Highlights:

-- Visiting lovely, warm, welcoming people:



-- Scooting through the idyllic countryside around Bambanglipuro

-- Remembering how good Tembi's desserts are:



-- Remembering how good XO's dimsum is (especially the carrot cake -- really the best I've had)

-- Buying Indonesian movies from Disc Tarra, just like we used to do

-- Visiting Universitas Gajah Mada, enjoying the conversations and the tree-shaded campus, and admiring the way they've grown creepers to cover their pavement shelters:



-- Trying out the coffee at Lotus Mio (Jalan Tirtodipuro) and Blackbone Coffee (Jalan KH Ahmad Dahlan)

-- Eating at the renowned...



-- Doing a contrast-rich final-evening walk -- first round the alun-alun kidul (where the wacky pedal-cars endlessly circle, each with its sound system pumping music into the night; where the lesehan have set up for the evening; where the vendors are selling bubbles and those funny coloured things you throw into the air and watch drift downwards; where groups of young people have started on the tawny dry-season grass, chatting or singing); and then through the quiet southwestern streets of the kraton (where people are gathering in the mosques for Ramadan prayers and music, or in little knots in front of their houses, while cats regard the world from the top of walls)