The morning started with coffee and breakfast outdoors under the beautiful newly-built veranda… Sitting there made me really feel like I’m on vacation. A fancy vacation, under a morning sun and a pretty veranda. It was like a scene from a travel advertisement…
I took tea instead of coffee, though. And here in Jogja, the tea is always with sugar. Very sweet. I made french toast for Aina, because the bread was thick and fluffy… Aina loved it.
The plan for today is to visit the Ullen Sentalu Museum in the morning and then go to Kraton Jogja (where the King of Yogyakarta and his family lives) and Taman Sari.
We arrived at Ullen Sentalu in the late morning, which was not too far from Joglo Kemiri. Both were located at the village of Kaliurang, at the foot of Merapi Mountain. At the time of our visit, the museum was sort of under construction. They were building another gallery closer to the entrance to expand the museum.
It was mandatory for guests to join a guided tour at the museum. You couldn’t just wander around inside. Each group were assigned a guide, who would take you around, explaining each exhibit, and make sure that no one was left behind… and no photo-taking inside the museum galleries. There were only two areas where were allowed to take pictures, outside and the shop area. Ruby decided to wait outside. She’d been here waaaay too many times.
the obligatory group picture, taken by the guide 🙂
The guided tour within the museum was actually pretty interesting. It covered the history of the four royal houses and their families in this area: Yogyakarta, Pakualam, Surakarta, and Mangkunegaran. A lot of artefacts and art pieces that belong to those houses were on display in this museum.
However, Aina admitted later on that she had no clue what the guide was saying… She didn’t understand anything at all! I guess, even though Aina speaks Indonesian, she has almost never heard and used the more formal tone of the language, which was basically how the guide spoke. Maybe next time, we should opt for an English tour, instead.
After the Ullen Sentalu, we drove all the way down the mountain to Yogyakarta to check out the Kraton of Yogyakarta, a royal palace of one of those royal families mentioned above. Ari and I had been here when we were small, because it was one of the most popular tourist destinations in this area…
Ruby, Dista and Biyan didn’t join us to got to the Kraton. Ruby was off to the airport to fetch Themma, who flew in today from Jakarta, while Dista and Biyan headed home. So it was just us, the Avocadolites, the Babybirds, and Booi…
By the time we got there, it was nearly 3PM, which means we only had an hour to explore the Kraton before it’s closing time for public. Aina didn’t seem to really get it, though. I guess, in her mind, King’s palace would look like those Cinderella palace. So, she and Rinjani basically just ran around the vast courtyard within the palace, while we, the parents, went to see a few galleries in the palace. They had many different galleries, some dedicated to batik, some for royal paintings, etc. The living area of the royals were not accessible to the public. But we could roam around the rest of the compound.
By the time we were finished with the Kraton, we were starving. So, we had some mie bakso for our late lunch, located right outside the Kraton. It was Aina’s first time eating street food. She was quite entertained watching the uncle seller making our mie. And it turned out, she liked mie bakso! Yay!
After we finished eating, Ruby and Themma fetched us up from the Kraton area. But apparently, we were still hungry. So, we then went to get Soto Daging Pak Soleh, a must-try item on any culinary tours in Jogja. Oh sooooo goood!
There are tons more pictures in Ullen Sentalu 2015 photo album and Kraton Jogja 2015 photo album… Please check them out!
