cosmogenesis 2010

Before leave to Gunung Bromo

At Yogyakarta zoo we saw komodo dragon! Most of them were resting, sleeping. Only a young one was walking around trying to dig hole...

At there I saw kagozoo the first time, and we saw a giant tortoise, white tiger, huge crocodile. There were lots of weird big birds too.

Ben fed this deer with bread.

At Solo Ben found an amusing store.

Prambanan

Prambanan is the largest Hindu temple complex in Java.

Because of the earthquake in 2006, some parts of the temple are now fenced off.
But we can still see how intricate the temple is and how talented those artists were.

Prambanan is about 100 years younger than Borobudur, and it also has great carvings.
I love the carvings about everyday life.

We had a nice picture taken before leaving.

Borobudur--Mendut temple

Mendut temple is a Hindu temple by Borobudur.

This 3m-high Buddha is Mendut's original setting. The Buddha sits Western-style with both feet on the ground instead of the usual lotus position.

Mendut also has delicate carved relief panels on its outer wall.

Borobudur

On the way to Borobudur, we saw the sun rising behind Gunung Merapi. That was my first volcano.

The other day we rented a scooter and went to Kaliurang to have a closer view of Gunung Merapi.
We hung out there for an hour but it was too cloudy to see it. It was nice weather up there and it was the first time we felt cool for a long while.

Borobudur. It's amazing to think about it surviving under Merupi's ash flow, terrorist bombs and earthquakes.

We made it to the top first, and Merapi started to collect clouds.

The top

buddhas

the stone work here is very exquisite and it's from a similar time period as Angkor, but the story here is more interesting.
Angkor focuses more on royal life, country affairs, gods and devils. Borobudur has Javanese life 1000 years ago as well as Buddhist doctrines.
It was the first time I saw so many carvings about animals.

Yogyakarta

Kraton is not as fascinating as we expect. Also, during the Ramadan, all the cultural performances are cancelled.

It has lots of pavilions which made spacious hall for all the sultan family's events. Current sultan still resides.

We had this interesting lady as our tour guide (includ in the ticket price). She unconsciously repeated words in the beginning or the end of every sentence.