Random Event

The 1st ever Asian Beach Games are here! Check them out at http://www.bali2008.com/ .
I haven't seen anything for them yet, but in true Indonesian fashion there are banners and signs absolutely everywhere and traffic is nuts.

Canadian Thanksgiving, Balinese Heat

Canadian Thanksgiving, Oct. 13, has definitely been a highlight of my time here in Bali. I went early in the afternoon to Barry and Geri's place to help set up, and then we went for a nice, perfect relaxing swim. Yes, swimming on Thanksgiving. Why? Two reasons: #1. Because I can. #2. Because its a zillion degrees with 157% humidity!

The meal was perfect. The turkey was done on the barbeque and was so great, there was purple sweet potatoes, stuffing, pickles (I brought them), pumpkin pie, apple pie... practically every Thanksgiving thing you can think of, even cranberry sauce! I ate sooo much I could hardly move. If it had been in Canada I think I could have eaten alot more, but with adjusting to regular smaller portioned meals here,and the heat I ate less than I would have at home.

The company was great as well. There was myself, Barry and Geri and their son Quinn, and another family with 3 kids from Alberta, and a woman who lived in Calgary with her two sons who are Indonesian-Canadian. It was alot of fun, definitely alot of "ehs".

My New Favourite Thing

Last Saturday, Oct. 4, Lindsay, Melissa, and myself, decided to go to Pedang Bai where there is a beach called "Bloo Lagoon" on the East Coast of Bali. I found a new favorite thing.
Snorkeling.
Seriously, this is amazing. You put on these funny looking masks and have to breathe through a tube, but you just float and you have a front-row seat to the amazing world under the sea. Incredible. I saw fish that looked like they belonged on Finding Nemo, and they were 3 feet away from me! I had no idea that it was that cool under there and could never understand people who loved snorkeling, but now I have seen the light. I was telling the kids about this the next day and they could not believe that this was my second time ever in the ocean and my first time ever snorkeling. (Kids who have grown up in Bali don't really understand "landlocked Alberta")

So we spent the first part of the day hanging out at the beach, watching the fishing boats, snorkeling and eating. Then we walked into town to catch a tourist shuttle bus that was going to take us back to Sanur. We were at the booth on time and got in the van. They drove us to the other side of town, told us to wait "sebentar" (for a minute) and then left. We waited.. and waited... waited. Two hours later, they come back with a bunch of tourists that had just gotten off the ferry from Lombok, and finally we're off. We were so tired, hungry and angry, but at least we were now on our way.

(what do you do when you're stuck on a bus for 2 hours in Bali? You take pictures of offerings and fishing boats.)


About twenty minutes into the trip back, the driver pulls over, looking concerned. He gets out, looks around the van, walks across the street talks to someone, gets on a motorbike and leaves. He eventually came back. It turns out tat a strut or something had broken. So now we are stranded in the middle of nowhere. We find out that we are 30 km away from Sanur and we determined that this was too far to walk (after converting it into miles for Melissa and Lindsay, the Americans). Then (because we are not tourists and we know people in Bali) we all get our phones out and soon we have friends on the way to come rescue us. They show up-bless their souls-and we get home uneventfully.

I liked the first part of the day better.



It has been getting hotter here. Now even just standing outside breaks you into a sweat. Even at the beach it is becoming more sauna-like. The kid's building is brutally hot when you have 20 kids and 4 adults in there on Sunday mornings, this morning even the kids were sweating (usually I'm the only really sweaty one).
(yes, that is cream to make your skin whiter)

Friday night we had a "Girl's Movie Night". I moved two of the mattresses from my house into the building and we watched the movie "Enchanted". It was a pretty fun night, we had a bunch of great snacks, played charades, laughed and talked. I know if you just read the last couple blogs I have posted you would think all I do here in Bali is go to beautiful rice fields and the beach. But my weeks are pretty full with all sorts of things! I do language class three times a week, which I really enjoy and can see my progress in. I also prepare lessons for Sundays. There's Kid's Club on Thursdays, meetings and getting to know people. Some weeks I'm pretty busy!

This isn't new news, but, sometimes I forget things. Usually, they are just little things that are easy to fix (especially if there is a set of keys other than the ones in my locked house). But sometimes they are things that are not easy to fix. Say like, hypothetically forgetting to take your bank card out of the atm... in Indonesia. This, apparently, is not so easy to fix. I'll spare you all the details but I will tell you this: Never Do This.