Day-1: Yogya here I came! - again
I studied in
I escaped at the last minutes to catch my flight from the office, and travelling across
The flight was on-time and 1 hour later I was landed in Adisucipto Airport of Yogyakarta.
This town has confused people with the naming - as it’s normally called Yogyakarta or
My sister and her friend picked me up in the airport and annoyed with me who always asked to grab some food firstJ - they drove me to a small Warung - warung in
After the quick and early dinner we continue the trip to Malioboro.
And the other end of the street is the traditional cloth/wet market called Beringharjo Market.
Due to breakfasting time -
We continued to go to Alun-Alun (town square). Yogya’s Alun-alun is divided into 2 parts North and South, the more popular one is the South. Basically it’s a winde open grass square with lots of street food vedors around for people (mostly the youngsters) to hang out and enjoy the local snacks.
The main attraction from this place is 2 huge banyan trees grow exactly in the middle of the square - around 5 meters apart. People said that if you can walk from one tree to the other with closed eye, your wish may come true. I did try before and didn’t succeed (that explained why I am still an incompetent bum here) hahahaha.
We took some Ronde - which is a hot beverage made of some jelly, lontar fruits, roasted peanut with sweet ginger syrup, a typical beverages here.
We wandered around the square, as I noticed there are 4 gates as a round fence of this square. The white gate with old design and led to the kampongs area. One gate led to a much bigger gate called Plengkung Gading. It looks very interesting as we can climb to the top of the gate and can see the broader view of the town from there. This gate linked to a kampong, still with a traditional looking street and wall, looks mysterious, especially at night!
This is what I like about
I managed to visit my old college as well, felt weird to visit the old place where I used to walk to every day and it didn’t change a bit! I talked to the night guard and he know every names of my classmates I told him and all the lectors, but he didn’t have any idea at all about me - shows how popular I was in my college timeJ.
Went back to my sister’s place and zonked!
Malioboro Street was reviewed in this link: Malioboro blog
This alun-alun (literally translated as town square) is one part as other parts is called Alun-alun utara (North town square).
This south part is known as the more relax part as the north one is a bustling part as it closer to the Malioboro. This is an open wide grass park with 2 huge banyan trees in the middle. These 2 Banyan trees are known as sacred trees. There is a tradition called "Masangin" which is walking from one trees to the other with closed eyes. If one can do that and reach the other tree - then he/she will be blessed with a lot of nice stuffs..but if he/she peeked when doing it, they said the person will be transferred to another world and will suddenly find themselves alone in the town square - yeap - me don't want to experience that!
Around the square there are a lot of sellers with dimmed light - makes is more comfortable for a date - (who said we don't have a candle-light-dinner concept here!)
The sellers start to prepare their tent around 5 pm, just before the sunset.
There are several choices, Ronde is one of them (which is a hot beverage) made of sugar and ginger syrup with some jelly and roasted peanut inside. Grilled corn and sweet dark tea is another choice offered by the street vendors.
It wasn't too crowded when I visited this place - just wandering around the square and watching people passing by.. this is a great - lazy option to do around here! The people, the street food, the ambience - that you can trully sample the locals activity

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Some other sells rice and several dishes to accompany the rice – a buffet type of food. This one stall also sells that kind of food. It’s open for dinner till late in the evening. This was one of my favorite in my college time as it is cheap and the food is delicious. The choice of dishes are quite a lot – from fried or grilled chicken, stir fried tofu and some seafood, vegetables salad, eggs cooked in several different ways. The rice is still warm inside a Tupperware and the lady served us when we point out what we’d like to pick with our rice. The drinks are on the side of the buffet, pretty standard – ice tea, squeezed orange and coffee.
For 3 of us I paid 12k Rp (1.2 USD), very cheap!
(I almost tempted to put "Free" rating in this review!:D)
There are jelly, lontar fruits, some squared cut toast, rice flour dough filled with peanut paste, roasted peanut and some other different variation. The ronde sellers normally open after the sunset as this drink suits the evening when the temperature cools down a bit.
There are several options to reach the town center economically - but the most recent option is by using Trans Jogja - the new bus route which station is located inside the Airport parking lot. The bus fare is 3000 Rp (0.3 USD) and the 1-A route brings you to Malioboro - from where you can search the hostels/guest house for accomodation as well as lot of seaight seeing around the Palace area.
Another option will be by taxi - just ensure that the driver is willing to use the meter or else - you need to bargain andset the price before you hop in.








