Bali Day 1

Hellooo!!!

Here’s the Bali trip report I promised! Day one! (actually it’d be more befitting if I call it Road To Bali, but I like Bali Day 1 better!)

So, we left Surabaya for Bali on the 29^th of December 2012, but for me the getting ready part (not including packing, etc because being an organized freak I obviously finished packing  a few days before, but as always I forgot a few items, and pretty important ones as well *cries*) started on the 28^th. We decided to leave before dawn, at around 2.30 AM to avoid jams and crazy queue on the ferry station (harbor?) and I have a horrible insomnia so I figured it is much better for me to skip sleep altogether rather than had like an hour of sleep before being yanked back to reality, LOL. It’d be horrible, and falling asleep would be very hard for me anyway, especially knowing I’d have to wake up in an hour or so, so instead of wasting my time trying to get some snooze I chose blogging instead (this entry) 

I was bracing myself for a very long car ride (it took us about fourteen hours to get to Bali, somehow the ride back from Bali was shorter, about twelve hours), I was sulking a bit because the rest of our family’s all flying in. My sister and  her family flew to Bali at five in the morning, my brother and his family flew in later that night at around nine (they started their holiday early, they went to Lombok island a few days earlier) and one of my nephew also flew (the next day) in, plane ride took approximately thirty minutes only! My mom’s biggest fear is flying and whenever possible she opts to ride in a car (or train) and me being the baby in the family HAD to follow her every demand (but by the end of car ride to Bali I strangled a promise from her that from now on I am allowed to fly while she’d ride with my dad and Baby Boy zzzz, Baby Boy does enjoy the ferry rides a lot so I guess it’s not so bad).

I wash my hair every day because my scalp is super oily and I cannot take the itch, and usually I’d wash my hair every morning but on the 28^th I chose not to (and in the evening we went to the mall to watch Jack Reacher, which I liked-I always love Tom Cruise and find him to be the sexiest older man alive, I had to sprinkle a lot of loose powder on my scalp to hide its greasiness, needless to say I was quite uncomfortable but it was bearable) because I do not want to suffer greasy hair on the super long ride, so I actually washed my hair at midnight. LOL.

Despite the long preparation for the stuffs to bring to Bali, I made some error in choosing the outfits for the journey itself zzzz. I just chose seven different outfits for every single day of the trip that screams Bali! But I didn’t really think it through. I chose a jumpsuit for my first day outfit and it’s a stupid move, I have a very weak bladder (it’s inherited from my mum! I completely blame her!) and I had to pee like, more than twenty times a day, so imagine the struggle I had to go through with this kind of outfit on a fourteen hours car ride! Not to mention all of the public bathrooms we encountered were all squatting type *and super gross I had to held my breath and close my eyes every time I went into one* and you have to strip like half naked to get a jumpsuit off LOL. I only realized my mistake a few minutes before we left and I freaked but I had no time to change *much less to choose any other outfit*, so this is how I look on day 1 : 

Yes, that’s my bare face. Completely bare. With my thick glasses because I refuse to wear contact lenses for such a long ride, and I was planning to doze off most of the time so glasses all the way, baby! And you seriously cannot expect me to put on make up *not even powders* at 2.30 in the morning!!! Well, even if we left in the noon I’d still not put anything on my face. Long journeys and make up are not exactly well-matched! You’d end up with pimples and stuffs if you insisted on putting on lots of make up, but that’s just my opinion.

And then we began our long long journey… I actually love road trips that starts while it is super dark outside. I don’t know why :p. I just totally enjoy them. I love seeing the street in the dark, empty and quiet. I usually doze off just before the sun rise. Once the sun showed up I lost interest of the sights outside already. LOL.

The trip from Surabaya to Ketapang (where we then took a ferry to cross to Bali island) was actually not that long (we arrived at about 11.30 AM), it was pretty smooth *ran across a public transportation that just had an accident so we were delayed just a little bit on that spot, other than that we were not met with any hurdles*. And thanks to my uncle’s help we didn’t have to queue for long at the ferry harbor, just fifteen minutes or so we board the ferry *without his help we wouldn’t be boarding the ferry until 5 PM or something).

In the ferry itself… it was a little hell for me zzz. The stairs of the ferry was really steep and scary (I hate stairs, FYI. I don’t actually have too much problem with height-except when I was in Macau Tower and tried to step into their translucent glass floor and see the pavement way way way below, that was the only time my knees actually buckled and refused to work because of height. But stairs, I hate them a LOT) and inside the waiting room *you should not remain in your car during the crossing for safety reasons* was really really really crowded (so crowded that a lot of people are forced to stand or sat on the floor) and there are plenty of people who smelt bad *sobs hysterically*. I HATE smelly people huhuhuhu. I believe that people who had body odors should never be allowed to step outside their house before putting on a lot of deodorant, or if deodorant doesn’t work then the super potent body odor eliminating powders! There are plenty of help really, I don’t understand why people with BO doesn’t look for them pffffttt. Probably never realized they have BO? OMG…

I am not prone to sickness, be it motion sickness or whatever sickness, but body odor *or any kind of bad smells*  does make me nauseous and dizzy. I then spritz myself and the air around me with my fragrance mist furiously. I didn’t even care if people around me took offence, it’s spritzing my mist furiously or seeing my previous day’s meals on the floor. I am sure that would offend them more.

I also took time to clean my yucky and oily face with Pond’s shake and clean (this is NOT and advert, it’s just a beauty tip for you!), an emergency cleanser which you can just shake and wipe all over your face with cotton pads. Introduced this to #Undecided but then she abused it, using it everyday zzz. That #Undecided is unbelievable. I do not recommend this for daily use, it’ll dry out your face! Use them sparingly and only for emergencies please!

Anyway, I didn’t take any picture of the ferry because I was too stressed out already. And after leaving the ferry we still had to deal with a sucky policeman *as you probably already know that some-not all-of Indonesian authorities are quite corrupt and will do anything to extort money from you, please be careful both Indonesian and foreigners, try to stay away from those people. I’d hate it if tourists will see this as reflection of Bali or Indonesian because trust me there are a lot more good and honest people *and policeman* in Indonesia!* who acts all mighty, important and arrogant and in the end just asked for money from us. I was so furious I shouted “thief!!!” to him in the end, he didn’t care because he already got what he wanted from us. I should’ve  taken a photo of him and his badge but I was too angry and couldn’t think straight. 

Me and my mum are both very vocal people, so we shouted abuses at him LOL, thank God we weren’t arrested for insulting authority, but he was so corrupt anyway I don’t think he’d have the guts to do it anyway. 

To make matters worse, I was starving like crazy. I can usually survive without food for a very long time but I hadn’t been eating since the night before and I was PMS ing big time (me PMSing=hungry hungry hippo) so I was started to get dizzy. My mum insisted on having Babi Guling (will call it BiGul from now on) or suckling pig, but she passed on like twenty depots that sells BiGul because “the depot is not pretty enough”, “it’s not clean enough”, “not that one, not interesting enough”.. seriously, my mum is one of the fussiest person on earth, not to mention paranoid, I love her to death but her fussiness drives me CRAZY!!!! *I guess her penchant to complaint about every single thing passed to my sister but she refused to acknowledge it, blaming it on my dad’s gene instead*. In the end she herself got very hungry I guess because she gave up and we stopped at some random BiGul depot, not even prettier than the ones she passed on!

Too dizy to take pictures of the depot, but I snapped a pic of the BiGul :

Don’t ask me if it was a good BiGul or not because I was so hungry anything would taste fantastic at that time. This BiGul is a bit special though because they were using red rice instead of the regular white rice.

Afterward we continue our journey to Nusa Dua (we’re staying at Mercure Nusa Dua Bali for four nights, CL found the hotel while browsing for affordable and nice hotels, this hotel is brand new and only opened on November 2012, we booked the rooms way before the hotel’s even opened, at July or August. It was only IDR 400.000 for the superior room! This is a four starred hotel!) somehow the journey was very long zzzz, and my mum became more and more agitated, complaining endlessly about how we should’ve stayed at Kuta blah blah blah, why so far away blah blah blah, why aren’t we there yet blah blah blah… OMG FML. 

 

Arrived at Mercure Nusa Dua around 5 PM Bali time (1 hour ahead of Java). My sister and her family are already there, I immediately start chatting with my niece B, and I took pictures of of our nails which we had done together at Me-nail but didn’t take pictures of before.

And she was also wearing her Ipanema sandals so we took pictures of our Ipanema-clad feet LOL.

Here are some pics of the lobby area of the hotel, with Baby Boy as a decoration *LOL*

We waited a bit more because of some mix up at the receptionist (new hotel, new employees, I tried to be very understanding haha. Not all of the guests are as understanding though, we encountered angry guests everyday LOL), and once we stepped into our room I must say I was very satisfied! The rooms are quite spacious (not tiny like we anticipated it to be), super comfy and homey, let me show you the room!

Entrance, with the full-body mirror perfect for FOTD!

Washing basin inside the room *LOL* this really bothers CW

Super comfy bed!

The bathroom and toilet are separated, the toilet is small but not cramped, and the shower area is spacious enough but I forgot to take picture of the bathroom. I love this design because then one of us can shower and if the other one needed to go to the toilet they do not need to disturb the one in the shower!

Hello me!

I even found the toiletries design to be hip and cool

One more plus, the lighting and mirror in the room is perfect to take pictures of yourself! I use them to take my FOTD everyday! LOL. 

We then lazed around the room and rested a bit, then dinner time arrived. My parents and sis’ family got a complimentary dinner in the hotel *a package we didn’t get because our room rate’s a promotion one* and my mum tried to force us to join them but I totally refused. I do not like buffet because I do not want to overeat and I do not eat all that much anyway *as a kiasu I would feel very cheated afterward* and I do not really like hotels food *except some of the well know hotel restaurants, and their breakfasts*! Me and hunny decided to went out and look for food.

#Undecided's hubby bought Baby Boy this short which will cover more than half of him, so mummy took it for herself, thank you ah!

Hunny googled and wanted to get a BiGul *again??? * or something but the road to Kuta, etc were crazily jam-packed *we didn’t realize it was a Saturday night, on a peak season. Of course the road’s packed with people wanting to go and join the nightlife at Kuta!*, and if we insisted  on going towards Kuta or surroundings we’d arrive at midnight at most so we just stopped at any random restaurant we found. We ended up having Domino’s Pizza, used to have Domino’s in Surabaya but they closed down pretty fast and the concept’s really different. Domino’s in Bali are fast food style, and much yummier than Surabaya’s higher class restaurant style Domino’s.

It was empty when we got there but soon the restaurant’s totally filled with people who were as desperate as us and given up on going to Kuta or Legian, LOL. We had pizza (something like Classic Cheeseburger Pizza..? I don’t remember the exact name), chicken wings and a Lava cake, all are a part of a value package. 

The molten lava cake was surprisingly good, not too sweet! I love cakes and chocolate during my PMS and period *no appetite for them on normal days, weird hormones* but too sweet ones will make me sick after a few bites *which is good because then I would never overeat them* but this one’s tiny enough and not too sweet that I had most of it *omg, so bad*.

We were tired after such a long ride to Bali so we decided to call it a night, went back to our comfortable hotel room. I do not want to get zits *travelling does take a toll to your complexions you know* so I whipped out my new favorite mask, Acne’s *will do a review on them in the future!* before snoozing!

BOO! LOL

That’ s Bali Day 1! Bali day 2 will be much more interesting! Please look forward to it!