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Yogyakarta Part 1: Alun-Alun Kidul
September 01, 2018
The trip that my friends had been talking about for the whole year is finally here, Yogyakarta!! I previously went on a trip to Taiwan with them in 2016 and it was so, so fun and I couldn't wait to go on another crazy vacation with the bunch. The group this time to Jogja is much larger than the Taiwan trip and it's quite the story when people get to know that the 16 of us went around everywhere without splitting up (only during shopping).
Also, I brought my trusty Spotmatic which though heavy but never fail to give me those crisp film shots. For the night shots, I had the Canon WP-1 to cover those moments with some expired film which sometimes isn't the best choice for a vacation because occasionally you might not get the shots you took due to the expired factor which unfortunately happened this time. I brought along four Agfa Vista 200s and four Fujifilm Superia 200s. The lad for my Spotmatic and the latter for the Canon WP-1. I also told myself to be generous with the shots and take whatever I wanted to and even let my friends have a go at it if they want to try but to be this generous, my rolls of film were obviously insufficient (what happens next will be in my next few parts of this Yogyakarta trip).
30 minutes into our arrival at the airport, we were reliving history of our Taiwan trip where we dragged our luggages through the night market for an hour due to miscommunication of our hostel directions. This time around we were dragging our luggages on the inconsistent sidewalks by a main road which was home to the crazy Indonesian traffic and bikes because we couldn't get a Grab. It was also in the evening where we were tired and hungry but as always, these unforeseen circumstances always tend to happen when I'm with this gang so I was prepared for it!
Anyway, after the end of the misery of trying to get a Grab and finding the homestay, we were out to Alun-Alun Kidul for dinner. Alun-Alun Kidul is a park where there are many activities and space for family and friends to take part in and hang around. There were these brightly lit vehicles that you can ride with your siblings and buddies around the park. There were also food stalls selling the same food so all you need to do is just go to one with vacant seats and most probably your ordered food will taste as good as the other stalls.
Aside from needing floodlights to light up the entire area (I think you can see how dim this place really is from my photos that my flash actually gives it a bang), it's a pretty nice place to just sit around and chill while having Mi Ayam which tastes of seasoning and seasoning. It's that kind of dish that after eating up the noodles and drinking some of the soup, you will notice a mass of dark grey sand-ish substance at the bottom of your bowl. That's the seasoning that failed to dissolve in the soup that you have just drank. But of course, seasoned food are always delicious though they might cause you some serious hair fall if consumed in the long run.
Admission to Alun-Alun Kidul is free and do get adventurous and try out the other local food here because some of them are really good. If you are sitting down at the open area as the above picture (we sat there too), please remember who you ordered from because many stalls serve the same food and if you see a random lost waiter holding a tray of Mi Ayam, it might not be yours so don't wave your hands and tell him it's your order. We did this and had two bowls of Mi Ayam each, one from this random guy we thought was bringing us our food, and the other one which was the actual bowl of noodles that we ordered. That also meant we paid twice, so yeap, gotta be careful about that.
Back at the homestay, we were all already drained to the core after all the luggage-dragging, friend-finding at Alun-Alun Kidul, and fooling around since we left Kuala Lumpur. Here is a sneak peek of me on my bed, getting ready to sleep but then caught this gem of a photo of my bro from another mo sleeping like a boss! I don't think he even showered yet, GROSS!
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All photos were shot on a Canon WP-1 using a Fujifilm Superia 200 and developed by Bang Bang Geng.
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