Bali - Day Three and Four

Day Three

After the disaster of the last couple of days and even this morning when I asked the front desk if they had antiseptic cream for Kiara’s hand or if they could tell me where to get some, and the guy went ‘Ah, don’t have here, maybe chemist’ I asked where the nearest one was he said ‘Don’t know’. ARGH! (I ended up putting antiseptic Listerine in it figuring anything antibacterial had to help – it appeared to and I walked into the girls room to find KJ had tried to put more on herself and spilt a large amount on her bed- mmm minty fresh bed).

Anyway, today turned out okay, apart form sunburn. We avoided people instead choosing to stay poolside and roomside. It was the first time I’ve actually felt relaxed.

When I went out for a walk to get supply I headed in the opposite direction and found what I think will prove to be better shopping than where we have already been. The people seemed less pushy but that may be because it was later in the day and I was alone.

So we’ve decided against the tours and will mostly stay in resort, the girls enjoy all the swimming and cope much better with that than the people and honestly so do I.

The nicest surprise today was sitting down to eat at the hotel restaurant and having the waiter tell us we have a lovely family, it has been noticed apparently by the staff at breakfast and talked about, our girls are well behaved unlike other kids who can’t seem to be controlled.

Day Four

Found some better shopping but only just and honestly I really don’t think it’s much cheaper, I guess a lot of people who come here don’t go looking for bargains back home, whereas I do by necessity. Also I really miss shops with price tags on the items.

So we shopped and relaxed and went back to the pool. The girls love the pool. They are both doing very well and improving their swimming, they will both miss it when we go home. Oh I also bought something for myself today, I kind of needed to as I didn’t bring many cloths over and the ones I had were getting pretty festy.

The biggest thing I suppose today was getting woken at the awful time of 6.30 in the morning by gong music. It appears we have a temple next door. It went on for an hour. Woke us all and I had really been hoping the girls might sleep a bit longer being so tired. Then tonight the gongs and drums went for two or so hours with a short break. We took the girls to a place where they could see what was happening and that was interesting. It also sounded much better when you could hear the whole thing not just what made it through the walls.

Someone told us they thought it would go for three days because of a festival, I guess we’ll find out.

The girls have decided they would like to spend much of the last two days by the pool, which is fine by us.

Speaking of sleep we ordered room service pizzas for dinner but when they arrived we went into the girls room, having enjoyed the fact they had been quiet for ten or twenty minutes, only to discover Kiara had fallen asleep. We had to wake her for dinner because she had been saying she was hungry before hand. However they both ate and went to sleep well.

Not looking forward to being woken tomorrow morning if it happens.

Bali Day Two

Okay so continuing on with my Bali notes. i'll try to post the rest more quickly this week, it has taken a bit of adjusting getting back into the swing of work and I now have a deadline for my novel.

SO

Bali Day Two

Well you certainly learn things about yourself when you travel and I’ve learnt several valuable lessons. I can’t haggle for crap. Haggling doesn’t stop over pricing if you have no reference base when you go in. I hate haggling, even when I knock an okay percentage off it still pisses me off. I don’t enjoy it, in fact I find it painfully annoying and a waste of time.

More annoying though are the store people who won’t leave us the hell alone. Other people say no to them and they are allowed to move on we say know and they follow us. It’s because we can’t move so fast because we have the girls.

I realised I have no patience. Okay so I’ve always known my patience is a little thin on the ground but today took it to new extremes. My personal space got very tested and I very much wanted to rip a persons head off. They were totally freaking our girls out. It’s hard being asked 10 times in 5 minutes “what’s your name?’, ‘how old are you?’, ‘hi five’. Just having kids apparently means we are fair game.

I’m tired, I’m grumpy and I’m worried about the girls. MJ is alright but has a limited attention span. KJ gets tired easily, her eyes are red from the pool, mozzies seem to like her like they did me when I was younger and her hand is a little swollen, we think it was scratched or grazed and already seems to be going down but still I’m worried.

I have also realised I have serious platinum tastes and just not the budget for it, I honestly don’t want knock offs. Have I mentioned I hate shopping! I don’t really think like Bali all that much.

Bali Day One

These Bali entries were written while we were over there but I was unable to post them then due to time constraints so I've decided to do it now.

Day One

Today has been interesting. Not what we were expecting. We ended up taking a promo trip out to a five star resort which meant we missed our appointment with the tour company but then expecting people to meet with you halfway through their first day on holiday with no prearrangement…I imagine more appointments are missed than met. The promo trip was interesting because it took us to a totally different part of the island where a lot of five star hotels are. The hotel we looked at was very pretty, immaculate gardens, pristine pools, in fact as I think about it, it could be a hotel from any western country in the world, there was no real local feel to it.

While luxury like that is how we would like to be able to travel it wasn’t the hotel that I found most interesting. It was the trip itself. The mangrove swamps we drove past were drowning in plastic bags and other rubbish. The buildings were so run down. It’s amazing to me that the poverty is so obvious right next to and in between the luxury resorts.

Yes I feel bad about the poverty but it was tempered by the constant cries of ‘transport, transport’ and ‘braid your hair’. I have to wonder how many see the poverty or do they only see the opportunity for a cheap holiday? To be honest the latter is why we came here. And while I knew in my head there would be the poverty and that there would be hawkers and the like I didn’t really expect it to be how it is. I think it is one thing to know and another to experience it.

There is rubbish dumped on the streets and you constantly have to watch where you step because of it and the rough roads. I also found it very annoying to be accosted every couple of meters about getting a ride just because I chose to walk to the shops. I am also finding it creepy how much attention is being paid to my girls and I think it is freaking them out a bit too. Every time we stop somewhere, or don’t even stop people talk to the girls and our girls aren’t the most outgoing of children. I think they are trying to be polite and while I thought the fascination with pale blondes would be over it isn’t.

Thankful and Still Going Strong

This has been a busy week for me, and some how one I managed to enjoy even when I was at work. See work and I have a love/hate relationship. I love books but sometimes I'm not so good with people.

I have been working at my current job for nearly 11 months now and I'm finally taking a break. Two weeks holiday it's going to be great. We are taking the girls to Bali for a week and then I will be home for a week. I am looking forward to it so very much.

I'm trying to work on my frustrations, for me it's a constant task, related in many ways to my impatience with circumstances and yes people. I have set myself some goals and I have to believe that these things that consume me, my passions will pay off one day.

My family are awesome, I wouldn't have it any other way. I look at the young guys I work with and don't at all miss the dating and club scene. Sure it would be nice to be able to make spontaneous decisions like going out with my hubby but it's a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. Besides at least when I'm stuck at home I can get my butt into gear and get some work done. (Except when I don't)

Sure I still daydream about being in the movies or at least one movie, and it's not a dead dream because I'm not dead yet. I will get there one day, especially if passion and perseverance have anything to do with it.

You may knock me down but the only one who can stop me getting up and trying again is myself.

Thank you to those who have blessed me with kind words. Thank you to my family who put up with all my eccentricities and moods. Thank you God for allowing me to create. And thank you that I have the ability to get back up again after being slapped down.

Some times I think we need to step back and evaluate ourselves, some times we need to take a moment to look closely at ourselves and say, 'you know what I believe in me.'

Do yourself a favour, you allowed me to indulge and I suggest you now do the same. Today is a good day to be thankful and it is a good day to believe in yourself.

You can do it.

Words of Encouragement

If you read my blog on a regular basis you will know I have certain hang-ups and one is my struggle with church.

Someone who has known me for a while and has been involved in ministry said to my hubby that they understand why I struggle to fit in. I cannot tell you how much of a relief hearing those words was. Those simple words gave me the gift of realising that maybe I'm not losing it. Maybe my frustrations are valid and maybe just maybe I do still hear from God.

Of course I realise this doesn't make everything alright, I still have the same character flaws that I had yesterday but it gives me the strength to keep questioning and pushing and not giving up. Somehow that feels like a good thing.

Easter and Communion

I finally got around to doing something I’d been meaning to for a while. I watched The Passion of The Christ. I figured it was a good time to do so being as it’s the Easter weekend.

Also given my increasing dissatisfaction with organised religion – it was interesting to watch it through my somewhat jaded eyes.

Was it emotional – Yes. How could you watch someone, even in a movie, go through so much and not be moved?

Yes there were things I didn’t necessarily like or agree with, but then no-one this side of heaven knows exactly what happened that day. Anything else is in some form conjecture.

As it stands the film did for me what I suspect it did for many; it reminded me of the sheer bloody magnitude of the cost Christ paid for my life. Some may never really have been aware of it and others of us just do well to be reminded of it.

All this ties in well with thoughts I have been having about communion. I don’t feel we give it the gravitas that it should have. Jesus set communion in place to remind us of his sacrifice and for me recently, it has felt just part of the service, something we do every other week fitted in between the worship service and church news.

If necessary watch the film again. See the bloody pulp his body was made into – injuries it would be incredibly unlikely someone would survive from. Leather or rods snapping against and into the skin, metal digging in and tearing. This is the body we are commissioned to remember; that blood dripping and pooling on the ground is the blood that was shed for us, sprayed over and soaking into the earth.

We take communion like it was at the last supper, not as we should, remembering the events of the dark day that followed where Jesus stepped up and put himself in my place. From the comfort of the upper room hearing the words but not really understanding rather than the foot of the cross as the torn and bloody flesh was secured to the wood and the blood dripped it’s way to the ground.

I have become so shallow, despite my declaration that I’ll still love God even if He does nothing else for me. I still believe but my faith has become something of a side note. I don’t mean that I no longer put it in people’s faces, I never did that, it’s more that it is there when I can be bothered. It is tied too much to what I have problems with and not enough to the man whose death tore the temple of organised religion in two.

Christ rose from His tomb and that is what we remember on this day, so likewise as I face a new day I will bend my knee and life my eyes to the throne, acknowledging my unworthiness and my gratefulness.

What a Week

Well it's been quite a week. Yes we had a storm and yes our house was partially flooded, but really it was and is an inconvenience rather than the national disaster some are claiming. A couple of rooms are still drying out 7 days later. You only need to look at Chile or Haiti to see real disasters.

So my week has included: a house getting flooded and no internal electricity for the better part of two days; trying to get real estate agents to act - which they still haven't done; a trip to the hospital for a regular check up for our eldest; a visit to our travel agent to pick up our holiday tickets; visit and dinner with friends; trying to find some plays that interest me; and still I managed to fit a bit or writing in, not enough to have a blog of substance this week, I'll be aiming for that this week.