Bali Day 2

Bali Day 2 - 21 nov 2007
Elephant Ride, Ubud Art Museum, Galuh Batik Shop & Pasar Sukawati
Location : Ubud, Bali

we received the response on our request for a private tour just before we left for breakfast. walaupun kat bali ni jam 5.30pagi dah terang benderang macam jam 7pagi but we just couldn't push our selves to woke up early... kalau nak ikutkan semua tour packages kat sini begins as early as 3am! itu untuk package tengok matahari terbit dari pantai jimbaran kalau tak silap. other packages begins as early as 5.30am to 8am... but our private tour was tailor made to our own timing...hehe sesuai untuk orang yang malas bangun pagi ;-).


lepak kat veranda bilik lepas breakfast


before we left for the tour sempat lagi aku book for massage ;-)


posing 3 beranak... one thing i noticed budak berdua ni makin happening posing mereka! terhibur bila tengok balik

we left the hotel at around 10am, menuju ke elephant safari somewhere di perkampungan taro, ubud. our tourist guide cum driver by the name Wayan actually wanted to bring us to many other tourist spot i.e. barong dance, temples, silver craft worksyop, monkey forest but we don't want to do all that. yelah dengan 2 orang kanak2 riang ni, mana larat nak berjalan 8 hours non stop. that's why we opt for private tour, kalau ikut tour package lain2 tu it will takes paling kurang 8hours keliling bali in 1 day. plus, ada apa dengan temple?

we thought that bali is just a small island like langkawi... hehe buta geography betul! we didn't expect that the journey from sanur to the elephant safari will takes almost 1 hour to reach there. sampaikan fahmi & yaya tertidur. and the road was very busy, sesibuk jalan di KL!

there were 3 rides offered, the 15mins ride, 40mins ride or the 1hr ride. we choose the 40mins ride walaupun hati risau takut budak berdua ni tak tahan lama2 atas gajah. paid the fee in US$, sib baik ada tukar US$ skit. me & fahymi took off first riding the elephant named Elsa, hubby & yaya rides Tony. the elephant keeper that accompanied us, Abbas (a muslim from Sumatra) was very friendly & informative. i didn't expect fahmi to be so scared of the elephant that he was so restless throughout the ride, the reason why i asked hubby to ride with yaya was because i expect yaya yang akan jadi si penakut that i won't be able to control her. surprisingly she was very relaxed, cheerful and seems to enjoy the ride very very much! fahmi wears this worry look on his face sepanjang the ride, but still bila daddy nak snap his pics he's able to give his signature 'peace' post.


fahmi actually meronta2 tak nak naik, bila daddy nak snap pics immediately dia posing!


yaya was such a darling, from a far i can hear her giggles and asking daddy tons of questions


'Tony' showing off his talent angkat daddy & fahmi using his belalai

the riding package comes with complimentary lunch at the reastaurant nearby. before proceeded to the restaurant i asked Abbas whether the food provided are halal? Abbas advice us to take only vegetarian food. in my mind i thought that the vegetarian buffet counter were separated from non-halal counter, so i didn't expect that the food to be on the same buffet line. bila hubby tanya semua food halal ke? quickly the lady tutup lauk pauk yang non-halal... masa tu serta merta kembang tekak kami... the one yang nampak macam fish ball celup tepung tu rupa2nya daging 'itu'... separuh mati aku ingat bleh bagi the kids makan! ohhh tidakkkk! kejamnya aku. separuh jalan makan pecal terasa kembang tekak semula... terus kami berhenti makan. huwaaa seksanya!

paling tak sampai hati bila tengok the kids tak makan apa2 pun. just imagine yaya yang hantu nasi didn't had sebiji nasi pun sepanjang 4 days in bali... she lived on fried egg, french fries, oreo biscuits and more fried eggs!

next, we went to the art museum. hubby is not an art lover, i do love art but i'm not passionate about it, when your partner does not share the same interest with you, the love for art sort of mati dengan sendirinya, not that i care so much. we decided that the art museum is not our 'thing' and leave empty handed.

next stop ni yang plaing menyeronokkan for me! hehe Galuh batik shop. we got 50% discount for all items from kain batik lepas, pelikat samarinda, kebaya, batik printed tote, sandals etc. seronok bershopping lupa perut lapar... ada patut?

after the stop at galuh, Wayan wants to bring us to the monkey forest and silver craft shop which i and hubby rejected (in a nice way). the kids dah kepenatan, lapar but that didn't stop me from asking Wayan to bring us to Pasar Sukawati. this is the place where you can buy all sorts of souvenir items tapi kena pandai bargain. i enjoy the bargain part so much, hubby did too... macam sport plak for us doing the bargain thing. the hawkers kind of forcing us to buy things from their shop, bila kita cakap tak nak, they'll immediately lower down the price, if you say tak nak again, they'll ask you how much you want. kadang2 irritating jugak sebab kita betul2 tak nak barang tu.

and if you bring your kids with you please be more alert coz if the hawkers can't persuade you to buy then they'll turn to your kids. tak pasal2 beli miniature cats at the price of rp15,000 ... ntah apa gunanya aku pun tak tau. kes terperangkap lah ni.

we saw one stall selling 'Muslim' bakso... tapi tak berani nak cuba. so just bought a few carton drinks and biscuits for the kids.

balik ke hotel, semuanya tertidur kepenatan, while i go for the massage at the hotel's spa.

Bali Day 1

eventhough we had 5 months to prepare for this trip, we havent done much other than browsing and making list for halal restaurants and booked the hotel which was done to the last minute walaupun sebenarnya dah berbulan buat decision where to stay.

there were just a few number of places we visited in bali, well maybe i exaggerate a bit because honestly there was only one place that we went to and enjoyed our time as a family, yang lain2 tu mama je yang syok sendiri bershopping. but there were a lot of photos taken as a memento.

Bali Day 1 (departure & arrival)
20 nov 2007

since our flight will be taking off at 10.25am on 20nov, we decided to stay overnight at my sis home at klia quarters. it will save us the hassle and traffic jam in the early morning of a working day. arrived at lcct sharp at 9am, we proceed to the check in counter and realised that we were late. it was a very long queue, by the time we got the boarding pass it was already 10am. we then proceed to the departure hall and was met with another long queue... uihhh ramainya yang pergi bali pagi tu.

look at our lugagge, 1 beg besar and 1 beg sandang with pampers, towel, baby wipes and susu for immediate use dalam flight. thanks sally for the tips ;)

it was the first time we took the kids for a long journey on board the flight. i prayed hard that they wouldnt make so much fuss on board, alhamdulillah yaya fall asleep before the flight took off, i am grateful for that because she just couldnt stop crying or jumping on her seat and merengek nak duduk dengan daddy. apparently everyone wants to seat with daddy and nobody wants to sit with mama... mama dah tumbuh tanduk ke sekarang ni?

we safely arrive ngurah rai airport at 1.20pm. i hate the landing part so much, penat control myself not to vomit or pening throughout the 3 hours journey, tetiba part landing tu betul2 buat rasa nak ter'kantoi'. hilang mood. the screening part at the immigration check point was smooth. i regret for not asking the hotel to arrange for pick up, because we were sort of blur bukan sebab tak tau or takde cab service tapi sebab rasa macam was2 jer. plus that when the cab service quoted us rp85,000 we sort of telan air liur for a minute or two and had to quickly make a conversion of that amount to myr just to check if they were charging us reasonable fare. silly huh?

at diwangkara holiday villa, sanur we received warm greeting from the hotel in form of fast check in, face towel and fresh fruits. when i first book the room at this hotel i didn't realised that the superior garden villa comes with a combination of garden view and sea view. it had a verandah facing straight to the pool and sea. and right before we enter the room we were greeted by a small adjoining room complete with a day bed... kalau nak ikutkan the room can accomodate 4 adults at one time. and the hotel's restaurant (the only one offers halal food) located dekat depan our room.


pintu depan room #101


hubby baik hati bagi tip kat budak hotel yang carry our luggage to the room... nak tau berapa tip tu? rp3,000... sounds a big amount to us right? but what is the value of rm1.50? aduiii pecah perut aku ketawa... malu nak jumpa budak tu lagi, nasib til the day we checked out dengan bayang dia pun kami tak serempak.

perut terasa lapar, makan buah jer mana cukup so we went to the restaurant. hmm tengok menu semuanya Malaysian food... haha rasa nak gelak jer betullah all the comments that i read from one of the website about this hotel.


comel kan... ni tengah control tahan lapar. bila makanan sampai habis meja pun dia nak panjat!

tahan lapar gak ni

ni lagi lapar sampai baring atas meja

apapun we are grateful that the hotel provides halal food yang sememangnya susah nak cari untuk orang yang baru first time jejak bali macam kami. the list that i made earlier doesn't help much, all the places in the list were scattered all over bali, very little kat area sanur. but we made our own discovery on our 3rd day here.

malam lepas maghrib we thought off walking down the road konon nak mencari McD that we saw on the way ke hotel siang tadi. tapi bila jumpa banyak sangat anjing berkeliaran sepanjang jalan, anak2 pulak ketakutan, we decided to turn back to the hotel and had our dinner at the hotel instead. but before that we manage to let the hotel know that we'd like to have a private tour to the elephant safari on the next day.

Fenin

should have start packing our things for the trip... but i havent even started.
i'm so clueless i don't know where to start... and we are leaving on tuesday morning!
for a 4 days trip i guess we need not bring too many clothes, dirty clothes can be send for laundry nanti kat sana... so tak yah bw banyak2... but for the kiddies hmm dengan pampers yaya lagi, susu dia lagi... at times like this when we need to travel light how i wished i had toilet trained her and weaned her off formula milk. aduiii leceh juga nak gi bercuti ni... fenin.
my boss asked me why bali?
i don't know? what's the attraction? ntah... saja jer. well, i've been planning to go there since last year, but i didn't succeed in persuading hubby to leave the children behind and go there just the 2 of us. plus... my health was very bad last year due to tonsilitis... so i decided to get rid off the tonsils and postpone the trip to this year.
sebenarnya tak yakin pun dapat materialised the trip this year...
kumpul2 duit skit... cukup2 lah utk 'berehat' 4 beranak kat sana.

preparations? Z.E.R.O.

Bla...bla...bla...

i haven't been writing much lately. it's not as thou there's no blogging issue to write about, it's just that there were too many things happened at one time so i had unintentionally 'abscond' myself from the blogging world for a while.

having been entrusted to execute a very 'high profile' inquiry recently, i must say that 'it' did affect me mentally and emotionally. i was so deeply taken in to it that i had an emotional block that i lost appetite to blog. people blog for many reasons. i created this blog as a space for me to express myself. my life journal, it captures almost every moments i went through in my life, my ups and my downs, the love of my life, my passion, my obsession. this is the space where i can really express my feelings where in the real world out there (apart from my family members) i had to restrict myself from expressing my true feelings, simply because i'm afraid if i let it go, people might feel hurt. if things get out of control or upsets me, i'd rather chew on it, and express my feelings elsewhere.

so this is where sometimes, when i had a bad day at work, i'd go home and start writing it here. eventhough from the beginning i tried so much not to babble so much about work in this blog, but i find it very difficult not to.

so this time, i ended up babbling about this...

Family Photo

this is one of our Hari Raya photos taken at the photo studio in seremban. i've just collected it last thursday, scanned it but unable to upload to photobucket earlier due to slow server connection.

the people at the studio must have done some touch up work on my face as it appears flawless. tu bukan keje make up tau sebab aku ni tak reti bermekap. yang peliknya yaya kalau disuruh senyum mesti mata jadi sepet, bila disuruh buka mata senyum plak jadi semacam je. fahmi try to maintain 'macho'... hmmm gigi tu kurang comey skit

dah dapat framed kan gambar besar2 dah tak tau nak letak mana plak.

Big Things Comes In Small Packages?

that describes yaya in certain ways.
she is small build for a 2 1/2 years old child, but she has high pitch voice
bisa bingit telinga kalau dia menjerit and it is so irritating to hear her sing let alone cry
i dubbed her a 'midget', biarpun kecil tapi 'bekeng' yang amat
i hope she wouldn't have problem to make friends with her 'bekeng' nature
she maybe small in physical and age comparing to her brother, but she's the first one to eat with her own hand
and my oh my she does have a big mouth!

on the way back to our car after the weekly supplies shopping, we drop by the second hand bookstore at the lower ground level. after getting our hands on a few winnie the pooh miniseries, i proceed to the counter to pay for them. the guy at the counter, he has this shoulder length 'kerinting maggi' sort of hair style, which maybe looks so stylish for other people but definitely not in the eyes of my innocent little yaya.
came out from her innocent big mouth "mama, napa 'ambut owang tu 'acam..."
translation "mama, kenapa rambut orang tu macam ..." and the voice went dead when she finally realised that she had said that aloud and attracted the subject of conversation ears.

and i realised that it is too late for me to cover her up, because the guy understood what she's about to say and with a smile he asked "nak buat rambut macam uncle tak" ooops wrong question kataku dalam hati because i knew there's no way yaya going to say yes. and yaya quickly shake her head and hide behind my back. we were so embarassed at that point, luckily that guy was so quick in changing the subject by inviting us to the book fair this weekend at somewhere-i-dunno-where in PJ.

malunya.... and i recall that was not the first time.

Masih Terpacak

aren't they just so handsome?

fahmi & his cousin brother, Upie sepakat buat style 'rambut terpacak'. mama sengaja puji2 fahmi macam 'penyanyi Hong Kong'. fahmi walaupun he don't understand what mama is talking about kembang kuncup hidung dipuji2 macam tu.
i cut his hair semalam. yeah i cut it myself. and fahmi said he would pay me a ringgit for the hair cut, which he hasn't pay yet. it cost me rm25 for his raya hair cut, which hubby kata macam tak gunting apa pun. i asked the lady hair stylist to give him a cool haircut tapi it turns out she did nothing but just get his hair trimmed, tu je.

yesterday, i got so fed up with his rambut yang dah makin panjang, just imagine baru je gunting before raya sekarang ni dah panjang. i trimmed his hair all over tinggal 1.5cm, and left the top slightly longer so that it can be styled the way he likes it most "rambut terpacak".

fahmi sangat2 menjaga rambut terpacaknya, sampai bila dia terjatuh tengahari tadi pun, first thing that he checked was his hair! just to makesure that it's masih terpacak! ;-)