Rockin' and surfin'

After a hectic and exhausting semester, we were in desperate need of a good break, away from busy Singapore.
So, just for fun, we decided to sneak out of the country. In approximately 15min, we made the decision, grabbed the opportunity and off we went 2 weeks later, flying to a place where every day is a holiday - Bali.
Due to our tight schedule, only 2hrs of sit-down itinerary-planning was done less than 36h before our flight. While this does not fully fit my definition of spontaneity, it was pretty spontaneous given that it was both our first time visiting Bali and had no idea how to get around etc. 

(And yes, we also just found out that the majority of Balinese are Hindus and not Muslims even though its in a Muslim country.) 

Day 1
Immediately after his school ended (also 10 weeks practicum!), he rushed home to finish up his remaining packing. In less than half an hour, I was in a cab, on my way to his house to pick him up for the flight. The adventure was just beginning and I was so excited to be taking our first ever flight together.

We've landed in Bali!

After we landed, we met with our driver-tour guide, Juli, who brought us to our hotel, apparently the best in kuta- hard rock hotel! The place was well-decorated and it made me just want to take photo of everything but knowing me, I'm not one to take photos of inanimate objects, so our photos were mostly of people, US haha (photos coming soon). In addition to great decor, there was great service from the front desk. Room was geeeeeaaat. Live band was awesomeeee. There and then, I knew it was going to be an amazing and unforgettable stay at this hotel.

Entrance of Hard Rock Hotel (:

Checked in at about 930pm, and was planning to roam kuta square but decided we were too tired so we had an early night, in preparation for our morning tour!

Day 2
Woke up to a hearty and delicious breakfast (after waking up to his morning breath kisses heehee). Yumyum. After which, Juli picked us for our tour at turtle island! We were treated like royalty, a turtle island tour guide brought us around the island and helped us cut the queue and also helped to take photos of us playing with the animals.

Giant turtles we were so tempted to ride on.

SSSSSS..

Babe and his really flappy turtle which I had to protect my baby turtle from.

The glass-bottom boat then brought us back to the island and we headed back to our hotel for our very first surf lesson!!

Quick introduction to surfing! He made it look so easy.

It was super exciting and I managed to stand on my first try, with the wrong leg hahaah beginner's luck, coz after that, I fell alot. Babers was awesome even though the waves and undercurrent really sucked. Actually felt very irritated because I couldn't bring the board out far enough without having the waves push me back to where I started from. SIGH. Most of the time was spent pushing the board out, trying to get past the waves. I guess I just don't have the patience to keep doing that.. ): 

Still, surfing was fun and we (more so, he) loved it.

First try!! Obvious mistake there haha

Ride the waves like you own em' baby!

That evening, we had a special candlelight dinner by the beach planned for us. It was simply... beautiful. Had an absolutely wonderful dinner with a romantic atmosphere which was enhanced by 4 amazing/comical musicians who were performing for the different tables (not without tips of course). They finally came to our table and performed a chinese song and then our requested song heehee.

Seafood candlelight dinner by the beach!

The 4 super talented musicians who will pwn Sg "bands" any freakin time.

Wanting to catch the soccer match after that, we changed up and headed for the sports bar where we realised after buying the drinks that the man u match was the next day and that the match showing that day was 1h later. Unfortunately, they spiked our drinks(or so we suspected) and we got so high we had to go back hahaha and fell right asleep even before the match started. oopsy.

nachos and 2 hugeass glasses of cocktails = this and worse :P

Day 3

Woke up early for brekkie before rafting! A driver picked us and brought us to the rafting place 1.5h away from our hotel. Got our rafting gear, met the guide and the two other people rafting with us. Rafting was fun because the guide made it so. He was funny and was really great at steering the raft despite the rapids. Of course, once we got used to the bumpy ride, we wanted something more crazy. So, let's go Australia where the rapids are definitely crazier! woohoo!

First rafting experience (:

 They had showers and lunch provided there so it was perfect for starving us. Went back to the hotel and immediately headed out for shopping! Of course before our shopping started, we had to have some pedicure! :D pretty nails done while he had leg massage haha.

Can't hide the gay side of him heehee.

Walked around the whole area for approximately 3 hours searching for Johnny Rockets for dinner since it was something the bf wanted to try. Realised that it was actually just a stone's throw away from our hotel. The place actually reminded us of star vista in singapore! Anyway, this was only a snack as we did not want to have burgers for dinner but just wanted to see how good it was. It was.. probably similar to carl's jr, but more expensive and no free flow drinks? Since I don't exactly fancy burgers, I only took a bite or two. Honestly, I prefer carl's jr much more. That's only my opinion, go try it for yourself if you do get a chance to! (:

Our first ever taste of Johnny Rockets burgers! Woohoo!

Then we remembered that we wanted to visit the bomb site memorial but totally had no idea where it was because we only drove past it once on the first day. Took another 2 hours walking around and getting lost searching for it (also partly because we got distracted by the huge surf shops all over the place?). Asked a police and found out that it was 1km away from where we were. So we just kept walking while enjoying the busy night scene and having random guys ask the bf, "bro, mushroom?"

Finally made it here! May the victims rest in peace.

Finally found the bomb site memorial after the long walk. So tired, we just sat down by the road side like hobos. Being random, I suggested riding the horse carriages just for fun. And ride the carriage we did, at SGD12.50 for just 15min. He wanted to charge us SGD50 for one round (which we took 3h to walk) so obviously we declined and bargained for him to just bring us back to the hotel. Yay! another new thing we did together!

Cinderella, her prince charming and the horse carriage :P

Walked till we were finally hungry and settled for dinner. It was probably the live band that attracted us there. They were actually so good, that people stood and sat by the side of the road to watch them. So here, a waiter helped us take a polaroid and asked for one to be taken of him! He and the other waiters and hostesses were so fascinated by it.

Random dinner place with a way-better-than-sg live band (again) - Sandbar

This reminded me to appreciate the things I have as did many other instances we encountered here in Bali. I felt even more blessed when right after dinner, there were fireworks which we watched for a little while before heading to get some black canyon coffee. Ah.. this is what I call living the life. By the way, never knew black canyon coffee tasted so darn good!!!
In addition, our room showed soccer woooootsss!! Watched soccer and fell asleep by the first half. Woke up to man u winning (what's new).

Day 4
Extremely sad that the 4 days in Bali passed by so quickly and that we would be heading back to Singapore, to busy days, to reality. Probably made me very moody but of course, babe was trying not to let my mood affect our holiday so thank you for being so understanding, love.
Woke up late but still tried to surf anyways, not knowing that the tide and waves were impossible to get past especially with such floaty boards like ours. After a few tries and being crazily washed by the huge, towering waves, we decided it would be safer to come back later when the tide was lower and waves were kinder.

Managed to bring his board out when there were smaller waves.

 Hung around the hotel pool and played water basketball heehee. 

Doing some tricks as usual haha

And took some pretty nice shots (:

Lunch-ed at a beef bbq place that we had to cab to. Was only alright coz it just wasn't wagyu beef! And it didn't look anything like the picture in the postcard either but it's a holiday so we just wanted to try everything new.
Checked out and then went back to continue surfing with a slightly better tide now. The undercurrents were extremely strong though, and kept sweeping me to the right which made it very difficult (knowing how small I am) to get the surf board far enough without finding myself moving more right than out. This pissed me off so much because I just felt so very powerless and wished I were stronger and bigger like the other guys who could bring their boards further out.. Was pretty disappointed at myself that I did much better on the first day and it being our last day, I was hoping to at least get the hang of it a little more. It's probably just me being me again and having too high an expectation of myself and having the if-he-can-i-can-too attitude.
Was sulky but babe was so super sweet which cheered me up tons. XOXO. Played around in the pool a little bit more before washing up and heading out for dinner. Walked to the Aussie bbq restaurant we accidentally found when we got lost haha.
Service was great. Atmosphere was pretty quiet because it was quite deep inside the street, food was yummy yummy! loved the lamb and the oh-so-juicy honey glazed pineapples!!!

Everything was going perfect in this entire trip. Never did we expect to be missing our flight. I should have double-checked when I thought the driver made a mistake about being at the airport at a later time, when we already changed to an earlier flight back. Somehow I just didn't voice it out because I thought it sounded correct. SIGH. The flight was changed to 2h earlier, so we should have been at the airport 4h earlier but because the time sounded correct/familiar, I did not really realise it even though something told me it wasn't right, but I ignored it. RAWR. In the end we had to pay an extra 300USD each to catch the later flight back. The flight we originally were supposed to take. What a joke..
Well, the only positive thing was that there were seats for us. If not, I think we might have had to stay another night. So yeah, thank God for that.

SIGH.

Overall, I still thank God for protecting us and keeping us (and our belongings) safe throughout the 4 days and bringing us back safely to Singapore. This trip was so enjoyable and I truly enjoyed myself with babe. The flight problem only brought us closer and it was just another problem that we overcame together. We didn't let this problem ruin our trip but made it part of a learning experience especially for me to double-check and voice out any doubts.
Thank you love for being positive and handling the situation well (better than previously and probably better than me this time because I was the one at fault sorry dear). Thank you for everything throughout the trip, from being the map-reader, bag carrier to money handler, I appreciate your amazing effort in making this trip turn out so so awesome. This has been an absolutely memorable trip for me. Never felt this happy in a long time. Looking forward to many more trips to come. Lots of loveeeee (: