Beautiful Bali - Part 1

I know that quite some time has gone by since Christmas, but this is my chance to finally talk about our special time in Bali, Indonesia. We stayed at Ubud Hanging Gardens the week before Christmas. This was our first time ever visiting a place in December wearing flip flops and shorts.

We chose a resort in Ubud, which is in the mountains and some distance away from the beaches. We wanted a mountain top, jungle experience with the monkeys. When we arrived at the resort around midnight, we were warmly greeted by the staff wearing Indonesian sarongs and embroidered tunics.  We were taken to our small villa by a hillside venicular. This fun little mode of transportation carries guests to different levels at the resort. Villas, main pool, restaurants and gift shop were on different levels.

Front entrance view looking down toward gift shop

Venicular

Entrance to our villa

All the villas have their own infinity pool for private swimming, and the view from the pool was nothing but dense tropical foliage as far as the eye could see. While swimming one afternoon, we did spot a monkey high up in a tree near us. We didn't have any bananas to entice him to come down.

Our pool looking toward cafe

View from our pool

Kevin relaxing under hut by pool

Inside the villa was an elegant bed surrounded by white mosquito netting. I thought the netting was a romantic touch. I quickly found out that it was there for a reason. I saw mosquitoes trying to get in every night, and other little creepy crawlies hanging on the outside staring at us like we were a tempting blood meal. It got pitch dark in the room like no other darkness I ever experienced. So, when I was tempted to get up in the middle of the night to visit the loo, I thought twice about leaving my safe little shelter in the netted cave. In the morning, all the little creepies were gone. Where they go....I don't know. I don't want to know.

Bed with mosquito netting

View looking toward the pool villas

Backside of our villa

Infinity pools overlooking temple

Relaxing at the resort lounge

We learned about a walking trail on the resort property that we decided to embark on. We love hiking. No problem, we thought. Well, it started off easy by riding in the shuttle which dropped us off at a temple where the trail started. We walked onto the temple grounds, and this little old guy came out of a dark and mossy corner and greeted us. I think he was the temple guard or a relic who lived there. He attempted to give us a history lesson on the temple. There are many Hindu temples in Bali, and this one was right on the resort grounds. Men and women need to wear sarongs (long, wrapped skirts) when entering a temple. Before we left for our walk, we got a lesson on how to put on a sarong from two resort staff members. Tying a sarong is involved and the steps are different for men and women.

Temple view from resort

Entrance to temple

Resort view from temple

We started our decent down the slippery temple stairs to the beginning of the "trail". The little path was covered with wet leaves and moss and was hardly noticeable. We felt like explorers from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". So we walked on grabbing tree branches and using umbrellas as walking sticks to keep us from tumbling down overgrown, spider web infested cliffs. We walked down very steep stone steps on a narrow winding path. We passed several little shrines with remnants of moldy fruit and soggy flowers left as offerings by villagers. It was quiet and creepy trying to get down the hillside.

When we thought our hiking adventure was coming to a close while approaching the resort, we spotted one more challenge.....a super narrow bamboo bridge hanging over the river. We had to cross it. No turning back. Thankfully we both have good balance and don't have trouble with heights. I was a little tense, carefully crossing the bridge with only one handrail, while envisioning jungle people blowing poisonous darts at me from behind. But all is good. We made it alive.

Kevin claiming victory after crossing the bridge

While recovering from our jungle hike, we relaxed at the deck watching local village girls perform Balinese dance. They were in training for professional dance when they get older. They were all so cute, but the girl in pink and white quickly became my favorite to watch. She had such expressive eyes and a pretty smile.

Tune in next time for Beautiful Bali Part 2...

April Already?!

It's already April and so much has been going on here. I'm sure that's pretty obvious since my last post was in January! I have some serious catch up to do. My Mom was really tired of seeing the Christmas page and asked, "Now...when are you going to do a new blog post??" It's much more relaxing for Mom to read everything that is going on in our lives than listening to my speed talking. I've been known to wear people out when I get excited talking about something, and go on and on without breathing. So, sit down, relax with a cup of coffee or tea, and enjoy the relaxing written word.

Kevin has been extremely busy with project planning at his work. He's gone out to lunch and dinner a few times with his managers and team to unload some of the stress. He's been asked to face new eating adventures head on, like fish head soup. He hasn't tried it yet, but was told that he needs to eat the eyeballs. Nothing goes to waste. That's disgusting!!! But people seem to like it. One company lunch outing celebrated the Chinese New Year salad toss. There were many large round tables with about 12 people each. Ten courses were served, and the first course was a large salad which everyone tossed together. They all reached into the bowl using over sized chopsticks tossing all the ingredients into the air, over and over again. The salad tossing ritual is only done during Chinese New Year to "gather prosperity" for the upcoming year.

Salad bowl before the tossing action

Some salad tossing action                                                                           

I've been going to Pilates reformer classes twice a week since December and I really enjoy it. I would love to train at a Pilates school somewhere and become a certified instructor when I return home someday. My Mom loves that idea. Private lessons! The Pilates studio is located in the central business district close to Kevin's office. I walk by some interesting buildings near the studio. There is a Chinese temple that people place burning incense sticks by the entrance. The incense has a really strong smell that's a little too much for me. I have discovered that you miss a lot if you don't look up. I was waiting for my bus one day to go home, and looked up across the street and noticed an unusual, massive apartment building that looked like a Borg space ship. (OK...so I'm a Star Trek fan)

Inside the studio

Seng Wong Beo Temple
 

 Massive apartment building (center platforms are walkways with gardens)

I was recently invited to join someone for an hour long aerobics outdoor class. I thought no problem. I've done aerobic exercise before. (oh boy) There were about 100 people in an outdoor pavilion overlooking the Singapore River. I thought this looked like fun. I knew I was in trouble when I was already feeling the heat and humidity before we started. The workout was intense choreographed aerobics and kickboxing to loud, upbeat music. Tourists were walking by taking our pictures and watching. I never sweated so much in my life! I should have been given a T shirt saying, "I survived the aerobics/kickboxing insane boot camp!" It was a great heart pounding workout, but I think I'll stick with Pilates for now.

I have also been busy with weekly Bible study and ESL (English as a Second Language) ministry for women at our church. I have been helping with interviewing new students by testing their English comprehension and placing them in the appropriate English level. Over 200 women are taught English and Bible stories each week. There is no cost for the English classes and childcare, and no advertising is done. They seem to hear about it by word of mouth, and new ladies join every week. There are long waiting lists for almost all the levels. I just started to teach my own class of 19 ladies who are mostly from Japan, Malaysia, China, and Korea. It's a new and exciting challenge for me, since I've never been an ESL teacher before.

Adorable pictures of our pampered pooch

Christmas in Singapore

Happy New Year!! We hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas. We were unable to fly home to spend Christmas with family, and it was a little sad being away from our loved ones. We missed everyone, but Kevin and I created new memories spending our first Christmas in our shorts and flip flops in and around Singapore. Kevin had two weeks off for Christmas and New Year. Four of those days were spent in Bali, Indonesia. Details and lots of pictures will follow in a later post.

We were here in Singapore for Christmas day and had a wonderful buffet dinner at Melt the World restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. There was a turkey, ham and roast beef carving station, Indian and Chinese specialties, barbeque, sushi, fresh crab, shrimp, lobster, oysters, a decadent dessert station, and much more. We were sitting next to a large group of people and the men were dressed in their formal Scottish kilts and Sporrans (leather or fur waist pouches). They were having such a good time with their loud merry making, that we expected them to break into song with a folk ballad. No such luck.

Not only was the warm and tropical weather in December kind of fun and different, but so was watching children playing barefoot in the "snow" generated by a soap making machine. This stuff was sprayed all over the ground and on a huge Christmas tree in front of a shopping mall. This happy scene was complete with snowmen, reindeer and the all too familiar sound of Elvis singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" over loud speakers.



Since we live in a very small apartment, we did not have room for a Christmas tree. Plus, all our decorations and ornaments are back home buried deep in storage. But we had to do something festive in our little dwelling place. Our inspiration came from all the blue and silver decorations along Orchard Rd. (The well known elite road in Singapore with endless high-end shopping.) We did a simple garland with blue, silver and gold trimmings. The lights were fiber optic stars.






















There were so many different Christmas trees throughout the city with various themes, colors and sizes. We spotted traditional red and green trees, turquoise trees, teddy bear trees, fairy trees, elephant forest trees....




















































Tangs is a department store comparable to Macy's or Nordstrom. They hosted a Christmas elephant exhibit which showcased large, hand painted elephants by different groups of people around the world. These elephants were all over the city, but most of them were on Orchard Rd. near Tangs.






















































We ended 2011 by watching the new Mission Impossible movie at the nearby Imax theater, and going to the Titanic Artifact Exhibition at Marina Bay Sands ArtScience Museum. Singapore is the first city in Southeast Asia to host this exhibit. There were real artifacts recovered from the ship's wreckage and intriguing stories of some of the passengers. They replicated the grand gold staircase and different areas of the ship with great similarity. We felt like Titanic passengers walking through hallways of first class, steerage and the boiler room. There was even a large chunk of ice on display to look like an iceberg for people to touch and feel how painfully cold it was for the doomed passengers fighting for their lives in the freezing ocean.




We had a wonderful time during Kevin's time off. He's back at work now working hard, and I am catching up on our blog. Time flies by quickly when your working and playing hard. I plan to upload some video of the "Christmas Around the World" musical presentation from our church in my next post. So stay tuned...