Our flight was around 04.30 pm left for Surabaya from Ngurah Rai Airport, Denpasar. The flight was only 35 minutes but the trip from airport to hotel took almost one hour! The traffic jam was terrible during that hour in Surabaya when people were leaving offices to go home. It was almost 7pm when we got into the hotel. We didn’t have much time to look around. We quickly had dinner at the nearby food stall and got back to the hotel because we wanted to have a bit of discussion on tomorrow’s activities. We also had to catch early morning train to Sragen so we’d better have a good rest.           

Saturday, 23 July 2005
Sragen - Ogi & Tjok. Ning
We woke up early morning around 5am and got ourselves ready. After a quick breakfast, the hotel driver dropped us to Gubeng train station, which is actually at the back of the hotel. Ogi always enjoy the train trip while for Tjok this was her first experience so we both felt excited when the train came 30 minutes later. We had made reservation in Bali for 2 executive seats on Sancaka train. Ogi had to ask the train attendants whether the train would stop in Sragen or did we have to stop in Solo. Luckily they told us we could stop in Sragen, which was our destination and also meant saving our time.

The view from the train was fantastic, people homes, rice fields, Small River, etc. We really enjoyed the four-hour trip. Soon we arrived at Sragen station. There was something shocking but we felt funny. Sragen was only small station so there was no staircase to get up and down the train. What did we do then? Yes, we had to jump out of the train! Then the officer threw down our luggage. What an interesting experience!

Pak Becak soon approached us and we were tempting to take becak but then the people who supposed to meet us were already on their way and soon we met Wiwit, one of the announcer at RSPD Sragen along with her brother, Rakat and Pak Tholib. They took us to Hotel Palma and there we met Anto, who looks after KGRE program at RSPD Sragen. We also met Troy Johnson, a friend of Anto, who were invited to join the afternoon’s program at RSPD Sragen. Soon we were out again to have lunch at "Wong Solo" and Pak Yusep, the personal assistant of the Sragen Regent, were already there. We discussed about the afternoon program and we asked questions about Sragen which is a nice town.

The afternoon activity was actually the launching of the English Listeners Club. They are the loyal listeners of KGRE program which is broadcast at RSPD Sragen and their idea of forming an English club gained a great support from the Regent and local government who wants to see the development of English language in the area. So at about 4pm we had this ceremony of ‘memotong nasi tumpeng’ for the launching of the Sukowati English Club. It was the Regent himself who chose the name of the club because Sukowati was the first Regent of Sragen and was quite famous.

The launching was attended by about 55 members of the club and many officials from the local government such as Pak Suparto, the Head of RSPD Sragen, Pak Yusep and Pak Drajat from Pemda Sragen. It was a good afternoon activity. Wiwit and Anto were the master of the ceremony and after a short speech from Pak Suparto and Ogi (KGRE), she then cut ‘nasi tumpeng’ and gave it to one member of the Club as a symbolic that Sukowati English Club had officially been launched. KGRE hope that the club soon started their activity and join the KGCC network. The activity continued with questions and answers session, some quizzes from KGRE, a game on ‘odd one out’, door prizes from local government and ended with music activity from KGRE. Thanks to Capt. KGRE who prepared the activities for us to do. Soon it was half past six and we had to end the program. Thanks to the people who had organize the event and we look forward to hearing more report on the development of the club.

KGRE was invited to have dinner but we wanted to have a quick look around town by becak first. So we jumped up on a becak and got around town for about half hour before we met Pak Yusep again who looked after us very well. They had prepared dinner at "Rumah Makan Mungkung". We ate "Ikan Bakar Rica" and had an interesting discussion about English and other things.

UMY is very big building and has beautiful architecture. We love it. We met the English club members there. They were about 20 people and not long after that some more members turned up. Both Ogi and Tjok were very happy meeting them. They were such a great and enthusiastic students. For Ogi, this is one of the best Club that she ever visited. They were talkative, not shy to share ideas and suggestion to KGRE. Two of the former club leaders where there too to share more ideas. We discussed many things from ways to improve KGCC network, promoting KGRE to other English clubs in Jogja because there are hundreds of English club at hundreds of college and university in Jogja. And they were never failed to make jokes here and there. It did make the meeting wonderful. We laughed a lot. Ogi (KGRE) was also asking suggestions about the Pouch Bulletin. This is good for our improvement; we need to know what the club wants. They suggest us to make the bulletin in color. And guess what! The Capt. KGRE has agreed about it. So wait for the better edition of POUCH next week!

We also did some games with them and this time Ogi tried the ‘odd one out’ activity with music. That was instruction from Capt. KGRE. They looked really enjoyed it although was a bit confused at first. And everyone got lovely prizes from KGRE.

We didn’t realize that we were there for almost 2,5 hours. We took some pictures together before we end of this nice meeting and activities. Then Kyo and Daru dropped us to the hotel. Again something funny happened. Kyo who drove the car forgot to change his glasses for night driving. He broke some traffic rules because he couldn’t see things clearly. Luckily policemen didn’t see us and we arrived at the hotel safely. Thanks Guys!

Monday, 25 July 2005
Fly Back to Denpasar - Ogi & Tjok
Our flight back to Bali was 07.15 am so we woke up early in the morning and went to airport around 05.30 am. It was good to see Yogyakarta in the early morning. It was very quiet but soon become busy and crowded during the day and night.

Good-bye Yogya … we had to fly back to Denpasar and back to work again.

- End of the Trip -