Vacation in Bali at the End of Winter
06 August 2010
The Autumn and Winter here have been wetter and colder than the last few years. In fact the rainfall has been almost up to the long term average after 13 years of drought. This meant we had proper piles of leaves in the street to kick around. Jay has continued to wear shorts to work anyway.
My maternal grandmother would have turned 90 in June this year and Mum wanted to go visit her grave to leave some flowers for her birthday, so Cathy and I went with her. It was a fine day and we left some hyacinths which were a favourite flower of hers. I have been spending a day with Mum most weeks.
Much of the Winter we passed in the usual way: trying to find the last tiny leak in the deck, focussing on working hard at the gym and going to a few live performances. We saw Blue Grassy Knoll perform their live accompaniment to several Buster Keaton films. Our friend Juan appeared as the King in “The King and I” which neither of us had seen before. Through modern eyes it seemed to portray an early-20th century attitude to culture and race, somewhat undercut by the ethnic diversity of the cast in this production. Coming up soon is a new production of West Side Story.
I was asked to participate in my first assessment of a foreign medical specialist by the College of Anaesthetists. This was an interesting process which I will likely be doing more of in the future. The other extra work I have been doing is the occasional trip to the holiday house at Sorrento to help my father with the remodelling of the bathroom and kitchen. Actually my role was more to wreck and remove the old kitchen.
I was surprised and touched to receive an award at the annual meeting of the rowing club. It was definitely more for my work securing grant money for the club rather than for our performances in the boats which haven’t so far included a victory.
Winter hasn’t been made any easier by the number of friends who have taken the opportunity to travel to Europe in June and July and who have sent a constant stream of news on Facebook showing what fun they have been having. The GFC hasn’t caused very much dislocation here, so travelling with a relatively strong currency and a secure job to come back to seem to have made this a popular year for vacations in Spain.
We had already used two weeks of vacation time shortly before my birthday and so we planned to take one week over Jay’s birthday to travel somewhere warm and fairly close. Before we went we had an early birthday celebration for him with my family.
In Bali we stayed at a place recommended by one of the staff in my practice office. It consisted of individual villas each with a little garden and was really very pleasant. The heat and humidity and sunshine were a very welcome contrast to Melbourne. We were well acclimatized by the three hour wait in line in a very hot room at the airport for Indonesian passport control.
Though we stayed in Seminyak, close to the beach, we travelled inland to Ubud and Mount Batur. We had the opportunity to see the making of kopi luwak and tried it. It was certainly a fairly mild coffee, and in Bali only about the equivalent of $5 a cup, not the much higher prices charged in Western countries which gained media attention.
The full moon which occurred during our visit was an occasion for Hindu ceremonies at all the temples in Bali. We visited three large temples while we were there. Bali is a majority Hindu territory within a Muslim country .
The Balinese themselves were all very friendly and inquisitive, with lots of questions about “fitness” and whether Jay was a policeman. We found it a very relaxing holiday though we would not necessarily go back there in the near future. I put a photo album from the trip online.
Our next foreign trip will probably be to spend Christmas with Jay’s family, though the destination is still undecided. Our other, less exciting, current project is finishing the sideboard we have been making for the living room.
The federal election here has not made a huge impact on us. For once we are in a seat which might be regarded as marginal, since the Greens have a chance of unseating the ALP and winning what would likely be their only House of Representatives seat. Whatever happens, we are looking forward to the end of campaigning in another two weeks.
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My maternal grandmother would have turned 90 in June this year and Mum wanted to go visit her grave to leave some flowers for her birthday, so Cathy and I went with her. It was a fine day and we left some hyacinths which were a favourite flower of hers. I have been spending a day with Mum most weeks.
Much of the Winter we passed in the usual way: trying to find the last tiny leak in the deck, focussing on working hard at the gym and going to a few live performances. We saw Blue Grassy Knoll perform their live accompaniment to several Buster Keaton films. Our friend Juan appeared as the King in “The King and I” which neither of us had seen before. Through modern eyes it seemed to portray an early-20th century attitude to culture and race, somewhat undercut by the ethnic diversity of the cast in this production. Coming up soon is a new production of West Side Story.
I was asked to participate in my first assessment of a foreign medical specialist by the College of Anaesthetists. This was an interesting process which I will likely be doing more of in the future. The other extra work I have been doing is the occasional trip to the holiday house at Sorrento to help my father with the remodelling of the bathroom and kitchen. Actually my role was more to wreck and remove the old kitchen.
I was surprised and touched to receive an award at the annual meeting of the rowing club. It was definitely more for my work securing grant money for the club rather than for our performances in the boats which haven’t so far included a victory.
Winter hasn’t been made any easier by the number of friends who have taken the opportunity to travel to Europe in June and July and who have sent a constant stream of news on Facebook showing what fun they have been having. The GFC hasn’t caused very much dislocation here, so travelling with a relatively strong currency and a secure job to come back to seem to have made this a popular year for vacations in Spain.
We had already used two weeks of vacation time shortly before my birthday and so we planned to take one week over Jay’s birthday to travel somewhere warm and fairly close. Before we went we had an early birthday celebration for him with my family.
In Bali we stayed at a place recommended by one of the staff in my practice office. It consisted of individual villas each with a little garden and was really very pleasant. The heat and humidity and sunshine were a very welcome contrast to Melbourne. We were well acclimatized by the three hour wait in line in a very hot room at the airport for Indonesian passport control.
Though we stayed in Seminyak, close to the beach, we travelled inland to Ubud and Mount Batur. We had the opportunity to see the making of kopi luwak and tried it. It was certainly a fairly mild coffee, and in Bali only about the equivalent of $5 a cup, not the much higher prices charged in Western countries which gained media attention.
The full moon which occurred during our visit was an occasion for Hindu ceremonies at all the temples in Bali. We visited three large temples while we were there. Bali is a majority Hindu territory within a Muslim country .
The Balinese themselves were all very friendly and inquisitive, with lots of questions about “fitness” and whether Jay was a policeman. We found it a very relaxing holiday though we would not necessarily go back there in the near future. I put a photo album from the trip online.
Our next foreign trip will probably be to spend Christmas with Jay’s family, though the destination is still undecided. Our other, less exciting, current project is finishing the sideboard we have been making for the living room.
The federal election here has not made a huge impact on us. For once we are in a seat which might be regarded as marginal, since the Greens have a chance of unseating the ALP and winning what would likely be their only House of Representatives seat. Whatever happens, we are looking forward to the end of campaigning in another two weeks.
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