This morning we woke up with huge goofy grins on our faces. Sometimes that happens just because..., but today, TODAY... today, we are headed home. You can grin too if you want. We're taking the long way back to Philadelphia, but nothing has felt more like home than the thought of landing on the ground in San Francisco. Don't worry, the blog won't stop when we reach the states, we will obviously still be having adventures, so we'll be sure to keep you as updated as we can. In the meantime, goodbye to HK.

Hong Kong airport is enormous. We took an early bus here and had a couple of hours to fill, so we decided to walk as much of Terminal 1as we could. Even using the moving walkways, we were on foot for at least 20-30 minutes just getting from one end to another, and that was just on one floor! Shops and stores repeat themselves, there are exhibits to check out in many waiting areas, and there are countless food options. We changed our miscellaneous odds and ends of cash from Indonesia and Singapore so we'd have a bit of cash for dinner/snacks. Now we are sitting in generously sized purple lounge chairs, looking out at a huge jet that has two decks and a trillion windows. According to Cathay Pacific's website, the jet has over 300 seats in economy alone. A. Huge. Dang. Jet.
As we wait and write, we are also daydreaming like never before. We've got visions of soft pretzels, baked macaroni and cheese, affordable ice cream, reliable internet, street signs we understand, USD currency, and the amazing, beautiful, wonderful faces of our families and friends that we miss like crazy... We've just run to grab coffee so we can take advantage of the in-flight movies (save a buck from rentals!) and sleep little, so that we can fall asleep when we get to SF late at night. When we checked our flight on our way to Starbucks (sorry, they had the cheapest prices for once) departure looks to have been moved back half an hour. Hopefully we'll make it up on such a long flight. Anyways, we're going to go search for an outlet so we can charge up our phones so they're ready to call Miss Laci Hutto who is meeting us at the airport!!! Can we contain our excitement? No. Will we try to contain it for the sake of our neighbors on the plane? Of course. See you soon!

Saturday and Sunday brought good circulation to our legs. We'd originally planned on a Saturday hike with Joe, but he forwarded us an email about a Sunday group hike, so we all decided to go with that, and Joe decided to walk around some of the older parts of HK with us for the afternoon. We took the MTR a few stops, then got off and began walking. We walked through tons or open markets, selling everything (really, everything) you could think of as being even minutely profitable. We got cups of fresh soya milk and downed them as we walked some more. Eventually we ended up in Kowloon? Jordan? Where we were back to high-rises, packed streets, and a thousand different smells. We stopped for bubble tea and Joe ran over a few stalls and got some fried tofu sticks and an open-faced meat pie thing. Both were yummy. We went down into a mall that only carried Chinese products. The basement was a big grocery store, leaning a little more towards the 'specialty' or gourmet side, but still full of plenty of cheap products. I could spend hours in grocery stores from different countries, looking at similarities and differences in anything from packaging, to portions, to ingredients, to how nutritional value is gauged... it's all so cool! We tried some dried candied ginger, coconut, and Buddha's hand (super awesome-looking pithy citrus fruit that I once made a vodka with). The ginger was by far the best I have ever had, so I bought some and am eating it as I write. The coconut was good as well, thick pieces, not the shavings you often get in the states. We also got some cranberry linseed crackers that were sort of a shortbread/cracker/biscuit. So. Good.

After we'd had our fill of browsing, we explored the other floors of the mall for another half hour, then made our way home on the bus, which I've grown to prefer, since you're more likely to get a seat, and you're less likely to have to transfer to another line/vehicle mid-trip. When we got home, we made dinner (pasta with tomato, Chinese spinach, sauteed onions and broccoli, and a bit of cheese sauce. We headed to bed early to rest up for our hike the following morning.

Sunday we were up, fed, packed/supplied, and out the door by 8:30am. We waited downstairs for Joe and when he arrived, we all hopped the MTR to Tung Chung, on Lantau Island where we'd be meeting the rest of the hiking group. It was a great group, there were 16 of us total and we got to chat with pretty much everyone during our 5 hour hike. The group was mixed age and ability, so while the pace was a good deal slower than we prefer, it was plenty of fun, and certainly made it easier to have a conversation. The hike itself was great. Some good hills, atop which we had spectacular views of HK. There were plenty of cool plants, sales, lizards, fish, crabs, and bugs to spot, and we walked through some small small villages, of which only some appeared to be inhabited. We reached our final destination, Tai O, in the late afternoon. Tai O is an old fishing village, and many of the houses are on stilts. We walked on raised/stilted roads for a few minutes before reaching the main land of the village. Our hike organizer walked us through a bit of the village, and we eventually headed towards a rather secret seeming fenced area where we all sat around two big tables and had the same tasty, refreshing cold soya ginger sauce thing we'd had during our bike ride with Sing. Some folks stayed to walk around more, and some of us headed towards the bus stop to catch the bus back to Tung Chung. Our bodies were finally feeling tired, but in a good way. We snoozed on the bus, and almost snoozed on the MTR. Got home, showered, had dinner, and fell asleep quite quickly.

We were awakened by our rather loud Russian flatmates around midnite, and we drifted in and out of sleep for the next two hours, until I finally had to per, and apparently scared the crap out of them. It seemed they had no idea we were home! I figured am observant person would see that our shoes were back, but hey, who knows what people do and don't pay attention to? Today we got up and had some delightful instant coffee (that's a wee bit of sarcasm for you) as we organized ourselves and packed our bags. Dawne's flip flops had mysteriously disappeared between Saturday and Monday (we'd been wearing sneakers, so she didn't notice til packing time). A bit odd, and frustrating, but thankfully, they weren't pricey ones. We stashed our bags in the flat and headed out for our last day in HK. We walked around for a while, checking out stores for flip flop sales (found none that had Dawne's size). So we went back to the flat and got our things and headed to the airport 6 hours early because we were so excited.

First day of our last international stop! It's almost surreal, thinking that after HK, we'll be heading back America, and back to familiarity.

Five days of exploring left, and I want to make the absolute best of it, though I don't want to totally exhaust us either. Hong Kong is even more beautiful than I imagined. Cooler temperatures mean we can leave windows open and have the room cool off instead of heat up. Cool temps are also welcome since we've had our fair share of annoying heat-related fatigue, the most frustrating thing to experience when you think you're going strong, mid-day. When we arrived at the airport, we caught a bus to meet our AirBnb host Joe in Yuen Long, in New Territories. The 45 minute ride was the perfect way to get visually introduced to Hong Kong. The mountains are spectacular, and the sheer volume of skyscrapers is mind-boggling for those of us who grew up thinking NY was big. We found Joe waiting right where he'd said he'd be, and he helped us carry our stuff up to his place. Joe's apartment is pretty big considering some of the other room options we thought we might be stuck with.

We arrived in the afternoon, so we maximized the rest of the daylight and walked withg Weds we took it easy in the morning, then hopped the MTR to take advantage of HK's free museums on Wednesdays. Three in one, plus a light show, AND a star sighting! Granted they were Korean stars, and we had no clue who they were, but we spotted the dashing young men (security guards and all) and found ourselves diving out of the way of running packs of screaming teenage girls. There were two different sets or groups of stars, and only one set was fortunate enough to have bodyguards, so we walked past a men's room door that was mobbed with girls waiting for the young men to finish their business, though we figured they may have just been taking refuge. We made our way home, showered, and hit the sack.

The next morning, we met Joe at 10:30 in the morning, for a walk around the city, only to learn that his game plan had changed. Renting bikes and going for a ride! We changed clothes, filled a backpack with water, a pack of snacks, and an extra shirt each, and caught the MTR two stops to where we'd begin our ride. When we got off the MTR, Joe asked an older guy who was also traveling with his bike if he knew of any good bike routes. The guy, Sing, happily shared his route, and said that we were welcome to tag along with him. Score! Sing looks to be in his 50's or 60's, and he warned us that he'd be going slow, because of his age, but he left us in the dust on the hills more than once. We biked along the harbour, and then along a beautiful stretch of highway for about 15 minutes. Right about the time our tummies started talking, we slowed and stopped at a place Sing had suggested for lunch. Joe got Peking duck and we shared a plate of veg noodles with some of the most peculiar shapes and textures of mushroom we had ever ever ever dreamed of trying. The duck was more delicious than we'd imagined, and the same could be said of the noodles. Some of the mushrooms didn't have much of a flavor, but the sauce they were in was pretty dang tasty.

After downing the rest of our tea, we hopped back on our bikes and made our way towards the reservoir, in Tai Lam Country Park, where we biked up the slopes surrounding the reservoir and then along/between the peaks within the park. We set out with good energy, making it through the first few steep hills, but as we hit the serious angles, and then the smoldering hot blacktop, each of us, one by one, slowed and wavered to a stop, out of breath and sweating like no other. From there on out, we alternated hiking and biking, and even just walking some of the steeper parts had us winded. We sought out shady resting spots every now and then, where we would stretch and Sing would smoke a cigarette. The ride was well worth the workout. A seemingly untouched expanse of land, (save the paved path we were on...) and a simply beautiful landscape. The views from the peaks of each rise were awesome.

At one point after a steep climb, we pulled over to wash our faces and dunk our heads in the surprisingly cold water of a spring that slowly made its way down the mountain. I washed my face five or six times, since the water was just that refreshing. We made our way back down from the reservoir and onto smaller paths along smaller waterways. Sing and Joe took us to a rest stop/restaurant just off the path, that we never would have found on our own. They sold organic fruits and veggies, as well as a soya bean curd dish that we all chowed down on. We opted for cold over hot, and it was in a delicious ginger sauce that reminded me of strong ginger tea. The soya itself was the texture of a soft yogurt. It was amazingly refreshing. Dawne finished Colleen's for her :) About ten minutes up the trail, we parted ways with Sing. He was turning around to continue biking for a while longer, and we were going to make our ways towards home (Yuen Long). We took one last picture together, promised to find each other on Facebook (Sing has FB?!) and went our separate ways. We got to a point in the trail where you had to take a boat across a medium-sized creek for $6. It was precarious with our bikes on board but we made it! After that, it was only a five minute ride back to the bike shop, and then a short walk home. An awesome day of exercise that we WOULD call cross-training for the Big Sur marathon, except that we haven't been doing all that much running, so it was more just like training, period.

We have a kitchen to use during our stay here, so we grabbed some provisions for breakfast and a few other meals so that we could try to make up the cost of more expensive accommodations. The grocery stores abroad always have the oddest mix of international products. Hershey's is pretty prevalent, as are Nestle, Skippy, Pepperidge Farm, General Mills, Tropicana, Red Bull, and more. We try to try things we've never seen or had (within reason) though sometimes it's rough when absolutely nothing on the package is in English.

Friday night we took the MTR into Central and headed to Carnegie's, upon the suggestion of a friend who's a HK native. $10HK Coronas after 9pm is a pretty good deal, if you're heading out instead of staying in. We arrived when there was enough space to nab a table, and we hung out for an hour or so before making our way back to the MTR. We finally made it home, possibly a bit tipsy and went right to sleep.

We left Bali on Thursday April 5th, we had a morning flight and made sure to get there in plenty of time to get a donut and coffee from Dunkin donuts. They have flavors I have never once seen in the states, like chocolate peanutbutter, which is a chocolate donut, filled with a fudgy choc sauce, and covered in pb on the top. Plenty of donut for us to share. After we boarded our Jetstar plane, we settled in and got ready for our 2 hour flight to Singapore. It was good time, a bit bumpy occasionally but we landed safe and sound. After we made it through customs, we started the journey to our hostel, The Green Kiwi on Lavender Street. It was our first hostel stay on the trip, so we were interested to see how it was going to go. After our easy 10 minute walk straight down Lavender St, we found The Green Kiwi... and it was great! We were greeted by Katie, who is from the Philippines but has been working at the hostel for about a year now. She lives there and manages things and takes care of all of us foreigners. She was wonderful, and was by far the best thing about Singapore and the hostel. The Green Kiwi is a cute place with warm, happy bright green walls that Jessica Martin would love. They had comfy beds, reliable air conditioning and cozy duvet covers! The breakfast was amazing, a real cup of fresh brewed coffee pulled from a happy shiny espresso machine, fruit (watermelon, oranges, dragon fruit) and two slices of toasted bread with butter, peanut butter and strawberry jam, marmalade, kaya (made from coconut and some sort of leaf? I think?) Delicious to wake up to, and they would give you more if you were hungry enough. To sum it up - as if we haven't made it clear - we really liked The Green Kiwi.

Once we settled in we went out to the main area and started making friends, it turns out 2 of the people at the hostel were also on our flight from Bali, and none of is knew it til we got to the G.K! We laughed about it and then all talked about our time in Bali. After that, our new friend Simon, Dawne, and I went outside to explore and find some dinner, we found a hawker market that Katie had suggested, and got delicious cheap food - we actually all got a version of spicy basil rice with your choice of meat . After scarfing it down we wandered a bit longer and found a stadium with lights on. We figured something must be going on inside, so we walked around until we could peek through the gates, and realized we'd found an amateur soccer game! We stayed to watch the second half. Not particularly the best soccer we've ever seen, but totally good enough to entertain us for 45 minutes. We stayed until the end and walked back to the Kiwi and spent the rest of the evening up in the roof garden chatting about life and childhood. It was funny and really interesting because everyone was from somewhere different... the Philippines, Sweden, U.K., Poland, Malaysia and the U.S.A. We got to talk all about families and cultural differences, we've been learning so much even about countries we didn't have the opportunity to visit.

The next morning, Friday April 6th, we woke up and had our amazing breakfast and then met up with Simon and our other new friend Pete. We all walked to get Simon a bus ticket for his onward journey the next day, and then we explored the Marina Bay area, Chinatown and Little India. Marina Bay was nice and clean and was right along the water. There was an awesome foot bridge designed like a DNA helix, and a floating soccer field next to it with a large seating area on land. There were many people walking around and visiting the big mall. After walking down the Marina Bay a little further we went toward Chinatown to look for a thimble for Simon's mom, mission accomplished. Then on the way home we walked through Little India, kind of like regular India but a bit cleaner, less noisy, and no beggars. Earlier in the day, we had stopped to grab groceries for Katie, who cooked us up the most delicious Filipino meal we could have asked for for dinner. Six of us dined together (Katie, the days' crew, plus Mark from the UK) and we were later joined by Minder, a cool, and really interesting guy from Malaysia. We hung out in the roof garden for a while longer, and then Dawne and I went to sleep on the earlier end.

On Saturday we got up bright and early, ok not super early but medium early. Had the best breakfast, of course, said goodbye to Simon because he was headed to Kuala Lumpur, and got ready for the Botanical Gardens. Dawne, Pete and I headed there on the subway and when we got there Pete went to go find cigarettes (lame) so Dawne and I checked out tons of plants and flowers! We walked along the path and found an opening in the rainforest section, it was awesome! Huge trees, leaves and lots of insect noises. After that we found the Orchid Garden, and it was beautiful, well worth the small fee to get in. We took lots of photos and tried to smell them all. After that it started down pouring, we had brought our ponchos, holla, so we were alright. We made it back to the MRT, metro, and went back to the hostel. After drying off we had afternoon tea with Katie, the manager of the Green Kiwi, and talked all about everything. We also met a girl named Ania from Chicago who we realized we had seen multiple times in Bangkok about a month before. Crazy! We were all so excited and thought it was awesome that we were running into each other again! Later that night we got dinner and went to sleep, we were tired!

On Sunday Dawne and I had a date day because we missed each other, even though we hang out everyday. We walked along the river path and took nice pictures and chatted about everything we could think of. We walked all the way down to the Marina Bay Sands Mall so we checked out the inside and it was huge! It has skating at the ground floor and tons of windows and a huge waterfall from the ceiling that was part of a boat ride attraction, insane. After exploring all of that Dawne and I walked some more around the Marina and then we stopped by a restaurant for happy hour because a big dark cloud was rolling in with a lot of rain. We had a good time sipping some beer, we even took the time to write up a sort of bucket list. After all of that excitement we headed back to help Katie with some community gardening in the plots out front of the hostel. It was fun! The rest of the night we hung out and ate dinner together and chatted about ohhhhh... life :)

Our last full day there, Monday, Dawne and I went on a movie date to see The Vow. Laugh all you want but it was a great time, we paid $17 US to have the best movie theater seats we have ever been in. It was great! They were leather and huge and reclined at the touch of a button, with foot rests so you could ultimately lay down, and the best part was the nice warm clean blanket! Not only all of that but you could order food and drinks at the touch of a button, we didn't do that, we only had popcorn but even that was delicious! Best movie experience ever! After the movie excitement we went to the roof of the mall and saw the garden, children's water play area and a dog park. This mall was crazy, just like all the rest. We pretty much visited a large street with some different malls the rest of the afternoon and then went home for afternoon tea time, delicious. For our last night we all hung out on the roof and smoked some hookah and drank some Tiger beer. It was fun and chill and it gave us time to say goodbye to all of the new friends we had made.

The next morning we got up, got ready quickly, Nesty fed us some breakfast early because she is the best and we headed out the door to the airport. We had a great experience staying at the hostel and had a fun time in Singapore. We look forward to hopefully stopping back again sometime, a beautiful, clean and amazingly safe city.

Now on our way to Hong Kong!

Our time in Bali has finally come to an end, and we decided to take two days to rest in Sanur, before heading to the airport, Thursday morning to catch our Jetstar flight to Singapore.

Side note, We took a spill on our motorbike in Kuta on our way home one evening in the middle of the festival, so we decided that a few days of solid rest would be a wise end to our stay here. For all you worriers... don't worry! We were going slow (seriously, no more than 10-15k/hr) so no big injuries, just some good scrapes and bruises... it was wet, gravely road that we were detoured onto due to a big temple ceremony on the main road, and even daily motorbike riders were having a tough time with it. Since we had been on the way home from the festival, at least 6 or seven bikes and cars stopped to help us out, friends we'd made, and strangers too. We were a bit shaken at first, and someone bought us a cold Pocari Sweat (think carbonated Gatorade with less sugar) and one of the festival workers/shuttle drivers, helped us move the bike to the better side of the road and rinse out our cuts with a bottle of water. He drove us to the clinic near our house, where we spent about an hour getting the gravel picked carefully out of our skin. That part was not fun, but an infection later would be even worse, so we sat through it and thanked the really awesome clinic staff for their kindness and patience. At that time, we happened to be the only people in the clinic (which didn't happen again for our re-dressing/cleaning visits), so we were seen immediately, and at the same time, which we were grateful for. The staff at the clinic had grabbed cell # of the wonderful shuttle driver who'd taken us to the clinic, and they called him to give us a lift home. He was there in minutes, with a concerned, fatherly look on his face, and he helped us into the car, drove us to Brata 1, and pulled so close to the entrance, I thought he'd end up scraping the car on the buildings. We gingerly hugged him, and sneakily gave him a 50,000, turning to walk up the steps before he could refuse it. We got ready for bed, and climbed carefully in, arranging our sore limbs as best we could and then spent the next week or so being sore and in slight pain.

Almost a week later, we're feeling much better! Bruises are fading, we have flesh and scabs where they were missing before, and we have totally renewed faith in (and a little awe of) the ability of our bodies to slowly but steadily repair themselves.

On Tuesday April 3 we took Perama to Sanur, using our old bus ticket to save a few bucks. It was a short short trip, only half an hour, and Perama has the option to buy an open-end ticket at no extra cost, so we bought ours as tickets to the airport, with an open stop in Sanur, it only cost an extra dollar each. The bus ride was just as beautiful as on the way to Ubud. Sculpture shops with gardens full of mossy Buddha statues, huge temples adorned in gold and yellow cloth, women walking down the streets towards them, baskets of offerings balanced on their heads, the biggest banyan tree I've ever ever ever seen... at least the bus's length in diameter, a giant, golden bulldog statue! One of my favorites? Men and women alike, wear pink helmets and drive pink scooters, and it's totally cool and normal, I doubt the states could handle that.

We had booked a room at Agung and Sue's Watering Hole, the place right by the bus stop that had decent prices and reviews. We waited at the check-in for a few moments while staff members looked at us but didn't necessarily greet us. Finally a guy came over and had Dawne fill out a form, without checking anything about the validity of what she wrote... not promising. We were shown to our room, it was clean enough, so we dropped our bags and set out to cheer up our cruddy welcome to Sanur with a walk on the beach, only 100 meters down our street! As we walked towards the beach, we noticed signs for a few other guest houses, and we decided to pop our head into one and check our their rates and rooms. We happened upon a GEM! An adorable place called Jambu Inn, that had standard AC rooms, with free breakfast, tax/fee inclusive, for only $2 more than we'd be paying at A & S's, with NO free breakfast. No-brainer. We asked to see a room. It was cool and clean and exponentially more homey and welcoming that A & S's, so we put down a deposit and went to get our bags from up the street. The rude guy at check-out tried to give us a hard time and demand that we pay the 50,000 IDR cancellation fee, (we asked him what it was for and what it covered and he said 'nothing'). We refused, he continued to hassle and ask why we were giving him 'bullshit'. At this point, Colleen was already pissed, and Dawne was losing her patience. We'd only PUT our bags in the room. We hadn't even turned on a light or fan or used the plumbing. We pulled out our change and set it on the counter and said we'd have to go to an ATM to get the balance. The guy made the mistake of having us sign the cancellation paper saying we'd already paid the total fee, and he gave me a copy when I asked for it, problem solved... we didn't return.

Our two minute walk back down towards Jambu Inn was great. The helped us carry our stuff, and settle into the room. We laid in the AC for ten minutes, donned our swimsuits, and popped out the door for the now shorter walk to the beach.
Sanur is such a lovely place to have found. The beach front is developed, but it's a mix of big hotel resorts, and small homestays, so the totally paved walk above the beach is not packed with vendors, there's nature, and breathing room, and space to enjoy your walk or bike ride. On the Sanur side, you can't catch the sunset like you can in Kuta, so any restaurant can be beach front and prices don't change based on your proximity to the ocean (we ate $6-8 dinners both nights sitting at lantern-lit tables on the beach).

The water in Sanur is shallow and clear and beautiful. We stood knee-deep and looked through the water to see our feet perfectly clearly. We watched fishermen walk 200 feet out into the water with coolers on their shoulders and just stand out in the ocean, fishing for a few hours. The sand is composed of big grains, but they're rounded, not so rough, so they're nice to walk on. Tons and tons of incredible kinds of coral are also strewn across the sand, in all conditions and colors. If you picked up a fistful of sand, the varied colors, and corals and shell parts you'd see were so awesome. We were reminded of how amazingly awesome the power of the ocean is. How calming and yet how forceful it can be.
During our two days in Sanur, we took our time and walked a lot more than we'd been doing in Ubud, or Kuta, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. There were always a few hawker calls of 'you want maaasssaage?' and 'come to my shop, just looking, sexy tops', but none were too pushy. Dawne had fallen in love with the fabric of a certain dress in Kuta, which we then spotted in Ubud, and then Sanur. The first lady I asked in Sanur, said 80,000 IDR, not bad considering our friend Gerrie, who speaks Indonesian, bargained for one for 60,000 IDR in Ubud. We told the lady we'd think about it, and headed towards home. We stopped at one last shop and the lady said 50,000 IDR! Holy moly yay! We still pretended to think about it and asked if she could do 40,000 if we promised to come back tomorrow. She said 'yes, if you PROMise!'. We smiled, and said we'd be back in the morning.
It poured for a good hour the next morning, while still remaining sunny (so pretty!!), so we waited out the rain, then walked up to the ATM, then headed back to the beach, found the shop, tried on the dress, and bought it! Just over $4 for a brand new sundress is pretty hard to beat, even with masterful thrift store shopping.

For the rest of the day, we just walked, laid and read on the beach for an hour or so, went home to do some internet stuffs before the mosquito situation escalated in the evening, and then walked back up the beach for our very last dinner in Bali. We stopped to get two ears of roasted corn on the cob, Colleen's with butter, Dawne's with chili that made her lips burn for 10 minutes after. Colleen has been expanding her wardrobe over our trip - which basically means wearing more and more of Dawne's clothes - so she wore the dress to dinner (cute) and Dawne wore another one that we tried on and fell in love with that had been 300,000 IDR in Ubud ($30+) but was only 100,000 in Sanur. CHEAP. I don't think we actually managed to snap a shot of the two of us in our dresses, so you'll have to be patient and wait til we both wear them again :)

Thursday morning we woke up early to get breakfast before most other folks woke up. We took our time eating, but internet was down, so we just packed up our bags and decided to take a short walk down the beach in the direction we hadn't explored. We stopped to buy a young a coconut - full of that delicious coconut water that costs $3 a juice box in the states, and we only paid 10,000 IDR, getting about 5-7 times the volume of coconut water. Delicious. We sort of had to chug it, but it was worth it, and we appreciated our last few moments of peace on the beach.
Checked out, thanked Jambu Inn, and walked 50 meters to the bus stop. Last trip on Perama was to the airport. A good old bumpy goodbye ride :) Jetstar/Value Air here we come!

And Bali, thank you. You've been absolutely wonderful to us.

The Bali Spirit Festival took place at Purnati Center for the Arts, about 15 minutes from central Ubud. We met a few other folks from Brata 1 who were volunteering and/or attending the festival, so we had a good feeling just from the few faces we'd met so far. On the day of orientation, we set out walking, and walked for about 15 minutes, til we reached Arma (the restaurant and music venue that hosted the evening portions of the festival). Since the festival organizers hadn't exactly organized transport for volunteers, we were stuck with a cab for our first ride there, since we didn't know the way... frustrating. We were stubborn about taxi prices, and ended up getting a pretty good deal, the equivalent of the posted shuttle cost each way. Sweet! Our driver was friendly, though not so talkative compared to other Balinese folks we'd met. Nonetheless, we arrived safely and made our way up the steps to the registration tent. Training started on time and ended rather quickly, but we got to meet at least twelve new people, and shared a ride home with another two! The volunteers and volunteer directors all seemed like a pretty awesome bunch, though we felt like we got fairly limited info about roles, who-to-calls, available tools and props for instructors, and general rules of the festival. We each had five shifts, Colleen's all p.m., and mine two a.m., three p.m. One volunteer wanted to switch out of her morning shifts, so Colleen switched two of her shifts so that she and I were working the same times each day and could share transport and coconut water and stuff like that.

Our first day was an early morning shift, so we rose bright and early (alright, it was definitely still dark out) and caught the volunteer 'shuttle', for free! Didn't mind sacrificing a little sleep for a free ride :) Since we were early, Cas (co-director of volunteers) put us to work directing cars and motorbikes to the correct parking areas. On our ride over, we'd met Gerrie, a totally cool girl from Jakarta, who is Chinese-Indonesian, AND spent four years in San Francisco! Gerrie quickly became one of the best folks we'd met, we easily became friends, and chilled during and after the festival, at dinner most nights, and at the concerts, with everyone else we'd met.

Both of our volunteer positions were as Workspace Coordinators, which meant that we were assigned a stage/presentation/yoga area and were in charge of keeping head counts, helping the presenters with any requests, and communicating any issues that arose. Sometimes totally chill, and sometimes more demanding, we essentially had the opportunity to sit in on 2-3 classes a shift and just absorb as much as we could. We each took part in a few, which seemed to be fine as long as we kept an eye on things and didn't totally zone out and start meditating. Dawne loved jumping in the Soul Motion class (dannnncing, couldn't help it!) Colleen took part in a yoga poetry class and even shared outloud during the class and wrote a poem. It goes like this... rain, more rain
refreshing, a miracle
smelly lily pads
oily loud motorbikes
transport, taaaaxi
stop asking me
sticky rice, sweet noodles
no mac and cheese
so far from home

Prior to the start of the festival, we'd been quite curious about what sort of folks we'd meet. There was no doubt in our minds that we'd have the privilege of talking to (or even just listening to) some truly incredible people such as Colleen's poetry class teacher Leza Lowitz, but we also worried that we'd find some big egos, and unfortunately, we did. It was just as disappointing as we'd worried, when a workshop instructor would be absolutely disrespectful or rude or demanding, particularly in a setting that had such an incredible potential for sharing warmth, growth, love, experiences, education... Luckily, we only encountered a handful of people who were more interested in themselves than others, and they weren't people that we had to interact with extensively. Setting those experiences aside was not too hard once we let ourselves be totally drawn into discussions or classes from the rest of the amazing teachers, yogis, lecturers, scientists... people! at the festival.

Some favorites? Of course! Simon Lowe's Yin and Yang yoga, Helen Hitt's Cleansing Diet talk, Carlos Pomeda's new reading of the Yoga Sutras (what a cool guy!), Eoin Finn's Blissology yoga class, Vinn Martin's Soul Motion Ecstatic Dance (stellar), Awohoshi Crystal Bowl Healing (incredible), Angel and Matt Singmin's Future Sound of Yoga (amazing sounds and beats), Danny Paradise's yoga class. The list could go on and on, amazing time and energy and happiness. If you ever have the opportunity to volunteer or attend the festival please do.

Some of our favorite evening music acts included the Luminaries, Rocky Dawuni, Nahko and Medicine for the People, The Mountain People, Delhi 2 Dublin, and Bloco Singapura. The crowd was loving all of them, and sometimes things went so late that the festival got in trouble with the police. We also had the opportunity to see Manisha Gulyani perform Kathak, a form of classical Indian dance, and she was breathtaking, I'm pretty sure I cried at one point. Manisha is the Head of the School of Performing Arts at Amity University Rajasthan. The way she interpreted the music with her dancing was beautiful and amazing and we wondered if perhaps we were able to appreciate it more because we'd had the chance to visit India on this trip. One of the most amazing and wonderful things about our trip has been experiencing different religions, languages, rituals, foods, cultures, people... in more than one place in the world. We see some things again and again in a positive way, and it's fascinating to see how some countries interpret teachings differently, and how many places that seem worlds apart have similar forms of religious art or visual interpretations of deities. It helps to remind us the Oneness of the World :)

Reflections on Ubud... Ubud has the sweetest, most adorable, caring, wonderful cab drivers we've ever ever met, as well as the shuttle drivers and guys from Dek's crew (the tech/general awesome help crew at the festival). We made some good friendships with Wayan John, Adi, Comar, and many other workers at the festival. Mahde Brawah was a cab driver that we met outside the supermarket and caught 3 or 4 rides with during our time in Ubud. He's an absolute gem, and happily talked with us the whole ride each time, even singing for us in an ancient language that he admitted even HE didn't completely understand! Mahde says that the key to life is joking and yoga :) Dancing and singing too... On Sunday morning as we rode over to Purnati, he explained the reasoning behind Balinese home/temple design, sharing that the wall just inside of the main door is to act as a screen to fool evil spirits, and keep them away. Niches on each side of main door are for putting offerings in. In one of the lunch sessions, the founder of the Bali Spirit Festival was talking about how the families live in a compound with different buildings and the reasoning for the setup and the importance of the human head and the direction it faces during sleeping, explaining how the structure of the family works. In a way, it makes so much sense to have your entire living space reflect your beliefs. Maybe we'll adopt the example. I would explain more but my notes from the session had to be given away to help out a friend, apologies.

Anyways, we could go on for days about the festival, so we'll probably add another post at some point, but until then, we promise to find you, grab a cup of tea or coffee and chat alllllll about it with anyone who is interested in hearing more. We left Ubud feeling like we'd grown. Up and out and around in our hearts and minds and bodies. We met and spent time with so many fantastic people, began friendships that we know will last, and learned more than we ever could have fathomed in such a short time.

UBUD! Art, cultural, yoga, rice paddy, world-food hub of the island... what a cool place! After a 1.5-2 hour Perama ride from Kuta, we arrived in Ubud and made our way to Brata 1 Homestay, 6+ rooms located in the family temple compound of Wayan and Yande and their family. The temple is beautiful and is cleaned and cared for every single day, so it's in wonderful shape compared to many we've seen. Brata 1's family was lovely, and full of smiles, even if communication was tough at times. The setting was quiet, since it was set back from the main road. We carried our big bags in, got shown our room and tried to settle in a bit before going to explore. Our room had a double bed and a single bed, so we could have invited another friend to stay if we had one. Don't worry, we made plenty! They just all had rooms already :)

We brought our books outside and sat and chatted about what we were looking forward to and hoping to do. While we sat out on our little porch we met some others that were staying there while they were volunteering at the festival as well... Everyone seemed cool right off the bat, we met Amina from Mexico, and Kate and Hannah from England. After chatting a bit longer, Dawne and I headed down Hanoman St to see what was around us and to look for a dinner spot.

Ubud is not all that big, so it's fairly walkable - at least by our standards. We stayed on Hanoman street, but nothing we wanted to visit was more than a 30 minute walk, and so many shops, cafes, vendors, and sights were on our very street, that we realized we could spend a few months there and still be discovering new things. Like any tourist destination, Ubud has lots of shops selling the same dressed, flip flops, trinkets, and things, but it also has a refreshing number of original shops, with handmade clothing, wood carvings, jewelry, paintings, and more. We walked around for an hour or so, perusing dinner options, and ended up deciding on one of the first places we'd looked at, a place about 100 meters from our homestay, called Kedai Bakery and Cafe. Cheap prices, with an inviting, open-air atmosphere, the place wasn't crowded yet and it had a nice ambiance. Was it worth it? Yes! The food was delicious! I got Mie Goreng, which cost about $2.17 and it was vegetables, noodles and chicken with some yummy sauce. Dawne got Gado Gado, a dish with peanut sauce, rice, veggies, tofu and tempeh, and hers cost about $3.27. Über cheap! And delicious! Right outside our door!

After our delicious meal we went back to Brata 1 and tucked in early to rest for the next week we had ahead of us. The next two days we spent time exploring the shops and the neighborhood. We got amazing nachos at Mojo's Burrito, fair priced and tasty with real guacamole on it! In Kuta we'd gotten served a version of guacamole that tasted like warm mushy Thousand Island dressing. Unpleasaaaant :/ Then we found a tour shop and considered some tours to take since they're all so reasonably priced. We decided on the Tanah Lot Sunset Tour, 4-5 hours including a few extra stops along the way for 130,000 IDR. Not bad! We booked it for 2pm on Tuesday, after volunteer training.

On Tuesday we got up early and feasted on Brata 1's breakfast of an awesome banana jaffle (like a stuffed waffle...), a fruit bowl (papaya, banana, pineapple, watermelon) and Bali coffee, soooo yummy! The rest of the day would bring volunteer training and then the Tanah Lot tour, big day! The Bali Spirit Festival deserves its own post, so we'll jump over training here and come back to it in the next post. Our tour left at around 2pm, we waited in front of Brata 1 and Yande waved us towards the vehicle when it pulled up across the street. The first stop was the Monkey Forest, kind of a cool place, with huge huge trees and an old moss-covered temple complex. Cool place to walk through, but they ripped us off right at the gate because we were tourists. The other two guys on the tour with us were sitting up front and didn't have the werewithal (or perhaps care) to bargain down the price. The lady at the desk gave us all a once-over, talked with the other men in the ticket booth, and then named a group price that came out to more than 2x's the price of entry into Ubud's Monkey Forest. Not cool at all. Colleen and I went back and asked for a receipt and first they pretended they didn't know what we were asking. Then they pretended they had already given the guys one. Then they finally made one. If you ever go, skip the far away monkey forest and just visit the one right in Ubud, that you can walk to. Much cheaper and less sketchy.

After visiting the monkey forest we stopped by an agricultural village and luwak coffee farm. As you may or may not know, Luwak coffee is made from coffee beans that are taken from mongoose droppings. They're cleaned, then cleaned, and then cleaned again, and they make some delicious and expensive coffee. Colleen's description is pretty apt... The Mongoose eats the bean and it's body only digests the outer coating and then passes the bean through the body and the farmers collect, peel, and roast them and then charge the world's highest price for coffee. We had the opportunity to smell it, nice but not worth $20 for a cup. After that, we drove to the rice patty fields and walked along the road and took some photos of a beautiful expanse of farmland, some of the brightest greens we've laid our eyes on. We didn't stay there too long, just enough time to explore with our eyes.

Our last stop was Tanah Lot, which means 'land in the sea' in Balinese, and it is a holy place to worship the Balinese sea gods. Tanah Lot has been around for centuries and is one of 7 sea temples around the Island of Bali. Each sea temple was placed within eyesight of another to form a chain around the south-western part of Bali (facts compliments of Wikipedia). Once we got there we explored around the temple and looked at all of the neat rocks (Dawne was in heaven) and sat and watched the sunset and the throngs of tourists, as we took some great pictures. Once the sun set, we took even more beautiful pictures of the ocean and sunset annnnnnd each other, obviously. If you ever find yourself in Bali make sure you visit Tanah Lot at sunset, and stay past the time when the sun actually sets, because the best colors emerge after the sun is down. We promise you won't be disappointed. At the end of that busy afternoon/evening we had a long but really good car ride. Dawne thought we were lost a few times, but it wouldn't be all that suprising considering the lack of street signs in some parts of the island. The ride reminded me of when it is in between spring and summer in Philadelphia and the windows are rolled down on a winding, tree covered road and you can smell all of the nature surrounding you and it makes you feel more alive and refreshed and happy. It's a beautiful feeling. It was a great end to a great day. We got home safe and sound and got ready for the next morning, first morning of the Bali Spirit Festival! We hopped into bed, happy and excited.

So, part of the reason we opted for the Best Western (aside from its free breakfast buffet which was huge and awesome and amazing) was that Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu new year, would fall during our stay in Kuta. Nyepi is like no other new year we've known. The day prior to Nyepi day is like our New Years Eve, with celebrations and dancing, but it is also filled with ceremonies and parades through the streets of each larger town.

As we walked and drove throughout Buitan, Manggis, and Candidasa during our time at IHF, we would often spot huge Nyepi demons or evil spirits being built for the parade on Nyepi eve. While they range in size from child to elephant, most are bigger than a person, so you can imagine the time and thought that go into creating the frame (usually bamboo) the body (papier mache) and the finishing touches (paint! fabric! glitter! hair! lights! etc....) The day of Nyepi eve was quieter during the early part of the day. Many shops were closed in preparation for the evening, and the main street in Kuta was closed to car/bus traffic. We wandered around, and as the day went on, more Nyepi statues began making their way onto the sidewalks and into the street. Some of these pieces are just plain incredible. Just look at the pictures... so much time and care goes into creating an awesomely grotesque and/or scary-looking piece of art that will eventually be burned (part of the ritual).

We spent our afternoon walking around Kuta, admiring the statues as they came out. We munched on cupcakes for lunch which were half price since the bakery would be closing early :) We wandered down towards the end of the main street and took a moment to visit the memorial for the 2002 Kuta bombing, which was a pair or trio of bombs that killed over 200 people. Very very sad to see all of the names on a beautifully designed monument. We walked back to our hotel for a quick rest, and then went back out to find dinner and get ready to watch the Nyepi eve festivities. Throughout the afternoon, we had asked at least 4 different people about the timing of the evenings' events, and of course, we had gotten 4 entirely different answers, so we figured we'd just try to hang around the main street.

As we were finishing dinner, the sun went down, and the statues, manned by anywhere from four kids, to 16 strong men (depending on the size) began being lifted and carried down the street towards the temple, in front of which, each team would 'perform' and dance and show their piece before making their way to the beach, where the statues would live before burning. We threaded our way up the now-packed street and looked over at one point to see a girl we'd crossed paths with a few times earlier in the day. We smiled and waved, and then we decided to just make our way over to her and say hello, there had to be a reason we kept seeing each other!

Kathrin is from Germany and was a great Nyepi eve pal to have found! She was game for trying to get closer to the action, and we all happily chatted about Bali and Kuta and our homes and Nyepi and beer! The streets were getting more and more filled, so we just sort of slid our way up towards the temple when there were gaps of space between statues being carried. At times, this meant that we were caught within the movement of the parade, there was no space on the sidewalk, and nobody seemed too concerned with our being there in the middle of the parade, so we gladly inched our way as close as we could get. Once we couldn't move much closer, we watched as they presented each creation to the crowds of people. They each had an opportunity to do a dance to live drumming with the Nyepi creature, then everyone cheered and the creature got marched off toward the sea. After we parted ways with the crowd we decided to go find the Nyepi creations that were being place down by the ocean. It was really neat to see them all set up mext to one another.

After talking a bit more we parted with Kathrin shortly after, then Colleen and I made our way home going as far as we could in the sand, then cutting through the expensive-looking hotel that had become our shortcut to our hotel. Things were quieting down and 90% or stores and restaurants were already closed. We got to our room and settled into bed, excited to see what the following day would be like. The silence of Nyepi day begins at 6am (though some sources told us it began earlier, at midnite) and was a day like nothing we've experienced before.

Although Nyepi is a Balinese Hindu holiday, it is observed by the entire island out of respect. Traditionally, Nyepi rules don't allow use of any electricity, so no lights, no internet, no tv, no radio, in addition to no live music, dancing, driving... Etc. You are not to leave your home, and there are a designated force of Nyepi police - civilians who patrol the streets - making sure people abide by the rules. If you are caught outside you can be fined (in Balinese $, different from the Indonesian rupiah). On Nyepi, the airport is closed, completely. You can not enter or leave the island, and the only exception to vehicles on the road are absolute medical emergencies. Balinese who observe strictly, fast for the duration of Nyepi (6am-6am), though it seems that as with any holiday, different families each have their own sets of rules.

At our hotel, breakfast was served as usual, but lunch and dinner were encouraged to be taken in-room, using room service or noodles we bought from Circle K the day before (picture enclosed). We were obviously curious about what was and wasn't allowed, since we didn't expect all tourists to be entirely understanding or respectful. When we walked out to the pool area, were were surprised to find all chairs occupied and plenty of folks sunning and relaxing. We had brought our books down and sat and read for about half an hour, but it was odd sitting by the pool during a day when we weren't to be doing so, so we went back to our room, on the quieter side of the hotel and read some. Many larger hotels kept internet and electricity functioning for their guests (though tv and radio were shut down island-wide), so we took advantage of having internet, and did some blogging and research into the next few weeks of our trip, and FaceTimed with Dan. We opened the window in our room and enjoyed the relative silence of a normally bustling place. Nyepi didn't stop nature from having a normal day, so we heard plenty of birds, buzzing things, and street dogs playing around, but none of the usual din of traffic or simply... life.

Right around sundown, we heard a knock on our door, and a band of the civilian police asked us politely to pull our curtains securely shut so no light leaked out. We were welcome to use our lights, but only if they were invisible from the outside. By 7:30, we killed our lights, fumbled to our window and pulled aside the drapes to see what it looked like outside. Pitch black! Even emergency hallway lights were off. No sign of lights from anywhere, for as far as we could see. The hotel staff working on dinner clean-up were using flashlights to get around, and a few times, the beam shot up our way as we looked out, and we dove back behind the curtains. It was fun and really great to see everything so dark outside and to have everything become so quiet. We were lucky to have the opportunity to be a part of the Nyepi celebration, and we appreciated a day of quiet and rest.

We finished our last couple of days at IHF teaching, playing UNO and Monopoly, doing work on the Internet, scrubbing the bathroom and front walkways, hanging out and discussing cultural similarities and differences, economics, jokes, stories, and life dreams. After just one week, we'd found a new place to love. We had a great time being there working with the kids and making new friends. We learned things about Bali, the culture, the people, ourselves and could not be happier with the experience we had while visiting IHF. Thank you to everyone who is a part of the organization, you are wonderful and we are grateful that you do what you do!

Goodbye IHF, oh hey Kuta!

We caught the Perama bus to Kuta for 60,000 idr each. Shinta helped us get a pick-up at the top of IHF's street, so we didn't have to lug our bags (or bemo it) into Candidasa. We waited and waited on the side of the road, hopping around to avoid ant bites, tons of drivers stopping and asking if we needed a ride, and eventually, about 40 minutes later than they'd said, a little VWish thing labeled 'Perama' pulled up and we climbed in. We stopped for 20 minutes in Padang Bai to board a bigger bus, and then slowly made our way towards Kuta via Ubud and Sanur. The bus was not AC'd, but plenty of open windows made it decently cool. We sat in the back, where leg room was more generous, though that meant we had to bump through the potholes and crappy roads, a decreasingly exciting way to ride.

We got to the Perama office in Kuta around 4pm, and asked the folks at the info/ticket desk which direction to walk for our hotel. They pointed us in the right direction and we started walking. As usual, things on maps were not quite as they seemed. Bali is full of tiny unnamed streets just like much of Italy, so while we definitely walked in the right general direction, we had to do a bit of back- - or rather, roundabout - tracking to reach the Best Western (which we somehow caught on an insanely cheap promo day when we were looking for a place) but we finally found it! When we arrive in new places, the walk to find the room always seems longer and sometimes more tiring, since we're lugging around our current belongings. It does make it that much sweeter to arrive though :)

The Best Western Kuta is in a lovely setting, located away from the main, busy, tourist-filled roads, which may seem like a con to some, but is usually a pro to us. It means you're more likely to get closer to locals' prices in stores, for cabs, for food... etc. The central courtyard of the BWK has a huge Banyan tree in the center of it, a beautiful thing to have in the center of a hotel. Sometimes we feel like we get shit on with respect to room location (people figure we're young, and won't complain) but here we got the cream of the crop, and we were so grateful! We were not on street-side, so we overlooked the magnificent Banyan on one side, and a beautiful temple compound on the other, and heard only the distant noise of motorbikes and dog barking. The branches of the tree were so full that during the first heavy rain, we were looking out of our window, feeling really damn confused, because we could hear the pouring rain on the roof above us, but could see a completely dry courtyard below. It takes the rain a full 5-10 minutes to begin working its way through that awesome tree! Amazing!

We spent most of our time in Kuta wandering around, sometimes talking to folks, searching for the cheapest happy hour menus, turning down 'transport!?' offers, and basking in the sun, and sometimes rain. Kuta is the main tourist town in Bali, and is home to a gorgeous beach that appears to be taken for granted, since as we walked along it during low tide, we walked on more trash that was half-buried in the sand, than we were expecting to see. It was almost Atlantic-city esque, minus the tall hotels and casinos. Sometimes, it's a comforting break to be among so many tourists, since you can expect that English will be more predominant, and since we don't do dumb things like parade around daily wearing the local beer shirt, designer sunglasses, booty shorts, or any carry purses or puppies, we don't tend to be the targets of as much of the hassle to 'buy, look, try on...' Though we WERE often the target of 'more tattoo?' calls.

Our first night, we found a place that had $3 pizzas, Omg. That means $3 for a whoOooole pizza, and buy US standards, it was probably a medium-sized one. Thank the lord. We each downed one, and loved it, especially considering they also had large Bintang Beers for about $2.50 USD, nice! We had a great time chatting and being excited about being in Bali and eating our delicious pizzas. After getting full and maybe just a hair tipsy, we walked back home to lay in our huge comfy bed in our welcomed air conditioned room. Yay!
Next up, Nyepi! Stay tuned :)

Friday, March 17, we taught three classes, a packed afternoon! We were sweating our buns off in the upstairs classrooms, but it was obviously worth it. We taught sea life and body parts and the kids got to do some coloring. I was impressed, to say the least, some of the artwork was pretty darn creative and well-done! Prized high-fives were given out upon completion of parts of the lesson. It would be awesome to be able to return and offer some sort of art studio class at the Bali Center (or at any IHF center, for that matter).

Saturday we had a quiet morning, all sitting around the big table doing life-related tasks. Dawne filed her taxes, woohoo! Around 11:30 ish, we started prepping the laptops for computer class, which sounds like it was offered at one point in time, but hadn't been held for a while. Many of the laptops at the center are older and are quite testy, but we had enough functioning for the kids to share, by 1:00, 7 or 8 of the older students (not seniors though) had sat themselves down with us around the table. We played typing games, word games with spelling and sentences, and some silly photo games as a fun finish. Shinta had been unsure of how long the kids would be able to focus for on a Saturday afternoon, but none of them were even paying attention to the time, and when 3pm rolled around, most were reluctant to leave. After two hours of being reminded of our computer lesson days, us 'grown-ups' happily jumped on the computers and played typing and reflex games for a little while, as though we were simply the eeeeven older class.

Sunday, a new volunteer was flying in, so all four of us - Colleen, Hussein, and Shinta, and I - piled into the car with Aggie and headed towards Denpasar. We stopped to pick up some mangosteen from the open market near Manggis, and we made a quick stop at Circle K for some TimTams (delicious cookie snack things) and bottles of water. Traffic wasn't too terrible, though there were a few dicey stretches where the roads were down to one lane due to trucks that were lined up and waiting to board the ferry to Lombok, which had been on strike for a few days. When we got to the airport, the ladies waited in the car, while the dudes went to pick up the new volunteer, Adib. He arrived safely from Java, and we all said hello's and hi's and headed it of the airport complex and on toooooo... karaoke! What better way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon? We rented a karaoke room for two hours and sang songs from just about every genre (except maybe opera...) and we obviously sang our hearts out. Hussein danced some, and Adib seemed unsure of what was going on, but we belted out tunes til our time was up, then we headed to McDonald's for Hussein's very first dining experience there (picture was included in the previous entry). He told us that they do not have McDonald's in Iran (not a surprise) since our governments haven't always had the best relations. He was so excited, and we insisted that he have a seat next to Ronald on the bench outside so we could document his visit. He was unsure of what to buy, so Colleen encouraged him to try a Big Mac, it's signature Mc Donald's. He liked it. Particularly the special sauce. We assured him that it was absolutely fine to only eat McDonald's once or twice in life, and we made our merry way out. Sleepy, and ready to nap on the car ride home. A good day! Time for dinner, some Uno, some reading, and finally... bed.