New Years!

It's New Year's Eve and Shelley, Jaime, Jordan and I are back at the Hard Rock Hotel on the beach. We thought we would brave the 60-90 minute drive (dependent on the traffic) and celebrate the new year with a pitcher of Heinekin and some American hamburgers (actually Australian beef). We caught the 3 o'clock shuttle and will probably head back to the resort on the 7 pm shuttle that will put us back for about 9 pm. I still plan to call back home about midnight and wish some friends a happy new years from the pool.

Bali has proved to be an interesting place. The island seems to be one huge village with most of the people living on family sustaining rice paddy type farms. We were talking to some of the employees at the resort and it is really difficult to get a job in Bali. All the jobs seem to be farmed out to agents who find the employees and take a cut of their pay. I guess this is because the resort would be inundated with job applicants if they advertised. It really is quite a poor country but you would expect that kind of issue with the size of the country, large population and 37 political parties.

However, there is booming tourism which just adds to the traffic congestion. We have now seen 3 small motobikes (125 cc's) with 5 humans on them. That would be normally 1 adult and 4 children. Apparently the legal limit is 3. Helmets are complusory but half the people do not wear them. The police just seem to ignore the transgressions and I suppose a human life is cheap.

Across from the resort there is a subsistence farm and the family spends there waking hours scaring the birds away from their rice paddies. They have an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys that activate noise makers of many kinds. I guess the birds are onto scarecrows and they do not work. We usually wake up in the morning to roosters crowing.

I think I have already mentioned that the resort is lovely and higly recommended. It is away from the maddening crowds along the beaches and that is a good thing. Most of the torists seem to be Australians.

We leave for Bangkok at 9 am New Years day and check into a hotel that John McGrath has booked for us. Hopefully I will have a decent internet connection connection and I can get some pics uploaded.

TTYL,

Jim

Maybe Pics

I am having difficulties with the Internet here in Bali. Here are a few pics.

Internet at Last!

We are at the resort in Bali, called Novus Bali Villas Resort and Spa and it is awesome. There are some pics attached. Our arrival at the airport was normal except for a little bit of confusion about whether or not we needed a visa (we did) which was $10 U.S. and of course we did not have any U.S. dollars on us and they did not take visa. We were saved by Jaime who always carries $100 U.S. with her as it is still the international currency. We will take note of this and do the same form now on. The resort van met us at the airport and drove us to the resort. Breakfast and afternoon tea are included and the service is simply phenominal. This place is highly recommended. There are free shuttles to take you to the beach or shopping centres and you can book a van and driver quite inexpensively to take you to the sight seeing activities.

Jordan and I went for a walk this morning and the we were amazed at the number of motorbikes on the road. We even saw 2 bikes with 5 humans of all ages on them. It is very common to see 3 or 4 people on them. We saw quite a few with a baby carried in the left arm and an arm wrapped around the waist in front. 250 million people in a country California than Ontario is going to put a stress on just about everything.

TTYL,

Jim

Boxing in Bali

It is Boxing Day and I am sitting in my home-away-from-home (Starbucks) at the KL Main International Airport, updating my blog via the free internet that the airport provides. We are flying Malaysia Airlines for the first time. The main airport is almost deserted. I would hazard a guess that most of the traffic is now over at the budget airport that services Air Asia. Price rules in Asia when it comes to air travel!

I have no idea where we are flying into or where we are staying as Shelley made all the travel arrangements. She booked our villa through one of her students and it is supposed to be quite nice. It has 2 bedrooms which is a necessity as my children apparently do not enjoy my snoring, or Shelley's for that matter :-). We also get a private pool but I imagine it can't be very large. Probably just big enough to jump in and get wet to cool down from sunbathing.

I have 2 nerd IT books to read (Programming in Haxe/Neko, and Writing Flash Applications for Mobile Devices) as well as a Science Fantasy book in a series that I am currently reading.

We are planning on renting scooters to explore the area that we are staying in. After we leave Bali, we fly to Bangkok to tour around and visit Jill and John McGrath. I am not sure when we do that but it is after New Years day. Jaime is in Bangkok with us for a day and then flies to Vancouver via KL and Hongkong. She stary there for about 5 days and will meet up with Jordan on day 3. Jordan flies back to Vancouver about Jan. 5th via Singapore and Beijing. Jordan passes all his first semester 3rd year courses and could conceivably graduate at the end of this summer with a B.A. in Human Kinetics. However, it appears he wants to finish off his HBA in Human Kinetics before attending a faculty of education somewhere in B.C. or Ontario. It is my guess it will be Ontario as he needs 2 teachables to get into Int/Senior and he has Human Kinetics with Religion as his second teachable. Trinity Western is a Christian University and he will have 4 Religion courses by the time he graduates. The faculties of Education in Ontario count Religion as a teachable.

Jaime will be waiting patiently to see if she gets into one of the faculties of education she applied to. In the meantime she will be hunting for a job in either Kingston or Ottawa. Her lease in Kingston is up at the end of March.

I will put some pics of our Bali vacation as soon as I locate a Starbucks.

TTYL,

Jim

It's Christmas Eve in Malaysia!

It Christmas Eve and we celebrated by travelling into KL and having brunch at the Trader's Hotel. It is our 32nd wedding anniversary this Christmas Eve. We are having Michel and Amy over tonight with Michel's sister and brother in law. His brother in law is a chef and is cooking up the tourtiere pies for supper.

I am still planning on hitting the pool at midnight and placing a few calls back to Ottawa. It all depends on how much beer and wine I consume :-)

Our Christmas tree still has most of its needles but you really do not want to bump into it as it drops needles quite readily.

Christmas day will be a day of rest and we hit the road (actually the friendly skies) to Bali on boxing day. We have a very nice 2 bedroom unit with our own private swimming pool so it sounds quite nice. We also plan on renting scooters and visiting the local attractions such as a dormant volcano.

TTYL,

Jim

Singapore was Great

Singapore is a world class city. It is simply beautiful and so clean!!! The Christmas lights are stunning and the shopping is never ending.

Here are some pics.

Jordan - Year of the snake.

Jaime - Year of the tiger.

Jaime and World's largest fountain.

Chillin in the Eski Bar

Yams with a martini.

Jordan serving up drinks. It's 25 degrees F

Yams and Jor.

The whole family chillin.

Jordan and famous landmark.

Lunch at a patio restaurant.

Lots of photo ops down by the harbour.

The Christmas lights of Singapore.

Best pals as well as siblings :-)

LangKawi Pics

Shelley went parasailing and the sunset was great! Jaime even managed to get a tan!