So, I just spent the last few hours working on this blog post, and when I went to publish it it was gone. So incredibly discouraging. Nothing I can do about it now, but sorry, the second time around is never nearly as good as the first time. I will do my best...
I will finish our Bali vacation blog with lots of pictures and minimal captions.
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| It was so nice to be able to come home every day after sightseeing and jump into the pool in our villa. We all had a great time having jumping contests, playing chicken and diving for toys in the pool. |
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| A little nervous at first... |
Taylor was very adventurous in the animals she was willing to hold on this vacation. At one of the temples they had a snake you could hold and she wanted to give it a try.
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| Feeling pretty confident... |
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| Starting to freak out because it is moving... |
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| And mom says "enough" as it wraps it self around her neck. |
We visited the most famous temple in all of Bali. It is pretty much just a huge tourist trap, but it was beautiful to see the temple surrounded by water. There were so many people there though that we arrived, took a few pictures and left.
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| At the entrance to the temple. |
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| Like I said it was a big tourist area, so the whole street walking up to the temple was filled with souvenir shops and vendors. |
The girls watching the waves and the surfers on the western side of the island.
A while ago Russ read about a small motorcycle company that has only four shops in the world and on of them happened to be in Bali. One evening we ventured to the shop for Russ and Neil to look around and to eat dinner at their cafe.
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| Our view from the cafe. |
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| The shop was pretty awesome inside. |
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| The only thing that stopped them from both buying a bike is that they couldn't figure out how to get it back home. |
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| Best friends since 5th grade. |
Happy Thanksgiving From Bali! There wasn't any turkey in our dinner, but we did have an All-American meal.
We spent a day taking a boat ride out to snorkel then on to visit a small island.
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| The driver of our boat. |
I was really sick on this boat ride so no picture of me. I was just trying not to vomit the whole time.
We visited a small island called Turtle Island where the girls were able to see, hold, feed and interact with all kinds of animals.
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| I love the smile in this picture. |
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| Holding another snake. She was so brave. (Taylor wanted me to let you know that she did have pants on that day. We were in our bathing suits and her top was a little long and covered her bottoms.) |
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| This picture was my favorite of the day. Taylor was fearless about holding all kinds of animals, but was a little bit hesitant to hold the bat. Can you blame her? Look at that thing. We finally convinced her to go in the cage and take the bat from our guide. The entire time the guide was holding the bat it was completely still, but as soon as Taylor took it from him it spread it's wings and this was the priceless picture I got. She immediately handed it back to the guide and got out of the cage. I was impressed that she didn't drop it because that is what I would have done. |
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| Drinking from a coconut. |
We visited another temple at the southern most point of the island. It was out on a cliff and had beautiful views. Unfortunately, it was very hot that day and we had promised the girls we would go to the beach after the temple visit so we didn't spend very much time at this temple.
We made it to Dreamland Beach to play in the waves.
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| It was beautiful at this beach. |
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| The "Swimming Prohibited" flag seemed to be more of a suggestion than a rule. |
Our view for lunch that day.
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| Lucy and I walked down to the water while we were waiting for the food. |
It was not uncommon to see 3 or 4 people on one little scooter, most of the time without any helmets on. I snapped this picture of a man and his child on a scooter going the wrong way down the road.
On one of our adventures we saw this scooter and our guide told us to hop on and took a picture of us riding Bali style...chicken and all.
One of the highlights of the trip was the opportunity to ride elephants.
The girls and I all rode them bare backed for a little bit. Lucy and I had the same reaction...OK I did it now get me off of this thing, but Taylor was very brave and even did a bunch of tricks while she was on the elephant.
The girls enjoyed feeding the elephants.
The girls had fun playing in the sand and snorkeling at the Blue Lagoon Beach.
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| I don't usually include very many scenery shots because they can be kind of boring, but this was just to beautiful to not include. Not a bad way to spend a day of vacation. |
About 85% of Balinese people are Hindu. Every morning, noon and evening they would make these small offerings and prayers. We had to constantly be on guard to not step on them.
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| A prayer alter. |
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| Even the statues had sarongs tied on them. |
One of the things we love about visiting a different country is exploring their culture. Seeing these offerings being made throughout the day was definitely a cultural experience for us.
On our final day in Bali we went to a traditional Balinese dance. To be honest, we didn't understand a lot of it, but it was fun to watch the dancers and see the costumes.
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| With one of the dancers before the show. |
They even had Dunkin Donuts in Bali. We made sure to stop one day and have a donut for breakfast. They taste about the same in Bali as they do in America.
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| Even in Bali the police eat donuts. :) |
Saying good-bye to our wonderful tour guide and driver. We really got to know him well, even met his daughter. He did a wonderful job showing us around Bali.
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| One last scenery picture. |
Waiting at the airport for our red-eye flight back to cold Seoul. It was almost 2 hours delayed.
Good-bye Bali! We had a great time.
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| This picture was taken after 1 am, which is the reason for the tired eyes. |
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