Hi Everyone,
Sorry this post is so overdue... we got home a week ago, but you know how it is when you get back from holiday and need to be at work a day later... all the unpacking, laundry, groceries, etc. Nevermind uploading the pics to the computer, and then getting them online... the internet is pretty slow around here so it takes literally AGES to get pics onto the blog and facebook, especially when we want to load a whole bunch at a time... sucks, but we live with it. So I've put the best pics on this post (with mega narratives), but if you want to see them ALL, check on facebook under my profile. I've put up 2 of the intended 4 albums so far (one album for each place we visited). If you're not a facebook user (ie- parents), get one of your kids to let you on their facebook and have a look from there.
So here's the overview of our holiday:
Jan 19-23 in Singapore: VERY HOT, great city that was green & clean and quite unlike China, took a double-decker bus tour, ate lots of Indian food as we were staying in Little India, had a job interview that went well but they told us they're not hiring b/c of the financial crisis, went to Sentosa Island which is a man-made beach area, met up with friends (see pics of all this below).
Jan 23-27 in Bali: went surfing right away and loved it- we had a great instructor who showed us the ropes again, walked around the town tons, ate good food, shopped, swam in the hotel pool, watched movies on TV, totally relaxed
Jan 27-Feb 1 on Gili Trawangan: very tiny tropical island with no cars, trucks, motorbikes, or dogs allowed (only horse-drawn buggies and cats!), we snorkelled, swam in the ocean, ate so much yummy food (great restaurant selection there), made new friends from Canada and Slovenia, slept a lot, read books, suntanned (but not too much b/c it was SO hot that we stayed in the shade a lot)
Feb 1-Feb 6 back in Bali: tried to go surfing some more but the weather had turned... it rained every day so hard that we couldn't see (bad for surfing!), shopped a bit more, swam in the pool whenever it wasn't raining, I got a bit sick for a few days so had to lay low, got suckered into going to a timeshare presentation which was WAY too long but o well
Feb 6-7 in Hong Kong: we totally had to Amazing Race it thru HK as we only had one day... we saw what we wanted to, but really, it just seemed like another big Asian City which we already experience daily in Shanghai, so not that big a deal for us... the good part was the weather which was in the low 20's... very nice
And now for the pics...
The "Singapore Flyer"... a ferris wheel kinda like the London Eye, except even bigger.
The Sinapore Museum... looked pretty interesting, but the beach was beckoning!
A big Hindu temple... it's supposed to look really old, but they actually just built it a couple years ago
The older Hindu temple... look closely to see all the neat carvings on top- very intricate and colorful
View of China-town from the top of the double-decker bus... I think this was the back end of it... the front looked much nicer... just like China, but with a bit more polish
Andrew manages to find a guitar to play no matter what country we're in. He was debating taking his own guitar along on the trip, but we figured it would be too much to lug around. This pic is in our tiny Singapore hostel where he entertained the owners with his tunes!
The aformentioned Singapore Hostel... this is our room which was teeny tiny, but did the trick. It was so hot that they only gave us towels as blankets, which we barely even needed
The hallway outside our room at the hostel... see how narrow it was? Plus the walls were made of this cardboard-type stuff... not too sturdy
Our friend Peter and his girlfriend Meggy took us out for dinner to a "hawker" which is like a huge local food court. We tried lots of interesting stuff, the tastiest of which was the BBQ'd stingray... it was really really good!
Sentosa Island- when we'd had enough of the city we escaped to this little jewel of a place
Top of the Luge run at Sentosa... this was super duper fun! It was like go carts without motors- they just ran on gravity. We took a chairlift up the mountain, and then luged down it. They even gave you a "driver's license" stamp on your hand once they thought you were a qualified luger!
Andrew on the luge at the end of the run
Okay, now we're in Bali. This is the Ground Zero monument where the bomb went off in 2002 at O'Riley's pub, killing hundreds of people, mainly Aussies... very sad
Me and Hulio the plastic surfer dude on the streets of Kuta (main tourist city in Bali where the "beginner surfing" is)
Our room at the Vilarisi Hotel in Bali... quite the step up from the Singapore Hostel (and for way cheaper!)
Andrew with Johnny, our surfing teacher. We think he was stoned most of the time (he even wanted to sell us pot on a few occasions!) The orange board was mine, and the American-colored one was Andrew's... I like this board way better than the real long-boards I'd used in Tofino and Morroco... this board is called a "Gun"
We went on a tour of some villas that were being built, mainly b/c our friend Peter (from the Sinapore pic) is having one built that'll look similar to this one. They were amazing! If any of you are interested in renting one ever, let us know- we have the contact details (good for 1-4 families at once- includes a kitchen with a cook, a gardener, a pool boy, etc!)
Andrew with Wendy, a beach seller. Beaches in Bali are NORTORIUS for pesky hawkers trying to sell you anything and everything, and they WON'T let up! Bracelets, necklaces, massages, sunglasses, watches, etc... you name it, they'll sell it to you. If you say no, they just keep following you and lowering the price. If you still say no, they start BEGGING you and asking you to buy it "for good luck" or "to support my business". They are SO annoying, but Andrew was very friendly to them and we ended up having a good chat with this lady. It's always interesting to find out about the lives of the locals.
Okay, now we're on Gili Trawangan island (Gili T for short). Everything on this island has to get shipped in. Here's a boat FULL of floor tiles that's just arrived and being unloaded. Even though you can't tell from this pic, it's mainly the women who do the heavy lifting and carrying, and the men who do the work after that
Want to take a taxi? Sorry, you can't. These cidomos (horse-drawn buggies) are the only way to get you and your heavy tourist suitcase around the island to your hotel/hut. You end up feeling really bad for the poor horse who has to cart several people and ALL their stuff around at once
Our hut didn't have a pool, so we found the nicest pool on the island and set up shop every day... the owner didn't mind as long as we bought lunch there
Some friends we made on the trip. From L-R: Primoz & Azra from Slovenia, and Ted & Brenda from Sarnia (Ontario, Canada). Here we are having a nice Italian dinner, run by a one-man-show called Nino. He was Italian (obviously!) who had married an Indonesian chick and was running a hotel/restaurant there now
This is the boat we took from Bali to Gili T. It travelled at 30 knots an hour and went over some REALLY rough waters. We sat on the very top, bouncing around like yo-yos (there were no real seats up there), wind in our hair, loving life!
We were told that it only takes 1 hour to bike around Gili T, so we rented bikes in the heat of the day for
This is the gazebo-hut where we ate our breakfast every morning... overlooking the clear blue water and the next island over (Gili Meno)
Where we stayed... very cute bungalows. Not sure what they mean by "luxary rooms" on the sign as they were pretty plain, but perfect for beachy accomodations
The garden in front of our place... very tropical
Our little hut- so cute and beachy!
The beach in Kuta, Bali. It's so sad how trashy it is- the reason is that the locals throw their garbage in the river which then washes out to sea, and then washes back up on the beach for a few weeks a year (depending on the ocean currents). It's really gross to swim in the ocean and get all these tiny bits of plastic wrapped around you
The Vilarisi Hotel from the outside. The second time we stayed there our room was on the very left, 3 floors up
I couldn't get this pic to turn around, but it's the outside courtyard of our HK hostel... pretty icky!
Alright, same thing here with not being able to turn it around, but this is the entrance to the HK hostel, downstairs. The hostel owner took us thru this area at break-neck speed the night we arrived... our neon pink suitcase was flailing behind us all the way
Victoria Harbour area of HK. The skyline you can see in the distance is HK island. We were gonna take a harbour tour in one of the green & white boats you can see in the water, but the tour wasn't gonna get back in time for us to catch our flight back to the Shang, so we just walked around the harbour instead
And here we are, relaxed, tanned, and happy at the end of a fabulous holiday! We've gone a bit overboard lately with the Asian peace sign in pics... we'll have to tone that down a LOT before we come back to Canada this summer!
So there you have it! Congrats if you've made it this far in the post... sorry it's so long, but I wanted to get it all out. I think this is about my 3rd or 4th day working on this one post alone... blogger keeps messing things up and I have to go back, fix things, re-format them, etc... big hassle!
After a brief Team AC conference, Andrew and I have come up with the best parts of the trip: being together, the sunshine, the relaxation, and the SURFING!!!!! We def loved that part.
Till next time, I'm finally signing off!
Every girl will, at some point in her life, have issues with shoes, and I'm no exception. Here's the deal: I usually like to look nice when going to work, including wearing nice shoes. This has all changed since moving to Shanghai. As soon as sandle-season was over in early November, I busted out my cute little black ballet-flats, but realized within about 2 days that these were never gonna cut it here. You see, these shoes are quite open on top and there's NO central heating in the school, plus walking to work thru all kinds of weather (while dodging hork, dog crap, massive puddles, and crazy motorbikes on the sidewalk), my feet both freeze and just aren't protected.
