My Bali Trip: Dream Beach

If there is one place in the world that I would dare to call my 'happy place,' Dream Beach might be it. We strolled up to this secluded beach on our motor bike our first day on Nusa Lembongan, and I had such a surge of happiness and pure glee (glee!), that I nearly broke my leg scurrying down the rocks to the beach. I never wanted to leave!








I've never swam in such huge waves!













Caught Ali mid-jump...














The way the waves slammed against the rocks was mesmerizing...












Pretty...












The view from the hill...












We had the yummiest food ever looking over the beach. Shrimp with coconut milk and Indonesian spices steamed in a banana leaf. Yum!











Too many pictures of the rocks?

My Bali Trip: Nusa Lembongan

After the long and exhausting journey, we were finally in Bali. Hooray! We spent the first night at Sanur beach, on the eastern coast of Bali. I’ve never been so happy to take a shower in my life!

The next morning, we headed to an island not far off the coast of Bali called Nusa Lembongan. Nusa Lembongan blew my mind! It’s a small island, full of Hindu culture, and completely untarnished by tourism. It feels like this magical untouched place with beautiful people, beautiful traditions, and seriously beautiful beaches. The pace was slow, the mood was calm, and best of all, nobody was pulling on my skirt trying to sell me stuff. (This may be my biggest pet peeve of traveling…)

We stayed in a little bungalow on the beach, attached to World Diving, the scuba diving joint that we had signed up for some dives with. Everything there was super cheap, the food was super delicious (despite the ‘Bali Belly’ it gave me a few days in…more on this later…), and the island was ours to explore.

So explore we did! We had barely thrown down our bags and changed into our swimsuits before we had a motor bike rented and were flying through the little dirt roads of the island. We were speechless! It was like we had gone back in time—old Balinese rooftops, temples in every home, and Hindu tradition oozing from every corner. All of the woman wore brightly colored traditional skirts and carried gigantic baskets on their heads, the children ran around barefoot (and sometimes bare naked), and one day we even caught all of the people of the island in their traditional Hindu garb marching to the temple on the corner of the island for one of their annual Hindu rituals. I would describe the feeling of the island as mystical. I kept asking myself…”does this place really exist?”

Right next to this island were two other islands: Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida. Seaweed farming is a big source of income for a lot of people on the islands. Every evening, you could see the farmers bringing in big baskets of seaweed from the water.

So yes, we fell in love with Nusa Lembongan. We spent 3 nights there diving, exploring, beaching, and inhaling as much yummy Indonesian food as possible –I’ve never eaten so much tuna fish in my life (FRESH, mind you -- and it's true what the can says: It really does taste like the chicken of the sea!) or been served every single meal on a banana leaf.

More on the diving and beaches at Nusa Lembongan to come…

The view from my bungalow.

Seaweed farmer taking in his seaweed at the end of the day.

The parade of Hindus marching to the temple.

Almost as many stray dogs as people...

A Balinese woman making her daily offering outside of her home.

My Bali Trip: Getting There

So I've decided that rather than trying to squeeze all of my Indonesian adventures into one long, overwhelming, over-detailed, over-flowing-with-pictures blog, it would be more fun to split it up into a little 'blog series.' This also lets me draw out the lingering bliss of being on vacation for as long as possible.

I would like to dedicate this first blog to our treacherous journey of actually getting to Bali. After my terribly long and exhausting week, I ran home on Friday afternoon and we headed to the airport where we left for Hong Kong at about 8. We got there a few hours later and proceeded to have an 11 hour overnight layover in the Hong Kong airport. Which we spent attempting to sleep on the airport chairs. I would like to write a letter to the dear authorities of the Hong Kong airport and ask them, why, oh why, must they place a bar after every 2 chairs. It makes sleeping near impossible: Who can curl up and get comfy when you only have 2 seats to work with? I'll tell you who: NO ONE. I had a realization as I stuffed myself onto those two chairs and tried to talk myself out of a hysterical meltdown: cheaper tickets with unbearable layovers are not worth it.

We finally boarded our flight to Bali the next morning and arrived at Denpassar Airport in the early afternoon exhausted, sweaty, dirty, and eager to catch our boat to Nusa Lembongan, an island off of Bali. We did not, I tell you, DID NOT catch that boat. The airport in Bali may be one of the stupidest, most unorganized, stupidest...stupidest airports I've ever been in. About 5 flights came in at once, everyone raced to the immigration lines where you had to first line up to buy your visa, then turn around and attempt to find a line to get through immigration. I say 'line' as if there were any lines, but there weren't. There was just an un-airconditioned room of about 2,000 hot, angry, jet-legged travelers, all peering above the mass of people at the desks of immigration officers wondering..."why isn't this ****ing line moving!?!?!?" (Pardon the language, but emotions were running high...) We stood there for 2 hours with our heavy bags, sweating like pigs shoved into a barn awaiting slaughter. (Does it sound like I'm making it more dramatic than it was? I'm not. It was that bad.)

But we arrived. And the adventures began. Adventures of which will be described in upcoming blog posts. :)

And a quick note on my return: we arrived at Incheon airport this morning at 5 am, got home by 7, and had to be up for work by 8:30. I would like to reiterate the statement I made earlier: cheaper tickets with unbearable layovers are not worth it.

Please, oh please, self, remember this when I book my next excursion...

Burnout

For once in my life, I'd like to go into vacation feeling refreshed, well-slept, and healthy. Instead, I'm always burned-out, seriously sleep deprived, and have spent the past week surviving on vanilla lattes and m&ms. Which basically sums up my week. I had big plans of staying on top of things, running every day, being all packed-up and ready to go to Bali with toes freshly painted, and I feel like I'm barely staying afloat. I've been teaching my private lesson student every morning this week before work to get in extra lessons before I leave, went to visit friends in Seoul last night an hour and a half away, visited with a prospective new private student's family on Tuesday (my current one is moving to Hawaii!), and spent every day dodging all the drama that's taking place at work (just found out my boss is quitting because she's tired of doing 3 jobs in 1, and they aren't going to replace her -- so logical!). Perhaps I took on too much?

I just keep chanting in my head "Bali...Bali...Bali..." In 24 hours I'll be on a bus to the airport. We're spending the night in the Hong Kong airport (cheaper tickets with terrible lay-overs always seem like a good idea months before the vacation), and will be in Bali on Saturday afternoon.

"Bali...Bali...Bali..."

Monsoon Season

Today was one of those summer days in Korea when the only thing it does all day is pour and pour...

...and pour.

So what is there to do but take refuge in the little coffee shop downstairs. Which is exactly what me and my boss, Jenny, did.

I am in serious pain due to the yoga class I attended this week. I haven't been to a yoga class since my first year in Korea. And I wanted to prove that I could still keep up with the little Korean gumby girls in my class. I say 'still' as if I actually could keep up with them at one point. I couldn't before. I can't now. And my heroic effort to bend, twist, and down-dog-it like the rest of them has cost me the use of upper body. Oh, competitiveness, why must you always get the best of me?

Bali Bound

I go to Bali in one week and 2 days!!! Ali and I are heading to this beautiful island in Indonesia next Friday and spending 10 days there. The itinerary is as follows (I've attached links to all the places for your reading pleasure!):

We're spending the first few days in a small island off of Bali called Nusa Lembongan to do some scuba diving (apparently the diving around Bali is INCREDIBLE!) and watch some killer sunsets and do all of those sorts of things that people do on magical islandy places. Then, we're heading to Padang Bai to spend a couple of nights at The Marco Inn, a little beach house on the water that has a 360 degree rooftop with daily YOGA CLASSES! (I am much more thrilled about this than Ali is...) Here we're hoping to make the most of the Blue Lagooon that everyone claims spectacular and perhaps take a day trip to Mount Agung, the highest mountain (and active volcano!) in Bali.

And then, we're going to Ubud! This is the heart of Bali and supposedly the center of Balinese art and culture. We're staying in a place called the Ubud Inn, which is where...brace yourself...this place is where...where...ELIZABETH GILBERT STAYED IN EAT PRAY LOVE!!! (Again, I am far more thrilled about this than Ali is...) To stay in the place that Elizabeth Gilbert (who could quite possibly be titled 'my favorite person-I've-never-met ever') stayed in my all time favorite book is almost too much for me. Maybe I can also find that guru fortune teller guy that she befriended there. Anyway, Ubud will be the last leg of our journey, so we're hoping to take in as much of the Balinese culture as possible, including renting motor bikes for the day to explore the Balinese country side, rice paddies, and life outside of the city. And THIS, people, is the one thing that Ali is much more thrilled about than I am. I have a deathly fear of motor bikes ever since I crashed both Nathan Van Kley's and Tim Van Vugt's mopeds in the 8th grade. One I crashed into the wall of an alley (in my defense, I had just planned to sit on the moped but my friend told me I had to spin the handle to keep the engine running and the next thing I knew, BOOM, straight into the wall.) And the next time I was trying to turn a corner and ended up driving straight onto someone's front yard. It is HARD turning corners on mopeds. I was 13 and have never driven any moped-ish vehicle since.

This will be the first time that Ali and I ride a plane together. We've lived in three different countries together and have said 'hello' or 'goodbye' nearly 20 times to each other in airports, and yet we have not managed to actually get on a plane at the same time. What if we're completely incompatible in the air? This plane ride could make or break us.

Hollywood Kids Goes Global

Yesterday, my 6 year old Kindergarten class and my Primary class both performed Pinocchio for their families. They did so well! I am seriously amazed at how well they can memorize lines in the 8 weeks we spend on each play. They know the lines better than I do. And they're 6. And they're KOREAN. Even the kids who had no idea what their lines meant, no idea where one word ended and the next began (wheredidyougetthosegoldcoinspinocchio?), and no idea if their character was supposed to sound happy or angry (my 'sly' fox was about as chipper and friendly as Barney) got smiles from the audience and absolutely beaming parents.

That is, every one had beaming parents except Dora. Dora's poor mother sat in her chair with a look of despair, sympathy, and embarrassment as her poor 7-year-old daughter sobbed through the ENTIRE play. Dora, the only girl in my Primary Pinocchio class and therefore by default has the part of the Blue Fairy, has had her lines memorized for weeks. No problems. Until yesterday. From the moment the parents walked in the door, Dora's bottom lip started quivering and her eyes started welling up. During their individual introductions ("My name is Robert. I am 8 years old. I am Pinocchio. Welcome to play, everybody. Enjoy the show!), I noticed that she could barely get out a word and I frantically turned to Jenny, my boss, and said "What's the matter with Dora!?!?!?" To which Jenny replied, "I think she's a little nervous." A little? A LITTLE!?!?!? Apparently, Dora has some serious stage fright issues, as from that point on she spent the entire 5 scenes sobbing, arms shaking, unable to function. I bravely stepped in to help the poor girl out. (And I mean it when I say 'bravely.' I can see why Dora had a break down. The look in the eyes of those expecting parents is enough pressure to make me, a 26 year old EXTROVERT, get shaky in the knees.) She stood next to me, wand in hand, and didn't manage to murmur one word. She stood on the stage for each song, did all the actions in hysterical weeping despair, but did not open her mouth. I guess we'll need to work on that.

I have now proudly completed 8 Dramas--all of which include a story book, a drama book, a song (lyrics and melody by yours truly) to go with each scene of each drama (meaning I've written 36 songs thus far), a 20-page workbook filled with fantastical activities, and a teacher's guide giving line-by-line detailed instruction on what the character should be doing, where they should be standing, and how they should be sounding. We have 4 more dramas to go to finish up levels one and three, and then we move on to levels two and four. Each level has 6 dramas -- enough to last one year if you follow the 8-week program that I have laid out. I found out yesterday that my Hollywood Kids program (have I mentioned that I did NOT pick out the name 'Hollywood Kids'? Just to be clear...) will now not only be used in all of the 40 Feinschule schools across Korea, but will also start being sold in Korean bookstores and will be exported to China and Japan and possibly Germany. My books are going global! I feel seriously proud of the program that I'm creating. And to think that it all starts on my little Mac at my little desk in Ilsan.