every village in bali has its own temple. and every six months there is a big ceremony in each of them to honour the gods. a similar thing happens in family temples as well. kutuh kajah (north kutuh) is the name of the village we live in, and last week they had their bi-annual ceremony. each village brings its own flavour to the ceremonies, and our village does it right by turning it into a bit of a festival with food stalls, lots of music and late nights. we’ve been to a couple of ceremonies so far but this one was the coolest one by a long shot.

here is brenda with our friend nyoman.

and here is a video of the different performances. they just kept on coming one after the other, and we actually left before it all finished. our friend budi said that the festivities went on until around 1am!

galungan is a balinese holiday that happens every 210 days. it lasts for ten days and during this time they believe that the gods come and visit earth. they leave on the last day, which is called kuningan. during this time there are lots of offerings and various ceremonies, which are supposed to entertain the visiting gods. every household erects a tall curved bamboo pole in front of their compound, and there is usually a small altar with offerings attached to it.

our house got a bamboo pole as well, courtesy of our landlord made and his wife ayu. ayu also came and dressed up our pool guardian shiva.

it is also considered very lucky to get married during this time. families whose members tied the knot get to display these beautiful decorations in front of their house:

for the first night of galungan we went to visit our friend ibu kadek and her family to take part in their village’s parade.

kadek loves to go shopping at the warungs. he likes to buy sweets and this toxic smelling rubbery stuff that you use to blow bubbles with. i remember playing with that stuff when i was a kid in japan! of course nayou was along for the ride and wanted to do everything that kadek did. the only thing we can’t get him to do is wear traditional balinese attire. ibu kadek has some super cute sarongs for him, but he refuses to even try them on. at least he is cool with wearing his japanese yukata.

for kuningan last night we went and checked out the procession at our village of kutuh kajah. it was a mellow affair. nayou was more interested in his boat races with budi 🙂

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.

life has settled into a nice groove here in ubud. we’ve started to make friends, get into a routine and become familiar with the nooks and crannies of the city. weird to think that we’ve already been here for over a month! brenda and i have taken tons of video and i’ve been meaning to edit it into something coherent, but once again the number of files makes it a little overwhelming so here is a montage of video from our first two weeks here.

i also had intentions of making a long post about our visit to the green school, which is this fantastic eco-minded international school 20 minutes out of ubud. the whole campus is made of amazing bamboo structures, designed and built by ibuku – a company specifically set up for the green school. ibuku also designed the houses in the green village, an eco village right next to the green school (see a theme devleoping here?). we took a lot of photos but once again i am overwhelmed so here is a video from our visit.

and, finally, check out this guy climbing the coconut trees just outside our house. no ropes, no safety nets, just sheer monkey power. this was the second tree i saw him climb that day. lord knows how many he goes up on a daily basis. in general the people here are very physically fit. you see men and women who must be in the their 60s and 70s carrying huge loads, working in the rice paddies etc. its a testament to the benefits of regular exercise! this coconut climber was probably 40-something! he was kind enough to give nayou and i a coconut, and boy it was gooooooood!

to our friends and family all around the world, we hope you had or are having a merry christmas with your loved ones! we had a great day today, starting off with checking out what santa brought. then wayan and kadek came over with their parents and we spent the better part of the day hanging out by the pool. we managed to catch up with family over skype as well, which was super cool. obviously we wish we could be with our parents and siblings in person but celebrating in bali ain’t so bad either!