H-moon Recap: An open letter to the women who massaged us

Mr Fix It and I are huge fans of massages.  I even have my own personal aesthetician who does facials and massages and waxings for me on a regular basis - she was even at my wedding :)  One way Mr Fix It coaxed me into going to Bali was by raving about how you can get these cheap massages on the beach for like less than $5 for an hour!  Sign me up! 

Unfortunately, the women who offer these massages on the shoreline or on the cliffs are typically really old ladies who are not the cleanest people in the world and while I love immersing myself in the culture and truly do like interacting with the locals, they hound you about a massage even when you don't want one which becomes quite annoying.  Most of my time on the beach was spent faking that I was asleep :)

Before we left the land of Oz, we decided to get a massage in a place we passed at the local shopping mall we visited.  Below are a few letters to let these people know what we thought of our experiences:

To the Asian guy who gave me a massage in Australia:

I just wanted to thank you for the wonderful full body massage you gave me while I was visting the Gold Coast on my honeymoon in April.  $60 for a 60 min massage is pretty typical of the price we pay in the states and you did great considering it was a 'walk in' joint.

I do, however, want to apologize for my husband.  I guess having 'rooms' that are really only a bed with curtains between them might not be the greatest idea when you have customers who don't appreciate your services.  At first I didn't think anything of it when I heard him say a couple times that his girl was pushing too hard on him.  That is really unusual considering he usually likes deep tissue massages.  And maybe she didn't realize that he had just pulled his back surfing the day before which was why he was trying to get the muscles worked out.  Instead, he felt like she was reinjuring him instead of helping.

I felt really bad for her once he finally sat up in the middle of the massage and told her that he was done and wanted her to stop.  He tried to maintain his patience and be polite.  But when your manager came in to see what all the fuss was about, he couldn't keep it in anymore and just had to say that 'she didn't know what she was doing' and she shouldn't be giving massages.  You really didn't need to keep apologizing for her.  I felt bad that I think he almost made her cry.  It wasn't your fault and you did a fabulous job on me so no worries.

Thankfully, I found my hubby shopping down the mall and just let him vent for a few minutes about what a sucky job she did on him.  Next time, I'll just come by myself :)

To the two young ladies who work at the Balinese massage parlor we stopped in on our first night in Bali:

How can we ever thank you for the fabulous job you did when we stopped in for a massage during our honeymoon?  My husband had a horrible experience in Australia the day before and after a six hour plane ride, we were so excited to stroll past your shop just around the corner from our hotel.  Though your massage was about $25 for an hour, which was definitely more than the lovely old woman on the beach was offering, it was way worth it!

I would say you both had magic hands.  I must admit that I wasn't totally excited about *every* part of the 'Balinese' massage though.  I am not a fan of having the balls of my feet slammed against with your fist.  And the slapping sound I heard as you smacked my back at that one point was not anything I'd ever heard before whilst getting a massage.  It was also interesting to see you try to stretch my legs in ways that made me believe you thought I was a Gumby doll.  Unfortunately, I'm just not that flexible.

But regardless, I still felt great afterwards and my husband was feeling totally restored and repaired at this point.  It was a great end to our first night in Bali.

Kind of a bummer that we came back a couple nights later and you both weren't working :(  We ended up with a guy and girl that didn't quite meet up to the standard you had set.  By that point, I was truly over the whole massage experience in this part of the world.  Mr Fix It was not impressing me with these massages he raved about.  Oh well.  At least we had *one* good experience abroad...so thanks for that!

Source

To the old woman who wouldn't leave me alone while I was sunbathing at Bingin's beach:

I appreciate that you make your living by preying upon all the people who frequent the little eatery up there on the cliff top.  It was nice to have a place to grab some grub and lounge around for a few hours while my husband was out surfing in the water.  It was not so nice however to have you continually 'pinch' me in an effort to entice me into employing your services for a 'may-sauge'.  Really?  Pinching my arm up and down while I am trying to listen to my ipod and lay on a mat is not my idea of relaxation.  Maybe that's your idea of a massage but definitely nothing I've ever experienced before. 

I should have just given you $5 to get you to leave me alone and go away, but I was trying to be polite.  Thankfully, Mr Fix It did not make me go back there again the next day when he went to surf.  Lounging by my resort infinity pool was way more enjoyable than being attacked by the likes of sand crabs who think they are masseuses. 

Personal Photo

I like doing this (above) as opposed to this (below)

Kuta Beach Massages Source

At our final resort at the Blue Point Bay Villas, we scheduled a couples massage at what was truly a resort type spa...while not the greatest full body massage I've ever received, it was at least decent.  However, I felt the 2 ladies who were running their hands all over me and Mr Fix It's body were maybe just a little too friendly.  The woman who was massaging me gave me my first ever experience of a breast massage...something that most masseuses I've worked with have never done before.  When I mentioned it to Mr Fix It as we left the spa, he indicated that his lady also got a little touchy feely and came very close to his manhood at least one or two times to where he tightened up a bit wondering if he was going to be offered a 'happy ending'?

Source

This (above) was not as relaxing to me as this (below)

Source:  Blue Point Bay Villas

We ended our honeymoon with one final attempt at the Bali massage experience by getting a 30 minute head, neck and foot massage in the airport in Denpasar.  That was actually not that bad and you can't complain about getting a massage while stuck in an airport :) 
TODAY'S TIP:  Don't think that one culture's idea of relaxation will translate well into another culture!

H-moon Recap: Video of SCARY Bali!

If you've never been outside of the US, you may not know that most of the world drives on the left side of the road...or as I like to call it:  The *wrong* side of the road!

Thankfully, Mr Fix It is an international traveler and is used to this.  So when we arrived in Australia and picked up our rental car, he was able to easily adapt and became the official driver of the trip.  The main thing I learned in Australia is that it's basically like home, but they have a lot of different signs and lots of turnabouts.  If you don't know what those are, they are basically round intersections where no one ever has to stop.  They look like this:

And you're warned about them with this sign:

I really loved the signs in Oz...here's a few that are a little different from what we have back here in the States:

Cross walk

Instead of a sign showing a rest stop/area ahead, they tell you this:

Instead of 'Exit' signs, the airport directed us with this:

It made me feel like they were trying to tell me to get the hell out and FAST!

And instead of a passing lane sign, they call it:

Anyway, as far as the roundabouts, we don't really have these anywhere at home.  On about day 4 of our stay in Oz, we finally figured out the program and learned that you have to stay to the inside of the circle if you are going through to the 3rd or 4th exit...otherwise, you are forced to exit on the first or second street you come up to. 

Mr Fix It was scared that I would be a total stress case because we both argue with each other over who is the worse driver.  He likes to sight see while driving which freaks the heck out of me since you should typically have your eyes on the road while your hands are on the steering wheel, but I guess that isn't the case in his world.  I stayed pretty calm for the entire trip...even during the one or two times he drove down the *wrong* side of the road in Australia!

But driving in Bali was entirely different.  Nothing could have prepared me for the carnage that they provide by means of motor vehicle transportation. 

First off, we had to rent a car that was basically an ancient mini van to store Mr Fix It's surfboards in it because you're not supposed to drive with anything on the roof or a rack.  After spending an hour at the airport trying to negotiate the terms of a week long rental, we finally jumped into a little van and headed off to find a hotel...only to notice after pulling out of the airport and into the city that the rental car company gave us a car on EMPTY!!!  WTH?!?  We hadn't even exchanged our money yet so we had no rhupia and no way of finding a gas station in this little 3rd world country.

We proceeded to try to yell out to passers by "Petrol?!?" asking where a gas station was...they pointed and repeated petrol but we never found one from their directions.  Thank the Lord we finally came across one and filled up.  And thankfully, we only had to fill the tank once the entire week.  No problem...except the next day while pulling out early to find our first beach spot, the car suddenly jerked forward and we found that there were no lower gears in the manual transmission...Mr Fix It was left at an intersection with only 2nd and 4th gear.  Again, thankfully, we hadn't driven too far so we headed back to the airport and made the guy get us a new vehicle and we were finally on our way.

As we pulled out onto the streets and into the culture and city, I found myself pretty amazed by how different life was here than in my beautiful Orange County in So Cal.  There were motorbikes everywhere!!!  And horrible roads and traffic no matter what time of the day.  I can't even begin to describe it, so I will let this video give you a firsthand experience...enjoy me and Mr Fix It's commentary of a few days of brief video I shot while we were about and about:

H-moon Recap: Thievery all over the world - Part 2

So I wish I could say our only experience with crooks abroad was the stolen sunglasses on our last day in Australia, but unfortunately, we had a few run ins one evening while in Bali as well.

Mr Fix It had warned me that he doesn't like to pay for anything with credit cards in Indonesia because they are known for stealing your information and using the cards after you visit their stores and whatever.  So he took a few thousand dollars cash.  (We did however pay for our hotels with our credit card because they're a bit more trustworthy and we were getting credits for travel rewards points by using the credit card.)

Of course, when you're in a foreign country, you need to exchange your money for the local currency...in Indo's case, it's called Rhupia.  And the exchange rate is silly...it was like 9,000 Rhupia to one US Dollar.  Mr Fix It only liked to change in about $100 (maybe $200) at a time.  Partly because it's not easy to count out over a million rhupia to verify what you're getting back.  And Mr. Fix It was pretty adamant that we would be double counting everything that we exchanged.  He had an experience where they tried to short change him once on a previous visit.  And partly because that way you don't end up with a bunch of rhupia leftover that you have to try to change back into USD which is not going to be as good exchange rate wise.

I didn't think much of it.  And our first couple nights in Kuta, we didn't have too hard a time finding some decent money changers to honestly exchange our hundred bucks.  All you needed to do was look for these signs outside any of the shops on the street:

Source

And they are everywhere!  Like every 10 to 20 yards there was another money changer.  But we would walk around trying to find the ones who had a higher exchange rate.  Some offered 9300 rhupia to the USD.

And therein lies the problem...about the 3rd night of our trip.  We needed to exchange some money for dinner and shopping.  Well, just about every money changer that you walk up to looks like this:

Source

See that super high desk you have to walk up to?  It is how the crooks protect themselves!  First of all, you have to offer them smaller currency.  We always gave them $100 bills and they would inspect them thinking they were fake first of all.  Then a few of them even told us that if they weren't 'newer' bills, they'd offer us a lower exchange rate.  We would ask them if we were getting the 9300 rate and they would say yes.  Then they'd count out the money.  They'd pull out a calculator to show you the amount you should get and suddenly they'd punch in a rate of only 8900 or something.  So Mr Fix It would call them out saying "Hey, it says 9300 out there on the sign!"  And they would say, "Oh, there's an 8% commission."  Or they'd say "Oh, this bill is dated in 2003 so it's not new enough...lower rate."  THIEVES!

But that isn't totally thievery...however, on this particular night, we saw some of the best magicians we'd ever encountered.  Even better than the one who had amazing slight of hand at our own wedding!

See, they'd count out 900,000.00 rhupia on the counter.  And they lay it out in piles of like 100,000 each or whatever.  I would pick up each pile and count it.  Then they'd tell you to put it back down.  Or they would just take it back from you after it was all counted and act like they were wrapping it all up together.  They'd hand it back, and I would count it yet again!  Only this time, it would be missing money.  Anywhere from 100,000 to 750,000 at one changer we went to! 

I would say "Um, where's the other 250,000?"  To which they would pull all the money back from me, give us back our $100 bill and then respond, "You need to go to another changer.  We aren't doing business with you."  And Mr Fix It would say "Why?  Because we know you are a thief and we aren't stupid enough for you to trick us?"  One time he told the guy "You guys are really good magicians...we are totally watching your hands and we can't see how your dropping the money behind the counter."

This went on in literally like 8 to 10 places we visited in less than an hour.  I was seriously getting pissed at this point and Mr Fix It knew I was frustrated and hungry.  As we walked by this one shop, the guy stopped Mr Fix It and asked him to buy a watch.  Mr Fix It did in fact want to buy a watch but told him he didn't have any rhupia because he couldn't find an honest money changer!

This nice sales guy walked us around the corner to an official bank that was open at like 8:30 pm at night and there we found the honest place to exchange our money.  It was nice to have a reputable place to be able to do business, however, they only offered us 8900 per USD.  That's how the thieves lure you into their places. 

So we just used the banks from that point on.  I have to say, you can also exchange money at most hotels as they are also honest, but again, a lower exchange rate.  And we did in fact have a couple money changers that didn't try to pull a fast one on us and gave us a good rate....but not many. 

What about all you ladies?  Did you have any unfortunate experiences while visiting foreign countries?  Be sure if you are going abroad for honeymoons and trips that you do some internet research and check to see what you should look out for and be concerned about.  The US Government sites also give you some good warnings to consider when traveling....as well as entry and exit information and requirements.  We had to pay like $50 to get visas in Bali where it was only about $18 each for Australia.  But Australia didn't charge us when we left their country whereas Indonesia does charge you another fee for an exit visa!

H-moon Recap: Random run ins all over the world

Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of pics to include in this post, but it's one that I love and want to journal about because it deals with meeting new friends (and running into acquaintances) halfway across the world!

Australia didn't provide much in the way of random run ins...however, once we got to Bali, it was a different story.  For one day, while Mr Fix It was out surfing in the ocean, he came in and mentioned that some guy walking by was named John as well (that's Mr Fix It's real name if you didn't know).  I asked, "How do you know that?"  He said, "Because he works in Huntington Beach about 10 minutes from us and he is friends with Pat."  Pat is a friend of ours who attended our wedding with his wife, Shelley.  I've known Pat and Shelley for over 10 years as their daughter grew up playing softball in the same league as Little Miss.  We have been on teams together, coached together and Shelley and I served as board members on the softball board for a couple years together.  How random that somehow Mr Fix It runs into a guy and strikes up a conversation with him about where he lives, works, etc and somehow it gets around to a mutual friend that doesn't often come up in our conversations.  Very strange...

Then one day in Bali we headed down to a place called Bingins Beach where Mr Fix It likes to surf when he is in Indo.  He told me about these little huts that people own and use for restaurants and to offer massages to surfers and others who come down to the beach.  He took me to this one hut and when we walked up, the ladies there all came up and greeted "Mr. John."  (I shared some pics and a post about the food here.)  They remembered him from his last trip there which was four years ago!  Mr Fix It had told me that they will remember you once you visit and won't forget your name, but I was totally surprised at how well they remembered him.  So much so, that one of the elderly ladies asked him 'where his lady friend was.'  He didn't really respond and she said, "You had a girl friend with you that I gave a massage to...where is she?"  Mr Fix It laughed and said "Watch it...I'm here with my wife now!"  I asked about this girl and found out it was a spanish girl that Mr Fix It had met on his last solo trip to Indo and he hung out with her for a bit.  Though they 'hooked up' he swears he wasn't intimate with her and I laughed...turns out that it was during the year that Mr Fix It and I had taken a break from our dating relationship so what did I care.  We all thought it was funny how the woman 'threw him under the bus' in front of his wife.

At our resort in Bali, Mr Fix It befriended a couple who was celebrating their honeymoon on their one year wedding anniversary.  They lived in South Africa and though Mr Fix It had run into the guy several times and had a few surf conversations with him, it wasn't til the very last morning that we were leaving that I met his wife.  They invited us to sit with them at breakfast as we were both leaving the resort that day.  We literally sat for probably 3 or 4 hours just getting to know them and sharing stories about our lives and countries and such.  We talked about politics and our election system and religion (found out we are both Christians and they have served in mission trips)...it was great.  By the time we left, we had gotten their names and e-mail address and they had extended an invitation for us to visit them in Durban, South Africa for a surf trip.  Mr Fix It *insists* that we will absolutely be connecting with them and trying to meet up some time in the next few years for a South Africa trip.  :)

While hanging with the couple from South Africa, he told us a story about how he almost got into a fight with another surfer out in the water one day.  The other guy had been cutting him off catching waves and what not.  He then proceeded to tell us how convicted he felt about telling the guy off and threatening him and so he went back over to him a little later and apologized and had a short conversation with him.  We kind of laughed about it.  Later that afternoon, we headed off to the airport and began our plane trips back to LAX.  Once we arrived in LAX (like 21 hours later), we were waiting for our luggage and then in the customs line.  Mr Fix It made friends with a guy who was standing near us and had just returned from Bali as well.  They began talking about how much they love Indo and surfing and what they do for a living.  Then randomly, the guy mentions this altercation he got into with another South African while surfing in Indo one day.  Turns out, we had run into the same guy that our South African friend had told us about!  So random.

We totally laughed about it and told him how we had become friends with that guy.  Isn't funny how in this huge world, somehow, we are able to make it all seem so small by the friendships and encounters that we build along the path of our life? 

Have you ever had any random run ins while far away from home?

H-moon recap: Wildlife adventures

This week, I get my wedding video back and I was waiting for that before I start full blown recaps...even though I've had my pro pics for over a week now.  I will explain it all in a post in the next day or two.

But for now, I wanted to share about the little creatures we encountered (mostly in Australia) on our honeymoon.  I was super excited about the wildlife we might see as I have heard Australia is known for it's different and unique wildlife.  I was sad we didn't go to the Australian zoo since we were only about 2 hours or so away from it.  But we still had a few moments...

In Burleigh Beach, we woke up one morning and stepped out onto our balcony to find the most beautiful little bird.  Mr Fix It quickly told me to throw him some bread and the little colorful beauty immediately walked over to him and began chowing down.  I grabbed my camera and caught the following:

A few minutes later, there were FIVE of them on our balcony!  One night while we were in the jacuzzi, the managers of the apartments came out and told me to come out on their back porch.  I wrapped a towel around me and headed out with them to find Graham feeding these kookaburra birds (known as the Laughing Jackasses of Australia) out of his hand.  He was feeding them raw ground beef!!!

When we headed up to O'Reilly's Retreat in Lamington National Park, we came across a few other little critters.  As we headed to our room while unpacking the car, I jumped about 5 feet in the air when something just to the left of my foot caught my eye.  Mr Fix It laughed hysterically at me (after he freaked out wondering if I had just come across a snake) and we calmed down enough to find that the retreat was covered with these little ones:

We called them mini kangaroos but one of the retreat workers told us there called pademelons.  There were a ton of them along with these little turkey looking birds off of our back porch in the field by our room.

On the way back down the mountain, we came across the Alpaca cafe where we had lunch on a patio with a gorgeous view of the valley...and these alpacas:

Finally, there was our big 'I can't believe that happened to us story!' in Australia.  We only spent one night at O'Reilly's rainforest retreat.  So while we were there, we decided to do a good long hike throught he rainforest of course.  We spent about 4 1/2 hours hiking through some muddy but beautiful foliage finding waterfalls and such.  (I'll share more about the pretty sights in a future recap.)

At one point on the hike, the trail map indicated you will have to wade through water that could be up to your waist to get to the other side of the trail.  I told Mr Fix It that wasn't happening...but thankfully, when we got to the crossing point, it was only just above the ankles.  Still, we didn't want to get our tennis shoes and pants all wet, so we decided to roll up our jeans and carry our socks and shoes across. 

As I took off my shoes I noticed this huge red blotch stain on the heel of my sock.  I took off my sock and said to Mr Fix It "Is that blood?  Did I cut myself on something and not know it?"  He looked at it and said, "Yeah, what the heck did you do?"  I told him I had no idea.  I proceeded to take off my other shoe and guess what?  The same exact thing on my other sock and heel!  Only this time, I noticed a tiny little black worm like thing in my sock.  I said to him "Oh my gosh!  Are those leeches?!?  There's leeches in my shoes!"  Sure enough, we had both had some little leeches find their way onto our shoes and they were sucking on our skin through the socks.  They didn't come off easy either and Mr Fix It only had a couple little spots of blood...not nearly the big huge amounts that they got out of me! 

The rest of the trip, we cracked jokes about the thirsty little blood suckers that attacked us in the rainforest.  I tried to get a shot of them but this was the best I could do...we found this one on Mr Fix It's shirt while we were standing on a deck at our hotel...no idea where it came from!  Watch closely, he's only there for a second...

Bali didn't offer us much in the way of animals other than insects like mosquitoes and this one cow I would pass each morning on my walk to the internet cafe.  It was a scraggly sickly looking thing but Mr Fix It said that cows are apparently worshipped in Bali.  Whatever.  They also had some pretty mangy looking dogs roaming the streets while we were shopping.

Overall, it was fun to come across a few animals and such on our trip.  I think I liked the leeches the best just because it gave us something truly memorable from our big day. 

H-moon Recap: Nothin' to do

Is it wrong to go halfway around the world just to lay by a pool or on a beach?  Cuz that's mostly what I did.  Considering we flew almost 35 hours in total on planes between Southern California, Brisbane Australia and Bali, Indonesia, we didn't do much of anything while we were there.  And definitely did not do a lot of touristy things...no visiting the hustling bustling city of Brisbane.  No ferry trips to the many islands off the coast there (something I actually wanted to do was visit Moreton Island but hopefully we'll make another trip back there one day).  No theme parks or the famous Australian zoo.  Just layin' around pool side and shoppin' in the malls in Australia and the streets of Kuta in Indo. 

Doesn't it look like that fountain is trying to pee on me?!?

We slept a lot!  A lot more than I do at home.  In fact, in Australia, we would go to bed at like 8 or 8:30 at night.  Then we'd wake up in the middle of the night at like 3 or 4 in the morning...have some fun messin' around (wink, wink) and then turn on the tv and watch Good Morning America from the States (one of the only things we could get on the tv at that time of the morning in Australia).  Then we'd nap from like 5 to 7 am and get up for the day. 

Funny thing was, in Australia it seemed like the whole city would turn in early.  I mean the weekend night life was a bit more 'lively' but during the week we noticed that most shops and stores and such closed fairly early...some places even closed at 6 or 7 pm!  I am way too used to being able to get just about anything I need at 11 pm here in Cali. 

I think we just really needed some rest after all that had been going on with the wedding.  In Bali, we definitely stayed out later....shopping, eating, getting massages (more to come on that later).

I should clarify, that even though we didn't feel like we did much (other than drive to different beach spots and surf in Mr Fix It's case), we definitely had a few fun moments and activities and encounters that made the trip memorable.  And we met some great friends along the way too and had great conversations with locals and fellow tourists.

For now, I'll share a few pics with you of randomness...more to come though about the 'fun' we did have and all the little critters we encountered on the trip, too!

The entrance to a resort called Dream Land in Bali.  Looks pretty, right?  We ran into some friends who said it was not so 'dreamy.'  They said there was trash floating around them when they went into the ocean and that the vendors on the beach would not leave them alone while they were laying out.  My sister visited this resort on her honeymoon 3 years ago and said you just need to go further down the beach away from the crowds right in front of the resort.  We didn't bother...just stopped while passing by to snap this shot.

A shot we took of ourselves on the patio where we sat at the Alpaca Cafe on our way back down the mountain from Lamington National Forest in Australia.  What a pretty view we had while we ate lunch, right?

I don't know why Mr Fix It wanted me to pose in front of this funky statue in the Bali Airport but he did.  So I obliged and smiled pretty...this was just before we boarded the flight to Hong Kong and then onto LAX on the last day of our honeymoon. 

H-moon Recap: Eat, celebrate, swim with lots of photos!

So today's recap is going to be a little random, as in all over the place.  But I'll try to offset that by not writing too much and just sharing lots of pictures!

We'll start off with the incredible infinity pool at the last resort we stayed at:  Blue Point Bay Villas.  This is me in the pool.  You could sit on the edge of the infinity pool and look out at the ocean to the surf below where there would be at least a good 60-100 surfers on any given day.  I like this because Mr Fix It could surf down there and I could hang in the pool and watch from above, though I couldn't make him out from that far away. 

In Australia, we ate mostly seafood..a LOT!  We both love seafood and we asked a few locals to make some referrals for us.  They didn't let us down.  One gentlement from Sydney told us to head about 15-20 minutes from our place in Burleigh Beach to a place called Ashmore Steak & Seafood.  I have to admit, I am a horrible blogger...I didn't take a ton of pictures of lots of the food we ate and the few I did get are from my crappy camera.  I really should get a better camera if I am going to keep blogging - and start taking more pictures!

Anyway, this place looked like a huge car dealership with the way the windows and lights were set up.  It was not like any other eating experience we've ever had.  They let you see the meals in a glass display case when you walked in...that's right, raw steaks sitting out for you to view.  Mr Fix It liked this cuz he could see how big they were before he ordered.  His meal was served up like this:

I got the lobster with a new thing I found called Avocado Seafood...it's an avocado filled with seafood - DUH!  Since I am a huge fan of both, I was in heaven!!!

We also ate at a place called Omeros Brothers in Surfer's Paradise.  Very, very yummy food!  Then there was an Italian joint where we met an exchange student from Germany working as a waitress.  Mr Fix It wasn't in love with the bruschetta we ordered...it was like tomatoes on pizza bread.  There was a super yummy, authentic Mexican type place downstairs from our apartment where we met a Canadian waitress.  What was with all these foreigners serving us our food?  :)

In Bali, at Blue Point, we found a bowl of fresh fruit in our room when we arrived.  See that thing in the back left of the bowl?  It's kind of prickly...Mr Fix It couldn't remember the name of it but he peeled it and made me eat it.  It was really interesting...tasted like berries, apples and other sweet fruits all in one.  Very different.

Also at our resort in Bali was their restaurant.  This is a view of the room where we had breakfast and dinner a couple times.  (I would eat lunch by the pool - I got this tempura type seafood and vegetable thing with these yummy fries that was so good I ordered it two days in a row.  It came with this insane crispy asian salad that I scarfed down like I had been starved for a week!)  Anyway, you would see the same people in this restaurant each morning and night because the resort is not super huge and it is really your only eating option other than driving into town - which we did do on the very last night.

This table right in the corner of the room was what I determined to be the best seat in the house because it was right in front of the open windows overlooking the surf and ocean below.  The first night we were there, it wasn't open so Mr Fix It asked if we could reserve it for the next night.  They said they couldn't because there was a wedding reception happening there the next night.  But....

...instead they said they'd let us eat dinner upstairs which had a good view out the window.  Mr Fix It went to check it out to be sure.  The next night when we arrived, they walked us up these stairs to our own private room!!!  We had this all to ourselves...a view of the ocean, the pool, the wedding chapel.  It was so super cool!  And we were all by ourselves!

Here is a view of the ocean below from our private room...we got there at the perfect time as the sun was just about to start setting and by the time we left it was dark.

Here is another pic on my crappy camera (and through a window) of how pretty the wedding chapel looked like all lit up at night.  And let me say, that wedding chapel was PACKED!  The resort is known for weddings...and they did 'em up right.  While I laid by the pool, there were at least 2 weddings each day!  They were all Japanese couples (very beautiful brides) and they were mostly just the bride and groom - no guests.  Though I did see one or two weddings that had about 5 or 6 guests (looked their parents or siblings). 

See that umbrella by the pool that's on the far left of the picture but up on the higher level above the 3rd one in?  THAT was my spot - every day!  It was perfect.  It was right by this pretty tree on the edge of the cliff and it was the only lounge chair in the entire pool area that you could lay in and see the surfers down below over the cliff edge. 

Mr Fix It decided to get a picture of the girls all dressed up for the wedding reception entrance

Before we got to Blue Point (while we were sill at the Wina Villas), we went to a beach called Bingins that Mr Fix It likes to surf at.  He had told me about this place saying that you walk down these stairs on the cliffs in Bali and they have these hut type houses built into the side of the cliff.  People own them and use them to offer food, massages, shops, etc for the surfers who must walk through them on their way down to the beach.  While Mr Fix It surfed, I would lay on a little mat/lounge on a table watching/listening to my iPod. 

When we got there, we met this woman named Wyan.  She totally remembered Mr Fix It from 4 years earlier!  She made us lunch one day while we waited for the surf to pick up and I don't remember what it was called but it was DEE-LICIOUS!  I jokingly referred to it as a high end version of Top Ramen :)  But seriously, so good!  Noodles with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, fried egg and other sauce and such.

Here is a pic of the little 'hut' type things I was trying to explain.  Mr Fix It is sitting by himself at that little blue table in the middle.

And finally, here's me in the pool again - this time with my hat on.  Yeah, I spent a lot of time in there because man, it was so hot!  You needed to cool off...and that pool was scrumdiddlyumptious!

Here's what would have been my favorite picture of our entire honeymoon if Mr Fix It wouldn't have been making that stupid face wondering if the camera was going to go off...whatever!

H-moon Recap: We're seriously going to die...

...or at least vomit a few times!  No, really...our honeymoon plans took us from LA to Brisbane, Australia to Bali, Indonesia and back to LA by way of Hong Kong...it looked like this (except for I left out the layover in Hong Kong):

We started off leaving LAX right on time at 11:25 pm on Qantas airlines headed non-stop for Australia.  Because of the time/date line change, we would be traveling for 13 1/2 hours but arrive on Monday morning at 6 am.  I have to say, QANTAS was amazing!  I was pretty exhausted when we boarded...after all, I'd just gotten married the night before and then spent most of the day hanging out with family and friends and then packing and zipping off to the airport.  But just to be safe, I took half an Ambien sleeping pill so that I would conk out on this flight.

We were super excited about QANTAS...Mr Fix It had never flown with them before and he loved them.  They put us in 2 seats that were basically an aisle seat (which Mr Fix It insists on) and then a window seat (which I love).  But the window seat was actually pretty big because all the other rows had 3 seats in them except for ours...so we had a nice gap between me and the window to put my carry on bag down and stretch out my legs.

Anyway, I had asked Mr Fix It to buy neck pillows for us and eye masks.  He obliged and bought me a blow up one and him a stuffed pillow type one.  BEST investment we ever made!  Those things are amazing and a must for long flights!  We both slept great with no problems with kinked necks...and the eye masks were great too (even though it was already dark most of the night).  Here is a crappy pic of Mr Fix It with all his sleeping garb on:

So I slept really good for the first 6 hours or so.  When I woke up, Mr Fix It said they had served dinner on the flight while I was sleeping and he said it was good.  Qantas also offered free movies and tv in the sets in the back of each seat.  So each passenger could watch whatever they wanted.  I hadn't flown in a long time and I loved this new feature!  It made our flight go by fast...even though I fell back asleep again after breakfast.  :)  But when I woke up just about 2 hours before the end, we suddenly had some problems...lots of turbulence.  Mr Fix It is a tough guy, but he has a fear of heights...silly I know, but true.  He has an even bigger fear of flying and bad turbulence meant he now had white knuckles as well.  During our final descent into Australia the plane took a huge drop that sucked up our stomach.  It didn't really bother me, but even if it had, I couldn't be afraid because I was trying to calm Mr Fix It.  Poor guy. 

On Sunday, a week after landing in Brisbane, we headed back to the airport and got on a flight on Pacific Blue airlines to head to Bali.  It wasn't bad but Mr Fix It wasn't impressed with this airline.  The total trip was like 5 hours or so I think.  On this flight, you had to pay to watch the tvs and movies however, the entertainment system had some glitch so after about an hour they just gave us all free access to it.  That was cool because I watched a lot of Sex and the City.   

We have a portable DVD player that we had bought a few years ago and Mr Fix It was afraid that the battery wouldn't last long enough to keep us entertained on the flights...we had also brought a few DVD's of course.  He waited until just about 3 or 4 days before the wedding and dragged me around the county looking for a battery for our DVD player that would last a lot more hours.  Of course we couldn't find one so he eventually had one overnighted to his house on the day of the wedding and paid a ton of money for it!  Then we didn't even need it since the flights had tv's for each passenger :)  Though I did make good use of it watching movies by the pool and in our rooms during the trip.

On Saturday, May 1st, we headed back to the airport in Bali to go home to LAX.  Let me just say that the Bali airport is just silly...they did have food and shops and such, but nothing like the airports we visited in LAX, Brisbane, and Hong Kong.  (Which by the way, Hong Kong was so huge and really nice!)  In Bali, when we arrived the previous Sunday, we had to take a shuttle from the tarmac to the main terminal which gave us a great view of their scary airport digs.  Makeshift fences in the midst of rice paddy fields did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling about the safety regulations and condition of the landing strips and such.

The flight from Bali to Hong Kong was uneventful...I watched Twilight and had a good meal.  I was happy to be in the Hong Kong airport where things seemed more normal.  We were hungry so we ate these amazing nachos at a sports bar.  Mr Fix It slept on the floor waiting for our flight to board...but we didn't have to wait very long considering we had a 3 hour layover.  Again, we departed on time and I was so excited to be on the 13 1/2 hour flight back home.  But....

The ride home was horrible!  Once again, I did sleep for the first 4 or 5 hours.  But then we hit a ton of turbulence.  Mr Fix It said it lasted like 2 hours but it didn't seem that long to me.  However, when I woke up (after again having taken 1/2 an Ambien), I felt nauseous and kinda hungry, too.  So I asked the steward to bring me some fruit.  Almost immediately after eating an apple, I told Mr Fix It to let me up...we were sitting in the middle and aisle seats of the 68th row of the plane.  I ran into the bathroom and threw up due to all the turbulence.  BLECH!!!  Thank goodness I was at the back of the plane only 2 rows from a restroom.  I felt so much better but then only 30 minutes later, I got up and threw up again.  We were supposed to be in our seats, but the flight attendants knew better to leave me in the restroom.

Needless to say, I was so happy when we finally landed at LAX - and this time, because of the winds in the jet stream, we arrived like an hour and fifteen minutes early!  We had to be shuttled from the farthest tarmac I've ever seen at LAX and then ended up waiting for like 2 hours to get through customs, get our luggage and then find a taxi to take us home. 

We finally walked in the door to our home at about 11:45 pm.  It would be our first time sleeping there together as husband and wife.  But as soon as we walked in, Mr Fix It said it felt weird not having our dog, Kuta there waiting, jumping and wagging his tail around happy to see us.  I turned my head from him and said "Stop it!  Don't do this right now," and I was totally streaming tears down my face as I'm sure he was, too.  We decided we were hungry again and headed over to a local restaurant for a midnight meal.   I had the most amazing strawberry crepes...we drove home and climbed into bed and slept really good. 

As much as I loved the honeymoon and we had pretty smooth flights and traveling experiences, I was so happy to be done with airports!

H-moon Recap: Saving the best for last

So we were on our honeymoon from the day after our wedding (left Saturday night April 17th at 11 pm) until Saturday May 1st.  This was our schedule:

Saturday April 17th - Depart for Brisbane Australia 11 pm
Monday April 19th - Arrive Brisbane 6 am
Monday April 19th - Found our apartment in Burleigh Heads, Queensland
Thursday April 22nd - Stayed for one night at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat
Sunday April 25th - Depart for Bali, Indonesia arrived at about 2:30 pm
Sunday April 25th - Took a few hours to find a rental car in Bali, find a gas station after we left and realized the rental car 'guy' left us with an empty tank and we had not yet exchanged our US Dollars for Rhupia and then find the Wina Holiday Villas to stay at.

We stayed at the Wina for 3 nights and it was great...Mr Fix It stayed there several times and loved it.  But let me tell you, we were most excited about the last 3 nights of our honeymoon.  From Wednesday morning until Saturday afternoon, we got to stay at the Blue Point Bay Villas in Uluwatu, Indonesia.  And let me say - THAT is what a honeymoon resort is all about!

We were a bit confused at first as we drove from Kuta to Uluwatu through the city and into a more remote location.  As we got close to the resort and eventually turned onto the street, we realized that we could be in for trouble since the 'road' was nothing but a horribly bumpy dirt gravel path.  We passed a cow and a bunch of workers apparently building something but who knows what?  However, from the moment we arrived we were totally in awe!

This was the view of the open area reception area where we checked in.

They told us they'd let us check in several hours early but needed about 20 - 30 minutes to get the room ready.  So we headed out to the pool to check out the view of the ocean and surfers below.  While we waited, a waiter suddenly walked up and gave us free citrusy drinks that were bright and fun and yummy!  We were already lovin' this place!

I scoped out what I determined to be the best spot at the pool and then a bellhop came and helped load our luggage onto a cart.  He headed us down the path to the rooms and stopped at #204.  We were a little confused when he had to unlock a padlock on a gate.  And this is what we saw:

You have your own private yard surrounding your room.  Complete with a plunge pool and a lounge/bed under a gazebo (right side of the pic):

We made good use of that little lounge bed outside...we watched movies on it one day on our portable DVD player and also took some good naps and other stuff.  We also ordered room service and ate at the little table on the patio.  It was a shrimp cocktail served with a citrusy sauce in a carved out pineapple..so yummy!

Here's another shot of the plunge pool in the yard:

And here's the view from off of the little cliff that the room sits on:

Mr Fix It in the plunge pool:

But of course to truly appreciate it, including seeing inside our AMAZING room,
you need to check out the video tour: 

More on this amazing resort and our adventures here coming up later this week - but tomorrow, a sneak peek at some pro pics of the wedding day - FINALLY!