Since last post, our life has been made up of mostly 2 things: youchien and swimming.
Vivien requested "bear ears" the other day. Rafe demanded some too, but he settled for a man bun when I could only find one other pony tail. I think they are almost unbearably cute in their matchy summer uniforms.
My friend sent me a picture of Rafe napping at youchien (she had gone to pick up her kids early). How do they do this?! All those little kids, sleeping together on the floor with the lights on? I am definitely missing something.
Vivien is usually begging to go to the pool as she steps off the bus in the afternoon. She loves the kiddie pool at the gym. It is her safe place. She can practice swimming (at which she is improving remarkably every day), but still just stand up whenever she needs to breathe. I try to make her take a 10-15 excursion to the deep pool every time we go, so she realizes that she can swim well enough to swim in any depth of water, but it mostly turns into 10-15 minutes of histrionics and desperate clinging. I'll announce "time to go swim in the big pool!" and both kids will immediately beg, "We want to go home now!"
The funny thing about both kids is that they'll do their required torture (i.e. swimming to the side 5 times for Vivien, 3 dips for Rafe, etc.) with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and before they're even done being distressed, they're so pleased with themselves. It's this wonderful mismatch of words and facial expressions: "I did it!" said with proud conviction, but a waterlogged look of concern. I am going to need to bring Mary Poppins with us next time so she can help us find the element of fun we're obviously missing in learning to swim in the deep pool. Until then, we'll just always end with a nice swim in the kiddie pool to ensure we get out on a high note.
Swimming lessons at the pool start at 4:30, so from then on the kiddie pool is usually packed with siblings of people in lessons. It is sometimes unbearably loud and crowded. And there is no safe place to supervise that is not in the splash zone, I discovered the day I wore jeans . . .
If we still can't erase the horrors of the deep pool by the time we go, usually a quick bask in the sauna will do the trick.
When the kids are at school and we are not swimming, we are getting ready for baby. We acquired a minivan from a family in our branch who moved. We had to have the branch president sign for it because we're not allowed to have more than 2 cars at once and we still need to sell our little red car, but it's there in our parking lot waiting for us!
I rearranged the family room again (while Drew was at work, so he didn't have to be upset if I didn't like it and made him move everything back). Look! Pictures on the wall! And the computer has moved out of the baby's room. The first time Drew walked in after the rearranging occurred, he was post-watch so he actually didn't notice it had happened. But when the kids came tumbling in after youchien on the day I did it, they froze. Vivien said "WHO has done this to our house?!" in a sort of violated, affronted voice. It took them a minute to warm up to it, but I think it's a little bit more open, and will work better if I decide to teach music lessons in the fall. And there is still a track around the furniture for their balance bikes, so all is right with the world.
Watching the old animated Hobbit movie. Raising the next generation of geeks!
The box of Vivi's old baby clothes has arrived (thank you families for your work in getting them here and I'm sorry I didn't do it when I was home in the spring!). I admit I have not yet opened it. I have just been looking at it the last few days, processing. But I think I will be ready to physically handle the baby clothes tomorrow after the kids go to school, and it will be motivating instead of frightening!
This weekend we attended the youchien's summer festival. The school yard was all decked out in lanterns and the field next to the school had a bunch of carnival stalls set up.
The participants all wore yukatas and jinbeis. The teachers looked so elegant in theirs, and all the bright colors was really very . . . festive! Which is what they were going for for the summer festival, I imagine! The youchien rented out yukatas if you didn't have one. Vivien was excited about hers at home, but was characteristically sedate when she had to line up and participate at the festival. This is Vivien's default face at social functions.
Rafe attached himself to Shiho-sensei as soon as possible. This was actually her last day at the youchien--she is leaving and Rafe is getting a new teacher. We will miss her!
After an initial ceremony they took class pictures. I feel less bad about Rafe's confused face in the pictures the youchien sends home, because I now see it's the face ALL the kids are making!
Each child had made a fan at school, which were sent home the day or two before the festival and we were supposed to remember to bring them. I am a terrible mother. I was so worried about getting there on time (I had decided to take a nap after I sent Drew to the store, incidentally with last week's grocery list on accident *facepalm*, so we were in a big rush to get ready after he got home) that I forgot to stick them in my bag. It did not improve Vivien's mood, and she quickly progressed to finger sucking.
Gollum child . . .
Thankfully, Manami-sensei let Vivien have her fan, so she was in good enough spirits to participate in the class dance. For the last few weeks I have been trying to encourage her to practice hard for the dance at school so she would be comfortable performing it with her class at the festival, but she'd usually say something like "I did not practice the bon dance today. I am not good at dancing and I cannot know the steps." I was braced to watch her stand sullenly and rub her eye the whole time, but no! She did it! And I was very proud of her.
Here's the whole performance, if you desire. Their classes were combined so Rafe is in it too on the opposite side of the circle. I made Drew switch me halfway through because my arm was getting tired from holding it above all the shorter Japanese parents in front of me :)
After all the classes did their dances, they had a mother and daughter dance. Vivien knew the steps really well and was a good leader. She was a lot happier after our dance together. I asked her why she had been sad before, and she told me she does not like to be alone. That one got me right in the feels (sorry for the slang, Drew--it's just a very accurate description of the situation!).
When all the classes had finished their dances, the kids lined up to collect their wishes from the wish tree.
I can't look at this picture very long. I am too sad Shiho-sensei is leaving.
I am a little confused about Vivien's wish . . . Maybe they made them the day she wore her hair in bear-ear pigtail buns?
We had some tasty popsicles before we left. They were 30 yen each (like 30 cents). We wanted to buy a lot of them. When was the last time you bought anything for 30 cents?!
And Rafe also showed Daddy his favorite thing to do on the climbing gym. He climbs up to almost the top, then drops suddenly into the middle so he's hanging by his hands, wraps his feet around the pole, then slides to the ground. You can tell how Drew feels about this arrangement.
They are both getting so big. And we love them!
Rafe's favorite game right now is to take the caps off all the markers and wear them as monster fingers. Guess what? Now all the markers are dried out. But I kept the caps, so he can still have monster fingers.
Also, before I forget, today was the first day I have ever seen Vivien participate in sharing time. They called her name because she was being "reverent," and it was her job to hide an object that another child was to look for while we sang the 7th Article of Faith loud or soft to help them find it. Usually when Vivien is called on in primary she looks down and pretends she is invisible until they move on to someone else. So today, when they called her name and she stood up and went to the front, the primary president looked at me across the room (I am being the pianist right now) and mouthed "WOW!" She is growing up!
It's been nice to be home this week. Our plants survived our absence, thanks to my friend Kelly who lives down the hall. Somehow we got a weed in our snapdragon pot while we were away. Rafe watched me pull it out, then promptly pulled out all the tomato seedlings when I wasn't looking and threw them off the balcony . . .
He'd rather eat yogurt than tomatoes anyway. Some mornings when Rafe wakes up with the sun and I feel like I may die if I have to get out of bed, Vivien is very helpful and she'll get them breakfast. We are usually out of yogurt at this house, because if I'm not present, ALL the yogurt in the fridge will be eaten in one sitting. I bought a yogurt maker this week. I think we'll use it often.
The weekend after we got home was the Corpsman Ball. It's like a birthday party for the job "hospital corpsman." It is formal occasion, so I wore my fancy dress . . .
. . . and took my fancy man in his dress whites. It was his first time wearing the choker jacket, and we discovered as he was setting out all his hardware that we had never gotten the loops that hold the shoulder boards on. I improvised some loops with a needle and thread, feeling very resourceful, but we will need to get the actual loops put on before he wears it again, because the boards kept sliding through their thread holders and sticking off his shoulders a few cm, like decorative wings. It was my job to slide them up whenever I noticed them going wayward. Our upstairs neighbors that are in our ward and expecting their first baby watched our kids so we could go. It is always entertaining to go watch people who have been drinking have a dance party! I also really like the birthday cakes the club on base makes . . . "so moist."
The kids are very happy to be back at school. They are so cute in their matchy summer uniforms. When they get off the bus at the end of the day and run to give me a hug with their bright, smiley faces I just want to squeeze them forever.
We had to go searching for new shoes this week, because it is very important at youchien for the kids to put their shoes on by themselves. The only shoes Rafe can put on without pleading "Help me!" are his rain boots and he's starting to get chaffing on his calves from the tops of them rubbing against his skin. I went to the Japanese shoe store without the kids to scope out what was available and found these shoes that are perfect for him--they keep their shape, the tongue folds up easily all the way to the toe, and they're velcro. Unfortunately they only had them in a size 14cm, and I sat there looking at that size 14 thinking it was at least 2 inches too big for Rafe's feet. So I put them back on the shelf and came back later that afternoon WITH the children and was mildly horrified when his feet actually fit perfectly in the enormous shoes. When did my baby get so big??
With the kids at school all day again, I am continuing to develop my homemaking skills (slightly more motivating way to say "doing chores"), and slowly working on going through all the piles of things that just need to be done "at some point," because I'm 32 weeks pregnant now and am running out of time before those "at some points" become few and far between. I fear I may have spent all my nesting energy traveling the world, because I feel like I only get one productive day for every day I spend in a haze of fatigue. I take a nap on those days, and feel grateful that my kids are in school and I have an awesome husband who does all the providing so I don't have to worry about it. Happy Father's Day, Drew! Your 3rd child is very grateful that you are taking good care of her mom. Sometimes I can sneak a day in to indulge in creative exercises, to keep my brain alive. One of my friends had a birthday this week, and she is working really hard to lose baby weight so I didn't want to derail her by taking her a batch of cookies or something sinful, so I made her an edible arrangement! She laughed, but she told me liked it.
When the kids are home, we are currently working the most on learning to ask politely for things we want that other people have, or politely ask someone to do something for us. They are hard skills! Rafe's still a little skeptical that they're worth having, but I think his future family will thank us for our effort.
We've decided to do one more tour with the Navy (a 2 year carrier tour out of Everett, WA starting in June-ish 2016), which means our time in Japan is quickly running out. High time to check another country off our list!
Drew was the champion of our Bali trip. He made all the airline and hotel reservations and did all the legwork on researching wholesome recreational activities for the family. My friends were all astonished and wistful to know of the existence of such a man. Three cheers for Drew!
Day 1
We left early Monday morning to make the 3.5 hour drive down to Fukuoka because it's cheaper for us to fly out of there. Japanese 7/11 pancakes are my favorite car breakfast. Rafe's too.
The Fukuoka airport is wonderful. We have free parking there through the military and it's small so there's not too much walking. It's almost relaxing, which is saying something for an airport.
Vivien is always very attentive to the safety presentations and quizzes me afterwards using the safety information card. "Why is this plane landing in the water? What do the green arrows mean? When will the masks fall down out of the ceiling?" She will be such a good emergency exit passenger when she's big enough.
We flew Korean Air this time. We each had our own TV screen (luxury!) and the snacks were very fancy. The crackers were all varying flavors of fish (literally "fishy crackers"). The flight to Seoul was about an hour. Honestly after our many long journeys, any flight under 2 hours seems like a droll little jaunt through the skies! We take off, we reach altitude, we smile at each other, we begin our descent, and we have landed. It is amazing how our experiences change our perceptions.
We decided not to bring our stroller along on this trip, so the kids body surfed through the airport on our carry-ons.
That picture sort of reminded me of the "Follow Me To..." photography series on Instagram, except instead of a supermodel girlfriend in her designer fashions, Drew has ME, who is huge pregnant and lugging two toddlers. Same destination though, so we're pretty cool still, right?
The Incheon airport is actually a great place for a family to have a 6 hour layover. First of all, we got to skip the ENORMOUS line to go through security for international transfers because me and my pregnant self qualified for the "Impaired Mobility" line (yay?). All the bathrooms are equipped with family rooms that have a changing table, a little Vivien-sized toilet, and lots of space for luggage.
And there are apparently 7 different play areas, but we didn't look for any others after we found this one. The kids had a great time running around, and an even better time when we were joined by an American family with 4 little kids that live in China and were on their way stateside to visit family. I had passed out on a bench before they arrived, but Drew chatted with the parents for awhile until I woke up with grace and decorum (not. Picture an elephant getting up off its side), and then we had a lovely time whiling away the hours swapping stories of living in a foreign land until it was time to go to our gate.
The flight to Bali was about 6.5 hours. The kids slept probably half of it and the other half were thoroughly entertained by their personal TV screens. I think Rafe watched an airplane cartoon show 4 times in a row. The last hour of the flight they brought around snacks at about the same time we hit some minor turbulence. The fishiness of the snacks and the stomach-jostling bumpiness (and the not quite ripe banana I had just eaten) were enough to send one exhausted pregnant woman running to the airplane bathroom for her first actual vomiting of this pregnancy! I was so close to making it through unafflicted . . . Ah well.
Days 2-4 The Jayakarta Bali Hotel
At the airport we were met by the driver our hotel had arranged for (his name was Wayan, which means "first." Pretty much every Balinese oldest child is named Wayan, boy or girl. Second children are Made [like Ade from SYTYCD], thirds are Nyoman, and fourths are Ketut. All the Balinese we met were quick to establish the birth order of our children when getting to know us. Also, their go-to remark to Rafe was "strong boy!") and he took us for the first of many fascinating car rides through Bali. It was definitely the wee hours of the morning by the time we were driving to our hotel, but there were still tons of people out on the streets: driving, eating, talking, etc. I would say at least half of the vehicles on the road there are motorcycles/scooters/mopeds, driven by locals and all the tourists traveling without children.
A picture from a different drive. We saw people riding scooters and motorcycles with their dogs, babies, families (the most I saw on one motorcycle was 4), baskets of goods, and one guy balancing a bundle of 7 foot long bamboo poles on his shoulder. One of our drivers told us each family probably owns at least 2 motorcycles because it's the easiest way to get around the island.
The lane markings are more like guidelines; if there's no one coming the other way, the road is yours! Everyone's very comfortable with about 5 inches of clearance on either side in any direction. They drive deliberately and seem to be keenly aware of everyone around them; I can remember only one time any of our drivers had to stop suddenly. It sort of feels like a vehicular ant hill--everyone piled up going every which way, but somehow managing to not get gridlocked. I'm so glad we had drivers.
Looking out from the entryway of our hotel building
The resort was awesome for the kids. They loved the koi swimming in the fountain out in front of our building, especially when they would swim in a perfect circle of fish all the way around the pond. You just don't "get the chance" to sit and fully appreciate fish in ponds until you are traveling with small children . . .
The kids shared a futon in the front room. Vivien took some convincing not to be afraid of the light from the fire alarm or the noise of the air conditioning, but they both actually slept really well here.
Modeling the sun glasses we bought before we figured out how to say "no" to the street vendors.
Our room.
And the balcony.
The main resort buildings were a bit of a walk from where we were sleeping, so we'd try to pack everything we needed for a day of fun before we headed out in the morning. I say we tried, because we had to go back for at least one thing every single day we were there.
"Do you like my hat?" "I do not." "Goodby!" "Goodby!"
There were many ways to walk through the resort. This was up the main path.
Then there were other paths winding through beautiful gardens.
Vivien picked up a bouquet of frangipani every time we walked anywhere. And if she handed you a flower to hold and you tried to ditch it surreptitiously, she would catch you and scold you for it.
Interpretive dancing with fistfuls of flowers.
There were floral arrangements everywhere. The smell was heavenly!
They had an awesome breakfast buffet every morning, and since we stayed 4 days, it was for FREEEEEE! There was a pancake/waffle station, rice and vegetables, fresh fruit, sweet breads and tarts, a noodles station, cold cereal, breakfast potatoes, sausage and bacon, and an eggs station where you could get an omelette or 2 eggs any way you wanted them. It was very hard not to eat ALL the things.
Usually Rafe was pretty grumpy by the time we finally got down to breakfast (understandable, since our Early Bird Boy had been up for several hours by that time). It took a few sweet rolls and glasses of milk for him to warm up to the day again.
Grumpy face: perfected.
After breakfast it was straight to the pool where we spent the majority of our time at the resort. There were at least 4 different swimming pools, but this was Vivien's favorite because it was a good depth for her and it was usually teeming with Australian kids to watch. We witnessed some games of "Piggy in the Middle," and "Mah-cao Po-leh," and even heard some New Zealanders exclaim "Far out! This pool is deep as!" Poor Vivien was having a hard time explaining to other kids that she lived in Japan, as she is obviously not Japanese. Rafe always introduces himself as "Rafie." This, of course is when they consent to talk to strangers at all, which is rare. Mostly they look pointedly away or hide behind legs when they were approached. I can't feel too bad about their unfriendliness; they are very little, after all, and maybe it will keep them from being abducted!
Vivi spent the first day or two in the pool very safely near the steps (except when her mean parents made her do dips and practice kicking). Drew bought her some floaties the 2nd day that she loved and that helped her figure out how to kick effectively.
After a full day of floaties and getting up the courage to do a few dips without us physically dunking her, she was swimming a couple feet underwater all by herself! She spent the rest of the day only coming up for air, refusing to close her eyes or her mouth, so by evening she had red-rimmed eyes and was practically peeing clear. But she was thrilled with her victory.
The resort also had a little playground for when the kids got sick of swimming (that one time . . .)
The beach was right across the road. As we stepped out of the resort gates, we got our first glimpse of these little palm leaf boxes full of flowers which turned out to be all over Bali. From what we could gather, they are daily offerings made to the Hindu gods (Bali is about 85% Hindu, compared to the rest of Indonesia which is 87% Muslim. Thanks Wikipedia!). I saw the shop owners weaving and decorating the boxes in their spare time. Inside there were usually flowers, and sometimes incense or rice. All our drivers had them on their dash boards, the shop owners and vendors keep them in front of where they're selling their goods, families put them at their front doors and around their shrines, etc. They were fragrant and beautiful.
Which was a nice contrast to the throng of Balinese merchants aggressively touting their wares as soon as we stepped out of the resort. The locals are extremely friendly; they smile easily and genuinely and are quick to greet and chat. These skills make dangerous salesmen! We were finally able to shake them off a few feet from the wet sand.
The kids had decided that they were afraid of the ocean and would not go near the actual waves, but spent a few happy minutes getting as sandy as possible.
There were lots of people out flying kites on the beach. It's a big thing there. The kites are HUGE and they get them flying extremely high, then tie them off and they stay there all day. Anywhere we went in Bali, we could look up in the sky and see at least one flying. I guess there is a big kite flying festival in July that's supposed to be pretty spectacular.
We got a free photography session and a couple free digital images with our hotel booking, so we did that on the beach one of the days.
Caught in a wave (and caught before surprised faces turned to crying faces)
Rafe's the only one that got a single shot, but I don't feel bad about it because I've never actually had him photographed by himself . . .
The photographer either had us say "Ha ha ha!" or "Baliiii!", hence Drew's many uncharacteristic open-mouthed smiles!
On Thursday, we decided to take one of the guided tours of the southernmost tip of Bali offered by the hotel. It was an odd day.
We drove across an impressive 7km floating bridge that our driver told us was built by a Japanese company to our first stop: a beach area called Tanjung Benoa. It was a CRAZY place. There were tons of tourists there doing various water activities (glass-bottomed boat tours, "flying fish" tubing where the tubes float in the air for a few seconds with you on top when the boat gets going fast enough, and parasailing).
Flying fish tubes, picture courtesy of google images.
The water looked just like their roads--boats zooming every which way, towing people behind or in the air, and somehow managing not to hit one another or get tangled.
Our guide set up a glass bottom boat tour to a place called Turtle Island and we set out across the water.
We drove away from the shore for awhile to where a big group of boats were floating to look at some fish. The water was a pretty color, but visibility wasn't awesome, so the boat driver gave us bread to throw in the water and attract the colorful fish to the surface. They looked kind of like the fish that live by the USS Arizona. When we had seen our fill of feasting fish, we continued on our way to the island.
It was a thoroughly depressing place. The concierge at the hotel had sold it as a turtle "sanctuary" or "preserve," but it was more like Turtle Prison. We were required to make a "donation" to get in, which we were warned by our driver to haggle down to a reasonable price, then they assigned us a guide who herded us through a bunch of different stations where poor animals were being passed from tourist to tourist for photos.
The turtles were unceremoniously dunked back into these tubs when they weren't being held.
Our guide dumped a turtle into Drew's arms and then took about 30 pictures of us looking uncomfortable. After coming from Hawaii last fall where you no touchy the sea turtles, ever, it felt really wrong to be holding one!
Then we were herded to the "turtle sanctuary" where fistfuls of seaweed were being tossed to a bale of turtles bobbing in the stagnant pond water.
Another family there sent their son over to pose for a picture with the white people.
There was one turtle that was bigger than Vivi. The kids enjoyed watching it eat.
Then after the turtle swamp we had a trembling fruit bat thrown at us.
And a snake with its mouth taped shut wound around us.
And then our guide bullied us into posing for pictures with shabby hornbills (which they were confidently calling toucans) and eagles chained to their perches. Afterwards she tried very hard to convince us to do some shopping or have something to eat there, but we made as hasty an exit as we semi-politely could.
The boat ride back was more pleasant, zipping beneath all the parasailers and enjoying views of the coast. When we returned our guide asked us if we wanted to sit on the beach of madness to rest for awhile, but we were more than ready to bid the place goodbye. While we were waiting for a bottleneck to clear out in the crowded parking lot, we watched a little homeless puppy playing with a branch in the road . . . and then watched it get run over by the cars we had been waiting on. It was rather traumatic. We tried our best to do a mental reset so we could enjoy the rest of our day and proceeded to the very tip of the island to visit the sea temple Pura Uluwatu. It is perched on the edge of a 230 ft cliff.
We walked along the cliff and up a lot of stairs (so . . . hot . . .).
The kids took a rest in the shade of a tree for awhile.
We were permitted to walk around the temple grounds, but were asked not to go into the actual temple unless we were Hindus going in to worship. The rule was very familiar to us, so it was not hard to keep.
Looking out over the Indian Ocean, watched closely by our guide. The Balinese are extremely cautious when it comes to children. It kind of stressed me out.
They have a pretty bad monkey problem at this temple. Whenever the monkeys would steal something from a person in the past, they used to trade it food to get the object back, so now the monkeys are trained to steal things to get food. Recently they've started feeding the monkeys in one central place on the grounds to try to keep things under control, but they were still quite aggressive. We walked past a group of them and one made a beeline for Vivi's brightly colored sandals and started trying to take them off with it's grasping little hands. My mother bear instincts took over and I kicked it away from her, and then had to beat a hasty retreat because it charged me with teeth bared. We had a tense moment or two sizing each other up, then it decided I wasn't worth the effort, hopped off, and flopped down on its stomach in the shade to watch us sullenly from a distance. We were lucky--as we were leaving the courtyard a different monkey jumped on a Chinese guy's head to steal his sunglasses and he had quite a time trying to get him off.
If you were wearing shorts they had you wear a sarong to walk through the temple grounds. Drew looks rather fetching in his, don't you think?
After exploring Uluwatu, we were taken to a beach-side restaurant in Jimbaran and had the whole place to ourselves. For some reason, I find it disconcerting to be the sole diner at a restaurant. I can't keep from thinking why no one else is there . . . But, that's where the guide took us, so eat there we did. While we waited for our food a band walking down the beach came over and serenaded us. They tried to make friends with Vivien and she promptly retreated beneath the table. Even their rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star wasn't enough to win her over, so they moved on (after pointedly passing a hat to Drew so he could properly thank them for their music).
We split two young coconuts between us for a drink. They brought us some sweetener, ice, and lime wedges. So Vivi "put the lime in the coconut and drank it all up."
Our meal was a set menu of all the different sea foods they make at the restaurant, half of the dish cooked with chili sauce, the other with a garlic sauce. We had red snapper, squid, prawns, mussels, and lobster with sides of rice and water spinach.
Rafe was super cranky, and it quickly became apparent that it was because he was exhausted.
Vivi wasn't too interested in any of the food, so after a lunch of plain white rice, she spent the rest of the time throwing things off the steps into the sand.
We recovered from our strange day relaxing in the pool back at the resort, and resolved that for the rest of the trip we would do our best to research where we wanted to go beforehand and find a guide who would take us to our places of choice, instead of theirs.
That night we ate at a fun little restaurant down the street from the resort that had a second story patio where we could watch the sunset on the beach. Notice the solid line of motorcycles parked along both sides of the street.
Days 5-8 Sri Bungalows Bali
In the morning we got up, went for one last swim, and enjoyed one last pizza by the pool.
We also bid goodbye to the little gecko we had passed every time we walked back and forth to the main resort area. Then we packed up our stuff and headed on to the next adventure.
It was kind of a fun game to spot all the geckos we could any time we were out at night. Vivi got really good at it.
As you move away from the bigger cities and before you get to the farms in the north where the volcanoes are, each of the villages in Bali has a sort of specialty, like wood or stone carving. On the way to our new hotel we drove through the village of Celuk which is known for its gold and silversmiths. We stopped at a gallery where they had a bunch of ladies working on the jewelry out in front, displaying the production process from start to finish. This woman was gluing little tiny silver swirls and beads onto some earrings.
We were not allowed to take pictures inside the gallery, so I stole one off the internet. We were sorely tempted to buy the model ship--the sails were made of tiny filaments of silver threads . . . it was beautiful.
I did some shopping in the gallery while Drew entertained the kids. Again, our driver had advised us to try to haggle the listed prices down, he said to 50% of what was written on the tags. I hate bartering. If I succeed in getting a "good deal," I feel terrible that I have cheated this person out of an honest wage. And on the flip-side, I feel kind of offended that they would try to cheat me out of my money when I'm perfectly happy to pay them what their services are worth. Bleh. I think I ended up with a 5% discount. Oh well! Vivien loves her harmony ball necklace. At least, she did until she saw this horrible, bright pink wooden cat in a different souvenir shop that she formed an unhealthily strong attachment to and Drew asked her if she wanted it more than she wanted her necklace, which of course she said she did. I was able to convince her that the cat was lucky for the shop and needed to stay in Bali and do its job, so we couldn't possibly take it home. But, for the rest of the trip, she threatened to throw away her necklace if things were not going her way. We might just keep it tucked up in a safe place until she's a little older . . .
After our shopping ordeal we were happy to get to our next hotel. It was gorgeous.
We plugged the kids in to the screen while we unpacked.
And then we headed to dinner.
I love the way the sky gets reflected in rice paddies. It's one of my favorite things about Japan, and it was just as beautiful in Bali.
We ate at a cafe down the street from the Bungalows. I told Drew to make a manly face with his burger. So, this is Drew's manly face. "I think my bunny slippers just ran for cover . . ."
This is Bakmi Goreng. I had it a lot in Bali, because there was a lot of it, and it was dericious.
By the time dinner was over, our kids were definitely overtired.
Big, glassy eyes
But we made them go to a Balinese Legong Dance at the Ubud Palace (one of the temples in the city) anyway! The men in green shirts on the side are part of the "gamelan" orchestra. The ensemble was usually made up of a bunch of metallophones, handheld drums, gongs, bamboo flutes, and this one had a bowed instrument. The dances are used to tell stories and involve a lot of intricate finger and eye movements. We had a translation of the story for this particular dance, but we're still a little unclear on the details!
Vivien loved it and asked a lot of questions about what she was seeing. Rafe fell asleep the first 5 minutes.
The next morning was rainy.
So we hung out in our room for awhile. This was the only time we ever had actual rain that kept us in during the day, which was funny because when we'd looked at the weather forecast right before coming, it said we were going to have 10 straight days of thunderstorms.
When it had cleared up a bit Drew took the kids exploring the grounds of the hotel and I went out shopping. This was the view out our back window. They're standing in front of the spa where Drew got a massage. He's so fancy. Our bungalow was at the top of a river gorge (we're looking down into it).
On my shopping excursion I encountered several monkeys picking through the offerings left on the sidewalk. I gave them a wide berth. I had no desire to repeat my standoff from Uluwatu.
There were many interesting items for sale in the shops. These are supposed to be lucky.
For lunch we went to Cafe Wayan. On the wall was a framed excerpt from "Eat, Pray, Love" and several pictures of the author and the owner of the restaurant together, so that was kind of funny.
Where has my baby gone??
It was a beautiful place to sit and eat and relax.
After lunch we put Rafe down for a nap and Drew took Vivi out with him to do some shopping of their own and explore Ubud.
When Rafe woke up we met them at the Monkey Forest.
I forgot I had my sunscreen in the outside pocket of the backpack. It was promptly stolen. I felt guilty, but not guilty enough to try to get it back.
They were feeding all the monkeys sweet potatoes as we walked through.
Since the Monkey Forest includes some temple grounds, it felt like we were going to meet King Louie at any moment.
There were a lot of cool carvings.
I saw a monkey leaning contentedly against a statue of himself, but he moved when I tried to take a picture. It was funny to watch the baby monkeys acting very much like human babies do.
We forgot to look at the map and ended up going for a hot and humid mini hike in the jungle that Vivien was NOT pleased about.
We met many monkeys on our way.
And felt uneasy when the kids ran ahead to far. Monkeys are kind of scary. Rafe got a little too close to one that was sitting on a railing and it reached out and tugged his blond hair. He cried.
There were lots of side trails to explore to various parts of the temple grounds. I wanted to see the Dragon Bridge, so I lied to Vivien, who was worn out from her explorations with Daddy and ready to go, and told her that it was the way out.
The Dragon Bridge WAS cool . . .
. . . but when our hike led us down a gorge and to a dead end, Vivien was NOT pleased by my deception.
She decided to sulk looking out over the river, but the railings were crawling with little tiny ants. She didn't realize this until her hands were completely covered, at which point she started screaming hysterically, running in a circle and waving her arms around. I was able to get her brushed off and calmed down after a few minutes, and then looked around for Drew to share a chuckle (because it had been quite a performance) but he had run into some Romanians on the trail around the last bend in the gorge and was taking the rare opportunity to use his second language!
We had dinner that night at a restaurant called Laka Leke, which we discovered after we got there is the sister restaurant of Cafe Wayan, so we basically ate at the same place twice that day. That was fine with me, because the food was excellent, and the location was really cool. They sent a driver to our hotel to pick us up (for free!), we each received a welcome flower upon entering, and the women's bathroom had a fountain and a fishpond inside it (between Vivi's tiny bladder and my pregnant one, I saw a LOT of bathrooms in Bali. Not many of them had fishponds in them.). We had our own little pavilion right next to a big open stage area.
I had stuffed chicken breast for dinner. It was truly scrumptious.
And it came with 3 of the longest green beans I have ever seen all braided together.
When we were finished eating, we turned around right where we were sitting for front row seats to the dancing. This story was a sort of Frog Prince tale.
But unlike the dance at the Ubud Palace, these dancers were all kids! Vivien was impressed, but was still mortified when we went up to take a picture with them all at the end. She is hiding, not sleeping.
The next day was Sunday. We hired a driver to take us an hour and a half south into Nusa Dua for church. The branch there meets wherever they can find a space and they just make sure they keep lds.org updated. We were the first to arrive, and it was such a wonderful feeling to see "familiar" people trickle in after being in such an unfamiliar place all week.
The branch president was a native Balinese man and his counselor was a French businessman (who had recently been married to a woman from Jakarta who met the missionaries in Hong Kong when she was younger, got baptized, then served a mission in Australia) who conducted the meeting in English, since most of the people in attendance were tourists from one place or another and English was our most common language. One of the local couples translated for anyone who needed it. There was a couple from CA who had come to Bali to vacation with their three grown and married children who were prior military and now live in Singapore. There was a family from Malaysia, a bunch of Kiwis there for a wedding, some friends from Finland there sight seeing, and then a smattering of the regular members of the branch. It was fast and testimony meeting, and it was awesome to hear the testimonies of members from all over the world and to just bask in the sweet spirit of a room full of saints happy to be together.
After church we went back to the hotel. Drew had taken all our sweaty clothes to a laundry lady down the street the day before, so he went to pick them up when we got back. When he got there, they were clean and dry, but the lady was mortified when he said he'd be happy to take them as they were. She had him go and come back while she pressed, folded and wrapped everything. They smelled amazing, and my t-shirts have never looked so nice! We spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping and watching shows on CBeebies (the kid counterpart of the BBC).
We took a small break from our room while passing the time to dinner to take a dip (without having any fun, as it was Sunday) in the pool. The bottom was very slippery, so poor Rafe had a hard time staying upright, but every time he'd come up, spluttering and choking, he'd say "I did it! I did dips!" with this sad but triumphant look on his face.
That night we went to a Balinese Buffet at . . . Cafe Wayan again! Rafe's favorite was the pumpkin soup, but we had to feed it to him because he could not sit still well enough to get the spoon safely to his mouth without depositing the creamy goodness all over himself and the floor. The kids were far more interested in the fountains around our pavilion than eating. Drew got so full that he couldn't even try the pudding they had for dessert that looked a lot like roe . . . Don't worry, it was like tapioca and I had plenty for both of us.
On Monday we had a BIG travel day going around the island to check off some of our UNESCO World Heritage sites. "The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity." The sites are pretty much always a safe bet that we're going to see amazing things and learn a lot, so we try to incorporate them into our itineraries whenever we visit a new place.
In Bali, the only official world heritage site as of now is "The Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: the Subak System as a Manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy." The Tri Hita Karana Philosophy is basically that when there is harmony between people, nature, and God, you will have prosperity and well being. So, the water comes from the volcanic lakes in the north of the island and from the tropical forests, then flows through the rivers out to the sea. At each of the sources of water throughout the island, there are water temples. At the temples, groups of farmers meet regularly as a democracy to coordinate their planting seasons and to discuss the distribution of the water. These cooperative groups are called subaks, and the caste system that's a huge part of Balinese culture is completely ignored at the meetings.
The planting seasons are coordinated so that everyone in a region plants at the same time, then everyone harvests at the same time, meaning there's lots of food for pests initially, and then no food for pests so most of them die off and the farmers are able to keep the pest population controlled without the use of pesticides. If the people up stream in a group of paddies withheld water, the downstream people wouldn't be able to plant and harvest at the same time, so the pests would be able to move back and forth between their paddies and never die, so it's important that they all work together (harmony with man) to make sure their crops will grow well year after year (harmony with nature). The priests of the water temples are in charge of regulating the irrigation. The farmers give offerings to the Gods at their local, regional, and mother temples, thanking them for the gifts of the land (harmony with God). This system has been in place and remains in use today basically unchanged since the 9th century. I'd say that's pretty good proof of the validity of their philosophy!
So our first stop was one of the regional water temples, Pura Taman Ayun.
Again, we were allowed to walk all around the temple grounds but not inside the actual temple. A 4 foot wall runs around the inner temple complex, so we could still look inside and see what was there.
Here's a panorama of the whole temple complex. We couldn't ever really get anyone to explain what they actually do when they come to the temple to meet, but I'm not sure I'd be able to give someone a satisfactory answer about what we do inside our temples either, so we contented ourselves with looking and admiring.
Gates into the temple complex.
And the cock fighting arena on the temple grounds. Cock fighting is very popular in Bali, though I guess it's been illegal since the 1980's unless it's part of a religious ceremony (something to do with the spilled blood being an offering or something like that). I asked Ketut, our driver for the day, if he'd ever been to one. He nodded enthusiastically and smiled sheepishly.
After Taman Ayun, we made our way up to the second biggest lake in Bali, Lake Bratan, to visit another water temple, Pura Ulun Danu Beratan ("pura" means temple, "ulun" means on top of, "danu" is lake). We walked through the beautiful grounds.
And admired the rock designs on the paths.
Vivien found a turtle. I told her she needed to sniff her nose before I took another picture of her (planning to delete this one after I got one without the mucus, but I didn't delete it because I wanted to remember what happened next . . .), and Ketut went right over and grabbed that nasty, slimy booger off her face with his fingers, then flicked it away without even blinking. I . . . was not expecting that.
But Vivi was happy to have a clean nose.
Here is the inner temple complex sitting out on the beautiful lake, which we could not see because of the mist.
But we could still admire the beautiful flowers.
And play in the park that was on the temple grounds. This was one of the aspects of Bali that made me a little bit sad. Their places of worship are ancient, and therefore good tourist destinations, so in order to follow the tourists and their money, we've kind of forced the Balinese to turn their temples into places of business/entertainment. There are people selling stuff all over and restaurants and parks--it's just not what I imagine they really want to have happening around their sacred places of worship. But, maybe that's just me reflecting my own perspective on their culture. We certainly took advantage of the park anyway.
After Lake Bratan, we drove on some really bumpy mountain roads to see a good example of the rice paddies. We saw some pretty ingenious motorcycle rigs on the way.
This area is called Jatiluwih and is part of the UNESCO sites. It was kind of mind blowing to think that these paddies have been there and in use for over 1,000 years.
We had lunch at a cafe that overlooked the valley of rice paddies extending as far as the eye (or iPhone camera) could see.
The kids, of course, were more interested in the fish pond at the restaurant. There were tadpoles in it, which was pretty fun . . .
After lunch we went for a little walk through the rice paddies.
The fields were in the process of being harvested.
We got to see the rice on their stalks.
And then we passed some very smiley Balinese women harvesting the ears of rice by hand. They seemed to be bragging to the ladies in the next field over that we had asked them for a picture, instead of the other ones.
Once they've got a big bunch of rice stalks, they tie them together in sheaves.
And then they store them upside down in little poofs under a tarp until they're dry. It was very peaceful to walk through the fields. It would've been a little more peaceful if our kids had felt like walking, but they were getting pretty chronically tired by this point in our trip, and the long drives certainly weren't improving their temper.
We tried to liven things up a bit for them by stopping by the Bali Butterfly Park.
The garden was completely enclosed by nets, and in the middle was the butterfly nursery. They go through the garden every day and collect all the chrysalises they find and bring them into the nursery to hatch.
There were a lot of different kinds, but these metallic ones really caught our eye.
There were several butterflies in the process of hatching. They stay in the butterfly nursery for a few hours while their wings dry and they learn to fly, then they release them into the garden.
As a result we got to see a ton of different kinds of butterflies up close.
Birds of a feather . . .
Drying in the sunshine.
My iPhone wasn't quite sure what to do with the cool metallic shine of these wings, but the color is just as beautiful as it was in person.
Pink and green.
They let us hold some of the newborn butterflies as well.
The kids were very gentle with them . . .
. . . and held very still as they admired all of their features.
Drew is the Fairy Prince.
After we'd had our fill of baby butterflies, we went to a different pavilion in the park to hold other bugs. This leaf bug looked like a CGI creation.
And Drew was brave enough to hold the rhinoceros beetle that I had been sure was a statue and had to be pried off its perch in order to be held . . .
For some reason the giant stick bug was less freaky to me.
Rafe much preferred holding butterflies.
Sitting for a minute to watch the butterflies flit around the garden.
Holding hands in front of the butterfly statue.
Vivi found a coconut in the parking lot.
Our last stop for the day was the sea temple Pura Tanah Lot. It's one of Bali's most iconic temples, so we felt like we probably ought to go!
Once again, it was like a mad house all around the temple.
Seriously, kids taking off shoes, climbing all over the rocks, making people nervous . . . some people just really can't control their children . . .
We decided to move away from the crowd a little bit, that we might admire the temple in peace. And chase stray dogs. And start taking off the rest of our clothes.
It had been such a long day of driving and sight seeing, we let the kids enjoy themselves playing naked in the tide pools, and we sat back and enjoyed the view. I would say, sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the view, but Drew saw a sea snake in one of the tide pools, so he felt compelled to keep a sharp eye out for any more next to our dear naked babies.
Once the kids were done in the water, we walked down the coast a little ways and then went to go find some dinner.
After the sun went down, we watched our last Balinese dance show, the Kecak dance. There was no gamelan orchestra for this one--instead it was danced to the chanting and vocal percussion of a cak ("chak") chorus of men seated around the ring. The bells you hear are from the dancers' costumes.
It was a telling of the Ramayana, which I admit I only know anything about because of the movie A Little Princess. One thing I thought was really fascinating about watching the Balinese women dance was that their costumes have a long train that goes between their feet and they have to move all over the place, forward and backward, without tripping on it. You can see Princess Sita's train that she's flipping with her heel pretty well in this picture.
It was VERY exciting (and very smoky!) when Hanuman is burned, especially after he escapes and then kicks the fireballs all over the stage at King Ravana's men (one of them shielded us from the majority of the sparks, because we were on the front row and very much downwind from the fire). It was a great dance to end on. After it was over our driver took us back for our last sleep at Sri Bungalows. It was quite a day!
Days 9-11 Sanur Paradise Plaza Hotel
The next day was only slightly less busy. We packed up our stuff in the morning and said goodbye to the beautiful grounds.
When we first got to Bali, I thought tourists were putting flowers on the statues as a joke, but it's a Balinese thing! I like it. "It's a hibessscusss." The black and white sarongs are also on a lot of the statues and used to decorate the shrines. One of our drivers told us it represents the Hindu belief that everything has an opposite; there is a light and dark side to everything.
The restaurants often served their fruit with lime wedges in Bali. I don't know why I had never had lime juice on watermelon slices before, but I don't think I'll be able to eat it any other way now . . .
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After checking out, we headed off to Goa Gajah, or the Elephant Cave. Our driver told us these piles of rocks are relics from the 9th century and have not been moved from their original places. He did not speak a lot of English, so he sadly couldn't tell us much about anything else.
He did tell us lots of people come here to bathe in the holy spring water from the fountains.
The mouth of the cave. Inside were a bunch of alcoves with statues inside, covered in offerings. It was smoky and stuffy from all the incense burning.
They were repairing the temple grounds when we were there. It was pretty fascinating to see the process. The roofs start out like this:
Then they somehow attach this palm fiber to the top and cut it with a razor so it has a nice clean edge.
The grounds included a beautiful garden where there were lots of Balinese skinks slinking around.
We marveled at this awesome tree for awhile.
There was something about the garden that reminded me a lot of the India scenes in A Little Princess.
Rafe posing with the cave and the holy spring water.
After Goa Gajah we went to the Setia Darma House of Masks. There were a couple different buildings to walk through, and each had its own theme. The first contained "good" barongs, which are like the king of the spirits in Indonesian mythology. The kids had fun trying out all the instruments that were laid out around the room.
And they were excited to see the barong costumes up close that we had seen in some of the dances we went to.
The second building was full of evil spirits. I could be wrong, but I think this barong is like the foil of the good barong that Rangda (that horrible bald mask on the stage) can change into when she does battle with the good barong. The kids are being frogs, like the dance we saw at Laka Leke.
Then there were buildings full of Balinese shadow puppets, masks from all over Indonesia, masks from all over the world . . .
. . . and also puppets from all over the world. Hello, Mr. President.
After the house of masks we went to the Bali Bird Park. We were a little worried it was going to be like Turtle Island, but it turned out to be a nice place. They did let us hold a bunch of parrots.
And we got to see a cassowary.
And a peacock in full fan.
The Crowned Cranes were fun to watch. We watched a pair of them squish these grass tussocks flat with their big feet, hoping to drive some bugs out to catch and eat.
We decided to stay for the Birds of Prey show. We sat next to these darling kids from Sumatra. They were really nice to Vivi and were able to persist through her initial shyness until she warmed up to them. The girl next to Vivi is 9 years old. The little boy volunteered to have hawks fly by and steal meat off a tray he was holding on his head, cheesiest grin slapped on his face the whole time. Vivien was quite upset when we didn't spend the rest of the day with them.
But Rafe had fallen asleep, so it was time to go.
Usually when we go on long trips, our kids sleep a lot in the car, so they're not so tired. But we didn't even bring car seats on this trip due to the seat belt situation (i.e. no one wears them, and they're often not accessible), so instead of zonking out every time we drove somewhere, they were tumbling all over the car, trying their hardest to open the doors, fall out the windows, and switch seats as many times as possible. That combined with our late nights going to shows made for some impressively cranky kids by the end of our adventure. If we told Rafe he was not allowed to do something, he would come and "spank" us. If we tried to spank him, he would demand that we say sorry to him. Vivien was coming up with some pretty creative threats by the end. "I hate tennis shoes! I will rip them up and throw them on the ground! And I will rip up my friend's tennis shoes because I don't like them and I will rip them!!" Ah, family vacations!
After the bird park we checked into our hotel. Vivien was pretty enamored with the art in our room.
And we had a nice sleeping arrangement worked out for the kids that lasted about 5 minutes. At this point it was taking the kids at least an hour and a half of winding down in the dark before they'd finally go to sleep. There may or may not have been a desperate temper tantrum from Mom every night around 9 o'clock . . . The kids weren't the only ones who were tired and cranky!
We spent most of our time at this hotel just hanging out. The whole middle section of the hotel was a courtyard of fountains and the pool. Whatever advances we had made with Vivi's water comfort at the Jayakarta had completed disappeared by this point, so we swam a little, but it was more like cautious wading. NO SPLASHING ALLOWED.
We also tried to go to the beach in Sanur, which was supposed to be really awesome for kids because the waves break out on the coral reef so the surf on the beach is really mellow. It was awesome, for kids who like swimming, but our kids were not particularly interested in getting in the water at all, as their chief pleasures at the beach involve sand castle building. The sand was mostly composed of finger sized chunks of coral though.
So, we relaxed on beach chairs and tried out our cool pirate ship kite we'd bought the day before (I forgot to take a picture on the beach, so here's one now), then after lunch decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel to pack for our flight home that night.
Our flight left at 01:30, so we put the kids to bed and got a few hours of sleep, then headed to the airport to wait.
There were lots of Chinese tourists who were happy to entertain Rafe for me. This guy played with him for a long time.
Everyone slept most of the way home. We only had 4 hours to wait in Korea this time. It's such a nice airport. This is the entrance to the first bathroom off the plane:
When we got to Fukuoka Drew went to pick up the car and Rafe totally lost it because I told him we were not going to ride on a bus. Vivien tried to explain the situation to him, but he was beyond reaching. It was with great relief that we finally made it home around dinner time. The kids said hello to all their toys, then slept a good, solid 12 hours that night.
And that was our trip to Bali, and the longest blog post I have ever written. Phew!
