Emma Bear in Yogyakarta, Java

Friday, January 22, 2010
Emma Bear Writes:

Hello Everybody! I have been having many adventures here in Yogyakarta! First, as you can see, I got to sell some ice cream from a red cart. There are many of these mobile carts in Indonesia- but not just for selling ice cream. Peddlers often use these carts to sell different kinds of foods like soup or rice dishes, or to sell brooms or cooking oil, or even to offer their services to fix broken shoes. Each cart has a different tune, so from your house you might hear the song for fried rice, or the tap-tap-tapping sound for brooms, or a special call for shoe-repair. These carts are called "kaki lima" which literally means "five feet"- two feet for the peddler and three "feet" for the cart! Although in this case the ice-cream peddler didn't walk- he rode his bike. A little tune over a loudspeaker let people know that the ice-cream man had arrived!

I also got to ride inside a bicycle-powered mode of transport called a "bacek" (pronounced "bay-check"). The man in the picture was the driver. He was very happy to have his picture taken with me!

In Yogyakarta I also ventured to a traditional market. I went later in the day so it wasn't very crowded- but first thing in the morning this market is packed! People who sell food in their small food stalls, called "warungs," come to the market in the early morning to purchase their materials for the day. As you can see, bananas are a plenty here at the market! Also for sale are different fruits like salak and rambutan, peanuts and cashews, beans, fish, chicken, vegetables and chips made out of puffed rice.

Ahh, there's nothing like a delicious "lo tek" lunch! This dish contains compressed rice, bean curd, greens, cabbage, tofu, chilis all mixed together in a sensational peanut sauce.

In the last picture you can see that Julienne and I went to Borobudur Temple for sunrise. We woke up at 4:00 in the morning, gathered some flashlights, and climbed to the top of the biggest Buddhist temple in the world. It was quite amazing! This temple was built in the 9th century, 1200 years ago. The monument consists of 6 square platforms and 3 circular platforms. After sunrise Julienne and I walked around each platform in a clockwise direction from the bottom of the temple all the way to the top. Along the way we looked at the different stone carvings- beautiful reliefs of everyday life. I'll attach a link to the wikipedia site about Borobudur in case you'd like to read more about it- AND see a picture of the whole temple.