last day

We are just sitting around waiting for our driver to take us to the airport! I cant believe the trip is over, it went so quickly. Yesterday and today we just took advantage of our vacation and were extremely lazy. It was very nice . We're anxious and excited to get home and back to real life ( and I think our stomachs would appreciate our normal food!).

the flight home is actually shorter by 2 hours ( hurray!). Hopefully it goes as smoothly as our trip out here. We both decided to not go into work on wednesday so we could have a day to recover/adjust to the time difference.

Here are some observations about Bali:

1) the people here are so nice. As a tourist you never feel unsafe or like you are intruding, they are always friendly and smiling even in the worst traffic.

2) the food here is very vegetarian friendly. I never had trouble finding something delicious and vegetarian on a menu. I wish America was like this!

3) Everybody here smokes. I mean, EVERYBODY. Its funny because the brand of cigarettes here is "L.A cool" and nobody in L.A would ever be caught dead smoking in public!

4) The big american brands here are KFC, McDonalds, and Oreo's. They are very popular and dominate a lot of the advertisements here.

5) Traffic rules are really more of a suggestion here. Almost everybody rides scooters and it can be quite chaotic during rush hour.

6) There are lots of stray/wild dogs that are roaming the streets. The balinese people seem to treat them fine, but they are not domesticated pets.

7) The food here does not have any cheese/dairy in it! We realized this on about day 7-8 when we were just feeling so "blah" and were craving american food. I admit we headed straight to the hard rock cafe and ordered nachos that day. They were delicious. We are ashamed.

8) Nobody here really "tips". Dining at even nice restaurants, there was no tip line and nobody expected or asked for one on any of our excursions/tours.

9) There is extreme poverty here. However, unlike some places where you feel like you're in the slums it just seems like a way of life here. People seem very content and spiritual and somehow that makes the poverty seem not as bad.

10) The pollution seems to be getting bad here. Trash is piling up on beaches/water/streets and there seems to be no concept or concern for keeping things clean. We did see some fires in backyards/sides of streets which lead me to think that the balinese burn their household trash so maybe its just the tourists, but its very sad.

11) The hardest thing about staying in the Villa was the language barrier between us and the staff. It was hard to express to them what we wanted to do or eat because they weren't very well versed in english. It was definitely interesting and I think good to get outside of our comfort zone for a little bit but it was frustrating at times.

12) Nowhere takes USD. We're used to traveling to mexico or the Caribbean where everywhere will accept usd but not here! We had to stop several times to get our money changed which was not hard as there are money changers everywhere.

13) Bali was a great place for our honeymoon. It was the perfect mix of tropical relaxation and exotic cultural exploration. This is the first time i've ever been anywhere this culturally different, and I'm glad I picked Bali. The culture and people here are beautiful and simple and it was enjoyable getting to see that.

Shopping and Dance performance

Yesterday we decided to go shopping for some mementos to bring back to the states with us. Our driver dropped us off in Kuta and we walked around for about 2 hours. Kuta has everything from fake purses to gorgeous linens. We ended up getting a really cool indian looking table runner and 6 placemats as well as these really comfortable shoes by Sanuk which have a flip flop base but are actual close toed shoes. Maybe this will help me wear close toes shoes more. probably not!

At night we went back to the Uluwatu temple for their dance performance. This was so cool! I didnt get many great pictures but the entire performance is done at an ampitheater that overlooks the ocean. The performance was at 6pm, so it was perfect timing to watch the sunset.

We love balinese food, but 9 days of meat with sauces and rice can take a toll! We were just craving some american food. Namely, Cheese. The balinese really dont use cheese in anything and I think we both really missed it in our diet. Our driver took us to a "warung" that is popular with the surfers because of its pizza. We got a whole pizza, garlic bread, and a piece of chocolate cake for 50,000 Rupiees ( equivalent of like $5.00 USD). We brought it back to the villa with us and ate it in bed while watching " I am Legend". It was nice to have a "normal" night like we do back home on our vacation.

Today is the last day of our honeymoon! We originally had planned to go back up to Ubud and do a bike tour through the mountains, but at the last minute we decided we'd rather just spend the day totally relaxed at our villa. So we ordered 3 hours of spa treatments! We have to leave for the airport around noon tomorrow and then we'll begin our long trip home.

I cant wait to see Finnegan!!

cruise

Yesterday we took a sailboat to the island of Lembogan about 2 hours away from Bali. The cruise started out fine. We opted to take a gorgeous sailboat which took a little longer to get to the island but was more upscale and not as huge as the "fun boat' carrying about 200+ people. That was a mistake! About 20 minutes into the cruise I felt myself getting a little dizzy. Then the weather started to get really bad just as we were hitting some huge waves. For the remainder of the trip my sole focus was the horizon and making sure i didnt need to use the barf bag. It was not very fun or pleasant. By the time we got to the island, we found nice chairs by the pool and promptly passed out. The island was very pretty, but the cruise ended up taking us to their "beach club" which reminded us a lot of the cruise ship beach clubs in the carribean. We'd skip this excursion if we could do it all over again. There were tons of kids and a huge group of tourists all wearing the same outfits. Needless to say, I insisted we get a spot on the high speed ocean raft for our return trip. At about 4:30 we left the island and had a very nice and quick ride back to Bali.

For dinner our chef made us "tumeric rice" with prawns, fried bean curd, potatoes, and sauteed green beans. This was one of the best dinners we've had here ! For dessert was a coconut crepe. So good! We get to take a balinese cook book home with us, so maybe i can try to recreate some of these recipes back at home. We've never cooked much rice but after this trip I think we have a new appreciation for it.

I think the hardest part about being away from home for this long is missing your normal diet of food. We Love the balinese food but i think tonight we'll have him make us pizza or something simple! We have become big fans of toast for breakfast. They sell loaves of toast here with the crust already cut off. Genius!

Rock bar was as cool as i thought it would be! It was very crowded though because apparently there is a 400 person wedding at the resort this weekend. Yikes!! The resort was so gorgeous, i would love to stay there! The rooms start at $700USD so maybe in another life! For now we are just content to drink and eat there.

After rock bar we went to dinner on the sand at the resorts seafood restaurant. Chris had surf and turf and i had amazing tuna! We've also become obsessed with Lychee's on this trip and had many lychee mojitos and bellinis last night. I'll definitely be continuing this trend when we get back to the states!

Today we're off to an island cruise. There is a small island off bali called Lembongan. We are sailing over there on a sailboat and will spend the day at a small beach club there. Once on the island we can snorkel, go banana boating, and explore the local villages.

I cant believe we only have 3 days left here! I thought i'd be ready to go home by day 10, but really I think we could stay another week.

Just some recent pictures....

Uluwatu Temple, Padang Padang, and Jimbaran Bay

This morning we went to the Uluwatu temple. This is one of the most gorgeous temples on the entire island and its easy to see why! The temple is perched atop a cliff with crashing waves below. The temple is also inhabited by tons of monkeys! We had to remove our sunglasses and make sure our bags were closed because apparently these monkeys have been known to steal things. They looked pretty cute to me. We also saw about 8 puppies and their momma. It was cute but kind of sad since I just recently learned that the dog population in Bali isnt very well taken care of and lots of them have rabies.

All people entering the temple must wear a sarong and sash , which were given to us at the front. We are so glad we came in the early morning when it was still quiet and empty. Apparently the temple can get very crowded with tourists.

Our driver told us about a secret white sand beach close to the temple called "padang padang". We climbed down the many steps to get to the very tiny but beautiful beach. This is where a scene from Eat, Pray, Love was filmed apparently. We stayed here for about 1 hour watching the surfers. I think the secret is out though because we saw quite a few tourists mixed in with the locals.

For lunch we decided to head to Jimbaran bay for their famous seafood meals. We had an amazing meal right on the sand. I tried to ignore the smell of fish, but it was quite strong! Chris had prawns and I had an amazing vegetable and noodle dish. The food here is awesome and great for vegetarians.

Tonight we will be heading to Rock Bar at the ritz carleton. I've been looking forward to this for some time, the bar looks awesome. It literally hangs off a cliff. If the Ritz is anything like the St. Regis, I'm sure we're in for a good time. Tomorrow is our cruise to the island of Lombok, right off Bali.

Yoga and Shopping in Seminyak

This morning we started off the day with a Yoga class at Prana Yoga in Seminyak. It was a very tough class! The already sweltering room left chris and I drenched about 10 minutes into it. We started off the class with some very intense vinyasa's. The instructor went so fast - but it was great! The middle of class was spent stretching and doing core work. The last 30 minutes were spent only on breathing. It was interesting and great at the same time! I would love to find a class like this in LA when we get back. The Prana complex is really gorgeous and has a very moroccan vibe to it. After yoga we walked around the shopping town of Seminyak. They have very upscale stores and boutiques. Most of it was far too expensive for us to buy ( similar to prices at Bloomingdales) ,but I really enjoyed looking at the unique high end styles and designer clothing. It is so interesting and I would love to come back to the states with some of the unique pieces. Chris ended up finding a very soft shirt at " Pegasus" which will be a nice reminder of our trip. After spending the afternoon in the village of Seminyak we retired to our villa for the remainder of the day. We decided to order in sushi for dinner. Sushi in LA is much better:)

Last nights dinner at Metis was great. Its a french asian style of food, and was right up there with the very trendy upscale restaurants in LA, except way more beautiful! Its located right on a rice paddy and is completely open to the outdoors . I would definitely recommend this place to anyone visiting the island that wants to take a break from the traditional balinese food ( which is amazing i might add!).

Today was our "relaxing" day. We started off the morning with a trip to Turtle Island. We were taken to the island in a private glassbottom boat. We arrived at the island which is a conservatory for sea turtles and other wildlife around 10 am. We were able to see about 100 baby sea turtles! The conservatory is doing its best to preserve the sea turtle population in Bali as often times when the mama sea turtles come to the beach to lay eggs they are stolen by the locals to sell in markets. We were able to hold some larger sea turtles and they had one there that was 70 years old! They also had other animals like Bats, snakes (ew!), and birds. We only stayed for about an hour but it was great to learn about the sea turtle issue in Bali.

After the trip we decided to head over to the St. Regis resort in Nusa Dua. Wow. This resort was 5 stars all the way. I will be sure to upload a picture or two tomorrow. The beach here was amazing, and the pool was so peaceful! The architecture in Bali really suits my style and Chris and I have decided that should we ever have the means to design our own house, we are definitely doing it "balinese" style. They really make the most of the outdoor living and everything is modern without feeling sterile or cold. Its really amazing! We spent a long time at the St. Regis just lounging by the beach and pool. We ordered lunch here too and quickly learned that Bali's inexpensiveness does NOT apply to the St. Regis! Alcohol is especially expensive in Bali due to import fees. A Bellini at the St. Regis cost $40!!! So, as beautiful of a hotel as it is, we are glad we are not staying there.

We had our massages around 3:30 today and then decided to explore the local area outside of our villa. We've gotten a lot more comfortable with our surroundings and feel very safe walking around- much safer than we ever do on our trips to the carribean or mexico thats for sure. We had fun shopping in a local market buying and seeing the different food! We picked up some interesting looking items that we're excited to try. They sell bread here that is pre- de crusted. Amazing idea!

We finished up dinner about an hour ago and are going to take it easy for the rest of tonight. Tomorrow we are taking an early morning Yoga class which we are really looking forward to! Its funny, we thought spending 10 days in a secluded villa might leave us feeling a bit bored but im starting to worry there wont be enough time to squeeze in everything we want to do in the amount of time we are here! We still have a long time, but there is so much cool stuff to do and beautiful places on our "list". We are so glad we have a driver! Balivillas.com really has lived up to all of their promises, and we feel so blessed and lucky that this is our honeymoon. I dont think we'll ever have another vacation this nice in our lives ( well.... we've decided we're coming back here for our 10 year anniversary....).

dinner tonight

For dinner tonight we are venturing outside the Villa to the town of Seminyak to dine at Metis http://www.metisbali.com/. This restaurant came very highly recommended to us and we are excited to try it!!!

Today was a relaxing and fun day. We spent a leisure morning lounging around the pool and then went to Waterbom water park. We had fun going down the huge water slides for a few hours. We opted to forgo the massages today for facials, so we are feeling quite refreshed and pretty for our dinner tonight.

Day 2- Water Rafting and Animals!

Today was possibly one of the best days of my life. We woke up pretty early. Okay, we woke up REALLY early. We are still trying to adjust to this whole 15 hour time change. After a lovely breakfast in our villa, we set out to Ubud to go to an elephant safari and white water rafting tour.

Ubud is about 1 1/2 hours away from our Villa. The drive there was beautiful, we got to see a part of Bali that is completely undev

eloped and rural. There were many

rice paddies , temples , and small villages that we passed on our way up the mountain. Ubud is the spiritual center in Bali, and we were advised it would be the exact opposite of Kuta. It was, and gladly so! When we arrived at the Elephant park, we were in complete awe. Lush green forests surrounde

d us and all you could hear were birds chirping and roaring rapids in the distance. We met our elephant, Sen Sen , and started our journey around the forest. Sen Sen was a 20 year old female elephant who was very cute and a little crazy! She kept ripping shrubs off of the hillside - i guess she was very hungry! She also almo

st pushed a tree over at one point ( see picture) . During our walk with Sen Sen we saw a ton of monkeys in the trees. The whole experience was very surreal and awesome. After the 30 minute ride we got to feed Sen Sen

. We literally put a whole pineapple in her mouth and she crushed it! Awesome. There were two baby elephants at the park as well ( eeee!) . We got to play with the babies!! They were so precious. looking directly into an elephants eye is like looking into a Human eye- you can just see so much love and personality. I've always loved elephants, but now I am a real big fan.

Just as w

e thought this day couldn't get any better, one of my lifelong dreams was about to come true.... The park also hosts a friendly little bear named Honeybear. Honeybear looks to be about 75 pounds and is very friendly. He is so friendly that you are allowed to cuddle, play, feed, and take pictures with him! I'm mildly ob

sessed with bears... I will not go in the water past my waist in Malibu, but cuddling a baby bear in Indonesia ? No problem. This was a life changing experience. Honeybear was SO cute

and was all over us in our laps and hugging us. I've never been so happy and excited- baby elephants and baby bears all in one morning?!!

After the excitement of the elephants and bears, we were whisked off to begin our white water rafting adventure. We began the trek down the jungle to get into the rapids. I've never climbed down ( and later up!) so many stairs in my life. By the time we got to the bottom my legs were shaking. We rafted the river for 2 hours. On either side of us were lush jungle. There were some very steep and fun "boom booms " as our river guide called them. Some of the guys in the boat had fun teasing me about the Anacondas in the river. Even though they were joking, I remained in the boat drinking Bintang ( indonesian beer) while the rest of the people took some breaks to swim. As we were floating down this misty river in the middle of a jungle all I could think about was how I used to dream of visiting a place like this and now we were actually here doing all of this cool stuff. It was truly amazing, thrilling, and peaceful all at the same time.

We finished up rafting at about 2pm. Even though we were exhausted, we wanted to maximize our time in Ubud , being that it was so far away from the villa and we might not make the trek back there again. We spent some time walking around the village and tried to brush up on our negotiating tactics in the various shops. We were told that as obvious americans we'd automatically be taken for fools, so to really negotiate hard. They said to start by offering 50% of the asking price. We failed both attempts! Its just so awkward and foreign for us to try and haggle price- especially when things are so cheap already. It makes it especially difficult that nobody deals in US currency and we're constantly converting in our heads...But we will keep on trying. Hopefully by the end of the trip we'll be experts.

By the time we got back to the villa we were spent. Our legs and arms were sore and we could barely stay awake. Hurrah, our massages were scheduled for just about the time we came home! Oh. My. God. The massages in Bali are like none other. They use just the right amount of pressure and the last 10 minutes are focused on a face/head massage. Heaven! Dinner was served right after our massages ended. Im sure one of these days we'll have the energy to venture outside of our villa for dinner but for a day like today it was great to just be able to go to dinner in our bathrobes.

Another amazing day in Bali! We dont exactly know what we'll do tomorrow. We've ordered pancakes for breakfast, and then the plan is to lounge around all morning. We might make it to an ocean water park later in the afternoon. Or possibly turtle Island ( a sea turtle conservation center, Yay more animals!).

Day 1

We arrived in our Villa at about 4pm on saturday afternoon . We've never been so amazed in our life. Truthfully- we were worried that some of the things on the website were exaggerated or wouldn't be as nice as in the pictures. Turns out the opposite was true! We were greeted by our staff ( driver, chef, butler, maid) and given glasses of champagne. We loved this place already. After being given a tour of the villa we realized that this is going to be the best honeymoon ever. Did I mention that they had pre-drawn a rose petal bath for us? We told our chef to make us a traditional balinese dinner for night 1, so he created a chicken satay, rice, and fruit salad. Bed time was shortly after- Jet Lag is no joke!

Sunday morning we woke up early and ate breakfast by our pool. The Chef made us egg white omelets, fruit salad, and toast. Our driver took us to "Kuta" which is basically a very tourist heavy part of Bali, and also where the unfortunate bombings in 2002 happened. It reminded me very much of Waikiki beach in Hawaii. The shopping was very americanized and reminded us a lot of Santee Alley . Most people told us to stay far away from Kuta as it is dirty and a tourist trap, but we enjoyed walking around and seeing everything. We even got a starbucks ( sssh!).

After Kuta we told our driver we wanted to eat lunch somewhere beautiful. He took us to a restaurant in Seminyak ( a very upscale resort beachtown) which was right on the beach. Everything in Bali is very open and this restaurant was no exception. It was two stories and completely wide open with gorgeous views of the beach. And guess what we saw frolicking on the beach? Not one, but TWO golden retriever puppies. I think Finn would like it in Bali:)

After lunch we went to a grocery store that is good for western tourists because a lot of things are imported from america. We paid $10 for a pint of Haagen Daaz! Worth it. Now we are just back here chilling by the pool waiting for our spa treatments. Chris is getting a massage today while Julia has opted for a manicure. Rough life i tell ya! Actually the one scary thing that did happen today.... All of the patio surrounding the pool is marble and can become really slippery when wet. Julia met quite the fall with the massage table and now has a huge gash on her hip bone. It could've definitely been much worse and she is going to be safer now!

Tomorrow is white water rafting and elephant rides... are we dreaming?!?

Welcome...and The Flight.

Welcome to our Honeymoon in Bali blog! We wanted a way to document all the amazing memories and stories, and being the tech savvy couple we try to be, we decided that a blog is the best way to do so! Luckily our villa in Bali is equipped with free wi-fi so in between spa treatments, dips in the pool, amazing food and excursions we can document our experience.

We decided to come to Bali on our honeymoon because we wanted somewhere exotic and far away that we'd likely never get to go to again ( Unless we both somehow score jobs that allows for multiple weeks of vacation every year...). We found Bali to be everything we were looking for. We booked a private villa through www.balivillas.com and for a year we have been so excited for this trip. Except for one small thing....

Julia is not a good flyer. Julia has multiple prescription drugs to help with the anxiety of flying even the smallest distances. The flight to Bali is a total of 23 hours. 17 hours to Taipei and then 5 hours to Denspasar. When we booked our flight a year ago, we naturally opted for the cheapest fair without doing much research. About 2 weeks before departure, we started doing some research on "china air". Turns out this airline has an AWFUL reputation! This reputation was earned by having multiple crashes and emergency landings.

Lets just say the night of the flight julia was not happy. So much anxiety about not only the length of the flight but the safety as well. The check in line at the tom bradley international terminal at LAX was over an hour. However, once we sat down in our tiny coach seats in the back of the plane ( apparently the whole free upgrades because its your honeymoon thing is just a myth), Julia took one ambien and was passed out before the plane even took off. Having slept through over 1/2 of the flight, the next 6 hours into taipei was a cakewalk . In Taipei, we quickly learned that America seems to overindulge in A/C. It was a hot 3 hours. I learned that Duty Free shopping is not all its cracked up to be. Chanel makeup is still insanely overpriced!

The 5 hour flight into Denspasar was uneventful. Filled with more sleeping and bad movie watching. Tip: when ordering meals on long flights, order the vegetarian option! Not only are you served first but the food is substantially better and healthier.

Once we landed in Bali ( Denspasar) we quickly got our Visa on arrival after short line. After that was a long wait in customs, probably about 45min-1 hour. Our bags were waiting for us by the time we were out of customs, and our driver was too! How fun it is to see someone waiting for you with your name on a sign. Let The honeymoon commence!!