surf's up! but you'll have to take my word for it

new pictures!!

so, rumor has it that i went to bali about a week ago, and rumor also has that i surfed. however, theres no evidence of the latter, so youre going to have to believe me when i said that i've actually ridden a wave on a surfboard. now, lets not jump to conclusions. i didnt ride a wave like you probably first imagined. it was more like riding a wave (notice the girl yawning in the background), but cmon, is there really a difference?

EDIT: turns out jerry had some pictures that do, in fact, confirm the surfing myth. shown below. :D



i flew in friday night and met all the waterloo kids and a few others at their hotel...they had left thursday, but i had two presentations to do in class on friday so i hung back a day. flew in, met up around 1130 PM, so not much of the day left at all. grabbed a quick bite before the festivities started for the night...we just ended up sitting around in the hotel room with a few drinks and had a grand old time the UConn way haha.

saturday morning, we decided to give our hand at surfing. while at any legitimate surfing venue, you might be charged inordinate amounts of money to rent a surfboard, we ended up getting boards and a little instruction lesson from a couple locals for a total of $4 per person for 5 hours of use...awesome. the beach was beautiful..nice sand, sweet waves, but lots of old ladies selling stuff. and these ladies had no qualms walking right up to you and asking you to buy stuff. again. and again. and again. and again. i think their tactic was to make people buy stuff to get them to go away, but who am i to say? i just bought two tank tops, and they stopped bugging me. D'oh! either way, the waves were the nicest of any of the beaches i had been to in Southeast Asia, for sure, but still not big enough to eat major shit if you didnt happen to catch a wave properly. i think many of us took comfort in that fact and may have been a little more aggresive with the surfing than we would have been otherwise. a good day, indeed. ended up eating dinner at the hard rock cafe, which me and jerry returned to later at around midnight for some live music. after we got tired of that, we decided to lay on the beach for a little while. a little small talk ensued, then we fell asleep. i woke up to my watch reading 3AM, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel.

the next day was spent mostly doing a little tour of the island, away from the beaches. highlights included some rice fields (quite a scenic view), a temple of some sort (wooo?), place where they grow and make their own coffee (with free samples that were delicious), a somewhat ritualistic hindu dance (the balinese hindu take on the ramayana; the island of bali is almost 95% hindu), and i think all of our favorite, a monkey sanctuary. basically, just a preserved foresty area with loads of monkeys, nothing less. you could buy bananas at the entrance for a couple bucks, and feed them to the monkeys. simple as that sounds, its actually kind of fun...until the monkeys get mean. a girl tried to kick a banana on the ground over to a monkey, but almost kicked the monkey in the face. doesnt take a genius to figure out the monkey probably took offense...it bared its teeth and actually started chasing this little girl that would have probably lost a fight with the monkey, she couldnt have been past 8 or 9. she ran away, screaming, and the monkey gave chase until the mother stepped in and basically just made loud noises at the monkey, which diverted it enough so it lost interest in the girl. scary though, never seen that happen. either way, it was just funny to see monkeys and bananas. for it being such a stereotype, i dont think we see it nearly enough. i've graciously included a picture below, for those that may never get to experience this phenomenon in their lives.




the night ended with an unsuccessful visit to the CHICHIS (mad good mexican restaurant in the states) as it was closed, but a very successful (and delicious) substitute of baba ghanoush, hummus, and kebabs. decided to save the mexican food for a later time...

monday was our do your own thing day, so we all basically just spent it lounging around, doing what we saw fit. some went surfing again, some went shopping, a few of us got together had a very mature lunch at an italian restaurant of sorts. below is a very mature picture at said restaurant, the food was actually really good...good enough that some of us actually wanted to go back.

after lunch, we went off to some shopping, browsed around a little bit. i finally bought one of the ever-popular bintang beer tank tops. you can get your butt you'll see me walking around campus with it on, thats a fact. after a little recoup time back at the hotel, we went out to dinner to chichi's, where the service was worse than any service you could possibly imagine, but the food was decent. surely an overall disappointment, but we got our food eventually, and most of us left full. that night, we all decided to test the nightlife again (some of us went out a couple nights before and were thoroughly disappointed), but this time it turned out to be okay. hit a couple clubs, had some good times. me and AD chatted up a couple balinese girls, but one turned out not to dance (the one i was conversing with) and the one AD was talking to turned out to be a guy. no, jk, but she was definitely a little weird. we'll never know what was up, and im not even mad about that. i'd like to take a second to mention that vanilla ice's "ice ice baby" just started playing on my itunes. w0rd.

tuesday, our last day on the island, turned out to be quite fun. in the morning, a few of us rented a driver for half a day and went to a different beach. The beach, for starters, was called Dreamland, so naturally our expectations were high. Frankly, i think they were met. the beach was really small, not nearly as big as any of the other beaches we had been to, and it was largely uncommercialized. no big buildings, no hotels, no restaurants even. just beach chairs, and the people renting them essentially. the sand was white and soft, and the water was blue. blue water at a beach is a relatively hot commodity as far as beaches are concerned, and we had it. finally. i'd say the thing that really sealed the deal about this beach would be the waves. 12 feet, or just short of 4 metres for you weirdos out there. HUGE. big enough that when they broke, even if the water was just knee high, it could easily take (and did take) your legs out of under you, rendering you as helpless as a worm heading towards a sewer in a downpour. this was the first time in my life i had truly felt the power and relentless thrashing of the ocean. however, it did make for a decent photo op, so we put AD to work. take a look at my FB pics for some more, but one's below.



upon returning, we all meandered about the town for a little bit, then had a quick mickey D's dinner and headed to the airport. all in all, a solid trip. a bit pricey--for the whole trip, excluding airfare, about $230US was spent, plus the $280US for airfare, over $500 for about four days. but i have to say, every dollar was worth it. finally got to spend some quality time with the waterloo crowd who i'd vowed to travel with so many times but never got around to doing. today, i leave you with a picture of what my hugely infected eye looked like in the middle of the trip. enjoy!