free web tracker soliloquies: 08/08/2004 - 08/15/2004

soliloquies

so・lil・o・quy/- n. [C,U] a speech in a play in which a character talks to himself or herself, so that the audience know the character's thoughts.

Saturday, August 14, 2004

home sweet home


Ah, yes. I've came back to reality from Jimbaran in Bali. The photo above is the sun, setting into the Indian Ocean. The stay there was fabulous...indescribable by words. Its weather, the hotel, its people, the food...everything was just great! Today was mostly transfer. We took off Denpasar Ngurah Rai Airport at 0:55 am, and landed on Narita Airport at 7:55 am. Then comes the usual procedures at the airport...immigration, baggage claim, and customs. And then, from the airport, for the first time in my life, my family took the rapid train, not the Narita Express back home, since the schedule was somewhat convinient for us. The flight was 7 hours long. The train ride home was 2 and a half hours long. What a crappy airport...I'm going to have to write all about it in my thesis...oh reality! Damn. lol By the way...it's sooooooooo hot in Japan. Geographically, a place located at 10S is hotter than a place located at 35N. Well, it's not normal then...lol

Friday, August 13, 2004

day 5


Fifth day. Today, my family just walked around the hotel, and goofed around the most of the day. My sister and dad went in the pool AGAIN, while I shopped for some souvenirs. My mom went take? her last spa today, and after all of these things were finished, we packed and checked out the hotel at 6 pm. The dinner was taken after the checkout at this Japanese restaurant nearby.

Most of the Japanese restaurants we meeted before outside the United States or Japan had something peculiar about their foods served. But here, with it's ratio of Japanese tourists, had genuine Japanese cuisine served, and the food was great, although they charged us Rp. 60,000 for green tea, which in most cases, is free in Japan. lol

We left the hotel at 9 pm., and headed for the airport in Denpasar. The remaining day was mostly spent in the lounge there.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

day 4


Fourth day. I'm beginning to notice how difficult it is to write about a vacance trip. When you're in a resort area like Bali, your brain starts to turn into something similar to filling of a durian, nice and smushy. The trip yesterday has exhausted our family, so my family happened to wake up at 8, which was comparably later than the days before.

We had brunch after we woke up, and by my sister's request, pool frenzy had begun again. Actually, today was kinda like "sports day". Besides pool, I played patter golf and tennis with my family. First, everyone except my mom, went to the pool. Mom, went to the spa again, while my dad and sis were playing inside the pool. I, as shown on the photo above,(!?) was bathing in sunshine, manufacturing Vitamin D in my skin. The UV ray was a bit too strong...I think I burnt myself a little too harshly.

After spending 3 hours by the poolside, we played patter golf. Patter golf may seem easy, flat, and boring from the normal images generating from the word, but the course there was very...realistic. There were hills, bunkers, fairways, roughs, trees...and so on. I thought the course was a bit too complicated to go through just with the patter club in your hand. There were full 18 holes to the course, and the course was very fun to go through, although the PAR scores set for the holes were a bit too difficult to match up.

Then, the tennis. After retiring the tennis club, I have not even touched my raquet...lol. My skills which were low from the beginning with the lack of practice added on, the result was disasterous. So I'll skip this part. lol

We went to this seafood restraunt by the Jimbaran Bay, outside the hotel for dinner, and had lobsters there. The seasoning was very simple, but since the material was nice and fresh, it was delicious. From the beach, we were able to see the Milky Way, which is invisible from the light and pollusion in the Kanto region, and the Southern Cross, which only visible from the Southern Hemisphere. The Scorpio with its main star, Antares was beautiful too. That wraps up the story today...

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

day 3


Third day. We visited this settlement on the mountainside of Bali called Ubud (pronounced u-boo-du), to see the Balinese-Hindu, Indian-like dance, which was called the Legon dance.

Ubud was about 50km, or an hour ride from the hotel, so we chartered a taxi for this trip. Ubud district had a lot of souvenir shops, but wasn't as commercialized at Kuta. The main street was called "monkey forest street", and there were souvenir shops, internet cafes, and restaurants located on both sides.

We arrived at Ubud at 3 in the afternoon, had lunch at this restaurant there, and walked around the district after we finished eating. After going in and out of various shops for and hour, we had dinner at a different restaurant near the theater. Then, the show began from 7:30 pm.
The dance closely resembled of Japanese Kabuki, except where Kabuki actors only consisted of men, Legon dance mostly consisted of women dancers(actress?). It had a plot along with it, and the story was presented by the moves of the dancers' eyes and hands. Some elements were difficult to understand, but overall, it was entertaining, and was a whole new experience for me.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

day 2


Second day, we visited this downtown district in Bali called Kuta. There was a shuttle bus provided by the hotel, so we took it to Kuta, after eating breakfast.

The place where our hotel was located is called Jimbaran, which is on the southern end of Bali. There are the Four Seasons,
The Ritz-Carlton and the Inter-Continental located there. Kuta is located to the north of Jimbaran, and it was about a 20 min. ride from the hotel. For your information, Kuta is the place where the bombing occured 2 years ago. Therefore, many shops in the area was out of business. But Kuta was gradually rebuilding it's prosperity as a shopping district and a surfing zone.

We walked around the district, and shopped around in the morning, buying some souvenirs. We also went in a Balinese supermarket, and bought some spices and the famous Toraja coffee there. There were a lot of barkers there, but they were not too offensive, and it seemed safe enough. Our hotel was mostly dominated by Japanese customers, which was the only complaint of this trip, but in Kuta, we sighted many Australians and New Zealanders along with the Japanese tourists. We had lunch at a Starbucks in Kuta...lol

Afternoon, I don't think we did anything special enough to write about here...lol

Monday, August 09, 2004

day 1


Our first day in Bali. My dad and sister was fooling around in pool, while my mom was spa-ing. Me? I was reading my assigned "1984" by the poolside, sipping cocktails. Don't mind the mismatch. lol This continued on for the whole day, and there came the dinnertime. We went to the Italian restaurant inside the hotel, and had our dinner there. That's just about...it!

Sunday, August 08, 2004

welcome to jimbaran


After 7 and a half hour long flight, we landed safely in Denpasar. It was already around 10 at night. The airport's design was genuine "Balinese", and it had a lot of Hindu or Balinese sculptures designed all around the terminal building.

I think it is normal to become a bit worried when you sight people you normally don't see, which in this case are the Balinese people. Then look different, then speak a language you don't understand...and so on. Well, I was until I came to the immigration counter. The officer guy looked at my passport, and said
"This isn't you.", smiling.
The photo used on my passport was taken 4 years ago, and yes I did change a lot from then. But I was able to see their sense of humor there, because normally, immigration officers are emmotionless, and they definiately don't give out jokes to people. We had a small conversation from his indication, and my strain was cooled off greatly.

The hotel's driver awaited us at the airport, and we were driven to the hotel. After we got to the hotel, we examined our room, and went straight to bed.