of damage to the little town nearby Jogyakarta. I was trying to see if I can spot the Merapi from the balcony, but the fog kind of masked it. We stayed at the Sheraton, the property is sitting a little up with good landscape, and nice breeze.

The bottom rooms have their semi private pool, a balcony with door the take you step right into the pool.

The Merapi we finally spot it the next day

We didn't get to enjoy the resort itself since we only have 2 full days of visiting the other places.

So early that morning we went to Keraton, Jogyakarta is one of the unique city that is ruled by the Sultan not governor. He's a king with palace (Keraton) and all. I'm not saying a fancy palace, but it's a very sacred and traditional palace.  People who live and work in Keraton has a very rich culture and tradition, a mix of religion and believe makes the people different. They adore and admire the Sultan, which is the recent one is the tenth.  

We went to the museum with all the horse carts they use for any Keraton event, and then to the Keraton itself. We parked our car on the parking lot and bargained with couple of Becaks, a traditional transportation that I grew up with and it's my favorite. 6 adults and 4 kids hopped on into 5 becaks, 2 people is all it can take. 

Becak

One of the cart they use in Keraton

I swear my two kids tried so hard to understand the tour guide, at the end they gave up and just ask me what is it about. 

@ Keraton

In the old days, here's where they bring people who needs to be executed.
I have no idea what's with the statue, but my son feels the urge to kiss it after we took this pic.

Keraton

The Sultan usually gives speech in this particular place, no speaker,  and somehow the combination of  echo  and  openness helps people to hear him speak.  My brothers and the kids tried it with clapping their hands.

Jogyakarta has it's special food called  Gudeg, basically, rice, with chicken cooked in cooconut, some young jackfruit that's cooked with I don't know excatly what, a krecek which is beef skin cooked  in some spices, a little spicy but just a good combination to eat with the chicken.  The other staple is lesehan, this one is not  the name of the food but more of the style of the eating. There's a street calls Malioboro, a regular shops along the street during the day, and at night full of more stalls of handicraft and souvenirs, plus place to eat. They scattered some mats and put a couple of very low tables,  something like a japanese style but less fancy. The food usually either fried chicken, fried fish with rice of course, and Gudeg. So my Brother took us to this particular one in front of a store called Taman Batik Terang Bulan, so the name of the place called SBTB Sebelah Batik Terang Bulan, which means next to the Batik Terang Bulan, very clever huh. The Fried Chicken, my oh my, we came back the next day for the second time, my husband couldn't have enough of it. The place was crazy crowded, you had to wait for the table in front of the people who were still eating.  The first time we came, with so empty stomach my husband almost gave up on waiting for the table, he asked my brother why have to be this aprticular one since the others were pretty light, he's glad he wait for it.

Gudeg

I will continue with our trip to borobudur next time, hope I won't be too slow to write that one.