Our last night in Bali, we hired a babysitter and went out for dinner at the hotel. Every night, they have a Balinese night market, giant buffet, and cultural performance. Typically it is held outside in this cool terraced area at the hotel, but since it was off-and-on raining all afternoon, it was moved to the Watercourt restaurant. Because we have been living at Hyatt hotels instead of a house this year, we were presented with special butterfly VIP pins and were shown to a very comfortable cushioned booth right in the middle to best view the stage area.
The buffet spread was overwhelming! There was a ton of meat, which made Austin very happy, but also a good array of salads, including the traditional Indonesian salad Gado-Gado with peanut sauce, of which I ate way too much. There were different rice and noodle dishes as well and potatoes, which I had not eaten in quite a long time! Austin liked having pork, since that is hard to find on Java, and I enjoyed eating gelato and other yummy desserts. Austin ordered a lime squash to drink- sparkling water, lime and lemon juice, and simple syrup on the side to sweeten it. I got a lime mint coconut freeze. YUM! We overheard the couple at the table next to us discussing whether it was safe to eat the veggies. So we started up a conversation with them,
Barong- he hit the lamp with his tail
They were Australian and had just arrived that afternoon. They had friends warn them to be wary of eating the fruits and vegetables because of the risk of intestinal illness. We assured them that the hotel food was safe and that they should not eat the fresh veggies or fruits from food stalls or street vendors, and that usually ice and water were safe at the tourist places. They seemed relieved and we had a fun time telling them about our trip and giving them suggestions on places to go.
I think she might be the villain?
After we ate way too much delicious Indonesian food, it was on to the performance. Austin really does love me as evidenced by the fact that he let our date night be overtaken by a gamelan performance. I knew I wanted to see gamelan, but we didn't want Landon to have another late night so this was perfect! I was bummed we weren't in the original location because the gamelan players were super squished and I could not see all the instruments. The dancers adapted well to the different setting- but at first did not come over on our side of the stage (they entered and exited on the part of the stage furthest away from us.)
The gamelan might sound like noisy noise to some, but it is very complicated and each player must come in at exactly the right time and play in the exact rhythm. Every one works together to make this really rice multi-dimensional sound.
Scary fingers guy
The dance of the day was the Barong dance. The Barong is a mythical lion creature that is said to protect the villages of Bali. It is friendly and nice. There was an antagonist in the dance that sent two beautiful girls to dance for the Barong (in human form) and a monkey to make them fight over the girls and eventually kill themselves with their own swords. It was a little gruesome, but interesting nonetheless. One thing I wanted to note about the women's costumes in Balinese dance is that they typically have a long piece of fabric that comes down in front, goes in between their feet, and then flows along behind. As part of the dance, they have to manage this pieces of fabric that could very easily trip them up. Also, men in the dances seem to want to capture them by this long train of cloth, so in this dance she had to flick the fabric around very fast to avoid capture! That's talent!
The Barong itself reminds me of the dragon dances in other Asian cultures, except it only has two people running it- the head and the tail. One cool thing that the lion did was clap its jaws together loudly and very fast. I'm sad I did not get a good video that part.
Here are my video clips:
I'm sorry that I did not catch what all the different people were in the play. We left the explanation paper in Bali and I did not find anything that exactly matched what we saw in my online searches.
Courthouse- also built after the 1910 fire Every Saturday, there is a small Farmer's Market in the parking lot of the historic City Hall building. After picking up some delicious local grapefruit, we started out on a walking tour of the historic city center. The old city hall building is now an arts and cultural center and we enjoyed a traveling exhibit on the circus on the 3rd floor. The building was built in 1911 after a fire destroyed most of Lake Charles' downtown. It has an Italianesque style and is a very neat building both inside and out. Across the street is the courthouse. It is fashioned to look like "The Rotunda" a building in northern Italy. We looked up the original building and sure enough, they look very similar! The domed roof is made of copper. We did not go inside this building, but Landon enjoyed the cannon that was on the front lawn. Catholic Cathedral Around the corner from these iconic building was this gorgeous cathedral that wa...
As some of you know, I am a physical therapist. While we are doing this whole traveling thing I am not able to actually practice much PT. My PRN boss said that I can call her up and get on the schedule for a Saturday if I'm back in Chicago, but other than that, not much work happening for me. That doesn't mean I don't watch people with my PT eyes though. This is an AFO, it is used for a variety of reasons, commonly used to prevent toe drag in those with hemiplegia In India, there are some issues with quality of medical care for those that are less fortunate. In Reliance Greens where we stayed, there was a good hospital and clinic. Most of the people I remember seeing in Reliance Greens with orthopedic/neurologic issues had access to this facility, but I'm not sure there was a PT on staff there. I'm not sure about utilization of PTs outside the United States. Anyway, I saw many people who had clearly either had a stroke or were a hemiparetic from a brain inj...
Gate off to the side of the path to the falls These falls we came upon by accident- they were not on my top list of things to do. We were driving back from the cliffs and saw the sign. We pulled over and ended up loving these waterfalls the best. I think the top waterfall was actually Cheonjeyeon falls, and then in this beautiful gorge that went straight out to the ocean there were waterfalls aptly named "2nd waterfall" and "3rd waterfall". Before we reached the waterfall, we went over a spectacular, but completely unnecessary bridge to the other side of the gorge. We could see the ocean in the distance and the lush trees and undergrowth just made it a gorgeous view. \ Austin and Landon on top of the bridge Below, you can see that it was fairly steep to get up to the top. I guess it looked like I was struggling to push the stroller, because a woman posing for a picture stopped to help me get the stroller up the hill. The huge bridge with my...
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