"Welcome to My Paradise"

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Years. I know I did. Let me fill you in on what I've been up to...

Before Christmas, my friend Sammy came down here from Thailand. We had a lot of fun together doing all the tourist-type things and traveling around Bali. We went to Kuta, the main tourist center (for various reasons I have 2 nicknames for Kuta: "North America" and "Soddom and Gamorah") and tried our hands at surfing. We also saw the oldest temple complex in Bali, went to the mountains, saw a cloud-covered volcano and other things like that. We also spent a few nights at a resort in North Bali where we swam with dolphins (I still have bruises from this), dolphin watched in the ocean with a wanna-be cowboy captain, and snorkelled in some great coral.


Jealous yet?

Selamat Natal! The Sunday before Christmas the kids performed a song and an acrostic poem. Despite the fact that 3/4s of the kids hadn't been there for the past month and therefore didn't know what we were doing, I think it went off well and made some parents happy! We had a great Christmas Eve service and the building was packed with about 120 people sitting, and another 30 people standing in the back. It was a very unique service, with some traditional elements, but Indonesian elements as well including a gamelan performance and Bali-style dance. After the service some of the young adults stuck around, ate nasi goreng (fried rice) and watched A Christmas Carol. Christmas day me and Sammy went with Bob and Ann to the beach where we had breakfast ad enjoyed the hot Bali sun. Then we went to the house and sat in the pool, and finished off the day with a great meal. On the 26th we joined a family for a traditional turkey dinner. So even though it was insanely hot, we walked in white sand-not white snow, and I didn't get to wear my new fleece pj's to bed Christmas eve, I had a great Christmas relatively free of homesickness; its definitely a Christmas I won't be forgetting soon.



Selamat Tahun Baru! Happy New Year! Fireworks and Firecrackers are legal here during new years, and it's pretty much a free-for-all. I celebrated with a Balinese friend and his friends in the city and it was wild! Lighting firecrackers, the streets packed with people, and fireworks going off all over the place.


Selamat Ulang Tahun! Potong Kue-nya!! January 5th was my 21st birthday. The Saturday before my birthday me and Lindsay and Melissa went Whitewater rafting and the rode an elephant. So much fun. Not something you can really do in Canada for a January Birthday! On the day of my birthday we had a get together at one of my favorite restaurants. It was great fun.


So back to work now...