The Mekarsari Park, who those love the green plants

Mekarsari Park is an exotic garden which has various types of fruit plants collection from many regions in Indonesia. This park is one of the centers of biodiversity conservation of tropical fruits in the world, particularly fruits in Indonesia. It is as well as a place of cultivation research (agronomy), breeding and multiplication of seeds which then disseminated to farmers and the general public .

credit photo: promolagi.com - Mekarsari view from Tower of View

Mekarsari Park collects thousands of species of plants of many kinds. This place has a laboratory that produces excellent fruit crops such as pineapples, guava, star fruits, honeydew and many more.  One of the laboratory product is a hybrid between cempedak and jackfruit called nangkadak, cempeka and pedakka. Very distinctive flavor and sweet aroma as cempedak but looks more like a jackfruit.

credit photo www.mekarsari.com

The park is approximately 13 kilometers from Cibubur toll gate,  located on the main road between Cileungsi and Jonggol. It is relatively easy to reach from Jakarta, Bogor or Bekasi. It took  about one hour from Jakarta to go to this place.

With an area of 264 acres, this park has many spots that you can enjoy, such as Family Garden, 27 hectares of recreation Lake, Baby Zoo, spotted deer, Garden Center, Greenhouse, Outbound area, carrion flowers, Kids Fun Valley, Tower of View, and Waterfall building known as Tirto Puri Sari. This waterfall is one of the favorite places visitors, especially for children; here they could see a waterfall pouring from the house shaped building, very pleasant.

credit photo www.mekarsari.com

Visitors are invited to tour the park and try the freshest harvest.  Hope on the park train and go around to visit the greenhouses of  honeydews (melon), snakefruits, starfruits and sawo/sapodilla garden (sapodilla durian, sapodilla alkesa, and sapodilla abiu). Visitors are allowed to taste the fruits while learning about the cultivation of that fruit at the same time and can also buy the harvest straight from the greenhouse/farms..

credit photo www.mekarsari.com

Mekarsari Park provides rented bicycle for cycling around the park. It has an outbound facility too and various water rides at lake such as banana boat, dragon boat, water bike, aqua bike, floating donuts, giant bubble, to canoeing. Extra charges start from IDR 20,000

Mekersari park launched "Water Kingdom Mekarsari" who claimed to be the largest water park in Asia. This place has an area of 5.2 hectares and connected directly to the lake area of 27 hectares. There were 12 water rides game consists of eight pool, four slides and a water sports.


Tips:

• Mekarsari Park recently launched tourist train ride called "Fruity World Tour" since the beginning of March 2012. By simply paying 10,000, visitors will be taken around  Mekarsari for 30-minute train ride tours and information about the places visited.
• The best place to enjoy a relaxed atmosphere with friends is on the edge of Lake Cipicung, if the weather permits, you can arrange to have a picnic with your family.
• Visit the "Garden Paradiso" for an affordable bonsai collection.

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Pasar Beringharjo - A good Place to buy Batik

Pasar Beringharjo is a main market at Jogjakarta. It located at Malioboro street and near north Keraton (the palace). It is located adjacent to the Vredeburg historical museum and opposite the Gedung Agung. This market is famous for batik and is one of  popular tourist destinations.   It is also a center of commerce for Jogjakarta batik products.

Pasar Beringharjo

Batik (/ˈbætɪk/ or /bəˈtiːk/; Javanese pronunciation: [ˈbateʔ]; Indonesian: [ˈbatɪk]) is a cloth that is traditionally made using a manual wax-resistdyeing technique.  Javanese traditional batik, especially from Jogyakarta and Surakarta, has notable meanings rooted to the Javanese conceptualization of the universe. Traditional colours include indigo, dark brown, and white, which represent the three major Hindu Gods (Brahmā, Vishnu, and Śiva). This is related to the fact that natural dyes are most commonly available in indigo and brown. Certain patterns can only be worn by nobility; traditionally, wider stripes or wavy lines of greater width indicated higher rank. Consequently, during Javanese ceremonies, one could determine the royal lineage of a person by the cloth he or she was wearing.

making batik 

Pasar Beringharjo has a complete collection of batik. Starting from batik sarong to blouse, shirt, pajamas, kids apparels, shorts, etc. You can find batik painted on silk too in here. The price begin from ten thousand  to million rupiah. Collection of batik sarong found on market stalls north western area. While batik clothing collection is found in almost all the western area. This area also offers other choices of clothes such as surjan, blangkon, and weaving and batik sarong. Sandals and bags are also sold at cheap prices and can be found around the western area, nearby the escalator.

The market is also a great place to hunt for antiques. Sentra selling antiques market located on the 3rd floor of the east area. You can find an old typewriter, helmet made in the 60's. On the same floor, you can hunt for quality secondhand goods if you want. Various kinds of imported used goods such as shoes, handbags, even the clothes are sold at a price much cheaper than the original price is still in good quality. Of course it takes foresight in selecting and bargaining skills.

Pasar Beringharjo -  A good Place to buy Batik

This market is also the perfect place to indulge your bud sense with traditional snacks. you can find Brem with a softer texture and Krasikan (made from rice flour, palm sugar, and crushed sesame). In the south, you will find Bakpia filled with sweetened green beans are sold warm and other tasty snacks such as hung kwe and nagasari. While the rear area generally sell durable snacks such as ting-ting (caramelized mixed nuts).

Tips:

• Some stall offer a fix price item while others you need to have a great bargaining skill to get a good price.
• If you want to know the price of something and don't know the language, just offer your calculator and the seller will enter the price.
• If you go on weekend or publich holiday and it is so crowded, try on weekday if you can or else just enjoy the crowd. 
• It's a great market, a definite must go, but needed your patience to shop
• It's an experience for sure, just make sure you keep your wallet safe 
• If you're lucky you may be approached by a person with a basket on their head offering to carry your purchases - far from being demeaning, this is how these porters earn their living.  If  you want to hire one, be sure to negotiate the price first.

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Desa Gumati - a different atmosphere from the everyday restaurants in Jakarta

Sentul is located between Jakarta and Bogor, popular for its international racing circuit and the music concert hall.  However, surrounding the Sentul area, there are housings and shopping area as well.  Sentul is the alternative route that you can take to go to Puncak to avoid the crowded traffic during weekends or holidays.

desa gumati resto

Located approx. 15 minutes from the Sentul toll gate (Jagorawi Highways), there is a café and restaurant called Desa Gumati.  It s located at 16th Cijulang Street, Bogor.   Inspired by its name, Desa Gumati which means Gumati village, the concept of the restaurant is to give the ambience of a village with a touch of Java and Bali ethnic combination.  Desa Gumati provides many facilities such as pony rides, fishing, ATV and lodging too.

bridge at desa gumati resto

Kids will love to drive ATV around the village tracks, pony rides and Delman ride.

delman ride at desa gumati

There is a small lake at Desa Gumati, you can play the water bikes or water balloon with your kids at here too.

raw a boat at gumati lake

The menu is mostly Indonesian Sundanese, their signature dish is the Sambal Goreng Gumati  (fried sambal) and the Teh Poci (hot tea brewed in a clay pot).

Surrounding the restaurants there are fish ponds where kids can feed fishes while waiting for their meals to come.

kid game at desa gumati

So if you want to have a change of atmosphere from the everyday restaurants in Jakarta and some fresh air too, Desa Gumati might be a good choice.

Happy holiday!

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