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)

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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.

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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.

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