Day 5 Leaving Yogyakarta for Surabaya

Day 5 marked the end of our few days in Yogyakarta as we set off and headed for Surabaya by train. We left the hotel around 11+ and headed towards the train station which was conveniently located across the hotel.

Once we arrived in Surabaya after our 4 hour train ride from Yogyakarta to Surabaya, we immediately headed to a Wayang Kulit “puppet-making” workshop that was run by locals in the community. There, we were also joined by the Social Innovation students who will be with us for the rest of the Surabaya trip.

The puppet making workshop started with a welcome performance by the locals. It included a traditional Javanese dance segment and a short Wayang Kulit show of Indra, the God of Wind. The performers were dressed in traditional culture wear, for example, the Sarong decorated with Batik motifs, and a Kris at the back. It was so wonderful to watch and learn more about wayang kulit from actual practitioners who is just as young as us!

To continue the workshop, we tried our hands in making our very own Wayang Kulit “puppet” . Though due to time constraints, we were unable to finish up the workshop programme, however spirits were not dampened as the organisers allowed us to take the cut outs of the puppet home for us to do it at our own time.

After that, we went to dinner at a nearby local restaurant where we ate local Surabaya food for the first time. There, we learnt from our guides that Yogyakarta food and Surabaya food tastes completely different- Yogyakarta food tastes sweeter but surabaya food tastes much saltier due to general preferences of the locals in each city.

After we checked in, we had a debrief with the SI students about the programme that they went through in the morning which was to a Kampung Unggulan that made bags. The bags are cheap by our standards but we were thinking of how the job can be a sustainable income for the workers involved too. At the same time, we discussed about our role as a possible supplier and consumer of goods - using our experiences the next few days to find out how our actions can impact the world. That marks the end of day 5 in Indonesia, till we meet again tomorrow!

Signing off,
Shauna & Atalie