My second visit to Solo

I was so excited when I got the chance to visit Solo again. My first experience about two years ago that makes me excited. I like the place as well as the food.. Though I was not sure if I would have the chance to go sightseeing or eat the Solo delicacies, I was still excited about coming to this small town.
My coming this time is actually for work, but a friiend of mine asked me to prolong my stay since she wanted to travel to Solo too. I agreed. This was good, so I could completely concentrate on the training first.
She came on the last day of the training. She was ready with a list of Solo culinary places. We used becak to go here and there. Starting from nasi liwet, sate buntel, gule sumsum, kikil bakar, soto triwindu, Solo snacks like surabi, lumpia, Solo drinks like dongoo, asle, es beras kencur, degan... U name it. Still we had some items left.
The last day we decided to visit Triwindu flea market and keraton. We found unique items and bought somne in that flea market. Next, we went to keraton kesunanan. Initially I wanted to go to keraton mangkunegaran not to keraton kesunanan. But the becak driver told us there's nothing really special in the keraton mangkunegaran compare to keraton kesunanan. Alright then we chose the second one. Even though I've been there before, I didn't eplore the place much in my first visit. This time I went to every single room there. I even stepped on the main keraton area. We are not allowed to wear sandals there. Either wearing shoes or be barefooted. An abdi dalem approached us asking 'light questions' about us. He started to talk about the tower-like building where the kings usually meditated. First, my friend and I thought he was doing something like any othe tour guides do. But as the conversation went on, we found he was not just telling the history. It turned out to be an interesting conversation between us about the hsitory of the Javanese kingdoms, his devotion for the keraton and the royal family, his insight on what happened to the kingdoms, as well as the present condition of the royal family. He enthusiastically answered our questions with his comprehensive knowledge about the Javanese history. It was already an hour when we realized that we hadn't had our lunch and had to catch up our flights. We wished we had had more time since pak Danarso (his name) was also eager to tell us more. We then had quick lunch, rushed back to the hotel, and went to the airport by the hotel car.
I think our experience in the keraton was the pinnacle of our visit to Solo :)
Solo is another nice place I visit. I always want to go back there.


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