Saturday Museum Visits: Part 1 History/courtyard

B and I decided to visit a couple of museums a couple of weeks ago. Both are located in Kota Tua ( old town) of Jakarta, along with several other museums, around a very large courtyard. There was quite a lot going on in the courtyard itself. There were bicycles for rent (complete with sun bonnets), food for purchase and street performers of all types.

There was this "green" guy and another guy who was costumed all in white. They sometimes posed and sometimes interacted with the public.

This guy appeared to be holding himself up in the air using only a stick. Hmmm.

This building is the History Museum we visited.

In reality, the Jakarta History Museum seemed to us to be mostly an empty historical building (built in 1710) that was sparsely filled with some antique furniture but did include some information about the history of Jakarta. Unfortunately, most signage was in Bahasa Indonesia. The building was a justice building for some time. Most of the furniture was massive; at least some had to have been built on site(?) The ceiling height was maybe 15 feet or more. This bookcase was one of several in the same room and was enormous and ornately decorated.

I suspect we missed out on a portion of this museum because research on the museum makes it sound much more comprehensive than what we experienced. There is supposed to be a prison underground here. We didn't see it. We managed to see enough but may have to make a second trip at some point.

Now back to the Museum Wayang which we visited first. Wayang is the generic Indonesian term for theater. It literally means shadow.