We spent most of the week out on the beach, but there were definitely some highlights other than getting tan and sipping cocktails. One thing about staying at a resort is that you start to see familiar faces. One family was headed by a guy that looked remarkably like Vin Diesel, and bossed around his kids like it, too. Walking along the beach we saw a Japanese guy with his upper body completely covered by tattoos, right up to the wrist where he could hide them with long sleeves if necessary. He had a completely shaved head, and walked around like he owned the place. Maybe he did, but we figured he was a yakuza getting some time away from Japan.
We also tried to get out from the bubble and explore other parts of Bali. Our driver from the airport offered to take us anywhere we wanted to go for free, and not quite believing it we arranged a ride to a local restaurant with the hotel. It cost us $20 to get a 15 minute ride to the restaurant. The driver waited in the car outside while we went in and ate, and then drove us back. The bill at the restaurant for both of us with drinks was only about $7, so it seemed pretty wasteful to use that service. But the dinner was great, and we could use the Indonesian language that we studied and order successfully.
We also went to Jimbaran beach not far from our hotel. We arrived via a free ride from our driver, who dropped us off at a restaurant and then drove away. Jimbaran beach is lined with seafood restaurants. People gather during the sunset to eat on the beach with sand between your toes and white sand stretching away for as far as you can see. We finally settled on a restaurant that we liked with a seat under some shelter on a patio outside the restaurant. Inside we chose our dinner, ending up with a lobster and two king prawns. The system is to pay by weight before cooking, so we ended up paying quite a bit for the dinner, but it was a fun experience. The only down side was the heat and the flies. Between the two of them we couldn’t really eat at a slow pace and enjoy the meal as much as we would have liked. After dinner we walked along the beach at sunset for a while and then headed on back to the hotel ahead of a tropical storm.
It was rainy season in Bali, so there were often rainstorms that suddenly showed up, and then went away just as quickly. Luckily you could hear them coming as they usually were preceded by thunder and some lightning. We would just get under something for a while, and then we could go back out and walk around. Even getting caught in the rain was a pleasant experience when the weather was so warm.
On New Year’s Eve we were required to join a big party at the resort. When we reserved our rooms the website said that all people staying at the resort on New Year’s Eve were required to pay the fee for dinner, and since we would be charged whether we attended or not, we decided to attend. There was free champagne at an opening reception, and we mingled awkwardly with people that we didn’t know until it was time for dinner. We were seated with the other Japanese guests, but that turned surreal when the family across from us turned out to be Chinese people that live in Japan, and next to me was the yakuza gangster and his wife/girlfriend. He wasn’t so talkative, and I was just hoping I wouldn’t say something stupid after drinking too much champagne.
The good news about the New Year’s bash was that we could enjoy a lot of traditional Indonesian food, including a spit roasted pig (yum!), and the quality of the food was excellent. The Chinese family turned out to be really entertaining, and the yakuza left early. We had a great time that night. We left a little early since we had a bottle of our own sparkling wine chilling in the mini-bar in our room, and we ended up drinking that on the balcony and watching fireworks off in the distance. We even took a slightly tipsy walk on the beach in the dark, but we made it back with to the hotel without any problems, unless you count a little beach sand on our floor. It was a nice, relaxing New Year’s countdown.
