Java Jamboree: Around Surabaya

Surabaya, formerly Soerabaja, is believed to have derived its name from the words sura or suro which means shark and baya or boyo which means crocodile. According to a local myth, a giant white shark and a giant white crocodile fought each other to gain the title of the strongest and most powerful animal. Today, the two animals are used as the city's logo. A statue of the two could be found near the entrance to the city zoo but my friends and I had not the privilege to see it despite the fact that we took a tour round the city. We did not visit any zoo, not even the Bonbin Surabaya which is supposed to be one of the famous zoo in South East Asia. We did take a peep at the inside of a modern shopping complex and browsed through Monkasel or Monumen Kapal Selam a.k.a the Submarine Monument. Nurseries offering ornamental plants and garden paraphenalia lined a long stretch of road somewhere in the city and everwhere there seemed to be mosques. The mosques in Surabaya seemed rather colourful and each and every single one, big and small, seemed rather bold in colours, unique, I would add but we settled only for the Masjid Al-Akbar. We stopped there for a while to take snapshots of the holy place. I suppose that must be the Grand Mosque of Surabaya, the largest mosque in East Java...


Having a field day in Surabaya...


...Submarine Monument...

...inside a shopping complex...

...Masjid Al-Akbar...

Traveling Tip: You can't have it all!