Running the Las Vegas Strip at Night

A week or so ago, Mike and I flew down to Las Vegas to meet two of my friends and two lovely sisters for the Rock and Roll Half-Marathon. The race is run after sundown on the strip. They actually shut down the entire road so I could run among the glittering lights, gamblers, and strip clubs. Ok, it wasn't just for me, but it was really amazing watching 45,000 people assemble to run 10k, 13.1 miles or 26.2 miles together. There were live bands and DJs along the way to keep us pumped up. We ran, walked, jogged and tripped our way down the strip in our highlighter yellow Brooks tops.

Emily, Mike, Shelley and I stayed together through the whole thing. The last 4-5 miles were really tough. Mike had been sick and could barely train. He was hurting. However, he's an amazing man and finished the whole thing. The four of us crossed the finish line together holding hands. Jessica and Sylvia were just a few minutes behind, nursing their own injuries. My family is freaking amazing!

Fun Things to do in San Diego

My job sent me to San Diego for a two week training class. It was definitely a work trip, but the sunshine and opportunity to see some of my favorites made it a great visit. Here are a few of the fun things to do in San Diego.

1. Go jogging. I'm training for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Las Vegas next weekend (EEEP!!!!) so I did a few training runs. I ran both Shelter Island and Harbor Island. Both were 6 miles round trip. I know, I should have combined them, but I made poor footwear choices and my calves were angry.

2. Eat fish tacos! I walked 2.5 miles each way to have Rubio's and met Ryan and Andrew twice for Taco Thursday in Ocean Beach. Mmm tacos! Also, make a stupid face so you have a picture like this to post. At least my pretty friends make up for me.

3. Go to the beach. Mom drove down to visit with me and we stopped at the beach to put our toes in the cold water, just because.

4. Bet on the horses at the Del Mar racetrack. Mom took me to the races because I'd never been. My friend Caleb drove all the way from LA to hang out with us. Mom has some freakish luck betting on the underdog. She won three of four of her bets.

5. Visit Balboa Park at night. There is a giant organ and a live organist was playing along with the silent film The Phantom of the Opera. Cool! Don't judge my crooked picture. I wasn't drunk, just lopsided. That's better, right? Right?

6. Go out for brunch with someone who makes you smile. This lady is my favorite. Fig Tree Café is so yummy!

7. Explore the Ocean Beach Night Market. Every week Ocean Beach closes one of its main streets to host a night Market every Wednesday. Mitch took me. We had a grand old time.

8. Indulge in drinks and seafood in the Gaslamp District. My sister, Emily's boyfriend James was in town for a conference. The Hard Rock Hotel Rooftop Bar makes an excellent backdrop for great conversation. Their drinks are good, but extremely overpriced.

9. Sulk a little bit because you miss your sweetheart. Really, it was a great trip, but I miss my guy, like a lot. Oh, and my cat. I'm THAT person.

How to have the time of your life in Belize

Hello? Oh! Hi! It's been two and a half years since I posted. I know, I know, I was just as surprised as you are that my blog still even exists. But, it does! I find myself with a free day on a work trip in sunny San Diego. It is too hot and bright for me to want to go for a run right now. I thought I would spend an hour updating you fine people on the latest of our super adventures.

Since I last posted, Mike (now my husband! Eee!) and I have done quite a bit of exploring. We spent two weeks in Spain, eight days in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, ten days of the Big Island of Hawaii and nine days in Belize. I wish I had the time and motivation (ok, mostly the motivation) to update the blog for all of these trips. But, let's be honest, I am super long-winded and no one has the time to read all of that.

So... BELIZE! Belize has been on my bucket list since I read they have whale shark diving. When I was young my grandmother took me to an IMAX film about sharks. I was fascinated. People could swim with whale sharks, the huge whale-like fish that looked like dinosaurs. I knew I wanted that experience. When we went to Cabo over Christmas, Mike and I snorkeled with whale sharks in the Sea of Cortez. It exceeded all of my expectations. I knew nothing else about Belize, but it continued to be on my bucket list. When our first anniversary was looming, we decided that we wanted to do something exciting to celebrate. Diving in Belize ended up being that something. I learned they have the second largest barrier reef in the world, along with world-class diving.

We spent four days on Caye Caulker, a tiny island in the Caribbean 45 minutes by water taxi outside of Belize City. The island has a main dirt road along the beach with all sorts of restaurants and shops owned and operated by the most friendly and laid back people in the world. We were there to dive. I booked three days of diving with Frenchie's Dive Shop which happened to be right across the street from the condo we rented. The condo was a cute studio on the ground floor. The roof had a lanai and hammocks that overlooked the turquoise water. We spent quite a bit of time up there between dives and dinners relaxing in the hammocks.


Our first day of diving was the Esmeralda site just outside of San Pedro on Ambergis Caye. My first peek into the water revealed a world teeming with schools of silver and blue fish, curious nurse sharks and seemingly unlimited visibility. The nurse sharks were like puppy dogs swimming around us and following us throughout the dive. They wondered what we were up to and never showed a moment of being dangerous. I couldn't believe the diversity of life under the water. The reefs were pristine. The Belizeans care very much about their country and want it to stay nice.

The next day was another bucket list item: Diving the Great Blue Hole.  We had to be at the dive shop at 530AM for our trip to the Blue Hole. There were 10 divers and 3 dive masters on this trip. The sunrise was beautiful over the dive shack. The Blue Hole is two hours away and the ride was really rough. We saw flying fish escaping from our boat. Cool! They can glide a long way. The first dive was at the Blue Hole. We were the only boat there. Yay! I was glad to be advanced open water so I could go to the real depth. The dive was 28 minutes with a deepest depth of 139 feet. Whoa! Mike was fine. I got a little narc’ed which made me panicky. I found someone to focus on and I was ok. It was a quick drop down down down to 130 feet. The water around us grew darker. Not dark, just darker. Colors don’t exist down there so everything is grayscale. Five beautiful silver reef sharks swam underneath us as we swam among huge stalactites hanging in the darkness from a fallen sea cavern. It was amazing! The dive was very surreal. The more I think about it, the wilder the whole experience seems. It was incredible, peaceful, and unique. I was reminded of the cathedrals we visited in Spain. We were only down there a few minutes then came up slowly to 45 feet then 30 feet. At 30 feet there was a sandy coral area with a few fish. We saw a turtle who was missing a leg. It was a short, but memorable dive. Both of us had plenty of air left.

The water was so warm at 85 degrees that I ditched my wetsuit for the rest of the trip. The rest of the dives were amazing upon amazing. We saw lionfish, snapper, triggers, groupers, blue fish galore, big silver fish. A school of silver and yellow snappers swam with us for a while. Huge schools of blue fish swirled around us. We saw harlequin shrimp, an enormous crabs, huge green tube coral, four eagle rays which are dark with white spots, a couple of sting rays, and octopuses (octopi?). We also saw a whole wall of lobster, big swimming eels that followed us, shrimp, nudis, flamingo tongue snails, crab, and a turtle right at the end. The coral was exceptional. There were large plant like corals? Or were they plants? I’m not sure.

On the last evening in the Cayes, we grabbed flashlights and met Jose, our dive master, at the Split in the island (caused by a hurricane). He took us out to the mangroves on the opposite side of the island to see the bioluminescence and look for crocodiles. We didn’t find any crocs, but the bioluminescence was gorgeous! It looked like glitter in the water. There was a lightning storm in the background one direction and stars in the other.

I was really sad to leave Caye Caulker, but we had booked 3 nights in the jungle at a resort. We took the water taxi (and a regular taxi) to the bus station where we caught the G Line Express bus to the driveway of Caves Branch outside of Belmopan. The bus broke down three times on the way there, but we made it and saw a lot of countryside.

We were immediately impressed with Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch. It’s a gorgeous outdoor resort in the jungle. The grounds are well kept, but not manicured. It was lush and beautiful. We were upgraded to a bungalow. It had a huge mural of leaf cutter ants and a toucan painted on one wall. The other walls were windows covered only by screens and open to the elements. We had a beautiful bathroom with an outdoor private shower. That was awesome! A king bed dominated the room. There is no wifi, cell phone service, TV or air conditioning on the property. A huge ceiling fan kept us very comfortable. After check in, we wandered the botanical gardens. Caves Branch has some of the most active orchid gardens anywhere. They were not blooming since it was out of season, but totally wonderful to see all of the biodiversity anyway.

Our tour for the first day was the River Caves. The tour started with a bus ride through an orange orchard to the river. The orchard had a blight they were trying to combat so a lot of the trees were dying. We paddled our tubes upstream to the mouth of a cave. Inside we explored a bunch of different chambers with beautiful formations, a few Mayan pottery and carvings, and a shrine to a fertility goddess. There were crickets, scorpion spiders, fruit bats, insect bats and crawfish. We had lunch inside. We had paddled in further along the way, which meant a long float out. Halfway back they made us turn off our lights. It was pitch black. Everyone was getting further and further away. I turned on my light and realized I was stuck on something. Whoops.

After the tour we got cleaned up and went to a cheese tasting at the resort. Caves Branch makes 12 different unpasteurized cheeses onsite from local cows. We tried seven of the cheeses and listened as they explained the processes of making and aging cheese. They also make all of the soap used on the resort.

The next day was the tour we came to this resort for. After breakfast we caught our bus to the Cave Waterfalls tour. There were just four of us on the tour plus two guides. We had to wear long pants and boots. This was a different cave system in the same orchard. It’s all part of the Caves Branch property. Our guide carried a machete. We walked about 1-1.5 km into the jungle to the mouth of a cave. Inside we saw bats and an opossum. We hiked, crawled, climbed, ducked, and swam upriver through incredible huge caverns with tons of amazing formations. Mike’s favorite were the flow formations which had different levels of ponds. They were beautiful. 

We climbed six waterfalls and swam in the pool of a seventh. The water level was lower than usual. Then we turned around and jumped off all of the waterfalls. The largest was about 15 feet, but felt higher. We had lunch inside the cave on a big flat rock. One guide was behind us, but somehow met us there with most of the food already spread out. It seemed like the walk out was really quick, probably because we weren’t taking pictures of everything.

We decided to do one last tour with them and left our stuff at the front desk. Today’s adventure was the Black Hole Drop. It sounded more intense than it was. We joined with an Irish couple from the Sleeping Giant resort nearby. The tour was a hike through the jungle, a rappel into a sinkhole, lunch, and a hike back out. One the way in, we saw a bunch of frogs, an awesome lizard that looked just like a leaf, and some leaf-cutter ants. The rappel was more of a belay which was only okay because it allowed me to spend time looking at the amazing caves on either side of the sinkhole I was dropping into. Beautiful jungle filled the middle.  Our guide let us explore the entrance of one of the caves and gave us some folklore surrounding it. I can’t describe how massive the entrance of the larger cave was. It was hundreds of feet up and down, stadium sized? I don’t know. HUGE! The resort does overnight cave explorations here. Cool! The climb out took less time, but still had some cool things. We saw a tarantula.

Our last night was spent in Belize City at a B&B. It wasn't much to write home about. I think it might have been worth it to stay at Caves Branch one more night and pay for them to drive us instead. All in all, we had the most amazing trip. We spent a total of nine days in that country. I could live there. It's a wonderful, friendly, beautiful, lush country.

See? That wasn't so hard, was it. Oh, it's really long. Yeah, that's why I've been remiss lately. I'll try harder to make these less verbose, but when there is JUST SO MUCH to share... *sigh*

Cataratas de Iguazu

Two of my good friends invited Mike and me to join them in Argentina.  Pedro was born and resided in a town called City Bell an hour outside of Buenos Aires.  His family still lives there.  They are some of the nicest, most generous people I’ve ever met. My Spanish is poor at best while Mike’s is nearer to non-existent.  Top that off with the Argentine way of pronouncing y’s and ll’s and the language barrier thickened greatly.  The Aguilars and Julias spoke almost no English.  However, through Megan and Pedro and with my rusty high school Spanish, we managed to both communicate and have basic conversations.  

The Monday after we arrived, we caught a plane to Iguazu National Park on the border of Argentina and Brazil.  To say Iguazu is beautiful would be doing it an injustice. Our taxi drove us into the park set within hundreds of miles of jungle in every direction.  Butterflies filled the air, the sunlight bright and warm around us.  We put our bags in a locker, bought tickets, and wandered in to find some food.  There was a nice buffet with plenty of vegetarian options.  Afterward, we booked a tour for the following morning to ride the boats.  

A train connects the different areas of the park. At the top end is the Gargantua de Diblo, the Devil’s Throat waterfall.  Catwalks take viewers across the vast river to see the wonder that is Devil’s Throat. Along the way there were many more butterflies of different shapes, sizes and colors.  Mike was fascinated by the giant spiders in the trees.  With their legs, the spider were the size of my palm. A huge catfish swam under the walkway, apparently enjoying the attention of the tourists and their cameras. Turtles sunned themselves on rocks in the middle of the river.   Black birds with blue and yellow markings attempted to steal food.  The landing at the end of the catwalk was crowded as can be expected.  The falls are a massive horse shoe shape with such a huge volume of water crashing down it is impossible to see the bottom through the mist.  A rainbow shone in the mist with every color visible. Each end of the enormous falls was ended by more and more beautiful cascades.  Depending on the season and rainfall, there are as many as 270 waterfalls in the area. 

A raft floated us down a tributary to a safe area below the falls. It was quiet and relaxing.  The guide gave us information in both English and Spanish as we floated.  We saw a pair of wild tucans flying through the air.  From where the boat dropped us off, it was only a short walk to the upper trail which gives vistas of several waterfalls from above.  It was a beautiful amazing walk. Water flowed under the pathways to crash down on the rocks beneath us.  Then it was time for the park to close. We headed to our hotel in town, which was nice, but basic.  

The morning arrived bright and beautiful. Our driver dropped us off at the park at 8 so we could easily make our 9 am boat ride.  The Grand Adventure as the ride was called included a jeep ride through the jungle with an English speaking guide.  She told us that the large spiders were not poisonous and neither were the large snakes up to 3m in the area.  However, there were also 5 types of corn snakes with 2 poisonous.  The way to differentiate between the varieties was to flip them over and see if there were rings on their bellies.  Unlikely.  Megan and I couldn’t care less if they were poisonous or otherwise.  We would run.  Luckily, tourist areas are not good homes for snakes and we didn’t have to run.  The jungle ride ended at the boats. Our things were placed in dry bags.  The initial ride to the falls is for photos. We saw first one side, then the other before the guide told us to put the cameras away.  The boat took us into the mist under the falls on both sides! It was both fun and hilarious. We were soaked and laughing.  Every vantage point in the park offers a new appreciation for the magnificence of the falls.  Each was enchanting in its own way. 

We walked the lower trail seeing new falls and different vantages of those seen from the upper trail.  Once we reached the end, we stopped for a snack at the convenience store.  A herd of coaties, which look like a mixture of raccoon, anteater and lemur, roamed the area stealing and begging food.  They were cheeky little blokes and not shy in the least bit.  Mike and I wanted to see the giant falls at Devils Throat again before the adventure ended.  We realized the river had swollen about a foot in depth from the previous day.  It was richer and darker red brown as well.  The falls looked quite a bit different the second day.  More water thundered down in reddish streaks increasing the amount of mist and therefore reducing the visibility.  It was well worth the second trip.  

Iguazu is one of the new 7 wonders and it is obvious why.  It is the most magical and amazing place I have ever been. 

Taipei Take 2. Mt. Zhongzheng kicks our butts

Nov 23 – Yangmingshan National Park

I’ll start this post by saying that nearly all of our suggestions for things to do in the Taipei area were given to us by Lisa, Mike’s lovely sister-in-law.  Her note said Yangmingshan National Park was a good place to go to hike and to get away from the city.  We loved that idea.  So, we got train directions to the park which happened to be just up a different street than the hot springs at Xinbeitou.  We didn’t find a map or really any information about the park since the gentleman at the information desk at Beitou station told us we could catch the train to Xinbeitou and find all of that out at the park’s visitor center.

 

We arrived at Xinbeitou and followed the signs for the park and the Mt. Zhongzheng Hiking Trail.  A quick stop at a 7 Eleven provided us with water, flax crackers (with real New Zealand butter in them we found out later.  Oops.), rain ponchos, and some nuts for what we believed was a 4 mile hike.  A sign at the base of the trail showed a large loop heading up to an overlook and back around.  Simple, right?  Right? 

The trail was a set of stone steps going up the side of the mountain through neighborhoods and temples.  We lost track of it several times as it would simply disappear.  We were supposed to follow the road in these places.  About a mile into our adventure, my Vibram Five Fingers, the toe shoes I wear for hiking and running, started rubbing a sore into the arch of my foot.  This didn’t bode well for the hike.  These shoes were an old pair and had been glued back together after a first thrashing.  Don’t think all of these shoes are bad on the feet.  I digress.   Mike suggested we either go back or go barefoot.  I was not about to wimp out on a 4 mile hike.  The shoes came off.

We walked up and up and up, stopping at a cool temple with gorgeous dragon reliefs on the front and a family shrine next door while we hunted for the trail.  Finally when it seemed that there was no way we weren’t to the mid-point of the trail, we reached what we thought was the lookout.  It was super windy.  Two golden era couples were lunching in one pavilion.  We took the other and ate our snacks. 

We continued across the parking area to the trailhead.  This was another entry point it turned out, not the mid-point at all.  The sign showed only the upper part of the trail with the view point partway up.  Any reservations I might have had about that were completely put out of my mind by the large warning sign at the trail head.  “Beware of Poisonous Snakes and Wasps.”  If you don’t know, I hate snakes.  They’re creepy and scary and slithery and soulless.  My feet were still bare and I hated the idea of stepping on one.  Mike plowed ahead and I followed apprehensively, watching both trees and ground for any serpentine creature. 

Soon we made it to the overlook which was a tower of sorts with an amazing view of the city and surrounding mountains.  It had posters of wildlife we might find in the area as well as indicators of what peaks were around us.  Pretty neat.  We continued our trip finally starting to head downhill a ways later after a minor freakout we had missed the trail.  It seemed to go on forever and ever.  Finally we pulled the camera out and examined the topo map to see if we had taken a wrong turn.  Our water was gone, we had a few crackers left and a small bag of nuts.  We decided to keep going and finally came to a road with another trailhead.  Now all we had to do was complete the loop.  We crossed the street and started down the stone steps.

A short ways into the walk, the trail became increasingly narrower with debris scattered all over the steps.  The trail looked barely used.  We pressed on.  I saw a flesh colored skinny snake and did a creeped-out cha-cha, tiptoeing away from it.  Mike said it was pretty, weirdo.  At some points trees had fallen across the trail and we had to drop down into the woods to go around them.  It seemed like we had been walking forever.  I was totally over walking barefoot through the jungle on a foot-wide, slippery trail by this point.  Finally we made it to a temple.  Checking the map, it seemed we were getting close to civilization once again.

Unfortunately, it still took us another hour from that point winding through neighborhoods looking for the trail, but we made it back.  The hike was 5 hours and my guess is 7ish miles.  We caught the train back to the hostel and grabbed food in an alley full of cats and poorly-mannered patrons.  Mine was good, but Mike was less than impressed.  A quick trip to the giant grocery store cheered him up.  We bought delicious walnut bread, mango wine bread, and fresh fruit.

Nov-24- Stone Bouldering Gym

Our final day we decided to do something we definitely can’t get enough of: rock climbing.  We found a local bouldering gym.  It was a great size and layout, clean, interesting, with a slackline.  They didn’t have much for rentals, so my shoes were at least a size small.  The system of route setting was different than any I had ever seen using small numbered, color-coded plaques to mark each hold.  Usually same colored holds or colored tape are used.  This made routes very hard to follow. 

Suddenly the power went out.  The place was well-enough lit by the natural light coming through the huge garage door at the front that we could still see, so we climbed until the numbers were too hard to follow.  By this time there were over 50 people in the small gym.  It was time to head back to pick up our stuff and head to the airport, but I was glad for the bit of exercise anyway. 

The trip to the airport was a little confusing, though mostly uneventful.  Mike found yummy veggie steamed buns at the terminal.  We tried to stay awake as much as possible on the flight home to stave off jetlag since we were essentially going back in time.  Jeff and Lisa picked us up at Seatac and took us home with them for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  It was a perfect ending to an amazing adventure.

The end.

Note: staving off the jet lag only worked for Mike who was put immediately on night shift when he got back.  I spent 4 nights getting almost no sleep. Yuck.  Worst jet lag ever!

Taipei Taiwan 1/2

This is the first of two posts of our trip to Taiwan.  I wanted to keep it short, but it was it's own adventure and Mike and I loved it there. Pictures are at https://picasaweb.google.com/kjhansen24/.

Nov 20

The 5 hour flight was not a big deal at all.  It seemed to go by quickly. Immigration was a breeze and cost nothing.  We picked up some cash at the ATM after 10 minutes of confusing ourselves about the exchange rate and hopped a bus into Taipei City.  2 hours later we were searching for the hostel and found it with the aid of a nice gentleman walking his very fat Chihuahua at midnight on a Thursday.  The sign for the hostel was business card sized.  Turns out it’s illegal to have a big sign for a hostel.  Not sure what the issue is there.

Alex, the owner and night attendant, was not impressed at our late arrival, but took our apologies and gave us room keys.  Our room was clean and comfortable with bunk beds!  After a quick tour and explanation of the place, we crashed for the night.

Nov 21

The next morning Alex gave us directions and a note in Chinese for traditional Taiwanese breakfast.  This consisted of fried bread wrapped in a fried tortilla and a fried tortilla wrapped around a fried egg with soy milk.  It was pretty tasty (we skipped the egg), but our tummies hurt after from all the grease.

We headed immediately to Langshan Temple which is a big attraction apparently for both locals and tourists.  It’s a beautiful Buddhist temple in the traditional Chinese style with huge incense pots and carved pillars.  The back area had these columns with little cards all over them.  I think they were names of ancestors, but I’m unsure.  Many people were praying and making offerings of food, flowers and incense.

Afterward, we took a trip to the zoo.  The transit in Taipei is so similar to Tokyo, I was very impressed.  The metro took us almost anywhere we wanted to go.  We bought Easypasses which are just refillable transit cards that can also be used other places to pay for things such as the zoo and 7 Eleven (7 Elevens are EVERYWHERE here).  The metro dropped us off after just one transfer at the entrance to the zoo.  The zoo is a sprawling park with plenty of attractions.  Our favorites were the rhinos, zebras and chimps.  One feisty young chimpanzee had a stick he was using to terrorize the older chimps.  He would carry it in his mouth while he loped after someone then throw it when he was close enough and scamper off before he could be caught.  It was hilarious!  We watched for about 15 minutes and none of the other chimps managed to catch him.  What a little imp!

On our way out of the zoo, a woman and her mother stopped to talk to us in English.  They were very nice and friendly.  The mother said I have a nice physique and looked like a model.  Yay!! That made me smile.  They suggested we take a romantic ride up the gondola to the top of the mountain to see the sunset and city lights.  It would cost a little over $3USD each.  Done!  The ride was lovely.  We had a spectacular view of the sunset and the city once the dark overtook the day.  At the top, we walked to a tea house that served us greens and mushrooms with rice. YUM!  The ride back down landed us in a “crystal carriage” meaning it had a glass bottom.  Unfortunately, it was too dark to see much out of it.  We enjoyed the few minutes it looked like we were floating anyway.

Nov 22 – Shilin and Xinbeitou

This was museum day.  We hopped the metro with some bread from a street vendor and rode to Shilin to see the National Palace Museum.  The bus stop was right next to a fine art gallery with free admission so we opted to check that out first.  We really enjoyed the exhibit. 

Across the street was the National Palace Museum.  It’s a huge structure that I assume used to be the Emperor’s Palace in Taipei.  As we walked up, we found the Garden of Perfect Benevolence and decidedly couldn’t miss it.  We fed the koi and wandered around in the rain.  The garden was lovely, well-kept and perfectly benevolent. 

The museum was a zoo.  There were huge tour groups everywhere.  The people in them seemed to have no respect for anyone else.  A group of 35 people would come stampeding into an area I was marveling at a jade carving and crowd me out.  I dislike crowds anyway, but you add in pushiness and I’m done.  I probably missed some really cool stuff because of that.  It’s ok though.  I saw enough wine containers, cauldrons, jade carvings, snuff boxes and calligraphy to last me a good long while.

We took off back to the metro and rode to Xinbeitou to sit in the hot springs.  It’s a walk up a river to the public hot spring.  We found outdoor exercise equipment to play on for the amusement of the locals.  Since apparently we could only go in at a specific time, we had time to walk up to Thermal Valley, where a river of hot water floods the area with steam. Neat!! 

Back at the hot spring, I was amused to find that I was the only female in a bikini and the only one not in a bathing suit that looked like a short wetsuit.  Interesting… The hot springs were varying temperatures.  The hottest at the top was 45 degrees Celsius.  My toes were tingling the whole time we were in there.  I lasted only a few minutes.  Then we moved on trying out each temperature of pool.  We did everything wrong from trying to go into the hot spring too early to not knowing to bathe our feet between spas to not putting my hair up.  We did not last the whole 90 minutes we paid for.

On the way back to Mr. Lobster’s Secret Den, we stopped for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant we had seen in Shilin.  It was pretty good.  I like kimchi. Shilin is also the location of a major night market.  We wandered through the throngs looking at all the weird street meat and clothing.  We finally got to a fruit stand and paid probably way too much for some dragon fruit, pineapple, star fruit and an apple like fruit.  The pineapple was amazing!

Bali Adventure Part 3 of 3 Lovina, Menjanan and Legian

*** ADDITIONAL PHOTOS ARE LOCATED HERE: https://picasaweb.google.com/kjhansen24***

Nov 18 Lovina

Our diving came with dolphin watching.  We were on the beach at 6 am and in a little pontoon canoe boat right after with a Canadian couple Jenn and Mick.  We chatted all the way out about travel and clean eating.  Dolphin watching was not as any of us had envisioned it.  There were at least 50 of these small craft out on the water.  Any time dolphins were spotted, every boat full of tourists raced over to the pod and nearly ran them over, scaring them underwater and away.  It was ridiculous.  Mick was particularly upset by it, saying it was cruel.  Finally, on the way back we came across three dolphins all on their own.  They were right by the boat and no other boats were around.  That was lovely!

Back at the hotel, we were fed breakfast then loaded into a bus bound for a “5-star PADI” dive company’s shop.  Definitely not 5 stars.  The equipment was well-used, but we can deal with that.  There were 2 snokelers, a slovenly middle-aged Italian dude and his Philipina girlfriend who couldn’t have been older than I am.  Also in the group were a couple from Switzerland Jasmin and Peter.  They were on a six month holiday traveling Asia having spent 5 years building their own company.  Good for them! 

An hour or so later, we made it to the dive site.  We crowded into a little boat with a couple of Danish surfers who were also snorkeling.  The water was gorgeous, that stunning turquoise gradient that makes all the pictures look photo-shopped.  Both dives were amazing!  There were more types of fish and coral in one section than I have ever seen in my life.  I saw huge schools of fish mingled with schools of larger fish.  The coral was gorgeous!  I couldn’t believe all the different kinds.  It was wonderful, like swimming in an expensive aquarium.  Peter was kind enough to share his pictures with us.

Nov  19 – Lovina to Legian

The hotel was kind enough to book us a ride to Kuta with their car and a driver.  It was not inexpensive.  We paid much more than we wanted to, but they’d been kind to us.  We were served Jaffles (pronounced waffles) for breakfast.  What we were served was white bread with fruit in it that had been pressed in one of those sandwich grills that seals off the edges and removed the crust.  Since it fit the vegan and sugar free (ish) categories, it was probably the closest of our breakfasts to being in our diets.

The driver took us first to a Buddhist monastery where we walked around very quietly then up to the hot springs where we took a short dip and were introduced to his wife and sister who sell sarongs and other souvenirs there.  He was rather disappointed that we didn't buy anything.  However, on the way out, there was a woman selling purple sweet potatoes wrapped in palm leaves.  We weren't missing out on those for anything.  I love purple sweet potatoes!  I ate them all the time in Hawaii.  I also approved of the packaging.  One thing I hadn't mentioned to this point is there is garbage everywhere.  This is fairly typical of a third world country.  When you have to buy bottled water a couple times a day, you wonder where the plastic ends up.  Indonesia burns it, it turns out.  Agh!  So we avoided plastic wherever possible.

After the hot spring, we were driven to a waterfall.  For $0.50 each we could hike down and back up to see it.  Of course the guy collecting the money is at the bottom of the hill with no sign at the top for warning.  Hope you remembered your wallet!  The waterfall was huge and gorgeous.  The mist made it hard to take clear pictures and soaked our clothes in seconds.  We watched a bunch of girls freezing in their bikinis pose for a lot more photos than I would have had the patience for.

At this point, we were up in the mountains.  It was no longer hot and oppressive but blessedly cool and beautiful.  We stopped for a view on the side of the road and ended up feeding papaya to a bunch of fruit bats someone had turned into a tourist attraction.  They are ridiculously cute creatures, willing to chew a chunk of papaya as big as their heads while begging for more.  The male had squirreled (heehee) a strawberry away under his wing.  There were other animals as well, a huge snake, an iguana, chameleons, but the bats stole the show.

The bats had us in full smiles.  The next stop was the Temple by the Lake.  I’m sure it had a name, but I don’t recall it.  It was beautiful and serene on a well-manicured estate of lakefront property.  We took a nice stroll around.  I used my sarong as a wrap since I was chilly for the first and only time on the Island. 

Next we drove to the Temple by the Sea, Tanah Lot.  This is a very famous place.  It was extremely crowded.  We paid our fee and walked through a gauntlet of shops selling all the same things we had already seen.  Finally we made it to the shore and temple.  It was very cool, standing out on a rock fifteen feet off shore.  We waded over and were told we had to be blessed by the monks before entering.  We did their silly ritual of drinking holy water and having rice smeared on our heads, then declined a donation as we had already paid an entrance fee.  As we walked up the stairs to the temple, we realized it was blocked.  No one was allowed to actually go see it.  We walked down the beach and took a picture, but were rather disappointed.

Finally the driver dropped us off at a hotel in Legian, near Kuta.  It cost $60 per night for a room which was more than we paid for any other room the whole trip.  The room was okay, but the resort was right on the water and had a breakfast buffet as well as swimming pools.  We grabbed some food up the road and wandered down the beach a few miles checking out all the oceanfront bars, fire dancers, and even a fisherman.  The beach was ours.  Low season is awesome! 

Nov 20 – Legian to Taipei.

It dawned bright and beautiful, so we ran to the beach, famous for its waves, and played in the rough waters.  Once decided I had drunk enough salt water, we went straight to the breakfast buffet, dripping wet.  We ate as much toast, fruit and grilled tomatoes as our stomachs could hold.  To top it all off, we jumped in the pool before heading back to pack up.

We had a bit of time after checkout to entertain ourselves before flying.  I decided I wanted to have a proper pedicure, so we went searching.  We found a little salon a few blocks away that didn’t have ridiculous prices or look sketchy.  We chose 1 hour foot massages and pedicures.  It was lovely.  The girl working on my awful feet told me all about her life.  It was a sad story, but she’s making it happen.  Mike enjoyed his first pedicure, but regretfully declined letting the girl paint his toes a perky shade of pink.

We negotiated a cab to the airport and made it with plenty of time to spare.  However, when we got through security, they wanted $20 each to leave the country.  What?  I’ve never had to pay to enter and pay to leave before.  Not happy.  The airport had very few sitting areas and made us wait to go to our gate until 15 minutes before boarding time.  Finally we took our seats on a fairly empty flight and headed to our next adventure in Taiwan.