Hong Kong & Bali

This was such a fun trip for us!  Not only we were going to two new places but Mom was joining us as a surprise for the boys.  It was a difficult secret to keep, not so much from Nicholas who is at school all week, but from Ryan who is around when I talk on Skype with my parents.  Although it appears that he doesn't pay attention I'm pretty sure he had a good idea that she was coming, especially the day before we left when she told him to have a great trip and he said, "You too!".  She asked him where she was going and he replied, "To the same place we are".  He never asked or said anything else about it though so who knows what was going on in that little head of his.

We had an early morning flight with a stop over in Shanghai.  China Eastern is a low budget airline but they served everyone a tasty meal then gave out ice cream.  Nice!

Mmmm, drumsticks!

Poor Momma had a fifteen hour flight from Hong Kong and arrived just an hour before we did.  We had arranged a meeting place and it was great watching her sneak up on the boys.

She whispered to Ryan, "Can I have a hug?".

"Nanny!"  Nick's catching on..

Hugs all around!

We hopped into a taxi and started on our way to downtown.  There was a lot of snuggling and hugging going on in that cab.  The boys were excited!

Along the way we saw quite a bit of construction work in progress.  Mom had to get a picture of their bamboo scaffolding.

We rented a small, two bedroom apartment in Hong Kong down near the waterfront for our four day stay.  For the first evening we explored a little and found a grocery store in the mall under the apartment building to stock up on a few essentials as well as a great Thai/Indian restaurant.  I realized that the people of Hong Kong are, for the most part, quite health conscious.  There were a lot of health food stores around and I was even able to find soy peanut butter and soy milk!

The following morning we decided to take a metro/bus ride to the south side of Hong Kong Island and a town called Stanley.  It's a lovely place with a cool market.

The drive to Stanley on a double decker bus was quite interesting.  We drove through a mountain (literally!) and around twisting and winding, narrow roads with steep cliffs on either side.  There were huge apartment buildings on the sides of mountains and beautiful looking beaches.  It certainly was not what I expected from Hong Kong.

This is Ocean Park - an amusement park on the top and side of a mountain.  The cable car to get up looked as scary as the roller coaster.

After a trip through the market we ventured to the boardwalk for lunch.  Mom and Tim enjoy a Tsingtao Chinese beer.

Having a takeout lunch from the yummy restaurant below our apartment building.

The view of Hong Kong Island and the harbor from our living room window.  Every night at eight o'clock there is a light show.

The building right in front is the Hong Kong Coliseum.

The following day we were off to Disneyland!  For the past two years Ryan has often asked about The Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney and when we would go again.  The last time he spent the whole day going on that ride and loved it.  Finally, he would get another chance to fight the evil Emperor Zurg!

This is the metro stop for Disney!

What a monkey!

The metro was very clean.

The train going to Disney is a special one!

They even have cute little statues.

You may notice that the little girl next to the boys is dressed quite differently.  Turned out that the boys could have used some pants or a sweater.  Good thing they don't mind the cold.

"To infinity and beyond!"

Next came the cars.  Nicholas is tall enough to drive on his own!

Mom and I get to cruise together.

This is just so appropriate for my boys:).

This particular day was my parents' 44th wedding anniversary.  For her special lunch, Mom "enjoyed" a Korean meal of kimchi (spicy cabbage) and chicken soup, although she wasn't expecting the whole chicken.  At least they removed the head and feet.

Mickey shaped watermelon.

Next up - Tarzan's Tree house!

Our transportation to the tree house.

If there's something to climb, they will find it.

Time for a parade!

Ryan and these other two boys spotted Buzz and went silly.  The lady had to try and hold them back, telling them to go get in the line up for pictures.

High five for Buzz!

Our fun day at Disney included fireworks and an unexpected ride on Space Mountain for Mom, Nicholas and I.  Not a good idea as we all felt sick afterward but at least we tried it.  Ryan got his fill of the Buzz Lightyear ride for another couple years.

Back in February, The Lego Movie was released.  I really wanted to take the kids to see it but it wasn't playing here in Shenyang.  Luckily, one theater was still showing it in Hong Kong when we arrived.  On Saturday, while Mom and Tim made another trip back to Stanley, I took the boys to a very posh mall and we saw the movie in 3D.  We actually had to buy our glasses and it was rather expensive but so worth it.  The movie was awesome!

The workers wear tuxedos!

One of the fancy concession stands.  Even the bathrooms were spectacular, although they didn't have bidet seats.  A little disappointing but I survived. 

After the movie Tim hung out with the boys while Mom and I went for a walk along the harbor front.  It was a lovely day and there were lots of people out and about.

My favorite feature of Hong Kong!

The famous Bruce Lee statue!  Mom and I got into a giggle fit here when she tried to take the picture with my cellphone.  She ended up with about twenty photos of her face before I got her to turn it around and take one of me:).

Notice the guy with the pink hair and the one on the end with his pants rolled up and no socks.

After four nights we were ready to leave Hong Kong for sunny Bali.  Although HK was clean and the people were very polite (quite different from the rest of China), the air quality left me a little disappointed with the city.  I thought it would be better than Shenyang with blue skies and great views of the mountains, similar to Tokyo, but we didn't get that on our trip.  Maybe another time.

The boys just had to sit with Nanny for our 4.5 hour flight to Bali, Indonesia.

Our first stop in Bali was almost right next to the airport at the southern part of the island.  We had a free shuttle but with the way traffic flows, I think we could have walked there faster.  Anyway, the Manggar was down a couple of very narrow alleyways about a block from the airport, not where I would expect to find this charming courtyard hotel.  The prices were very reasonable and the place was nice and clean.  The towels smelled so good that Mom and I spent the rest of the trip trying to figure out what the fragrance was so we could buy some.  Perhaps we should have just asked...

The boys stayed in a room with Nanny so early the next morning (probably too early for some of the guests) they were out enjoying the pool before we even got up.  I love it when Nanny comes on vacation!

Mom and I took a walk to check out the closest beach.  I knew ahead of time that it was known to be unclean with a lot of trash, but we wanted to see it anyway.

Checking out a local shop.

Legian Beach - so unfortunate that it is not well cared for.

While the majority of Indonesia is Muslim, most inhabitants of the island (about 84%) practice Balinese Hinduism.  These offerings are left on beaches and shrines all over the island.

The boys made a new friend at the hotel while we were on our walk.  Of course, Ryan had to talk his ear off.

This was a nice little restaurant.  It was great to be able to order food then swim while waiting for it.

For our only full day in this area of the island, Tim and I decided to do a Segway tour.  He's been wanting to try one for a long time and the last tour he booked while on a stop in Barbados was cancelled due to rain.  This was his chance to give it a go!  We got a taxi to a town called Sanur.  The tour we had originally chosen was supposed to be three hours including lunch along the beach.  However, it was so hot by ten o'clock that we decided and hour and a half would be plenty.

Once we found the place we paid, signed some release forms and grabbed a couple helmets.  We went outside to get a quick lesson on the segways, since neither of us had ever been on one before.

You lean forward on these to go and back to stop, side to side will turn it around.  They are really cool but it takes a while to feel comfortable on them.  Apparently longer than the hour that we were on them.

We started out on our tour but instead of going alongside a beach, we had to travel through the streets to get near a beach area.  It was pretty intimidating to be riding on this thing with scooters, cars and trucks going by even though they streets weren't too busy and people tried to be accommodating.  We eventually made it to a quieter area but it still wasn't on a beach and not very nice to look at, except for the one picture you see below.

Right after this picture was taken we started out on a long, straight stretch and the tour guide was explaining to me that if you push on your toes you can go faster.  He sped up so I did too, trying to keep up with him.  This turned out to be a mistake.  When I started going faster than I was comfortable with, I leaned back to slow down but it didn't work.  I kept leaning and was afraid I was going to tip over backwards so I did the only thing I could think of - I stepped off of it.  I was lucky that Tim, who was behind me and having the same trouble, managed to swerve around me and get stopped on his own.  I went down pretty hard and hit the curb with my underarm area, knocking the wind out of me.  Aside from the scrapes and bruises, I was okay.  Nothing was broken and I know it could have been a lot worse.

After a few minutes I was able to get back on the Segway and return to the shop.  The owners felt bad and tried to clean me up with alcohol and offered a free massage.  I took them up on the massage (not the alcohol!) and tried to relax before heading out.  Before we left they offered to give us some of our money back but we said no, it wasn't their fault that I fell.  They also said we could come back another day if we wanted to do the tour over again.  I don't think so!  Although the segway was fun, I wasn't really enjoying what I was seeing and didn't want to chance having a more serious accident.  Once was enough!

We returned to the hotel where I had a shower before we headed out for supper.  We went to a neat Indonesian cafe where the kids were able to get milkshakes and we had yummy spring rolls.  It was a nice evening.

I can't believe how lucky I am to have a mother and husband that get along so well.  Two weeks in each others company and not an argument or complaint from either one.  Thanks, you two!

After two nights in Kuta we were ready to move on to North Bali.  I had asked for a driver to pick us up at 8:30 to take us the 80km (about 3 hours!) to our villa, stopping along the way at a chocolate factory I had read about on Trip Advisor.  We would see how chocolate is made from bean to finished product, including making our own chocolate elephants to take with us.  I had scheduled a tour for 10am and emailed the name and directions to the factory to the owner of the villa who would notify the driver.  He arrived at our hotel early (one interesting thing we noticed in Bali was that everyone showed up early, always) and we piled in the van with our luggage.  I asked him if he knew we were going to the chocolate factory and he said yes, he did.  Around 10am we stopped along the side of the road at an area that looked like a jungle with a little hut out front.  There were tour guides there waiting so we all got out and proceeded to follow our guide.

He led us through this beautiful jungle showing us various plants along the way.  We saw ginger and vanilla plants, lemongrass, pods that contained chocolate beans and coffee bean plants.

Our adorable tour guide.

Tim, our guide and Mom next to a coffee plant.

One type of coffee bean.

Eventually we made it to an area where people were roasting coffee beans.  The guide explained that they were preparing Luwak coffee.

This tells how Luwak coffee is prepared.  In case you don't want to take the time to read it, I'll give you the low down.  It comes from the poop of the civet, a mammal that looks something like a mongoose.

Roasted Civet Poop

Luwak Coffee beans after they have been removed from the poop and cleaned.

This is Mom after tasting the Luwak Coffee (the most expensive coffee in the world) for $5 per cup.  Tim tried it, too.  They said it was "good".

A pod containing chocolate beans.

We sat in the jungle having a tea, coffee and hot chocolate party.

Nicholas had to add a fair bit of sugar to his cocoa.

Following our tea party we walked some more, seeing all kinds of pretty stuff.

Gypsy Braids (according to Anna:)

This is called an Elephant Ear.

After this photo we stepped into a shop selling all the different teas, coffees and chocolate that we had tasted at our party.  After looking around I asked our guide when we would get to the chocolate factory part.  He looked confused and show me a chocolate bar.  I told him we wanted to see the chocolate factory and make our own elephants.  He replied that the chocolate wasn't made there.  I dug out my email and asked him if this was the POD Chocolate Factory in Penang that we were supposed to visit.  Nope!  This was a plantation that offered free tours and tastings so you would buy stuff.  Awesome.  The driver had taken us to the wrong place.  At least we didn't have to pay for the tour but we ended up buying a bunch of tea, a little coffee (not the Luwak stuff) and chocolate.

We continued on toward our villa and entered a mountainous area.  It was beautiful.  Everywhere you look in Bali you see green.  It is lush and healthy looking.

Rice terraces

Along the way we came to an area with wild monkeys.

This lady sells trays of bananas and nuts to the tourists for feeding to the monkeys.  They know this and follow whoever has the tray.

You have to be careful with these guys.  They can become aggressive, especially if you hold the food too long or try to tease them.

After a twisty, turning, up and down drive over the mountain range, we arrived at our private villa in Lovina.  I picked this particular place for a few reasons.  First, it was located in a quieter area of the island where there wasn't so much touristy stuff.  Second, we would have our own beautiful pool and a view of the ocean with breezes to help keep mosquitoes away.  Third, and most important, was the staff that came along with the house.  There was a gardener, security guy (at night) and two ladies who looked after the inside.  One to clean and do laundry, the other to prepare meals and get groceries.  I didn't care if we had gourmet meals, I just wanted someone to cook and clean up afterwards.  I did not want to drag the kids out to eat two or three (or even one) times per day.  I wanted us to be able to swim and play while someone else worried about planning a meal and finding ingredients.  That is my idea of a great vacation!  

View from the back door right through to the ocean.  The boys are excited to get inside.

The living room.

This is where we hung out anytime we weren't in the pool.  We ate and played a lot of cards at this table.

Our cabana by the ocean.  Mom used this to read and I fell asleep in it one afternoon.

A view of the house from near the beach.  The foliage was incredible.

These lovely ladies took care of us.

We spent a lot of time here.

This is what you would see if you were floating on an air mattress in the pool.  I let Mom take my camera in and she thought it was funny when she made it sound like she had dropped it in the water.  Haha.

The boys quickly discovered that they could use the jets in the Jacuzzi to blow up their swim shirts. 

We brought badminton rackets along and had a few games.  We miss having a lawn.

The villa had a family of Balinese cats living outside.  This was the dad whom Ryan named Brian.

Brian sure loved attention.

I had to get in on the blow up action!

The boys had so much fun with Nanny.

The gardener brought us a couple fresh coconuts and showed us how to cut them up.

What a pair!

Ryan kept telling Nick to "stop ruining my relax".

The day after we arrived at the villa we went to a local resort so Mom and the boys could swim with some dolphins.  This was something Mom has wanted to do for years, it was on her bucket list.  I had planned to do it but didn't feel like I should with my cuts.  These were rescued dolphins (at least one had a bad eye) and they seemed to be well cared for by the staff.  I hope so!  They are such beautiful, smart animals and as much as I hate to see them in captivity, I think if everyone had a chance to do this they would better appreciate how important it is to take better care of our oceans.

Both boys were a little nervous but got in the pool anyway.  Ryan kept a death grip on Mom's arm.

Ryan didn't care for the splashing!

Since I didn't get to swim they let me pat this wonderful creature.  So smooth and soft!

One of the delicious meals prepared for us.

One afternoon we had these two ladies come and give us a massage and scrub.  It was fantastic!

Ryan wanted in on the action with some toenail paint.

I'm thinking that this was probably the first time she had been asked to paint guns on someones toes.

He's very proud of his piggies!

Since Ryan and Nanny had done it, Nick didn't want to miss out.

He decided to go a little more patriotic.  The poor girl!  Those are small toes.

We got tired of playing Go Fish and Crazy 8's so we introduced Nicholas to a card game we used to play called Asshole, but changed the name to Butthole, then Butthead.  He caught on very quickly and the four of us had a really nice time just hanging out, playing cards.  Ryan would help his dad out when he felt like it. 

The second (and last) time we ventured very far from the villa was when we went on a tour to some local sights.  We had a driver pick us up at 7am so we could see most things before it got too hot.  First we drove through this very busy market to get to some hot springs.

Holy Hot Springs

Ryan wasn't too keen on jumping in but was interested in watching these kids.

Since we weren't going to go in the hot springs we just had a quick look then moved on to our next stop, a Buddhist temple.  

Ryan absolutely loved this room and kept saying, "Isn't it beautiful?".

I found it amusing that every step says "Nana" on it.

We happened to have arranged our stay in Bali around the Hindu new year.  There were loads of people dressed in traditional clothing going to various ceremonies and it was interesting to see.  I have a few more pictures further on.

Our final tourist stop for the day was a waterfall.  The drive up a mountain side, seeing many little villages and cute homes, was amazing.

Aling Aling Waterfall

The waterfall was a beautiful stop but poor Nicholas paid for it.  He ended up with about a dozen huge bug bites around his waist and arms, despite having bug repellent on.  I guess I should have doused him in it.  After the waterfall and a visit to a supermarket we were ready to go home.  Mom wasn't feeling the greatest and we were all too hot.  Again, the reason I wanted a nice villa was that I knew we would want to spend more time there than out roaming around.

Something you don't normally see roaming the beaches...

The first day of the Balinese new year is called Nyepi, or the Day of Silence, and it happened to fall on our last full day in Lovina.  On this day everything is shut down for a full 24 hours, including the airport and all transportation, cable is turned off and people are expected to stay inside their house with lights off and remain quiet, perhaps meditating or doing some sort of personal reflection.  Some people don't eat or talk at all.  There are even Nyepi police who patrol to make sure that others are following the rules (I'm not sure how they can do that if they're supposed to be inside).  We were told that although we didn't have to go that far, we would be expected to stay on the property and be very quiet.  Even those people staying at resorts or hotels wouldn't be allowed to leave, but they would still be provided with food.  So for this day it was just the five of us at our villa and we tried to stay quiet.  That is until we saw people out walking on the beach, others in boats, and some farmers that lived nearby were out on the road talking on cellphones.  We decided that it probably was alright to be out in the pool making some noise without getting into trouble.  Perhaps they are a little more relaxed than they let on.

The days before Nyepi, however, are a different story.  There are ceremonies called the Melasti Festival held in all towns and villages.  We heard that one would be going on down the beach from our villa so Mom and I took a walk to see what it was about.  We had a quick peek then moved on again.  The walk there was a little disturbing with so much trash on the beach and in the water.  Supposedly most of it comes from the people who live in the mountains.  They use the rivers as their garbage disposals and sewers so it flows right into the ocean.  We saw dead chickens, a rat and other equally disgusting things.  I don't think this happens on the southern portion of the island, but it's too bad that it does on the northern coast.  It is too beautiful an island for that to be happening anywhere.   

Mom and Tim were feeling adventurous the evening before Nyepi so they ventured up the long road our villa was on to see a parade.  While we were on our tour the day earlier we noticed some big, ugly statues being erected at various places.  They are called Ogoh Ogoh and represent demons.  Here is a little blurb about them from an article I found:

This is the time for the first sighting of the fearsome Ogoh-Ogoh – huge papier-mache effigies of evil monsters. Expect big bulging eyes, contorted faces and hands and enough fake blood to give young kids sleepless nights. These are carried through towns and villages in a traditional procession to the cacophony of deafening drummers, claxons, gamelan music – basically, the idea is to make as much noise as is humanly possible in order to scare off all evil spirits. After dark these effigies are ceremoniously burnt, followed by much communal debauchery (for Balinese standards) into the night. Drinking, dancing and feasting takes place in a rather chaotic fashion, all with the aim of driving these evil spirits far, far away, or at very least driving them insane.

These ones were pretty tame compared to some we saw as we were driving back to Kuta the following day.  They are scary!!  It was definitely an interesting time to be in Bali, though entirely coincidental.

After a week in our beautiful villa it was time to head back to Kuta and the airport.  We had a beautiful but nauseating drive through the mountains again, stopping only for a couple pictures and a few bathroom breaks.

 We spent our last night in Bali at a hotel resort.  It was nice enough but we were glad we didn't spend an entire week at a place like that.  It just wasn't as much fun.

Enjoying a complimentary ten minute massage while waiting for supper.

I had very carefully planned certain parts of our trip to make it comfortable for everyone.  This included the nights near the airport so we didn't have to travel in a car right after getting off a plane.  I booked our flights back to Hong Kong for the evening so we could spend a night at an airport hotel there before we headed back to China and Mom to Canada the following afternoon.  Of course, despite my best efforts there is nothing I can do when a flight fails to leave on time.

We checked in at the Bali airport for our 6pm flight around 3:45.  As we did that I noticed a sign saying that the flight was delayed until 8:20 because of bad weather in Hong Kong (the plane coming to pick us up couldn't leave on time).  Okay, two extra hours at the airport isn't too bad.  After a few hours of not hearing anything from the airline I went onto Flight Aware to see if the plane had left Hong Kong.  It had and was due to arrive in about an hour.  Great!  Instead of getting in at 11pm we would get in around 1am.  That wasn't so bad.  The plane arrived later than 8:20 but at least it had arrived and we waited to hear a boarding announcement.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally, around 9:30 we got an announcement that our departure would be delayed until 1am.  Huh?  I went and starting asking questions and found out that the crew wasn't allowed to fly again so we had to wait for another to arrive.  The ridiculous thing was that they should have known that before the flight from Hong Kong had even left, six hours earlier.  If they had told us we could have gone to a hotel and waited instead of spending nine hours in the airport.  Eventually we got the kids to lay down and get some rest but there weren't many places to get comfortable.  They ended up using me!

Our flight finally left at about 2am and we arrived in Hong Kong around 6:30.  I had booked and paid for two rooms at the Regal Hotel right at the airport next to the arrival hall.  We walked over, arriving at 7am.  I explained about our late flight and asked if we could possibly get a refund on one room and just use the other since we would only be staying for a few hours.  Tim, the boys and I had to leave around 10:30 and Mom around 12.  They said that because I had booked on the Agoda website, they couldn't offer me any money back so we took both rooms.  We got the boys settled then Mom and I went to Starbucks to get breakfast for everyone.  As we sat and ate in one of the rooms I turned around and saw a cockroach on it's back, legs flailing all about.  I just about gagged while Tim killed it and chucked it in the garbage.  We notified the front desk and they sent housekeeping to check it out.  The two ladies giggled as I told them what I had seen and continued laughing as we dug through the garbage to pull out the bug.  I'm hoping it was a reaction of embarrassment because it certainly wasn't funny.  They left and one of them came back a few minutes later with a new garbage bag and two bottles of water.  I'm not sure what the water was for, a peace offering maybe?  When we found a second, dead cockroach we took it down to the lobby and gave it to the manager personally.  He apologized and offered to change rooms but we told him we were leaving.  The airport was a much nicer place to hang out and they had free internet.  It's funny how our delayed flight kept us from sleeping in a roach infested (5 star) hotel.  

Our flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai was delayed so we got to spend some extra time with Mom at the airport.  After lunch we said our sad goodbyes and headed off to catch our plane.  I was pretty sure we were going to miss our connecting flight to Shenyang but surprisingly there was an agent waiting for us when we got off the plane in Shanghai to escort us through the airport so we wouldn't be late.  We rushed through customs, past the baggage claim, up through the domestic terminal to a single security post especially for transfer passengers.  At this point the nice lady said, "RUN to gate 12!" so off we went on a mad dash to our gate.  We ran up the stairs looked around for our number and took off, knocking over some elderly people along the way so we wouldn't miss our flight.  We got to the gate sweaty and out of breath, handed the agent our boarding passes and she said, "Plane delayed.  Twenty minutes".  I turned around and about two hundred Chinese fellow passengers were staring at us like we were crazy.  What do you do at that point?  I walked as casually as I could over to a store and bought some bottled water then sat and waited a half hour to board our plane.

So, that was our wonderful two week vacation.  Mom made it home with no issues and has adjusted faster to the jet lag and eleven hour time change than we have with no time change at all.  It was so awesome to have her with us on this vacation that we have decided that this will probably be the last big trip we take here.  It's just so much more fun to share these experiences with our families that we will save most travel for when we are back home. Also, we have seen most of the places we really want to visit on this side of the world (at least with kids in tow).  We're not exactly sure when we will leave Shenyang for good, but most likely it will be sometime in 2015.  That's not too far away!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing Hong Kong and Bali through our eyes!