(Thinking
of Yogyakarta as a Vacation’s Destination on your Holiday)
A Recount Text
By
Hari Istihari
1304554
Submitted to the Department of English Education in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Writing for General Communication 1 Course
Submitted to the Department of English Education in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Writing for General Communication 1 Course
For those who love the enchanting
cultures of Java, this is the perfect moment to visit Yogyakarta. It is like a hidden
heaven that is supposed to be exploited. Yogyakarta, one of provinces in
Indonesia has a great deal of heritages offering some natural beauty, some
amazing attractions, and other wonderful things. It is not only famous as its
charm but also famous as its living expenses that people should know. So I decided
to have a vacation as much as possible. In terms of sharing some secret things
behind Yogyakarta, through these pieces of papers I hope you will uncover those
secrets.
My journey started when I was in
grade 11 in Senior High school, I was selected for competing in Astrophysics
Olympiad. In order to get a
result maximally, my school appointed me to learn more about astrophysics in Gadjah
Mada University, the prestigious university in Indonesia, and in UNY. Of course
I received that appointment with pleasure.
Briefly, I went to Yogyakarta alone
by bus. The bus ticket to Yogyakarta was IDR 60.000 or around $5.6 from my
town, Ciamis, at that time. On the way to Yogyakarta, I just looked around,
listened to music, and enjoyed for a long street journey. After a very long
drive, finally I arrived at Yogyakarta. I got off from the bus in Giwangan
Station. I found there was a lot of transportation to go everywhere. Some of
drivers offered me to get in their cars. But I refused all, because I was
waiting for someone who would pick me up.
As my purpose before, I studied very
hard in colleges. Both UGM and UNY classes were attended by me. I learnt so
many things, from getting some explanations, exercising, and practicing how to
use telescopes. As the day went by, I saw myself an opportunity to get on
vacation after studying at the colleges. Actually, I lived with a student of
State university of Yogyakarta. So, he was the one who usually accompanied me to go everywhere in Yogyakarta.
For you to know, everything in Yogyakarta
is very cheap. It is different with other big cities. The boarding house for
students started from 1 million to 2 millions a year. Although it was excluding
internet access and water heater, but it seemed to be comfortable enough for
that price. In Yogyakarta, we also could have a meal less than 5 thousand
rupiahs, and I was sure that you would be full. It was including a glass of
lemon tea.
There were so many tourism objects which have already
been popular internationally, so we would find a bunch of foreigners who were
having vacation. I had visited some of tourism objects, such as Karaton, a traditional palace for
Sultan, Monumen Jogja Kembali, and so
on. There were also many shopping spots that people could find around them. One
of the places that people, including me, loved the most was Malioboro.
Malioboro was a name of street in a middle of city. It had been a shopping
center for a long time. It was also a Yogyakarta icon that people could spontaneously
remember when they thought about Yogyakarta. In Malioboro, I could see a lot of
people hanging around. Started from seller, visitor, street food seller,
tourist, filled that road. Pedicabs also adorned the road. It was a busy street
actually, but I loved being there because there were so many craft items sold.
There were a lot of accessories, bandos,
bracelets, sandals, especially leather sandals which were very cheap; it was
only US$ 1.5 or IDR 15,000. The other goods that I loved were batik. Batik was a traditional cloth
made by most Javanese people. It was an origin heritage. So many shops sold
batik clothes having beautiful pattern and colors, also those were hand-written.
Unfortunately that one was expensive for me. It was about US$ 50-100 or IDR
500,000 – 1000,000. And there would be traditional puppets shops greeting the
visitor at the corner of the road. At that time, I bought bandos and bracelet for souvenir. One thing that was bit important
in buying something at Malioboro in order to be economical was not to buy
things in a convenient store.
Street seller provided a cheaper price.
There
was also Malioboro Afternoon Market that could be one of your references for
looking for souvenirs. This market was
located in Malioboro area. More than 20 vendors occupy the afternoon market
since 2000 (www.google.com).
The traders in this market started displaying merchandise since at 05.00 p.m
until late at night depending on the crowd of visitors. The majority of traders
in the market sold of various types and forms of clothing for all ages, bags,
slippers, and shoes. We could also find the typical of Jogjakarta food such as bakpia, geplek, and so on. There were
lists of food prices, so we could estimate for spending money on food.
Besides visiting Borobudur and
Prambanan temples which are internationally admitted for their wonderment,
there were so many amazing attractions that I recommended you to visit them.
One of them is Salak Pondoh Garden.
It is an agro tourism located at Sleman Yogyakarta. Salak pondoh is a unique plant with the upper part looks like oil
palm with a little touch of fern style and they look very unique when planted
in a row. The fruit growing at the low stem were small in the shape and has
sweet meat.
This
agrotourism is as wide as around 20 hectares which contain of salak pondoh garden,
children play ground, fish pond, and water boom. I totally enjoyed the natural
atmosphere there. I also bought salak pondoh (snake fruit) to bring home. I
just paid ten thousand rupiahs for four kilograms. It was so cheap because that
was in its season.
Yogyakarta famous as a student city can also be regarded
as the city which is the largest and most comprehensive craft in Indonesia. According to my experience, some of the cheapest place for shopping
is Beringhardjo market. It is Jogjakarta batik shopping attractions with a
very diverse types of products, offering the most comprehensive collection of
hundreds batik trade. We could find the collection of batik clothes in almost
all parts of the western market.
The
western part of the market also offers clothes surjan, blangkon, and
gloves woven. Sandals, bags, souvenirs, handicrafts, herbs and hawker of Jogja could
be found around the western part of the escalator market
(www.google.com/pasar-beringhardjo). In this place, you can choose a variety of
models with wholesale wedding souvenirs for a very affordable price. For a cheaper
price, go to the top floor. Be careful in the crowd because a lot of
pickpockets roam the market. It is recommended to keep your luggage and not to bring
excessive valuables. The market is
located on Pabringan street 1, precisely in north fort of Vredeburg or at the
end of Malioboro. In the market, there are also some food stalls for you as a
souvenir such as bakpia, dry lumpia,
packages of gudeg, jenang, and so on.
If you like hunting books, there are
also Shopping Book Stores. As the name implies this is a market where books are
located in Yogyakarta Cultural Park area. The building of the bookstore
shopping holds up to 120 books and incorporated in Yogyakarta Book Traders
Cooperative (KOPAKU ) (asserted on page
yogyakarta.citydirectory.com). The books are both new and secondhand books.
The books is not only textbooks or college textbook, a book of political,
social, languages, health, novels, children's books, but also book of puppet. You
can bargain your target books until it drops half of the original price. The
price of a book is very cheap due to direct traders receive books from
publishers and usually just take a little profit.
Well, there were lots of things that
could be taken from Yogyakarta. Jogjakarta might make tourists want to come
back there again and again. Not only because of the enchanting places than has
quite good magnetism but also because of the little details that make people
really want to explore it like the endless history, the rich cultures, the nice
people the ‘enchanted’ and historic places it has all over the place, and do
not forget about how modernization bring great effects to the city. That’s all
what I got along my journey in Yogyakarta and right now I totally miss
Jogjakarta. If you intent to have a vacation to there, hopefully you will get
at least same with my own experience.
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