Weekend Family Tour in East Java

Weekend has been the time that every family is waiting to spend the time together after a week hectic with activities like working for parents, and studying for children. If you are in Surabaya there are few places that you and your family can visit for one or two nights duration. But i think the best choice tos pend the weekend for family is Malang and Batu. It is not far from Surabaya and it has mild weather and many choices of attraction there.

Apple Plantation :

Kusuma Agro Apple Plantation located in Batu City. Walking to the plantation and picking apple for yourself can be a good experience for kids. If apple is not in season, you can take tour to pick guava and strawberry. After the plantation tour, stop by at restaurant to drink fresh apple juice to refresh your throat. But one thing if you bring childrean it would be excellence you get the knowledge about the plants there, because sometimes you will not be guided by the special guide but by the trainee that sometimes they are not well-informed yet. Overnight in this plantation also possible, beside outbound activities.

Coban Rondo Waterfall located further round 5 km from Kusuma Agro Apple Plamtation. It is 80 m hi waterfall. With green forest surrounding the waterfall and grey monkeys will gave more wildlife knowledge for the kids. There is a story about the legend of the waterfall in bahasa indonesia as an interpretation tool. At the parking area you can shop locally hand made souvenirs and grilled corns are available there.

Safari Park at Prigen Pandaan is also my favourite place to enjoy weekend. Children usually will love it to see animals from 5 continents from Llama, Hippo, Zebra, Elephant, Komodo, Lion and Tiger. My Favourite is tiger. I know they are dangerous but from distance they seem to be so cute with the stripes. It must be nice to have them as pet i often think about it, but dangerous too. I love the feathers but i dont want to have their claws and tusks with them still. Ha ha ha. Children will love to see baby zoo where they can pose with baby tiger and baby orang utan. Go to the restaurant and you can have your meals with white Bengala Tiger from behind glass. If you come at their meal times you can see how they swim to get the food or even climb trees. It was amazing. YOu can take picture with white tiger as if they are really behind yoou without glass barrier.

Carica Cundi Namarsesis from Dieng Plateau -Wonosobo

CARICA CUNDI NAMARSENSIS

Well, whats this?this is the latin name of small grows papaya species that only grows in Mexico and Dieng Plateau. I think Dutch brought it from there when they colonialized Indonesia.Its tree is just like papaya only the fruits are more plenty and smaller. And the smell is very nice. When it is in syrup it tastes just like jackfruit and mango.

Carica is now a very popular desert, domestic tourists visiting Wonosobo usually buy this carica in bottle to take it home. It is very healthy, and non additive ingredient. Only sugar. Just put ice cube in a bowl of carica then you can enjoy the marvelous desert.

Long time ago before people start to process carica to syrup, this fruit is used as toy for children because its taste is very sour. Boys kick it as ball, or girls chop it to vegetables to play with. Now as its economical use this fruits are rare to be found at market. I used to buy 1 or 2 kilos and cook it to syrup carica.

It is very easy to cook carica into syrup. First peel the fruit and take away the seed but do not throw the seed away. Cut the fruit to small pieces that we can eat them easily. Then the seeds which has a very good smell is squeezed to get the extract. Then boil water with extract with sugar. When we have guests come, me and my mother love to serve them with carica as dessert. They usually will love it. Carica is special and people can only find in Wonosobo and grows only in Dieng Plateau. It feels good to serve something that is so special to our guests.

Trip to Mt Bromo, February 2011

I went to Mt Bromo for the ‘uncountable times’ on last January with a friend of mine and his parents. It was still erupting since November 2010. Compared to the last time I visited on the end of December, now Mt Bromo looks dreary by the ashes everywhere. Plants are dry. Road were covered by ash and hotel has no electricity but only generator that we could not watch TV in the room.

Honestly I didn’t really sleep well that night, because there are few tremor quakes that shake the bed. I bet every guest staying in Cemoro Lawang Hotel didn’t sleep well that night too.

There are not many tourists that day that stayed at the same hotel as we did. As the dangerous zone is still from radius 2 km from the crater, we didn’t go through the sea of sand. Just watch the crater from in front of the hotel.

Sunrise was nice and can be seen from Mt Penanjakan 2. Mt Penanjakan 2 is alternative peak where you can wait for the sunrise without crossing the sea of sand that is considered in alert status. Penanjakan 2 located lower that Penanjakan 1. For this, you don’t need to go with local transport that is Jeep/ 4 WD. You can just trek round 20 minutes to the foot of Mt Penanjakan2 and you need to climb steep path to the top which will take about 20 minutes. Horse riding also possible from hotel to the foot of MT Penanjakan if you don’t like to walk.You will know where you are when you see the smoke of Mt Bromo can be seen. The sunrise will accentuate mountains that are at the east part of Bromo Area like Mt Semeru, Mount Ijen and Mt Klakah.

I think wearing mask is important when Mt Bromo is erupting. Prepare your self with warm clothing and flashlight. I remember European tourist could not go up the mountain and need to wait for other tourists with flashlight to go further.

TRADITIONAL BULL RACE EVENT IN MADURA ISLAND

I had the chance to see Karapan Sapi (Bull Race) in Madura last February 2011. Karapan Sapi is very prestigious for Madurese. Bull Race is not about winning the race but about prestige for the bull owner. The best Bull for race is known to be from Sapudi Island original.

The race event started by parade of the couple of Bulls that participate on the race. Bulls are dress in ornamented decoration that makes them look pretty. Also madurese traditional music, Seronen, will make the parade more excited.

These are the typical of race bulls (sapi kerap): chest is smaller from upper to lower part, long back,tight nails, long tail and big fleshly body type.

To win the match, the Bulls are treated specially. From massage, herb, honey, also eggs. 1 bull can be gived more than 20 eggs in the morning before the race. The cost for bulls treatment can be millions rupiah a month.

Before the race, the ownner of race bulls should prepare for; the jokey (tukang tongko), man releasing the stranglehold (tukang ambeng),person that gnash the bull (tukang ambeng), also they need someone to shout at the side of the race track (tukang gubra), to stop the bulls at finish line (tukang nyandak), and to lead the bulls after the race (tukang tonja)

It said that this tradition appeared in the 13th century and popularized by Prince Katandur from Sumenep. He had an idea to harness the bull's strength to plow the fields that finally yield good result for the crops of local people. Then after that, post-harvest-time, they celebrated by holding bull race. This race is still conserved untill today and there is national race to win President Cup annually.

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CAVES IN JAVA

CAVES IN CENTRAL AND EAST JAVA
Java island is rich of caves as quiet many areas covered by carst. More than ten carst caves located at the south of Java and North of Java round Tuban regency.

Here are caves in Java:

1. Jatijajar Cave : Located in Kebumen , Central Java. This cave has few natural springs and has been developed for tourism.

2. Gong Cave :Located at 37 KM from Pacitan Regency, this cave is popular for its crystal-like relief that spark and stand tall like pillars. You can find stalactite, stalacmite, and other reliefs such as shape that look like shawl drapery, flowstone, Helectite and sodastraw stalagtite. This cave has 12 rooms, 7 pools and one natural shower room. This cave is called Gong cave as local people hear gong sound from this cave every Tuesday and Friday.

3. Putri Cave: Located in Pacitan regency with mythical pool for ever young power.

4. Tabuhan Cave: limestones at this cave can make beautiful sound like javanese gamelan. The very outstandng from this cave is that there is 50 m hi pillar.

5. Lawa Cave :Cave with 25 m diameter complete with 9 tunnel and the home of bats (lawa). This cav’s length is 800 meters and 40 m depth with 4 pools and natural ventilations. According to survey held by Gilbert Manthovani and Dr Robert Kho in 1984, this cave is known as the biggest and longest in South East Asia.

6. Akbar Cave: Impressive cave but concrete of building distract its natural condition. This cave has very long tunnel to the Tuban City Square and to Merakurak, to Ngerong Cave and to Gembul Cave.

7. Maharani Cave: Cave with 2500 m2 hall with ease access.

8. Luweng Jaran : Located in Pacitan/Not developed by the Govt.

Pacitan has more than 65 caves and only 3 that has been developed for tourism.

Lawa Cave

Convenient Hotel in Wonosobo

If you travel to Dieng PLateau, the most convenient is that you stay overnight in Wonosobo.

My favourite if i go there is Dieng Kledung Pass Hotel.

This hotel is located in the middle of Mt Sindoro and Sumbing. Awesome. It was so amazing to see the summit of MT Sumbing covered by white cloud. Even when it is misty, it is very exotics.

The slope of MT Sindoro and Sumbing are tobacco fields. If you arrive in the afternoon just stroll along the field and you will meet local farmers working and address you with friendly smile. I love doing tobacco walk.

And if you love delicacies, in front of the hotel there is a restaurant where you can enjoy Indonesian and Chinese Food. Sometimes they have food like Mi Ongklok, the specific food of the area which is very yummy. Special menus in this restaurant are: Tempe Kemul, Rawon,

Goat Satay, Tempe Satay, Mushroon Satay.

ID Facebook orang Indonesia kok banyak yang aneh-aneh ya?

Aku sudah sekitar setahun ini mempunyai akun facebook. Tadinya aku pikir aku tidak memerlukan situr jejaring sosial untuk tetap keep in touch dengan teman ataupun keluarga. Selama ini aku merasa cukup menggunakan media telephon dan hp. Karena setiap ketemu teman lama selalu ditanya kalau aku punya akun facebook, maka akupun akhirnya menjadi pengguna facebook.

Dan memang Facebook membantuku untuk kembali kontak dengan teman-teman lamaku waktu SMP dan SMA. Hanya dengan mengetik nama orang yang kita cari di kotak search, maka akan keluar nama-nama yang sesuai atau mirip dengan yang kita search. Aku cukup banyak teman di friends listku di Facebook. Fenomena yang aku dapatkan mengenai nama di facebook untuk orang Indonesia ialah bahwa banyak orang Indonesia yang menggunakan nama yang bukan namanya sendiri sebagai nama facebook. Kadang aku sampai harus mikir ini siapa dia, karena menggunakan nama yang untuk keren-kerenan.

Berikut ini nama-nama aneh di friendlistku yang bikin aku mikir siapa sebenarnya mereka ketika mereka add aku. Vania Luph, ’nama’ Luph Mamaz dan sebagainya. Ada lagi yang menggunakan nama idola mereka seperti Cullen (karakter dalam The Twilight Saga) atau pemerannya Pattinson sampai nama yang berupa kata-kata seperti Andai Dia Tahu, Aku Chayank Kamu. Kenapa orang Indonesia (terutama anak muda) suka memakai nama yang bukan nama mereka sendiri? Apakah alasannya? Aku benar-benar penasaran.

Ketika aku tanyakan kepada pemilik akun-akun tersebut ternyata nama-nama tersebut untuk alasan ekspresi. Jadi mereka menggunakan nama facebook sebagai media ekspresi diri. Seperti rasa cinta kepada pacar, anak bahkan kepada artis idola mereka. Coba tengok lagi nama-nama facebook di friend list kamu, pasti ada nama-nama yang aneh. Jangan-jangan punyamu sendiri bukan nama aslimu.

Untuk aku sendiri aku lebih senang dengan namaku sendiri di profile facebook. Aku bangga punya nama tradisional yang diberikan oleh orangtuaku. Dan memakai nama asli akan memudahkan teman-teman kita mencari melalui kotak search. Aku lebih suka memakai blog ataupun media lain untuk berkspresi daripada menggunakan nama yang lain.