let the camwhoring begin

there is more to say but i figure pictures speak volumes ... and we took heaps. with that i end my little tribute to my much anticipated and very celebrated holiday. i hear that if you don't look directly at the camera, you're not a complete camwhore.

E7 : life's little pleasures

over the years, i have allowed life to consume me so much that when i was removed from the now, i went into shut-down mode .. but in a good way. what i liked about being removed was that i remembered how to love myself again.

the early bird
aside from that first night when we went out for dinner, the other nights saw us tucked in bed early. on one night we were in bed, watching ratatouille while having cookies and milk when we looked at the clock and it was not even 9pm. we looked at each other and felt absolutely no peer pressure to stay up a minute longer. we had 62 channels to surf and we chose sleep. that alone was truly decadent for me coz i can't remember the last time i slept before 9pm on purpose.

the sun salutation
i'd choose a beach holiday over any other holiday in a bat of an eye. i am a child of the big burning star at the center of the solar system. before the kids, i would go to the beach often on weekends to catch some rays. i love basking and baking in the sun. to have 4 days feeling the rays kiss my skin, with the smell of the ocean and the breeze in my hair, i loved it.

tech-no
i chose the bali kharma coz it's supposed to have free wi-fi on it's property. i wanted to stay connected. but the weekend we were there, they had tech issues and so no connection. and because it's indonesia, they didn't get it fixed till the last hour before check-out. aside from sms-ing the family, i could not check email or read my favourite websites. but in hindsight, that total cut-off from my world was really what i needed. tech would have gotten in the way of my holiday.

i was not booking
i so wanted to read a book coz it's been a while. i had a book picked for the holiday but forgot to pack it. not wanting to be beaten, i bought a magazine at the airport but left it in the plane seat pocket. i took the hint. it was meant to be.

dee and i had such a good time rediscovering ourselves (and each other) that we have not stopped talking about doing this annually. then 3 days after returning, i said every half year. 2 days ago, my bali buddy says we need to love ourselves once a quarter. i'm not arguing with that. i may not be able to do the 1/4ly thing, but i know i can plan for it and if time permits, i'm packing my bikini.

speaking of which, just days from returning, we both shopped victoria's secrets for new bikinis and they just arrived :)

E6 : capital i

then in one big random moment, while we were basking in the sun, i turned to dee and started singing "Capital I". which got us going for a while till we got to the 5th line then we couldn't remember anymore. and as quickly as that began, we settled in on our deck chairs again and nuah-ed out.

*but i know anal dee made a mental note to google this so i thot i do her a fave and just post the song.

E5 : at first i was afraid, i was petrified

remember when we went to the kuta beach for dinner that first night? well after over indulging, we needed to walk off our full meal. so we went to the beach again, which was really dark by then, aside for the light from down/ up lights positioned in the trees that help illuminate the many restaurants by the shore.

anyways, the sound of the crashing waves echoing in the still night was really scary. and you know how i had that huge tsunami paranoia episode before leaving right. well the situation was not helping.

the girls, well specifically jan, wanted us to walk at the shallow and dip our feet in the water. the tide was out and the water receded far into the blackness of the night. then all you see is white wash heading your way as the wave came in fast and heavy. and big. well i was not amused *as you can see in this pic* but the girls certainly were. they took the mick out of me the whole night!


on day 3, the ladies felt that i needed to face my fear and jan, who was staying in seminyak, invited us over. the beach was lovely. and the frightening waves seemed a whole lot tamer although i bet it wasn't. so i sucked in my fear (and fats since it was another bikini day) and made it out to sea again.

now with the waves coming in from the back

E4 : oh spa me stupid

day 2, 3 and 4 generally went like this. we woke. we ate. we spa-ed ourselves stupid over and over again. dee more than me tho. her main agenda was to be one with the spa. mine was to get as much sun to last me a year. goodness knows when i'd get another helping of vitamin D!

neeways, here we are welcoming you to the bali kharma mahalaya spa where strange (not loopy strange, but unfamiliar strange) women manipulated our naked beings with coffee, coconut, papaya and more. but not all at once of course.

our relax reflexes became so conditioned to the sounds of the spa that we were like pavlov's dogs whenever we heard the combination of looped folk indonesian music and the sound of running water. instinctively we will start stripping and lie face down.




this is what i saw when i was lying face down

when i flipped over, i was greeted to the rattle of this rickety fan which created a cool balinese breeze in it's monotonous motion.


yeah, this is THE life :)

NKOTBSB-AMA Performance 2010

damn you dick clark! well here it is again! the dancing gonadic tribe that is making a huge comeback! to quote BSB "oh my god we're back agaaaiiinnnnn."

its like a train wreck but... cant.... stop.....watching...

BackStreet Boys and New Kids On The Block Perform At The 2010 American M...

i'm not too sure about this, people. i watched it with raised eyebrows. i dunno, i was never a boyband chick ... i lie ... i would have jumped into ricky martin's menudo pants from way before he turned gay. but now i wonder if there was really ever a tme. as usual, i digress.

at first i watched with amusement. then when they panned closer and the age showed, i started to cringe. seriously guys?!? syncronised dancing ... at your age is just wrong. 2 boybands merged into one big manband. all dancing in sync *hee, get it ... n'sync, oh never mind*

hey ki, this is worse than the dancing nomadic tribes. they are bloody dancing gonads!

spoiler alert

dee has posted spoilers about the trip! so much for keepng you in suspense.

you have the choice of reading all my episodes or you can see how things unfolded from a different perspective. read more about bali at her blog which, BTW, just came out of hibernation.

E3 : beware the blanket hogger

jan stayed the nite with us at the hotel. she packed all her stuff for her sleepover in that little black bag as shown in the earlier post. when she opened it, the biggest thing out of her bag was a square basket w her lotions, all neatly arranged. the smallest was a bikini.

she remembered the toothbrush but forgot her sleep clothes and decided to use her sarong. you know what that meant right. at some point, we will be sleeping w naked jan coz there is no way her sarong would have stayed on all night. i call this, the booby trap. but we were up for the challenge because apparently, dee sleeps in ONLY a sleep shirt!

we pushed together our 2 super single beds and negotiated sleep arrangements. since it was MY bday, i got first dibs and no prizes for guessing that i wanted left. also i told them i'm a non-roller and i sleep in the same position that i wake. they seemed satisfied enuf with that offer so i totally undersold the fact that i may snore.

that left the self confessed sleep hitter (dee) and the sleep grabber (jan) to duke out the middle and the right edge. it was decided that if the sleep hitter hits, the sleep grabber will grab. and with that, the grabber took the middle with the option to grab on either side. and the hitter took the extreme coz she's edgy that way.

in the morning
jan : YOU ARE A BLANKET HOGGER! *points at me*

me : nooooo, i didn't move!

jan : you didn't share the blanket. you tucked the blanket snugly up to your chin and around you that i didn't get any. (we had 2 single blankets and coz jan slept in the middle, she had the part that meets. or in this case, the part that didn't)

me : BUT i didnt't move!

dee : ah! this makes sense. the whole night, i thot jan was a blanket snatcher (coz they were BOTH trying to negotiate a single blanket *which would have been fun to watch*)but really YOU are a blanket hogger.

me : meh!

and you got to wonder why i tucked myself tight. i was sharing the bed w a sarong clad sleep grabber and nightie only sleep hitter. of course i needed to protect myself! oink!

*the pic is of the matches that i used the whole of my trip.

E2 : tonight we eat!

THE BALI KHARMA
the ride to the hotel took forever. made longer by the 65 year old guide who insisted on giving us the obligatory tour as we made our way to nusa dua. dee seemed to understand his accent, so i got away with staring out of the window. also i was sitting right behind him and fell off his radar. ta dah!

when we got to our room, we unpacked, undressed and bikini-fied ourselves in 15 mins. this was going to be our holiday uniform. and i stress UNI coz that was all we wore. but before leaving the room, we had chocolate :)

we made a beeline for the beach. i have to say that at first i was disappointed coz i wanted to see a long stretch of sandy beach and crashing waves of water. but there was not much of a beach and the tide was teasing the shore. sigh. but i learned to love this beach as the days went by. i think the former would have been too much excitement and would have clashed with my agenda.

the sun was gorgeous and we just had to soak some in. we did the lie in the sun thing. lie in the shade thing. lie in the sun again. ate nachos, which really looked like tacos. and then we decided to begin our homage to the spa (our package came w a free 1hr hotel spa and a 2hr spa off site) since we were due for a 30 min drive to meet jan at seminyak for bday dinner we thot we kneaded the rub.

we cashed in on the 1hr traditional bali massage. this was a pivotal moment.
1) marked the first of many occasions that dee and i would be naked in a room together, oiled and relaxed.
2) *there is no 2 ... i think the visual of 1 is enuf* hahahaha

DINNER AT LA LUCCIOLA
we reached la lucciola just in time for sunset which we could not resist photographing. truly beautiful. we took a walk to the kuta beach to capture the moment.see jan's bag ... i'll tell you more abt this in my next blog.birthday girls!


we were so hungry by the time we got to la lucciola that we ordered w a vengeance and we managed to polish it off. i would show you pics but we were so hungry, we forgot all about it. but we did get a shot of the dessert platter which was simply divine. i was sooooo full, it wasn't funny!

thanks for dinner dee and DG. yummos to the max!

bali high ... E1 : and we are off!

have you been wondering why i haven't gotten down to this earlier? well i've really had no time to put thought to .. er .. keyboard coz since coming back, and having a plate of char kuey teow, i have had the MOTHER of all food poisoning episodes. today is day 4 and i still feel nauseous to the core. i took a preg test today just to be sure it's STILL the food poisoning. breathe people, it still is :P

but that wasn't what i wanted to blog about. so let's get to it.

caffeine induced spree ... like we need an excuse :)
dee and i met at the airport a good 3 hours before the flight purely by technicality and half-deadness. our flight was at 0855hrs but we read 0800hrs; yes, we both read it that way. we were really tired ok. but going early meant that we could sit at starbucks for brekkie and shop duty free. and i'll have you know that 3hrs lead time was not enough!

the seat nazi
we were one of the last 6 people on the plane. when we got to our seats (dee needed aisle and i don't care where i sit as long as it's on the left), we found el groucherina warming it up. dee approached her and told her the obvious. disgruntled, she said, "oh ... i thought the gate closed already. my seat is actually over there" *she does the draggy blink thing and adds* "FINE, i'll move in." dee points to me and the grouch then starts mumbling something under her breath like she's doing US a favour by moving back to HER seat. dee gave her 2 cents and we had our seats and settled in quickly.

this is why i LOVE this woman
dee landed on my left which meant there will be no conversation from me on the flight. (i like standing/ sitting on the left because i prefer to look right when i talk) but just then, dee says without eye contact too, "i'm not into conversations". perfect! and so we sat in comfortable silence till the airline food came.

i'm so easy to please
i lurrrvvveeeee airline food. esp when flying from changi. and when they go "beef or chicken", i find it so hard to choose. i managed to cajole dee to take the chicken and i decided *wink* on beef which came with a kit kat for dessert. brilliant!

it was more than a'ight! it was 100% molten hot lava dawg!
so the chick that sat on my right had the window seat and every time i made the slightest head move to look out the window, she needed to look out too. i had to see the view from my peripheral so that i didn't alarm her least she hogged the little peep hole. but then when the plane flew over mt bantur (i think) with a crater (what looked like) the size of sentosa. the chick couldn't help herself and started slapping my thigh to look out the window. she even shoved her head and body back into her seat so that i too could soak in the awe. and the pilot took the opp to do a sharp turn tilting the plane so that the window was right over the volcano. .... ok i would like to think it was his flying skill and lets not go there.

you call THAT entertainment
the other thing i like abt flying is that i get to watch a movie at the volume i like. Ip Man 2 was showing. i haven't caught it yet so i was happy :) then of course the movie had to be cut with just 20 mins to go coz of the landing. so much for that! found out later that DG has both DVDs and since i was ill and all, i pulled my manja card and she brought the discs over and now i am satisfied.

overall, the flight was good. i have to say, i had the last minute flying jitters. i went thru so many prayers on the plane, i almost said mass. we landed safe and was quickly whisked away to our resort. more abt that soon in episode 2 *yup .. that was the trailer*

the dancing nomadic tribe

yesterday was AG's bday and we had family over - some of our most fave people in the world. boomy and sam, ki and we also had a smidgen of DG. we did the usual bday thing then the "adults" - yeah that's us - sat around the dinning table for some conversation. and let me tell you, it felt so good! not that we were talking abt adult stuff et al. hah!

well my fave bit, which turned out to be the running joke of the night, was the nomadic dancing tribe. we were doing the multi-racist thing when ki said (and i'm para-phrasing) "watsup with the desert scenes where right out of no where 40 dancers can jump in with the pelvic thrust and the boob shimmy." then instinctively, we both started to chest air pump and shimmy at the same time! hahaha .... well, you just had to be there.

anyway, these dress alike synchronised dancers that pop out of no-where were labeled THE dancing nomadic tribe. we continued with spin-off tales of their origins, what they could possibly be doing to earn extra cash, what an impt role the fat dancer plays, how on down days they could possibly ambush innocent unbeknowns who sits at home reading a book ... and so much more. boy was it fun! full of nonsensical fun. i almost didn't want it to end but it was a school night :(

jai ho everybody!

post note : just referenced hubs on some details abt the convee last night and he was like " why? starting a wiki page ah?" don't tempt me boyyyyyyy!

packing order

and so the million dollar question is .... what do i pack for my vaycay?

dee is packing 2 sets of underlings. a sarong. a t-shirt. a dress. a bikini. all inside her back pack.

i'm like WHAT! IS THAT ALL!!! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SLEEP IN???!!!

i want to bring double of everything she's packing (except the underlings coz it's bali and the likelihood of even using the said underlings is slim.) and i've not even started on my toiletries bag which ALONE weighs a ton!

we're going in jeans and a tee and fitflops. and now i'm considering bringing shoes coz we have a nice dinner planned too. maybe my crocs which are really light. but what if i'm cold? i should take my hoodie. and my toes? should i bring socks? do i need a hat? i have some cute hats :) and a bag within the bag. and shorts? won't i need shorts? i don't have a sarong. maybe i should bring shorts. OMG!!!

you know the last time i packed a bag was for the hospital when baby was born.

to go with the ebb and flow

bali is in 4 days and i can't decide if i'm excited or not. right off the bat, i have to say that the recent tsunami has gotten my attention. paranoia is in my head and i hope it does not take over. i've found this website but i hesitate to register. i wonder if it works and whether it will just feed my horror rather than allay my anxiety.

how am i going to have a restful night's sleep knowing that the sea is right out my window/ balcony? and sleep is big on my agenda. sigh. i hope i'm not going to get all tight arsed and learn to relax. i'm going to buy alcohol on my way in, hopefully it will help. aside ... i hope mother nature shows us some love ... from one mother to another, mother nature ma'am .... you know i deserve this holiday.

i don't run the circus, i'm just one of the clowns.

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up to the greatest show on earth. the ring-a-ding circus is in town. this is what the kids do when they are not on the tv, laptop or iphone. they hope that one day, they will be able to make some moolah with their act. this game is called circus and they always try for better :)

ta dah!

the dismount

i couldn't help joining in

i'll have you know that the safety officer Mr MB scolded AG for posing for those pix. she was supposed to keep both hands on the ground at all times he said sternly. this is quite the promotion since his last stint some 3 years ago. what ... you've forgotten? here's the recap.

Jane Seymour said "Motherhood has relaxed me in many ways. You learn to deal with crisis. I've become a juggler, I suppose. It's all a big circus, and nobody who knows me believes I can manage, but sometimes I do."

birthday wishes

and so it's November and the slew of bday's have started. lazy me is going to do the mass bday wishes thing because ... well ... i'm lazy ... and i don't usually do the bday thing ... so this is big ... that i'm actually doing this.

4 nov - bling - i haven't seen or spoken to bling in abt 5 years. but i still have her close in mind. anyways, i recently wanted to call another B person when i fat-fingered my contact list and called her instead. i quickly hung up coz i'm really bad at the whole keeping in touch thing. abt 1 hour later, she calls back. thankfully it's already nov so i did the happy bday thing and we managed to catch up a bit. i told her the truth abt fat-fingering and she still loves me :) and THAT's the scorp difference people!

6 nov - Poochiespider and Obsidian - what can i say ... you hotties keep bringing sexy back!

8 nov - DG!! - must share this ... the family made effort to call DG last night and put the call on speaker. we heard the "hello" and we all started singing the bday song. and in 2 languages. even baby was shouting in the back; but she always shouts anyways ... when we were done, the person said, "sorry wrong number" and hung up! i sent DG a text this morning and and wished her belated love instead.

9 nov - cheryl-ann superstar because that's who you areeeeeeee!

10 nov - angel girl (i'm planning math tuition for her on this day ... just to freak her out .... muah ah ah)

13 nov - me!!! but i'll be in bali that day (for 3 days) so pls don't get all emo if you leave FB and SMS messages and i'm late in replying. i will reply ... once the massages wear off and i get movement in my fingers again :)

and i think it ends here. phew.

but if you want to read some more, here are my past bday blogs which still brings on a smile whenever i re-read it. enjoy! not sure why that last one was included under the bday search but i'm not gonna question the powers behind blogspot.