Halloween in Jogja

happy halloween from jogja (yogyakarta)! we went to a wayan kulit (shadow puppet performance) tonight and felt slightly halloween-y. what did you all do? :)

i know it's been a few days, so in case we don't have time to catch up for a bit, i'll give you the quick run down. on the 25th, we took the train from malang to solo (surakarta) and fell in love with the town. it didn't hurt that the world heritage cities festival and conference was also going on. we lucked out with seeing many cultural performances from groups all over indonesia as well as a parade! at the parade we met a very nice university student, adam, who showed me around the parade to get the best pics. let me clarify that - he led me *into* the parade to get photos! i was dodging performers! it was awesome! we ended up having dinner with him and his friend the next night. they showed us around the main festival grounds and we got such a better appreciation of everything. not only that, but they were a ton of fun to hang out with. and ladies, they're single, so don't miss out! :)

we also took a bicycle tour through the countryside and got to see how tons of local products are made. it was very educational and beautiful at the same time. the bike seat was rather hard, so my behind was happy to fit a nice comfy seat when we were all done. it seems we couldn't get enough of the bikes, so we took another motorcycle tour (still didn't drive on this one) into the surrounding mountains to visit two temples - candi sukuh and candi ceto. incredibly beautiful and with few tourists. we like the less touristy areas. unfortunately we were caught in a crazy delgue on the way home and were soaked through, partially due to the rain, partially due to the flooded streets. we showered, ate dinner and hopped on another train to jogja. it was a cross between a subway and a commuter train. i loved the open windows and wind. i'm finding i really appreciate it when i'm not sweating.

so, to jogja! and the rainy season! :) the first day here was a catch up day of firming up our flights to sumatra and within sumatra. we also booked a tour to the big temples outside the city - prambanan and borobudur. we did some wandering around the city as well - it's a much larger city than we thought! the second day we saw the temples (and had an awful experience with the tour company - adi. don't use them! they added stops in without telling us *after* we clarified with them our itinerary). they were amazing and we managed to dodge the rain. very exciting. today we did more wandering around, including finding a batik art center. very nice. we also ran into a few locals that were very friendly and very helpful - knowing full well the types of "friends" and "guides" that chase after tourists. it was refreshing.

tomorrow we hope to meet up with nancy's friend, sarah, who lives here with her family. and then on sunday we fly to medan in sumatra and hope to be in bukit lawang by sunday night to see the orangutans!