Last weekend. My boyfriend and I decided to had a short travel to the city that we love most, Solo. Just like the travel we had last holiday (read here), the whole thing started from our friend's Facebook status that gave us the idea of gathering together at Solo for the weekend, to hang out and have photo huntings together just like before.
We left Jakarta at Friday evening with Senja Utama, a business class train leaving to Solo Balapan Station from Pasar Senen Station. I rode the train from Pasar Senen and my boyfriend, who is now living in Bekasi, joined me from Bekasi Station where the train had a short stop. We arrived on Saturday morning, a bit late than scheduled, at Solo Balapan Station and headed on to my family's house on Sambeng with a traditional rickshaw. The air that morning was so fresh, much different with what we have in Jakarta. The feeling we had realizing that we were already in Solo was amazing.
My uncle was still asleep when we got to the house but he opened the door for us not long after. We rested awhile with our early chat and coffee, took a refreshing bath then decided to start our trip for the day.
We left the house by walking and headed to the street where I used to stop the bus on my way to campus back on the college days. While walking we saw so many things in the neighbourhood that had changed a lot. On our way we then decided to take another route, wanting to have an early photo hunting by ourselves before heading out to our friends' boarding house around campus.
Right at the corner of the street where we had to wait for the public transport we stopped by on this small traditional diner that has been there for years. We had nasi pecel with fried eggs and tea, and spent 9000 rupiahs for the whole meal (not for each but for both of us). That is about no more than US$1. Amazingly cheap, isn't it?
With our stomach full and delightfull feeling after the meal we head on to Slamet Riyadi with public transport to have our photo hunting and early walk. The day was cloudy though it was almost 12 at noon and the air was still so fresh that we actually thought that it was still morning time.
Solo City Walk. Slamet Riyadi is the main road of the amazingly beautiful small city.We started our long walk from the Solo Grand Mall corner. So many memories we had at this city and we had our time to enjoy the whole thing. At the middle of our small trip rain started to fall and my boyfriend said, "Neduh di Gramedia yuk. Kaya dulu itu" (Translate: "Let's shelter out at Gramedia. Just like we did back then"). The memory flashed back to the year 2008, near the end of that year, when we hung out at Solo - as bestfriends back then - and got caught up by the rain that night that we had to shelter at Gramedia Bookstore. It was the time when my boyfriend was still attending college in Solo while I was already started to work in Jakarta. I had a personal short trip on the weekend and met him :)
Balai Soedjatmoko. Again, so many memories we had in this building. This is where we had our theatre performances together, especially the one that finally got us much closer and started out our close relationship years ago as bestfriends, and closer than siblings. This is also the place where we had so many exhibitions with our college friends. It feels so good to be in this place. All we did that day was just sitting around at the stairs in front of the bookstore, where we met Joko, a friend of ours. We had some talks about our jobs and our trip until the rain stopped and we continued our way.
We stopped by at Soeit Fong Photo to process some of the photo that we've made before we got on the bus and head out to join our friends. The small reunion started not long after. It was fun to be at a familiar place and with familiar faces.
The afternoon quickly turn itself to nearly night time. So we all decided to have an early dinner at Prau, our most favorite hangout place. The traditional "wedangan" that we missed so much. Mami Kapal, the lady who owned the place greeted my boyfriend and the rest of the group like welcoming her own children, since we all used to always comeby at night to have our meal and hangouts. We stayed there quite a long while just like we used to and the rain that fell again caught us and made us stay longer.
We went different ways at nearly 8 PM, my boyfriend and I went to Soeit Fong to get our processed photo and went straight to KopiKupas, the usual reunion spot, while the others went out to pick up Purwo, the last member of the group to joined up. We all eventually gathered together at KopiKupas that night, just like our last unforgetable reunion. It was fun and felt really amazing. The place was really crowded for the night but we still had fun together. The night of reunion finally stopped at 2AM when the coffeeshop had to close for the night. The much more exciting part of the trip continued at the next morning.
(more photos of our trip see here)
What I wear: Vintage floral dress by Key's, Olive Krey Shawl and Stripes Chelsea Cardigan by CottonInk, unbranded tights and flats, my mom's old vintage bag.
Photos by: Dita Wisnuwardani, Wahyu Adi Pramardika, Ade Mart Setiawan
Cameras: My boyfriend's Android phone, Olympus Pen ees-2
