[Left picture: Inka and Ene (grandma) at Rina's wedding reception in Yogyakarta.] On February 2005, our family went to Yogyakarta, Central Java, to attend the wedding of my cousin, Rina, the daughter of Mang (uncle) Yayan and Bi (aunt) Iin. We made use of the opportunity to also visit several places of interests around Yogyakarta.
We took the Garuda flight from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport to Yogyakarta's Adi Sucipto's airport. The airport in Yogyakarta is small, and it's not equipped with aerobridges so we would need to walk from the airplane to the terminal. My cousin Sandra and his girlfriend picked us up from the airport and they brought us directly to the hotel where we'll be staying, a small hotel in the west vicinity of the city. Eventually, there was some electricity issue on the hotel so we moved to Hotel Santika, a much nicer hotel in the heart of the city.
In Yogyakarta, we went to Malioboro to shop around the largest mall in Yogyakarta, Malioboro Mall. We also went to Jalan Pathok to buy the famous
Bakpia Pathok, one of Yogyakarta's specialties. We also had the chance to visit Kotagede, Yogyakarta's centre of silverwork. And the most important thing, we also went to the most famous
nasi gudeg restaurant near the kraton palace, to buy some
nasi gudeg for us to bring back and eat in the hotel.
We also visited Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia, about one hour's drive north of Yogyakarta. Borobudur is simply spectacular. The complex itself is very huge, and it's quite a long walk from the carpark to the temple itself. We climbed the steps to reach the centre of the attraction, the biggest
stupa on the centre of the temple complex. Unfortunately, it was slightly raining when we reached the top, however that doesn't prevent us from admiring the beauty of the temple.
After taking some pictures on the top of the temple, we came back to the carpark area and immediately greeted by a lot of sellers selling souvenirs along the way, which can be quite annoying since they would keep on following us and pestering us to buy their products. Near the main gate, I took Inka and Irza for a tram ride around the complex, and they really enjoyed it very much.
Overall, we really enjoyed our trip to Yogyakarta, and hope that we would go there again some day.
On March 2003, we took a short holiday to Batam. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Waterfront City, Batam. We took the Penguin ferry from the Harbourfront Centre ferry terminal in Singapore, directly to Waterfront City (Teluk Senimba) ferry terminal in Batam. The ferry terminal is surprisingly clean and efficient, compared to the old and disappointing ferry terminal in Sekupang. From there, the Holiday Inn shuttle bus would pick us up and bring us to the hotel, which is only a stone's throw away from the ferry terminal itself.
Holiday Inn is a very nice hotel, with a lot of facilities especially for the kids. They have very nice swimming pools, with a slide and a small "lazy" river. Unfortunately, the kids are still too afraid to use the slide, even though I managed to persuade Irza to use the slide even though he had to sit on my lap while sliding. :) Too bad, there was no pictures while we were taking the slide!
We met Ene (grandma, my mother) who took a flight to Batam from Jakarta. She came to Batam on a special occassion to meet her grandchildren. :) She was actually supposed to follow us to Singapore, but due to her health condition, she decided to go back to Jakarta and didn't follow us back to Singapore.
We spent most of the time there swimming and enjoying the hotel's facilities. Even though, we also spent quite some time outside the hotel. Once we took a cab to Baloi area (just south of Nagoya, about 30 minutes taxi drive from Waterfront City) and visited one of the shopping malls there. Unfortunately I can't remember what's the name of the shopping mall, but it's quite big and right in the heart of Baloi area, even though most of the units are still empty. We had a nice "early" lunch at a fried chicken fast food (KFC-style) restaurant there, as well as a "late" lunch at Ayam Goreng Fatmawati somewhere on the road between Baloi and Batam Centre (again, I can't recall the area name or the road name).
Going back to Singapore is also quite efficient and painless. The hotel arranged for the booking of our return ferry trip to Singapore, including our fiscal tax free (bebas fiskal) arrangement. Our Indonesian departure immigration cards are also being filled in automatically by the ticketing staff. Hassle free and very convenient.
