Day 1 (Thursday) - Travel to Bali
Singapore Airlines was the best airline experience I have ever had…better than first class in the US and even better than Business class to Beijing on United (which really sucks). Elegant, attractive, and gentle flight attendants served hot towels, hot breakfast and a hot lunch with real silverware along with toys for the kids on a brand new 777 with personal entertainment centers for each seat and about 30 movies to choose from. It rocked. Our brief layover in Singapore afforded us the ability to have some Burger King. The first bite made me miss the US…the last bite reminded me why I don’t eat Burger King in the US. Long day of travel…checked into hotel where there wasn’t a 3rd bed. Lisa slept on a mattress on the floor (her choice because maddy and I both kick).
Day 2 (Friday) - Toured
Scoped out neighborhood around hotel and walked to the beach. We found a better hotel with a suite next to the beach for only $20 more. Booked it, checked out of other hotel…paid penalty but it was worth it because the first one was better suited to adults with no kids. Hired a driver, visited temples, wood carving factories, a Balinese home, and had a great lunch at swank restaurant in a rice paddy. We then drove to the Dreamland surf beach followed by our trip to Ulu Watu temple perched high on the cliffs of Nusa Dua where monkeys seemed to own the place. We watched a traditional fire-dance, had a great fish dinner on the beach at Jinbarin Bay, went home and slept like rocks.
Day 3 (Saturday) - Boat Trip to Lembognan Island
Despite missing the free shuttle from the hotel, we made it to the port to catch the boat to Lembognan Island. We chilled out on the beach, snorkled, swam, rode the banana and had a great bbq lunch with traditional Indonesian food. Returned to the hotel and went swimming with maddy. Noticed a nasty sunburn on one part my back that I could reach. Went to Poppies restaurant where we SMS’d another US family from Beijing to join us. Had great service until about 7:30 pm when the wait-staff virtually disappeared. Spent 2 restless hours only leave onto a dark, scary street. Found a driver to shuttle us all back to our respective hotels.
Day 4 (Sunday) - Laying Low
Awoke to the news about the bombings and realized that we were only a few blocks from the one in Kuta and that our restaurant from the night before was only 100 meters from the beach cafe that was bombed. Damn terrorists. We hired our same driver from Friday and went to the Hyatt and camped out with our friends and played on the water slide all day at the pool. Went back to Ulu Watu with them. Their daughter’s glasses were stolen by a monkey and we had to pay a local woman to bribe the monkey with food to get them back. Afterwards, we went to dinner at Blue Point which was the most beautiful restaurant in the world perched up on the cliffs above the indian ocean.
Day 5 (Monday) - Elephants
Hired our driver again to take us to the elephant park. At the entrance to the park, the other family was broad-sided by a girl on a motorcycle which showered glass all over their kids. She was fine but our friends were freaked out. We rode elephants and headed back to the Hyatt for another day in the pool followed by dinner at the restaurant at the Hyatt.
Day 6 (Tuesday) - Fly to Singapore
Didn’t want to leave Bali but we had to catch an early morning flight to Singapore. Arrived around noon and hung out at Funan electronics mall. Headed over to the Singapore Plaza mall where we had dinner followed by going to a real, honest to goodness, movie…The Dukes of Hazard. Our desire to see a movie, especially one set in Georgia outweighed our parental discretion as there were quite a few things that Maddy shouldn’t have seen. She claims that we didn’t corrupt her innocent little mind…I surely hope not.
Day 7 (Wednesday) - Chilled Out
Had breakfast at Funan and went to Raffles City Center mall and spent the better part of the morning there shopping and simply basking in the rays of western civilization and commercialism.
Day 8 (Thursday) - $30 worth of disappointment
Maddy and I were on a mission to go to a water park. After spending $15 on cab fare to cross the island, we experienced the scene from the movie Vacation “sorry folks…’ park’s closed…the moose out front should have told you”. $15 back into the city and Maddy and I spent a good portion of the day at the pool while Lisa explored Raffles hotel and shopping areas. We went back to the Long Bar at Raffles and had some Singapore slings followed by a $280 (singapore dollar = $180) dinner at the Long Bar Steak House at Raffles. Yeee-ouch! But it was really good…the $3 meals in China afford you this type of splurge twice a year.
Day 9 (Friday) - Solo
Visited the Apple office and had a meeting with the marketing folks for Asia while Lisa and Maddy went shopping. Met back with Lisa and Maddy for lunch and embarked on my mission to replace the earpads of my Bose headphones. I took the wonderful MRT train out to the area near the airport, followed by a $2 cab ride to the shipping warehouse for Bose’s importer. They had a nice, clean office. $50US and an hour later, I was on my way back to town to shop for a bunch of technical books. We then took a bus out to the Marina Center Mall and had another good dinner. We went to Suntec City Mall and got duckboat tour info followed by a laser show at the Fountain of Wealth which the largest fountain in the world (too bad they don’t have the largest gumball too).
Day 10 (Saturday) - Duck Boat Tour and Dinner with Ethyl
Headed back to Suntec to hook up on the duck boat tour which is very overrated. I had many people say we should do it but it was a total waste of money. $10 in cab fare and you could have seen the same things. I guess to some, driving a truck into the drink is just…oh so exciting. I think we were also cooked at this point and ready to get home. We ate at Swensens…yes…the ice cream place that you don’t see in the US anymore. They are all over Singapore…almost as bad as Starbucks. Combined with the fact that Dep hair gel is *the* premium brand in China, I would derive that fading brands seem to be one of America’s favorite exports. For dinner we visited the home of a lovely woman who we share a mutual friend with in Atlanta. She’s a school teacher at the US intl. school in Singapore. Alergies were going ballistic so I called a cab to take me to the drug store and back to this woman’s house…yes…they were that bad.
Day 11 (Sunday) - Flying Home
Woke up at 5:30, finished packing, headed to the airport to catch our 8:45 flight back to Beijing. Had breakfast at the airport, bought another set of headphones and waited for our flight. I have never welcomed air travel but I truly looked forward to traveling on Singapore Airlines and didn’t leave my seat for the entire 5.5 hour flight back to Beijing…it’s that enjoyable. Mr. Lu picked met us at the customs checkpoint at the Beijing airport and were were really glad to see him and started telling him about our great adventure only to realize that we were back in China where nobody understands a thing we are saying. Oh well.
Leave a Reply