Ngobaran Beach, from Temple to Fried Sea Urchin

Going to Ngrenehan Beach and enjoying the grilled fish will be complete if you drop by Ngobaran Beach that is located adjacent to it. The location of the beach with high cliff is around two kilometers from Ngrenehan Beach. It is not far, isn't it? Local people of Ngrenehan Beach even talk and visit Ngobaran Beach, why don't you?

Ngobaran is such an exotic beach. When sea water falls, you can see spread of both green and brown seaweed. Being looked from the top, the spread of the algae growing in between coral reef looks like spread of rice field in a densely populated area. Tens of sea animal species also present in between the coral reef, ranging from sea urchin, starfish, to various types of cockle shells.
What you will not find in other beaches is the cultural enchantment, ranging from the building to the local food. One interesting place is four praying places that stand side by side. Is it form of multiculturalism? Who knows.

The most prominent one is a building that looks like a temple with ornaments of god statues in white color. The building was built in 2003 to commemorate the arrival of Brawijaya V, one of Majapahit's king, in Ngobaran. The people who use the place are of Kejawan belief. The name 'Kejawan' originates from the nickname of Brawijaya V's son, namely Bondhan Kejawan. The person who built the building acknowledge to be the descendant of Brawijaya V and appointed one person in the community to keep this place.

Walking to the left side of the praying place, you will see Javanese building, Joglo, which is used by followers of Kejawen belief to say their prayer. When we visited this place, some people were saying their prayer. The people tell that Kejawan belief is different from Kejawen one. However, they cannot pinpoint the differences.

If you continue your way in front of the joglo, you fill see a stone box with dry plant on it. The plant is confined with grey wood fence. The point where the dry plant grows was the place where Brawijaya V pretended to burn himself. He took this step because he was not willing to fight his son, Raden Patah (the first King of Demak).

The truth of this story about Brawijaya V is doubted by many historians. The reason is, if Raden Patah attacked Brawijaya V, it will give an image that Islam was spread in a violent way. Many historians suggest that the existing historical evidences do not sufficiently conclude that Raden Patah made an attack. You may search any information for further assurance about it.
Some meters of the box where the dry plant grows there is a temple for Hindu people to say prayer. No detail information of its foundation.

In front of the dry plant grows, there is a mosque with the size of around 3x4 meters. The mosque building is quite simple since the floor is of sands as if it unites with the beach. What is unique is its direction. Most of the mosques in Indonesia face westwards, but this mosque faces southwards. The front part where the religious leader leads the prayer is open so that it directly sees the ocean. When we asked local people about it, no one knows the reason. They even get surprised because the founder of the mosque is a well known kyai of Nahdatul Ulama who lived in Panggang, Gunung Kidul. For correct direction for those who want to pray in the mosque, local people make a sign on the wall using red pencil.

After being astonished with the religious site, you can get down to the beach. When you come early in the morning, you will see people take seaweed. They sell the seaweed at 1,000 to 1,500 Rupiah per kilogram. They use the earnings for their daily lives.

If you come in the afternoon, however, you will see people searching for sea urchin for their side dish at their dinner. The spines of the sea urchin must be cut first then it is pried using a sickle. The meat inside of the sea urchin is then taken out. When searching for the sea urchin, people usually bring bucket, coconut sieve, sickle, and hat to prevent them from the sun.

The ingredients to cook sea urchin are salt and chilli. It is then fried. Not many people sell this menu. They say that the meat is quite delicious. If you really want to have a try, please ask them to cook specially for you. Maybe you have special recipe to cook sea urchin so that it can be served as favourite cuisine and increase society welfare.

Isn't it complete yet? There might not be other choices for the beach beauty, enchantment of the praying places, and tempting cuisine other than this beach. (source YogYES.COM)

Read more...

Tugu Railway Station, Train Stops in Yogyakarta

It is likely no other railway station that is located as strategically as Tugu railway station. It lies in the center of Yogyakarta city, close to traditional and modern shopping centers; it only takes a little time to reach five-star and budget hotels and it is close to some tourism objects. One other thing that most people neglect is that this station turns to have tourism potential because of its characteristic building and more than a century of its age.

Tugu railway station started to serve transportation need since 2 May 1887, around 15 years after Lempuyangan station, another railway station in Yogyakarta that is located to the east of Tugu station. The construction of Tugu station was part of the efforts by the Dutch government by that time to distribute crops in Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi. Passengers service from this station as one of the oldest railway stations in Indonesia began to function since 1 February 1905 and the first out-of-town line was to Surakarta that was built in 1899.

Starting as a small station, now Tugu station becomes one of the biggest railway stations in Indonesia. With 6 train lines, this railway station serves transportation from almost all big cities in Java. More than 20 train departures and arrivals - economy class, business and executive ones - occur everyday. There are various options for train types and time departures to go to a certain city.

Being built during the Dutch colonial time, the architecture of the building is so close to European nuance. Getting down from the train, you will directly notice it from the big doors in brown color and the high roof accentuated with robust walls painted in white. You can enjoy the original shape of the building from the front view. The building looks so great with big entrance and two high roofs sheltering two platforms on the north and south sides of the main building.

Unlike other big railway stations that function as a place for transit, Tugu railway station still preserves its function as a place of train maintenance. For the reason, you have an opportunity to wander about the corners of the station to see technician activities and to trace the oldness of this railway station. Some of the workers know well about the history of this station so that they can be good sources of information.

If you walk to the west part of the station, you will get to the place for locomotive maintenance. You will admire details of components in a locomotive. You can even observe the lower part of a locomotive since there is a ladder that enables you to reach the lower part of it. An old, black train monument can be another object to enjoy.

Walking a little bit to the south of the place, you will come to an area where compartments are maintained. You can see them from distant through the iron fence painted in blue-white colors. Looking above, you will see a train part that is located on top of a yellow tower. That part that has been utilized since the Dutch time is a crane that functions to connect train compartments. When you walk to the north, you will see workers cleaning the trains.

If you arrive in the afternoon, take your time to stand in between line 4 and 6 and look westwards. Beautiful scenery of the dusk will be seen on bright days, combined with railways that look like lines and finally end as a dot. The train crane and singing street musicians complete the exotic scenery of the dusk.

Then, you can start your tour in Yogyakarta after you are satisfied to enjoy the beauty of this railway station. You can travel by pedicab to go to Yogyakarta Sultan's Palace and to buy bakpia - special cake of Yogyakarta - in Pathuk. For farther travel, you can travel by public bus or taxi. If you want to go shopping directly, you just need to walk along the Malioboro Street that is located right to the south of the railway station.

Read more...

Junk food of the week: BAKPIA

If you go away for a few days, you will likely be bombarded with requests for oleh-oleh (souvenirs) when you get back: from your office-mates, your friends, even, in our case, the woman who runs the shop on the corner where you buy your drinking water. Everyone will pretend they're kidding ... but you'd better bring something back anyway, because you don't want to be known as that person who never gives out any oleh-oleh.

Bakpia is a food that was made from the mung beans mixture with sugar that was wrapped in previous flour be roasted. In several areas in Indonesia, food that was felt sweet if being eaten this was known by the name of pia or the cake pia. The contents bakpia could adapt with the consumer's wish including being brown, cheese, the green fish basket, and the black fish basket. Bakpia that was enough to be known by one of them to come from the Pathok area, Yogyakarta. For who has try it, don't say what delicious it.

These little flaky stuffed pastries called bakpia are a good choice when you go to Yogyakarta because they are

1. food, so you avoid matters of personal style;

2. affordable;

3. strongly associated with Yogya;

4. pretty universally acceptable (as opposed to, say, durian candy); and

5. tasty.


This box confused me at first because it said purple yam on the front, but then listed the flavors on the side as chocolate, mung bean and cheese. The latter turned out to be flavors added to the purple yam, which is why the fillings above have slightly different colors.

Perhaps it's a measure of how long I've been here that yam-and-cheese doesn't strike me as a weird filling for a cookie. It does seem like gilding the lily, because yam is perfectly tasty on its own. Needless to say, that didn't stop me from eating the whole box.

Read more...

Melia Purosani Hotel in Yogyakarta Indonesia

Meliá Purosani boasts luxurious Five-Star Accommodation in 270 rooms, consisting of Presidential suite, 4 Executive suites, 5 Junior Duplex Suites, 34 Standard executive rooms, 34 Superior deluxe rooms, 145 deluxe rooms, and 47 Standard rooms.

Melia Purosani offers its guest an excellent choice of guest rooms and suites, each carefully conceived for comfort and convenience, with individually controlled air conditioning, IDD phones, satellite and local TV with Radio, mini-bar en-suite marble bathroom.

Meliá Purosani's leisure facilities are among Yogyakarta's best. Within the beautiful gardens, guests enjoy a large lagoon-style swimming pool with waterfall and water slide. Alongside is a professionally run gymnasium and spa, which offers massage, sauna and Indonesia Mandi Lulur beauty treatment. The city's Royal Palace. Old colonial buildings and shopping heart are just a short walk away, while further a field are some of the most spectacular sights in Asia; Borobudur Temple, Prambanan Temple, Merapi Golf Course and other monumental masterpiece, Mt. Merapi and the sulphurous volcanoes of Central Java.

Guest of Meliá Purosani enjoys an excellent choice of cuisine at a number of restaurants: Parangsari, poolside garden restaurant is the venue for casual dining. El Patio, 24-hour coffee shop offers Asian and International fare while in more formal surroundings, the Ching San Chinese restaurant offers Cantonese and Szechuan cuisine. For cocktails and entertainment there is the Soka Lounge, while the Pub Med offers live bands nightly with Mediterranean atmosphere.

Yogyakarta's cultural legacy creates an extraordinary environment for imaginative meetings and conferences. And with its dedicated service, good communication facilities, secretarial support services and splendid function rooms, Melia Purosani provides an unparalleled corporate base. Among the facilities are five meeting rooms for 60 to 95 Theatre style and 600-guest for Amarta Ballroom with separate entrance and reception.

MELIA PUROSANI
Jl. Suryotomo 31 Yogyakarta 55122
Phone: +62 274 589521, +62 274 589523
Fax: +62 274 588071, +62 274 588073

Read more...

Kasongan, Hunting Ceramics in Kundi Community

In the Dutch colonial time, in one of the areas at the southern part of Yogyakarta there was a shocking and even threatening occurrence with the finding of a dead horse owned by a Dutch detective on a rice field of a villager. Being afraid of punishment, the villager gave up his land ownership and did not acknowledge his land anymore. This was followed by other villagers. This given up land was then possessed by people of other village. Having no more fields to cultivate, the local people ended up with becoming ceramics craftsmen to make toys and kitchen sets until now. This was revealed in an interview by Prof. Gustami at all with local elders in 1980s.

It is that area that we know it as Kasongan until present time; a village in Kajen hamlet that is situated in low mountains with limestone soil. It takes 15-20 minutes drive from the city center.

Kasongan village is the dwelling place of kundis, which means earthenware jugs and later refers to people who make any earthenware jug-like as kitchen tools and ornaments.

"Beginning from our ancestor's habit to knead clay that turns out not to break when it is united, and begin to make some functions for kid toys and kitchen tools. The habit was then descended to current generation," said Giman, one of the workers in Loro Blonyo workshop.

Visiting Kasongan village, the tourists will be welcomed warmly by local inhabitants. They may have a look the showroom crowded with ceramic handicrafts. If they are interested in seeing the ceramics making, tourists can visit some ceramic galleries that produce the special handicrafts at site. The processes are material kneading, shaping, drying that takes 2-4 days and burning before finally being finished using wall paint or roof-tile paint.

Working collectively, a gallery is usually a family business run from generation to the next generation. Even though ceramics making is now involving neighbors of surrounding dwelling place of the gallery owner, the family is still responsible for material selection and production monitoring.

Touch of Modern Design

At the beginning, these ceramics did not have style at all. The legend of the dead horse, however, inspired the craftsmen to create horse motifs on many products, especially the horses carrying earthenware goods or roof-tiles complete with bamboo basket placed on the horseback, in addition to frog, rooster and elephant motifs.

The entering modern influence and culture from outside through various media and the first introduction of Kasongan to public by Sapto Hudoyo around 1971-1972 with artistic and commercial touch and commercially sold in major scale by Sahid Keramik around 1980s enables tourists to see various ceramic motifs. Tourists can even order motifs to their like such as peacock, dragon, rose and others. The types of self production include so many forms. They do not only make kid toys (sounding toys, frog, and money box) and kitchen tools (kuali, pengaron, kendil, dandang, kekep, and others). Entering the gate of Kasongan village, you will see ceramics galleries that sell ornamental items alongside the street. The forms and functions have varied, from small ashtray to flower vase as high as one's shoulder. The ornamental goods either have functions or merely as ornament.

Loro Blonyo Ceramic Statue

One of famous ceramic displays is statue of a couple sitting in polite position. This statue is named Loro Blonyo at the first time by Loro Blonyo gallery owned by Walujo. This statue is adopted from a bridal couple owned by Yogyakarta Kingdom. In Javanese language, Loro means two or a couple, while Blonyo means to be made over through bathing and making up. "The real meaning of Loro Blonyo, however, is still in question among craftsmen in Kasongan," Giman said.

The existing belief of Loro Blonyo statue that brings luck and perpetual family life when located at home, as Giman told YogYES, brings positive impact on the sales of this statue. Some foreigners place order of special statues in certain forms such as dancer, guitar player, models and others. The clothes are not standard Javanese anymore; special clothes of some countries are adopted; statues in Balinese and Thailand clothes are found most. Some ceramic galleries sell this statue in different styles.

Tourism Village

Since the end of the twentieth century, after economy crisis hit Indonesia, tourists may find other products other than earthenware goods. The entering of new comers who open galleries in Kasongan is one of the influences. They sell local products such as handicrafts from coconut tree, dried plants or shellfish. "Business catches up with trend and development, looking at opportunities," Giman adds. Earthenware goods, however, are main means of livelihood of local community. "We have the gift for that; furthermore we have no other skills. Most of us do not finish Senior High School. Only few of them," he adds.

Ceramic handicrafts with various forms and modern as well as artistic motifs and other handicrafts are magnets of Kasongan at present time. Kasongan is a tourism place full of stories and beautiful goods resulted from skillful hands of local community to knead clay.

Two months after the quake, many galleries in Kasongan begin to actively revive although some of them are still in reconstruction stage. By far, there is no more fear of both owners and workers. Local community expects tourists to visit Kasongan as they did before the quake. (source : YogYES.COM)

Read more...

JOGJA RENT CAR

ATS Transport
Jl. Kweni 743 , Yogyakarta
Telp 415105

Ade Trans Rent A Car
Jl. Tunjung 12 , Yogyakarta
Telp 586580

Ana Motor Bike Rental
Email : sbayek@hotmail.com
Jl. Pasar Kembang 33 , Yogyakarta
Telp 582617

Aris Rental
Jl. Gajah 24 , Yogyakarta
Telp 381022

Armada Transport
Jl. Gamelan Kidul 27 , Yogyakarta
Telp 372131

Bali Car Rental Service
Jl. Airport Adisucipto , Yogyakarta
Telp 562548

Bintara Transport
Jl. Kaliurang km 10.8 , Yogyakarta
Telp 883878

CSM Corporatama
Jl. Solo km 9, Yogyakarta
Telp 487853

Citra Persada Trans
Jl. Perum Gambiran BI A/6 , Yogyakarta
Telp 415850

Dempo Rental
Jl. Menteri Supeno 98 , Yogyakarta
Telp 389411

Family Sari Transport
Jl. Kepanjen 338 , Yogyakarta
Telp 383258

Fortuna
Jl. Jlagran Lor 20-21 , Yogyakarta
Telp 564680

Gangsar Car Rental
Jl. Miliran 36 , Yogyakarta
Telp 562863

Hafa Ren Car Rental
Jl. Prawirotaman III/634 , Yogyakarta
Telp 377157

Indonesia Rental
Jl. Pasar Kembang 64 , Yogyakarta
Telp 518103

Kenari Rental Mobil
Jl. Kalimantan 6 B , Yogyakarta
Telp 879348

Nusa Transport
Jl. Mangunsarkoro 56, Yogyakarta
Telp 510309

Pandega Transport car Rental
Jl. Pandegarini 7 , Yogyakarta
Telp 887680

Pandawa Transport
Jl. Pura 201 , Yogyakarta
Telp 514547

Private Rent A Car Rental
Email : koen_anggoro@eudoramil.com
Jl. Frambors 27 , Yogyakarta
Telp 886607

Tanaya Transport
Jl. Moses Gatotkaca A/20 , Yogyakarta
Telp 555064

TRAC Astra Rent a Car
Jl. Magelang KM 7.2, DSO Building , Yogyakarta
Telp 864567

Tritama Rent Car
Email: trcjogja@tritamanusantara.com
Jl. Rajawali gg Nuri 9, Colombo , Gejayan , Yogyakarta
Telp 566781 Read more...

Krakal Beach

To get to Krakal beach you have to pass Wonosari, the capital of the Gunungkidul Regency, about 38 km from Yogyakarta. The winding and mountainous road is well asphalted. Krakal is about 21 km from Wonosari. Located at 7 km eastern side of the road where branches off the main road crossing limestone hills with their harsh appearance alternated with terraced rocks which all presents enchanting scenery to Baron Beach. Geologists say that a long time ago, this place was lies below sea level. Among all the beaches that stretch along the coast of Java, Krakal with its white sandy beach surrounded with mountainous rock hills is may be the most beautiful beach in Yogyakarta. Meanwhile, the battering of its gigantic waves in a mass of white foam gives more enchantment in enjoy relaxing atmosphere in this beach. It has attracted many tourism-planning experts from foreign countries. They suggest that it should be prepared as a beach resort, particularly for foreign tourists (like Nusa Dua resorts in Bali). Their interest in exploring Krakal is supported by its attractive potentials such as: a sloping and white sandy beach stretching out for about 5 km. There is always warm sunshine from dawn until the twilight comes during the whole dry and rainy season. The sea wind is always blowing softly. As a whole, it is most suitable for sun bathing. It also offers a shade and a multi colored marine growth.

Krakal is close to Kukup beach and Baron cove. This cove is in fact an estuary of an underground river that comes up exactly at the waterfront. It is interesting to observe the combination of the beach and the cove from the protruding rocky hills that flank the caves on both sides.

Related Link: www.yogyes.com/krakal

Read more...