The streets of Jalan Malioboro

IMG_7728, originally uploaded by Technical Tango.

Jalan Malioboro is a major shopping street in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The street is the centre of Yogyakarta's largest tourist district surrounded with many hotels and restaurants nearby. Sidewalks on both sides of the street are crowded with small stalls selling a variety of goods. In the evening several open-air streetside restaurants operate along the street. Less obvious to the tourist, but more for the local population are the side streets, lanes and structures that lead on to Malioboro are as important as the street itself.

My travel mates and I named this "the Orchard Road of JOG".

May 2012 @ Villa Hanis, Yogyakarta *Updated"

Photo credits : Fionna, she is also my travel buddy for this trip

This is how we locked our villa when we had to go out. At night, we locked the villa from inside. Unique!

May 2012 @ Villa Hanis, Yogyakarta

The road leading into the villa was bumpy. Upon arrival, we were surprised that there is only one villa at Hanis, separated by a bamboo screen from the restaurant. Somehow we have missed out this information from the Net.
 

The villa is a Javanese house that gives a very rustic feel. It consists of two rooms with connecting outdoor bathrooms. In the big room, there is a double four posted bed, wardrobe, TV, minibar, sofa corner, reading desk and a big mirror. The big room is beautifully decorated with Javanese ornaments. There is also a private garden with a pool and a shady gazebo.

We had our first lunch at the restaurant and we informed the staffs that we do not take beef. The next morning, the attentive staff still remembered and reminded us that the sausage at the breakfast consisted beef and they replaced it with pork bacon for us. Since our flight on the last day was at 7.30AM, we had to leave the villa at 5.30AM, the kind staff prepared sandwiches for us to take along to the airport.

We also used the hotel airport shuttle which cost USD 9 per trip and we hired the same driver for the next two days. It is essential to have a driver in Yogyakarta. It cost IDR 550,000 for hire a driver for 12-hour/daily.
 

The villa is clean and the service is good. We enjoyed breakfast times as we could have a spectacular view of Mount Merapi. There is also WIFI in our villa and at the restaurant. Overall, it is an unique experience for the 3 of us.

 



May 2012 Yogyakarta - Highlights

Some snapshots from the 3-day trip.

(1) This cat at the villa likes to cozy up to us. He has got beautiful eyes.

(2) At Sultan Palace and Water Castle, we had to buy a "photo permit" in order to take photographs

(3) The children in the mountains piled on more clothes as the night falls

(4) Borobudur Temple is one of the World Wonder Heritage

Our itnerary for the three days

Day 1 : We arrived at Yogyakarta Airport at 11.30AM. Our villa was only 30 minutes from the airport. We were able to check in very quickly. By then we were hungry so we decided to have lunch at Villa Hanis. After that, we called for a metered-taxi to take us to Jalan Malioboro. We also found a nice massage palour called "Kakiku" along the streets.

Day 2 : Our plan for the day was to visit Borobudur Temple and Mount Merapi. Our tour driver also took us to a massage palour and an interesting restaurant at the end of the day. We paid about IDR120,000 for an one-hour body massage (approximately SGD17!).

Day 3 : We brought tripods for this trip and we were determined to take some photos of sunset. The tour driver recommended that we should visit Sultan Palace and Water Castle "Taman Sari" in the morning. We visited Prambanan after lunch and stayed there until sunset. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day and we could not get any shots of the sunset.

Day 4: Rise and shine! We woke up at 4AM and began to get ready to go to the aiport. Our return flight to Singapore was 7.30AM. Air Asia is the only airline that flies direct from Singapore to Yogyakarta and they only have one return flight (YOG/SIN) per day.

The crafts that I brought on this trip

Canon 500D

Tokina f2.8 11-17mm

Canon f4.0 28-105mm

Tripod Canon S100

Get your brain moving!

Brain Lab

First try 

Updated on 13.5.2012 - Chin's score. Whahaha!!

The wanderlust

Just the other day, I was lamenting that I have no travel plans for this year. Due to work, I will not be able to continue with my plans of visiting USA in July. My little niece will be "arriving" anytime soon. Looks like I can only see her next year in Singapore instead.


Now I have plans! *big GRIN* In 3 days time, I will be travelling to Yogyakarta with Chin and Fionna. It is a pity that Pei Yek is unable to join us at the last minute. Chin suggested the place and later we got to understand that he has wanted to visit YOG for the longest time but cannot find any friends to go with him because there is a history of earthquakes and volcano erruptions *roll eyes* What a good friend LOL.

I think I will pack my luggage on Wednesday night and probably try to get an extra battery for my DSLR at the airport *cross fingers* And yes, it is going to be a photography trip!! I hope we will return with many good photos. I am trying very hard to find time to upload my photos from Suzhou (Oct 2011) and Krabi (Dec 2011).

Then in Jun, I will be in Batam with Timothy and Emily for massages and A&W. This is followed by a family trip to Hong Kong and maybe I will bring my Mom to Bangkok on a 2D3N shopping trip. The last time I brought her oveseas was in March 2008 to Hong Kong and Macau. It had since been a long while.

How I wish I can simply take 3 weeks off work to travel. Wistful thinking.

Study shows, taking email vacations can reduce stress!

Yahoo! News

I agree!! *raise both legs and hands*

Whenever I have a challenging deadline or task to complete, I turn off my email (Microsoft outlook). The email alerts stressed me out. By turning off the email, I feel that I can work more efficiently and effectively because I can concentrate just on getting the task done. Then, I reply to all the emails at one go.

The Company provides me with a Blackberry so that I can check emails at anywhere and anytime. However, this also becomes a habit for me to read emails on weekends and off days. Sometimes when I see an important email, it lingers on my mind and I feel uneasy because there is nothing much I can do until I return to office. Nowadays I restrict reading emails on blackberry only on weekday nights.  

Weekends are my email vacations.

Prayers for Indonesia

The headline shouts! Indonesia - a 8.6 magnitude earthquake was followed by an aftershock measuring 8.2. Earthquakes of this size has the potential to trigger a widespread destructive tsunami!

Both the 2004 and 2011 tsunamis are still fresh on my mind. Many lives were lost. Lets pray hard for indonesia and all her other neighbouring countries. Coincidentally, I will be going to Yogyakarta and a colleague of mine is going to Bali next month *Cross fingers*

Healing takes courage and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it. - Toris Amos