one of nayou’s best friends here in bali is budi. budi works at a warung about 50m from our house. initially nayou didn’t want anything to do with him but eventually he warmed up and now the two are inseparable! here they are playing nayou’s favourite game – leaf boat races.
budi came over the other day and showed us how to make bubbles out of plants. pretty cool!
last night we had a sort of spontaneous gathering of friends for dinner. the night started off with a funky bang as we danced around while the food was being prepped:
and was then followed by an amazing raw feast.
nayou has been burning the midnight oil for just about a week now. last night was another late one, but at least he got some mellow movie time in with his new friends. his current obsession is the gruffalo. we picked up one of the gruffalo books in singapore and he has fallen in love with it. the stories are cute and the animated versions are fantastic as well.
the night finished off with some light painting by the pool. it was a perfectly still night, almost a full moon, and no mosquitoes.
we just got back from singapore, where we spent a hectic and decadent two days in the heart of modern asia. our tourist visas for bali run out after two months, and the only way to renew them (legally, anyway) is to leave the country and come back. brenda and i considered a bunch of options but settled on singapore because the flights are cheap and my cousin sean lives there with his wife mary.
none of us had ever been to singapore before, and we hadn’t really heard many good things about it. the only thing i knew was that it was illegal to chew gum and that there were many other weird laws like that (turns out that its not illegal to chew gum in singapore, just illegal to sell it). but despite all of our expectations, we had an amazing time there. the city is clean, efficient, glitzy and fun! there is lots and lots to do and we wished we had decided to spend a little more time there. we still managed to cram in quite a lot in just over 48 hours – i took a yoga class at pure yoga, a studio i have been wanting to check out since it opened. its one of those ridiculous yoga studios located at the top of a huge skyscraper, boasting 4000 sq. ft. changing rooms and the like. we had an entire day of retail therapy on orchard rd., which has more louis vuitton, prada and gucci stores i have ever seen in my life. our shopping was decidedly more low key though, with stops at the lego store, h&m, kinokuniya and the japanese supermarket.
sean and mary were fabulous hosts. they made us feel right at home and helped us out with everything from cell phones, train passes, maps and all those other random things that make travelling so much easier. sean and mary live on the top floor of the cathay building, which has an impressive vista of singapore, especially at night. the panorama function on our camera managed to take a good shot for the first time ever!
the building also has a big pool which we made good use of. check out that view!
one night we tried to go up to the top of the tallest building in singapore, but we couldn’t because of potential lightning strikes. we ended up horsing around on a green patch of grass instead before going to a super yummy japanese restaurant. i was a bad blogger and forgot to get at least one photo of all of us together… in writing this i realised that i only have a couple of bad shots of sean and none of mary!
we spent our last morning checking out the architecture. singapore has some amazing buildings.
check out this vertical garden in the lobby of one of the buildings!
nayou had chocolate ice cream for breakfast. parenting fail.
we feel like we barely scratched the surface of what singapore has to offer. there is so much more we wanted to do – sentosa, the botanical gardens, the night zoo, the surf park etc etc etc. we would definitely go back if the chance arose again. thanks so much to sean and mary for showing us a good time!
oh yeah, there was this indian parade/ceremony type thing where a bunch of sadhu (or sadhu-like) people walked across town carrying very heavy structures on their heads, or pulling heavy things. they also have crazy spikes piercing their bodies – tongues, cheeks, brows, backs etc. pretty crazy stuff. one of the many friendly cab drivers we met told us that they do this as sort of penance if they pray for a miracle and it actually happens (e.g. a relative recovering from cancer). we didn’t make much effort to see these guys, but we did get a close up from a taxi. this guy was pulling an altar on wheels using hooks embedded in his back. ouch. and to top if off he was walking on sandals made of nails!
now we’re back in bali safe and sound, with a visa that will last us until we leave on march 1st. i’m still waiting for a proper contract for mad max, but we have started visa procedures for namibia already which is a good sign. sounds like its really going to happen this time around!
kagemusha is a japanese restaurant in ubud where they serve awesome food. there is a large japanese expat community in ubud and this is the place where they all hang out. our friend natasha loves this place and decided to have her going away dinner here.
we have been hanging out with natasha daily since brenda met her three weeks ago. she is a restauranteur from melbourne, and we all get along very well. she left on tuesday and we are definitely missing having her around. its one of the sadder aspects of being a nomad – you meet lots of other really cool nomads but usually only for a very limited time. the flipside to that is you end up with a network of friends all over the world, but its still sad to bid farewell.
thats natasha on the second from the left. the girl on the far left is oksana, our housemate.
there were some classic moments, like nayou’s first photobomb:
i love this photo of brenda:
nayou held on for as long as he could, but eventually the sleep angels won. the little dude was so tired that he slept the whole ten minute scooter ride home!
here is most of our ubud crew. good times, good times!
check out this light we had during one sunset. it looks like the photos were tinted in photoshop or lightroom or something, but these are straight out of the camera!
late last week we decided to have a bit of a pool day and ended up meeting some friends at the royal pita maha, a ridiculous 5 star resort just outside of ubud. our friend natasha knew someone who works there, which is how we ended up at this place. the entrance to the hotel is located down a nice paved path about 500m from the main road. you know you have arrived because you are greeted by the most gargantuan statue ever known to man.
that’s nayou and i on the scooter at the bottom of the photo, btw. yep, its big.
the lobby is big and opulent as you would expect. apparently at this place, you can’t just have a button to call an elevator. you have to have a statue.
the main pool was really nice, overlooking the jungle in a steep valley. noone else was there, probably because each villa has its own private pool. you gotta wonder why they bothered with this main pool… probably for people like us i guess.
we spent $45 (a small fortune in bali) on some terrible food, but the experience of walking around their grounds made is (almost) worth it. the resort is situated on one side of a steep valley that leads down to the ayung river. they did an amazing job with the landscaping – there are ponds, temples and little nooks to hang out in all over the place.
there is a lagoon that runs around the lower half of the grounds. it was fun drifting alongside the river and watching the whitewater rafters float by.
its crazy to think that this resort is one of several that are built along this valley (including a four seasons and an aman hotel). i’m glad we had the experience, although i have to say that i much prefer our little villa out in the rice paddies!
i’ve neglected to post about oksana, our housemate, because we don’t really have any photos of her. oksana is the original inhabitant of our house, who returned last week from a month abroad. she is a yoga teacher who is also involved in the film industry (sound familiar?) and is into raw food. our friend jeanne connected us, and her prediction that our family and her would get along well has been correct. oksana is super mellow and living with her has been a piece of cake. of course its only been a week, but its been a great week indeed.
oksana has been getting busy putting the house in order since getting back. one of the things on her to-do list was to remove some of the stuffing from the pillows. we have been sleeping on super plump pillows, which isn’t the best thing for your neck. so yesterday brenda and oksana gutted our pillows. the excess stuffing will eventually be used to make even more pillows but provided nayou with lots of fun in the meantime.
i might be biased, and i’m definitely repeating myself, but my goodness this kid is CUTE. brenda and i couldn’t stop taking pictures… but i’ll refrain from posting all of them. i’ll just post most of them 😛
last sunday our balinese friends took us up north to visit a temple. i’m hazy on the details, but there is some sort of custom where they build temples of varying sizes at places where two streams of water join. and/or where it wells up from the ground. something like that. the temple we went to is built over an underground well and is considered holy.
the temple was about half an hour by scooter from ubud. on the way we stopped to check out these amazing terraced paddies. one thing i love about bali – there is at least one moment every day when you are awed by nature.
of course the temple itself is gorgeous.
before going into the actual temple, we were required to bathe ourselves in the holy water that springs from the underground well. the water is potable and tastes really sweet. my skin felt smooth and soft after a quick dip! here is nayou making inappropriate faces before jumping into the holy water.
here is the heart of the temple. water wells up from below the altar pictured below. the energy of this place is very tranquil, very meditative.
i love all of the wood and stone work on this island. a lot of talented artists are getting busy around here!
we also saw vampire deer there. seriously. check out the fangs on this deer. they are a little hard to see, but that white thing sticking out of its mouth is a tooth. also, its eyes are unmistakably hungry for blood. human blood.
a very, very large chunk of life in bali is devoted to all kinds of ceremonies. there are ceremonies to honour the bazillion gods, the harvest, the family etc etc. you name it, they make offerings to it. on one hand its amazing how strong spirituality runs through the entire culture. on the other hand its a bit sad to see the time and money they pour into these ceremonies, especially if times are tough. having a baby can break the bank because you need to pay large sums of money for various ceremonies when they are young. ditto for marriage. perhaps this is my western-minded cynic coming out, but it does seem a little excessive when so many people are hustling every day to make ends meet.
anyhoo, our friend ibu kadek (literally “mama kadek”) invited us to the ceremony celebrating their family temple last week. its held twice a year. ibu kadek spent days cooking mountains of food for the occasion, as did the rest of the women in their family, so there was a sizeable cornucopia when we rocked up to their family compound. this is what the main temple looked like:
their other family temple was also laden:
the weather looked promising all morning, but just as the ceremony was about to begin it started raining. we waited it out but the rain didn’t let up so they went ahead with it while it was still coming down. it would have been nice to have the full experience, but it was still cool to be able to participate!
after the ceremony we had dinner at ibu kadek’s house. i was tired and a bit shivery from being out in the rain so this is how i spent most of the afternoon before eating. shameless!
we all really like ibu kadek and her family. her two sons, wayan and kadek, are nayou’s bffs. here is their papa, made (pronounced ma-day), being a horsey despite feeling ill from an upset stomach. giddy up!
