Yogyakarta, the enchanting city

Visiting Jogja always gave me a pleasant experience. I’ve been several times to Jogja and in each visit always mesmerizes me. A delightful feeling when you see all those heritage, architectural and cultural. I never get tired to see all the palaces in Kraton, the candi (temple), the culture: art, food, and the people, the nature that is so beautiful. Jogja have a lot of sites to see and I can never covered it all in one time visit. So there is always new places to see every time you come to Jogja even though I don’t mind to come to the same place several times.

We went to Jogja by car and took the pantura road. Pantura is short for pantai utara (north coast). The track was so awful because of the traffic. A side there was an accident of truck crashed, there were also lots of stopping because of roadwork, bridge repairing and asphalting. They are preparing for the mudik tradition on Eid feast day. Mudik is when people travel from big city like Jakarta back to their kampung to visit family just like family gathering on Christmas day.

All those soreness and weariness from the heavy traffic, suddenly gone when we arrived in Jogja. Excited can’t wait for morning  to come and start to explore this lovely city.

First day, I visited a batik workshop “Batik Winotosastro” that is owned by a family of my friend for generations. As I enter the building, they have a batik shop on the front area and I was greeted by the shop manager or the front officer. I told her directly that I was interested to have a tour to their workshop. She led me to the back of the building and transformed in to a tour guide. She explained everything very well. They produces batik in 3 types: batik tulis (hand write batik), cap (stamp), and the combination of those two.

First step for batik tulis, to draw a motive on a material (cotton or silk) by tracing a model underneath the cloth. And draw the second time with wax using canting. And for batik cap, the first step is directly use the stamp with wax to the material. Using the stamp might be faster, but the trick is you need to be careful and make sure the motive on the stamp didn’t go overlapping or discontinue. It has to be precise from the last end meet the first motive of the stamp.

Then the material got their coloring. They using a cold water in this step with natural colors. Natural colors are from plants leaves and woods. Afterwards, the materials are hung to dry.

The motive that got waxed will be the white color or the color of the original material. The wax protect the material when it get dyed with colors. So after the coloring process, dried up, the material will be soak in to a hot water to remove the wax, also to see if there are any color that wear off and to test the quality of the material. So, when the end result batik cloth are going to be sew to be a dress or shirt, it will not get wrinkled. To have another color on the same material, it will repeat the coloring step until maximum 3 times. Because we don’t want to ruin the material when it has to be soaked in a hot water more than 3 times. If you still want to add color after those three times coloring, you can use brush. For the colorful batik that we see a lot in many batik vendor, they are using a printer directly to the material.

The wax that got off from the material in a hot water will be reuse. The waste of the workshop will be checked and will be processed until it reaches pH 7 then it is safe for disposal.

For batik tulis and cap, combination of two technics, after the stamp batik got colored, by using canting with an ink they adding motives. Usually the ink is gold for prada motive.

Many companies from overseas and local order their batik with their own design from Batik Winotosastro. The company will bring their drawing of motives, and batik Winotosastro will make the stamp model and produce the batik.

A walking distance cafe from the hotel where I’m staying, owned by a Belgian, called Viavia cafe and restaurant serves good food and coffee. I spent an afternoon there for a good conversation with an old friend of my husband’s family that coincidentally staying at the same hotel as ours. We also sightseeing the Food Festival on that same street where the Viavia cafe is on. Bought an ice cream from a cute shop, and turned out the ice cream was quite good!

When the night falls, we were getting ready for gudeg hunt. Gudeg is the local food of Jogja. And we heard this place sells a very good one. The thing is.. this place is not a restaurant, but.. a kitchen. The places’ name is ‘Gudeg Pawon’. Pawon means kitchen, hence the name. Yup, it is a small house in a small street, a lady cooks gudeg in her kitchen and people just queuing outside her kitchen to buy this Javanese cuisine. The kitchen opens at 10 pm and closes at 11.30 pm. The gudeg always sold out at closing time. She don’t even sells drinks, well.. her neighbor does. Because of this ‘quirky’ factors, I become more intrigued to come and try one. And believe me, it was worth it. It was worth queuing a long line, worth to visited late at night eventhough we didn’t know where the place was and had to found it through google map.

Next day, after breakfast we’re off to visit Ullen Sentalu museum. It’s in Kaliurang, Sleman area, north side from the city Jogja. After over an hour we arrived at the museum. It is a big area, I can see the owner (private owned) have a dedication in preserving the history of Java royal family. It is very detail and very personal collection they have. All those private letters and the exquisite paintings of the royal family member. I love the paintings! Amazing!

We had lunch at “Jejamuran” restaurant. The place is unique because they serves mushroom in all types, but for those who doesn’t like mushroom.. don’t worry, they have other menu such as fried or grilled chicken. Good food, but the service was a bit disappointing.

Next stop was Kotagede to do some silver shopping. Kotagede is famous for its silver crafting. But if we go further back, like 16th century, Kotagede is the first capital of Mataram Sultanate. That’s why I saw the remains of the royal cemetery while we’re passing by the streets in Kotagede. Such a pity I didn’t get pictures of the old part of Kotagede. But I found something old just in front of this silver shop I visited. It was an old colonial house that turn into a restaurant. The place is called “Omah Dhuwur”. The house was a textile factory back in colonial time. Take a look at the pictures, isn’t she lovely..?!

We visited a chocolate factory in Kotagede, called “Coklat Monggo”. It is a local product with a Belgian as the owner. They use a cacao from Sumatera and Sulawesi. Such a pity there’s no one there as a guide to explain the process, eventhough they already have big windows for visitor to see the activity in the workshop.

Kraton is a place that you never get tired of for sightseeing. We stopped by at “Puro Pakualaman” it is the castle of Pakualam. We were greeted by a gatekeeper, and explained to us which area that we can and cannot stepped in. It is a lovely house. Enjoy the pictures.. :)

Continuing the Kraton sightseeing, we dropped by at one of the house owned by prince Joyokusumo where the front area got turn into a restaurant called “Gadri Resto”. They even permit the guest to walk around the house to see.

We headed to see underground mosque next to Taman Sari Water Castle. But such a pity it was closed. The local people, one of the Kraton officer I guess, try to show a back door to enter the mosque through residences that surrounding the Water Castle but we didn’t have the luck. It closed also. Well.. there’s always an excuse for next visit to Jogja.

We end the day by doing some shopping at Mirota in jalan Malioboro. I make some time to visit the colonial buildings in jalan Senopati that are now become office buildings of banks and post office.

Last day in Jogja, we’re off by taking not the pantura but the middle road. Surprisingly, the view is amazingly breathtaking. -SK-