We were so excited to get to the beach when we arrived, so we had a taxi take us straight from the airport to the cheapest hotel in Kuta Beach, so we could start our day in paradise! Here's where I stayed! It's called Puspa Ayu Bungalows. It only cost me $10.00 a night! How ridiculous is that?! Aaron is showing off how awesome my porch was to sit on!
We quickly changed into our bathing suits, and walked (3 minutes) to Kuta beach, which we had read was arguably the best beachfront in Bali! Arguably would be the correct word, because we would argue that it WAS NOT! *** Unfortunately, we chose just the wrong couple days to stay in Kuta! They are doing a clean up project on the beach this week, due to the "red tide" (poison plankton that was in the water) which poisoned some of the fish and turtles. So, they are basically sweeping the water for trash and dead stuff.
Here are some things we found washed up on the beach...
Yes, this is a dead dog and turtle!!! How gross is that?!
As disgusting as it was, we still enjoyed looking for the grossest things we could find in the trash piles to take pictures of! :)
On a more positive note, we did come across this beautiful Balinese beach ceremony to the gods.
After walking the beach, we decided to grab lunch and explore the rest of the area. Lunch was delicious, and cost the equivalent of $2.00!
Balinese are VERY religious, and offering these small handmade baskets of fruit, flowers, and crackers in front of their stores is a daily ritual! By the end of the day, all of the stray dogs had eaten the fruit and crackers, and had left the baskets and flowers in shambles across the sidewalks!
Here's a little cutie-pa-tootie local boy selling bracelets on the street.
Ceremonies happen daily in Bali. It is a known fact that ceremonies come before work, so it's not uncommon for businesses to close down when employees attend religious or cultural ceremonies.
This is the traffic....
... caused by this ceremony! They basically just started walking down the street, so the traffic had to stop.
Balinese are VERY used to waiting patiently for these types of things. They are also VERY used to driving kids and babies on their scooters!! CRAZY huh?!
We walked back to the beach to watch the sunset last night. As you can see, it was GORGEOUS!!!
After the sunset, we grabbed some ice cream and walked back to our hotels, and ordered dinner, which was delivered to my front porch, free of charge! We ate on my front porch, on the whicker chairs, with John Mayer serenading us on my ipod! The locals, working at the hotel, came over and hung out with us for a while, and helped us make plans for this morning. We are going to rent scooters and drive south to Ulu Wata, the beach where Julia Roberts filmed EAT, PRAY, LOVE (coming to theaters soon!) and it's supposed to be beautiful! Here's hoping!!
Goodbye Korea!
Aaron and I got to the airport about an hour early, and had plenty of time to kill before our flight! Luckily the airport near Busan is tiny, so security took about 3 minutes!!
Me with my Bali tickets!
We had a night layover in Hong Kong and decided to sleep in the airport! We learned our lesson, and won't be doing that on our way back to Korea! It was FREEZING, but funny, of course!! We are always trying to make the best out of our situations!
Our plane from Hong Kong to Bali was HUGE. It was a double decker and had more movies and TV shows to watch than any plane I'd ever been on! It even had electrical outlets under our seat tables, so I could re-charge my ipod! I can't imagine where technology will be 10 years from now!
Our fligts were REALLY turbulent, but were comfortable! We didn't crash... so I can't complain! :)