The Goodacre's: May 2009

One of my favourite places on earth is Ubud, Bali. And so, I needed to go one more time! Steve has a boys weekend planned for the same weekend to Bali, but they were staying on Kuta beach to play Killer Bee. So Charla and I went to the small town of Ubud together, to indulge in all things Balinese.
We arrived on Friday mid -day and got to our resort. We were greeted with a welcome drink of fabulous fresh juice. We had a two bedroom villa just outside of town! It was gorgeous, we had a balcony that looked out onto rice felids! So nice! We would go out each night and have wine while watching the sunset over the beautiful vibrant green!
As soon as we had settled into the hotel, we went into town to begin our shopping! We did very well, buying up half of the town before heading back with sore arms and tired feet! Once we were back at the hotel we opened up our chilled wine and sat out on the balcony.
We went for dinner that night at a great place, with delicious food.
The next day we went into the rice fields, very fun.
We had breakfast and then headed back into town. We spent the day walking and shopping, had a great lunch, had a foot massage and did more shopping…we bought the other half of Bali that day!
We bought glass vases and glass bowls, plates, wind chimes, you name it, we bought it!We went back to the hotel and repeated the evening before, another bottle of wine and a sunset, relaxing before heading back into town for dinner. Before we made it to dinner we stopped at an art gallery, I had spotted a fantastic painting right when we arrived a day earlier, but he wanted way too much. I had spoken to him two or three times, but thought I would try again, so finally we agreed, 1 million rupiah and I got my painting!!!
This time, for dinner, we went to my favourite restaurant called Terazzo’s. We had a fabulous meal and many delicious cocktails.
The next day we had to pack…oh my…we had so many things and so much of it was breakable and awkward… where was Steve when you needed him! So we did our best and hoped that it worked.
Once we were at the airport, the lady had us re-pack a few things to re-distribute the weight…but we got everything on. We even got to take out 3 foot glass vases as carry ons!
We arrive home at about 4:30 and unpacked all of our goodies…I was very disappointed to find that my bowl had broken, my plates had broken and my cinnamon balls had broken..so sad.
I texted Steve to tell him we were home, he was still in Bali. I told him about my broken plates, so he surprised me with a new one! So sweet.
Anyway, it was a wonderful weekend. I loved spending time with Charla, I loved being in Ubud and I loved buying so many new treasures, especially the painting!

Main floor of villa

Our balcony

Charla enjoying the view while sipping on her welcome drink

The view

who knew rice could be so beautiful!

The bridge across from our room

Cha Cha admires the ducks!

Wine every night on our deck

Dinner at Charla's favourite place

A special extra...random chicken soup in a shot glass, only Charla was brave enough

Yuk!

Um...

Oour pretty set up!

Walking out early one morning to check out the rice up close!

The view of our place

Cool tree in front of the market

A fantastic lunch at a new place

The artist of the painting we bought...you will have to wait to see the painting!

Dinner at my favourite place Terazzos!

The temple of chocolate!

I am paying my respect

The walk way to our place

The pool

Cha Cha at our breakfast table

Kota Kinabalu is in Sabah Malaysia. We booked our flights in early December because we wanted to climb Mount Kinabalu and you have to book early in order to book accommodation on the mountain…I guess we were too late, as the mountain was fully booked for this long weekend! By this point we did not have a flight for Madi because she would not have been able to climb with us, so that was too bad. But, we left on Friday morning and spent four very relaxing days in KK. We stayed in a four star hotel that was attached to a mall, so when we arrived we went shopping, had dinner and went to a movie! It was great! The next day we went to the five star Rasa Ria Shangri la resort at 6am to go on the ‘summit breakfast’ you climb up about 800 meters and then are served a lovely breakfast with an amazing view of the mountain. This was the first time we saw the mountain and let me tell you, I was so happy I wasn’t climbing it! It is huge!
Once we came down from our Summit breakfast we stayed at the resort for the day, they had fantastic lounge chairs and a great beach. We watched a beautiful sunset and then we went for dinner at one of their great restaurants, and Indian place that was delicious!
The next day we went into town and went to the market. We walked along the waterfront and did some shopping.
We went to the mall again and saw another movie!
The next day we caught our flight and got back into Singapore mid-day, in time to spend loads of time with Madison!