[Bali 2013] Staying at Green Field, Ubud

Our room was near the pool

After the rest of Bobo's family flew home after the wedding, he and I travelled upwards to Ubud for the rest of the stay. I wanted a restful stay (disclaimer: I was not trying to eat, pray, love, though I did get preyed on by monkeys and mosquitoes). 

Stone Mushrooms. Why?

Our room door

The massive bedroom with no tv...

Balcony, to show you how close we were to the padi fields

The other side of the massive room

I could feel eyes boring at me

Oh there you are!

We stayed at Green Field, Ubud. The bellboy was showing us the room, which was in a separate building with its own path, though we seemed to be sharing some parts of it with a eater-prayer-lover long-term tourist  lady. Frankly the room gave Bobo the creeps (later it turned out that an iguana lived above our heads, and was probably the eyes staring at him). As for me, I was most disturbed by the fact that there was no television. But wait there was a huge cupboard in one corner of the room. When I pointed at it, the bellboy opened it and sort of like "ta-da", to my massive disappointment. It   was NOT a massive LED tv hiding behind the door but...

The only one who enjoyed himself

A bloody tiny fridge in the midst of all that balinese wood. I was like.... WTF!? The bellboy was a bit puzzled over my lack of excitement. I suppose most people who visit Ubud want to find themselves and not HBO. Later when we were visiting the heron colony, which was in the trees above a kampung (village), I noted sourly to Bobo that even the local villagers were richer than us, because they had a tv to watch.

More cam-whoring

Other than that, the place is gorgeous, and very restful with a lovely salt water pool (if I didn't recall wrongly). It also had beautiful flowers, bizarre garden ornaments and scary fauna. The only entertainment available was at the lounge near the lobby. But you could watch the ducks amble in and out of the flooded padi fields. Great consolation for me, because I liked ducks. For Bobo, it was like watching Bebek Bengil flexing and working out to meet his palate's satisfaction.

Having breakfast

"What are you staring at?" says the Squirrel

"What are you staring at?" says the iguana

I'm pretty sure there was something in this photo, that's why I took it. Nothing else special about coconuts.

There was a plum tree outside our room. I didn't realize that plums could grow in Bali!?!!!

[Las Vegas, LA, San Francisco 2013] Ellis Island Brewery and Casino

One of the great things about staying at Bally's is that it is pretty near to cheap eats and accessible to highways. Driving could be a pain (I rubbed and burst two tires against the pavement, as I tended to overcompensate to the right as a right side driver) as the parking is a bit narrow. But other than that, did I mention, HOW MUCH I LOVE DRIVING IN USA?! ESPECIALLY NEVADA AND ARIZONA!

SALAD!

Massive Pork Chop!

Our first meal was at Ellis Island Brewery and Casino. I googled the place before we flew over, because I knew how much Bobo loves his beer, and I loved to try its prime rib. Bleeping hell, went there twice, never got to eat it. Still mad about that.

Chicken Noodle soup with crackers. Tasted like MSG.

Family style

The beer was good and really cheap. The food was plentiful and affordable (veggies on the plate cooked to death though). I had the pork chop and salad. I liked the salad a lot. The restaurant was like a family diner at the back of a casino. I liked eating there, though we had to wait for the food to come. The server was great!

Damn, should have ordered this. Fries were nom nom nom!

Hefe weiss and Amber

Three persons and only this much! You would never get this price @ home.

Farm Kings

I've been watching farm kings since season 1. Almost went insane when I couldn't find any means to download season 2. Mein Gott, if these gorgeous hunks' show go on DVD, my usually skin flint self will shake out my last pennies to buy it.

Dan (left) is my particular favorite. I suspect he is his mother's favorite (out of 10 children) too, but then again could be because he is the handsome but awkward scrapegrace of the family. His three older brothers wouldn't give him a share of the farm and year after year, just kept dangling it like a carrot in front of him. This year he stood up to them and actually left the family business to work for a family friend as a construction worker (yet another shirtless delightful occupation). What a waste, when his true calling should be model. Doesn't he look really droolsome in the photo?

*drool*

 

Anyway that's the plot for this season (other than this ostensible desire to look more and more duck dynasty from the rest of the guys with the beards and camouflage jackets). Vater said something along the same lines too, it sucks to work for family. The family expect more from you, and the other staff see you as the enemy/spy. And you get paid badly and work shit hours. I don't think he would leave the show (after all, I think he is the other reason most women watch this show).

It is seriously insane how Pa and Ma King can create such good looking men and woman between themselves. Or could it be that eating fresh vegetables is the trick? I am all for healthy living now~!

Singapore Gardening Festival

Went to the garden festival with my mother. Thought it was kind of boring, I had more fun walking around the stalls, and spent S$29.80 buying plants. I bought two discidia, one torenia, two orchids, two succulents and one bag of sphagnum moss. I didn't drive, so the orchid uncle was very nice and helped me arrange the orchids and associated so that the stems wouldn't break on my trip back.

There were a few workshops. Mutter and I watched the floral arrangement workshop and scored a couple of exotic rose blooms from the lady doing the demonstration.

Joke was that for the rest of the day, we kept getting accosted by staff and visitors alike, demanding how we got the roses. It was as if they thought we plucked them off the displays. *roll eyes*

Heard from Mr Bear who went twice, that on the last Saturday, the Thai stallholders were dropping prices like mad, 66% discount, which made the local stallholders angry. Naturally because freighting those delicate orchids back to Thailand would cost too much. I'd think they would rather sell for whatever they could get than bring them back.

Mr Bear bought two orchids (I saw them selling at S$20 and S$30 apiece), at S$5 and S$10 respectively. Since I don't really like orchids, I wasn't very envious. Now if it had been roses that he had gotten...

I love Dragonfruit

I love dragonfruit, specifically the red outer skin, red inner flesh one. I hate the red outer skin, white inner flesh variety from Vietnam, which tastes blah. The red flesh one tastes gorgeous!

We were at the hawker centre near Arbeit, when Mr Bear said we should totally get this. A yellow outer skin dragonfruit. He said he gets them at S$7-8 for one at Chinatown, and when he asked the uncle how much this cost (S$5), he said we must get, and that the yellow ones are the best. Super sweet.

I haven't tried the flesh but I brought it home. So will try out and see what color is inside.

[10 Aug 2014] SSO @ Botanical Garden

Ms Bear msged me saying that there was a SSO event at Botanical Garden's Shaw Symphony Stage to celebrate National Day. This time the conductor was the heavily accented sexy bunny Jason Lai  who is very engaging, compared to his colleagues (*sorry* Lan Shui).

I thought I would carpe diem and try to buy the Garden Festival tickets as well. But so dumb, the guy wanted me to bring my mom's IC as well (excuse me, it's not "MAY bring your IC when buying tickets"). Since we are going on a weekday, I guess I am ok with it. Didn't appreciate the Customer Service counter staff's attitude though.

While I was trashing things out there, the girls set up the mat on a very steep slope (sacrifices must be made at a popular event, especially if you want to see the stage), where we proceeded to enjoy the performance (for me, ogle others' bentoes and picnic baskets at the same time). It was really the sweltering afternoon heat that was the killer, because we were facing the sun.

afternoon sun

SSO played a medley of National Day songs, which went down with the mostly local crowd (the usual crowd is the ang mo and the arty farty wannabes like me). They also played some movie themes, like the Pirates of Caribbean, which Ms Bear liked a lot.

After the performance, we walked to California Pizza Kitchen (not like the other time, where we spent the entire evening performance watching an uncle eat his porridge so happily, and decided to walk all the way to Taka's Crystal Jade - service bad - for porridge too), where we got to enjoy a National Day discounted meal of appetizer, 1/2 salad, pizza, and a pasta for SGD49++. We had a really head banging (literally) great meal full of gossip (the best kind).

The perennial favorite, Peking Duck pizza (really, it is the hoisin sauce I love, since I no longer eat duckies)

Fried tortilla in the background, miso tofu salad in the foreground

Very yummy, luckily Ms Bear stopped me before I ordered Gongbao chicken spaghetti, because when the dishes came, we realized that the miso tofu salad came with fried wanton skins, the peking duck pizza came with fried wanton skins. If we had ordered Gongbao... well...the deep fried tortilla reeked of wanton skin smell. I'd running screaming if I encountered a wanton skin in a dark alley.

As it was, between the three of us, we couldn't finish the pizza, and I brought it home for breakfast the next day. Reheated pizza still tasted better than cold pizza. Yumz.