A Cultural Trip: Museum Sonobudoyo

As we entered the museum, we felt like we were in heaven. Yeah baby, it's air-conditioned!
This museum is understanding, too. We almost broke our legs from all the walk earlier. And this museum provides comfortable benches inside. Oh my goodness! Utin got hysterical about it.

We're not sure about the museum theme. Is it 'the civilization and culture of Indonesia'?
For some time, we enjoyed a privilege as the only visitors. We were free to take as many pictures as we can. Who cares about the CCTV?

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A Cultural Trip: Museum Kereta Keraton

Museum Kereta Keraton is located near Keraton. We walked from Keraton to get there.
In this museum, you can find carriages owned by the royal family. Most of them were made in Netherlands. There are certain carriages that are so grand, they'll make your jaws drop.
Each one of the carriage has its own name, a name that sounds sacred. We wonder why Keraton have to name their belongings with honorific like kyai and nyai -- they even treat the item as if it has gender.

Too bad we weren't accompanied by any guide. We have unanswered questions, such as "Do different carriages own different purposes?", "We know the carriages are only used for special occasions now, but is it also the case in the old days? Did the royal family have a casual trip in one of these?", etc.
For all readers who are curious about the museum, maybe this article can give you an overview.

With no tour guide, there's not much that we can do in this museum (besides gawking at the carriages). That's why it was only a short visit. We got out of the museum to move on to the next stop.
At this time, we saw healthy-looking horses in a stable next to the museum building. One of them is white. Looking at it, we can't help wailing, "White horse! We only lack a prince."
Unin also had this idea to borrow those horses and ride them to the next museum (fyi, the next museum is still in Keraton area, but it's not that close if we go on foot). Of course, nobody listened to her.

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A Cultural Trip: Keraton Yogyakarta

The second stop was Keraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat or Yogyakarta Palace. There are many rooms to display royal stuffs, such as kitchen utensils, costumes, and paintings. Although some area are opened for public, visitors are not allowed to sit or step on some hall and buildings.

That day there was a traditional dance performed in a hall. It was very graceful and entertaining but we had to leave it early because there were still a lot more to see.

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A Cultural Trip: Vredeburg

Vredeburg was a fort built by the Dutch during their colonialism in Yogyakarta. The fort was built to enable them to monitor Keraton (Sultan palace). Now it serves as a museum. In some buildings inside the fort, we can find dioramas of Indonesian history, sort by timeline.
This museum was our first stop during this Cultural Trip.

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A Cultural Trip

A random weekend, sometime in June.
Unin-Utin had a cultural trip with Dwi and Yayank Tika. Yogyakarta is the perfect destination for this kind of trip. Why? Heck, because it's the City of Culture. Yogyakarta is also the City of Museums, so we heard. That's why we decided to visit museums during this trip.

Although we're no strangers to Yogyakarta (We come from the town next door. And duh, we've spent more time in Yogyakarta than in Klaten for some years now), we acted like tourists that day. Backpackers, to be exact. We took the bus from Klaten to Yogyakarta, then we walked a lot to tour the city.

Through this series of posts, we'd like to share our experience that day. We hope it can be a reminder for us to spend some time appreciating our national treasure, such as history and culture.

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