Bali, part I

Now, I am sure all of you want pictures posted immediately, but unfortunately I am at school right now. I didn't bring my camera to school because ever since last night it has been pouring buckets. I mean seriously downpours which are not enjoyable to bike in whatsoever. So, in response to the weather I thought it in my camera's best interest for it not to brave the wet, for fear it may be damaged. But I will give you a rundown of how the week went:

Saturday:
Woke up at 4:30am to catch a ride to the airport that left at 5:30. Of course I left most of my packing to the last minute because this is my trademark. The plane left at 8am and checking in, etc was fine. We arrived in Singapore at around 1:30 in the afternoon. Pip, Lindi and I decided to get a taxi to go into town since we had about 5-6 hours in between flights. We just went through customs, rode into town and shopped along Orchard Road, one of the main shopping roads in Singapore. Following that we returned to the airport, hopped on the plane, and arrived in Bali at around 9/9:30pm.

We went through customs, I got a visa, then we traveled on a bus to Nusa Dua, which is a resort area on the most Southern part of the island. It was dark outside which made it difficult to see the scenery. When we arrived in the resort, I just want to say for the record: Oh. My. God. Simply breathtaking. The lobby area wasn't just a lobby, but a huge pavilion type room with a pyramid ceiling going up at least 100feet. Luxurious sofas were everywhere as well as several bar areas. The lobby overlooked the outside lagoon which spanned out at least 200feet in length, maybe 75ft wide, with long corridors of hotel rooms on either side of the lagoon. If you walked down the path on either side of the lagoon, you eventually ended up at the large pool, so long in fact they have a bridge that goes across the middle of it. There was no deep end unfortunately, or a diving board, but these things can be forgiven.

Walking past the pool was a theater that had traditional Balinese performances. I didn't see any shows here, but once you walked PAST the lagoon, pool, and theater, the path wound through even more "lagoon-like" ponds/pools of water with natural flowers, plants, and animal-life. Eventually you arrived at a vast span of fake grass which was accompanied by lounge chairs and umbrellas. FINALLY there was about 20-30feet of beach and then the sea. This piece of property was simply HUGE.

Saturday night after we arrived I of course, wanted to go swimming in the ocean, so after socializing with some of my collegeues, my friend Kirk and I put on our swimsuits and went swimming in the ocean. It was pretty cold but no worse than the Jersey shore. We then went to the pool because the tide was really strong and then got kicked out of the pool because it was closed. I then went to sleep.

We had Sunday morning to ourselves, so I woke up around 9am, went to the health center to work out, then went to our buffet breakfast (included) which was simply delicious. We ate at tables on the lower level (under the lobby) right next to the lagoon, which was a beautiful and peaceful way to begin the day. I then went to the beach, went swimming, and took a walk by myself to where the sand ended and the craggy rock face began. I returned for lunch, then we had our first workshop at 1 which ended up being a salesman from Apple trying to sell us Apple products. Stupid and useless, especially because bragging about Apple programs does not help me or the kids in my classroom. We use Eways, which run on Windows. We had a 45 min break in between sessions, so my friend Sam and I relaxed with a cocktail near the lobby overlooking the lagoon. The second session was an Indonesian language and culture class. There were too many teachers and the people running the workshop weren't very organized. On a good note I did end up with a nice pamphlet with key Indonesian words and phrases.

A few hours later we had a lovely banquet on the beach. There we saw a traditional Balinese dance. The dances wore beautiful costumes!

Okay, lunch duty. More later I promise.