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:
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 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.