Bali : There Were Excursions, Also

Excursions, Also.

At some points throughout the week, Ian and I managed to leave the comforts of the hotel for new horizons.

Our first outing was by shuttle bus to Geger Beach. It was possibly the least fun beach I have ever been to, which is really an accomplishment in itself. The water was littered with boats and seaweed (oishii!) and the sand was occupied by a bunch of burnt, mostly nude Eurotrash. What a dream!

We weren't pestered too much by any of the beach employees. "Massage? You like Balinese massage?" "Nope." "Cheap price, cheap price!" "Nope." I did however buy a sarong from a lady on the beach. With a smile like that, she could have sold me timeshare. My favourite part of that beach was watching the two Germans nearby attempt to make love to each other while wearing swimsuits... and I think while the girl was asleep. We have photographic evidence.

Can you spot the fornicators?


It's cocoa!

The second outing we went on was a bus tour around Eastern Bali. This was a lot of fun, even though the majority of it was on a bus. We went to a 'traditional style village' to see how the Balinese live. Old people sleep outside, we were told. A lady ushered us into her residence and showed us papaya and coconut trees, cocoa, and coffee growing in her yard. Then she sold us junk (however, the sarong I bought from her is my favourite).

Back on the bus, we drove on to see a big Hindu temple (which I have forgotten the name of). (Ian has pictures of that, so I'm still waiting on them). We had to wear sarongs and walk about 3/4 a mile up a hill while kids offered us a ride on their motorbikes for a dollar. [[I have not mentioned up until now that everyone in Bali either drives a bus or has a motorbike. I'm not just talking men and women, but entire families and small children are hanging off of these things. Seeing a motorbike whiz by with about 4 schoolgirls was no shock after a few days of it. In fact, one of the hotel pamphlet advertisements for Bungee-jumping while on a motorcycle stated that it was "safer than riding a scooter in Bali". So there you have it. ]]

You fly and you know it.

The temple was really spectacular looking - coloured umbrellas to represent the various Hindu gods (Vishnu, Shiva, Rahma... and more my memory did not retain). People carried food offerings in baskets on their heads up the many stone steps, placing it in front of the umbrellas. We, as non-worshipers, were not privileged to enter the gates of the temple, but we were able to observe from the other sides. Some of the sneaky Balinese offered us a quick trip into the worshipers' area... but we were warned by our tour guide that they were not telling us the truth (of course three of the guys in our tour forgot this quickly and I suppose they'll be going to Hindu Hell now, provided there is one).

It looks like a party! Don't be fooled though, it's like going to church.

Back down the hill, we got back on the bus and went for a late lunch in a gorgeous area near Lake Batur and at the bottom of Mount Agung, the volcano. I can't describe how beautiful it was so I'll put up a picture instead. Lunch was also delicious.

At the foot of Mt. Agung, where Balinese Frodo must journey.

Our final tour stop was at the Floating Pavilion near the Klungkung Palace. In the city centre stands a large monument, tall and dark, representing the warfare between the Balinese and the Dutch in the area.

I've seen floatier.

I suppose the Dutch won... otherwise there would be less of a need to sell biscuits and sun tan lotion in the local stores. Everyone put on a sarong for this temple as well.

Why Ian, I do declare! You look sensational!

I thought that the pavilion on the still water surrounded by flowers seemed very Japanese to me, but the statues and intricate carvings on the stone around the building were certainly something new. It made me think of the dim memories of my last trip to Bali when I was nearly 4 years old. We took home a garden statue with a ghoulish face and named him "Goodbye-bye". I believe he met his end on one of our moves, but he remains in my young memories as being a weird freaky statue that greeted me on my way home from school every day.

Hollah, I'm a stone fox, boys!

It was exhausting being in the heat all that day, so wandered over to the actual seaside restaurant (called Tao) and I ordered some spicy Thai soup. It was a fitting end for one of the more exciting days of the vacation.

Our final outing was to Kuta Beach -- a popular tourist beach littered with cafes, western eateries, a mall, and hotel resorts. The beach was HOT. I got sunburnt the worst I've ever been in my entire life -- even with sun screen and reapplication! The sun was just too hot, and we never managed to get away from it even under our overpriced umbrella.
The terrible part of this excursion was the constant, relentless pestering of the salespeople around us. One woman wanted to give me a manicure and would not leave me alone. She came back 3 times and each time she bothered me for about 5-10 minutes. I finally gave her one of my hats and told her not to come back. That seemed to work, and the hat only cost me a dollar anyway. Worth it.

Don't be fooled, this beach is death.

After I couldn't take the heat anymore, we wandered back to the city area and plopped ourselves down in a Starbucks for frappucinos and then read books on the steps until it was time to catch the bus home. Not the best beach experience ever, but it did change my skin colour from porcelain to... other. I think my skin is about 3 different colours at the moment (white, burnt, and in between).

Bali, Hotel Days

Hotel Days

View from the "Seaside" Restaurant at the Hotel

I woke up to palm trees and golden sunshine. Bali!!!! I got up, brushed my teeth and waited around for Ian to wake up so we could go exploring and find breakfast.

We walked to breakfast, finding ourselves feeling warmer and muggier than usual. The buffet at the hotel was fantastic! Breads, cheeses, eggs, and tons of melons and other fruits. My usual breakfast routine during a work week is a piece of toast, hastily eating in my car on the way to school. This was like paradise.

Stomachs full, we tried out the pool area. The pool was big with a lot of fun statues and silly waterfalls. It also was a hotel pool bar, which we would visit later.

"By the time we swim to the bar, it will be Happy Hour."

One of my favourite parts about the hotel was the little cabana canopies around the pool area. Shaded places covered in big pillows where we could pass the hours reading and chatting and avoiding the direct sunlight.

For lunch we discovered that the hotel restaurant, the "sea side restaurant", although that was a definite embellishment, had some delicious cuisine. Ian ordered an enormous Reuben sandwich (to our surprise they had rye bread on the island) and II tried to order something more 'traditional' and got satay and rice pilaf. This was the first of many delicious meals we would have at the hotel.

I can't say we did much more than that, but it was a spectacular thing being able to sit around at my own pace, switching off between an easy-reading book of Bengali stories and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (less easy) and sipping frilly drinks at the poolside bar on happy hour.

I think we ordered room service and watched Cinemax all evening.

The other guests at the hotel were primarily German (or German-sounding). A group of corpulent, sunburned folk who we didn't get to know. It was easy to recognize faces in the hotel as there didn't seem to be a lot of people staying there (even though it was the start of the high season in Bali). I suppose the economic crisis truly has affected the globe... except the Germans, apparently.

One afternoon we ventured into the salon for massages. This was one of the more memorable parts of the trip for me.

My masseuse gave me a nice, long full body massage using scented oils and elbow grease! She managed to teach my knots a thing or two, to boot! Afterwards, they scrubbed me down with a sand body scrub and I rinsed it off. Last on my massage schedule was my floral bath -- a tub filled with flower petals where you can sit and enjoy sugary tea. Delightful. However, when I got into the room Ian was there. I was confused as there was only one tub and clearly two people. The masseuse told us we had 10 minutes and closed the door. They thought we wanted to share the floral bath. Instead, I got in with my bathing suit on and 'enjoyed myself' for about 3 minutes before getting out and leaving. Ah well, I suppose when a boy and a girl of the same age go on a vacation it's well assumed that they are romantically involved.
As humiliating everything felt to me (a proud American brought up with a proper amount of shame), it definitely broke the ice. After that we were happy to tell people we were on our honeymoon; nobody really cared, anyway.
One evening at the hotel, we went to see a Balinese show and eat special foods. Unfortunately the giant lunch I'd eaten had not yet digested, so I mostly drank wine and enjoyed watching other people eat the spectacular looking dishes that surrounded us on cloth-covered tables. The show was really spectacular. I don't remember the story, but it involved royalty in shiny costumes and expressive make up doing some fancy footwork. Far more entertaining than anything I've seen on a stage in two years, anyway. Ian mentioned how attractive the girls looked, and I told him that I reckoned the oldest person in the dance crew was nearly 14. We finished off the wine. After the traditional dance was over, a four person, poor man's mariachi band appeared. They asked each table to give them a song request. While the songs were not the most impressive, the guitarist did a mean Bryan Adam's impression. The wine may have helped our enjoyment of this, however. I believe we completed the evening by watching van Helsing on Cinemax and falling asleep in our dinner clothes.

Easily my favorite hotel moment was our last day when we lay, sunburnt, in a canopy area making paper cranes. After learning so much about Ian's romantic history, I decided it would be therapeutic for us to make paper cranes named for his past girlfriends. What this resulted in were some interesting photos and a new paper-folding skill for me!

The hotel seemed like a place to rest. Not only from general every day stress, but from the actively pushy hawkers and salespeople on what felt like every other place in Bali. No one pushed us into buying anything, nobody begged us for money for a service not rendered, and people left us well alone. They were also extremely friendly... we had a few nice conversations with the various young bartenders, some of whom had fallen out of practice with their Japanese since Japanese people had stopped frequenting the hotel.

All in all, I think the hotel was my favorite part of the trip. Coming home to my apartment later on would make me appreciate the good food and attentive service all the more. My cooking's just not that good, even though I get to eat it in my room for free.

Bali, day one.

3500 miles in 20 hours : Ine to Denpesar

I woke up at 7am (early, considering my flight wasn't until the early evening) and packed a few last minute items. Early morning logic had convinced me that I would need 15 pairs of underpants, 12 pairs of socks, and at least 7 outfits that I would find some sort of reason to wear. It's not every day you travel to the southern hemisphere, after all.

I drove down on what I would consider one of the more beautiful days of the year (at least in Tango) and rolled down the windows so I could get a good taste of the warm air and the spring smells that were permeating the winter chills (even in late April).

Thanks to a gracious Kameoka JET, I was able to park my car for free in front of her apartment complex. An older, more out of place building surrounded by beautiful houses and stunning flower gardens. I walked to the station with my over-packed bags and met up with Ian at Kyoto Station.
"You looked stressed," he complimented.
Though I didn't feel stressed, I certainly recognized that I sounded nervous. Maybe it was the excitement from driving and the idea of going some place new, or maybe it was just that I was going to spend the next 7 days straight with Ian -- something that was equally new.

We arrived at the airport, bought sandwiches and beer, and hunkered down in some massage chairs (which, to be fair, we did use for 10 of the 90 minutes we were there for). After our second beers, we boarded the airplane along with the horde of Japanese people also taking a Golden Week holiday to some place warm.

The flight wasn't terribly long, about six or seven hours. Ian and I spent the time drinking wine and watching movies (and no doubt pestering every one around us in doing so). Ian suggested watching Jurassic Park, though we couldn't find it in English. The dubbed version wasn't so bad, though I understood absolutely none of it. Not long after we realized how to put movies into English and felt dumb. We followed it up with AI (in English) and then went our separate ways on our individual entertainment systems. I attempted to study a bit of Indonesian (so I could be less clueless) but only retained the word for milk, which is 'susu'.

The plan was to stay in Nusa Dua (a peninsula in Southern Bali) for 6 days. Hours and hours of poolside reading, prepaid tours, and non-Japanese food awaited.



Upon arrival, we felt the thick warm air at once. It was a spectacular change from the chilly Japan nights we've been having this April. We coughed up some money for visas and went to collect our bags. Being white and foreign in Japan can earn you some attention (people speaking slowly to you, being overly polite or condescending, and someones avoiding eye contact with you). In Bali however, it just makes you a target. Three men rushed up to me and offered to help me carry my one suitcase. Being exhausted from traveling 3,500 miles in about 20 hours, I didn't argue. All of a sudden, Ian and I were surrounded by about 6 men, some of who had helped us with our things and some who had just showed up for no apparent reason. They all demanded 100,000 rupiah each (about... 8 dollars maybe?) for their 'troubles'. HIGHWAY ROBBERY.

Annoyed and cranky, we found our tour guide (whose decent English was masked by his thick French accent and creative syntax). 40 minutes later, we had arrived at the Ramada hotel in Nusa Dua (the Tango peninsula of Bali, I joked). We were greeted with fruit punch (even at midnight, what service!) and on the assumption that we were married, the hotel staff gave Ian the paperwork to fill out. I meanwhile spotted that the gift shop was a money changer. "Phew. Now we won't be completely screwed if more helpful Balinese show up and hold our things for ransom."

The room was big and comfortable (I was thrilled to see an air conditioner). After quick shower and a look around the mini fridge and porch, I crawled into my bed, eager to put the day behind me.

Unfortunately I didn't get more than two hours of sleep... whether for general excitement that we'd actually made it or the cup of coffee I'd had just before landing. So, I laid in bed, listening to the intermittent squalls outside, waiting patiently for the sun to come up so I could see what was outside of our window.

New School Atmosphere & Hanami

Monkeys Take Over Neighbourhood, Spring Arrives

Monkeys clambered out of the jungle into the fields to eat everything that was starting to turn green.

I reckon I should write a little bit about what I’ve been up to this month (besides losing all the teachers and school comforts I hold so very dear).

After Aimi sensei left Ine JHS, everything felt like it was falling apart. The new teachers were SUPER nice (especially the Japanese teacher, Ms. Tomonaga and the new Principal, Mr. … Principal). I felt excited about working with my new JTE, Mr. Yamagami (fun to say!) However the week started out with us moving desks. And instead of me moving my desk somewhere, I had to give it up altogether. I moved all of my personal belongings that used to sit upon my desk (the little stone that says “stone”, my elephant from a Thai restaurant in Shiga, and a kangaroo keychain from Scott) into a box in the trunk of my car. They told me I could share a desk with the art teacher, whose desk is full of art teacher things. I felt inconsolably sulky about the whole affair. WHO AM I TO BE DENIED A DESK? I AM RACHEL K. ENGLISH TEACHER! But in the end, I don’t really need that much room and the art teacher gave me some drawers to put my things into. So, it’s not the worst fate in the world after all.
Flowers! Life could be much worse.
 The new teachers at Honjo JHS are spectacular. My favourite is the new science teacher, Ms. Oe. She has the most sincere laugh I’ve ever heard out of a Japanese woman – guttural and low. A boisterous, “hur hur hur”. I love her to pieces already. We speak a mixture of English and Japanese because she wants to practice. She told me, “I have lost my vocabulary and I can’t remember my idioms!” Then we talked about intransitive verbs. <3 Friends forever. We also have a young teacher named Yamashita-sensei who is a big computer dork and likes to talk to me about Mac computers. But now I know about some fancy new Beta Windows program that runs simultaneously with the Mac OSX. Technology! It helps that all the words about computers are katakana English. Pu-ro-gu-ra-mu, so-fu-to-we-a, and haa-do-do-rai-bu. Fantastic!

I haven’t had any classes yet, but I am starting to go to them again with Yamagami-sensei starting today. I hope they go well and that I can help! I miss being useful! It was really a treat getting back to kyushoku (the school lunches) as well. I really missed the miso soups and even the white rice that my stomach lining loathes on a day-to-day basis. The weather getting warmer and more pleasant every day is also helping everyone’s mood! It’s so nice not having to use the heater anymore. I like to think of this as my last horrible winter just because America has all the ‘central heating’. Faaaancy.

On Friday I had a meeting with the elementary school homeroom teachers who will be helping me team teach this new elementary textbook to the 5th and 6th graders starting this school year. I was really excited about it, but after 30 minutes of stumbling through Japanese lesson plans, it became quite clear that none of us knows what we are doing. Who knows how this lesson will go, but at least I finally have a textbook to work off of. SUPPLEMENTS!!!! Huzzah!



School aside, I went to Kyoto and Kameoka this weekend to finally spend some quality time with Laurel and the other Kameoka girls who have replaced the friends I still miss deeply and dearly (you know who you are, you southern women). It was really fun hanging out with Laurel and spending time with a different group of people. I think that when you spread yourself among groups of different people you can learn to appreciate the people who aren’t there, as well as getting comfortable in different situations. I’ve always been most comfortable as a social butterfly, fluttering amongst groups of people and never getting that close to any of them. I feel like this year has been an exception, which would explain a lot of the social anxiety I’ve been having.

Sakura and ear lobe massages in Kameoka...

On Saturday I met up with “the usual suspects” (Ian, Natanya, Rachel2, Lauren, Greg etc) and we had a picnic under the sakura by the Kamogawa River to celebrate R2’s birthday. It was a lot of fun, but I ate and drank too much and had the worst headache later.
R2, Natanya & Ian eating delicious gyoza by the Kamo River
We had grand plans to do karaoke, but those dissolved after we ate bananas foster (rum soaked bananas on FIRE over ice cream) and were stricken with extreme sleepiness. We all just ended up falling asleep in a pile at Rachel’s apartment and had one of the least exciting, but most comfortable, nights in Kyoto ever.

Sakura in the Imperial Palace Grounds & the Rare Blossom Rachel2

The next day we did mini-hanami and walked through the Imperial Palace grounds on the way to the pet store, where we played with a pug. I picked out some Kirby food, R2 got her brown curls grabbed by a spider monkey, and Ian and Natanya fell in love with the pug. After a quick stint at Starbucks, Natanya and I drove back to Tango.

Natanya snores louder than you could possibly imagine! 

Kirby was really happy to see me and I was really happy to get some sleep, since the night before had been interrupted by Natanya’s GORILLA SNORING. That’s right! You know who you are!

Goodbye, lovely teachers!

It's teacher transfer time! Unfortunately all of my favourite people are leaving... which is awful. But as I would be leaving them in 4 months (WHOOOHOHOOHH) anyway, it's better to rip off the band-aid now. But it's still so hard saying goodbye to people when you're pretty certain that it's goodbye forever.

Matsuda先生, Nakani先生, me, & Aimi先生 ~
ありがとうございました！
 

So, a tribute to my favourite teachers at Ine who are leaving, Nakani-sensei the school nurse and Aimi-sensei, my JTE. Aimi sensei really inspried me to become a teacher and gave me a good grasp of how to teach English. So for that I will always remember her, and I wish her the best of luck at her new school.

At least it was a beautiful day outside, and I cleaned a bit more of the downstairs of my house. I'm looking forward to a time when the weather will allow me to live in the other 90% of my home.

Just to Clear the Deck, I own no Monkeys.

A Boisterous Cloister of Oysters
by Rachel K. Sreebny

On Saturday morning I drove the 80 minutes from Ine across the Northern coast of the Sea of Japan to Kumihama. My area, Ine, is the eastern most part of the Tango Peninsula. And Kumihama is the western most part of the Kyoto Prefecture, so you can say I drove cross-prefecture! All to eat oyster for the first time ever.

It was an oyster enkai organized by the kindly ladies of Natanya's English Conversation Group. There were a variety of oysters along with oyster fried rice and oyster hot pot! It was a lot of fun and the minshoku (guest house) was really beautiful. It was on a small beach called 小天橋 or Shotenkyo which means "small heaven bridge" or something like that.

After eating oysters forever and getting a giant bag of oysters each (like... 30 of them) we all migrated to my favourite ice cream place. It's a small Jersey Cow farm called Sora, meaning sky, and they have fresh ice creams, cheeses and milk puddings there. We all got ice cream and then most of the ladies set off home and Natanya came along back to Ine with me.

everyone say "moo"

Natanya had a lot of venting to do about her frustrations with not re-contracting, then changing her mind and having no say in the decision. Her BOE won't let her and on top of it she has boy drama, so it was good that she came with.

We spent the night knitting, watching 30 Rock, drinking beer and eating even more ice cream. Then Natanya put on like... all of my clothes and we watched the Wrestler and talked about which My Little Pony Characters we'd be.

I'd be "Purl" and have a skein of yarn on my horse butt. Ian's blue and his name is cloudy. He has a beer on his butt and when you put him in warm water it turns into a broken heart. Natanya is Spanky and she's purple. Kate is light yellow and her name is sparkles. She has a cabin on her butt. Then Greg is black with red eyes and his name is "Darkness". Lastly is Yumi. She's white with rainbow hair and her name is Yummy. She has a pie on her hip. Hooray for imaginations!!!!

Today (Sunday) Kate drove up and we went on a hike around the coast of Ine. It was nice weather for it despite rainclouds and it was good to get some actual exercise after doing nothing but eating yesterday. We got a lot of great pictures so I'll let those say a few thousand words on my behalf.

Other than that, I drank a root beer, cleaned my house, and skyped with Tristyn so I have no complaints! Enjoy your Sunday evenings, everyone.

Phew

"Don't know if Rachel has contacted you about Tristyn yet but the news is great. She had her abdominal surgery Monday and after 48 hours of excruciating pain and nausea she perked up enough to come home Thursday. She's eating and walking (very slowly) and looking 1000% better than pre-op The surgeon said it was the least complicated scenerio and restored blood flow immediately to the stomach and surrounding area by snipping a ligament around the celiac artery. We didn't even know the human body had a celiac artery! Her 5" scar is now a badge of courage and future great poolside topic of conversation . We are, of course, overjoyed."

I couldn't be more overjoyed either, man.

It's hard watching your friends suffer from overseas. That's how I segue this post to my Japan blog. I hope the next time I see her she is fat as can be and back to normal health so we can do pilates poorly together!

Journey to the North : Day 4

Lauren and I find an airport transportation autobus and climb aboard for the 90 minute journey to Chitose Airport. The weather is fine and we have no troubles finding a vessel to take us back to Kansai on the Main Island of the Japans. Exhausted from our travels, we do not speak much on the trip back. Instead we reflect on the many wonders seen over the past three days; strange beasts, sculptures in the snow, and a candlelit canal.

On our arrival to Kyoto Locomotive Station, we meet our companion, Ian. Ian helps us find proper Western food; burgers! Lauren is under the spell of the East and continues her descent into madness by eating okonomiyaki while Ian and I feast on meat, bread and too much sauce. Full and gay, I leave my comrades and find a locomotive North to my vehicle. I sleep on the ride up, full of mirth and memory.

Journey to the North : Day 3

February 10, 2009
Sapporo, Hokkaido Japan


Lauren and I slept away the morning hours after our long, eventful days previous. Finally rising from our soft, warm bed, we dress and go out into the Susukino area to find luncheon with a friend of Lauren’s – Corey (yet another out-of-place Hawaiian). We decided on râmen, a special delicacy noodle dish of the area. Slurping down hot noodles in miso broth with pork and a dash of spring onions seems just the way to enjoy the cold climate and continuous snowfall.

The Sapporo City Hall

Lauren and Corey head out to the beer distillery while I wander around Sapporo City, admiring the architecture. Soon after, I decide to visit a small artisan area known as Otaru to the North. I find a locomotive to take me there and stare in awe as, ever so unexpectedly, the sea appears. The train winds northward up the snowy coast, and passed the icy waters of what must be the North Sea. Not long after, we arrive at Minami Otaru, the southern patch of the town. I depart here, not knowing where exactly I’d like to go.

After walking for some time along the snowy sidewalks and slippery streets, I find a bustling intersection. A steam-powered clock stands in the middle of the area and historic plaques give tourists information about the town itself. I see a newly wed couple, not even dressed in their winterwear, taking photographs in front of a large, snow cake (complete with painted strawberries on top). It is quite beautiful and I manage to take a photo. I continue my stroll along the chocolate shops, toy stores and glass blowers. Finally the sun sets and I reach the Otaru Canal, which is lit up with candles. Here, I believe photographs will aid me with description, as my words could not express the beauty of this spectacle.

Frozen through, I decided to head back to the Locomotive Station in the City Centre. I meet Lauren and we sip coffee, warming ourselves from the inside. Lauren suggests we meet her friends Geetika and Naoko once more for a crab supper. I happily agree and we meet them at a cosy seafood restaurant high up in a restaurant structure. We feast for the next two hours upon fresh Northern Crabmeat and toast to our success. Afterward, I retire early to pack up my belongings and get a night’s rest before the journey back to Kansai. Lauren does not join me until the wee hours of dawn.


I dream of worrisome unpleasant things –causing me constant anxiety. A friend’s botched surgery leads to her sudden death. Most unpleasant. I am inconsolable for hours the next day.