Back from Bali

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook (all of you?) will have already seen my photos from the time I spent in Bali (December 21 - January 6). Two whole amazing weeks! The trip was basically as good as I'd hoped it would be. The following is a very unpoetic summary of how I spent those two weeks, written mostly so that I have some record of it. For the pictures, click here.

December 21 - December 25:

1. Flew in to Denpasar (the main airport in Bali). Met up with Holly, Tabitha, Jackie, and Jon (the other Fellows).
• Tabitha, Holly, and I were supposed to be picked up at the airport by the owners of the bungalow, so when no one showed up, we weren't really sure where to go. After more and more stressed-out searching, Tabitha finally found it! Although it was a little shabbier in person than the pictures, it was a very cute little spot, with our own (sort of murky green?) pool and tiny kitchen. 
2. During our time in Seminyak, we mostly just ate (at our favorite restaurant we discovered on the first day, Lanai--huevos rancheros!! Mexican food??!!!), swam in the pool, swam in the ocean (which was pretty polluted, sadly), and chilled on the lounge chairs reading books and trying to turn away vendors who kept coming by. Although I did end up buying a sarong and a manicure/pedicure. Yes, you can get a pretty decent pedicure on the beach! 
3. One foray that was more cultural: we visited Ulu Watu temple, which is a Balinese temple located right on a the edge of a steep cliff overlooking the ocean. It was a REALLY hot day, but the beautiful view made up for it. And the monkey that stole Tabitha's water bottle out of her hand and drank it like a human. 
4. Spent the last night in the Seminyak area at a different hotel, since the bungalow was booked for Christmas night. Pro: an actually clean pool to swim in. Con: we had to split up into different rooms.

December 26 - 28:

1. Moved to Oka Wati Hotel (a little tropical paradise in itself!) in Ubud, away from the coast, but more of the "cultural center" of Bali. SUCH A COOL SPOT. Suddenly, I felt like I was in a totally new place (whereas Seminyak had still felt kind of like Indonesia, despite the increased number of scantily-clad bules). 
2. Did practically nothing except walk around the streets, shop a little, get caught in the rain a little, and eat lots of delicious health food (wheatgrass juice, tofu, semi-healthy pizza).

December 28:

1. My friends left super-early this day, while I stuck around to meet my parents the next day. Signed up for a jewelry-making workshop at silver store, for $35. Didn't realize how much work goes into making a ring! But glad that I essentially got to make exactly what I'd wanted: three narrow rings, one plain, one with a stamped triangle pattern, and one with a small peridot gemstone on it. The teacher may have been a little frustrated with me (although he didn't show it) because 1. apparently putting a small gemstone on a ring is kind of difficult, so he had to help me a lot, and eventually did it himself, and 2. when I polishing one of my rings by holding it up to a really-fast spinning buffering machine, I accidentally let go of the ring, and it flew out of my hands, and the teacher had to take apart the whole room looking for it. Oops. 

December 29 - January 3

1. Morning of parents' arrival: paid to be part of a guided hike up to the top of Mt. Batur, one of the more famous peaks of Bali (other than Mt. Agung, which turned out to be way too high for me to attempt). Got picked up at 3am, and met the other members of my group, which were all coincidentally single travelers about the same age as me! One French guy now living in Melbourne, one Canadian, and one Singaporean girl also living in Melbourne. We had a great, relatively-fast-paced hike up in the light of a full moon and amazingly clear skies. Watched the sun rise over Mt. Agung at about 6:15am. 
2. PARENTS ARRIVE! Woo hoo! They checked in to the Oka Wati, where they booked a family room, which meant that I have to sleep in a separate, tiny bed meant for a child. 27 years old and sleeping in the kid's bed with my parents. Ah well.
3. Highlights from their trip:
• Went to see a dance/music performance three nights. First night: Legong (Balinese) dance and music. Second night: Shadow puppet performance at the store where my mom took a Balinese instruments music class. The puppet show was hilarious because it was definitely adapted for the foreign tourists; a lot of it was in English, and it was only an hour long (traditional puppet shows go literally all night long). Third night: Saw a children's performance of Legong dance, with an all-female gamelan orchestra. 
• Took an all-day eco bike tour around Bali with my dad, where we got to eat breakfast at a lookout of Mt. Batur and Mt. Agung, then bike to a "kopi luwak" (civet coffee) farm and sample lots of varieties of coffee and teas and fruits. Then biked down to get a tour of a typical Balinese home (where the people were still living and working, weaving bamboo), then walked around a gorgeous rice paddy and helped harvest the rice a little, and then saw a banyan tree. Finally, we chose to take the last leg of the ride uphill (you can choose if you want downhill or uphill for the last leg) and nearly died biking uphill in direct sunlight about at 2pm in the afternoon. 
• Visited the ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art), an art gallery of traditional and modern Indonesian art. Took a batik-making class with my mom, who I talked into giving it a try. Her batik turned out gorgeous, and mine turned out OK. She did a Japanese-inspired pattern, and I did a picture of an Indonesian cat (with the stubby tail). 

January 3 - 6 

1. Took a taxi to Sanur, a coastal city on the southeast tip of Bali. Arrived there in a HUGE downpour, and had to run into our hotel room and hide out until the rain stopped, a few hours later. Went to a delicious legit Italian restaurant, called Massimo's, where we had two dishes of pasta, pizza, and tiramisu and gelato. YESSS. At dinner, we walked to a restaurant that sold, according to Lonely Planet, the best banana smoothie in all of Bali. It was pretty darn good. AND they had live jazz! that was good!
2. Went snorkeling in the partial sun, saw some beautiful fish just 5-minutes' boat ride from the shore. Sadly, because the weather was pretty cloudy, they didn't look quite as vibrant as one might hope, but we were still satisfied after an hour of snorkeling. 
3. Walked around town and had a few meals right on the beach, including a traditional Balinese meal of fried snapper. It was aiight. (I still preferred Italian--my parents indulged me and we went back to Massimo's on our last night.)
4. On our last day in Bali, we tried to go snorkeling again, because the sun seemed to be stronger, but after taking the boat out for about an hour and not finding anywhere good to get out (the waves were too choppy), we gave up and came back. And then caught the flight back to Surabaya! (I use an exclamation mark here, but in reality, we were all a little bummed to leave Bali.)

January 6 - 8

1. Back at the Surabaya Sheraton (lap of luxury!), we shopped for a batik for my dad (it's REALLY hard to find batik patterns that don't look ridiculous back in the States), then got pretty decent Japanese food at Sushi Tei, a chain upscale restaurant in the huge mall, Tunjungan Plaza. 
2. On our only full day together in Surabaya, my mom unfortunately had a flare-up of her eye infection that she'd had before leaving the States, so she wasn't up to people seeing her with red eyes, and chose to stay home. My dad and I went to my school to get a tour of the campus and meet my two counterparts, Bu Wahju and Pak Milal. They then took us to see the second-largest mosque in Indonesia, Masjid Al-Akbar, where we got to go up in the minaret and see a pretty decent view of the city. My counterparts even drove us all the way back to the hotel, where my mom was able to come down and meet them briefly.
3. On the last night, we all went to see a ludruk performance (the traditional East Javanese music performance that tells a story), where Steve, the Fulbright researcher, was playing in a live radio broadcast for RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia). 
4. At 4am, my parents left the hotel room to catch a flight at 6am, and safely flew home. And I went back to campus. Sniff. Back to reality. But first I got to eat the all-you-can eat meal at the hotel and use the free gym. 

Mom and Dad, I had a wonderful time with you! Come book soon, OK?