Black Rice Pudding

More Bali.  Day 4...

When I sat up in my bed in the morning, this is what I saw.  It was pleasant.  :)

Counting shells.

These fresh flowers were placed just outside our door every day.  I wish I knew a little bit more about why, but I know it has to do with the religion.  There were these offerings everywhere!  And they had little statues everywhere that they would visit every night.  As far as I could tell, they were in front of every building.  Even gas stations.

This is the day we ventured out of our paradise and went to a city called Ubud.  

First stop was a restaurant Nate read about.  They serve babi guling - roast suckling pig.  It was an adventure!

The pork was delicious.  I'm glad we had the experience.  And that's all I'm going to write about that place.  Let's just say the FUs got at little more of Indonesia than I think they really wanted.  There are things that happened that I would not like to remember.  Although, it's etched in my brain.  Rhon took a picture of one of the 'things'.  I'm glad she thought it was funny.  I can't post it.  

Getting our shoes back on.

One of the many statues that were draped with Balinese fabric.  I wish I knew more about that too.

Buying tickets to the Monkey Forest.  I think it's hilarious that the 2 people who wanted to go the least are purchasing the tickets.  Oh the irony!  I just love this picture.

G and T.

This is before we met any of the ill-tempered monkeys.  Note the smiles on our faces.  Well, except Mads.

As soon as we saw monkeys, we tried to give them the bananas we bought.  They hissed at us and swiped my whole bag full.  They seemed really nasty.  I was a little worried, so we hurried through.  The workers seemed to think we were being silly, and they kept saying, "Just hold your hand out to them!"  Well, one monkey looked especially tame, and he (she?) held his hand out to me.  I thought I would give him a chance.  He grabbed my fingers, slowed pulled my hand near his face, and bit it the meaty part of my palm!  Little jerk.  He totally tricked me.  There were teeth marks, but luckily he didn't break the skin.

This experience did not leave a good impression of monkeys on the little boys.  I hope little J isn't scared of monkeys forever!  

After souvenir shopping, we went to this restaurant.  This was C's recommendation.  It was wonderful!

It was perfect.  Lots of space, great service, delicious food.

After that, we went back to our villa.

That night we painted eggs!  We had our helper search all over town for white eggs.  There wasn't any, but she said she could get duck eggs the next day.  It was everyone's first time dyeing duck eggs.  It was also pretty entertaining trying to explain why we needed white eggs.  And white vinegar.  She was confused why we couldn't use Balsamic.  I wonder what she thought when she saw the eggs in the fridge the next day?  So the kids each had one white duck egg, and some brown ones.  It was a good time.

Easter in Bali.

and R

More photos from Bali day three...

In the morning before breakfast, the kids would play games.  Also, they would watch movies or read during the hours when the sun was strongest.

 Mads quickly started a shell collection.  I think he brought home about 200 shells.

Big boat.

Big boat.

Mads gained a love for snorkeling also.

He looked like he was born to be on the beach.

For meals, we didn't leave our villa.  Breakfast was made there for us, and the other two meals we ordered from local restaurants and had them deliver it.  It was awesome.  Especially because the helpers there would just sense that we were getting hungry and then they would bring us the menus.  We would look through, decided which one we wanted to order from, tell the helpers what we wanted, and they would call for us.  We had a lot of Balinese food, and we also had pizza and hamburgers.  The food was good, and we were happy.

But I ate my most favorite dessert of all time.  Yes, of all time.  Here it is...

Fruit Spring Roll.

It had bananas, pineapple and papaya in it.  It also had pastry cream.  Rolled up, deep fried, and drizzled with palm sugar syrup.  When I dream of Bali, I'm staring at the ocean eating one of these.

R

More pictures from Bali...

Day two.

Picture of the villas from the beach area.

My boys have gotten very tan here in Indonesia.

I could not get Rhon to make a normal face!

Eating watermelon with the FUs.

Going to the beach.

Yay For AirAsia!

Even though I haven't been blogging much, I can't pretend that April never happened.  It was a big month.  Easter, Bali, and 2 birthdays.  And there are many other things I should blog about, but I didn't, and may not.  But I'm thankful to all my friends out there who still blog.  I just caught up on Reader (I had over 300 posts to read!) and you all inspire me to get my butt in gear and keep this thing going.  I'm going to go back, but not too far.

Bali.  Here it is.

We ate at Beard Papa's in the airport.  We may have eaten there because the name is so awesome, but when we were done, we realized it was a good choice because those cream puffs taste good.

"Beard Papa's!"

"Beard Papa's!"

This was our first time flying AirAsia.  It was awesome how you had to cross a busy street full of big trucks and luggage carriers before you got to the plane.  I wouldn't have been surprised people get on random planes all the time.  I'm not really sure how they keep track of everyone.

My first picture I took in Bali.  Yes, it's still Asia.

Bali is all about tourism, so the drivers constantly try to get you to stop at certain restaurants, and certain shops.  I'm sure they get some kind of commission for bringing people there.

Either way, we needed to eat, and a seafood meal right on the beach sounded fun, albeit very touristy.

It was not peak season for Bali.  So we were pretty much alone.

I let the kids take their shoes off and feel the water.

It was probably a bad decision because they were wet and sandy, and we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us.  Ah well.  Seize the day, right?

Our meal.  It was one of my favorite seafood meals of all time.  G was surprised to see the fish still in 'fish' form.  Dare ate a fish eyeball.

Maybe I loved it because of the scenery and company, but it was good.  That Balinese sambal was yummy.

Then we were off to find our villa.  I kept telling the kids to look out the windows and enjoy the new views, but they all said it looked just like Jakarta.  Well, it did near the airport.  Then we got to this... 

I can't remember what this volcano is called.  Bali is truly beautiful.

"Cook it!" - Rhon out the window to this guy.

You can imagine our joy when we saw a pig!  Well, maybe you can't.  In Jakarta, most of the people are Muslim.  Which means they don't eat pork.  Pork is expensive and I don't trust it most of time.  But in Bali, they practice Balinese Hinduism.  So bring on the pork.

When we got to our villa, we were greeted with coconut lime drinks!

Even better than that, we were greeted by our good friends from DC who came from Shanghai to join us.

The grounds.  I couldn't stop smiling.

The pool.  It didn't take long for the kids to make themselves at home.

Our villa at night.