Fall Break in Bali

We returned a couple days ago from our first vacation since having moved to Singapore.  The first destination on our list was Bali simply because I had heard of it and we had to plan it very soon after arriving here!  With very little knowledge of the area, I depended on recommendations from other expats here that had traveled there and their advice was life-saving.

We spent our first three days in Ubud in the heart of Bali where so much of the history and culture of the region has been preserved.  One recommendation from so many families was to hire a driver to take you around during the day and I am so thankful we took that advice to heart.  We hired Made, a gentleman who took us to see so many parts of Bali that we would have known to see on our own - temples, beautiful rice fields, family compounds, white water rafting, shopping, artist villages, restaurants - he made all of it easy and fun.

Bali is a beautiful place with such rich history but there is a lot of poverty and very little infrastructure and tourism is starting to really impact the preservation of the Balinese lives and their history.  Made was able to help us understand the very strong tie between the Hindu religion and the communities there - lives revolve around going to temples, bringing offerings, building and preserving family temples and compounds and supporting each other in the community.  By walking around with him, the kids were able to see a way of life that was so different from their own.  That's not to say that we were serious the whole time - there was tons of laughing, exploring and adventure as well as you can see from the pics below!

    

 

From Ubud we then headed to Jimbaran to play at the beach for a few days.  Although much more touristy and the beaches can't compare to the peace and quiet (and cleanliness) of Bald Head Island beaches, we still had a wonderful time.  The highlight was snorkeling - amazing variety of colorful fishes were seen and I only wish we owned a waterproof camera - and surf school where all three kids turned out to be have a love for surfing!  Of course, we weren't actually surfing on any of the huge waves that Bali is famous for among the surfing community - we just watched those surfers in awe!

A wonderful trip with hundreds and hundreds of pics and so many memories.  Now for our next adventure.....

Deepavali Tour

On Wednesday I signed up for a tour of Little India here in Singapore, with the tour focusing on Deepavali.  Deepavali is an ancient Hindu festival that is celebrated every autumn and Little India takes it very seriously.  Singaporeans of all ethnicities come together to celebrate the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness.  Apparently over 400,000 people came to Little India to celebrate Deepavli last year.  This year the holiday falls on October 22nd when we are going to be in Bali so I wanted to take a tour of the area and learn more about the holiday and Little India in general.

We started our tour by visiting several of the Hindu temples in the area, each distinct due to the fact that Southern Indian Hindus worship differently than Northern Indian Hindus.  For this tour we were told we had to were clothes that covered our legs and shoulders so that we could enter the temples.  As it is 90+ degrees every day and so very humid, suffice it to say that I was sweating just standing still.  Unfortunately, after arriving at our first temple we learned that due to the lunar eclipse that evening that the temples are closed because priests don't want the rays from the eclipse to reach their idols.   Hence we walked around for the next three hours sweating like crazy!!

Above is one of the Hindu temples from the front and the side - all the decorations are for a specific goddess that this temple worships.  Apparently different temples worship different goddesses specifically and so you decide which one you go to based on which goddess you want to honor at that point in time.  

Front door of the same temple - the bells signify something that I'll have to remember and update on later!

Throughout Little India and most definitely beside most of the temples are florists that are constantly making flower garlands that worshippers buy to place on idols in the temples.  Each flower means a specific thing and each goddess wants specific flowers as well so you have to choose your garlands carefully.  This was a beautiful bracelet garland that I was given that smelled just heavenly (gardenias I think), which helped to offset the sweaty smell I was producing sweating in my long pants and long sleeve shirt!

Since we didn't go into the temples, we instead stopped in an Indian vegetarian restaurant for a snack and were served this long, paper-think hollow tube of bread/cracker called Dosai, I believe. You break off pieces of this and dip it into great sauces and it's amazing how thin it is.  It apparently takes about 8 hours to make one tube because that's how long the thin bread needs to rise in order to taste right.

A key thing to remember is that you are trying to break off this piece of bread while only using your right hand because in Indian culture, it is incredibly rude to use your left hand for eating or touching anyone.  The left hand is left for taking care of, uhhh, personal hygiene and therefore shouldn't be used elsewhere.  Was laughing thinking of our youngest, Henry, who's a lefty and would definitely be grossing people out regularly (especially if they knew how often I had to remind him to wash his hands!!).

After our bread, we had an Indian The Tarik which literally means "pulled tea".  The milky tea is poured back and forth between two vessels from varying heights creating a frothy tea.  It gives the tea  a better flavor since apparently without this it is quite bitter and acidic.  I enjoyed it and was impressed with the man's ability to never spill a drop!

Below are pictures of Little India as I was leaving and the lights were coming on for the evening.  Deepavli is on the 22nd and I'm sorry that we are going to be out of town for the event because it would be amazing to see all the celebrating take place.  Of course, being in Little India with 400,000 other people celebrating might be a little overwhelming so now I can see what it looked like before the masses arrived!  A very cool experience.

Before and After ......

Drayton is in Japan right now (he was in China for Sunday and Monday and now on Tuesday flew to Japan for the rest of the week).  He called this evening as I was putting the boys to bed - Ella is in Malaysia on her class trip - and I got to hear Henry's side of a conversation.  With Henry squealing and laughing and screeching, I was eager to hear the other half of the conversation.

I soon learned that Drayton went out to dinner with one of his guys who works for him in Japan.  He said that they went to a chain sushi place which was considered good, fresh food.  He described for us the menu and said that he ordered the squid sushi.  At this point, a bag was brought out for him to see his (still quite alive) squid .......

So there is the squid that he approved, which was then taken and chopped up and then placed on his plate for him to enjoy (raw of course) .....

Drayton said it was quite tasty and that he enjoyed it thoroughly.  He did note that other folks were selecting fish out of a tank which were then filleted in front of them and served as sashimi with the head and tail on the plate - with the tail still twitching.  I am glad to see that my husband has some limits to his adventurous palate!

Please note that last week he enjoyed Drunken Shrimp as well - live shrimp dropped into a bowl of rice wine and soaked for a predetermined amount of time before fished out and plopped on your plate for you to enjoy.  He said they were pretty gross - go figure!  I'm afraid these are all things it would never occur to me to try!!

Big Birthday Celebration

So Henry turned 7 the end of May and Sumner turned 10 August 2nd, the day after we arrived in Singapore, and Ella turned 12 August 31 as we were just starting to feel settled.  No birthday parties took place yet each child was properly feted at home.  That being said, Henry especially has been reminding us that he hadn't had a birthday party and he really wanted to have one here with his new friends.  After one of the kids attending someone else's birthday party last mont at LaserOps, a laser tag place, I realized that LaserOps might be the perfect setup for a joint birthday party celebration.

Hence this past Saturday, Ella, Sumner and Henry each invited five friends to come to LaserOps and have some fun.  It was an great morning filled with three different rounds of laser tag - which each birthday child the head of his own "team".  Needless to say, the youngest boys didn't fare as well as the older ones but everyone had a blast.  It was followed by pizza and cupcakes and a lot of noise.  It was the first time I met most of our kids' friends and their parents since there isn't school drop-off or pick-up as an opportunity to meet them.  Hard to talk too much since a little chaotic but at least nice to see the friends our kids had talked about.

Glad to officially check the birthday parties off the list for another year - and all at one time!  Yeah!

 My cute cupcakes I made with ninjas on top!

 The girls' team

 The young boys team

 The older boys' team

The whole group heading in to destroy each other!

First Biking Excursion

Last weekend we had a long holiday weekend and Drayton was able to take off Monday so that we all were able to play together for the day.  We decided to go over to East Coast and rent bikes.  Now we did bring bikes with us to Singapore but we shipped these bikes before we knew where we were going to live.  There were some condos that we liked that were near bike paths and we thought that would be a great opportunity to get the kids outside and exhaust them.  Those same condos though were smaller (less than 2,000 square feet) and were all in locations that didn't really allow us to live without a car, since the closest MRTs were about a mile away.  In the end, we chose a condo in a great location and great layout and couldn't be happier with our decision - except we have no place to ride out bikes!

So for this outing we decided to go ride bikes on the East Coast path but since we have no way to get our bikes over there (since we don't have a car) and it's too far and dangerous to bike over there from our condo, we knew we would rent bikes there.  It's about a 20 minute taxi ride to get there and we arrived to find thousands of our closest friends and neighbors out renting bikes, walking, camping out and hanging around.  East Coast Park is the largest park in Singapore and is right on the water, although not the sort of place that visitors want to hang out on the beach (imagine 50 huge tankers right out in the water in front of you!).  It has pretty areas though and it offers visitors a place to explore on bike paths and play under the trees and we wanted to join in on the fun!

We rented bikes for all five of us and set off down the path towards the Changi Airport.  Now after years of reminding our kids to stay right when biking at home, especially at Bald Head Island where paths are narrow, and suddenly we were having to yell for them to stay left!  Definitely took some practice and reminding but we started to get the hang of it.  Of course, there was always the random people who just walked down the middle of the path because, well it's Singapore and it seems like that's what people do a lot here (see my post of Sidewalk Etiquette here!). 

Once you go several kilometers you leave East Coast Park and start on the Changi path that actually parallels the airport runway for about 8 kilometers.  Sounds like it wouldn't be that exciting but needless to say seeing huge plans take off and land right beside us was a highlight for the boys.  And it was under the trees and much quieter and less populated so I thoroughly appreciated that. Eventually we reached Changi Beach and the Changi Ferry terminal where there's another park and camping area.  It was the perfect place to take a break, buy some drinks and watch the water for a few minutes while we cooled down.  Then we headed back home and made it back to our starting point without any major wipeouts (except for me who managed to tip over once while looking back to point out something to Sumner and hit the curb) and with no one crashing into anyone else which was something I didn't think was possible when we first started.

Hard to take a pic through the trees of a plane landing as you are biking but here was Drayton's attempt.....

A fun morning - 32 kilometers covered in about 2 1/2 hours - and we finished just as the haze started rolling in (from burning being down in Indonesia that then spreads down and covers Singapore with dangerous clouds that really affect the breathing and your eyes and causes headaches).  Perfect excuse to head back into the city and go see a movie!

 Starting out....

 ... finally on a quieter path....

 ...at Changi Beach Park in front of some cool palm trees (with routs above ground).