i'm back from Bali! actually we didnt even manage to do much there :( we went sight-seeing, shopping at the street markets (not much to buy actually they were all selling the same stuff!), went on a cruise and did a little bit of sea activities, and that was basically it! all i brought back with me was a tan and more fats i'm sure because i ate three solid meals a day not including the snacks and i feel really fat :(
bear with me, i have like 200 pictures to share :( massive photo spammage! i took over 700 pictures in the 3 days we spent there. and had a hard time choosing only 200! (but because flickr only allows the last 200 pictures uploaded to show for free accounts so i had to keep to 200 pictures)
day zero: off to bali we go!
i have to tell the epic story of how we were late for our flight, for nearly an hour! -.- apparently the lady from the tour agency who checked us in told us the flight was at 7 something, so we took it to mean the boarding time was 7 something and we reached the airport at like 5ish thinking that our flight boarding time was 735PM and even waited at starbucks for almost 45 mins then sauntered over to the departure gate and tried to go through but we were told that our luggage has been unloaded and the plane was due to fly at 715PM?! mad panicked -.- apparently the flight time was 635PM and we got it wrong didnt check properly! thank god the plane waited for us and they allowed us to board in the end! but the captain asked to speak to daddy though hahaha like being sent to principal's office eh. good thing everything was ok in the end and they didnt penalise us or anything like that.
leaving the house
fat Baby wanted to come along but was chased back home
en route to the airport in the cab
reached! lina looking all papparazzi rockstarish
and we were given these silly badges with numbers behind
mummy "see my passport photo, very young hor?" *complacent tone*
at the airport DFS!
and where we spent our time waiting at starbucks while the whole plane was waiting for us -.-
bought from the DFS bookstore for the plane ride!
arrived at Bali in the late evening, safe and intact :D
there were mad many people waiting outside the arrival hall with all kinds of signs
bus stopped us outside circle K for us to do our "grocery shopping", circle K is their version of 7-11 and it's EVERYWHERE
and we reached the hotel, we stayed at this hotel called the grand inna bali beach hotel something or other and it was pretty good, clean spacious and facing the see!
freaky statue on the reception counter, reminds me of all those old balinese/asian myths folktales of demons and half human monsters..
nice big mirror for me to camwhore in :D
lina and i shared a room :)
our stash of snacks in case we got hungry at night :X
and it was off to bed!
day one: sight-seeing and street shopping
we didnt really do much except visit the local sights, which included a temple, a volcano and some emperor's (notveryimpressive) palace. followed by shopping at the local street markets! the locals there are all out to target the tourists though. Bali is an island that really thrives on tourism and almost every industry there is somehow tourist-related. they quote you very high prices at the stalls and expect you to bargain down the prices with them, and alot of them can speak not-too-bad chinese! most of the stalls are selling similar stuff though so it got abit boring after awhile.
wore the printed bandage skirt dress :)
view from our hotel room balcony! pretty awesome.
off for breakfast at the hotel restaurant, it was really empty because we went down real early around 6 plus?
and the beautiful view!
breakfast consisted of rice, mashed potato, veggies, sausages and keropok. pretty good on day 1.
tucking in!
and pictures around the hotel grounds, at the swimming pool next to the beach :)
daddy and mummy holding hands, awwwwwww
mummy and her favourite activity: shopping!
trying on a straw hat which was not bad, but we didnt get it in the end
random plant shot haha there'll be more ahead i like taking pretty pictures of random things!
visited a batik factory first thing after breakfast!
the usual touristy stuff: explaining how batik is made, its origins, how to wear a sarong and etc
you can bring along a white tshirt if u want the batik artists to do an artwork for you. spot the spongebob squarepants and patrick?
demonstrating one of the many ways to wear a sarong
i was made to wear it in a most unflattering manner :( quite unfair, because i saw some other ladies being used to be demonstrated on and they were wearing it in the nicest tube/toga styles! zzz totally killed my lemming to get the sarong after seeing the crap way it was worn on me.
colored thread for weaving carpets
and it's all worked by hand with the machines
spongebob and patrick in the making
so ended up not getting any batik sarongs because like my dad said we'd hardly get a chance to wear them, anyway.
on to the next couple locations, which was to a sculpture house (no pictures allowed but all the wood carvings were amazing!) and then a 45 min bus ride up to a volcanic spot!
i sneakily took a shot with the camera slinged over my shoulder :X
the various hawkers who wait outside tourist attractions to try to get you to buy their goods, they are really persistent!
and on the mountains where it was actually pretty cold, like outdoor aircon! i thought it was gonna be a hot day so i didnt bother to bring my jacket out :( but the wind was really chilly up there, and it even rained for a bit and got even colder.
we had our lunch at a buffet style restaurant on the mountains as well:
polaroid!
and the really magnificent view of the mountain range after the rain cleared up. it's an actual live volcano btw, those black areas are volcanic ash or something from the last eruption.
then we moved on to one of the local temples,
a scrungy but extremely friendly little dog
they have these pools outside the temple meant for the locals to cleanse themselves before going into the temple to pray and ask for blessings
while us tourists have to wear sarongs (if our legs are uncovered) and the yellow sash before going in
an adorable little caucasian kid in there
after exiting the temple,
we have to walk through a stretch of street market before reaching the carpark,
it's a grand scheme for the locals to try to get more business out of tourists because you have to walk through by hook or by crook in order to reach your bus! and the stall keepers can be really pushy as well, they'll keep on persuading you to buy and to bargain their prices lower, they'll even hold you by the arm to try to get you to stay whilst keeping up their constant persuading and price offers.
these pinocchio puppets were really cute
they were selling all these weird... tools in the form of dicks -.- soooo weirdddd
finally exited that particular street market but we went on to visit another after seeing the emperor's palace there, i think no pictures of that because it wasnt particularly interesting and i have over 700 pictures of which only about 200 are up here!
ice cream! it was a hot humid day.
a myraid of textiles and patterns
there was this most adorable little kitten hiding in a corner of one shop,
she looked like a little leopard but was really cute
they have alot of paintings of three balinese women, wonder if theres any particular significance to it.
wayang kulit? so intricate, i wonder how they're made.
the typical freaky balinese wooden sculpture
time for dinner,
we were brought to this restaurant to eat what the tour guide called "髒鴨",
loosely translated as "dirty duck", it's preserved duck then deepfried? whatever it was, it was very salty, like salted fish! -.-
still not too bad though, very tasty save for the sodium overload
and this is the portion per person. GIANT. tell me how not to get fat when you eat three meals a day like this :(
another little kitten at the restaurant with a collar of string and which kept mewling at us throughout dinner, she probably wanted abit of food but i didnt dare to feed her any because the food was so salty -.-
day two: on to the sea!
was disappointing because the other cruise to the more happening island (read: jetskiing, parasailing and other fun stuff) was fully booked so we went on a different cruise and only did some not-so-exciting activities like submarine-ing (by submarine, they really mean this little boat with a bottom with glass windows zzz) snorkling, and the banana boat ride -.- the weather was extremely sunny too zzzzz and i piled on the sunblock like nobody's business but i still got darker :( terrible this sun.
plus i got seasick too, and ended up puking very unglamly into the ocean after like 2 hours out on sea :/ i've never been able to tolerate riding on small boats :( quite sad! only the snorkling part was cool because we did get to see some fish and corals. no pictures of that though because i didnt want to risk my camera getting wet! we brought a waterproof film camera in a plastic housing but somehow it wasnt screwed tightly and water got in anyway :X no idea if the pictures will still come out properly!
breakfast, omelette from the eggs station. i found a dead little cockroach floating in my orange juice and got rather turned off from breakfast.
was wearing a sundress we bought the day before at the street markets, it only cost like 30,000 rupiah? which works out to be less than five dollars i think! quality wasnt that good la but just bought it to wear out to the sea haha! shows off my not very nice nor defined back though eeee. i hate my fat back :( oh and the flower clip that mummy bought a box of the day before!
the boat/ship we rode on, it was pretty huuuge, three decks, food on deck 1, live band on deck 2 and dj on deck 3 lol
me in my flower beach girl get up lol
mumsy looking like she rolled outta bed
on the boat!
the sun reflecting off the water in pretty sparkly bits
omgggg see the parasailing looks so awesome fun :(
us on the banana boat -.- haha quite wuliao actually the boat just drags you one round around the sea and back you go. mummy was quite entertained though she kept on squealing and shrieking throughout -.-
the snorkling bit! got rather seasick because of the bobbing platform, felt better once i was in the water but the life jacket was so constricting and daddy didnt allow us to take off the life jackets :(
anyways, headed back to dry land after that and we were supposedly going for "seafood and lobster" dinner at a restaurant!
it was rather pathetic in the end :( the lobsters looked like crayfish and the rest of the food was pretty substandard (ie, mummy can cook better sort)
both of us were wearing my ruffled chiffon tops in different prints/cutting haha
the very small lobsters. at least they gave us two each?
after dinner we went shopping at the shopping mall there but it was nothing interesting because it's mostly all brands that singapore carries, like topshop, dorothy perkins and etc but not any cheaper? they even have singaporean brands there like rotiboy, and breaktalk etc! the shopping malls are mostly meant for the caucasians to shop at i think.
a nice picture of daddy and mummy looking all happy! i likey :)
this is when daddy got abit drunk on his whiskey already and got super obliging to smile for the camera -.- if you noticed, he hardly ever smiles for pictures......... only when he's half drunk haha
went back to the hotel and we paid 90,000 rupiah which is 14 dollars sing just for two lousy hours of WI-FI connection? -.-
better than nothing though and i had to at least check the emails if not i'd be worrying about my inbox being flooded when i got back after the 3/4 days...
lina at her turn on the netbook
cup noodles for supper!
day three: check out and back home!
lina and i woke up early to catch the sunrise and take pictures, since it was our last day in Bali already!
pardon the picture spammage of the sunrise but it was really beautiful :) definitely worth the waking up at 5am!
wore this really comfy and lightweight chiffon back top that's probably launching in TVD's next collection tmr :)
this looks so fake CGI because it was taken with flash on so theres two separate lighting going on in the picture haha! but i swear it wasnt photoshopped!
lovely picture with very nicely composed silhouettes. it was a non-posed shot ok because all those people out there were random strangers!
lina did a jump shot, so i attempted one too..
but it ended up really ugly LOL. i need to learn how to bend my legs back when i jump to avoid looking like a frog :( lol EPIC FAIL :(
the sun rays beginning to glimmer through the clouds
tried playing with the art modes on my camera, this is the grainy b/w film mode
and pop art, which made the colors awesome
a man brought his dog down for a swim :)))
my slippers half sunken into the sand, i nearly thought someone stole them cos i couldnt find them for abit.
and the sun finally showing itself :)
gorgeous!
headed for breakfast afterwards, when daddy discovered another small cockroach (a live one this time!!!) burrowing through the glass noodles. total turn-off from breakfast :( we ate up and then went for a last stroll around the hotel grounds to take a few more pictures before checking out.
they had a corridor full of paintings for sale, this cat one had pretty colors and its really cute :)
right outside the hotel, there is this little glass structure called the Diamond Chapel, and apparently it costs three thousand USD to hold your wedding ceremony in that space o_0 but well to give it its due credit, it was really pretty and the view from inside the chapel of the sea would have been just amazing :)
outside the flight of stairs leading up to the Diamond Chapel
what it looks like, if you can visualise it it's actually a really breathtaking view from inside :)
there was a pretty white swing outside the chapel too :)
nice polaroid that i took of mummy and lina outside the chapel!
wow daddy is smiling here!
posing with this red brick wall lol
damn act but it actually turned out quite cute hahaha :X
back at the hotel where we had to wait for check out time at 930am, was tinkering with the piano at the lobby but i dont really know how to play it very well laa. just showing off the top cos it has a sheer chiffon back which is kinda cool!
then we went off to the local produce shops for the last round of shopping, then to lunch and to the airport!
colorful bears known as bath buddies, they hold a bar of soap inside and are supposed to be used to shower! so cute.
i just thought this picture was funny :X
lina with a cute girl from the tour group, she was very shy and didnt want to be photographed by us!
had lunch at this hongkong restaurant called feyloon, it was probably the best meal we had the entire trip lol but it was self-paid by daddy and cost quite a fair bit.
roast duck!
they had really huge la-la over there, like palm sized shells compared to the puny ones here?
fried toufu is always good :)
steamed fish!
was so stuffed, then we came across this really unique yogurt shop at the mall called Sour Sally and had to try it,
it was really good!! comparable with Yami and Yoguru and all the rest, the toppings were quite refreshing, they had this mochi topping which actually went quite well with the fro-yo :D :D :D i love fro-yo!!!
awesomeness. then we went to the airport, took the flight back to sg and arrived to clear blue skies with nice fluffy clouds!
apparently it's been raining alot in sg since we left. how sad that i've had to suffer the terribly hot sun in Bali while everyone else was enjoying the nice cool weather in sg! :(
otw back home from the airport and this is the last picture in the entry!!!!!!!!!!!!
PHEW! hope you all managed to get this far! haha i do love the pictures though :) super long-winded entry i know but wanted to just put up everything and get it over and done with! yayness. back to life and emails and work and all that jazz. it was a nice short respite away from sg regardless :) and family time is always a good thing.
am off to bed now! :)
