A Double Double-Banana Day

Saturday we woke up with a plan to stay in town and see what we could find to do.

During breakfast, W went to the cluster of bananas and found that two of the bananas were fused together. None of us had ever seen two fused bananas before. (Maybe some of our more worldly readers will have seen one, or even several, but we hadn't!)

Here, S is supposed to look like her head is attached to a double-banana body.

But wait, if you look, you can see that the lower banana is itself a fusion of two bananas.

Here, N demonstrates that the two fused bananas were actually three fused bananas. Hold on, what?!

We took the double-bananas (or triple bananas) as an omen for a good day ahead. We asked Pak Andi (our go-to taxi driver) to take us to a place where we could buy some shirts with Jokowi on them (Jokowi is the Indonesian president). He took us to this place, which didn't have Jokowi shirts.

But then he asked around and learned that there were some Jokowi shirts for sale elsewhere. 

We each got one.

Then we caught a taxi to Pasar Gede, which we understand is one of the biggest traditional markets in Solo. Warning: I took a lot of pics of chiles, so if you don't like seeing chiles, don't continue reading.

After what we had discovered this morning, all of these bananas seemed so bleh.

N liked this anthurium

A scale. I like how scales don't seem to wear out here. This one doesn't look all that old, but I've seen others that look older.

I asked the owner of this booth if I could take a photo. She said yes and then came and gave S ad huge hug. When we suggested that maybe we could take a picture with her and S, she said that sounded good, and she said that W might as well be in the pic also.

N and I were admiring this ceramic piece--the one with the handle and the hole in the side. As we were admiring it, a woman from another stall came up to us and explained that some type of strong smelling plant is placed under the lid on a little grate, and then coals are placed in the opening. And as the coals heat the plant, you use the handle to move the ceramic piece around, directing the smoke into your underarms and your hair, so that your body smells good.

After I took a pic of these chiles, the owner called to me to see her cutting them up to make crushed red pepper, I can only assume.

Crushed red pepper (for sale at every grocery store in the US) is such a mystery. A few years ago, I became curious about what variety of pepper is used. I googled it and didn't find it. So I called the customer service phone number on our bottle of red pepper and asked them. They said there was no way to know what kind of peppers go into crushed red pepper. Maybe because of a subconscious need to prolong the mystery, I forgot to ask what kind of peppers she was chopping.

In a basket, there was a pile of little dried fish, each one about an inch long. Their tiny bodies were mummified but how their eyes seemed to live on! 

Hold on, let me take just one more pic of the chiles.

We passed a woman frying tempeh.

Singing, always singing.

We went upstairs to what turned out to be a meat market. Both N and I felt squeasy. But before leaving I pointed out to W that there were intestines, inflated with air, hanging from some wires over the walkway.

Spices.

Okay okay we don't have to stop I'll just take a pic of these chiles quickly as we walk by.

A cat lounging casually among the cashews and dried slices of some kind of tuber.

After we finished at Pasar Gede, we were about to call a taxi but then N noticed a interesting looking building, which turned out to be a Buddhist/Toaist temple. There was a moth hanging out next to the candle in this glass enclosure.

W wanted me to get a pic of this series of panels on the wall.

We were welcomed into the back of the building, where we met a man who was painting some Chinese characters on the side of some wood. He asked if we could read the Chinese but we couldn't. He suggested we should come back in the evening, when things would be much more active at the temple.

It was back here that we met a little seven-year-old boy, who wore a shirt with a picture of the the island of Taiwan on it. N talked with him about his shirt, and he began escorting N and S around the temple, instructing them on praying and the burning of incense. 

It was also back here that we saw--what?!--our second double-banana of the day...

Across the way, N and S were receiving instruction.

These were imitation flowers on imitation tree, right outside the temple. It still looked nice and I was pretty close before I realized.

With our guide, esp N and S's guide.

From the temple, we walked over toward the new Pasar Klewer location.

The old Pasar Klewer burned down, so I think they're temporarily set up in a building associated with the Karaton.

Some pics with statues at Pasar Klewer.

This becak was a Honda. I bought two batik shirt there. We got two for W. And N got a cool skirt. We also looked around at a ring market there and as we were leaving the complex, we found a ring that fit W. At this point, our kids were sitting and then lying around the market, tired, so we went home. At home, N and I collapsed and slept for hours. We woke up and it was dark. 

But not too late to go back out for some more! S and I are in one becak and N and W are in the one in front of us.

We went back to the amusement park we had visited a couple weeks ago. We bought a special ticket to get on the "Rockin Tug."

Then we rode on some gnarly elephants.

Then we heard a band playing and went to go check it out. We were some of the only people in the audience (I think the amusement park gets busier later in the night, hopefully.)

The band was playing a Justin Bieber song about being amazing just the way you are. N and I started dancing (despite disliking the Biebster), and W and S ran to the sidelines so we wouldn't embarrass them. As W said later, there were several people taking videos of us dancing, and the kids didn't want to be in the videos. 

At the end of the song by the Beibster, W and S came running out onto the pavement saying we needed to go since the song was over. I said we couldn't go yet: "Next, they might play that song about 'I'm gonna marry her anyway.'" And then sure enough, they started playing it. (They may have overheard me, or it may just be that everywhere we go, we hear that song.) Amazed that I could predict things like that, W screamed, "Dad!" and ran to the sidelines again.

After just two songs, the kids persuaded us it was time to leave and we went back to the Buddhist/Toaist temple.

We were going to go in, but the people who greeted us said, "Makan dulu" (Eat first) and gave us some fried rice. 

After we had eaten, we went into the back and sat with the group on the floor, on mats. We were given songbooks.

The hour was done and we called a taxi.

Back home, W showed off his ring and his shirt.