This morning we ventured out to a place on the top of the list of things to do with small children in Yogyakarta: Taman Pintar, a children’s science park/museum.
Basically all I knew about this place was that it existed, so I didn’t really have very high expectations. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised!
The outside play area is free and includes some playground equipment, some interactive science stations, and a splash pad fountain for kids to play in. If your child likes these sorts of things, be sure to bring a towel and a change of clothes.
The inside part requires a ticket and was way bigger than it looked from the outside.
The first hall is a big exhibit about Indonesian history (unfortunately none of the captions had English).
The next section started with Hugo’s favorite thing:
Surprise! There’s a giant aquarium!
Sorry for the poor photo quality, but it’s really hard to photograph a toddler jumping up and down and scampering around in the sheer joy of discovering a large room full of fish.
The biggest hall has displays about astronomy, interactive physics stations, and a chemistry magic show.
The big hall. Most of the people working there spoke some English, and a lot of these displays had at least a short English explanation.
There was a lot of stuff about power plants.
Checking out the power plant. I took this picture for my dad, who made us visit power plants when I was a kid. Never underestimate how funny a child will think it is to say “We’re going on another dam tour.”
The most fun parts were these interactive floor projections:
The fish one was, of course, the favorite.
The water would “splash” and the fish would swim away as the kids would jump and run through the projection.
All in all a fun way to spend a morning.
I’d say it wasn’t ideal for toddlers since most of the activities were geared towards older kids, but there’s fun stuff here for all ages.
