Today’s – Made Me Smile
Here is what I overheard from student conversation this morning as the children were working on a project (fake names have been substituted)
Randy "God is the king of the world you know"
Mary "There already is a real King and a Queen too right?"
Anna "Jesus is a boy, not a girl" "He died"
Randy "He was killed but he got up"
and they changed the course of their conversation....
Aileen’s Visit
Taking Aileen to Little India to experience Jaggi's. I think she liked it!
Our evening tour of Clarke Quay, Boat Quay, The Fullerton Hotel, The Merlion, The Esplanade - Theatre On The Bay, Glutton's Bay Hawker, The New Asia Bar at the Swisshotel, and finally Chijmes.
Starting to relax at Brewerkz
Girl chat infront of the Fullerton
The Merlion
I think this one's easier for me...
The Esplanade
Hawker (Satay Bar) on the Bay
Chijmes - an old church and convent now a courtyard of exquisite restaurants
The Last Supper in preparation. Menu : homemade Spring Rolls with kecap manis and palm syrup dipping sauce, prawn Pad Thai and Chicken, Sweet Pepper and Eggplant Red Curry.
Pre-dinner Texas Hold'em to see who's on dish duty! With those eyes, Dan means business.
The Lord of the Rings Trivia game ended us for the night...
Goodbye Aileen...
A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
- Arabian Proverb
Singapore – Orchid Gardens
A visit to Singapore's Orchid Gardens was worth it. My Fun in Singapore Guide tells me that this garden has the largest display of Orchids in the world with 60 000 Orchid Plants comprising of 700 species and 3 000 hybrids.
Here are a few of my favorite shots.
Bali, Indonesia: Ubud – Monkey Forest
At the tail end of Monkey Forest Road in Ubud is, you guessed it, the Monkey Forest Sanctuary.
We'll apologize in advance for the 7,823 photos here in this blog entry, but these monkeys are just so much fun, and so darn cute.
I like BANANAS!!!
He seems to want to untuck my shirt, or maybe see if I have a banana in my pocket?
Carly was insistent that we label this photo "kiss my ass".
Buddy seems to have had a pretty long days work, or sleep.
This particular little chump of a monkey seemed to be enjoying my company for a while, but after he realized that, in fact, I didn't have a banana in my pocket, he jumped up onto my shirt sleeve and actually bit my arm. I'm pretty thankful there was no blood.
This monkey was pretty awesome, too. He kept yanking open my velcro pockets. Quite a fun game. Really.
I was really surprised how soft their hands are, to the touch.
This is one of the best pictures ever. We noted that is looks a bit like Carly is flirting with the monkey, but he is clearly playing hard to get. That, and she does look a little angelic, if I do say so, myself (Carly - not the monkey).
And the first shall be last - this last monkey picture - shown below - was the first monkey we saw when we walked into the forest. He was totally kicking it, old school, sitting on the ledge like an old man, happily watching the scenery.
This was definitely a great experience, and a lot of fun at the same time. Yet another thumbs up for Ubud.
Bali, Indonesia: Ubud – Dance
Here are just a few shots of Jeffery's that he took of what seems to be a dance recital or dance practice.
Bali, Indonesia: Ubud – Motorcycles
Well, here we are in Ubud, happily examining the Motorcycles (semi-automatic bikes for me and Jeffery, fully automatic scooters for the ladies). Carly seems to have taken this picture while the three of us are scowling at something, I'm not entirely sure what it might be.
Pretty sure this is a picture of the "bike" that Carly got, it was a a heavy beast. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring the little guy along.
Jeffery looks even dumber with a yellow helmet on his head than he does in real life. Er... Sorry Jeffery.
Here we have a nice little shot of the Bali countryside around Ubud. It was quite gorgeous pretty much everywhere we managed to get to. We're not really sure exactly where it is that we got to. We figured we'd ride "away" from the town for about 1/2 the amount of the time we had the bikes, and on our way back, we'd find a local, look confused, shrug our shoulders, say "Ubud?", and they would point in a direction. Worked out pretty well, we made it back in time.
A lady was selling petrol out of these little glass bottles at the roadside, not an uncommon site. We topped up a bit, and carried on.
I must say I was pretty stoked to get Carly riding around town on a bike. Maybe we'll rent 'em again the next time we head to Thailand or something. It was a lot of fun.
Bali, Indonesia: Ubud – Cooking at Casa Luna
One of the more famous restaurants in Ubud is Casa Luna. They have one of the worst web sites I've ever seen, but their food is something out of this world. We headed their for dinner a few hours after our arrival in Ubud, where I have to confess, I ordered a Main Entree for dinner. That wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that I ordered a second one about 20 minutes after I finished the first. I had no idea how else I was going to be able to try everything. They served up super cocktails, and delicious fresh-baked bread, and an Avocado-Coffee milkshake that was absolutely killer.
They offer a cooking course as well, which we signed up for for the next morning. The picture below is a Hibiscus flower and a glass of iced Hibiscus tea, which was served up at our cooking course the next morning buy the pitcher, and tasted fabulous.
Below we have a few photos of a ton of fresh ingredients we used in our preparation of Nasi Goreng, Chicken Satay and Peanut Sauce (from scratch!).
I don't recall if this photo was taken before or after we did the cooking / eating. By the looks of how happy we are, I would guess it could have been after. Note that this is probably the first and last time you will ever see Jeffery in an apron.
This was the huge pile of nasi goreng that we made, along with a big yummy bowl of peanut sauce and a pile of chicken satay. And man was it awesome.
We must confess that we returned to Casa Luna a few more times to eat. They serve up an unreal Sunday Brunch where we scored some Corn Meal Pancakes with Blueberries and Palm Sugar Syrup that Carly says is the best breakfast she's ever had. I don't think I'd disagree.
Bali, Indonesia: Ubud – General Stuff
These are some "general" shots of Ubud, that don't really fit into any category in particular. This first one is a picture I took just outside the rooms we were staying in. Yes, that is a nice pool there, about 20 feet away from the front door of our room. These rooms cost a fortune, btw - like 130,000 Rupiah per night (about $16/CDN 
)
This was a fairly typical shot of a street in Ubud.
These are, um, chickens.
This is Aileen and Carly, happily enjoying a cocktail at Casa Luna.
Robin and Carly and Aileen.
Robin and Carly and Aileen (again).
This is a shot of the alley (more like a narrow street) that we walked through to get to the place we were staying.
All in all, I have to say that Ubud is a totally awesome little place. I could definitely see myself heading back there to enjoy more of the culture, the people and the cuisine.
Bali, Indonesia: Tirta Gangga – The Water Palace
The Water Palace of Tirta Gangga was one of three of the palaces enjoyed by the royal family of Bali when Bali was a monarchy. It was originally built in 1948 but has since been rebuilt after the 1963 eruption of Gunung Agung and political events.
Dan with his buddies
The love birds
Trying out Tirta Gangga's own rice wine before hitting the road for Ubud
Bali, Indonesia: Tirta Gangga – Hiking
Welcome to picturesque Tirta Gangga (Water of the Ganges). Ganges is a river in Northern India known as sacred to Hindus. Tirta Gangga is a small village surrounded by high ridges and home to sublime rice paddies and the Water Palace.
A 6 hour hike into terranced rice fields, jungle and farm land.
He's on his way to collect coconut and palm branches to be used for roofing.
Pineapple
Coffee Beans
Coco (personally, I like my chocolate minus the protein)
Harvesting peanuts
